Le Cercle and the Struggle for the European Continent: CIA, MI6 and Opus Dei Covert Politics

"I had first learned about it in October 1967 when Carlo Pesenti, the owner of a number of important Italian corporations, took me aside at a Chase investment forum in Paris and invited me to join his group... The discussions were conducted in French, and usually I was the sole American present... Members of the Pesenti Group were all committed to European political and economic integration... My Chase associates, who feared my membership could be construed as "consorting with reactionaries," eventually prevailed upon me to withdraw."

2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pp. 412-413.

"Formed in the Fifties... One of the most influential, secretive, and, it goes without saying, exclusive political clubs in the West... One member contacted by this newspaper said he could not talk about it "even off, off the record". Another simply put the phone down... The source of its funding is a mystery..."

June 29, 1997, The Independent, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club', one of the very few mainstream reports on Le Cercle.

"Coudenhove said: "You know, it is awfully difficult to make Europe with the English, but without them, it is impossible". That is very true."

Otto von Habsburg, key founder of Le Cercle, head of the Paneuropa Union and one of the most central players in the underground Vatican-Paneuropa network, with Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta at its core. He is a son of Zita de Bourbon-Parma.

Cercle summary

To get right to the point, Le Cercle is a secretive, privately-funded, transnational discussion group which regularly meets in different parts of the world. It is attended by a mixture of politicians, ambassadors, bankers, shady businessmen, oil experts, editors, publishers, military officers and intelligence agents, who may or may not have retired from their official functions. The participants come from western or western-oriented countries. Many historical members tend to be affiliated with aristocratic circles in London or obscure elements within the Vatican, and accusations of links to fascism are anything but uncommon in this milieu. The greatest enemy of the Cercle has been the Soviet Union and members have been crusading against communist subversion for many decades. During this process, Cercle members unfortunately have accused almost every nationalist and socialist government, every labour union, every terrorist, and every serious investigator of western intelligence of being in bed with the KGB.

Worse, more than a few of its core members can be linked to the CIA's Cold War "Strategy of Tension", in which underground fascist militias almost certainly were used to carry out "communist" terror campaigns to push countries moving too far to the left back towards the right. Some of these campaigns were extremely bloody and cost a lot of innocent lives.

In addition, the Cercle has always been strongly focused on European integration, the efforts of its members going back to the early days of Franco-German rapprochement. The significant presence of Paneuropa-affiliated Opus Dei members and Knights of Malta, together with statements of the Vatican and Otto von Habsburg, clearly indicate that there has been an agenda in the background to some day bring about a new Holy Roman Empire, its borders stretching from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and from the Baltic Sea to North Africa.

Interestingly, the latest generation of British Cercle members, whose predecessors were interested in joining the European Union, now do everything in their power to keep Britain out of the emerging European superstate, having lost faith that they can become a significant force within Europe or that the interests of mainland Europe - France in particular - will align with those of Great Britain.

Origins of Le Cercle, origins of the EU

Le Cercle used be known as the Pinay Circle, or Cercle Pinay by its original French founders. Although the group was named after a French statesman who was prime minister from March to December 1952, the primary organizer of this group was a person named Jean Violet, a close associate of Pinay since 1951. 1

Jean Violet has a murky past to say the least. In French and later English literature, Violet is named as a pre-WWII member of the Comite Secret pour l'Action Revolutionnaire (CSAR), a secretive fascist group which, like Freemasonry, had its own initiation rites. 2 Some authors have suggested that CSAR, popularly known at the time as the Cagoule, or "hooded ones", was one of the most important branches of the legendary Synarchist Movement of Empire and worked to undermine the French Republic in preparation for the coming Nazi invasion. 3

Whatever truth can be found in the Synarchy claims, it is known that Jean Violet was arrested after the war for having collaborated with the Nazis. He was released however "on orders from above" 4, went to work as a lawyer in Paris, and decided to become a member of Opus Dei. In 1951, Violet came into contact with Antoine Pinay, a Catholic also said to have belonged to Opus Dei, who asked him to solve a problem with a Geneva-based firm that had been sieged by the Nazis during WWII. As the story goes, Pinay was so impressed with the way Violet handled his assignment that he recommended him to French intelligence, the SDECE. 5 Also, Violet soon managed to hook up with Opus Dei luminaries as Alfredo Sanchez Bella and Otto von Habsburg 6, who had founded an influential think called the European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI) in 1949. 7 Habsburg was co-founder and chairman for life of CEDI and later also of the Paneuropa Union, a group he inherited from his more moderate countryman Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi. Sanchez Bella was the Spanish ambassador to Rome under Franco in the 1960s while his brother, Florencia, was head of Opus Dei in Spain. 8 Violet also became an associate of Father Yves-Marc Dubois, an obscure individual who has been described as a senior member of Vatican intelligence. 9

CEDI was one of the first in a long line of hard-right, often aristocratic institutions part of the Vatican-Paneuropa network. One of these institutes, founded by Antoine Pinay, Jean Violet and Otto von Habsburg, with key financing coming from controversial Italian business magnate Carlo Pesenti II 10 was Cercle Pinay. These individuals felt that the basis for a strong, stable united Europe would be Franco-German reconciliation. Therefore they recruited into their Cercle the most important individuals that were working towards this aim, with a particular focus on politicians from Catholic political parties. In Germany they approached the long time chancellor and foreign minister Konrad Adenauer, and two of his closest associates, Franz Joseph Bach, who ran Adenauer's office; and Franz Joseph Strauss, the controversial hard-right political figure from Bavaria who was a defense minister in Adenauer's second cabinet. Together they founded Le Cercle.

For the longest time, it was only known that Le Cercle had been set up "somewhere in the 1950s" 11, but a 1995 document unearthed by Swiss researcher Adrian Hanni that made its way to this author in 2012, reveals that "Le Cercle was founded in 1952/1953 by the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, minister Franz-Josef Strauss, president Antoine Pinay, and Jean Violet." The document lists Adenauer and Violet as early presidents, with Violet serving as secretary general, followed later on by Franz Joseph Bach. Obviously men as Otto von Habsburg and Carlo Pesenti were also very important early players.

To dispel any confusion, there actually have been even claims that that Cercle Pinay was organized in 1969. 12 This date is wrong and seemingly a mix-up with the Belgian Cercle des Nations, founded in 1969 by a secretary general of CEDI. 13 Violet was one of the few French members of this Cercle des Nations. 14 So were a number of Belgian Cercle Pinay visitors. The crowd of Cercle des Nations has featured in a number of Belgian CIA-related conspiracies, with some even appearing in the notorious X-Dossiers of the Dutroux child abuse affair. Such ties, as we shall see, are far from uncommon in the ranks of Le Cercle.

There were more important individuals involved in the early days of Le Cercle. Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, in addition to Antoine Pinay himself, were invited from France. Schuman was French prime minister from 1947 to 1948 and French foreign minister from 1948 to 1953. Jean Monnet, as Planning Commissioner of the National Economic Council from 1945 to 1952, and appointed by De Gaulle, carried out essential work for the reconstruction of the French economy. He was connected to the highest financial and political circles in North America, Great Britain, and mainland western Europe, and was one of the major players in the push for an integrated Europe in the aftermath of World War II. As founding vice-chairman of the Committee for European Economic Co-operation (CEEC), which oversaw the Marshall Plan aid, he was the most influential players in this organization. This short description doesn't even begin to describe the life of this extraordinary Frenchman, so lets take a more in depth look at him.

Monnet and Retinger: EU founders, but hardly pro-Cercle

Right before and after World War I, Monnet hooked up with leading figures in the Anglo-American establishment. One of the first was Lord Kindersley, who, over the course of his life, was a partner in Lazard Brothers, a chairman of the Hudson's Bay Company, and a director of the Bank of England. Kindersley's son is known to have become an executive of the Pilgrims Society 15, a group researched in great detail by this author as it has been the embodiment of the liberal Anglo-American establishment throughout the 20th and early 21st century.

Another very important person was Lord Arthur Salter, whom Monnet first met in 1914. 16 Salter and Monnet would become involved in setting up the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council, the Supreme Economic Council at Versailles, and the League of Nations. In 1931, Salter wrote a book entitled The United States of Europe, in which he favored a federal Europe within the framework of the League of Nations. Probably not by coincidence, Monnet's post-Word War II proposal for a political structure of a united Europe was almost exactly the same; it must have been inspired by Salter. Three years after writing The United States of Europe, in 1934, Salter became a professor at Oxford and a fellow of the university's All Souls College, referred to by Professor Carroll Quigley as the center of the Round Table Group. In fact, Quigley identified Salter as a member of the Milner Group 17, which was one of several incarnations of the Round Table Group. It is also known that Salter shared a number of boards with Lord Astor and Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, both members of prominent Pilgrims Society and reportedly Round Table families (the Cecils later also appeared in Le Cercle). Salter himself became a regular visitor of Pilgrims Society meetings right after he wrote The United States of Europe. He joined as a formal member in later years.

Others whom Monnet became close to were Sir Eric Drummond (the 16th Earl of Perth), a member of a very aristocratic Catholic family in Britain; Lord Robert Brand, of Lazard Brothers, whose brother married Lady Nancy Astor; Andre Meyer and Pierre-David Weill of Lazard, John Foster Dulles, Dean Acheson, John McCloy, Douglas Dillon, and many others. 18 Most persons mentioned here belonged to the Pilgrims Society, with the two British individuals once again having had close ties to Quigley's Round Table Group.

Monnet also was a long-time business associate of Elisha Walker, a CFR member who could be found at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the American International Corporation. With Walker he clandestinely tried to take over A. P. Giannini's Transamerica Corporation and its Bank of America network. The effort failed after a lawsuit in which Giannini vowed to fight the "Wall Street domination" on the board of his company. In February 1932, Walker and Monnet were ousted as chair and vice chair respectively. 19

At that point Monnet went into business with the leaders of the Chinese Green Gang Triad: Tse-Ven Soong and the much better known Chiang Kai-shek. He took his assistant, David Drummond, the son of Monnet's aristocratic superior at the League of Nations, to China. He lived here until 1936, leaving just before China's war with Japan escalated.

In 1935, when Monnet was still in Shanghai, he became a business partner of George Murnane in Monnet, Murnane & Co. Murnane was connected to the Wallenbergs in Sweden, the Bosch family in Germany, the Solvays and Boëls in Belgium, and John Foster Dulles, Andre Meyer, and the Rockefellers in the United States. He was considered among the most connected persons of his time. John Dulles of Sullivan & Cromwell provided the financial backing for the partnership. 20 After Monnet got back to the United States, he was briefly investigated for tax evasion. Then, in 1938, Monnet, Murnane & Co. was briefly investigated by the FBI, who suspected it of having laundered Nazi money. 21 Nothing came of this investigation, but the Nazi-related business enterprises of some of Monnet's close friends, like Douglas Dillon and John Foster Dulles, or Murnane's earlier firm, Lee, Higginson & Co., is discussed in great depth in ISGP's Pilgrims Society article.

When World War II broke out, Monnet was one of the most important individuals in contact with both the French resistance and the Churchill government. While in London at the time that France was overrun, Monnet proposed to General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French government in exile, the creation of a Franco-British Union: a plan to completely unite France and Britain. The Churchill government accepted, even a desperate de Gaulle went along, but eventually the (supposedly Synarchist) opposition in France, headed by Marshall Petain, killed the plan. They saw it as an attempt of Britain to wrestle control over France. Petain subsequently became the leader of Vichy France.

After the war, Monnet was appointed by de Gaulle to reorganize the French economy. However, Monnet also began to reorganize the whole of Europe. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the May 1948 The Hague Congress of Europe, from which flowed the umbrella group the European Movement in October of that year, apparently because he thought there were too many competing voices and agendas in the mix. He was present though at the The Hague Congress, along with numerous politicians he considered close friends and associates: Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi, Paul Henri Spaak, Francois Mitterrand, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and others. As the conference was held in the Netherlands, Prince Bernhard and Queen Juliana were also part of the event. 22

The Hague Congress and the European Movement were largely put together by a "competitor" of Monnet: international man of mystery Jozef Retinger, described by one author as "the East European equivalent of Jean Monnet" because he was not a politician yet still had great influence on the birth of European Union. Retinger's other endeavors included the founding of the European League for Economic Cooperation (ELEC) in 1946 and Bilderberg in 1954. None of this Retinger would have been able to accomplish without his friends in the American liberal establishment as the Rockefellers and numerous of their Pilgrims Society friends, all of whom he got to know during World War II as an advisor to prime minister Władysław Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile. As discussed in ISGP's Pilgrims Society article, this elite American clique also was completely synonymous with the CIA. The best example of this is probably the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), which, stacked with CIA directors and individuals from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funneled millions of dollars to Retinger's European Movement. 23 Despite the fact that Monnet operated a little to the outside of this group, he still came to play a major role in the birth of the European Union.

In 1949, with the support of Konrad Adenauer of West-Germany, French prime minister Robert Schuman proposed the so called "Schuman Plan". This plan formed the basis for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Established in 1952, the ECSC is usually seen as the birth of the European Union. In reality, Monnet, who became the first chairman of the ECSC's High Authority, had entirely written the "Schuman Plan". Then again, as we already discussed, Monnet's structure for Europe was a slightly adapted version of Arthur Salter's 1931 book The United States of Europe, which originally advocated a federal Europe within the framework of the League of Nations. 24 As was the case with Retinger, who actually died a poor man, Monnet also was only able to bring his plans to fruition because of his highest-level connections to the Anglo-American establishment.

Moving back a little from the establishment of the ECSC in 1952, on 24 October 1950, the French prime minister René Pleven introduced the so-called "Pleven Plan". As happened earlier with Schuman, this document too was written in its entirety by Jean Monnet. It proposed the creation of the European Defence Community (EDC): a Paneuropean defense force. Eventually this proposal was defeated by the Gaullist nationalists in France - Schuman opposed it as well - and Europe's defense forces remained part of the newly-established NATO, which was (and is) operating mostly at the international level, instead of supranationally.

After the failure of his European Defence Community (EDC), Monnet doubled his efforts and, in 1956, founded the very low-profile Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE). It brought together leading international members of governments and labour unions, mainly to discuss European economic integration. ACUSE, together with the US State Department, lobbied and pressured a great deal behind the scenes in the run up to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which created the actual European Economic Community (EEC; "Economic" was dropped in '91). Once again, all of Monnet's most important associates in this process were members of the Pilgrims Society: David K. E. Bruce, the Dulles brothers, John J. McCloy, George Ball, C. Douglas Dillon, and president Eisenhower. Cercle participant Konrad Adenauer was among the signers of the treaty, just as Paul Henri Spaak. Also, the founding vice president of the ACUSE was Max Kohnstamm, who became the initial 1973 European chairman of the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission. Kohnstamm used to be private secretary to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Cercle founder Antoine Pinay was another important member of ACUSE, the organization that Time Magazine dubbed a "European shadow government" in 1969. ACUSE received a degree of financing by the CIA-allied Ford Foundation, but this financing was more limited than the European Movement, which focused more on building ties between wealthy industrialists and right-wing politicians instead of the more socialist-oriented elements of society. Monnet also was more careful to hide any ties with the United States 25, although in the end he maintained all the same ties as Retinger to the clique of the Rockefellers and Dulles brothers. We also know that the Ford Foundation has been excellent at financing far more socialist-oriented, activist and counter-culture NGOs than Monnet's ACUSE.

Monnet wasn't done after helping to establish the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952, the Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE) in 1956 and the Treaty of Rome in 1957. In 1961, he managed to replace the OEEC, initially established to oversee the Marshall Plan, with the broader Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 26 Since then, the OECD has been one of the most influential institutions promoting globalization and free trade, today working in partnership with the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization. Mainland European governors of the very elite Atlantic Institute of International Affairs, which also came about in 1961, have had a relatively strong presence in these institutions, especially in the OECD. Pilgrims Society members have been dominant in the other institutions.

Around the same time that Monnet replaced the OEEC with the OECD, he met up with future prime minister Edward Heath, who at that point, as Lord Privy Seal, was responsible for the initial talks to bring Britain into the European Common Market. The meeting transpired at the house of Monnet's earlier-mentioned good friend David Drummond, the 17th Lord Perth 27, a member of an old Catholic family with very good connections to both the Vatican and the highest levels in British society, including the Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Mellons, Cecils, and Howards. 28 Lord Perth was a chairman of the Ditchley Foundation and his father had been the initial secretary-general of the League of Nations, with Monnet serving as his deputy. Heath became a member of Monnet's Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE) and in 1973 signed Britain into the European Economic Community. This only became possible after Georges Pompidou, a protege of Guy de Rothschild, had replaced the anti-American, anti-British and anti-NATO Charles de Gaulle as president of France.

Monnet had been an early supporter of de Gaulle, as he was of the opinion that the legendary general was the only person who might be able to reunite the French people after WWII. However, in later years friction developed between the two. De Gaulle was a nationalist who supported a strong intergovernmental Europe, preferably with France being the major influence. Monnet, on the other hand, had always been a no-holds-barred supranationalist. The same goes for all his past and present backers in the liberal establishment.

While much of the groundwork for the European Union was laid by Jozef Retinger, Jean Monnet and their liberal establishment backers, according to Brian Crozier, a president of Le Cercle in the early 1980s, Cercle founder Jean Violet himself also played an important behind the scenes role several years after the European Economic Community (EEC) had been founded:

"By far the dominant theme in de Gaulle's foreign policy (as Violet interpreted it) was Franco-German reconciliation. A genius at (non-violent) operations of influence, Violet played an historically key role between 1957 and 1961 in bringing about this rapprochement, which is the real core of the European Community. He had developed a close friendship with Antoine Pinay, who had served as French Premier in 1951 under the unstable Fourth Republic. At a lower level, a complementary role was played by his SDECE colleague Antoine Bonnemaison. Violet was the go-between in secret meetings between Pinay and the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and his coalition partner Franz Josef Strauss. These paved the way for Charles de Gaulle's own encounters with Adenauer, which culminated in the Franco-German Treaty of January 1963. [Treaty of Elysée]" 29

The Treaty of Elysée is a relatively unknown agreement between France and Germany in which both countries agreed to consult with each other on important foreign policy and economic issues, ahead of time of general EEC meetings. It is the core of the often-discussed Franco-German alliance, which has had great influence on the European project ever since. Some say, too much.

The Elysée agreement came into being at the time de Gaulle first vetoed the inclusion of Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC), a decision quietly backed by Adenauer. De Gaulle argued that Britain's economy was based on trade with its Commonwealth and did not have a large agricultural economy, like France and most other countries in mainland Europe. This, together with Britain's historical "special relationship" with the United States, convinced de Gaulle that Britain would never be fully committed to the interests of Europe. 30

Of course, it's far from unreasonable to suggest that de Gaulle's primary reason for the veto (and Adenauer's quiet backing) was to prevent Britain, and its ally, the United States, from diminishing France's influence within the European Union. A few years later, in June 1966, de Gaulle also withdrew from NATO, expelled all Allied forces from France, and tried to get on good terms with the Soviet Union. This in particular did not exactly please members of Le Cercle nor the British and U.S. allies it was starting to make. De Gaulle also ran into increased resistance with the French public, who considered him too old, too authoritarian and self-centered, too conservative, and too anti-American. In April 1969 he was forced to resign.

GREAT BRITAIN JOINS LE CERCLE

Le Centre, De Gaulle and OAS terrorism

One very interesting aspect of Le Cercle is that it used to be a strictly Catholic group from mainland Europe involving Vatican representatives, Italians, French and Germans. Much more recent reports, however, reveal that the leadership of Le Cercle has been in the hands of the British for many decades. This change set in 1971 when British intelligence asset Brian Crozier was brought into Le Cercle and soon started chairing meetings. In this chapter we'll be looking how the Cercle arrived at Crozier's doorstep.

Starting a career as a reporter for Reuters and a few other outlets, Brian Crozier first got in touch with British and French intelligence in Saigon in the early 1950s during the French Indochina War, the predecessor of the Vietnam War. In 1954 he joined The Economist, serving as editor of The Economist Foreign Report from 1958 to 1964. In this role, in 1959, he was invited by Colonel Antoine Bonnemaison, a colleague of Jean Violet in French intelligence, to a "mysterious outfit" named Le Centre de Recherche du Bien Politique.

Founded in 1955, just two years after Le Cercle, essentially Le Centre operated in the same fashion as Le Cercle: about twice a year a small group of international representatives from the intelligence services and academics would come together and mainly discuss Franco-German rapprochement. Although, the German BND participants answered directly to General Reinhardt Gehlen while the Dutch participants, Louis Einthoven and especially Cees van den Heuvel, not only were quite close to Prince Bernhard, but also played key roles in setting up the Dutch version of Gladio. CIA agent Carl Armfelt, who earlier set up Sweden's Gladio with future CIA director (and Cercle participant) William Colby, aided them in this. Van den Heuvel also brought a chapter of the MK-ULTRA-linked Human Ecology Fund to the Netherlands, so it should be clear that these people were involved in more than just discussing European integration. Obviously both Le Centre and Le Cercle were extremely anti-communist, the main difference between the two groups seemingly being the level at which they were operating. Le Centre is known to have brought together senior intelligence officers from Germany, France and the Netherlands, while Le Cercle has included a good number of heads of state.

How Crozier got involved with Le Centre and then Le Cercle is an intriguing story that he details in his biography Free Agent. In February 1958, while flying back from French Algeria, he was seated next to Colonel Antoine Bonnemaison. Crozier noticed that Bonnemaison was reading "a letter from General Raoul Salan, thanking him in unusually warm terms for the series of talks on psychological war he had been giving to the French Army in Algeria." Crozier asked him about the letter in French, which apparently was so perfect that Bonnemaison assumed he was French, prompting him to give Crozier "a hair-raising torrent of revelations." Bonnemaison was an arch-nationalist who wanted France to fight its way back to "greatness" after the loss in Indochina (Vietnam). He was in Algeria to boost morale of the French army and help it succeed in holding onto the French colony. Only after an hour or so, Crozier informed Bonnemaison that he actually was British and worked as the editor of The Economist Foreign Report. Luckily for Bonnemaison, the two men were cut from the same political cloth, so his revelations did not result in any political fallout. A relationship was struck up and in 1959 Crozier was invited by Bonnemaison to join a Frankfurt meeting of Le Centre. 31

One wonders if it was a total coincidence that Crozier ended up sitting next to Bonnemaison on that plane from Algiers. While that might be the case, there actually are more stunning coincidences.

General Raoul Salan, whose complimentary letter Bonnemaison was reading when Crozier started talking to him, used to be a key officer in overseeing Operation X, a French opium trafficking operation during French Indochina War carried out to fund covert operations. The operation peaked from 1951 until the end of the war in 1954. 32 From 1952 to 1954 Salan was the commander in chief of all French forces in Indochina.

Next stop for Salan was the Algerian War of Independence that lasted from 1954 to 1962 and saw massive amounts of torture from both sides. During 1956 Salan served as the commander in chief of the French forces in Algeria. He retired soon after. Thinking De Gaulle would continue the Algerian War under all circumstances, in this period Salan still was a supporter of the old general. This support changed in January 1961 when 75% of the French public voted in favor of granting Algeria its independence, with De Gaulle agreeing. This was followed in March 1962 with the Evian Accords that officially granted Algeria its independence: along with De Gaulle, 91% of the French public supported the accords. This major increase in already widespread support appears to have had something to do with the activities of Salan and friends.

In response to the January 1961 peace referendum, Salan co-founded the fascist-terrorist Organisation de l'Armée Secrète (OAS), becoming the group's head in mid 1961. In the January 1961 - June 1962 period the OAS carried out an enormous amount of terrorist attacks in an effort to derail the peace talks and reignite the French-Algerian War. 2,000 people, including peace activists, suspected enemy operatives, random French soldiers, and completely innocent civilians, died in a never-ending barrage of bombings, shootings and assassinations. A number of assassination attempts were made on De Gaulle, one of them a very close call, but it all led to nothing: De Gaulle survived all attempts, Algeria became independent in 1962 and most leaders of the OAS were arrested. Some were even executed.

Unsurprisingly, the CIA, partly through their Gehlen Org, was deeply involved with OAS, encouraging and seemingly even financing its actions in opposition to President Kennedy. 33 In fact, the New Orleans network linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination - Clay Shaw's Permindex, Guy Banister, the elite French-American Schlumberger company and Maurice Brooks Gatlin - were all accused of direct involvement in financing various OAS assassination attempts on De Gaulle.

Based on Crozier's description, it's quite clear that Antoine Bonnemaison at least was a spiritual ally of the anti-De Gaulle coup plotters who wanted the French-Algerian War to continue. In fact, members of Bonnemaison's group openly labeled De Gaulle "the enemy" even before he withdrew from NATO in 1966. As we will discuss later in this article, Brian Crozier and other core Cercle members, as well as the CIA, supported every colonialist-fascist regime on the planet. The OAS was no exception. OAS co-founder and CIA favorite Jacques Soustelle later attended conferences with various Cercle members. Another OAS co-founder, Yves Guerin-Serac, was a Portuguese CIA-Gladio assassin and terrorist who also liaised with key Cercle members during the 1960s through venues as the Charlemagne Dinners. It's no surprise then that Bonnemaison's Centre de Recherche was shut down by De Gaulle in early 1963, after two years of OAS terrorism and continued OAS assassination plots against him. However, Bonnemaison set up the Centre d'Observation du Mouvement des Idées, this time financed by French corporations as Péchiney and Air Liquide. The group lost its international character, and only Crozier remained a regular participant from outside France. Other privately-funded anti-communist groups were available as well, however. One of them was Interdoc in the Netherlands, in which Crozier became involved alongside MI5 and MI6 representatives and occasionally the French.

A relevant detail related to the OAS and Brian Crozier at this point is that Jacques Soustelle had dinner with Richard Bissell, Jr., head of the CIA's covert operations department, and Bissell's successor, Richard Helms on December 7, 1960 in New York City, one month before Soustelle helped set up the OAS. 34 The dinner was organized by a French intelligence agent, Philippe de Vosjoli, whom De Gaulle referred to as "a defector to the CIA". In 1968 De Vosjoli would be featured in detail in a Life magazine article. 35 In addition, in April 1961 Salan is said to have met with CIA officer John Philipsborn in Algiers, right before Salan and three other generals organized a coup to take over Algeria, hopefully followed by France. 36 The coup was a massive failure, but the OAS was far from done yet at that point. In 1965 Philipsborn was hired by David Rockefeller to Chase Manhattan Bank where he served for over 30 years, primarily as Chase's key European agent. 37 In 1991 Philipsborn joined the Pilgrims Society, similar to CIA directors Allen Dulles and Walter Bedell Smith and the family of Richard Helms.

The Pilgrims Society and David Rockefeller link is not mentioned without reason. We'll run into both on other occasions in this article. For starters with John Hay Whitney, a lifelong Pilgrims Society member and eventual vice president. Whitney was an OSS veteran and close friend of David Rockefeller deeply immersed in big business CIA coups. In between, in the 1957-1961 period, Whitney was ambassador to Great Britain. That's relevant, because it was in this period that Brian Crozier described to have been invited to Whitney's "inner circle". 38 According to his own biography, in 1958 Crozier started to work with a variety of security services, the same year that he ended up sitting next to Colonel Antoine Bonnemaison on a plane from Algiers, resulting in him becoming the first British representative to the secretive Centre group. Even without any admissions from Crozier, it should be clear that by 1958-1959 he was becoming an ideal liaison between the security services of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States.

Soon after his international intelligence contacts developed, Crozier went to work for the Information Research Department (IRD) where he did studies (some prefer to call it "disseminating propaganda") on KGB subversion. He also started to work with the CIA, MI6, and the intelligence agencies of France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Morocco, Iran, Argentina, Chile, and Taiwan. Crozier visiting Le Centre meetings since 1959 and Interdoc meetings since 1963, the latter alongside MI5 and MI6 agents, are among the first clear instances. The CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), with its heavy-duty ties to the Eastern Establishment, approached him in 1964 to reconstruct and commercialize their organization. Crozier, however, turned down this offer as he was too busy with his other undertakings. He later did a study for the CCF, investigating its South American network. Some time after that study, in 1965-1966, he reconstructed the CCFs Forum Service, turning it into Forum World Features (FWF). His old British contact John Hay Whitney was the one who took over the financial burden of FWF from the CIA when it was commercialized. Another billionaire CIA associate, Richard Mellon Scaife, later took over funding of FWF from Whitney. Scaife also funded Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), which he founded in 1970, and showed up at gatherings of the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, an anti-communist and anti-terrorist propaganda group headed by several British Cercle members, including Crozier. 39 In his book Free Agent Crozier summarized the purpose of his ISC:

"Throughout my period as Director, the Institute for the Study of Conflict was involved in exposing the fallacies of 'détente' and warning the West of the dangers inherent a policy of illusion." 40

Crozier and associates rejected Henry Kissinger's Détente policy, introduced at the end of the Vietnam War and aimed at reducing tensions between the superpowers, because they were of the opinion that the Soviets continued to infiltrate and, more importantly, significantly influence Western labour, socialist and green parties, trade unions, media, and intelligence agencies. Also, they were of the opinion that the initial post-WWII policy of Containment (the Truman Doctrine) was flawed. Instead, they argued that the West not only should resist a further communist encroachment, but also that it had to liberate countries that had fallen under the control of the Soviet empire. Every piece of territory the Soviets conquered had to be taken back. This was termed Rollback, the key policy supported by the American Security Council, World Anti-Communist League and Cercle network of anti-communist activists.

Brian Crozier's 1971 Cercle invite

Despite his involvement in Colonel Bonnemaison's Le Centre since 1959, Interdoc since 1963, the CIA's Congress of Cultural Freedom since 1964, IRD of British intelligence and other intelligence-linked groups, Brian Crozier was not invited to Le Cercle until 1971. Crozier described the process of his recruitment in his biography Free Agent:

"On 1 March 1971, a long interview I had given to Joseph Fromm appeared in US News and World Report. The theme was terrorist and Communist intentions. On reading this interview, a Frenchman named Maitre Jean Violet came to see me in my Piccadilly office, with an introduction from Francois Duchene, my former Economist colleague and Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.... Violet impressed me with the clarity and precision of his arguments - Gallic logic at its best - and with the breath of his intellectual grasp of world problems." 41

Duchene had met Monnet in exactly the same way as Crozier met Violet. In 1950, Duchene wrote a series of articles for the Manchester Guardian which came to the attention of Jean Monnet. In response, Monnet invited Duchene to become one of his assistants in building a united Europe. Duchene followed Monnet when the latter became head of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). He then followed Monnet to Paris and became an editor of The Economist. In 1958, Duchene became a director of Monnet's Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE), which struggled to get Britain into the EEC under the dictations of the Treaty of Rome. He remained on the board until 1963. During this time, Duchene suffered a nervous breakdown for some unknown reason. In 1963, he went on to become leading writer for The Economist and from 1967 to 1969, apparently as part of his career as a CIA asset, served a Ford Foundation fellow. From 1969 to 1974 he was a director of the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank on international affairs with directors linked to intelligence and high financial circles. In 1974 or 1975, he became the European deputy chairman of the Trilateral Commission, working under Max Kohnstamm, Monnet's partner at the Action Committee. 42 As should be clear,

As can be seen above, Duchene approached Crozier on behalf of Jean Violet during his time as a director of the IISS, and possibly on behalf of the Cercle in general, as Crozier mentioned that his involvement with Le Cercle began this same year. 43 Interestingly, Duchene not only introduced Violet as a person who worked for French intelligence, but also as a person who "represented a powerful consortium of French business interests." 44 It seems there's no end to the interests Cercle-founder Jean Violet represented during his lifetime: the fascist CSAR group, Opus Dei, Paneuropa, the French government, French business, French intelligence, and even German intelligence, as former Nazi General Reinhardt Gehlen recruited him at one point to brief him on his Cercle meetings. 45

There's a big difference though between Jean Violet and associates as Jean Monnet, Francois Duchene and several other British Cercle members. Violet, as a French Opus Dei member and assistant to Otto von Habsburg, was part of what ISGP terms the ultraright Vatican-Paneuropa network while the others were part of the liberal Anglo-American establishment. Crozier also was not part of the Vatican-Paneuropa Network, but operating on the fringes of the liberal Anglo-American establishment, crossing over into its conservative, security state-tied counterpart.

Ironically, until very recently Crozier was involved in spying on De Gaulle while Violet was carrying out De Gaulle's defense and foreign policy objectives, and possibly was the French president's most important intelligence agent. Even when Crozier was president of Le Cercle from 1980 to 1985 on Violet's recommendation, he did not know Jean Violet's full background:

"It was not until the spring of 1993 that I learned the details of Jean Violet's real secret service role when General de Gaulle was in power [until 1969]. A background document was given to me by one of Violet's ex-colleagues. Ironically, a few years before Gabriel Decazes and I started spying on de Gaulle, Violet was masterminding a Service Spécial to promote the General's objectives in defence and foreign policy.

"The document began with a paragraph of wistful praise for Britain's remarkable achievements in intelligence and clandestine action. But France, too, offered a precedent: Louis XV had set up a special service known to the few who were aware of it as the Secret du Roi. This service reported directly to the King, bypassing the Foreign Ministry of the day.

"Only two people were aware of de Gaulle's latter-day model: General Grossin, the then head of the SDECE, and a certain 'Monsieur X'. It required no great deductive powers to assume that Monsieur X had to be Maître Violet, but Jean refused to comment when I asked him. My other source, however, confirmed my supposition. No wonder, in retrospect, that Violet's shadowy role and apparently bottomless purse stirred resentful envy among his colleagues and poisoned Alexandre de Marenches's mind against Violet, whom he had never met." 46

As already discussed, Violet and his Cercle group saw Franco-German rapprochement as De Gaulle's most important foreign policy objective. However, judging by his association in Le Cercle with people who wanted Britain in the European Union as a "third pillar" and the entire European Union in NATO it is doubtful Violet supported all of De Gaulle's later decisions.

Past and present Cercle leadership

We briefly discussed the history of some of the key players in Le Cercle: Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay, the official 1953 founders; their patron, Otto von Habsburg, and key financier, Carlo Pesenti II; how Violet and Pinay invited individuals as Konrad Adenauer, Franz Joseph Strauss, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, and influenced the early history of the European Union. We also discussed how an agent of both Monnet and Violet in 1971 recruited a well-connected member of British and American intelligence, Brian Crozier, and made him head of their Cercle in 1980. Finally we discussed the anti-communist, anti-De Gaulle and pro-Europe and pro-NATO activities of its early key members.

According to Brian Crozier, a certain Sir Peter Tennant was chairing a number of Cercle meetings during the time that Jean Violet was president - which would be the 1970s. Carlo Pesenti chaired other meetings of Le Cercle in this period. 47 Tennant was an important trade promoter for the City of London. His name appears on a 1974 Pilgrims Society membership list, demonstrating he was part of a small elite. In contrast, Pesenti was a close associate of the Vatican's financial circles. Another important participant was Franz-Josef Bach, who used to run Konrad Adenauer's political office and later, from at least 1980 to at least 1991, co-organized Cercle meetings, in succession to Jean Violet. 48

Le Cercle has gone by a number of names in the media. Some of these names appear to refer to the more exclusive coordinating group, or "executive committee", discussed in these early chapters. Both Crozier 49 and Hans Langemann 50, the source of a Cercle leak who will be discussed later, acknowledged the existence of such an inner group. David Rockefeller's reference to the "Pesenti Group" 51 might also have been a reference to this inner circle. The same goes for the "Pinay Committee" that appeared in documents of Brian Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), leaked in 1975 to Time Out Magazine - the first known public reference to the Cercle. The same "Comite Pinay" could be found in a 1986 Belgian police report on Opus Dei.

A quick summary follows of Cercle leadership not discussed in detail yet, all of whom could be considered part of the "inner circle". The reader can look in the attached membership list for more details, including the source for each individual name.

	Scion of what was one of the wealthiest families of Italy until the 1970s, together with the Agnellis and Pirellis. Head of Italcementi/Italmobiliare, one of the few key firms in cooperation with the IOR, or Vatican Bank. Boards of some of the companies it owned were loaded with aristocrats and SMOM members. Financier of some of the enterprises of Jean Violet and Brian Crozier and the Cercle itself. Chaired some of the meetings of Le Cercle, which sometimes was called the Pesenti Group, and invited David Rockefeller in 1967. Company funds were also used to help finance Stefano Delle Chiaie fascist-terrorist Avanguardia Nazionale. Italmobiliare was the largest minority shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano at the time of its collapse in 1982, with Pesenti serving as Roberto Calvi's vice president. Like Calvi, Pesenti was to be investigated for his role in the collapse but died during the court proceedings, albeit under slightly less suspicious circumstances than Calvi, who was found swinging from a bridge in London.
Sir Peter Tennant	Recruited into the SOE (WWII rival of MI6) by its founder, Colonel Sir Charles Hambro (head of Hambro, a Pilgrims Society bank; close friend of Churchill and the Wallenbergs; his son went to live with the Wallenberg family during WWII; head of the SOE 1942-1943; Sir Hambro's deputy in the SOE, Henry "Harry" Sporborg, also of Hambro Bank, ended up in the small inner circle committee of Crozier's Shield) as one of its first members. Helped Sefton Delmer, the Lord Beaverbrook agent who used to be in contact with Hitler's inner circle, with material for his propaganda broadcasts to the German armed forces. Deputy commandant of the British sector in Berlin 1950-1952. Went on to become a long time major trade representative for the City of London and had a lot of involvement in the negotiations leading up to the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Joined Barclays Bank in the City of London as a director and industrial advisor in 1972. Member of the elite Pilgrims Society, along with names as Cecil, Rothschild, Warburg and Windsor, in the early to mid 1970s. Co-organized a fundraising in 1976 with a bunch of Pilgrims Society members and executives to save Canterbury Cathedral. Chaired some meetings of Le Cercle. Joined the board of the International Energy Bank in 1981, which financed worldwide oil and gas explorations, starting with the United States and Europe. Helped to establish the right-wing political pressure group Policy Research Associates and was a governor Atlantic Institute, along with the Rothschilds, Agnellis, Wallenbergs, and many other elites.
Franz-Josef Bach	Ran Konrad Adenauer's office, who was chancellor of the Federal Republic of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. German ambassador to Iran, which was ruled by the controversial but pro-West Shah. Conservative member of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1972. Went to work for the Swiss-based Economic and Development Corporation (EDC), an unacknowledged lobbying group for Northrop. Named as a shareholder of EDC and acknowledged that he had "advised them [EDC] about political things - the stability of a country, whether it was going to be an industrial country or not, whether it was going to be stable or not... I go to the country, see the country and make a report." 52 Senator Church of the Church Committee said about the Northrop arrangement that it was "an intelligence network like a government would employ to get inside information, to pull the strings... the records itself show that Northrop has been doing it." 53 Less controversially, Bach was also a commercial and financial advisor to the Siemens Corporation.

Ever since Brian Crozier was elected president of Le Cercle, leadership stayed British. Subsequent heads of Le Cercle have been MI6 asset Lord Julian Amery, his protege Jonathan Aitken, Rothschild employee Lord Norman Lamont and the even more elite 13th Marquess of Lothian. Jean Violet asked Brian Crozier to take over the Cercle presidency in 1980. Crozier's presidency lasted until 1985, when Julian Amery apparently took over this role. 54 Jonathan Aitken was Amery's protege and is known to have chaired at least some meetings in the early 1990s. 55 Lord Lamont, the Rothschild employee, served as chairman of Le Cercle from 1996 to roughly 2008 56, after which Lord Lothian took over. 57

There is some confusion these days about who has been president and/or chairman of Le Cercle. When Pinay was president of the group the chairmanship of the individual meetings was shared out among people like Pesenti, Tennant, and Crozier. The presidency was later handed over to Jean Violet, Brian Crozier, and Julian Amery. However, since then, their successors have been referred to as chairmen of Le Cercle. Following is a list of heads of Le Cercle, compiled by comparing a number of different sources.

Additional details on these latter day leaders:

	Son of Leopold Amery (1873-1955), who was close associate of Lord Milner and the Rothschilds. Leopold was a British imperialist heavily involved in the creation of Israel. He also was a great supporter of Coudenhove-Kalergi's Paneuropa Union, which was initially funded by the Warburgs and Rothschilds 58, and was later headed by Otto von Habsburg. Leopold had two sons: John and Julian. John went to work for French, Spanish, German, and Italian fascists, and was eventually hanged for it. Julian was Churchill’s personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek in 1945. Reportedly a life-long MI6 operative. In 1950, he became a Conservative member of parliament and served in the cabinets of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath. Married Harold Macmillan's daughter in 1950. Involved in the founding of the CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom in 1950. Representative to the Council of Europe 1950-1956. Representative to the Round Table Conference on Malta in 1955. Involved with the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Club in the 1950s and 1960s, together with the Oppenheimers. Became a member of the Privy Council in 1960. Member of the very aristocratic Other Club since 1960, over the years together with the Duke of Devonshire (Cavendish), the Cecils, Lord Rothschild, Lord Rees-Mogg, Prince Charles, Pilgrims Society president Lord Carrington, Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne, and a whole string of ex-prime ministers. With his friends David Stirling and Billy McLean, and help from the Cercle-affiliated royal houses of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Amery set up a private SAS war in Yemen in the early 1960s in an effort to get Nasser out. One of the most prominent supporters of the illegal pro-white dictatorship in Rhodesia during the 1970s. In 1975, he claimed that it seemed more and more that the British trade unions were infiltrated by the KGB. Said to have been at a meeting on November 15,1982 with Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis and several known Cercle members about an expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. 59 Chairman of the London chapter of the Global Economic Action Institute, a free-market organization that was exposed in 1986 as being funded by the Moonie cult. Julian not only was an avid empire-builder, just like his father, but also in favour of Britain joining the European Common Market. He was also a supporter of a strong nuclear deterrent against the Soviets. Picked by Crozier as the new president of Le Cercle in 1985. Consultant to the extremely corrupt BCCI in the 1980s. Mentor to Jonathan Aitken, the controversial next president of Le Cercle. Good friend of the very powerful and dynastic Cecil family, which also was very prominent in the initial Round Table clique.
	Great nephew of Hitler-intimate Lord Beaverbrook, whose son ended up in the 1001 Club. Served as a war correspondent, and reportedly an MI6 agent, during the 1960s in the Middle-East, Vietnam, and Africa. Became a politician and member of parliament. During the 1980s, Aitken was a director of BMARC, a company that exported weapons to intermediary countries, who sold these weapons again to the intended countries (like Iraq). CEO of TV-Am and chairman of Aitken Hume Plc, a banking and investment group. In 1992, he was appointed Defense Minister. During this time, he stood in close contact with co-Cercle member and MI6 head of Middle-East affairs Geoffrey Tantum. Chairman of Le Cercle. Accused of having lobbied for three arms contractors: GEC, Marconi and VSEL, in an effort to sell many millions worth of arms to Saudi-Arabia. Through multiple offshore companies in Switzerland and Panama, submarines, howitzers, medium-range laser guided bombs, Black Hawks, and EH101 helicopters were sold and shipped. After his trial and brief time in jail, Aitken is one of the few people who had to resign from the Privy Council. Seemingly funded by British intelligence during tough times. Has become an extremely religious evangelist who even went on a few Jesuit retreats. Claims that since Britain has failed to become the dominant power in the European Union, Britain should withdraw its membership in the EU.
	Very influential British politician who was the campaign manager for John Major. Worked at Rothschilds from 1968 to 1979. Became an important politician and leading eurosceptic under Thatcher, who also led the Treaty of Maastricht negotiations for Britain. Handled Russia's negotiations with institutions as the IMF and World Bank on behalf of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Again director of N.M. Rothschild and Sons Ltd 1993-1995, personally appointed by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild against the advice of the other board members. Reportedly told a conspiracy reporter in 1986 at a private party that Lord Peter Mandelson, a close friend of the Rothschild, was a pedophile. Rented a basement apartment to high-class prostitute and dominatrix Lindi St Clair, who serviced members of parliament and other government officials. Appointed chairman of Le Cercle in 1996 after Aitken had to step down. Member of the Privy Council. Director of Scottish Re and many other insurance, banking, and chemical corporations. Advisor to the Monsanto Corporation. Chairman of the obscure Oil Club. Member of the neoconservative Benador Associates, together with Arnaud de Borchgrave, Alexander Haig, and James Woolsey. Director of General Mediterranean Holding of the controversial former Saddam associate and arms dealer Nadhmi Auchi, who also is a member of Le Cercle. Sought the release of Pinochet. Has visited Bilderberg. As chairman of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce, he's been promoting increased trade with Iran while the US is about to attack this country for allegedly trying to create nuclear weapons. As head of the Bruges Group he is a leader in the eurosceptic movement in Britain.
	Born in 1945. Known as Michael Ancram until 2004. Scion of one of the most aristocratic and enigmatic families in British history. According to Carroll Quigley, the 11th Marquess of Lothian (1883-1940) was an important member of Cecil Rhodes' imperialist Round Table network, centered around All Souls College, Oxford University, and the Rhodes Trust. Family members have been generational Pilgrims Society members and were close to the Morgan interests. Ancram's father, the 12th Marquess of Lothian, was a Knight of Malta. Ancram married a daughter of the 16th Duke of Norfolk, the oldest and most influential Catholic family in Britain with generations of family members serving as Knights of Malta and Vatican liaisons. In addition, the mother of Michael Ancram's grandfather, the 11th Marquess of Lothian, was the daughter of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. Member of parliament 1974, 1979-1987, 1992-2010. Minister of state for Northern Ireland 1994-1997. Privy Council member since 1996. Shadow constitutional affairs spokesman 1997-1998. Chairman of the Conservative Party 1998-2001. Deputy of the Conservative Party 2001-2005. Shadow foreign secretary 2001-2005. Shadow internal affairs secretary 2003-2005. Shadow defense secretary 2005. Member of the Intelligence and Security Committee since 2006, similar to at least two other Cercle visitors. Very Euroskeptic and has participated in conferences of the Bruges Group, largely ran by Lord Lamont, around the turn of century. Known to have visited Le Cercle in 2003. Certainly chairman of Le Cercle by 2012, although most likely replaced Lord Lamont in 2008. In 2005 a founding signatory of the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society principles. Member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation (TLG).

1980s-1990s U.K. Cercle members: MI6, arms, infiltrations, coups

British Cercle participants that we find in Le Cercle by the 1980s and early 1990s include Julian Amery, Jonathan Aitken, Anthony Cavendish, Sir Erik Bennett and Timothy Landon. One handwritten note of a Cercle meeting organizer lists the name Sir James Goldsmith - although Goldsmith didn't visit on that occasion. All of these individuals are MI6 assets who have been involved in coups throughout the Middle East and Africa, primarily in relation to colonies of the British Empire. These individuals essentially were the counterparts of CIA officers as Ted Shackley and James Critchfield - whom we still need to discuss - so it is no surprise to see them involved in a group as Le Cercle.

Elite ultraright Pilgrims Society executive member Lord Alun Chalfont, considered for a Cercle presidency until the early 1990s, is important to mention as well. Apart from his directorshipships at Lazards and IBM UK, in the 1980s Chalfont headed companies as Zeus Security Consultants and Securipol that were involved in anything from hiring Satanist Nazis to infiltrate domestic leftist groups to protecting companies involved in the undersea dumping of nuclear waste. These companies also appear to have been close to Group 13, allegedly the British government's assassination team. The history of Chalfont and some of his extreme-right associates is discussed in more detail in ISGP's Pilgrims Society article.

One interesting British name of the early 1990s to mention is Lord Charles Powell. He was private secretary and key foreign policy advisor to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1983-1990 period and helped broker the controversial al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia involving hundreds of millions of pounds in bribes. Cercle head Jonathan Aitken was the most key player in this affair. After Thatcher, Powell became private secretary to John Major for a year and then went into private business. He became a paid consultant to BAE Systems in arms deals, a director of elite companies as Barrick Gold and Jardine Matheson. He joined the global advisory panel of the Council on Foreign Relations, became a trustee of the Aspen Institute, and an annual visitor of the Munich Security Conference. After 9/11 he joined the advisory board CIA front firm Diligence, LLC, a private security firm partnered with the super-controversial Far West, Ltd. group, tied to global terrorism and drug trade networks. In 2005 he became a signatory of the neocon supergroup Henry Jackson Society, along with future Cercle chairman Michael Ancram.

Meanwhile, Charles' brother Jonathan Powell was chief of staff to prime minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007. Jonathan later served on the board of Hakluyt, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the British-American Project, and the European Climate Foundation. Needless to say, the Powell brothers are among the top superclass members for Great Britain and even more so than Lord Chalfont really transcent the ordinary Cercle crowd.

U.S. RELATIONS OF LE CERCLE

1967: Le Cercle reaches out to Rockefeller and Kissinger

By the time the anti-American and anti-NATO Charles De Gaulle left office in April 1969, and before Brian Crozier's 1971 invitation to Le Cercle by Jean Violet, the Cercle leadership had already forged ties with the United States.

In October 1967, key Cercle member and financier Carlo Pesenti II took David Rockefeller aside at a Chase investment forum in Italy and revealed to him the existence of Le Cercle. 60 7 months later, in May 1968, Rockefeller attended a first Cercle meeting in Rome. 61 At the time, David's brother, Nelson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were competing for the Republican nomination. Eventually Nixon was elected president in November of that year, but, as usual, the Rockefeller influence on successive U.S. government administrations persisted, this time in the form of Rockefeller protege Henry Kissinger being appointed Nixon's national security advisor and eventually also secretary of state. Ironically, not too long before LBJ tried to convince his close friend, Nelson Rockefeller, to run against Nixon has his Democrat successor.

Based on this ever-present Rockefeller influence, it is no surprise that Le Cercle started making overtures to David Rockefeller in 1967. In fact, on December 6, 1968, immediately after the Nixon election, the very first Cercle meeting was organized in the United States, at Rockefeller Center of all places. 62 It appears a picture of this meeting exists in which David Rockefeller can be seen chatting with former French prime minister Antoine Pinay, Belgian journalist Maurice Brebart and the notorious Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin - also from Belgium. A few months later, in early 1969, David Rockefeller again appeared at a Cercle meeting, this time in Bavaria, in advance of Nixon and Kissinger's efforts to strengthen the ties between the United States and European NATO countries. 63 Kissinger accompanied Rockefeller to Cercle meetings on at least two occasions: one on July 2, 1969 and another on December 2, 1970. 64

Rockefeller and Kissinger served as a conduit of information from Le Cercle to the Nixon administration and undoubtedly to many of their establishment friends. One great example is David Rockefeller handing Kissinger a document of a group calling itself "Sint Unum" that warns of clandestine "communist" infiltration into the Church network - including Latin America - through "progressism", "modernism" and "liberalism". The report asks the U.S. government to finance "traditionalist" media outlets within the Vatican network. Kissinger cautioned Nixon against direct financial contributions to right-wing elements in the church, but at the same wrote that "much of what [the report says] says is probably true." There's no telling what Kissinger instructed the CIA to do covertly, however.

Upon learning that "Sint Unum" actually was Le Cercle, one probably begins to worry to what extent this "communist" infiltration simply was used as an excuse to keep any kind of political wealth distribution programs at bay. Identifying Sint Unum as Le Cercle isn't particularly hard. In Kissinger's National Security Memorandum, Sint Unum is described by one of its founders as a "clandestine Catholic international organization whose aims are to oppose Communism and to further the principles of Christianity". Regular meetings take place around the world, from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Key founders include French prime minister Robert Schumann and German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Jean Violet is described as an "organizer" and "executive officer", with Carlo Pesenti II being the president and principal financier of the group. Alfredo Sanchez Bella and Franz Joseph Strauss are two individuals with close ties to Sint Unum. 65 All of this is completely similar to Le Cercle, a group Rockefeller and Kissinger had just gotten themselves involved with.

As Rockefeller explained in his memoirs, eventually he withdrew from Le Cercle over concerns that he might be "concerting with reactionaries." 66 However, apart from a much more steady stream of U.S. Christian conservatives, it appears the Rockefeller-Kissinger network always kept some kind of representation within the Cercle. If David Rockefeller or a Henry Kissinger wasn't there, you often had one or two persons with a more liberal Eastern Establishment background attending Cercle conferences. Pilgrims Society members Nelson Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Volcker, Robert Knight and Sir Ronald Grierson come to mind over the decades. Adolph Schmidt Mellon, a member of the Pilgrims Society and CIA-tied Mellon family, is known to have attended Cercle meetings in the 1970s. There are a number of other, even more recent examples, such as long-time Kissinger Associates managing director Paul Bremer or long-term Kissinger protege Brent Scowcroft. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan might be another such example. They have all visited Le Cercle, a group with a dark history that no ordinary person has ever heard about.

As discussed extensively in the Pilgrims Society article, David Rockefeller and friends all moonlighted for the CIA and even formed an "above CIA" network due to close personal relationships to successive presidents and CIA directors, by holding the position of national security advisor and other top government positions, and being at the nexus of basically all key NGOs. David Rockefeller actually was briefed by a variety of division chiefs on everything that was going on, so his role in Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the CFR and Le Cercle can all be seen as one large private intelligence operation.

6I: privatizing CIA operations

In the early 1970s the CIA was heavily criticized for its role in the Vietnam War and Watergate. Reporters and investigating committees began looking into the agency and soon plenty of stories emerged about domestic spying, infiltration of the media, subversion of foreign governments, assassinating foreign leaders, and large scale experiments with mind control. Some revelations were highlighted more prominently than others. Additional doubts were cast on the CIA 's role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In the midst of all these reports, measures were taken to reduce the autonomy of the CIA. The ban on domestic spying was re-enforced while Congress and the Senate received far more influence over the appointment of CIA officials and the distribution of the CIA's budget. They requested numerous briefings and decided which clandestine operations were or weren't allowed. The CIA was not allowed anymore to subvert any foreign government or assassinate any leader it felt like. Authorization from Congress became mandatory. Furthermore, it was also largely prohibited from working with questionable characters to gather intelligence or aid in their coups.

Obviously plenty of orders for coups and assassinations came down from presidents and national security advisors, a fact Gerald Ford national security advisor and vice president Nelson Rockefeller did their utmost best to hide. Then again, it is not clear to what extent the CIA goes rogue when its leadership does not agree with a president, as primarily was the case under President Kennedy and President Carter.

These changes to CIA covert operations oversight didn't fall well with many intelligence chiefs and associates like Brian Crozier. They claimed the CIA's (human) intelligence gathering and intervention capabilities were now destroyed almost completely; and even more so after Admiral Stansfield Turner in 1977 began to force half of the CIA's anti-Soviet staff into retirement. Crozier and his Cercle-associates went looking for a solution and came up with the idea to establish a transnational secret intelligence agency of their own. For security reasons this group initially didn't have a name, but within a few months it became known to insiders as "Six Eye", which was shortened to 6I and eventually also became known as "The 61". It's purpose, according to Crozier:

It is often claimed that the privatization of intelligence was the result of increased congressional oversight, which is true to a large degree. However, private intelligence organizations like Le Cercle, Antoine Bonnemaison's Centre, and probably quite a number of other organizations already existed before the CIA oversight crisis began. The Stay Behind networks and the combined Navy-CIA Task Force 157 also had (virtually) no Congressional oversight.

Members of 6I, in existence from 1977 to 1988, came from England, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, the United States, and likely some other countries. It forged links with Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Iran. At least on some occasions, 6I provided intelligence to the Pope. According to Crozier, there only was some "minor overlapping" between the Cercle and 6I. This seems to be a little misleading, as many of the key individuals of Le Cercle were part of 6I, including Brian Crozier, Jean Violet, Georges Albertini, Count Huyn, Hans Christoph Schenk Freiherr von Stauffenberg, and General Stilwell. Others in the know were Cercle members Nicholas Elliot, Robert Moss, William Wilson, General Fraser, and probably quite a number of others. 68 Crozier told us more about the meeting that established 6I in his biography:

"The question was whether something could be done in the private sector - not only in Britain, but in the United States and other countries of the Western Alliance. A few of us had been exchanging views, and decided that action was indeed possible. I took the initiative by convening a very small and very secret meeting in London. We met in the luxurious executive suite of a leading City of London bank on the morning of Sunday 13 February 1977. Our host, a leading figure in the bank, took the chair. Three of us were British, four were American, with one German. Ill health prevented a French associate from attending; Jean Violet was with us in spirit.

"Apart from the banker and myself, the other Briton was Nicholas Elliott. The German was a very active member of the Bundestag, whose career had started in diplomacy. He had a very wide understanding of Soviet strategy, on which he wrote several first rate books.

"The Americans included two able and diligent Congressional staffers, and the Viennese-born representative of a big Belgian company. Also there was the remarkable General Vernon ('Dick') Walters, recently retired as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence..." 69

The first questions many people will ask is which bank Crozier is talking about and who that chairman was. Crozier doesn't give these answers, but there seem to be only a few possibilities. One candidate is Cercle member Sir Peter Tennant of Barclays (one of the more aristocratic banks with historically many members of the Pilgrims Society, the 1001 Club, and the Order of St. John on its board), which would make all three of the British participants leading members of Le Cercle. Tennant's name appears sixty pages further in Crozier's book as one of the chairmen of Cercle sessions, but he gives zero details about the rest of this person's life. However, in 1977 Tennant was a director and industrial advisor to Barclays Bank, which used to be located in the City of London, near the Bank of England. He had been a long time trade representative of the City of London, the small historical financial district in central London.

However, there's another possibility, and maybe a more likely one. At the start of World War II, Tennant was recruited into Special Operations Executive (SOE) by Colonel Sir Charles Hambro, who would become head of the SOE in 1942. Sir Charles Hambro was chairman of Hambros Bank - another very aristocratic bank, represented in the Pilgrims Society and the 1001 Club. He was a very good friend of both Winston Churchill and the Bilderberg and 1001 Club-linked Wallenberg family. Interestingly, Sir Hambro's deputy in the SOE, Henry "Harry" Sporborg, ended up in the small inner circle committee of Crozier's Shield group. According to Crozier, the Shield Committee included he himself, Sir Harry Sporborg, MI6 asset and Lonrho director Nicholas Elliot. They met "in the boardroom of a City bank" 70 in mid 1978. There are some great parallels here with the meeting to establish 6I only a year earlier. Elliot and Crozier were also present at that meeting, which also took place in a City bank. Is it possible that Sir Harry was a "leading figure" in a City bank? It turns out that's actually a very tough question to answer with certainty.

Sir Harry was a long time director of Hambros Bank until about 1973, but certainly remained closely involved with Hambros until at least 1977 by heading one of its subsidiaries. His son Christopher also came to Hambros in 1962 and was a director in the 1970s and beyond. There's been some talk that Sir Harry was a post-WWII MI6 agent. He has also been named a founding trustee of the Sue Ryder Foundation in the 1950s, together with MI6 agent Airey Neave, the earlier discussed anti-communist crusader who, like Shield, was closely involved in bringing Thatcher to power. Hambros, however, is located at Tower Hill, officially just outside the City. And together with lacking details of Sir Harry's involvement with Hambros in 1978, this is what makes identifying the chairman of 6I meeting, and the bank it was held in, impossible at this moment. But maybe it would be more accurate anyway to say that Shield and 6I were founded by veterans of the SOE, MI6 and the CIA.

Most of the other participants that helped establish 6I remain anonymous, although one can speculate about some of the names. The German delegate almost certainly is the aristocratic Cercle member Count Hans Huyn, who is known to have become an important member of 6I. 71 His background fits perfectly and has been discussed earlier. More information about Huyn can be found in the membership list attached to this article.

Not mentioned by Brian Crozier in his biography is that 6I operations, apparently costing about $1 million per year, were paid for by Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch and Sir James Goldsmith. 72 All these men were wealthy neoconservatives with CIA and suspected CIA and Mossad ties. In Scaife's case, CIA ties are a certainty. Even Brian Crozier wrote in his biography how the CIA referred him to Scaife. Rupert Murdoch is said to have been recruited by the CIA's and Le Cercle's Ted Shackley in Australia before building his Anglo-American-Israeli newspaper network. 73 In 1981 Thatcher helped Murdoch buy up 40% of the British press, including The Times, in return for favorable editorials. 74 Then, in January 1983, CIA and possibly Mossad asset Roy Cohn brought Murdoch to the Reagan White House, where a deal was made that Murdoch would build a conservative media empire that would support the fight against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and that would counter the extreme liberal bias of the media. 75 There are also reports of Sir James Goldsmith and Rupert Murdoch together visiting the Reagan White House. One occasion was in 1983 in relation to European opposition to the stationing of nuclear missiles on the continent. Another report dates to the late 1980s when Sir James Goldsmith and Rupert Murdoch were receiving a private intelligence briefing at the office of Kenneth DeGraffenreid, Reagan's senior director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council. 76 In other words, it's entirely possible, if not likely, that Scaife, Murdoch and Goldsmith were financing 6I.

General Vernon Walters: Gladio, 6I, Condor, Safari Club

While not giving the name of every 6I member, fortunately, as can be read above, Crozier did identify General Vernon Walters - a deputy CIA director from 1972 to 1976 and acting CIA director for two months in mid 1976 - as a co-founder and member of 6I. Walters appears to have represented the U.S. intelligence faction that was very upset with the changes in CIA oversight. Walters was a bit of a mystery man. Although one of the most important behind-the-scenes players in the post-WWII world, not a whole lot of research has been done on him.

Like many leading members of Le Cercle and some in the upper echelons of the CIA, Walters was close to Vatican interests. He was educated by the Jesuits at Stonyhurst College in England and later became a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta 77, providing him with instant access to the Vatican at all times. His participation in the notorious American Security Council in the 1975-1976 period and his involvement in setting up 6I in 1978 and close relation to the founding of the Safari Club in 1976 only serve to substantiate reports about Walters' historic ties with CIA-employed drug traffickers, death squad leaders, and coup plotters.

As for his full biography: Walters went to work for Army Intelligence in 1941. Like Henry Kissinger, he became a protege of Fritz Kraemer in the post-war period. 78 In no small part due to his ability to fluently speak English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian and Chinese, Walters became an aide and interpreter to Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and a number of their administration members, including Henry Kissinger.

During the latter part of World War II, after a number of assignments, Walters served "in a variety of training and liaison assignments, many of which would introduce him to young Allied foreign military officers who in later years would become the leaders of their countries." Among them was Colonel Humberto Castelo Branco 79, who in 1964 took power in a CIA-backed coup in Brazil against Joao Goulart, the last left-wing Brazilian president until 2003.

In the early Cold War Walters first served as a military attache in Brazil in 1947-1948 and was present with President Truman and secretary of state George C. Marshall at the 1948 Organization of American States summit in Rio de Janeiro. In the 1948-1954 period Walters regularly served as an aide to Pilgrims Society member Averell Harriman, first in Europe, where Harriman was put in charge of the Marshall Plan; Korea in 1950, during the outbreak of the Korean War; and then in Iran in 1951, where Harriman was trying to mediate between the nationalist Iranian Mossadegh government and the British over the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation. Negotiations broke down and a joint MI6-CIA coup in 1953 deposed of Mossadegh, bringing in the anti-communist Shah. More diplomatic mission with Harriman followed in 1954 to Iran and Yugoslavia. In 1951 Harriman was a co-founder of the Psychological Strategy Board, a CIA operations oversight board that came to involve Nelson Rockefeller.

In 1951 Walters played a role in setting up and running NATO's SHAPE headquarters in Paris on behalf of President Eisenhower, serving here as assistant deputy chief of staff until 1956. In 1958 Eisenhower sent his vice president Richard Nixon on a Latin American speaking tour with Walters as his aide and interpreter. Walters performed a similar role for Eisenhower at various conferences. In 1958-1960 Walters was U.S. military attache in Paris. Subsequently he served as Army attache in Italy in 1960-1962, at a time that he and the CIA were trying trying to prevent the communists and socialists from coming to power. Then, from 1962 to 1967, he was Army attache in Brazil, a period that overlapped with the 1964 military coup of his old friend Colonel Humberto Castelo Branco. Next, from 1967 to 1972, he was back in Paris, this time serving as Defense attache. De Gaulle, despised by the Americans, was in power until 1969. In 1970 De Gaulle's successor, former Rothschild banker Georges Pompidou, appointed the pro-U.S. Count Alexandre de Marenches as the new SDECE chief. De Marenches, like Walters a Knight of Malta, grew very close to the general and eventually co-founded the private security agency the Safari Club in tandem with the CIA and other allied security services. In 1967 Walters was briefly to be found in Vietnam. In 1969 he helped smuggle Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger in and out of France for secret peace negotiations with North Vietnam.

In 1972, and apparently at the recommendation of Henry Kissinger 80, Walters was appointed deputy director of the CIA under Richard Helms, remaining in this position under James Schlesinger, William Colby and George H. W. Bush. From early July to early September 1973, in between Schlesinger and Colby, Walters actually served as acting director of the CIA. Under Helms, Walters appears to have caused the 1972-1973 Watergate scandal by refusing to block the FBI investigation of the Watergate Hotel break-in. 81 Meanwhile, Mark Felt, one of J. Edgar Hoover's key assistants, was leaking details of the Watergate break-in to the Washington Post. To make matters even more curious, the Washington Post was owned by friends of Walters' superior, Richard Helms, and other top CIA men. Post owner Katherine Graham also was a good friend of Helms' boss, Henry Kissinger, who walked away unscathed from the Watergate scandal. "Friends and admirers" have attributed Walters' actions during Watergate to "his superior character and integrity," but questions about his motives have always existed. 82

Also while deputy CIA director - under President Gerald Ford, vice president Nelson Rockefeller and national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger - Walters was one the key founders of Latin America's Condor operation, a continent-wide anti-communist and anti-socialist death squad with CIA backing. In the Summer of 1974 Walters went to Santiago, Chile to confer with newly-installed pro-U.S. dictator Augusto Pinochet. 83 Over the next few years Chilean CIA station chief Stuart Burton and Walters were considered "bosom buddies" of Manuel Contreras 84, the head of Pinochet's security service and deeply involved in the torturing and killing of Chile's communists and socialists. On November 25, 1975 it also was Contreras who invited the military intelligence chiefs of the dictatorial regimes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to Chile to officially set up the Condor Plan. 85 In this period, starting on January 7, 1975 at the very least, Contreras several times visited General Walters in Washington 86, with Walters briefing Kissinger on these meetings. 87 In part these meetings involved the acquiring of weapons from a company headed by controversial CIA officers Frank Terpil and Edwin Wilson. 88 Walters is also known to have visited Paraguay in June 1976 in light of the Condor network. 89 While ordered by Pinochet and Contreras, the FBI suspected Walters of having played a role in the September 21, 1976 car bomb assassination in Washington, D.C. of Chilean refugee Orlando Leletier. Walters certainly hid the fact from the FBI that he had met more than once with Contreras 90, with the CIA conveniently ruling out Pinochet as a suspect 91 and hiding photographs of the two Chilean security agents that carried out the assassination. 92 It speaks for itself that claims exist that Walters was the primary CIA contact for Operation Condor.

With Jimmy Carter's arrival in 1976, Walters left the government and became a back-channel for arms and oil deals. 93 In 1981, with Reagan elected, Walters was brought back to the U.S. government as ambassador-at-large, apparently by secretary of state and fellow-Knight of Malta Alexander Haig 94, who worked under Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration as deputy national security advisor and therefore was familiar with Walters. Walters stayed on under George Shultz, who succeeded Haig in July 1982. During the Reagan years Walters visited 108 countries, meeting "the heads of state in almost every one of them." 95

Walters was sent as a "key back-channel emissary to Zaire, Kenya, Morocco, Ceylon, India, Nepal, Angola, El Salvador, Argentina, Zambia, and other countries." 96 Quite regularly the missions involved rather traditional, if strong-arm, diplomacy, such as the time - March 1982 - that Walters had a "four-hour chat with Fidel Castro". 97 Or that time - November 1982 - that Walters went to the Vatican to stop a number of bishops from speaking out against nuclear weapons. Or that time - 1985 - that Reagan sent Walters to France to ask for access to French airspace for bombing runs on Gaddafi. In between all this, Walters served as a "key participant in sensitive negotiations over Central America, the Falklands, and Southern Africa." 98 Possibly even a February 1984 secret visit to Ethiopia could be seen as somewhat conventional and even humanitarian: Walters went there to retrieve a CIA agent who had been arrested and tortured for spreading anti-communist propaganda in the country. 99

As for more controversial diplomatic missions, among Walters' first assignments for the Reagan administration were visits to a number of murderous Central American regimes in order to organize the fight against the communist and socialist Nicaraguan Contras. In 1981 he twice visited Guatemala, headed by the murderous right-winger General Romeo Lucas Garcia who had seen his financial aid cut off by the Carter administration in 1977. Israel and the Reagan government were all to happy to supply weapons to Lucas Garcia, whose fascist death squads were killing an estimated 300 people per month. Lucas Garcia was reluctant, however, to join the fight against the Contras, necessitating the visits of Walters. 100 In May 1981 Walters met with Honduran colonel (later general) Gustavo Alvarez and other Honduran officials. 101 Alvarez was an important founder of the anti-communist, drug dealing death squad Colonel Gustavo Alvarez, founder of the Battalion 3-16 death squad that was supporting the similarly CIA-backed Contra rebels. In June 1981 Walters was in Buenos Aires, Argentina to convince military dictator Roberto Viola to support the Contra war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. 102 In May 1984 Walters had a "very sensitive" meeting with Contra death squad leader, drug trafficker, CIA and American Security Council favorite and Western Goals Foundation patron Roberto D'Aubuisson and his partner-in-crime Francisco Guirola. Apparently Walters was dispatched to prevent D'Aubuisson from assassinating the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador. 103

In this same early 1980s period, Walters employed long-time neocon CIA asset Michael Ledeen as an aide. Ledeen was working with Italian intelligence, SISMI, and one of its criminal agents, P2 member Francisco Pazienza, in discrediting President Jimmy Carter during the 1980 elections. 104 Subsequently Ledeen played a key role in spreading disinformation that the 1981 assassination attempt led back to the Soviet Union instead of the CIA-linked Turkish Grey Wolves brigade. Cercle visitor Robert Moss was spreading similar disinformation. 105 In 1985-1987, together with Ted Shackley, by that time the key U.S. player in Le Cercle, Ledeen played a key role in setting up the Iran-Contra scheme. 106 Shackley and Ledeen were close friends and in the business of advising European intelligence agencies on terrorism. 107 Since the late 1970s Ledeen has been one of the most notorious neocons around.

Not entirely unsurprising, at one point Walters was described as a person "involved directly or indirectly in the overthrow of more governments than any other official of the US government." 108 Probably one of many that we missed here apparently too place in the Fiji islands in May 1987 when the newly-elected prime minister Timoci Bavadra, who opposed U.S. nuclear testing and the receiving of nuclear-armed American warships to the island, was replaced by a military dictator. Bavadra urged congress to investigate evidence of a U.S. military coup, citing "reports that [General John] Singlaub and [General] Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, were in Fiji before, during and after the coup in the Pacific island country." 109 General Singlaub, an OSS veteran and CIA founder, has a similarly long list of accusations against him of involvement in coups around the world. Immediately before, in 1985 and 1986, Singlaub was accused of running a CIA coup in the nearby Philippines. 110

If this is not enough, South African intelligence named Walters as a key plotter in the JFK assassination. 111 This report is less far-fetched than it might seem. Walters was a military attaché in Rome in the 1960-1962 period where he worked with CIA station chief William K. Harvey in countering the massive communist and socialist influences in this country. Like the rest of the CIA leadership, Walters was not happy with the worldwide soft approach Kennedy took to socialism and nationalism, including the Italian Socialist Party that had recently come to power. 112 The fascist-terrorist Gladio network Walters and Harvey helped to oversee, and from which the P2 Lodge emerged, was crucial in countering the communist and socialist influences in Italy.

Harvey had been banished to Rome by the Kennedys for sending commando teams into Cuba during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This made his protege, Ted Shackley, head of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami, tasked with overthrowing Fidel Castro. Quite a bit of evidence has surfaced to show that Harvey, his protege Ted Shackley, and their pro-Vietnam, anti-Castro CIA gang, which worked closely with leading mafia bosses, were the key plotters of the 1963 JFK assassination. That having been said, while Walters was part of this inside clique, he did not have the statue to order the JFK assassination. He might well have been a role of some sort.

What we can say with relative certainty is that Walters doesn't appear to have been the most moral guy around. In public he claimed to be against mass killings: "I'm against that stuff for three reasons: It's against the law of God, it's against the law of man, and it generally doesn't work." 113 As usual, he had a tendency to pin criticism of America's support for brutal, murderous dictators - with him as one of the key middlemen - on communist propaganda:

"The Communists and their friends see the need to denigrate those who have defeated them, so they spread the word that the Americans were really behind the Brazilian, Chilean, or any other revolutions they don't like. Unfortunately, many guilt-ridden Americans naively believe them." 114

The Safari Club in more detail

General Vernon Walters' involvement in setting up 6I in 1977 alongside Brian Crozier and countless other Cercle members is quite significant. It is one of many indications that Le Cercle too came to serve as an extension of privatized CIA operations. Latin America's Condor network might be seen in the same light, considering it was formally put together in late 1975 and to a large extent made use of informal relationships. Then there was another club in this category that needs discussing: the Safari Club.

The primary founders of the Safari Club in 1976 were General Vernon Walters and Count Alexandre de Marenches. 115 The latter was the head of the French SDECE from 1970 to 1981. He was appointed to this position by Georges Pompidou, due to his friendship with Pompidou's brother-in-law, and tasked with cleaning up Gaullism in the ranks of French intelligence and realigning French intelligence with the United States. At the time of Marenches' appointment, Walters was military attache in France. Both men belonged to the Knights of Malta 116 and became lifelong good friends. 117 When Walters was appointed deputy director the CIA, this relationship was taken to an even higher level.

In 1976 Walters and De Marenches, in light of the severe restrictions on CIA covert operations due to all the congressional investigations, secretly recruited Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the Shah of Iran into an anti-communist alliance named the Safari Club. 118 The Saudis were also recruited, possibly as the most important partners, but also another CIA angle was at work here. While Walters was working with De Marenches, Walters' boss, CIA director George H. W. Bush, through his oil connections, played a key role in bringing the Saudis into the Safari Club. Former CIA director Richard Helms, who by that time had become "ambassador" to Iran, and key Cercle member Ted Shackley played a key role in these Saudi liaisons as well. Frank Carlucci, a future CIA deputy director and best friend of Donald Rumsfeld, would also be brought in. The Saudis played a very important role in bankrolling CIA covert operations and also helped the CIA build bridges to the Pakistani ISI, from which the BCCI network sprang. Key Saudis involved include Saudi intelligence chief Kamal Adham, his successor as Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al Faisal; and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who soon came to be known as "Bandar Bush". 119 Of these men, Prince Turki is known to have visited Le Cercle. He has also been extensively tied to the sponsoring of international terrorist networks, including those apparently in liaison with the CIA and companies as Dick Cheney's KBR Halliburton in Far West, Ltd.

According to Brian Crozier, De Marenches was a major rival within French intelligence of Jean Violet. As a result, De Marenches never visited Le Cercle and never met Jean Violet. 120 Despite that, the two men had many of the same friends and associates, including Cercle visitors Franz-Josef Strauss 121, CIA director William Casey 122, and Baron de Bonvoisin. 123 All of these individuals have been named as members of Opus Dei or the Knights of Malta. Ironically, both men still shared top-level CIA connections: Jean Violet through Cercle visitor Ted Shackley; De Marenches through Walters. It is not known if General Walters ever visited Le Cercle. A degree of overlap has been demonstrated, however, between Le Cercle, 6I and the Safari Club.

Le Cercle, Ted Shackley, and the CIA shadow government

It might be important to point out very clearly that Theodore Shackley, repeatedly mentioned in this article in relation to controversial CIA matters, was the most important "retired" CIA officer involved in Le Cercle from at least the early 1980s until his death in 2002.

Before we go on, readers might be interested in learning who Ted Shackley was. Shackley was a CIA covert operations veteran. He served in Berlin in the mid 1950s, under his mentor Bill Harvey. After that, he moved with Harvey to the JM/WAVE station in Miami, where the two were primarily tasked with undermining Fidel Castro. After the radical Harvey was booted by the Kennedys to the CIA's Rome station (where he briefly worked with General Vernon Walters) for ignoring stand-down orders during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Shackley took over the station. Over the next year CIA officers under Shackley at JM/WAVE could be found everywhere in the background of the JFK assassination.

Shackley served as CIA station chief in Laos from 1966 to 1968, reportedly "disappearing" hundreds of suspected double agents working for the CIA. After that he went to Saigon, where he was situated from late 1968 to February 1972. Throughout the Vietnam War period he and William Colby, the CIA's Far East division chief and another protege of Richard Helms, were primary CIA officers in charge of the Phoenix Project death squads and the shipping out of Golden Triangle opium, the proceeds to be laundered in Australian banks. The pipeline, largely ran through Air America, continued after the Vietnam War, leading to scandals as Nugan Hand and BBRDW. A CIA associate of Shackley in the Golden Triangle opium trade, Daniel Arnold, continued to get involved in similar scandals in later decades. Arnold's name is important to remember for this chapter.

In 1972 Shackley came back to the United States, serving as the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division chief from 1972 to May 1976, overseeing CIA operations in the Americas. In 1973 this position resulted in Shackley's involvement in the infamous overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, as well the Latin America's Condor death squad network. As we just discussed in relation to 6I and Safari Club co-founder General Vernon Walters, the deputy CIA director in the mid 1970s, military dictators, security services, escaped Nazis and the emerging drug cartels all were part of this "anti-communist" network. Apart from the CIA, the Mossad would grow increasingly important in this Latin American network, with Shackley coincidentally quietly having taking over the "Israeli desk" from James Angleton and being close friends with emerging neocons. 124

In 1972 one of Shackley's long-time proteges in Berlin, Miami, Laos and Vietnam, Harold Chipman, became station chief (or "station chief") of San Francisco and got himself involved with the remote viewing clique at Bechtel and friends-dominated SRI. The CIA, at that point under the leadership of CIA director Richard Helms and Science Directorate chief Sidney Gottlieb, approved of the project. However, strangely, one wonders if this remote viewing project ever even involved any serious attempts at remote viewing, because the only thing the individuals at SRI have been doing over subsequent decades is spread conspiracy, new age and UFO disinformation, together with individuals from overlapping institutes as the Esalen Institute, Round Table Foundation and Institute for the Study of Consciousness. The latter, in turn, is closely tied to Lee Harvey Oswald.

When in early 1973 the CIA began to fall under intense scrutiny over Watergate, domestic spying, Mockingbird, MKULTRA and the JFK assassination, Shackley was the first to initiate a damage control program for the CIA in light of inquisitive senators as Franck Church. Together with Richard Helms and William Colby, he enlisted the help of Senator Henry Jackson in this effort. 125 At the time, Jackson had just set up a Zionist fifth-column in his office by hiring future neocon propagandists as Richard Perle, Edward Luttwak (earlier Perle's roommate at the London School of Economics), Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith and Frank Gaffney. Meanwhile, Shackley would become good friends and a business partner of Michael Ledeen, who in turn came to play an important role in the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) with Senator Jackson and famous neocons as Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and CIA director James Woolsey.

In May 1976 CIA director George H. W. Bush, a close friend, promoted Shackley to CIA deputy director of operations. At the time Gerald Ford was president, Nelson Rockefeller was vice president, close Rockefeller friend Henry Kissinger was secretary of state, and Brent Scowcroft had just succeeded his mentor, Henry Kissinger, as national security advisor and therefore head of the secretive 40 Committee that oversaw global CIA operations.

It is somewhere in this period that Ted Shackley introduced P2 Lodge founder Licio Gelli - at the center of Italy's fascist terrorist Strategy of Tension campaign - to Kissinger's assistant, Alexander Haig. 126 As discussed in the previous chapter, it was in this same period, in 1976, that Bush, Shackley and Helms set up the Safari Club network with the Saudis and other regimes to circumvent congressional oversight of the CIA.

Unfortunately for Ted Shackley and a number of other high level CIA officers, Jimmy Carter came into office in 1977. His CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, was an old friend of his and followed Carter's policy of human rights and non-intervention. In light of the countless congressional investigations into CIA-sponsored coups as in Chile, Ted Shackley was removed as covert operations chief by December 1977 and put on non-active. In 1979 he was fired. His friend Michael Ledeen would soon write a scathing hit piece on Carter and Turner for having done so, but Shackley's career within the CIA died under the Carter administration.

As soon as Shackley was ousted from the CIA, he founded the Research Associates International, a "consulting firm" with a particular focus on oil trade. According to author Joseph Trento, "In the early 1980s, George Bush helped Shackley get established in Kuwait and in the oil business as a consultant" and used his various companies "as a cover for his work for Bush." 127 Throughout the 1980s, of course, George H. W. Bush was Reagan's vice president, with a lot of accusations existing today that he continued to run CIA operations, most notably involving drug trafficking, such as the Contra-tied Black Eagle operation. In fact, according to Trento, Bush's oil business was already used by Helms and Shackley in the 1960s to help the CIA infiltrate Mexico's state oil company PEMEX and the Mexican president's office since the 1960s. 128 That might also explain Bush's minor but curious tie to the 1963 JFK assassination, an event closely tied to Shackley's JM/WAVE group.

In any case, in the 1980s Ted Shackley, despite being out of the CIA, remained close friends with vice president George H. W. Bush, who helped him get started in the oil business. It is here that we pick up the trail of Le Cercle again. Although a good number of lists are still missing, Shackley is known to have visited Le Cercle in 1983, 1987 and 1990. In addition, in 2010 this author stumbled across a certain Atlantic Cercle, Inc.. Founded in 1994, this Atlantic Cercle, Inc. was registered at Shackley's Miami estate. Julian Amery, MI6 asset and Cercle president from 1985 until the early 1990s, was listed as one of the key officers of Atlantic Cercle, immediately making it clear we were dealing with Le Cercle. Quite possibly Atlantic Cercle, Inc. has been the only official incorporation of Le Cercle ever - and coincidentally right at the home of the most notorious CIA officer in history.

As for the other officers of this curious outfit, Thomas Spencer was listed as the secretary-treasurer of the Atlantic Cercle. In 1988 he served as the attorney of General John Singlaub when Singlaub, alongside Ted Shackley, General John Poindexter, General Richard Secord and Colonel Oliver North were accused by the Christic Institute of cooperating with Columbian drug cartels in the Contra affair. 129 Singlaub has been mentioned before in this article. He is a co-founder of the CIA and Western Goals Foundation and a former chair or co-chair of the Pentagon's Special Operations Policy Advisory Group (SOPAG), the American Security Council, the World Anti-Communist League and the OSS Society - all groups filled with members notorious for activities involving death squads, drugs, terrorism, coups and pedophile entrapment. In 1994 Spencer served as the attorney to General Richard Secord, equally notorious for ties to CIA drug trafficking and Iran-Contra. 130 Later on, Spencer served as a director Association of Former Intelligence Officers, a group dominated by the top of the CIA - including Shackley - and special operations community; and was the founding president Ted Shackley Chapter of the AFIO in Florida. Spencer showing up as a director of Atlantic Cercle, Inc. alongside Shackley shouldn't come as too much of a surprise at this point. He also served on the board of the American Security Council Foundation. In 2000 and 2004 Spencer served as legal counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. He also served as co-counsel during the controversial Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida recount and as chief attorney to the Jeb Bush/Frank Brogan 2002 campaign and as a member of its Finance Committee. 131 Spencer clearly represents everything Bush and CIA in Florida.

Richard T. McCormack, another co-founder of Atlantic Cercle, Inc., has been a decades-long advisor to the U.S. government on international economic and business affairs, mainly during the Nixon, Reagan and Bush, Sr. administrations. Like Shackley and Spencer, McCormack is rather close to the Bush family. Certainly in 2004 and 2005 he served as "principal partner" of Africa Petroleum, Inc., an obscure oil firm with a small board consisting of Cercle visitor Samuel Hoskinson, a former CIA analyst and aide to Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski at the National Security Council and George Shultz at Bechtel 132; Charles E. Waterman of Jefferson Waterman International; CIA veteran Daniel Arnold, once accused of CIA drug trafficking from the Golden Triangle with Ted Shackley, with similar accusations continuing to pile up against him; and Paul Bristol, executive chairman of another obscure outfit called the "International Oil Club in London" 133 - which might well be the same London-based "Oil Club" headed by Cercle chairman Lord Norman Lamont.

Hoskinson, Waterman and Arnold also all serve on the board of Jefferson Waterman International 134, a consulting and lobbying firm with international clients that Hoskinson and Waterman in particular founded, together with "a few friends", back in 1994. 135 JWI has all the hallmarks of being a first-rate CIA front firm involved in coups, CIA drug trafficking and, because of the presence of Enrique "Ricky" Prado and Larry Sanchez, even the 9/11 World Trade Center demolition. Because of that, JWI has already been discussed by ISGP in The Supranational Suspects Behind 9/11 article.

CIA directors William Colby and William Casey are known to have visited Le Cercle on one or more occasions. There's no evidence, however, that they ever belonged to the core group. If we search for other key CIA visitors of Le Cercle, we find that Donald "Jamie" Jameson, a retired Soviet expert of the CIA, actually visited Le Cercle much more frequently than Shackley. As far as we know, Jameson visited at least once a year from at least 1980 to at least 1990, during which time he served as vice president of Ted Shackley's Research Associates International 136, the main firm founded by Ted Shackley after he was forced out of the CIA by the Carter administration in 1979. 137 Apart from Shackley's wife, Shackley and Jameson were the only relevant officers in the firm. In fact, whenever Jameson or Shackley would visit Le Cercle, they were listed as representatives of Research Associates International. 138

Jameson has quite an interesting history apart from being a Soviet expert within the CIA. Early in his career, related to claims that American POWs from the Korean War were taken to Siberia for brainwashing experiments, he crossed paths with Colonel Philip Corso 139, who in the late 1990s became a major disinformer on the non-existent Roswell UFO crash. Corso was backed in this effort by the old CIA-SRI remote viewing clique, a project Jameson apparently supported at the time. 140 Unfortunately, this remote viewing clique has produced little more than conspiracy disinformation over the decades. Around the same time Jameson left the CIA and became a business associate of Ted Shackley, he became involved with one of Crozier's research projects and started visiting Le Cercle. Clearly Research Associates International of Shackley and Jameson served as a key U.S. and private CIA branch of Le Cercle before Atlantic Cercle, Inc. was officially incorporated by Shackley in 1994. In addition, in 1984 Jameson was a co-founder of the Jameson Foundation, a private group dedicated to working with Soviet Bloc intelligence defectors. Retired CIA directors William Casey and James Woolsey, Alexander Haig, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Donald Rumsfeld, Frank Carlucci's wife, Senator John McCain, Richard V. Allen, Midge Decter have all been involved in it over the years.

Apart from Donald Jameson and to a lesser extent Ted Shackley, there really weren't any steady CIA representatives to Le Cercle. In 1985 CIA veteran James Critchfield visited a Cercle meeting in Washington, D.C. Critchfield helped set up the pro-Nazi Gehlen Org in Germany post-World War II and helped bring Saddam Hussein to power in Iraq in the 1970s. 141 He was an associate of the Ted Shackley in the Omanian oil business, but the two apparently weren't the best of friends. 142

As has largely already been discussed at this point, Shackley has an even more controversial resume than Critchfield. This author really began to pay close attention to Ted Shackley after running into his Atlantic Cercle, Inc. tie in 2010. It soon turned out that Shackley:

• maintained ties with Otto von Habsburg's ultraconservative SMOM/Opus Dei clique through Le Cercle since at least the early 1980s;


• was considered a prime suspect by HSCA investigators of having run Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination, along with several close associates - an accusation ISGP fully agrees with;


• was directly connected to the P2 Lodge and the Italian Strategy of Tension, even apart from his Cercle involvement;


• has been repeatedly named in global CIA drug trafficking operations;


• has been named, along with close associates, of running a private assassination network, from Executive Action in the 1960s to "the Fish Farm" in the 1980s;


• used to serve as an unofficial CIA liaison with the Israelis 143, cooperated with Sen. Henry Jackson, who was operating a Zionist 5th column in his office, in covering CIA crimes 144; shared the neocon "admiration of Israel" 145;


• is said to have recruited the Australian Zionist Rupert Murdoch 146, who went on to finance the private 6I intelligence operation and in coordination with the Reagan administration build up the Fox News network 147, basically today's only significant conservative news channel;


• largely set up the Iran-Contra deal with his friend Michael Ledeen 148, an arch neocon tied to the P2 and CIA;


• had a key protege, Harold Chipman, who was named as having co-financed the CIA-SRI's remote viewing and related programs (with ties to the Israelis through Uri Geller), which appear to be part of a very long-term conspiracy and spiritual disinformation program against the masses;


• was close friends with key persons suspected in allowing the 9/11 attacks to happen and bringing the towers down: George H. W. Bush (president's father; Carlyle, with its ties to Saudis as the Bin Ladens), Frank Carlucci (best friend of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Carlyle) and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal (Osama mentor; resigned just before 9/11; linked to numerous terrorist groups).

This author already suspected the involvement of Ted Shackley in Le Cercle well before his name surfaced, in no small part because Conrad Gerber, one of Shackley's oil business friends, was involved in Le Cercle. Gerber's Petro-Logistics did whatever it could to penetrate the Arab-led OPEC oil cartel.

More recently, in 2012, Richard Armitage gave a speech to Le Cercle. Armitage held top positions in the Defense Department during the Reagan and Bush years. He has a history that includes CIA drug trafficking from the Golden Triangle by the Shackley group during the Vietnam War - and also beyond, because his name surfaced alongside George H. W. Bush, CIA director William Casey and Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1983 BBRDW affair in Hawaii. As quite a few other individuals in the Cercle, Armitage went in the oil business. In his case, he became a director of ConocoPhilips in 2006.

Oil business ties regularly surface in Le Cercle: James Critchfield, Conrad Gerber and possibly Richard Armitage are only some of the examples. Participants in Le Cercle have also included intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal of Saudi Arabia, an old Safari Club associate of Shackley; King Hussein of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman, all from oil rich countries. Cercle member Sir Erik Bennett served as an advisor to the latter two rulers. In 1970, together with Timothy Landon, another Cercle participant, he replaced Oman's Sultan Said bin Taimour with his son, Cercle participant Sultan Qaboos, to guarantee access to the country's oil and to more effectively combat communist insurgencies. By 1988 Shackley was said to "have a working relationship" with Landon 149, which makes sense considering Landon appeared at Cercle meetings no later than 1990, together with Bennett. Similar to Shackley, Landon's business largely consisted of oil and weapons.

Moving forward about two decades later, long-time Cercle chairman Lord Norman Lamont was chairman of the seemingly non-existent "Oil Club". This might be the same group as the similarly non-existent London-based "International Oil Club" headed since 2003 by Paul Bristol, who shared the board of Africa Petroleum with two Cercle visitors.

In any case, it appears that since about 1980 Ted Shackley, forcibly retired by the Carter administration in 1979, was overseeing Le Cercle from the American side on behalf of the CIA and the Reagan-Bush government. Tellingly, Shackley was one of keeper of all the CIA's dirty Cold War secrets

Inside perspective on the CIA shadow government

In the previous chapters ISGP in depth discussed the lives of CIA veterans General Vernon Walters and Ted Shackley. Walters was involved in the founding of the Safari Club in 1976 and 6I in 1977; Shackley was similarly involved in the founding of the Safari Club and in addition in overseeing Le Cercle since the early 1980s. It is not known at this point if Walters ever visited Le Cercle. What we do know about Walters and Shackley is that they plotted much of the CIA's and even State Department's dirty business during the Cold War: drugs, weapons, oil, coups, gladio terrorism, death squads, and even ties to conspiracy disinformation networks and projects like MKULTRA.

In the late 1980s Iran-Contra whistleblower Gene Wheaton - who most likely never heard of Le Cercle, the Safari Club, or 6I at that point - helped expose what Ted Shackley and CIA friends as Frank Carlucci, General Vernon Walters and George H. W. Bush had been up to since the late 1970s - the same time period that so many Agency operations were privatized through the afore-mentioned groups. This was the same period, of course, that (the curiously Rockefeller-backed) Jimmy Carter shoved these people aside in favor of a less militant foreign policy.

Wheaton was a former police officer, military criminal investigator, and security contractor. He also used to be a counter-terrorism consultant for the Rockwell Corporation, the Saudi royal family, and the Shah of Iran, among other things. All this was before he was brought into the "inner circle", which turned out to consist of people he didn't want anything to do with. In 2002 Wheaton recalled:

"In the late 70s, in fact, after Gerry Ford lost the election in ’76 to Jimmy Carter, and then these guys became exposed by [outsider CIA director and old Carter friend] Stansfield Turner and crowd for whatever reason ... there were different factions involved in all this stuff, and power plays ... Ted Shackley and Vernon Walters and Frank Carlucci and Ving West and a group of these guys used to have park-bench meetings in the late 70s in McClean, Virginia so nobody could overhear their conversations. They basically said, "With our expertise at placing dictators in power," I’m almost quoting verbatim one of their comments, "why don’t we treat the United States like the world’s biggest banana republic and take it over?" And the first thing they had to do was to get their man in the White House, and that was [1976 CIA director] George Bush.

"Reagan never really was the president. He was the front man. They selected a guy that had charisma, who was popular, and just a good old boy, but they got George Bush in there to actually run the White House. They'd let Ronald Reagan and Nancy out of the closet and let them make a speech and run them up the flagpole and salute them and put them back in the closet while these spooks ran the White House. They made sure that George Bush was the chairman of each of the critical committees involving these covert operations things. One of them was the Vice President's Task Force On Combating Terrorism. They got Bush in as the head of the vice president's task force on narcotics, the South Florida Task Force, so that they could place people in DEA and in the Pentagon and in customs to run interference for them in these large-scale international narcotics and movement of narcotics money cases. They got Bush in as the chairman of the committee to deregulate the Savings and Loans in '83 so they could deregulate [and] steal $400-$500 billion of what amounted to the taxpayers' money out of these Savings and Loans and then bail them out. ...

This crowd really believes that the unwashed masses are ignorant, that we are people who are not capable of governing ourselves, that we need this elitist group to control the country, and the world -- these guys have expanded. They look at the United States not as a country, not in any kind of patriotic mode now, but they look on it as a state within a world that they control. And that's this attitude that they have. They're not unlike any other megalomaniac in the world. They're nutty as fruitcake, but they've got distinguished gray hair, three-piece dark suits and they carry briefcases, and they'll stand up and make speeches just as articulate as anybody in the world, but they don't socialize and function outside their own little clique. My experience with them is that they could be certified as criminally insane and put away in a rubber room and have the key thrown away. That's how dangerous they are. But they're powerful, and they're educated. And that makes them twice as dangerous. And that's basically what's running the world right now. ...

"The American people will not believe it. Because you can't get the average citizen... It turns them off, because it changes their entire life experience, and the reason that they have existed, and the things they have believed in all their life if you tell them this. ...

"The only way I can think of to get this thing exposed, would be to coordinate with all of the different independent small newspapers and radio stations in the United States - and television networks - and get them to start blasting this thing - and some universities - because the major media's not going to do anything about it." 150

Powerful words - and all of it sounds incredibly familiar looking at what we now know about individuals as Ted Shackley, George H. W. Bush, General Vernon Walters and Frank Carlucci. One thing that that certainly is clear is that they regarded Jimmy Carter's policies as highly problematic, similar to the pro-nationalist and socialist policies of John F. Kennedy before him. There's every indication they did something about Kennedy. Looking at the Reagan election campaign and Reagan's vice president, it also looks as if they actively plotted to get a favorite candidate of theirs into office.

To this CIA clique plotting to get Reagan in we can also add OSS veteran, Reagan CIA director and Cercle visitor William Casey, as well as Casey's initial special assistant and then first deputy director of covert operations, Max Hugel. Casey served as Reagan's campaign manager, with Hugel being a prominent campaign staffer. 151 Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hugel was known as an important Moonie Cult business partner. 152 This bizarre anti-communist Moonie Cult was a favorite in ultraright CIA and Pentagon corners.

Casey came to play a lead role in overseeing the Contra arms-versus-cocaine line after congress refused to financially support the Contras. Allegedly called Black Eagle, Casey was involved in this operation with vice president George H. W. Bush, Bush's national security advisor Donald Gregg, and their immediate subordinate in Latin America: Felix Rodriguez. Gregg and Rodriguez were other CIA veterans of the notorious Ted Shackley group, both in Miami and Vietnam. In addition, the CIA under Casey was running an arms-versus-heroin pipeline from Afghanistan, much of the funds laundered through the BCCI, earlier discussed as a bank with ties to the Cercle leadership in the form of Julian Amery, as well as the Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal, and the elite 1001 Club, home to the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Bechtels and the royals of Europe. In fact, sometime Cercle visitor William Casey used to have years-long secret hotel meetings with BCCI founder, Pakistani ISI asset and 1001 Club member Aga Hasan Abedi. 153

Casey and Hugel may have been considered CIA "outsiders", but Casey was a long-standing OSS veteran said to have been close to CIA director Allen Dulles. That appears likely, considering Casey's position as a long-time Cap Cities partner. Just about every other partner of Cap Cities was a Pilgrims Society member, among them Thomas Dewey, one of the long-standing friends of Allen Dulles, a Pilgrims Society executive. In yet another CIA-linked controversy of the 1980s, after Cap Cities took over ABC news in 1985, right after a dispute with Casey's CIA, suspicions of CIA involvement and mafia ties arose in a variety of media publications. All this is discussed in ISGP's Pilgrims Society article, where the CIA's relationship to the Rockefeller establishment is also extensively detailed. All of them together basically form a CIA-ridden shadow government with at least one relatively liberal, globalist wing and one ultraconservative wing, not entirely dissimilar to the words of Gene Wheaton above.

Crozier's 1980s U.S. relations

When Brian Crozier, president of Le Cercle from 1980 to 1985 and a chairman of meetings, visited CIA headquarters and the White House over the years, he met with some of the individuals that were part of the "rogue" group described above by Gene Wheaton.

In the Carter administration, of which Crozier obviously was extremely critical, he was received by the hawkish national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and the even more hawkish secretary of defense James Schlesinger. In the Reagan administration he met with General Vernon Walters, Robert McFarlane, Richard Pipes, Richard V. Allen, Kenneth deGraffenreid, CIA director William Casey, and Colonel Oliver North. He regularly met with Cercle visitor Sven Kraemer, the son of Fritz Kraemer, and really liked Admiral John Poindexter, who recently became notorious for heading DARPA's Total Information Awareness Office. 154 Furthermore, Crozier worked with Donald Jameson 155, whom we earlier discussed as the most frequent Cercle visitor alongside his business partner Ted Shackley. Crozier also counted Cercle visitors General Richard Stilwell and Richard Perle among his personal friends. 156

Similar to Ted Shackley, Oliver North and Richard Stilwell have been named as insiders to the CIA drug trade to fund covert operations. Crozier's Cercle associates William Colby and William Casey were others. During the time Crozier visited these Reagan officials (except Colby), Stilwell was part of General John Singlaub's secretive Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group (SOPAG), a Pentagon group that included among its 11 members Air Force generals Richard Secord and Leroy Manor 157, both also named as insiders to the CIA drug trade. 158 Stilwell's group had full access to top secret documents and quietly advised secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger (Bechtel; Pilgrims) and assistant secretary of defense Richard Armitage, yet another person earlier described as a CIA drug trafficking insider 159, and yet another Cercle visitor, at least later on. SOPAG was the Pentagon's top group in worldwide counterinsurgency and special operations.

Blaming the KGB

In his biography Crozier was "sorry to say" that Colonel Oliver North did not take him into his confidence about the Iran Contra scheme. 160 Of course, similar to much of the mainstream media, Crozier only refers to the hostage for arms trade aspects of the affair. The many accusations and facts that the Contras were paying for their weapons with U.S.-bound planes loaded with cocaine, he conveniently left out. One is left to wonder if Crozier really was this naive, judging by an almost hilarious article he wrote in January of 1990:

"Estevez revealed that Cuba had built up a multi-million-dollar drug trafficking network, with thousands of agents in the United States. He said Fidel Castro was personally involved in drug trafficking, with the aim of promoting violent crime, addiction and corruption in North America, while simultaneously financing terrorism in Latin America: a perfect definition of "narco-terrorism''... Escobar was living in Cuba with the full assistance of Fidel Castro. Another fugitive, the American financier Robert Vesco [1001 Club member with the Rockefellers, Bechtels and Rothschilds], was believed to be Escobar's number two... On February 10, 1988, Blandon [Medellin cartel baron] testified before a Senate sub-committee that Castro and Noriega were working together to promote "drug-financed guerrilla movements throughout Latin America''..." 161

What Crozier did here, right after the Iran Contra investigations, is to take the largely unreported accusations against his US associates and blame them solely on communist Cuba. There's evidence that Crozier's accusations are true, but why is he not talking about similar accusations against his friends of the CIA? In fact, in the court papers Crozier is using to blame Castro, there also are plenty of testimonies about Noriega being CIA during the 1970s and 1980s, and that he had several meetings with George Bush, Cercle visitor William Casey, and other CIA directors, as well as DIA director who asked him to allow drugs through. 162 Noriega, a product of the School of the Americas, actually was the middle-man between Escobar's Medellin Cartel and the CIA. Later affidavits from people involved in these operations tell the same story, with quite a few of them having to pay with their lives for their having come forward.

There's a pattern here with Brian Crozier. In his biography Free Agent he claims that the people who exposed his Forum World Services, 6I, and his Cercle were mostly manipulated and/or working for the KGB. He also presents information in such a way that will lead one to conclude that people like Mohammed Mossadeq and Harold Wilson were KGB pawns, and that Pope John Paul I & II were both targeted by the KGB for assassination (didn't we just discuss this?). In other words, the KGB is behind everything. Crozier even repeated a 1978 claim by Time Magazine that the most effective KGB propaganda was that of discrediting the CIA. 163 Another quite hilarious claim is that the term "neo-colonialism" was invented by the Soviets. Many of the accusations in his book are based on statements from anonymous intelligence officers. At times, although he usually focuses on his own experiences, he has used or referred to such reliable sources as the CIA-sponsored Encounter magazine, the CIA-sponsored Reader's Digest, his own CIA-sponsored Institute for the Study of Conflict think tank, the CIA-sponsored journalist Claire Sterling, or to CIA covert operations officer and Zionist extremist Michael Ledeen. This last person, by the way, was stationed in Rome at the time of the assassination attempt(s) on two popes, the Gladio bombings (fascist terrorism blamed on the communists), and the eventual discovery of the P2 Lodge. Ledeen, Stirling and other CIA associates have been accused on more than one occasion of spreading disinformation on these subjects.

It's important to consider that Crozier perfectly fits the profile of a person like Colin Wallace, the British intelligence agent who was handed all kinds of forged material to be put in circulation. 164 Earlier we discussed General Vernon Walters, former deputy director the CIA, making the exact same claim of communist propaganda:

"The Communists and their friends see the need to denigrate those who have defeated them, so they spread the word that the Americans were really behind the Brazilian, Chilean, or any other revolutions they don't like. Unfortunately, many guilt-ridden Americans naively believe them." 165

The "guilt-ridden Americans" part makes it quite clear that Walters essentially was doing little more than trolling. In his biography The Craft of Intelligence, former CIA director Allen Dulles wrote:

"The charge was spread abroad that the Agency secretly supported OAS generals' plot against de Gaulle. This particular myth was a communist plant, pure and simple. One of the first to launch it, on April 23, 1961, was a leftist Italian newspaper, Il Paese (The Country), used from time to time as a trial balloon for Communist propaganda." 166

Isn't Il Paese the same newspaper that a few years later in-depth exposed the CIA ties to Permindex and Centro Mondiale Commerciale and the financing of OAS terrorism? These charges turned out to be very accurate. And they also led back to the JFK assassination, which can be put at the feet of the CIA.

More recently, a Belgian Cercle-associate of Crozier and Jean Violet, the notorious Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, was caught forging KGB documents that were meant to prove a vast left wing conspiracy against this person. 167

To be realistic, what do we really expect from these people? Blaming all their sins on communist propaganda is basically the only card they can play. Also, seeing how Crozier's good friend, Richard Perle, a frequent Cercle participant throughout the Reagan years, was promoting a new war on Saddam Hussein after 9/11 based on completely made up evidence, tells one how much credibility individuals from this CIA-Cercle network have. It's hard to get an honest word out of their mouths.

Blaming the Rockefellers and the role of "liberal CIA"

In his biography Brian Crozier wrote something very interesting:

"[Reagan] also got to know Nelson Rockefeller when the latter was Governor of New York State, and shared my view that Nelson was more intelligent than his banker brother, David. He was critical of the role of David Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank in easing technology transfers to the Soviet Union. Reagan also mentioned , with mild distaste, the role of the Trilateral Commission (in which David Rockefeller, Brzezinski and, incidentally, Edward Heath and Willy Brandt were involved) in sponsoring Jimmy Carter as a potential presidential candidate." 168

If we trace this back in time, we find that in August 1978 computer expert Dominic Paul Baron prepared a report for the London-based Foreign Affairs Research Institute, ran by Brian Crozier, Julian Amery, and other Cercle members and which also counted the involvement over the years of CIA director William Casey, CIA covert operations expert Ray Cline, DIA director and deputy CIA director General Daniel Graham, and Richard Mellon Scaife:

"The United States, moreover, has been far too eager to supply the Soviet Union with sophisticated computer technology and training, Baron believes. "Computer companies in the West fall over each other in their enthusiasm to compete for the favors of the Soviet buying agencies,", writes Baron. "The western businessman's sheer naivete in dealing with the astute Soviet negotiators is quite depressing." 169

It's fascinating to try and figure out how things work at the highest level. During the early Cold War, the Rockefellers were one with the CIA. They were best friends and close business associates of early CIA directors as General Walter Bedell Smith, Allen Dulles, Dulles protege John McCone and Richard Helms. CIA coups always coincided with big business interests as United Fruit, Standard Oil, or Freeport Minerals. David Rockefeller directly moonlighted for the CIA, was briefed by Allen Dulles' division chiefs, and helped push the Vietnam War with his Eastern Establishment friends through the 1965 Committee for an Effective and Durable Peace in Asia (CEDPA), soon after John F. Kennedy was out of the way.

However, in 1963 former aides to Rockefeller and Ford Foundation men John McCone and McGeorge Bundy founded the "new left" Institute for Policy Studies that to this day is serving as the consciousness of the American people. Over the line it is anti-war, anti-imperialism, anti-establishment and anti-CIA. A giant "new left" network of media and activist groups has been formed since then, all of it financed by multi-mullions coming from foundations as Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Open Society (Soros), Hewlett, Packard, MacArthur and countless others. Today The Nation, the Huffington Post, Mother Jones, The Progressive, The American Prospect, AlterNet, Democracy Now! and other outlets all are taking money from these foundations.

This existence and financing of this entire network absolutely makes no sense unless it serves as controlled opposition. Unsurprisingly, whenever key conspiracies as the JFK assassination or 9/11 are discussed, the facts are either harshly denounced or spun in very sophisticated ways, with disinformative conspiracy gurus not seldom emerging from this "new left" "liberal CIA" network. One tiny example would be "the dean of 9/11 Truth", David Ray Griffin, who came from the Laurance Rockefeller, Paul Mellon and Ford Foundation-linked Esalen Institute and has other ties to the Rockefellers. Is it any wonder that Griffin has been a promoter of Pentagon-no-plane theories? Another example would be John Mack, who got to know Laurance Rockefeller through the Esalen Institute and subsequently became world famous for his super-disinformative alien abduction "research". We can go on and on. Even Lee Harvey Oswald was linked to these networks.

Then, of course, there's the fact that indeed Jimmy Carter was picked up by the Trilateral Commission before he became a presidential candidate. He essentially was groomed by men as David Rockefeller and a surprisingly hawkish Zbigniew Brzezinski. Needless to say "the right", especially the John Birch Society, had a lot to complain about that, to the point the Washington Post occasionally felt the need to slander anyone who brought up this connection. 170 Within conspiracy circles, Antony Sutton and his 1986 book The Best Enemy Money Can Buy is probably the best known and really points a worrying picture of the Soviets only being able to compete with the West due to western mechanical technology making its way to Russia, with the approval of the State Department. It must be said though that Sutton too essentially was a John Bircher. After all, he served as a Hoover Institution fellow 1968 to 1973. Why is that? Why are there never never any outside whistleblowers? And why is there never any middle ground?

As for the Russian connection, David Rockefeller was involved with the secretive annual U.S.-Soviet Darthmouth conferences from 1962 to 1988, parallel to his top-level involvement in similarly secretive groups as Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg and the Americas Society. Throughout this period, Rockefeller, Rhodes scholar Walt Rostow and nuclear scientist Paul Doty were the most important visitors from the U.S. side. Kissinger protege Harold H. Saunders was involved from 1981 to 2010 and Zbigniew Brzezinski showed up in the 1972-1976 period, before joining the Carter administration. At these annual conferences these men would mingle with top KGB officers and Soviet political scientists.

On top of this, David Rockefeller and George Shultz were involved in the low-profile U.S.-USSR Trade and Economic Council, founded in 1973. The commission did as its name suggests: promote trade between two extremely hostile countries. Fellow Pilgrims Society members William Hewitt and Michael Forrestal, the son of the late defense secretary, were involved. and so was David Packard, who sat on the committee on science and technology. Today's multi-billion Packard Foundation is an important cog in the "liberal CIA" network.

In other words, criticism of the John Birch Society and Brian Crozier, as fascist as they are, have not necessarily been unreasonable. The main problem is that you're dealing with secrecy, manipulation and extreme positions. One could argue that David Rockefeller and allies were trying to get the Soviet Union (and China) to gradually open up through trade and internal diplomacy, but we can't really be sure because these networks have never been properly studied. At the same time it is very clear that David Rockefeller and allies are running a "liberal CIA" "new left" network, with the conservatives as Brian Crozier allied to the neocons and to this day apparently running the "alt right" network as controlled opposition.

The situation here is very confusion. It's a fact that there are missing puzzle pieces, otherwise we would have genuine investigations in matters as the JFK assassination and 9/11. Or we would have a serious debate about the problems with Third World immigration, which both the liberal elite and the anti-establishment "new left" is hugely supportive of.

The "Neocon Club" and Israelis joining Le Cercle

Among the more serious personal surprises was to see Richard Perle, the 1st assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs from 1981 to 1987, repeatedly show up on 1980s membership lists of Le Cercle, in addition to Pat Balestreri, who alternately was described as "Department of Defense, International Affairs" and "Assistant to Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense." Balestreri is known to have visited Le Cercle in 1982, 1983 and 1984, with Perle himself visiting in 1985, 1987 and 1989.

As we know from documents unearthed (but unpublished) by Johannes Grossmann, things didn't end there. In the early 1990s Paul Wolfowitz, Perle's long-time ally, visited Le Cercle. At that point Wolfowitz served as undersecretary of defense for policy, an advisory role to secretary of defense Dick Cheney.

In 1996 Israeli prime ministers Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu attended a Cercle meeting. At one point Dan Meridor, one of Israel's long-time politicians and president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations since 2014, visited Le Cercle. Not unimportant, Meridor's younger brother, Sallai, served as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization and was appointed Israeli ambassador to the United States. Natan Sharansky, executive chairman of the Jewish Agency since June 2009 and a patron of the elite neocon group the Henry Jackson Society, has given a speech to Le Cercle. So has Yegor Gaidar, one of the key figures in handing over Soviet state assets to a group of criminal, largely Mossad and Jewish-Russian mafia-allied oligarchs as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven. The Jewish community in Soviet Russia has been a source of intelligence to the CIA for decades, a network that ran through Israel.

This major increase in Jewish neocon and Israeli ties within Le Cercle is quite fascinating for a number of reasons:

1. Traditionally Le Cercle is a Catholic Opus Dei network that has little sympathy for the Jews.


2. It appears both the CIA and Pentagon kept permanent representatives at Cercle meetings, the former running through Ted Shackley and Donald Jameson and the latter through Richard Perle, Pat Balestreri and Paul Wolfowitz.


3. ISGP has repeatedly forwarded the theory that the neocons have little power by themselves, but are assets jointly ran by the CIA and Mossad.


4. Richard Perle's notoriety has only exploded in more recent times, post-9/11.

The first reason speaks for itself. It is one more indication that the traditional Cercle leadership surrounding Otto von Habsburg was losing power to British and American intelligence, who were now inviting their Jewish Zionist friends along. Maybe this revolution in Le Cercle traumatized Otto von Habsburg a little, because in 2002, while criticizing the run up to the Iraq War, he was quoted as saying that the Pentagon is "occupied by Jews - the Pentagon is today a Jewish institution." 171

That brings us to points 2 and 3. As ISGP already wrote several years ago, non-Jews as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and James Woolsey are not true neocons. They have deep ties to the liberal Eastern Establishment and on top of that have occupied the highest positions in the defense department and CIA. Now let's look at "real" Jewish neocons: Richard Perle, Edward Luttwak, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Dov Zakheim, Irving Kristol, William Kristol, Joshua Muravchik, Midge Decter, Richard Pipes, Daniel Pipes, etc. What do they have in common apart from their Jewish heritage? (Okay, Gaffney is not Jewish) Well, they have not held a single highest government position. Instead, we only find:

• Mid-level Pentagon employees.
• National security scholars.
• Executives of CIA and Pentagon-linked think tanks.

We also see that with Cercle visitors Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who were assistants to defense secretaries as Caspar Weinberger, formerly a Bechtel vice president under George Shultz; Frank Carlucci, a long-time Ted Shackley ally in the CIA; Dick Cheney and later, Donald Rumsfeld, who happens to have been Carlucci's best friend since college. Rumsfeld, by the way, also visited Le Cercle at one point.

So I asked in previous years already: where is this so-called neocon establishment that has been taking over the United States? Because it doesn't seem to exist at the highest levels, not even at just the Defense Department. Then, when you start tracking the history of these neocons, you find at least one major anomaly in the form of Senator Henry Jackson - or his office to be exact. In the 1970s he employed a small army of anti-Kissinger "Detente-wrecking" neocons as his personal staffers and advisors. These included Richard Perle, Edward Luttwak (earlier Perle's roommate at the London School of Economics), Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney and Richard Pipes. How much sense does that make?

Earlier we discussed that in February 1973 Ted Shackley closely cooperated with Senator Henry Jackson in initiating an interference operation to stop Senator Frank Church from looking deeper into the CIA coup in Chile and other CIA controversies that were piling up. In other words, Senator Jackson was operating as an extension of the CIA. And this is hardly the only example of it.

Meanwhile, we find that Jackson employed Richard Perle since 1969 and, together with Nelson Rockefeller, was an important co-founder of the America-Israel Friendship League in 1971, this while Ted Shackley took over the Israeli desk from James Angleton around 1975. Then, in 1976 Senator Henry Jackson and Michael Ledeen are important co-founders of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA): Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz (co-chair), Douglas Feith (vice chair), Joshua Muravchik and Dick Cheney all get involved with it. Around this time Shackley and Ledeen become very close friends and soon even business partners. Ledeen also serves as an aide to former CIA deputy director of operations General Vernon Walters for some time in the early 1980s, while Ledeen is running all kinds of dirty tricks and disinformation operations to protect the CIA and attack enemies as Jimmy Carter. At a later stage CIA director and super-neocon James Woolsey becomes involved in JINSA, where he strikes up a particularly close relationship with Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle. They jointly leave JINSA in 2012. Then, of course, there's the Cercle tie, with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz showing up in what essentially was a Ted Shackley-ran operation, certainly from the U.S. side.

Clearly we are looking here at a very tight cooperation between conservative, top-level, pro-Israel CIA officers and neocon scholars who appear to operating as intellectual hitmen to protect CIA operations and discredit political enemies. They are basically doing the same thing as their joint mentor, Senator Henry Jackson, was doing in the early 1970s with regard to the emerging Church Committee that was looking into CIA wrongdoing.

The 1970s were all about the CIA attempting to circumvent congressional oversight. It really looks as if the CIA didn't just start to work with the foreign security services of Britain, Germany, France and Middle Eastern countries in creating private solutions as 6I and the Safari Club, but that it also created the "Neocon Club" in coordination with Israel, quite possibly with the aim of helping to take control of U.S. politics. It's not exactly as if such a joint CIA-Mossad relationship would be so out of the ordinary. After all, the CIA has always had a covert operations relationship of the most sensitive kind with Israel, in part kept hidden and unacknowledged to prevent conflicts with oil-rich Arab states. We can see evidence of this secret collaboration all over the place, starting in the late 1950s:

• 1958-: Permindex, linked to the OAS, JFK assassination and probably Gladio.
• 1959-: Tibor Rosenbaum's BCI bank, linked to Permindex with Rosenbaum involved in the 1001 Club, similar to the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Bechtels and Louis Bloomfield of Permindex.
• 1960-: Israel is able to steal highly enriched uranium from NUMEC in the United States, to this day thought to have had the support of the CIA.
• 1968-: The coup in Panama of Omar Torrijos, who disposed of a newly elected anti-American president.
• 1972-: Bogus but world-famous psychic Uri Geller, a friend of Mossad and Israeli army intelligence directors, is brought to the CIA-founded remote viewing program at SRI.
• 1970s-: Continued relationship with Panama's Manuel Noriega (Col. Mike Harari), who eventually started to work too much with the communists and was removed by the U.S.
• 1980s: Ties to Guatemela, Honduras (Emil Saada), the Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia (Col. Yair Klein), Iran Contra, Belgium's ASCO factory, the BCCI and more, all of it linked to "anti-communist" death squad, arms trafficking and drug smuggling activities.
• 1990s-: the rise of criminal Russian Zionist oligarchs, including the Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven of Alfa Group, Michael Cherney, and ties Solntsevskaya head Semion Mogilevich.

Should the neocons be added to this above list? Probably. Le Cercle actually provides really intriguing additional evidence that the neocons work for the CIA. In 1986 a certain "Ron Silver" was invited to Le Cercle. This apparently is "Ron the Neocon", an actor who has been campaigning to make Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel and who has been a staunch supporter of George W. Bush and the War on Terror. He even narrated the movie FahrenHYPE 9/11, a counter to Michael Moore's 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 and released on the same date. FahrenHYPE 9/11 features (CIA-tied) neocon extremists as Frank Gaffney and Ann Coulter, basically all fawning over the United States and telling us we should all "stand together" in wake of the 9/11 attacks. Maybe not particularly surprising, when Silver died in March 2009, a New York Post reporter revealed that "at a party [with reporters], [Silver] claimed -- off the record -- to have worked with the CIA in the early 1970s in Laos, running drugs." Gawker magazine felt they needed to check it out. It's best to read the relevant excepts in full:

"We've obtained Silver's FBI file through a Freedom of Information Act request, and it is fairly definitive: While he briefly considered becoming a CIA analyst, he never worked for the Agency. ...

"But it also says unequivocally that the FBI checked with the CIA, and the agency had no record of Silver having worked with it: Silver did travel around Southeast Asia in his early twenties, which in the Sixties and Seventies was practically a guaranteed tip-off that someone was a spook. But he told the FBI about his travels, and said it was all on the up-and-up. While he did very briefly consider a career as an "analyst in one of the intelligence agencies," he met once with one CIA representative and gave up on the idea: So somewhere along the line, it looks like Silver blew up a sit-down with a CIA recruiter into a few swashbuckling years in black ops. Of course, it is possible that Silver's service was so sensitive that he lied—under penalty if perjury—to the FBI about it. Or maybe it was scrubbed from the file before being submitted to the White House for review. Indeed, five pages of the file were redacted by the FBI because they were classified "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy"—which could mean dark secrets are hidden there. But we're betting on Ron Silver liking the sound of saying, "I used to work with the Agency."" 172

Gawker is drawing a fascinating conclusion here that Silver probably never worked for the CIA. The title of the magazine's article is even more fascinating: Mystery Solved: Ron Silver Was Not a CIA Agent. Just like that. Did the editor actually read the article? Because there are an awful lot of coincidences here that are being described. Now add Silver's Cercle connection that Gawker didn't have a clue about. If Silver was involved in CIA opium trafficking in the early 1970s, he would have been part of an operation largely ran by Ted Shackley. And here, 15 years later, he is allowed to visit a super-secret spook outfit alongside Ted Shackley, a privilige only given to half a dozen to maybe two dozen Americans per meeting, depending on the location. That's quite the coincidence. This indicates that Ron Silver wasn't just any CIA spook, but considered a very important asset to the CIA. Maybe not the bureacratic CIA Gawker is forced to stick to, but the superclass CIA, or CIA shadow government, that is continually operating outside of its mandate by running private, domestic intelligence and security operations. Directing FahrenHYPE 9/11 as a conservative CIA project to oppose the "liberal CIA"-produced Fahrenheit 9/11 of Michael Moore probably should be counted as a covert operation along these lines. The "Neocon Club" is likely to be another.

As discussed in the chapter on Ted Shackley, ISGP considers Ted Shackley and close associates as George H. W. Bush, Frank Carlucci (Rumsfeld's best friend) and Richard Helms the only realistic top suspects in the plotting of 9/11, including the demolition of the World Trade Center towers. Helms and Shackley in particular have such a vast history involving death squad activity, false flag terrorism, drug trade and assassinations - including JFK - as well as long-standing ties to both the Saudis and the Israelis, that it is hard to find any other realistic suspects. The extremely close association of Ted Shackley with neocons who became notorious and prominent after 9/11 only fuels these suspicions. Just in light of the 9/11 investigation, it would be interesting to unearth all historical Cercle memberships lists, especially those of the late 1990s and 2000s.

CERCLE CONTROVERSY IN THE MEDIA

1975: a first Cercle leak

In 1975 a batch of documents from Brian Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) leaked to Time Out Magazine. Within these documents references could be found to a "Pinay Committee", making Time Out magazine the first media outlet to produce information on Le Cercle. Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay, on behalf of the Pinay Committee, commissioned Crozier's institute to produce regular reports, which were then spread to political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. These included President Nixon, his secretary of state and national security advisor Henry Kissinger, French president Georges Pompidou, officials in Germany and Spain and even the Pope himself. 173 Unfortunately, the 1,500 ISC documents that were leaked have mostly gone missing, but it is clear that the core group of Le Cercle was wielding quite a bit of influence at the highest levels of government. It is almost as if individuals as Brian Crozier, who is a rather obvious anti-communist propagandist, have been providing these officials with excuses for any of their actions.

1980-1982: the Langemann papers

Several years after the Institute for the Study of Conflict leak, German intelligence officer Hans Langemann provided more details on the "Pinay Committee" - the coordinating group within Le Cercle. Langemann was head of Bavarian State Security in the 1970s and early 1980s. One of his colleagues was Hans von Machtenberg (a pseudonym) who attended meetings of Le Cercle. Von Machtenberg agreed to pass on full briefings to Langemann about the Cercle meetings in exchange for information gathered by Langemann from his own intelligence contacts. Seemingly after questioning the motives of the Cercle, Langemann wrote down and recorded what he knew about it and eventually sold it to the socialist Kronket Magazine in the early 1980s. Der Spiegel soon picked up on the story of Kronket and exposed the role of their political enemy in it, Franz Josef Strauss, one of the co-founders of Le Cercle. The 1980 and 1982 articles of Der Spiegel were based on internal memos of Hans Langemann, seemingly informing persons within the German government about the clandestine efforts of the Cercle to get Franz Josef Strauss elected Chancellor. According to Der Spiegel, Langemann wrote the following (translated) text on November 8, 1979 174:

As one can imagine, the secrecy surrounding Le Cercle is not that much of a mystery, as most people would disapprove of a secret group consisting of persons tied to questionable corporate, political and religious interests that is involved in political manipulation. More from Langemann 175:

Langemann presents a list of conspiracies which we know more about these days. Let's take a more in depth look into each of them and see who was involved specifically.

The "change of government" in the United Kingdom refers to the election of the right-wing Margaret Thatcher in 1979 in which Crozier's "Shield", a covert advisory committee, played a crucial role. 176 One gets the impression that the covert campaign to get Margaret Thatcher elected somehow was coordinated with the CIA group of Cercle regular Ted Shackley that plotted to replace Carter with Reagan at the very same time.

The initial idea for Shield came from MI6 agent Sir Stephen Haskings, a friend of Crozier who had formerly been a SAS soldier and SOE officer. Crozier put together Thatcher's election campaign by adopting Jean Violet's Psychological Action program, a technique to find quick, short answers to three basic questions: What do people want? What do they fear? And what do they feel strongly about? Shield also completely convinced Thatcher about the severe threat of domestic communist subversion. After Crozier and Haskings handed her their paper The diabolical nature of the Communist conspiracy, Thatcher's reaction was, "I've read every word and I'm shattered. What should we do?". 177 Harry Sporborg and Cercle member Nicholas Elliot were the other two members of inner circle of Shield. Sporborg worked at Hambros Bank and used to be a deputy head of the SOE during WWII. Elliot was a former MI6 agent who specialized in sabotage and unconventional warfare. He also had been a director of the controversial Lonrho mining corporation.

Shield was hardly a new phenomenon, and its success can actually be seen as the culmination of twenty years of manipulation by the British far-right to get a prime minister elected they truly desired. This far-right group, which was, and is, closely affiliated with the British establishment, had already been meddling a great deal in Britain's domestic politics since the election of Harold Wilson as prime minister in 1964. Although the aristocrats, centered around the royal family and the Pilgrims Society, have never embraced Labour, the serious economic recession of the late 1960s and early 1970s caused so much concern that many individuals within these circles actually began planning a coup. It started with a dirty tricks campaign against Wilson, mainly orchestrated by rogue elements within MI5 and MI6 and with overseas support of CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. During Wilson's two terms in office, and especially during his second term from 1974 to 1976, he was smeared with accusations that he was a homosexual, a supporter of the IRA, and that he was a KGB agent. Private armies and action groups were set up to take over essential services in case the country broke down. In March 1976, Wilson unexpectedly decided to step down. Publicly he claimed that he was physically and mentally exhausted, but also that this is what he had always planned to do at age 60. Privately he explained that "business groups and other anti-democratic agencies", and also pointing to a rogue element in MI5, had made it absolutely impossible for him to run the country. 178 Wilson's secretary, Baroness Marcia Falkender, supported his statements:

"MI5 were making a mockery out of us. Those people ought to be exposed for what they really are... but you can't identify them. We could be sitting in a room and you might be MI5 and I wouldn't know. Or I might have have been all these years and you wouldn't know."

Falkender elaborated:

"[Special Branch] came to tell [Wilson] how they bugged everyone in the union and how they got tape recordings and would he like copies... Little men in black boots would come through quite regularly... Their [MI5's] fears were justified, in that the communists have never succeeded in winning an election. They've always gone into the unions and had fairly successful infiltration in that way. That's not what frightens me. What worries me is the people who do become frightened of that and then they think something very scary is happening and take action on it. If you took all that too seriously and acted on it, then you would make a right-wing regime happen in a very short time." 179

Among the people named that have been involved in the plot to get rid of Wilson were SAS founder David Stirling, Sir James Goldsmith in later life a friend of Henry Kissinger), the 7th Earl of Lucan, Sir Val Duncan (chair of Rio Tinto Zinc; 1001 Club; Edmund de Rothschild associate), Cecil Harmsworth King (nephew Lord Northcliffe; MI5 agent; Bank of England), George Kennedy Young (ex-deputy director MI6; helped to overthrow Mossadeq; Monday Club; Kleinwort Benson; set up Tory Action; set up civilian armed resistance cells), Airey Neave (MI6/MI5 insider; set up Tory Action; set up civilian armed resistance cells), Army General Sir Walter Walker (set up private armies and Civil Assistance/Unison), Major Alexander Greenwood (set up private armies), the 4th Earl of Cromartie (WWII commander), Lord Mountbatten of Burma (uncle of Prince Philip; would have headed the provisional junta), and the Queen Mother. As already explained, the CIA's James Angleton, a Knight of Malta and soon-to-be co-chairman of the ultra-right American Security Council, provided assistance from across the Atlantic 180.

Besides Brian Crozier, who was aware of the planned coup and actively supported it with his anti-communist lectures to military officers 181, a few other Cercle members have also played a supplementary role in the coup against Wilson and Labour in general. The president of Le Cercle after Crozier, Julian Amery, was a good friend of General Walter Walker and wrote the foreword of Walker's book The Next Domino. Amery also was a member and later patron of the Conservative Monday Club, a center of anti-Labour activity. Additionally, Cercle member Anthony Cavendish was a member of the Unison Committee for Action, one of the anti-Labour action groups set up by George Kennedy Young and General Walter Walker. 182 Cavendish also worked with Sir James Goldsmith - whose name appeared on a hand-written note of to-be-invited persons to a Cercle meeting - and was on good terms with Cercle head Julian Amery. Cercle member Robert Moss was a protege of Brian Crozier and helped him internationally to spread the word of communist subversion. In 1975, Moss and Crozier, together with Pilgrims Society member Viscount De L'Isle and others, were co-founders of the National Association for Freedom (NAFF), an anti-Labour and anti-Wilson pressure group that acted as a follow-up of GB 75 and the later Civil Assistance/Unison. Quite a number of NAFF members, more than a few also affiliated with Le Cercle, would find their way to prominent political positions under Thatcher. 183

Even after Wilson was ousted in 1976, many right-wing individuals were still not content with the new Labour prime minister James Callaghan. Only after three more years of underground politicking they were able to maneuver the hard-right Conservative Thatcher into office.

Promoting Strauss for Germany

The Langemann papers reported the "international promotion of the Minister President (Strauss)" is a reference to articles written by Brian Crozier, his associate James Goldsmith, and others to improve the image of Franz Josef Strauss within and outside Germany. They denounced all the accusations against Strauss as KGB propaganda, again with testimonies from defectors of Czech intelligence, like they used in their campaign against Wilson. 184 Although Strauss never made the Chancellorship, he was a well known German politician, and in terms of political convictions somewhere to the right of Margaret Thatcher. His home base was the hard-right Roman Catholic Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), together with his co- Cercle friends Otto von Habsburg, Count Hans Huyn, and Alois Mertes. He went to the Bohemian Grove in 1962 and gave a speech there. 185 After a long career, riddled with numerous scandals, he died in 1988 while on a hunting trip with Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis. More scandals followed after his death, some involving his son.

These Cercle friends of Strauss are interesting people. Otto von Habsburg, who claimed his political views on Europe were very close to those of Strauss 186, is head of the Paneuropa Union (the second head since its founding in 1922), where he followed up the well known Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Anno 2006, Otto is an advisor to the Coundenhove-Kalergi Foundation, together with Count Hans Huyn, Jakob Coudenhove-Kalergi (nephew of Richard, the founder of the Paneuropa Union), Prince Carlo della Torre e Tasso (Italian branch of the Thurn und Taxis family), and Max Turnauer (ambassador of the Order of Malta in Liechtenstein). Nikolaus von Liechtenstein, the younger brother of Prince Hans Adam II, is an executive member of the Coundenhove-Kalergi Foundation. 187 The Paneuropa Union has a vast network of underground political organizations all over Europe, which include or included the European Centre of Documentation and Information, Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe, the Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques, Ordre du Rouvre, the Institut Européen pour la Developpement, Cercle des Nations (renamed to Cercle de Lorraine and a much broader membership these days), and the Mont Pelerin Society. The amount of ties to the Vatican within these institutions, and in particular to Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, is absolutely staggering. Otto von Habsburg is closely associated with both organizations, not to mention his own Order of the Golden Fleece.

Count Hans Huyn

Count Huyn is a German aristocrat, and like Otto von Habsburg and Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi, descended from a prominent Austro-Hungarian family. His wife is a descendant of Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (1717-1780), the first and only female head of the Habsburg dynasty. Huyn was a foreign policy advisor to his friend Franz-Josef Strauss from 1971 to 1976. In 1976, Huyn became a long time member of the Bundestag himself and would serve on many government committees. He would also write quite a number of books on Soviet strategy and occasionally speak out in favor of the placement of nuclear weapons in Germany or participation in the Star Wars program, without any regards for public opinion. Crozier acknowledges in his book that Count Huyn was one of three primary intelligence sources in Germany for his 61 intelligence group (more about that later). Huyn might have a long Cercle history behind him, because he was involved in overseeing the 1963 Treaty of Elisée in which Cercle founder Jean Violet played such a crucial role. As a devout Catholic, Huyn used to head the German department of the Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need.

Apartheid and terrorism for Africa

The story of Rhodesia and South Africa being manipulated by British Conservative politics will often produce the same names as those involved in the ousting of Harold Wilson.

In the late 19th century, the country later known as Southern Rhodesia was taken over through military force by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), founded by Cecil Rhodes (from which the name "Rhodesia" is derived). BSAC was mirrored on the British East-India Company. In 1953, after calls for independence, Southern Rhodesia became part of the Central African Federation (CAF), which also included Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1965, one year after the CAF had been dissolved and Northern Rhodesia had become the independent Zambia, the White minority government in Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared itself independent from Britain. This way they hoped to stop any further reforms that would result in black majority rule. Initially, the White minority government did recognize the Queen of England although she would (and could) never accept the title "Queen of Rhodesia".

Two of the biggest supporters of the White minority government at the time were Cercle members Julian Amery and Lord Robert Cecil, today the 7th Marquess of Salisbury. 188 From 1961 to 1981, Robert Cecil's father and grandfather presided over the Conservative Monday Club, a center of post-WWII imperialism (and other major supporters of the White minority government). Julian Amery was a member of the club. The 7th Marquess of Salisbury was a good friend of Julian Amery and their families have been involved with each other since the early 20th century. Although Julian's father was a very important individual, working closely with the Rothschilds in building up the state of Israel, the Amery family pales in comparison with the historical influence of the Cecil family. There are only one or two dynastic families that might compete in terms of influence they had on British affairs since the 16th century. In fact, under Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), the Cecils are credited with having created the first known large scale spy network in Britain and Europe. It's possible however that they received some inspiration from Venice at the time.

Another important supporter of the apartheid illegal government in Rhodesia was Lonrho, a giant Pan-African raw materials corporation headed by Tiny Rowland, who actually was recruited and surrounded by elite Pilgrims Society members with deep MI5 and MI6 connections. Cercle member and MI6 agent Nicholas Elliot was a director of the company until 1973, although there was quite a bit of friction over the years if Rowland should continue to head the company. Ian Smith, head of the apartheid government in Rhodesia, once helped Rowland start up his mining business in Africa. 189 After that Rowland had grown to become one of the most controversial figures to walk the continent. He has been accused of bribing numerous officials and working with British intelligence in supporting certain favorable regimes, one of them being UNITA in Angola. 190

Together with an equally controversial Adnan Khashoggi, he was involved in selling top-quality military equipment to Libya and supplying it with mercenaries to build up its own special forces capability. 191

Rowland used to be a member of John Aspinall's Clermont gambling club in the 1960s, together with Lord Lucan, and the earlier-mentioned Sir James Goldsmith - whose name at once point appeared on a hand-written note of to-be-invited individuals to a Cercle meeting - and SAS founder David Stirling. 192 This group wanted to get rid of Wilson the day he set foot in the prime minister's office. They also loathed James Callaghan, the Labour follow-up of Wilson. Rowland, Lucan, and Aspinall were fascists. 193 Sir James Goldsmith, the close associate of Brian Crozier, and David Stirling, a close mercenary friend of Julian Amery 194 whose (Stirling's) niece married the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, were running the mercenary firm KAS Enterprises. Officially, KAS was hired to protect elephants and rhinos in southern Africa from poachers. But soon accusations arose that the firm was fighting the anti-apartheid movement, reportedly leaving 1.5 million Africans dead. Most details about Operation Lock, as it was called, have been suppressed. 195

Conrad Gerber is another Cercle member with a connection to this region. He worked as an economist in the white minority government of Rhodesia in the 1970s, where he was involved in circumventing international sanctions to purchase oil for his country. He did this with controversial partners as John Deuss and key Cercle liaison Ted Shackley, the latter becoming one of his closest friends. So close, that Gerber was even present at Shackley's deathbed. 196 We already discussed Shackley in detail. He is tied to just about every sinister CIA operation from the 1960s on: assassinations, death squads, drugs and coups. After sanctions were lifted against Rhodesia in 1980, Gerber set up the very successful Petro-Logistics, which acts as a private intelligence group aimed at penetrating OPEC's oil secrets. The International Energy Agency (IEA) considers Petro-Logistics one of its most important sources, if not the most important source, when making oil production and reserves forecasts. 197

Langemann's last point, aiming directional radio stations at Islamic regions bordering the Soviet Union, has become a very familiar subject these days. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, so the Cercle having these discussions less than a month after is something that could have been expected. Several members of the Cercle played a prominent role in the Afghan war.

In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security advisor to Carter, claimed that he and Carter actually had provoked the Afghan war by clandestinely supporting the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul, six months before the invasion of the Soviet Union. 198 Ever since Putin came into office, Brzezinski and his son Mark restarted their war with Russia. Brzezinski is known to have visited Le Cercle at some point.

In 1986 CIA director William Casey, a sometime visitor of Le Cercle and Knight of Malta, began organizing a large-scale anti-Soviet resistance operation in Afghanistan that would last until the end of the war in 1988-1989. 199 His Saudi counterpart, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a somewhat more regular visitor of Le Cercle, financed a large portion of this operation. 200 As discussed earlier, the BCCI was named as a main conduit for all these undercover transactions, with Casey and bank founder Agha Hasan Abedi regularly meeting at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. for a period of 3 years in the mid 1980s. 201 Abedi is considered an asset of the Pakistani ISI, but his membership in the elite 1001 Club indicates he was embraced by the Anglo-American and mainland European establishment. 202 The by now well known Cercle president Julian Amery was an advisor to the BCCI in the 1980s. 203

1984-1986: Le Cercle tied to Opus Dei

In 1984, a few years after the Langemann exposes in Der Spiegel, German investigative author Jurgen Roth published his book Dunkelmanner der Macht: Politische Geheimzirkel und organisiertes Verbrechen (Dark Men of Power: Secret Political Circles and Organized Crime). In it, the primary target was a European-wide Opus Dei network operating at the highest levels. According to Roth, Le Cercle played a key role in this Opus Dei network:

"Illegal activities of parallel secret services, working together with conservatives and extreme-right political forces, which are found in Cercle Violet, the West German secret society with international connections... The motor behind Cercle Violet, and whom it is named after, is the Parisian lawyer Jean Violet... Violet, again, is a fervent anti-communist, who established a right-wing group named after himself, which maintained contact with Franz Josef Strauss and with Christian Democrat Italians tied to the Freemasonry Lodge P2. ...

"Silva Munoz, both an Opus Dei and Cercle member [from Spain]... Besides the direct ties to Cercle Violet it appears that Opus Dei in the Bundesrepublic still has other institutions where it is represented... [Opus Dei] was generously endowed by [Franz Josef] Strauss. ...

"Another example of the criminal activities of the Order of Opus Dei is found in Argentina. There, the Order also works closely with the AAA [Alianza Argentina Anticomunista]. A member of the P2 Masonic Lodge, Stefano delle Chiaie, was also active in it. This organization was infamous in Argentina as an unofficial police force and for the recruiting of death squads." 204

Roth's book was one of the first in the aftermath of the P2, Banco Ambrosiano and Sniffer Planes scandals of the late 1970s and early 1980s, all of them linked to key Cercle members as Carlo Pesenti and Jean Violet. However, even today Roth's book is among the very few that actually mentions Le Cercle itself. That having been said, the book contains very little information on Le Cercle, with much, if not everything, having come from the Langemann papers leaks in Der Spiegel a few years earlier.

Quite possible to biggest contribution on Jurgen Roth is an interview with Prince Michel de Bourbon, an arms dealer for Opus Dei who spoke very candidly about Opus Dei's support for fascism and emphasis on total loyalty and obedience. De Bourbon is quoted in ISGP's article on Opus Dei, where his connections to the CIA through the board of the William J. Donovan Foundation are also detailed. These CIA ties included both "liberal" Eastern Establishmentarians as so-called conservative CIA assets as General John Singlaub. A certain Countess de Romanones sat on the board of the William J. Donovan Foundation with De Bourbon. She used to be a very regular Cercle visitor from Spain with major Eastern Establishment ties. It is not known, however, if Michel de Bourbon ever visited Le Cercle.

Le Cercle and Opus Dei elites

The "Pinay Committee" of the 1975 Institute for Study of Conflict documents showed up again in a 1986 Belgian police report mapping a network of Opus Dei elites. One of the central groups in this map was the "Comite Pinay", which was directly linked to niceties as the P2 Lodge, the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique (SAC), Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict and the CIA. Otto von Habsburg's Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI), the Academie Europeene des Sciences Politique (AESP), the Institut Européen pour la Paix et la Sécurité (IEPS) and the Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe (MAUE) were other groups seen as key within the Opus Dei network. Membership all greatly overlapped with each other and with Le Cercle.

Some of the most key figures in this police map were Otto von Habsburg, Florimond Damman, Alfredo Sanchez Bella and Carlo Pesenti, all of them important members of Le Cercle. The network included Banco Ambrosiano, the Vatican Bank, Aginter Press, the earlier-mentioned P2 and CIA, the OAS, escaped Nazis as Klaus Barbie and Otto Skorzeny, and undergound fascist militias as the Westland New Post and Front de la Jeunesse.

The most important American think tank listed in the map was the Heritage Foundation, described in this file as "the nerve center of the Catholic Right in the USA." True or not, also the Heritage Foundation was closely linked to Le Cercle. President of the Heritage Foundation from 1977 to 2013 and again for 7 months in 2017 was Edwin Feulner, a Knight of Malta, a known Cercle visitor, and solid member of the global superclass. Paul Weyrich, a wealthy co-founder and financier of the Heritage Foundation, has also visited Le Cercle: his name appears on a June 1982 participants list for a Cercle meeting in Germany. Both Feulner and Weyrich were involved in Council for National Policy and generally considered to be loyal to Opus Dei, even without the Cercle connection or this 1986 police report.

Similar to German author Jurgen Roth in 1984 also in a bit more detail, it's clear that these Belgian police officers were unraveling a European-wide network of CIA-Opus Dei clandestine activity, with Le Cercle playing a key role in it. Unfortunately, the police officers in questions were demoted, the document in question was never discussed in the media, and it took until 2017 for ISGP to translate it into English.

Le Cercle-SMOM-Opus Dei overlap

It is the Vatican, together with a large chunk of its Catholic aristocracy - the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Savoys and other families - that has been dreaming of recreating the Holy Roman Empire. In an attempt to make that happen, after World War II, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Otto von Habsburg (re)created their Paneuropa network across Europe in which many Opus Dei members and the generally more prestigious Knights of Malta became involved. To accomplish their mission of rebuilding the old Holy Roman Empire, this network focused on recruiting politicians, bankers and other men of influence.

It could be a coincidence, but the presence of reactionary Catholic organizations as Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta is very common within the ranks of Le Cercle, certainly during the early decades. Membership in many cases is still not undisputed, but accusations among known Cercle members are numerous. Here's an integrated list of Opus Dei and Knights of Malta ties for Cercle visitors. There are at least 34 at this moment. For sources and details look in the individual biographies in the Cercle membership list.

As already discussed to an extent, among the associates of Cercle members, there also are numerous accusations of Opus Dei involvement. Basically all of Violet's rather notorious Belgian allies belonged to Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. Otto von Habsburg's Paneuropa network is filled with them, not the least of them the Giscard d'Estaing family who wrote the original EU Constitution. Jacques Santer, a former long time prime minister of Luxembourg and president of the European Commissioner, is known to have been very friendly to Opus Dei. Santer sat on the board of Nadhmi Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings. Auchi has been a member of Le Cercle.

Others besides German author Jurgen Roth and the Belgian Gendarmerie have noticed the connection between Opus Dei and Le Cercle. Author Robert Hutchinson in his 1997 Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei saw Le Cercle as an auxiliary organization of the Opus Dei-Paneuropa network. David Rockefeller, in his 2002 memoirs, hinted to the influence of Opus Dei in Le Cercle, or as he called it, the "Pesenti Group", and indirectly portrayed Otto von Habsburg and Jean Violet as allies of Opus Dei.

"Members of the Pesenti Group were all committed to European political and economic integration, but a few - Archduke Otto of Austria, the head of the house of Hapsburg and claimant to all the lands of the Austro-Hungarian empire; Monsignor Alberto Giovanetti of the Vatican and a prominent member of Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic organization; and Jean-Paul León Violet, a conservative French intellectuel - were preoccupied by the Soviet threat and the inexolerable rise to power of the Communist parties of France and Italy." 205

What would a Catholic Opus Dei priest do among key members of Le Cercle in the late 1960s and early 1970, at a time that the group still was almost exclusively inviting members from Catholic European countries? That alone should raise suspicions that the core group of Le Cercle was closely allied to Opus Dei. In case of Alfredo Sanchez Bella, the long-time Habsburg ally in Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI) and Le Cercle, his brother, Florencio Sanchez Bella, was a regional Opus Dei leader in Spain. So here we have another very strong tie to Opus Dei.

What is really amusing is that Brian Crozier is quoted in Wikipedia's article on Opus Dei (unsourced), stating that Opus Dei "is not, as its enemies either think or want others to think, a political party; nor is it a political pressure group..." This is just one of the numerous examples in which Crozier is technically correct, but still is trying to get people to draw the wrong conclusions (also notice the word "enemies"). Crozier is a really "reliable" source when you consider that he, a British intelligence agent, propagandist and Franco sympathizer, was deemed reliable enough to take over Le Cercle from its Opusian founders. But then again, nobody has heard of Le Cercle.

Let's not forget three non-Catholic British Cercle participants that have become members of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, a Catholic templar order headed by Prince Carlo de Bourbon, the Duke of Calabria, and thus a relative of the Opusian fascist arms dealer Prince Miguel de Bourbon. The persons in question are:

1. ranking MI6 officer Anthony Cavendish;
2. MI6-Iraqi arms dealer Nadhmi Auchi;
3. and Rothschild employee and Cercle chairman Lord Lamont.

These Catholic Templar orders and the families involved in them are discussed in a bit more detail in ISGP's article on Opus Dei.

Former Cercle president Jonathan Aitken seems to be the only person in Le Cercle involved with the Jesuits, which are generally seen as less reactionary than Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. That's giving the Jesuits too much credit. Take the Dutch multi-billionaire and ultra-Catholic Brenninkmeijer family. It has numerous family members spread out among the upper echelons of the Jesuits, Opus Dei, the Knights of Malta, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and even, in the United States, the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, at one point also the home of future CIA director Leon Panetta. Maybe the Jesuits are less reactionary than Opus Dei, but anything is relative here. Just because Laurance Rockefeller favorites Daniel Sheehan and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin are/were Jesuits, doesn't mean the Jesuits are pinnacles of liberal thought. There's just too much overlap between the Jesuits, Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta.

Additionally, a number of Cercle members have been involved with institutions with strong links to the Moonie cult. Among them are the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which counted the involvement of Brian Crozier, Edwin Feulner and Zbigniew Brzezinski; and the Global Economic Action Institute, of which the London branch was chaired by Julian Amery, head of Le Cercle at the time the story came out. Many neocons, who also became prominent in Le Cercle, became allied with the Moonies in the 1980s.

The picture that emerges here among Cercle members is one of religious fanaticism. Just about the entire group of founders of Le Cercle belonged to Opus Dei. And even those that do not belong to these organizations can be incredibly religious, like Colonel Billy McLean, a Bible thumper who at one point had a meltdown claiming "the Freemasons and Scottish Nationalists were actually going to crucify him" 206, was or the afore-mentioned Jonathan Aitken. In the end, these people, even though they are more composed and better educated than the average fundamentalist Muslim, might well be just as hard to reason with.

1988-1989: David Teacher and Lobster magazine

Without a doubt the best source in understanding Britain's subversive ultraright of the latter half the Cold War is the tiny intelligence-focused Loberster magazine, founded in 1983 by Robin Ramsey and Stephen Dorril. In 1988-1989 they published a number of articles on Le Cercle based on the 1975 and early 1980s leaks in Time Out Magazine, Kronket and Der Spiegel. The artciles were written by David Teacher.

Teacher went on to write a book on Europe's Paneuropean Right surrounding groups as Le Cercle, the Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI), the Academie Europeene des Sciences Politique (AESP), the Europaeisches Institut fuer Sicherheitsfragen and, of course, Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. For some reason, publishers weren't interested in the book, and Teacher left it at. That is, until he stumbled across ISGP's work on Le Cercle in 2008. As a result, Teacher decided to update his book (several times) and make it available through this site. The latest version of his book can always be downloaded on David Teacher's page here on ISGP.

David Teacher and this author produced an interesting feedback loop related to Le Cercle over the years. It is through the Lobster magazine articles that there was a minor level of awareness of Le Cercle in conspiracy circles of the early 2000s. That's how this author picked up on the name, started researching, bought the 1988-1989 Lobster magzine articles, expanded it with a handful of modern sources and extensive biographies of known members, and produced the first extensive Cercle articles in the 2005-2008 period. From there David Teacher decided to make his own unpublished work available. He expanded it again in 2010-2011 period after this author published the first documents on Le Cercle. A small group of much more mainstream scholars started to join the party at that point, with Teacher incorporating their updates as work in his own work.

David Teacher's work on the Paneuropa network includes a lot of information not discussed by ISGP in any detail, so it's recommended that readers interested in the material take a look at Teacher's work as well.

LE CERCLE, VATICAN-PANEUROPA, AND THE CIA'S "STRATEGY OF TENSION"

From the early 1950s until the arrival of the neocons in the early 1980s, Le Cercle primarily brought together participants from all Catholic-dominated countries in western Europe. Overtures to Britain were only made out of necessity, the Protestant-dominated Netherlands has been severely underrepresented and the Scandinavian countries appear to have been wholly excluded. Because of this bias towards Catholicism, certainly during the early decades of Le Cercle, in this section Catholic countries represented in Le Cercle are discussed one by one, including the ties of national members to European integration and the CIA's "Strategy of Tension". Why? Because these ties are all over the place.

In Germany the Cercle's main players for many years were Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party members Otto von Habsburg and Count Hans Huyn, CSU leader Franz Joseph Strauss and, of course, Konrad Adenauer. Especially the first two were tightly linked to the Paneuropa Union, Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. Intermarried and allied families included Thurn und Taxis and Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Adenauer was a co-founder of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) - the national party of the Bavarian CSU - and was chancellor of Germany from 1949 to 1963. In 1957 he signed the Treaty of Rome for Germany. Adenauer died in 1967, but his long-time personal assistant, Franz Joseph Bach, attended all meetings of Le Cercle into the 1980s and served as an organizer of Cercle meetings.

Over the years Germany has been strongly represented in Le Cercle, as we might expect for the largest country in the European Union. Most visitors, even latter-day ones, can be tied to the CSU and CDU, as well as the German chapter of the Western Goals Foundation, whose international branch has been linked to Latin American death squad activity against leftist elements.

Italy and the P2 network

Future defense and prime minister Giulio Andreotti, a regular visitor of Le Cercle, was good friends with future P2 Lodge head Licio Gelli.

In Italy the Opusian Cercle member Giulio Andreotti was one of the main behind-the-scenes players throughout the Cold War. He began his career under Paneuropa supporter Alcide de Gasperi, one of the early builders of the European Union and quite possibly someone who was invited to early Cercle meetings. From the 1950s to the early 1990s, Andreotti basically held every influential cabinet position possible. He was minister of the interior in the periods January to February 1954 and May to June 1978; defense minister 1959-1966 and March to November 1974; prime minister 1972-1973, 1976-1979 and 1989-1992; and minister of foreign affairs 1983-1989. Not a record to easily beat.

As for Andreotti's behind-the-scenes influence, statements from Roberto Calvi that Andreotti was the real head of the fascist-terrorist P2 Lodge, with fellow Knights of Malta Francesco Cosentino and Umberto Ortolani just beneath him, are entirely possible. 207 P2 head Licio Gelli may have been nicknamed "Italy's puppet master" and he may have been a member of the Knights of Malta, but unlike Andreotti and Ortolani, he really did not have the background to be regarded as any kind of mastermind. As later-unearthed Gladio documents have shown, Gelli's foreign puppet masters were Nixon and Ford's national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger, NATO official and Kissinger aide Alexander Haig, and key CIA covert operations officer Ted Shackley. Coincidentally, Kissinger and Shackley were key Cercle participants, similar to Andreotti. Almost as a side note, Frank Gigliotti, a ranking U.S. Mason and former OSS agent, was another one of Gelli's immediate instructors. 208

For those wondering what the exact purpose of the P2 Lodge was, it simply was to groom a criminal, right-wing elite that would resort to propaganda, terrorism, and coups to keep the extremely powerful communist and socialist elements in Italy out of power. The CIA, the Italian Christian Democrats, the major banks and multinationals, the Vatican, Europe's Opus Dei and Knights of Malta aristocracy revolving around Otto von Habsburg -- nobody was waiting for these communists and socialists to come to power, so the P2 was their answer, with the Americans ultimately in charge.

Apart from plenty of rumors that he worked with the CIA and the mafia to keep his Christian Democrat Party in power during the Cold War, Andreotti also had to appear in court on charges that he personally ordered the assassination of a journalist to keep personal secrets from leaking out. Initially convicted, his sentence was later overturned. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that Andreotti was not exactly the most upstanding citizen in Italy. Ironically, when pressured at the end of the Cold War in an Italy teeming with political scandal, Andreotti was the first to acknowledge the existence of a European Stay-Behind army, named Gladio in case of Italy -- opening the door to yet more scandal. However, Andreotti's involvement in Le Cercle, together with top CIA coup plotters and alleged P2 masterminds as Henry Kissinger and Ted Shackley, was never discussed in the media.

What we know today as well is that an individual with the name Giancarlo Elia Valori visited Le Cercle in the 1980s, when the related Banco Ambrosiano, P2 Lodge and Gladio scandals erupted. Valori was tied to all these scandals. Back in 1960 he had been appointed a secret chamberlain to the Papal Household. In that function he became a protege of Umberto Ortolani, the earlier-mentioned Knight of Malta and alleged top figure in the CIA-controlled P2 Lodge network. In later years Ortolani introduced Valori to Gelli. The two men continued to be close associates throughout the 1970s, during which the P2 network was most active. In addition, Valori was a very close friend of Argentine dictator Juan Peron, whom he introduced to Gelli. Peron's Argentine Anticommunist Alliance death squad, which tortured murdered suspected communists and other regime opponents, was part of the CIA-facilitated Latin America-wide Condor network. The P2 network basically was the Italian version of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, except that in Europe such death squads could not operate as openly.

Despite his extreme obscurity, Valori is still going strong in the 21st century and has been meeting with individuals as Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Shultz, James Wolfensohn, Abraham Foxman, Elie Wiesel, Shimon Peres, Edward Luttwak, Carlo de Benedetti, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, and other members of the global superclass -- also people on the absolute inside of covert operations around the world. One 2009 newspaper article even wondered if Valori might be the head of Italy's "new head of the P2", an article that has been translated in full here.

An Italian Cercle participant who is at least as important to discuss as Valori is the wealthy Carlo Pesenti II. We actually already discussed him, because Pesenti was one of the earliest leaders of the Cercle group -- and also the person who in 1967 took David Rockefeller by surprise when he informed him about the existence of the Pesenti Group / Le Cercle. It's important to repeat here that his company, Italmobiliare, was a key partner of the Vatican Bank and that funds of the company ended up with the fascist Avanguardia Nazionale militia of Gladio terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie. In addition, Italmobiliare was the largest minority shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano at the time of its collapse in 1982, with Pesenti serving as Roberto Calvi's vice president. Like Calvi, Pesenti was to be investigated for his role in the collapse but died during the court proceedings, albeit under slightly less suspicious circumstances than Calvi.

With the closest possible ties to the White House, CIA, Licio Gello, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Roberto Calvi and Juan Peron, does anybody still believe at this point that Cercle participants Gulio Andreotti, Carlo Pesenti and Giancarlo Elia Valori were not at the center of Italy's anti-"communosocialist" Strategy of Tension? It would make absolutely no sense if they hadn't.

In addition, what might be important to mention in relation to Italy is the existence of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George. Its Italian head is Prince Carlo de Bourbon, the Duke of Calabria. It's a Vatican-recognized Catholic chivalric order, but recently has also invited a small number of non-Catholics, including Cercle chairman Lord Norman Lamont, a former Rothschild employee, and MI6 officer Anthony Cavendish, another Cercle participant. The controversial Cercle member Nadhmi Auchi, linked to MI6 and Saddam Hussein, has been awarded by the order. The Catholic Duke of Norfolk (together with the Cecils the most influential family in the history of Britain; British liaisons to the Vatican for centuries; Roxburghe Club member with the Cecils, Cavendishes, Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, and formerly Paul Mellon) and Lord Guthrie (SAS commander; Gold Stick to the Queen; Pilgrims Society; Knights of Malta; Rothschild) can also be found among the British members of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order. 209 The controversial Duke of Savoy is another important (and notorious) figure in Italy, but he has not been tied directly to Le Cercle.

As a final note on Italy, the earlier-mentioned Prince Carlo della Torre e Tasso, the Italianized name of the German Thurn und Taxis family, is a board member of the Coudenhove-Kalergi Foundation. Otto von Habsburg, fellow Cercle member Count Hans Huyn and the royal house of Liechtenstein have all been involved with this foundation.

Belgium's darkness

Even if we wouldn't have any Belgian Cercle names, the group they must have come from is rather limited. Let's start with former defense minister and prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants and his long-time Cold War sidekick Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin. De Bonvoisin's father was an initial Bilderberg participant and a director of Societe Generale, historically the major pillar of the Belgian economy and the Vatican-linked aristocracy.

The son and his associates, however, came to represent the Vatican-Paneuropa network largely opposing the more liberal Bilderberg aristocracy. In 1969 Paul Vanden Boeynants and Benoit de Bonvoisin - both said to be belong to Opus Dei - were among the founders of Cercle des Nations, an aristocratic Belgian club with Cercle founder Jean Violet coincidentally as one of the very few foreign members. It had about 80 members when it first opened, but quickly grew. Cercle des Nations was one of many clubs in the Vatican-Paneuropa network. Vanden Boeynants and De Bonvoisin also were involved in Jean Violet's Académie Européenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP), while the headquarters of another Vatican-Paneuropa group, the Institut Europeen de Developpement (IED), was located in Baron de Bonvoisin's castle. 210 Co-founder and vice-chairman of IED was Paul Vankerkhoven, a side-kick of Otto van Habsburg who founded the Belgian branch of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Vankerkhoven was a co-founder of CEPIC in 1972, a secretive ultraright inner group of the Social Christian Party (PSC) of vanden Boeynants and Baron de Bonvoisin.

This group, which included many aristocratic and even nobility figures, at times tried to undermine Belgium's democratic process through CIA and DIA-tied underground fascist militias as the Westland New Post, Front de la Jeunesse and Group G, the latter secretly operating within the Gendarmerie. One of these attempts was made in the early 1970s. Another in the early 1980s. One outfit that shouldn't be skipped in this regard was the Public Information Office (PIO), a 1974-founded ultraright private intelligence agency operated by Major Jean Bougerol. Bougerol was trained in the U.S. in counter-insurgency tactics, according to top CIA officer Ray Cline. In Belgium he was a member of the CIA-NATO-controlled Stay Behind network, a devout fascist, and the person who gave orders to Francis Dossogne, a paid advisor to Baron de Bonvoisin and leader of the fascist militia Front de la Jeunesse. Baron de Bonvoisin and Paul Vanden Boeynants both were deeply involved in PIO. In fact, PIO was located in a building owned by De Bonvoisin's company Promotion & Distribution Générales (PDG). Other groups located at PDG were CEPIC, the Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe (MAUE) and the Comite Hongrie 1956-76. In turn, the Comite Hongrie involved committee members who ran the P7 Lodge, Belgium's equivalent to the much more well known Italian P2 Lodge. The P7's primary purpose was to launder CIA funds for covert operations.

At this point it should be clear why Baron the Bonvoisin became known as the "Black Baron" over the course of the 1980s when various investigations revealed how he was the primary financier of underground fascist militias in Belgium and bringing these militias into contact with peers in other European countries. Needless to say, De Bonvoisin and close allies as Paul Vanden Boeynants, Paul Vankerkhoven and others were widely suspected to be operating on behalf of the CIA.

That's not even all. As has also rather uniquely been brought to light by ISGP, Baron de Bonvoisin and Paul Vanden Boeynants have each been accused of violent, sadistic child abuse by five separate witnesses. Among the accusations have been that Vanden Boeynants and De Bonvoisin were shooting "end circuit" children with rifles at a large private domain, with security being taken care of by these underground CIA (and Wackenhut)-linked Nazi militias. These are the contents of the Dutroux X-Dossiers and a number of related documents, first brought to light by ISGP in July 2007. These same documents reveal additional testimony, some of it from a different set of witnesses, that the Opus Dei clique around CEPIC was involved in ritual abuse ceremonies where children were murdered.

In addition, Paul Vanden Boeynants features in the 1979 Pinon affair alongside the later King Albert II and Charly De Pauw as an individual who attended private parties where underaged children were sexually abused. All these accusations are quite closely-knit together. Both King Albert II and Charly De Pauw have been accused in two other instances of child abuse, with De Pauw having been an investor in De Bonvoisin's PDG group, where PIO, CEPIC and a P7-related group were located. His name also appeared in the child abuse-dominated World Trade Center Association at Chateau Sainte-Anne in Brussels.

Between writing the November 2006 Cercle article and obtaining the first photocopies of Cercle membership lists in 2011, I received a number of other documents. One of them was a full membership list of Cercle des Nations, revealing Jean Violet to be among the handful of non-Belgians invited here. That alone was enough to raise major suspicions that Cercle members could also be found at Brussels' Cercle des Nations group. In late 2007 I also received a copy of a "strictly confidential" report written by Belgian substitute magistrate Jean-Francois Godbille. Stunningly, pages 52 and 53 read:

"Major BOUGEROL and de BONVOISIN, according to a confidential report of the gendarmerie of the Wavre district dated August 14, 1985 (photocopy in appendix), were extremely close to the lawyer Jean VIOLET, a member of the secret services of France and the Vatican, and close to the SAC and the P2 Lodge. This is confirmed when reading parts of the dossier about A. de VILLEGAS ... and that of de BONVOISIN, in which it appears that at the request of BOUGEROL, VIOLET was introduced to BOUGEROL by de BONVOISIN (cfr file PDG)."

How incredible is this? Here we have the French founder of Le Cercle - essentially a privately funded intelligence network - not only hanging out at the Belgian Cercle des Nations, but also visiting the headquarters of the secretive Public Intelligence Organization which appears to be the core of Belgium's fascist-terrorist CIA "stay behind" network. Baron de Bonvoisin, he just has to have been a Cercle member, right?

I still had to wait about four years before obtaining the first Cercle membership lists. But when I did - lo and behold - it turned out that Baron de Bonvoisin visited a June 1982 Cercle meeting in Bonn, Germany. In addition, a photo from the 1970s has surfaced in which Baron de Bonvoisin is standing next to David Rockefeller in conversation with Antoine Pinay and Maurice Brebart. Considering all four men were participants in Le Cercle, with David Rockefeller organizing the very first Cercle meeting in the United States, it's rather safe to say that the photo involved a (mid) 1970s Cercle meeting in Washington, D.C. Thus it is clear that Baron de Bonvoisin visited Le Cercle in both the 1970s and the 1980s.

Who else visited? Paul Vanden Boeynants does not appear in the available lists. The earlier-mentioned Paul Vankerkhoven, the WACL Belgium founder and close Baron de Bonvoisin ally, most certainly does. Vankerkhoven used to be secretary general at Otto von Habsburg's Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI). Franco, Pinochet and Papa Doc of Haiti all were among Vankerkhoven's idols. That pretty much goes for all Cercle members though.

The most frequently invited Belgian Cercle member, at least in the 1980s, appears to have been the lawyer Jacques Jonet, formerly a political secretary to Otto von Habsburg and a leading figure in a whole string of Paneuropa-associated groups, including CEDI and Cercle des Nations. Jonet co-founded several of these institutions and is reported to have been a close associate of Baron de Bonvoisin. 211 At least as significant is the fact that Jonet is the representative of the Belgian Order of Malta, while his wife is a member of its administrative council. 212 The couple was present at the 1999 wedding of Prince Philip, a son of King Albert II and Princess Paola Ruffo di Calabria, and Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, a Dame of Malta. 213 Jonet has also continued to play a role in the Wilton Park conferences, together with the grand chancellor of the Order of Malta. 214

The name Nicolas de Kerchove d'Ousselghem, a member of an old noble family, also appears with considerable frequency in Cercle lists of the early 1980s. Once again, De Kerchove was a representative of Otto von Habsburg's CEDI international. He could be found in the honorary committee of Cercle des Nations, the board of the Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe (MAUE), and was a member of the secretive ultraright CEPIC group, similarly belonging to the circle of aristocratic friends of Baron de Bonvoisin and Paul Vanden Boeynants. In fact, De Kerchove used to be chef de cabinet of prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants and was responsible for the Ministry of Defense's relations with NATO when Vanden Boeynants was defense minister from 1971 to 1979 (VdB was prime minister 1966-1968 and 1978-1979). He also was Vanden Boeynants' contact to the peculiar PIO intelligence organization that keeps showing up here as Belgium's CIA-NATO-Gladio nexus. In 1981 De Kerchove co-founded l'Institut Européen pour la Paix et la Sécurité with fellow Cercle visitors Jacques Jonet, Paul Vankerkhoven and General Robert Close. Another interesting endeavor of De Kerchove was his involvement in the magazine Revue Belge with fellow Cercle visitor Paul Vankerkhoven and Daniel Cardon de Lichtbuer. The latter is the 1998 founder and long-time chairman of Child Focus: the European Center for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children. In light of the Pinon and Dutroux X-Dossiers, one would think De Lichtbuer is the right person to set up and run such a center.

Ultimately, the only thing that might slightly set De Kerchove apart from other Belgian Cercle visitors is that very early on in his career, in 1964, he was invited to Bilderberg as a research assistant at the School of Political and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Louvain. It's clear he was going places from a young age.

Another very important Belgian Cercle visitor was Florimond Damman. Because Damman died in 1979, he is not listed in the 1980s membership lists acquired by ISGP, but his name does appear as an organizer of the "Pinay Committee" in the 1986 Balfroid and Bihay police report on Opus Dei, which ISGP received from Cercle author David Teacher in 2008. Damman was involved in Otto von Habsburg's Paneuropa Union, a chairman of Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe (MAUE), a founding member of Cercle des Nations, a member of Vankerkhoven's Belgian WACL chapter, a co-founder with Vankerkhoven of the 1970 Brussels Congress of the Anti-Bolshevik Block of Nations, a Wilton Park participant with Jacques Jonet, a key founder of the AESP for Otto von Habsburg and Jean Violet, and a participant in the AESP's Charlemagne Dinners with Habsburg, Vankerkhoven, Jonet, Jean Violet, Brian Crozier, Giulio Andreotti and others. In 1969 Damman actually invited Yves Guerin-Serac, a fascist terrorist for Franco and Salazar who founded Portugal's "stay behind" group Aginter Press, to a Charlemagne Dinner and put him at the table with Emile Lecerf, a Belgian neofascist connected to coup plans and the Strategy of Tension in Belgium. For some time Damman and Guerin-Serac tried to set up yet another private coordinating body called CREC. In 1977 Damman helped set up the earlier-mentioned Hongrie Committee 1956-76, located at CEPIC and PIO headquarters at a company owned by Baron de Bonvoisin. At least two co-founders of the Hongrie Committee also were involved in Belgium's super-secret P7 Lodge, a laundromat for CIA covert operations funds.

Yet another important, although seemingly not too frequent, visitor of Le Cercle in the 1980s was general and senator Robert Close. A retired NATO commander obsessed with the likelihood of a Soviet invasion, he became president of the Western Goals Foundation Belgium, vice president of MAUE in 1980, and a co-founder of the European Institute for Security in 1981 - all with the familiar crowd.

There have been a number of additional visitors from Belgium over the years, but all or virtually all tie back to this closely-knit aristocratic, fascist, Opus Dei network surrounding Baron de Bonvoisin and Paul Vanden Boeynants.

What maybe should be emphasized a bit more for Belgian members is that according to victim-witnesses since the early 1980s, and especially testimonies made in the aftermath of the Dutroux affair, it's exactly this pro-fascist, aristocratic, Opus Dei group that has been involved in different child abuse and possibly even ritual abuse rings. Granted, the liberal elite around Bilderberg is similarly implicated, but the militant Vatican-Paneuropa network, in coordination with the CIA, appears to have a more direct involvement in managing these networks. Some of these rings reportedly were set up to compromise politicians and businessmen; others were just for "fun" and reportedly include child hunts at different domains and some very disturbing forms of mental and physical torture.

Apart from plenty of accusations against Baron de Bonvoisin and Paul Vanden Boeynants, one very unknown report buried deep in the X-Dossiers that might be relevant here involves a former youth division PSC treasurer, Jacques Thoma. He claimed that at some point he was invited to mass orgies by his superior, a CEPIC member and an associate of Dutroux ally Michel Nihoul and suspected Gang of Nijvel members. It was explained to Thoma that this was an Opus Dei initiation test, to which these people were trying to direct him. Later on, he was drugged and taken to a meeting where everyone was dressed in black robes and masks. The purpose of this meeting was "to be initiated into higher circles". A young girl had been sacrificed and participants drank her blood. Other girls from eastern Europe were also present. He tried to leave, but was drugged again. The next morning he woke up in his car. Still heavily traumatized ten years later and the subject of intimidation, he did not dare to give an official testimony. At least, that's what the summary report of the testimony reads. 215

Another case from Belgium involving the Vatican-Paneuropa network is the Pinon Affair, a case going back to 1979 in which both Paul vanden Boeynants and the later King Albert were mentioned as participants in child abuse parties. 216 In June 1981 the editor of Pour Magazine was brought into contact with one of the participants in these parties and started an investigation. Within days he received a telephone call from an attorney in Brussels who advised him to stop his investigation, because "panic has broken out in a certain political milieu". Ten days later the headquarters of Pour was destroyed by a fire. 217

Two different individuals have been named as the person who threatened the editor. One is Jacques G. Jonet, the earlier-mentioned political secretary of Otto von Habsburg, frequent Cercle visitor and Knight of Malta. The other person named at the time was Vincent vanden Bossche, a lawyer of numerous hard-right individuals who was part of the same milieu as Jonet. Like Jonet, he was a member of Cercle des Nations, the AESP and Ordre du Rouvre, although his credentials remain slightly less impressive. 218 It is entirely possible though that both men were involved in trying to stop the editor of Pour from publishing the results of his investigation.

Franco's Spain

Franco, dictator of Spain, admired by Cercle members.

Spain was headed by Franco until 1975, which was only partially approved by the reactionary Vatican-Paneuropa network. On the one hand, Franco was a good Catholic boy, treating the non-Catholics in his country as sub-human. On the other hand, because of Franco's totalitarian tendencies Spain remained isolated from the European integration process. That has been a major reason for the pressure on Franco to make reforms, allowing for a more democratic and pro-European Spain to emerge after his death. 219 It is said that Franco initially contacted the head of the Paneuropa movement, Otto von Habsburg, to become his follow-up, as the Habsburgs had ruled the country in the past for nearly 200 years. After a long discussion Otto declined, instead suggesting that Prince Juan Carlos should become Franco's successor. 220 And so it happened. Franco, Habsburg, and Carlos have all been named as members of the Knights of Malta. They also supported Opus Dei.

One Spanish Cercle member, as mentioned by Der Spiegel in 1980, was Federico Silva Munoz. Let's take a look who this person is. In 1967, Munoz, as Franco's Minister of the Interior, had blocked a bill that would have recognized the existence of Spain's small non-Catholic community. Most Opus Dei figures in government voted in favor of the bill, as part of the overall reform process. 221 In October 1969, there was an almost complete overhaul of Franco's cabinet with only four members of the old cabinet remaining. One of the four cabinet members that was allowed to stay was Munoz. 222 He still resigned five months later, allegedly over differences with the now dominant Opus Dei clique, headed by Franco's eminence grise Admiral Carrero Blanco and several others. 223 Munoz remained a member of the Spanish Congress and became head of Campsa, the oil concern which had a monopoly on oil distribution in Spain. 224 The struggle between the Falangists and Opusians continued in the years following, with the latter losing a lot of influence after Admiral Blanco was assassinated in December 1973, allegedly by the ETA.

Franco passed away in 1975, the same year that Portugal held its first democratic elections, permanently doing away with Portuguese fascism. King Juan Carlos became the new head of government. After Carlos dismissed the fascist prime minister Carlos Arias Navarro in 1976, Munoz was among the few who were recommended by Carlos' highest advisory body, the Council of the Realm, to be made prime minister of Spain. 225 However, Carlos picked the right wing, but far less reactionary, Adolfo Suarez, a reported member of Opus Dei. 226 Munoz, in the mean time, had become head of the hard-right Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD). In October 1976 he incorporated this party into the newly-created Alianza Popular (AP). The AP was a federation of several parties, which all were fascist or borderline fascist. It opted for a "more gradual" change to democracy than Suarez and his allies had planned for. Some co-founders with Munoz were former Franco ministers Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora, Lopez Rodo (influential minister in the 1960s and early 1970s, who is said to have engineered the Opus Dei takeover of the Spanish government), and 1001 Club member and later Cercle visitor Manuel Fraga Iribarne. 227 When the new constitution was approved in 1978, turning Spain into a parliamentary democracy, most members of the AP, as totalitarian as they were, decided to accept the constitution. Not Federico Silva Munoz and Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora, who withdrew from the AP to continue with their Unión de Centro Democrático party, renaming it in January 1979 to Derecha Democrática Española (DDE). That same month they established a coalition with Fuerza Nueva of Blas Pinar and other ultrafascists; probably the most reactionary and dangerous political faction in Spain at the time. 228 Munoz spoke out a few times against the new Spanish constitution in the months and years following 229, but soon disappeared into political obscurity.

In 1983, Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora, Munoz's political partner and good friend since they first met at a gathering of the Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas in the 1940s 230, founded the fascist magazine Razon Espanola (Spanish Reason) and became its president. Munoz would regularly write articles for the magazine. Razon Espanola was founded on October 1, 1983 as an outgrowth of the Balmes Foundation, in turn established a few months earlier by a grant of the German Hanns Seidel Foundation 231, which has already been mentioned before. It is the political trust attached to the Christian Social Union of such Opus Dei and Cercle luminaries as Otto von Habsburg and Franz Josef Strauss. There have been very familiar-sounding accusations that the Foundation has supported the Contras in Latin America and Mobutu, the anti-communist dictator of Zaire who was invited to the elite 1001 Club. 232 In case of Razon Espanola, it funded the magazine over a number of years until it was able to operate on its own. As you can read above, Fernandez and Munoz were friends of Strauss and when the BBC highlighted this in a panorama on Strauss in 1980, Brian Crozier, outgoing chairman of Le Cercle (which no reader of The Times knew) felt compelled to defend his associates. 233 However, Crozier himself was a great supporter of the Franco regime and like Munoz, Fernandez de la Mora, or Blas Pinar, he deemed Spain's new constitution unworkable. So much is clear from Crozier 1982 article in The Times entitled Is democracy such a good thing?. 234 In short, all these people are fascist, even though they always deny that.

One 1989 publication wrote that Munoz was a "senior Opus Dei member". 235 Judging by most of his career, Munoz was not in the camp that, at least in Spain, has traditionally been identified with Opus Dei - at least not fully. However, this religious group can transcend political parties and Munoz's later involvement with Le Cercle, Strauss and the Hanns Seidel Foundation certainly made him a close associate of what has often been termed "God's Octopus".

Federico Silva Munoz was the first Cercle visitor ISGP ran across. These days ISGP is in the posession of a number of full membership lists of the 1980s, revealing additional names. One of them is the earlier-mentioned right-winger Manuel Fraga Iribarne, who visited a Bonn meeting in June 1983. His brother-in-law, Carlos Robles Piquer, came with him. Piquer used to be an ambassador under Franco who eventually made it to secretary of state for foreign Affairs in the 1979-1981 post-Franco period. He also was an MP. Another MP, Guillermo Kirkpatrick, also tagged along to Bonn. At different times, Kirkpatrick served as vice president of the still-borderline-fascist Munoz-Iribarne-founded Alianza Popular party and as a consul general of Spain.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne was a mentor to Jose Maria Aznar, who was appointed head of the Alianza Popular / Popular Party in 1989. Aznar was prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004 and continued after that as one the world's leading neocons with involvement in more than a dozen leading NGOs, some of few of them extremely hawkish. The New Atlantic Initiative, the 3rd Committee on the Present Danger, the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Herzliya Conference and the Friends of Israel Initiative are among those NGOs that come to mind.

The most frequent visitors on the Cercle lists of the 1980s are Countess Aline de Romanones and Alfredo Sanchez Bella. Of these two, Sanchez Bella probably is the most straight-forward Cercle member. In 1952 he was a founder of the CEDI think tank with Otto von Habsburg, while his brother, Florencio Sanchez Bella, was head of Opus Dei in Spain. In addition, Sanchez Bella was board member of the Paneuropa Union, a founding member of the AESP, and a member Le Monde Moderne, all with leading international Cercle members. He also was a member of the European Liaison Committee to the Wilton Park conferences, together with Cercle founder Jean Violet and Cercle visitor and Belgian Knights of Malta leader Jacques Jonet. Based on this information, it appears that Sanchez Bella was a decades-long representative to Cercle meetings. In his non-shadow life he was a Spanish ambassador, his most important post possibly being Italy from 1962 to 1969, when the CIA and apparently various Italian Cercle visitors were buildings their anti-"communosocialist" "Strategy of Tension" here.

As for the Countess of Romanones, she was an American model recruited by the OSS during World War II to become an undercover agent in Spain. Here she ended up in high society, married the Count of Romanones (grandson of a three times Spanish prime minister in the 1912-1918 period) and ran her own little spy network.

After the war, she became deeply involved in the absolute highest circles of western society. One photograph shows her with CBS owner William Paley in Spain in the 1960s. Paley was a Pilgrims Society member who was close friends with CIA director Allen Dulles and made his CBS network available to the CIA's Mockingbird program. News reports from the 1980s and 1990s reveal the Countess of Romanones partying in New York City with the Astors, Forbes, Rockefellers and Rothschilds, all families we find in the Pilgrims Society. A list of trustees of the William J. Donovan Foundation - named after the founder of OSS - from the turn of the century shows the Countess of Romanones sharing the board with Pilgrims Society and special operations elites as William van den Heuvel, John Drexel IV, former OSS chief in London David Bruce, Bernadette Casey Smith, the daughter of the controversial CIA director William Casey; Frank Wisner II, the grandson of the former OPC/CIA covert operations chief under Allen Dulles. Also on the board was the OSS/CIA covert operations specialist General John Singlaub, who used to serve as a co-chairman of the American Security Council. Another board member was Prince Michel de Bourbon, a known arms dealer for Opus Dei and member of a family that is as old and well-known as the Habsburgs. Yet another name on the board of the William J. Donovan Foundation was Francis L. Kellogg, a 1001 Club member who allowed his business to be used as a front for the CIA.

Clearly, with a background, friends and colleagues like these, as well as a membership of Le Cercle, the Countess of Romanones was an extremely elite figure and a deep insider to private sector intelligence operations. That makes one wonder even more about her affilition with infamous Cold War terrorist Carlos "the Jackal". The story here is that her elite Spanish husband in the mid to late 1970s hired Carlos the Jackal as his assistant, some time after the Jackal was wanted for a string of terrorist attacks in Paris and murders of French intelligence agents. As the countess explained on CNN's Larry King Live on May 31, 1994, where she promoted her novel on The Jackal:

"[Carlos] knows all the terrorists in the world. ... You see, I had met Carlos. He had come to my house to deliver papers several times from my husband's office. I used to say to Luis, you know, what a well-mannered fellow you finally have in that office, so good-looking, so nice, he speaks English so well. About eight months later my husband said, "Oh, remember that well-mannered fellow that you were complimenting me on for having in my office? He turns out to be the world's number one assassin, the number one terrorist." He had just come in from France, where he had killed two policemen, wounded, very badly, a commissioner, and also killed one of his own colleagues who he was working with."

In hindsight of everything discussed in ISGP's "liberal CIA" article dealing with elite-financed controlled opposition networks - all of them super-pro-Palestine - Carlos the Jackal is a really bizarre individual. A son of a hardcore Venezuelan communist, he was trained in guerrilla warfare by the Cubans, educated at the London School of Economics, almost enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris, then educated at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, followed by terrorist training involving Muslim states as Lebanon, Libya, Jordan and Iraq to become a pro-Palestine terrorist operating in western Europe with remnants of the equally curious Red Brigade. Seriously? A Cuba-Soviet-trained Muslim-communist terrorist from Venezuela? Who hides out for 8 months under the nose of a top CIA and liberal elite estalishmentarion after a terrorist killing spree? It can't get any crazier. In later years Carlos actually voiced his support for Osama bin Laden, while being praised in private correspondence by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who also happens to be a big fan "liberal CIA" asset Noam Chomsky. In fact, Osama bin Laden read the works of "liberal CIA" assets Noam Chomsky and Greg Palast, not to mention those of boatloads of no-plane-pushing conspiracy disinformers, and other conspiracy disinformation books as John Coleman's The Committee of 300 and Fritz Springemeier's Bloodlines of the Illuminati. At the very least everybody seems confused at what is going on at the top of global society - but let's not even go there.

The main thing to remember here is that Alfredo Sanchez Bella probably was the most important conservative establishment figure from Spain attending Cercle meetings while the Countess of Romanones was a bit more in tune with the liberal Eastern Establishment as David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. Both were anti-communist, but the latter also was much more diplomatic.

Salazar's Portugal

The Cercle's closest ally in Portugal during the Cold War was Antonio Salazar, the colonialist dictator who ruled the country from 1932 to 1968. Before World War II, Salazar was a major supporter of Spanish dictator Franco. Due to Salazar's effective neutrality during World War II, at the end of the conflict Portugal still maintained an extensive colonial empire. In Asia the Portuguese possessions included small parts of India. In Africa they included the Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome e Principe, Angola, Portuguese Guinea, and Mozambique. Salazar, a fierce integralist and effectively a corporate fascist, was determined to retain control of these colonies. In India, after the British had given up on their possessions, he ordered his army to fight until the last man. In Africa he adopted scorched earth polices. Salazar economically supported Ian Smith's breakaway Rhodesian government - another ally of Le Cercle - until his cerebral hemorrhage in 1968. He died in 1970. The equally pro-colonialist Marcello Caetano was his successor.

There is no evidence that Salazar himself visited any meetings of Le Cercle, but some of his military commanders most certainly did. General Antonio de Spinola is known to have visited in the 1970s; General Kaulza de Arriaga at the very least went to a Cercle meeting in 1980.

De Arriaga was Salazar's secretary of state for air in the early 1960s, when the Portuguese-Angolan War began. He helped stop the April 1961 JFK-backed coup of army moderates against Salazar, a coup that would not have been supported by any other Cold War U.S. president except maybe Jimmy Carter. De Arriaga maintained a number of high level political positions and became a member of the Military Order of Christ, a Templar order quite similar to the Knights of Malta. In 1969-1973 he commanded the Portuguese forces in the Mozambican conflict, where he reportedly was involved in covering up civilian massacres. Tellingly, De Arriaga also served as executive president of oil company Angol SA.

As for General de Spinola, he came from a wealthy family. In the late 1930s he fought in Portugal's Viriatos volunteer force on the side of fascist general Francisco Franco in the Spanish civil war. By 1941, despite Portugal's official neutrality in World War II, Spinola and other former Viriatos were fighting in Franco's Blue Division alongside the Nazis in the encirclement of Leningrad. After World War II, Spinola fought Portugal's colonial wars in Africa and became a close confidante of Salazar. In the 1968-1973 period, while General Kaulza de Arriaga was running the military offensive in Mozambique in South-East Africa, Spinola headed the army forces in Portuguese Guinea in North-West Africa. In both countries the Portuguese military was accused of war crimes.

Similar to De Arriaga, Spinola was involved in big business. He was a director of Companhia Uniao Fabril (CUF), which dominated Guinea-Bissau's economy, had large interests in Africa, and owned 10 percent of Portuguese industrial capacity. He also was a director of Champalimaud, a steel and banking giant, also with extensive interests in Africa. Champalimaud and CUF were seen as two of maybe 5 or 6 companies that controlled virtually the entire Portuguese economy of the time.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the continuing wars in the colonies not only began to take a heavy toll on morale in the Portuguese army, but also with the citizens at home. The economy in Portugal also suffered from the war, with large corporations in Portugal criticizing Marcello Caetano, the successor to dictator Antonio Salazar, for not pushing hard enough for a "free market" (i.e., monopolist) economic system without too much state control.

In this political climate, Spinola published his February 1974 book Portugal and the Future, in which he claimed the colonial wars could not be won by force. Instead, he argued that a moderate black elite should be created in the colonies who would cooperate within a federation, headed by Portugal. The book, published by Spinola's Companhia Uniao Fabril (CUF), became enormously popular in the weeks ahead. In March 1974, Spinola was fired by Caetano for writing the book. His superior General Francisco da Costa Gomes was also fired for supporting Spinola.

Another month later, on April 25, 1974, the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA), a group of of lower-ranking officers opposing the colonial war and the corporate fascist regime took advantage of the book's momentum and organized a coup against Caetano. Spinola knew about the coup beforehand, but didn't protest because the plotters intended to make him commander of the armed forces, while the more moderate General Francisco Gomes would be head of the transitional government. The coup, known as the Carnation Revolution, ultimately succeeded, but the plotters failed to capture Caetano, who then demanded he would only surrender if De Spinola became his successor, instead of merely a military commander. According to Caetano, Spinola was the only man who "could save" Portugal. To avoid a bloodbath, the plotters accepted, and Spinola became head of the national junta of the MFA. He became president of Portugal in May 1974.

Despite having been made president of Portugal, De Spinola strongly disagreed on most points with the with MFA. He was primarily interested in a reorganization of the economy and the creation of black elite in the colonies under continued Portuguese control. He completely resisted the MFA's efforts to give independence to the colonies. Despite that, he was forced to compromise in almost every instance because of the powerful influence of moderates and the left. The people of Portugal had risen up en masse after Caetano was driven out, dismantled the secret police and took out their frustrations on anyone who had ever repressed them. Socialism and communism became very strong movements. Spinola, together with his corporate fascist friends, did everything in his power to contain and reverse the situation.

As part of this effort to quell pro-socialist and pro-communist forces, De Spinola met with President Nixon, a later Cercle visitor, in the Azores (considered a key location for NATO forces) in June 1974. In July 1974, Spinola appointed a former fascist cabinet member as ambassador to the United Nations, provoking large street demonstrations. De Spinola confined leftists troops to their barracks on July 6-7 and send troops considered right-wing to break up leftist demonstrations. An economic reform bill was issued on July 6 that limited the right to strike, strengthened private property, and encouraged foreign investment. Thousands of civil servants demonstrated against law on July 8. Spinola was ousted in late September 1974, presumably after having attempted to take full control of the government. The MFA prevented this and instead installed the more moderate General Francisco Gomes, their initial choice.

Already on May 22, 1974, there had been a police raid on the headquarters of Aginter Press, the name of the CIA-supported fascist-terrorist "Stay Behind" network in Portugal. It was founded in 1966 by Guerin Serac (anti-communist Catholic; did assassinations and terrorism for Franco; co-founder OAS that tried to assassinate De Gaulle and destabilize peace in Algeria; worked for Portugal's secret police; friend of Florimond Damman, who was appointed by Cercle founder Jean Violet to run the Belgian Académie Européenne des Sciences Politiques) and Stefano Delle Chiaie (fascist; P2 member and friend of Licio Gelli, official head P2; undermined Italian politics by assisting in coups and terrorism; associate of Prince Valerio Borghese, who worked with former Nazi commander Otto Skorzeny; associate of former Nazi officer Klaus Barbie; involved in Operation Condor and the cocaine wars in the Americas) to counter leftist influences in Portugal. Predictably, these men were supporters of Spinola.

Despite the Portuguese branch of the Stay Behind network having collapsed, the U.S. government continued to work with Spinola and other right-wingers in undermining the newly-risen left in Portugal. On March 11, 1975, just over a month before Portugal's first free elections, Spinola tried to get back with a vengeance with a right-wing coup attempt, sanctioned by Nixon and Ford's national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger (Le Cercle), with U.S. ambassador to Portugal Franck Carlucci, a later CIA deputy director and Carlyle Group chairman, serving as a go-between to the Spinola group. The coup failed, prompting De Spinola and 18 others to flee to Spain, and from there to Brazil. The attempted right-wing coup resulted in yet another major leftist counter-movement, a wave of nationalizations of banks and other businesses, and the seizure of many large farms in southern Portugal. During the April 1975 elections, the Socialist Party received 38% of the vote, the moderate People's Democratic Party (PPD) 26%, and the Communist Party 13%. This election spelled the end of Portugal as a pro-colonialist corporate fascist dictatorship. Social Democrats have ruled Portugal ever since, right up to the present day.

The CIA and members of the Cercle network did not give up though. In July 1976, after the failed right-wing coup of Spinola (who was allowed back into the country in 1976) and after his release from prison in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution, General Kaulza de Arriaga set up the hard right political party Movimiento Independente de Reconstrusao Nacional / Independent Movement for National Reconstruction (MIRN). That same year Arriaga attended Otto von Habsburg's CEDI's annual congress in Spain with other top Cercle members. Following that, in 1978, he founded the Portuguese Right-wing Party (PDP). He remained active in the PDP until 1980, but never stood the slightest chance in elections.

Throughout the 1980s, and possibly beyond, the only visitor from Portugal to Le Cercle for the most part was Jaime Nogueira Pinto, a great supporter of Salazar and Arriaga. In fact, as a political scientist at the University of Lisbon Pinto wrote a biography on Salazar, portraying the dictator as a great political leader. Predictably, Pinto also wasn't able to let go of the former colonies. He was a major supporter of the Mozambican anti-communist militia RENAMO, which was fighting the Marxist government of Samora Machel. Machel came to power in 1975 and remained so until he died in a plane crash in 1986, around the time he was putting pressure on 1001 Club member Mobutu Sese Seko, the West-backed anti-communist dictator of The Congo. In 1984 Pinto even brought along to Le Cercle a spokesman and then secretary general of RENAMO, Evo Fernandes.

Latin America: Pinochet

In the previous chapter we talked about Gerald Ford's national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger in March 1975 sanctioning the overthrow of the newly-found left-wing government-in-transition of Portugal. This hardly was the only case in which the U.S. government and its corporate "advisors" ordered the overthrow of a moderate, left-wing government. In 1973 it was the turn of Salvador Allende, the democratically-elected moderate president of Chile. Kissinger, then operating under Nixon, sanctioned the CIA to overthrow the democratically-elected moderate president of Chile, Salvador Allende.

The coup resulted in the rise to power of General Augusto Pinochet. The ultraright military dictator would end up imprisoning and torturing tens of thousands of leftists, executing about 3,000 of them. As discussed in ISGP's article A History of CIA Drug Trafficking, Pinochet also was involved in large-scale cocaine trafficking to Europe and that by the 1980s this was sanctioned as long a portion of the profits went to the Reagan-backed Contra armies in Nicaragua. All of these activities were part of Latin America's Condor network, in which military dictators, death squad leaders and drug cartels were all cooperating in the suppression of anti-"communosocialist" elements. The CIA played a key role in facilitating this network.

Pinochet was widely supported in ultraright western circles surrounding the CIA and private groups as the WACL and American Security Council. Thus it shouldn't surprise us that Chile is among the two known Latin American countries represented in Le Cercle in the 1980s, nor that Colombia is the second. Colombia was represented at virtually every Cercle meeting of the 1980s by a right-wing aristocratic, ruling family: Hurtado Gomez. It appears this family was primarily brought in to discuss the fight against the communist FARC militia. Any drug trafficking ties are unknown, except that one of them later was injured in a bombing of Pablo Escobar. As for the Chileans, in February 1985, Alfredo Alcaino and Senator Francisco Bulnes made their way to a Cercle meeting in Washington, D.C. Alcaine appears to have been a lawyer and mayor of a municipality in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Bulnes was a political ally of Pinochet, who participated in the coup against Allende.

While Latin America might not be the primary domain the Cercle has been active, Cercle members most certainly were major supporters of Pinochet. Henry Kissinger, who helped Pinochet to power, was a Cercle member. Ted Shackley, a top CIA officer who aided the rise of Pinochet, was a key Cercle participant. The aristocratic Cercle visitor Lord Alun Chalfont, an executive member of the Pilgrims Society deeply involved in security state operations, was a director of the pro-Pinochet British-Chilean Council. Lord Norman Lamont, a chairman of Le Cercle, has been a vocal apologist for Pinochet. We can go on all day. Pinochet was an ally of the Cercle network, similar to the fact that he was an ally of the overlapping WACL and American Security Council networks.

France

At the beginning of this article we discussed Charles de Gaulle's support for a United Europe, but that his anti-Britain, anti-American and anti-NATO stances made him unpopular with the CIA, to the point it supported OAS assassination plots against the French president. The CIA in those days, also didn't approve of De Gaulle abandoning France's colonial war in Algeria.

The Paneuropa Union and the Vatican, however, never had to complain much about France, or De Gaulle for that matter. Whether a president was Gaullist or socialist, at the very least they favored a strong Europe as a political and military counterweight to the United States; and even though Great Britain was accepted into the European Union, it was never able to wedge itself into the dominant Franco-German alliance. This mainly had to do with the French. All French presidents were staunch Roman Catholics, some even connected to Opus Dei, like Robert Schuman, Antoine Pinay, and Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

The French have been the primary motor behind the European Union. Paneuropa member Robert Schuman, through Monnet, laid the foundation for the European Union with the 1949 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). In the 1950s, Antoine Pinay founded Le Cercle with the Opusian Jean Violet and Otto von Habsburg. They immediately invited Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet. Monnet, although mainly connected to Anglo-American banking and political interests, was the Frenchman who organized the 1948 Congress of Europe with Joseph Retinger, came up with the idea of the ECSC, played an important role in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, and later set up his influential action committee.

The decade after the ECSC, Bilderberg, Le Cercle and the European Economic Community (EEC) had been created, Violet and Pinay arranged for the Franco-German alliance between de Gaulle and Adenauer. This was in January 1963 and just in time for a possible acceptance of Britain into the EEC. De Gaulle, however, vetoed Britain's entry anyway, which guaranteed Franco-German dominance of the EEC for the years to come.

Coudenhove and Habsburg adored De Gaulle not only for giving France a strong military and even its own nuclear arsenal, but also for his leadership role in furthering European integration. 236 In 1969, however, after De Gaulle had steered Europe too much in an anti-NATO, anti-Anglo-American, and domestically too Conservative course, he build up so much opposition against himself that he was forced to resign. His more moderate right hand man, Georges Pompidou, a person in close contact with the Cercle and a long time employee of the Rothschild Bank, took over.

Pompidou's éminence grise became former Nazi-collaborator Georges Albertini, who worked at Banque Worms, coincidentally said to have been a major Synarchie front. Albertini worked with Jean Violet and Brian Crozier in both 6I and the Cercle. In the 1960s he could also be found in New Orleans as an international advisor to the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), the ultra-right outfight of Dr. Alton Ochsner notoriously linked to the Kennedy assassination. Albertini also briefed the Pope on several occasions. In 1973, at the recommendation of French president Georges Pompidou, a former Rothschild banker, Otto von Habsburg became the new president of the Paneuropa Union, as Coudenhove-Kalergi had died the year before. 237 Pompidou himself suddenly died in 1974 and the interim president became Alain Poher, a member of Le Cercle who was president of the French Senate from 1968 to 1992. In 1969 he had also served as acting president when Charles de Gaulle stood down, but lost the subsequent election to Pompidou. This time Poher lost the election to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a Knight of Malta and good friend of Jean Violet, who became the next president of France until 1981. Giscard, his father Edmond, together with associates as Prince Jean de Broglie, Robert Leclerc and members of Le Cercle are said to have introduced Opus Dei to France. 238 More on Giscard in a minute.

Things changed in 1981, when the socialist Mitterrand became president of France. One family who couldn't appreciate the new socialist policies were the Rothschilds, who saw their family bank nationalized. They had to shift attention to New Court, their securities firm in New York at Rockefeller Center with stakes in corporations as TRW and Hughes Aircraft. 239 But even though Mitterrand was a socialist, he also was an ardent Catholic who favored European integration. Also, Georges Albertini already anticipated the victory of the socialists and brought Mitterrand's closest friend and confidant, Francois de Grossouvre, into the Cercle six months before the elections. When Mitterrand was elected in 1981, he appointed de Grossouvre as coordinator of security and intelligence. 240 Four years later de Grossouvre and Admiral Pierre Lacoste, two leading officers in the French stay-behind networks 241, were among a small group that decided to sink the Rainbow Warrior in reaction to the protests of Greenpeace against French nuclear testing at Mururoa. 242

Mitterrand, known to have been greatly interested in Machiavelli, stayed in office for a long time. Only in 1995 Jacques Chirac took over. Chirac also was close to Opus Dei. His wife, Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, was said to a major sympathizer. The same goes for Chirac's prime minister in the 1995-1997 period, Alain Juppe, under whom several Opus Dei members entered the French cabinet. 243

Jacques Chirac has an interesting history. In 1974 he was foreign affairs minister under Georges Pompidou and held a number of other positions under Pompidou. After that, he was major of Paris for a very long time, from 1977 to 1995. In this period it appears he was invited to Le Cercle. A "secret" December 1980 cable from the South African Embassy in Madrid to South Africa's director-general of Foreign Affairs and intelligence reads that Alfredo Sanchez Bella stated that Jacques Chirac was a possible Cercle visitor in the coming days. Chirac was listed with three other "possible" visitors, all of them known members. Chirac visiting at some point makes sense, because Monique Garnier-Lancon, who helped organize Cercle meetings in the 1982-1985 period, served as Chirac's deputy mayor from 1977 to 1989. Garnier Lancon also was involved in scores of ultraright action groups on both sides of the Atlantic, from Habsburg's Europaeisches Institut fuer Sicherheitsfragen (EIS), to the Council for National Policy of General John Singlaub and Colonel Oliver North and the even deeper CIA- and Pentagon-linked American Security Council. Interestingly, on May 18, 1986, the Manchester Guardian Weekly wrote a very interesting and very unique article that read:

"At international level there are several institutes and think tanks run by the apostles of anticommunism, cold war hawks, national security ideologues, and professional exponents of the strategy of tension. The most influential of these bodies are usually controlled and financed by the CIA and American military intelligence, for which they work. They include the American Security Council, the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the National Strategic Information Centre and the Heritage Foundation.

"The best-known in France are the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and Causa, both of which are financed by the Moonie sect, and to a lesser extent Marie-France Garaud's Institut International de Geopolitique. ... All these bodies lend active support to the most extremist regimes under the pretext of combating Communist subversion...

"Chirac's own Rassemblement pour la Republique (RPR) has long striven to win over activists from extreme rightwing movements like Occident, Ordre Nouveau, the Groupe Union Defense (GUD), and the Parti des Forces Nouvelles (PFN), who have been given positions of responsibility and are to be found in the entourage of the new Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, and of Chirac himself. ...

"Politicians like Alain Griotteray and Nice mayor Jacques Medecin play the role of middlemen between the right and the far right. ...

"Figaro Magazine (edited by Louis Pauwels, who frequently attends Causa conferences) has opened its pages to the spokesmen of the new right from the GRECE and the Club de l'Horloge, such as Alain de Benoist, Jean-Claude Vala and Patrice de Plunkett, who can now plug their ideas directly to the bourgeois elite. Some of the same writers even contribute to Le Figaro, the prestigious mouthpiece of journalists who belong to the traditional, conservative or moderate right, but who do not seem all that put off by their bedfellows." 244

The fascinating thing about this Manchester Guardian article is not just that these details are unheard of in English-language newspapers in particular, but also that Jacques Chirac, Charles Pasqua and Figaro magazine co-founder Alain Griotteray mentioned in it were all involved in Le Cercle, with the author apparently having no clue of the existence of Le Cercle. In addition, Francois D'Orcival, a close collaborator of Alain de Benoist, was invited to Le Cercle. The name "Pauwels" was also listed on a 1985 handwritten memo as a consideration for the Washington, D.C. meeting for that year, along with known visitors as Alain Griotteray and Raymond Bourgine. The French-Irish Pierre Joannon, a Cercle visitor who has been supporting the Catholics of the IRA, used to be involved with Le Figaro as well. Who were all these individuals?

Charles Pasqua was a co-founder of the Gaullist SAC militia that was involved in fighting the colonial Algerian War and has been linked to arms trade and drug trafficking. After De Gaulle changed his mind on the Algerian War, the SAC was tasked with fighting the CIA-backed OAS militia that was trying to assassinate De Gaulle and continue the Algerian War. Quite a few SAC members resigned in protest.

Alain Griotteray was a French MP from the 1960s to the 1990s and a member of Antoine Pinay's right-wing to fascist Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP). In 1978 he co-founded the ultraright Figaro magazine and in 1984 he was a co-founder of an obscure group called Solidarite-Liberte with Cercle participants Charles Pasqua and Raymond Bourgine, as well as a number of others.

As for Francois D'Orcival, he and Alain de Benoist founded the Algeria Federation of Nationalist Students (FEN) to create a student union in favor of fighting to keep French Algeria a colony of France. In the 1963-1967 period, both men got themselves and the FEN involved in a group named Europe-Action, which served as a rotating platter for Jew haters, Vichyites, OAS supporters and fascists from other countries, such as Leon Degrelle in Belgium. Among the contributors to the group's journal was Otto Skorzeny, the escaped Nazi involved in the CIA's gladio terrorism network. 245 In the same period the men were writing for the extreme-right magazine Defense de l'Occident (Defense of the West), similar to later Cercle visitor Pierre Joannon. In 1965 they wrote a book in favor of the fascist-terrorist OAS that tied to assassinate De Gaulle and continue the Algerian War. Then, in 1967, they wrote another book, prefaced by Ian Smith, in favor of support for British apartheid state Rhodesia. In addition, in 1966 D'Orcival became a journalist for Spectacle du Monde, a magazine owned by fellow future Cercle participant Raymond Bourgine. He also wrote for Figaro magazine, co-founded by Cercle participant Alain Griotteray.

Raymond Bourgine, invited to a 1985 Cercle meeting in Washington D.C., was not named in the Manchester Guardian article. However, he is a very important figure in understanding post-war French fascism. Bourgine was a long-time senator and press baron involved for several decades in the ultraright-wing of Antoine Pinay's Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP), along with Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front. Tellingly, in 1965 Le Pen served as campaign leader of the presidential campaign of Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour against De Gaulle. 246 Tixier-Vignancour used to work for the pro-Nazi Vichy government during World War II and in 1962 was the attorney for General Raoul Salan, the earlier-discussed OAS chief whose assassination plots against De Gaulle and other terrorist acts were encouraged by the CIA. After De Gaulle was out of the picture in 1969, Bourgine became a supporter of Georges Pompidou. Chirac was later introduced to Bourgine through Pompidou and he became a supporter of Chirac.

Bourgine was the owner of a news outlet called Valeurs Actuelles. In light of the above Manchester Guardian article, it is interesting to note that Valeurs Actualles pushed Jacques Chirac in the 1980s, briefly after Bourgine visiting Le Cercle, to not leave his ultraright support behind:

"Valeurs Actuelles uses, in 1987, the reference Le Pen to remind the Chirac government its commitments made to the right: Jacques Chirac, Raymond Bourgine contends, can only prevail during the presidential elections of 1988 if he secures the votes of the "national right". To Jean-Marie Le Pen, Bourgine is credited with having made public the issues of immigration and security." 247

It should be clear at this point that not just Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay were involved with fascists or borderline fascists in French politics, including members of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front. This habit continued under Jacques Chirac, despite his mainstream image. Not all Chirac-allied Cercle visitors were this controversial, but more than a few most definitely have been. In that regard, let's not skip Chirac's prime minister in 1995-1997, Cercle visitor Alain Juppe, who immediately before was accused of responsibility in the Rwandan genocide. Like Chirac and so many other Cercle members, Juppe was yet another Opus Dei sympathizer. 249

Besides being the usual political opportunist, Chirac was a great supporter of European integration and of the failed 2005 European constitution. Before the voting process for the new constitution began, Chirac brought up the old issue of Britain's loyalty to the European Union, saying that if its citizens voted against, it would be clear that Britain felt more strongly about cooperation with the Commonwealth and the US. He then promoted the idea that any country who voted against the constitution could better leave the European Union. 250 In April 2005, Chirac went on TV and openly stated that a no to the European Constitution "would halt the European project in its tracks, and pave the way to an unregulated, uncontrolled free-market world, dominated by the United States." 251

Even after these strong statements, the person who oversaw the writing of the European constitution blamed Chirac for France's rejection of it. This person was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a long time political rival of Chirac, and claimed it was a mistake of Chirac to hand out the third part of the European Constitution to the French people for reviewing, because part III had already been ratified in previous treaties. Giscard literally begged Chirac not to do this. 252 However, since the people of France had to revote on this section as part of the overall constitution, Chirac decided to include it in the mailings, possibly to avoid any accusations of conspiracy that would undermine his chances in the 2007 elections. This third part, which dealt with the major EU policies - the internal market, the economic and monetary union, employment, social policies, consumer protection, environment, agriculture, energy, research, etc. - was severely criticized by the French people, who always quite severely leaned to socialism and communism (which in no small part had to do with France's Vichy and neocolonial past). Back in 1957, at the time of the Treaty of Rome, when a lot of these very liberal policies were agreed upon, the socialists had nothing to bring in, as the CIA, MI6, the SDECE and French Gladio units made sure that leftist elements, however strong they were, did not get any executive positions in government. The same thing happened in other countries.

As a good Opusian and Malteser Knight, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing already proposed a solution to the problem of getting the European constitution ratified:

"Let's be clear about this: the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France was a mistake, which will have to be corrected... the Constitutional Treaty will have to be given its second chance. When? When France has completed her great electoral debate, with the presidential and parliamentary elections which are due to be held 14 months' time, in spring 2007. How? By refocusing the debate on the only genuinely constitutional parts, that is to say, the first part, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights demanded by the European Left, neither of which have given rise to much protest. Then the third part could follow a parliamentary route, which is far better suited to its legal nature." 253

Giscard enjoys the full support of his friend Otto von Habsburg, who agrees that the constitution should be reintroduced, albeit the more "comprehensible" early version of Giscard. 254 Discussions about this between Chirac and Merkel (of the CDU in Germany) immediately went underway. Chirac is a Catholic, but seems to be less influenced by his fate than some of the politicians surrounding him. For example, Giscard and Habsburg strongly opposed any possibility of Turkish membership in the European Union, most likely because such a thing will interfere with their vision of a new Holy Roman Empire [Update: in late November 2006, Pope Ratzinger all of a sudden saw no objections to Turkey joining the EU. It would be really interesting to know the reason behind this sudden and complete 180 degrees reversal. It appears the European ultramontanists always draw the short stick when compared to the liberal establishment.]. Chirac, on the other hand, is open to the idea that Turkey would eventually be allowed to join. Merkel agrees on this issue with Habsburg and Giscard, but is not part of their Opus Dei clique. Edmund Stoiber, a protege of Strauss, tried to compete with her for the German chancellorship in 2005.

THE MODERN ERA

Great Britain: in or out of Europe?

As for Le Cercle, it has already been discussed that leadership went from the Vatican-Paneuropa network to members connected to the Anglo-American establishment. The early Britains visiting Le Cercle in the 1970s, such as Brian Crozier, may have still been open to the idea of Britain joining the European Union as a third pillar to Germany and France. However, with the end of the Cold War and continued resistance from France in particular, this view radically changed by the early 1990s. Recent heads as Jonathan Aitken, Lord Lamont and Lord Michael Ancram have been crucial in the campaign to halt further British integration into the European Union. Lamont remains one of the leaders of the British eurosceptic movement with his Bruges Group. Most of the recent British visitors of Le Cercle, all Conservatives, also want to get Britain out of the European Union. Aitken gave an explanation in September 2005:

"People have realised that the dream of a federal Europe with Britain at the centre of it has been a dream that has failed. I and a few others could see that it would fail and it has." 255

Although likely a sincere statement, it's hard to take anything serious that Aitken says. He's a great nephew of the Hitler-intimate Lord Beaverbrook, whose son was a member of the questionable 1001 Club. He's also a MI6 agent involved in massive amounts of illegal arms sales, and someone who recruited his own 13-year-old daughter to lie for him in court. Then, after his conviction and subsequent release, he still received a salary of about $15,000 a month from an unknown source. Out of jail it also turned out that Aitken had become even more religious and that he seemed to have switched from being an Anglican to a Roman Catholic. Uttering creepy sentences as "I am a man of unclean lips" he even went to do a personal Ignatian retreat to entrench the spiritual exercises of the Society of Jesus into his subconsciousness 256. And this is a man who ran what the Independent called "one of the most influential, secretive, and... exclusive political clubs in the West" 257 and was described by Alan Clark as someone "who knows absolutely everybody in the world". 258

After the European constitution was rejected by France and the Netherlands in May and June 2005 respectively, Lord Lamont, then chairman of Le Cercle, wrote:

"The Europe of Delors [fervent Catholic socialist; received Charlemagne award], Mitterand [fervent Catholic socialist; received Charlemagne award] and Kohl [fervent Catholic; received Charlemagne award; illegally supported by funds from the Vatican] is dead. No means no. Europe's self-serving political elite will make a profound mistake and create an awakening of bitterness if they try to sidestep France's historic vote. Europe is a dysfunctional mess. Europe needs to go back to square one. Blair and the British Government in their role as the Presidency of the EU should renegotiate the existing treaties to create a looser free trade Europe of 25 countries." 259

Although another very questionable person, Lamont is a serious Eurosceptic and his Bruges Group brings up many good points in relation to the European Union:

• The EU is not a free trade union, but a customs union (single market). Both offer a zero tariffs policy between member states, but the customs union forbids member states to make their own economic deals with other countries. This type of union requires central political oversight, as foreseen by Arthur Salter in his 1931 book The United States of Europe.
• The vast majority of laws are written by the EU, not by the member states.
• The European Parliament has very little power, making the EU rather undemocratic.
• There are worrisome religious differences among Europeans. Catholic countries have been trying to include Christianity into the constitution of the European Union, with protestant countries opposing this. 260
• Foreign policy objectives of the United States tend to differ from the EU's, making it increasingly hard for Britain to exercise its "special relationship" with the United States. 261

If only Lord Lamont wasn't an apologist for Pinochet 262 and other Cold War CIA-favored regimes.

In any case, the big question among British Tories (Conservatives) today is what should be done with the European Union. While Labour is decidedly pro-Europe, an increasingly large number of Conservatives - who undoubtedly are finding strength among their dissenting peers - want out. 263 Ignoring immigration issues, surrendering sovereignty to the traditional Franco-German alliance is not an option to many Conservatives. In fact, as an alternative in late 2006 American and British neocons tried to push Tony Blair to force an Anglo-German alliance with Merkel while Jacques Chirac was about to leave office:

"The reign of Jacques Chirac and the generation of politicians clustered around him, who have dominated the French political elite since the 1970s, is coming to an end. ... More than any other European leader [Chirac] has attempted to fashion a Euro-Gaullist Union, a counter-weight and rival, rather than partner, to the United States. ...

"During this time, a window of opportunity exists to cement the closer Anglo-German relationship that has evolved since the election of Angela Merkel."264

This actually was an article of the Henry Jackson Society. And there were previous ones along these lines, all focused on replacing the Franco-German axis with an Anglo-German one. 265 The patrons of the Henry Jackson Society have included well-known neocons as William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and past Cercle visitors Richard Perle and Nathan Sharansky. The Eurosketic Lord Michael Ancram, the follow-up of Lord Lamont as chairman of Le Cercle, is among the signatories of the Henry Jackson Society's Statement of Principles and used to be involved in Bruges Group meeting. 266

In other words, it appears that the most-inside group of ultraright British conservatives either want to have a lot to say in European Union and about their own country's destiny - or they want out.

Euroskeptics, including UKIP, ran by security services?

The previous section was almost entirely written in 2006. In terms of Euroskepticism we have come a long way since then. In June 2016 the British public, despite massive mainstream media propaganda warning for an economic apocalypse, voted for Britain to leave the European Union. In another massive blow to the liberal establishment, months later the American public voted Donald Trump into office. These occurrences were not a coincidence, of course, and in case of Great Britain it had nothing to do with worries about a dominant Franco-German alliance or Catholics running mainland Europe. Instead, it had everything to do with the bizarre open borders policy of liberal elites towards the Third World and the crime waves and social and cultural degeneration they bring to the West.

Unfortunately, moderate, liberal political parties that are staunchly anti-Third World immigration for some strange reason do not exist. If you want social security programs, decent healthcare, and no pointless War on Terror invasions around the world, you also have to vote in favor of unrestrained Third World immigration. There's pretty much never anything in between.

Basically all "populist" parties and candidates that sprung up in the West have ties to the security services, either traditional anti-Zionist ones or more modern pro-Zionist neocon ones. Often, as is the case with Donald Trump, these candidates combine both traditional Christian Conservative and neocon elements, including the controlled opposition-ran conspiracy-inclined "new right". The Tea Party was backed by ultraright CIA asset Richard Mellon Scaife and a number of allies. 267 In the Netherlands "populist" candidates as Pim Fortuyn, Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy all have peculiar ties and views, much of it tied to American-style neoconservatism and the "alt-right". In France there's Le Pen, whose National Front has deep ties to fascists visiting Le Cercle.

Turns out, the situation is no different in Great Britain. Leading Euroskeptics Lord Norman Lamont and Lord Michael Ancram both served as chairman of Le Cercle, immediately establishing their deep intelligence ties. An ally of Lamont in the Bruges Group, apart from the participation of future Cercle head Michael Ancram, is Bruges Group columnist Philip Vander Elst, who is known to have visited Le Cercle in 1983. In 2009 Vander Elst served as a candidate of the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), along with party leader Nigel Farage. However, there's more. Much more.

Maybe we should start with one of Lord Lamont's former bosses until the year before he became head of Le Cercle: Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Before becoming a very influential politician, Lamont worked at N.M. Rothschild & Sons and Rothschild Asset Management. In 1993, he briefly returned to N.M. Rothschild & Sons. At the time, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild personally appointed Lamont to his board, going against the advise of other board members. As the whole board was composed of staunch Eurosceptics, outside observers began to wonder if this was going to hurt the family bank's business in mainland Europe. 268 However, almost ten years later, in 2002, it turned out that Sir Evelyn set up and was actually funding the most influential pro-EU think tank in existence:

"Peter Mandelson, the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, has found a new backer for his political ambitions in the shape of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, the multi-millionaire banker... the two have become firm friends... So it is perhaps no surprise that de Rothschild has emerged as the mystery funder of Policy Network, a "super think tank" that boasts some of No 10's senior policy advisers on its board and is chaired by none other than Mandelson. The sum donated to date is said to be £250,000. The name of the donor is missing from the think tank’s accounts, but its directors have been privately concerned that they will look secretive if they continue to hide his identity... In June this year the de Rothschilds were among the organisers of a “progressive” leaders’ conference run by Policy Network at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, which attracted Clinton and the prime minister. In the evening, the gathering moved to Ascott House, de Rothschild’s home in Buckinghamshire, for a seated banquet for 100. The board of Policy Network — set up by a group of young Blairites in 2000 — reads like a Who’s Who of Labour’s inner circle." 269

Maybe Sir Evelyn changed his mind. Then again, his family is divided between neocon pro-Israel neocon (mainly through Lord Jacob Rothschild) and pro-Europe Bilderberg allegiances (he and wife, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a close Hillary Clinton and George Soros ally). Unfortunately, Sir Evelyn doesn't like to give interviews 270 so it is likely to remain anybody's guess. In general, and not unlike the Rockefellers in the United States, members of the Rothschild family swing both to the left and right. There's really no telling what goes on in their heads. And not only through Lord Lamont are the Rothschilds close to Le Cercle; through the elite Other Club and Roxburghe Club the Rothschilds were/are in close contact with leading Cercle members Lord Julian Amery, Paul Channon (Baron Kelvedon; his daughter died from a heroin overdose in the mansion of Count Gottfried von Bismarck; very close friend of the Duke of Kent) and the Cecils.

This is not all. Distant Rothschild cousin Sir James Goldsmith, a financier of the 6I private intelligence group and at least considered at one point for a Cercle invitation, was the most prominent Euroskeptic activist of the 1990s. In November 1994 Sir James Goldsmith founded his Euroskeptic Referendum Party with a 20 million pound investment. After his death in 1997, the party was continued by his widow, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, and son-in-law, Robin Birley, under the name Referendum Forum and after that the pressure group Democracy Movement. Lady Annabel served as president; Birley as chairman, until 2004. 271 In 1999 the wealthy but rather obscure businessman Paul Sykes pledged 20 million pounds to the Democracy Movement and merged his organization, the Euro Information Campaign, with it, filling the gap left by Sir James. Sykes actually sold his yacht, private jet, various houses, and disinherit his children for the most part in order to finance his anti-EU activities. 272

Throughout the 1990s the Referendum Party actually was more popular than today's better known U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), headed by charismatic Nigel Farage from 2006 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2016. Apart from the fact that Farage is extremely well-spoken, this may have something to do with funding as well. Let's look at the top five biggest financiers of UKIP. 273

1. Paul Sykes, the old Goldsmith ally of the Referendum Forum, became a huge financier of UKIP in 2013. 274
2. The second-largest financier, Stuart Wheeler, is an old friend of Sir James from his MI6 and SAS-ridden "Mayfair Set" days. 275
3. The third-largest donor is an obscure Mayfair-based Growth Financial Services Limited owned by a certain Christopher Mills 276, who turns out to be a major partner of the elite Hambro banking family. Mills used to work for HSBC, served as a director of Samuel Montagu Ltd. and has been involved in dozens of smaller companies.
4. The fourth-largest donor is an obscure company residential developing company owned by Henry Smith, a shady payday company owner who in 2016 was forced to pay out £34 million to customers he exploited. 277
5. Robin Birley, Sir James' son-in-law, today is the fifth-largest UKIP financier.

If we include Sir James Goldsmith in the above list, we can comfortably say that 4 out of 6 top financial resources for the Referendum Party to UKIP were and are linked to British intelligence: Sir James Goldsmith, his son-in-law Robin Birley, his old friend Stuart Wheeler and the Hambro-tied Christopher Mills. This immediately casts suspicions upon the remaining two financiers, especially Paul Sykes who already cooperated with Sir James' widow and son-in-law since at least late 1998.

There's more. Three additional financiers of UKIP revolve around the Leave.eu website:

• One is Arron Banks, a South African who once worked for Lloyds Bank today owns a diamond mine in South Africa and a security firm with ex-MI5 and SAS members that he is accused of using to spy on rivals. 278
• Another is "political operative" Andy Wigmore, until recently the trade and investment envoy of British Honduras (Belize) - once Contra death squad central - to the United Kingdom. Wigmore's Twitter reveals a picture of him with Reagan when he still was very young, as well as posts in favor of Alex Jones' conspiracy disinformation outfit Infowars and Lord Rees-Mogg for prime minister. In November 2016, Wigmore set up a meeting with Trump for Nigel Farage, Arron Banks and himself, during which the four men discussed the banning of offshore wind farms. 279
• A third person involved in Leave.eu is American billionaire Robert Mercer, a first-rate representative of Christian conservative interests and in that fashion a donor to Cercle-allied groups as the Heritage Foundation and Council for National Policy, as well as the Trump-supporting Breitbart news. Apart from the CNP tie, Mercer has attended parties of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a controversial top-level CIA front firm. Mercer also is a shareholder in Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. 280

Clearly banks, Wigmore and Mercer are deeply tied in with the same CIA / national security "alt-right" clique as Donald Trump and Alex Jones that ISGP has been writing about in other articles. Let's leave these individuals behind now and focus more in-depth on the earlier-listed top financiers of UKIP: Sir James Goldsmith, his son-in-law Robin Birley, his old Mayfair Set friend Stuart Wheeler and the Hambro-tied Christopher Mills.

Let's start with Mills. In 1993 Mills founded J.O. Hambro Capital Management Group Ltd. with James "Jamie" Hambro. 281 Jamie served as chairman of Hambros Bank from 1965 to 1972 and executive director from 1972 to 1985. He was the son of Jocelyn Olaf Hambro, after whom his 1993 investment firm was named. The Hambro family has deep ties to the Pilgrims Society, the Swedish Wallenberg of Bilderberg and the 1001 Club; and elite British families as Astor and Keswick, also of the Pilgrims and 1001 Club, who served as directors and even chairmen of Hambros. As discussed earlier in this article, a member of the Hambro family, Pilgrims Society member and long-time Hambros Bank head Sir Charles Hambro, co-founded and headed the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the British version of the OSS and a World War II rival of MI6. Early Cercle co-chairman Sir Peter Tennant had been recruited into the SOE by Sir Charles Hambro. Sir Harry Sporborg, who in the early 1980s served on the small, secret Shield Committee with MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott and Cercle president and MI6 and CIA asset Brian Crozier, was recruited by Sir Charles into the SOE, served as the SOE's deputy chief under Sir Charles, and later served as a long-time Hambros director. There's a considerable chance that private intelligence network 6I, which fronted for the CIA, MI6 and other intelligence agencies, was set up during a meeting at Hambros in 1977. Most of these ties are discussed in the chapter 6I: privatizing CIA operations.

Because some readers might still have a hard time believing Hambros, Rothschilds, or London City banks in general can be involved in intelligence operations, let's cite Gerald James. James used be a banker at Barings and all his career moved in very high intelligence and financial circles. In the late 1980s his arms company, he claims, was among those picked by "the cabal" to be sacrificed in the Iraqgate scandal in order to protect the real movers and shakers. He knew various leading Cercle members. Cercle chairman Julian Amery was among his business contacts and he also used to be a member of the influential pro-Empire Monday Club, ran by Cercle chair Julian Amery and the Cecil family - also involved in Le Cercle. In his book, James wrote:

"The cabal needs the City to finance its deals and launder its funds... Firms like Kleinwort Benson, where George Kennedy Young worked after retiring as deputy head of MI6, and Morgan Grenfell have had their Intelligence associations for years, as have Hambros, Schroeders, Rothschilds and Barings... Peter Middleton, chief executive of Lloyds of London, came out of the Foreign Office and MI6, and has worked for the International Division of Midland Bank [and played a central role in the Iraq arms trade.]...

"If you are in the senior echelons of the civil service, the City and Intelligence, you are above the law, you are all powerful... [At least before he was head of Le Cercle] Jonathan Aitken was ... not a member of the inner sanctum exactly, though he very much wanted to be...

"Years later I bumped into [former Labour minister] Peter Shore in the changing rooms of the Roehampton Club... What I actually said to Shore was, 'Why has the main witness not been interviewed [in the Pergau Dam/ Malaysian arms deal affair]?' Shore, assuming that I meant Thatcher, began to reply - 'It's her prerogative as Prime Minister..." When I interrupted, telling him I meant [Stephen] Kock [of MI6, the SAS, the Midland Bank and alleged former Group 13 government assassin], Shore's telling response was, 'But that is another level of government altogether.'" 282

Getting back to UKIP, it certainly is fascinating to see how an obscure company financing almost clandestinely Britain's leading Euroskeptics party immediately ties back to an elite British banking family with serious historical ties to British intelligence. Now add Sir Peter Tennant and friends as well and the picture looks even more peculiar.

Of course, similar to the Hambros Bank, we already met Sir James Goldsmith earlier in this article. Like the Rothschilds - his cousins and soon his in-laws - Sir James is a bit of a unique deal. Despite being a creature of the ultraright, coup-plotting, MI6-riddled national security state - to the point he was financing publications that claimed the New York Times was controlled by the KGB 283 - he, alongside his brother Teddy, also was deeply involved in sustainable development and was close to members of the liberal establishment, including the British royal family, George Soros and the Rothschilds. In fact, both sons of Sir James, Ben and Zac Goldsmith, married daughters of Amschel Rothschild (1955-1996), a half-brother of Lord Jacob Rothschild. Similar to the Rothschilds and allies as Robert Maxwell and 1001 Club members Edgar de Picciotto and Edmond Safra, Goldsmith sometimes was suspected of being a Mossad asset as well. According to one AFIO member, Sir James handled the "Israel account" for MI6 284, similar to Le Cercle's Ted Shackley handling it for the CIA.

Possibly the one tie that demonstrates the elite connections of Sir James Goldsmith best was his presence on the international advisory board of the Hollinger newspaper empire of Pilgrims Society and 1001 Club member Conrad Black. In the late 1990s Hollinger's various boards were occupied by liberal, traditionally conservative and neocon elites as Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Lord Jacob Rothschild, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lord Carrington, Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, Paul Volcker, Rupert Hambro, Sir Henry Keswick, Margaret Thatcher, Viscount Cranborne (Cecil), Lord Weidenfeld, Gianni Agnelli, William Buckley Jr., Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Israeli president Chaim Herzog, Jeffrey Epstein mentor Leslie Wexner and still other elites. 285 Hollinger's board literally was a who's who of Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission. The boards together essentially were more prestigious than the international advisory board of David Rockefeller's own Chase Manhattan Bank. While they did meet occasionally, in the last six years of Goldsmith's life he and Henry Kissinger became "rare ... true friends". 286 A few years later, Kissinger also started growing close to John Aspinall, Goldsmith's old Mayfair Set friend. 287

Sir James fits into the establishment picture in another way as well. Not unlike the Rothschilds and Robert Maxwell or members of Le Cercle and Bilderberg, Sir James' Euroskeptic Referendum Party and subsequent Referendum Movement was rather closely linked to child abuse scandals, this through former Tory vice chairman and treasurer Lord Alistair McAlpine, who joined Sir James' party in 1996 and headed it after his death in 1997. 288 McAlpine was named as a member of a homosexual pedophile ring in a 1994 Scallywag magazine article. 289 His name later appeared in Jeffrey Epstein's blackbook as well, along with Donald Trump and the Rothschilds.

As for the Rothschilds and Robert Maxwell, back in the 1960s and 1970s on Jersey Island, Lord Jacob Rothschild, British Rothschild representative Philip Shelbourne, three additional Pilgrims Society members besides Shelbourne, French Rothschild investor George Karlweiss (also a seed investor in George Soros) and a chief representative of Robert Maxwell, Henry J. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, were chief business partners of Senator Wilfred Krichefski and Senator Reg Jeune, both deeply linked to Jersey's massive 2008 Haut de la Garenne child abuse scandal in which hundreds of kids were said to be sexually abused in a large care home. Krichefsi was the only named as a regular child abuser at the home - right while he was a business partner of the Rothschilds - because he was the only one who died. However, Senator Krichefski's closest friend and business partner for many decades, Reg Jeune, used to be education president at the home right when Krichefski was abusing boys there. 290 And they were both in business with the elite of the elite.

Speaking of child abuse scandals with a Euroskeptic or pro-Europe tint, coincidentally one "alternative" reporter has stated that Cercle chairman and Rothschild employee Lord Norman Lamont back in the 1990s told him in private conversation at his Clapham home that Rothschild family friend Peter Mandelson is a pedophile. 291 True or not, reliable or not, it's a pretty bizarre claim, even more so because this "alt-right" reporter was attacking both Mandelson and European Union elites - Lamont's primary enemy. One thinks that claims like these are not made lightly.

Most important probably to still discuss is Sir James Goldsmith's "Mayfair Set": a clique of establishmentarians operating in London's affluent Mayfair district. Back in the 1960s and 1970s SAS founder David Stirling, Sir James Goldsmith, top African mining company executive Tiny Rowland, and Lord Lucan were all members of the John Aspinall's Clairmont gambling club in Mayfair. 292 As mentioned, UKIP's second-largest financier, Stuart Wheeler, is an old friend of Sir James who was playing bridge at the Clairmont Club in Mayfair with Lord Lucan two days before the latter disappeared. Sir James' son-in-law also belonged to the scene, considering as a young child he was mauled by a tiger at the private zoo of John Aspinall. Cercle participant the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, a member of the centuries-old Cecil family, also appears to have been a member of the Mayfair Set, considering he married David Stirling's niece, Hannah Stirling.

The Mayfair Set was very obviously tied to British intelligence. Rowland had MI6 officer and Cercle participant Nicholas Elliot sit on the board of his elite Lonrho mining company and was regularly thought to work alongside British intelligence during his business adventures in Africa. Sir James Goldsmith, David Stirling, MI6 agent Andrew Cavendish and MI6 spook, CIA liaison and Cercle chairman Julian Amery all associated with each other. In the 1962-1965 period Amery and Stirling set up and ran a covert SAS war in Yemen against Egypt, with aid from the Saudis. In the 1960s and 1970s many members of this group were running dirty tricks against Labour leader Harold Wilson and were even preparing for a coup. In the late 1980s David Stirling and Sir James Goldsmith were running Operation Lock, an assassination and terrorism program in Southern Africa to try and keep apartheid in place. 293

Then, with the end of the Cold War, Sir James Goldsmith sets up his Euroskeptic Referendum Party. After he dies, some of his old Mayfair friends and associates, alongside a long-time partner of the intelligence-ridden Hambros banking family, continue to finance the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Should we be surprised at this point that questions have been asked about spook activity related to the Referendum Party and UKIP? These questions involved Christopher Skeate and Heather Conyngham, who both served as MI6 agents in Latin America before joining the Euroskeptics movement. 294 Skeate was a 1997 Referendum Party candidate. Later, as UKIP's press officer, he brought Conyngham over as well. He also served as an aide to UKIP head Nigel Farage in Brussels. In February 2001 he opposed a David Irving-embracing Holocaust denying UKIP member in The Guardian. Accusations broke out in May 2001 that Skeate and Conyngham had infiltrated the Referendum Party and UKIP in order to leak and otherwise undermine these Euroskeptic parties on behalf of Tony Blair. 295

Is that really the right interpretation though? After all, so many in the Euroskeptics movement hail from the Cold War ultraright that has always been riddled with intelligence ties. The person who brought these suspicions of a Tony Blair - EU plot against UKIP to light was Lord Tebbit, a board member of The Spectator, a right-wing magazine owned by Conrad Black (who also sits on the board), the same earlier-mentioned company of Sir James Goldsmith and all the other earlier-mentioned elites. 296 We can't trust anything these people say. They'll make up any kind of spin or controversy if it suits their needs. Also, why have the media not made the slightest fuss about intelligence ties of the Referendum Party and UKIP through Sir James Goldsmith, his Mayfair Set, and the Hambros bank? Party politics appears to be a rigged game from beginning to end.

In another example of these intelligence ties of the Euroskeptics movement, take the National Association of Freedom (NAFF), today known as The Freedom Association (TFA). It started out as a Cold War anti-labour union and anti-"big government" group and once again pretends to be a champion for civil liberties, this time by campaigning against Great Britain joining the European Union. In 2006, for example, it ran the "Better Off Out" campaign. Back in the day, Cercle visitors Brian Crozier, Robert Moss, John Biggs-Davison and their ultraright MI6 friends could be found on the board of the NAFF. These days former Cercle visitor and UKIP representative Philip Vander Elst is editor of The Freedom Association's journal. Possibly the most prominent latter day board member of the NAFF is the 3rd Viscount Monckton. Not only is Monckton the primary "alt-right" global warming critic of Al Gore who wrote the manipulative 2006 paper 35 Inconvenient Truths in opposition to the equally manipulative global warming claims of Al Gore, he also comes from an elite Pilgrims Society family with deep ties to MI6, the SAS, the Group 13 government assassination team and the DSL private military firm. 297 We keep going in very elite circles overlapping with intelligence here.

Unsurprisingly, Monckton has been invited to the conspiracy disinformation show of Alex Jones that is closely allied with UKIP and Donald Trump as well. Nigel Farage has been continually interviewed by Alex Jones since at least 2011. Donald Trump associated himself with Alex Jones during his presidential campaign and has a family history that ties back to Roy Cohn of the Western Goals Foundation and Senator Barry Goldwater, a favorite of the American Security Council. Similarly, Alex Jones' family has deep conservative CIA ties and is linked to the Council for National Policy and - again - the American Security Council, the primary U.S. counterparts to the more Europe-based Le Cercle. ISGP has argued in great detail that shows as Alex Jones and Coast to Coast AM only interview intelligence assets in order to control the flow of alternative information that reaches the public.

Probably the main issue I have with UKIP and most other populist parties and candidates is that they could be so much more effective if they would only focus on Third World immigrant crime statistics. And also that they more consistently point out superclass ties of liberal pro-Third World immigration politicians, as well as those of so-called "grassroots" activism groups. Then again, the liberal media is hardly interested at pointing out the ultraright national security ties of many "populist" candidates. It's a strange game that is being played.

For now, it would be great to have many more Cercle participants lists from the late 1980s and on. It will be interesting to see how many additional Euroskeptic ties are going to show up.

Summary and conclusions

Put together, Le Cercle is characterized by:

• Catholic extremism, since the 1980s followed by neocon extremism;
• ties to security services as the CIA, MI6 and those of mainland Europe;
• an anti-democratic mindset;
• illegal, covert arms sales;
• undercover financial support;
• money laundering;
• drug trade;
• organizing anti-communist, anti-socialist, and anti-nationalist coups;
• organizing private intelligence and other covert action groups;
• spreading of propaganda and disinformation;
• a struggle for control over Europe.

The usual excuse for covert operations like these is that "we're fighting the bad guys" and that therefore the end justifies the means. The fact is, the world is a bad place, especially the crime-ridden Third World. If the West is not strong, it will fall victim to other cultures and rival states as Russia. On the other hand, you can't go around the world conducting big business-sponsored coups and setting up death squads for socialists and nationalists. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Cercle members have been doing for decades.

It's a mistake to think that these Cold Warriors like this have built the democracy we live in today. We could have Cold Warriors who do the dirty work without taking too extremes or doing these things in defense of religious or corporate authorities. Individuals in groups as Le Cercle actually feel restrained by democracy. Democracy has been built through a combination of scientific achievements and subsequent uprisings by people who thought they should benefit from these advancements. Over a period of time a reading and writing middle class was built. This middle can't be ignored anymore that easily.

In case of Le Cercle, many leading members still seem to have the mentality of a historical person like King Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor who ordered the Spanish Inquisition and was largely responsible for the Thirty Years' War. Ironically, this war ended with the Peace of Westphalia, responsible for the rise of the modern nation state, the end of the Holy Roman Empire and a severe decline in the influence of Otto von Habsburgs' ancestors. If individuals like this get their way with Europe, life could some day become very depressing. And if you're wondering if these people really are that dangerous, let's recap one example mentioned earlier in this article.

"The most talked-about subject in Spain last week was something that did not happen: the failure of the Cabinet to pass a bill that would at last grant a measure of religious freedom to Spain's tiny non-Catholic minority... For years, Spain's non-Catholics have almost been non-people, barred from participating in the mainstream of Spanish life. They were, in fact, not even officially recognized as having been born, married or buried... Interior Minister Camilo Alonso Vega, 77, who as Spain's top cop maintains that the Spanish are "the most unruly people in Europe", argued that religious freedom would only stir up trouble... On a more philosophical level, Public Works Minister Federico Silva Munoz, 43, contended that granting religious liberty to minority sects would shatter Spain's spiritual unity. The ministers connected with the military supported the views of Vega and Munoz..." 298

Munoz, together with his good friend Fernandez de la Mora, was a Catholic extremists and the most die hard Francoist (fascist). At some point Munoz was invited to the Cercle. Soon thereafter, his friend Fernandez de la Mora set up the fascist propaganda magazine Razon Espanola with financial support of the Bavarian, Opusian, Paneuropa clique consisting of Franz Josef Strauss, Otto von Habsburg, Count Hans Huyn (whose wife is a Habsburg descendant) and others. A few years earlier, The Times had reported on Strauss' friendship with Munoz and Fernandez de la Mora, and Crozier immediately jumped in to defend his associates, claiming he had great respect for these individuals and that they were anything but fascist. Never mind that Crozier was an admirer of Franco and that so many key Cercle members have supported every anti-communist death squad and dictatorship around the world.

So just remember, these are dangerous people and they are far too influential for us not to know about their activities.

That having been said, the more dominant liberal establishment is turning Europe into a shattered, multicultural hell hole, so it's not like the masses are really being provided with a sound choice. But what else is different?

Cercle references in books (click for relevant excerpts)

Cercle references in newspaper or magazine articles (Lobster Mag. articles not reproduced)

More references

Special thanks to the four Davids

And finally, let's not forget an email from April 19, 2006 with the advise to look at David Rockefeller's biography. This kickstarted a second, and far more detailed, look into Le Cercle.

Notes

1. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 191: "The inspirer and long-serving organiser of the Pinay Cercle was Jean Violet..."
2. 1994, R.T. Naylor (Professor of Economics at McGill University), 'Hot Money and the Politics of Debt', p. 258: "Violet's political formation came in the 1930s in Le Comite Secret pour l'Action Revolutionnaire (CSAR). A far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement, complete with Masonic-style rites and rituals..., CSAR was sort of a predessor of Licio Gelli's P-2. It was intensely secretive in all but its admiration of Franco and Mussolini, and after the war some of its members were accused of being Nazi collaborators." Source cited by Naylor is 1984, Pierre Pean, 'V: Enquete sur l 'affaire des 'avions renifleurs'', p. 90. French author Philippe Bourdrel did a lot of work on CSAR.
3. November 16, 1946, The Nation, 'The People's Front': "The French Synarchists founded several other secret organizations, of which the most important was the "Cagoule" (C. S. A. R."Comité secret d'action revolutionnaire), an extreme rightist military outfit whose members held commanding positions in the army. Pétain and his adviser, Loustaneau-Lacau, joined the C. S. A. R."
   As I can't go through all the French and Spanish sources to write a separate article, I'll just dump some historical information on the political aspect of the Synarchist Movement of Empire in this endnote.
   *) September 9, 2005, comment of Pierre Beaudry of Executive Intelligence Review on the first version of the article on Le Cercle: "You have not mentioned anything about the Synarchy International in connection with Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay [never heard of it at the time]... the CSAR that Jean Violet came out of was, in reality, the revolutionary arm of the Synarchy International... Also, it was the top synarchist banker, Francois Bloch-Lainé, of the Lazard Frères, of the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, and Banque Worms, who deployed Antoine Pinay to become Finance Minister in the government of de Gaulle, in 1958." I later ran into Hippolyte Worms (supposedly one of the original Synarchist SME members) via Cercle member Georges Albertini, an intelligence associate of Jean Violet. I also came across Jean Violet's good friend Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, whose father worked closely with Francois Bloch-Lainé. I think it's interesting that my work usually parallels that of EIR, although they usually draw conclusions I cannot support without far more evidence. EIR sees an organization like Le Cercle as the "right hand" of the Synarchy International. I'm not convinced of that, although I don't discount it either. I'm also not convinced of the fact that Synarchism is studied these days in high society, although it is certain that the Martinist and Synarchist Order still exists today in countries as Spain and France, and that they have recruited at least some important members. One of the things that struck me, as pretty much the last quick background check before ending this article, is the following text from LaRouche (2003, 'A short definition of Synarchism'): "According to another EIR article, the occult order behind Synarchism, known as Martinism, has an outer veneer of Catholicism, and a rotten core: Martinism, a mocking perversion of Catholicism..." This is one of those instances in which you don't know if EIR has based their claims on documentation, witnesses or personal opinion, but this would have been my guess after seeing the strong correlation between the Vatican (Opus Dei; SMOM) - Paneuropa network, supposedly former Synarchist members, and the fact that Synarchism existed/exists in the strongest Catholic milieu possible.
   *) November 9, 1946, The Nation, 'The People's Front': "Synarchism [is] not to be confused with the organization that has spread over Mexico and found its roots in local political rivalries and clerical-agrarian reaction. Synarchism as a worldwide conspiracy is attempting to take over the functions of the fascists in those countries where the latter cannot operate openly or to ally itself with existing fascist groups. Michael Sordet, in a remarkably documented article, The Secret League of Monopoly Capitalism, published in the scholarly Swiss review, Schweiner Annalen (No. 2, 1946- 47), gives us a full description of the synarchist movement in Europe. He describes the synarchists as "the representatives of international high finance," who not only helped to bring fascism to power in Germany and to provoke the war, from which they reaped enormous profits, but who contributed to the defeat of France and the rise of Petain and his traitorous clique... Le Mouvement Synarchique d'Empire (M. S. E.) was founded in Paris in 1922... Its original promoters numbered seven, three of whom have since been identified as Baron Leo de Nervo, with connections in some fifty financial and heavy-industry enterprises... Maxime Renaudin, a financier known to represent international Catholic interests, and Jean Coutrot, a close friend of Marshal Petain. The M. S. E. is rigidly aristocratic in structure: members are recruited in powerful big-business circles and are expected to enrol new adherents from among their friends. Every precaution is taken to insure secrecy: if a person seems desirable because of his position, he is subjected without his knowledge to careful investigation that may last for several years before he is asked to join. The probe covers the most intimate details of his life-family relationships, love affairs, hobbies, opinions expressed in conversation, emotional stability, and so on. The candidate has no contact with the organization until the day he is invited to sign up; at that moment he makes the acquaintance of a single member, the person who solicits his application. Then he receives a copy of the "Pacte synarchiste revolutionnaire," a hundred-page booklet, bound with a sealed gold band which bears two identifying numbershis own and that of his sponsor. About the organizational set-up and the policy-making bodies, he is told nothing. Frenchmen in general learned of the existence of the M. S. E. in the summer of 1941 when Jean Coutrot died under mysterious circumstances which were never cIeared up. A collaborationist newspaper, l'Appel, which carded the announcement of his death, revealed at the same time that most of the ministers and generals in the Vichy entourage belonged to this secret society. Coutrot had told an intimate friend that the directing body of the M. S. E. consisted of four people, but he mentioned no names. What are the contents of the "Pacte synarchiste revolutionnaire," so vigilantly controlled? The most important section provides for the division of the world into five great federations imperiales, or societe mineures des nations. Metropolitan Britain and its colonies and dominions make up one. The federation of pan-American nations comprises the United States and the other countries of the Western continent with the exception of Canada. The pan-Eurasian federation consists of the Soviet Union, including all its Asiatic republics but excluding Finland and the Baltic states. The pan-European- African federation takes in Western Europe, including Finland, the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, and the African continent excluding the British colonies. China and Japan head the pan-Asiatic federation."
   *) November 16, 1946, The Nation, 'The People's Front': "Despite the highly secret character of the M. S. E., the following men have been identified as members: Paul Baudoin [named as a major Opus Dei player], director of the Banque d'Indo-Chine and a friend of Mussolini, who with the help of the attractive Heltne de Portes became right-hand adviser to Premier Paul Reynaud in the last months before France's capitulation; Jacques Gudrard, a banker who held the post of Ambassador to Lisbon under the Vichy regime; Jacques Barnaud of the Banque Worms, a great favorite with Goring, who was responsible for handlng over to the Germans the major French chemical industries headed by the Francolor trust; Jacques Benoit- Mechin, author of a book on the Reichswehr, who was rewarded for his services to the German army by being named a director of the Banque Worms after the 1940 armistice; Pierre Pucheu, Vichy Minister of the Interior and organizer of the Franco-German steel cartel. Today the M. S. E. is attempting to restore those intimate ties between French and German industrialists which it had so painstakingly built up before the war... In his article in the Schweizer Anmalen, Sordet hints that the main base of operations of the Synarchists is shifting from Europe to the United States, and he names Admiral Leahy, Robert Murphy, and du Pont de Nemours not as members but as individuals they hope to use to make contact with influential Catholic and industrial groups here."
   *) 1969, William L. Shirer, 'The Collapse of the Third Republic', pp. 218-219: "Later Coutrot would be generally credited with being the man behind a technocratic movement called Synarchie, which to this day, despite many studies of it, remains - at least to this writer, who has pondered most of them - somewhat of a mystery... That some Synarchists organized as far back as 1922 a secret society with revolutionary aims has been established. It was called "Le Mouvement Synarchique d'Empire," or MSE, and its secret "Pact," containing "Thirteen Fundamental Points and 598 Propositions" for the Synarchist revolution, was discovered by the Vichy police in 1941 and published after the war... so far as one can make out from reading the lengthy document the movement would set up a sort of super monopoly capitalism, with competition abolished and endless plans drawn up for production and distribution, the whole - as well as the government - to be run by knowledgeable technocrats... That at one time the MSE was linked to the terrorist Cagoule [CSAR] also seems clear... this secret society of technocrats never got close to staging a revolution."
4. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, 'Their Kingdom Come - Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei', p. 155: "Rumours of Nazi collaboration led to Violet's arrest following the war, but he was quickly released 'on orders from above'. Source cited by Naylor is 1984, Pierre Pean, 'V: Enquete sur l 'affaire des 'avions renifleurs'', p. 41.
5. October 1989, #18, Lobster Magazine, 'Pinay 2: Jean Violet': "In 1951 he was approached by Antoine Pinay, who was a cabinet minister at that point. On behalf of some Swiss lawyer Pinay sought to clear up the matter of a Geneva-based firm that had seen its factory in Germany seized by the Nazis during the war. Violet resolved the problem and Pinay was so satisfied he recommend him to the new French intelligence organization, SDECE." The author of the article took this information from French authors Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop. Information in part confirmed by: Brian Crozier, Free Agent, pp. 191-192: "The inspirer and long-serving organiser of the Pinay Cercle was Jean Violet, who for many years had been retained by the SDECE as Special Advocate... He [Violet] had developed a close friendship with Antoine Pinay, who had served as French Premier in 1951 under the unstable Fourth Republic."
6. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, 'Their Kingdom Come', p. 155: "He joined Antoine Pinay's entourage in 1955. By this time Violet had become close to several Opusian personalities, among them Alfredo Sanchez Bella and Otto von Habsburg." Corroborating information: December 2001, Skepsis.nl, Sniffer Planes - Grandiose Pseudo-Scientific Swindle (translation from Dutch to English): "The Count [de Villegas] was a member of the Brussels-based Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques, a kind of branch of the ultraconservative Paneuropa Union established by Otto von Habsburg, but of which Violet was the driving force, and where you could find Father Dubois and Bernard Marcken." Brian Crozier confirms Violet's role in Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques, but never mentioned it was part of the Paneuropa network. Both authors seem to have taken this information from Pierre Pean, 'V: Enquete sur l 'affaire des 'avions renifleurs'' (1984). Furthermore, in his biography David Rockefeller presents Otto von Habsburg, Jean Violet, and Monsignor Alberto Giovanetti of Opus Dei as the reactionary triumvirate within Le Cercle in the late 1960s. Therefore claims that Violet joined Opus Dei, met up with Otto von Habsburg and Sanchez Bella, and acted as one of their agents in organizations like Le Cercle, Académie Européenne, and Cercle des Nations is more than likely.
7. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, 'Their Kingdom Come', p. 153: "In 1949, the year after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, he [Alfredo Sanchez Bella] co-founded with Archduke Otto von Habsburg the European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI), whose objective was to construct around the Spanish Borbóns a federation of European states united in Christianity and anti-Communism. This sounded very much like a modern resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire over which Charles V had reigned."
   Also: 1990, Hugo Gijssels, 'De Bende & Co.', p. 174 (translated from Dutch to English): "CEDI was established in 1949 and is headed by Otto von Habsburg, who is chairman for life."
8. November 4, 1969, Greeley Daily Tribune, 'Economic, Social Advancement Aims of New Franco Cabinet': "[Alfredo] Sanchez Bella, aside from his own talents as a diplomat, is the brother of Florencio Sanchez Bella, leader of the Opus Dei in Spain."
9. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, 'Their Kingdom Come', p. 155: "In his journeys, Violet came to know Father Yves-Marc Dubois, a French Dominican who was in charge of international relations for his Order. But Dubois represented more than the foreign policy interests of the black friars of Faubourg Saint Honoré. He was described as a 'member of the Vatican's intelligence network, if not its head'... When in Paris, he [Dubois] stayed in the Dominican chapter house at 222 rue Faubourg Saint Honoré, in the Eighth Arrondissement, within walking distance of Jean Violet's apartment at 46 rue de Provence, in the Ninth Arrondissement." Original source: 1984, Pierre Pean, 'V: Enquete sur l 'affaire des 'avions renifleurs'', p. 49
10. February 2010, Alice Arduini (University of Florence) for Stato, Chiese e Pluralismo Confessionale (statochiese.it), 'The Fight Against Communist Subversion within the Catholic Church: the Sint Unum plan. From a memorandum by Henry Kissinger for President Nixon': March 1970, Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, 'Subject: Study on Subversion in the Catholic Church': "According to recent information, the President of Sint Unum [Le Cercle] and its principal financial contributor is Carlo Pesenti, a wealthy Italian industrialist and banker."
11. * June 29, 1997, The Independent, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club': "Formed in the Fifties, Cercle was intended to cement Franco-German relations, as a buffer to Soviet aggression during the Cold War."
    * Sunday Observer on April 6, 2003: "Founded in the 1950s by France's Antoine Pinay and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer Le Cercle..."
    * June 18, 2004, Chancellery of HRH Crown Prince Alexander II of Yugoslavia, Reception in honor of the "Le Cercle" conference: "Le Cercle was founded in the 1950's by the former French Prime Minister Antoine Pinay, and Konrad Adenauer..."
    * September 5, 2004, Sunday Times, 'Le Cercle of the elite': "The club, which has close links to the intelligence services, was founded in the 1950s by former French prime minister Antoine Pinay and former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer."
    * Also, David Rockefeller in his memoirs claimed he was recruited in 1967 and that Kissinger had been attending earlier meetings of the Cercle. Therefore the Pinay Circle could not have been organized in 1969.
12. April 1986, Issue 11, 'Appendix 2: the Pinay Circle': "The Pinay Circle was set up in 1969 around the former Prime Minister of France, Antoine Pinay. Pinay was very old and seems to have been little more than a figurehead. Its chief fundraiser and leading light is the former lawyer, Jean Violet."
13. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, 'De Bende & Co.', p. 174 (translated from Dutch to English): "Paul Vankerkhoven, renowned member of the Ordre du Rouvre, establishes in 1969 the 'Ligue Internationale de la Liberté (LIL), the Belgian branch of the 'World Anti-Communist League' (WACL). That same year he establishes in Brussels the select but controversial Cercle des Nations... possibly more important is his membership of the notorious extreme-right 'Centre Européen de Documentation et Information' (CEDI) of which Vankerkhoven is secretary-general."
14. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, 'De Bende & Co.', p. 177
15. The (2nd) Baron Kindersley appears on a January 1973 officers list of The Pilgrims of Great Britain. His name disappeared in 1976, the year that he died. Appointment to the Pilgrims board usually is for life.
16. 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, 'The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union', p. 43: "... Monnet met up again with Arthur Salter. Their first encounter had been in London in 1914..." Christopher Booker, an author of several books, has written for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990 and was a founding director of Private Eye. Dr. Richard North has been a research director for the (eurosceptic) Europe of Democracies and Diversities group in the European Parliament. This book contains quite a bit of information on the life of Monnet.
17. 1981, Carroll Quigley, 'The Anglo-American Establishment' (digital version, which is not complete): "In 1936, at least eleven out of twenty-six members of the council were of the Milner Group. These included Lord Astor (chairman), L. Curtis, G.M. Gathorne-Hardy, Lord Hailey, H.D. Henderson, Stephen King-Hall, Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton, Sir Neill Malcolm, Lord Meston, Sir Arthur Salter, J.W. Wheeler-Bennett, E.L. Woodward, and Sir Alfred Zimmern." A reasonably detailed history on Arthur Salter has been compiled in Monnet's Cercle biography.
18. 1978, Jean Monnet, 'Memoirs: Jean Monnet', pp. 81, 96, 105, 142, 271, 464: "Clemenceau and Balfour asked me to take on the job of Deputy to the League's Secretary-General, Sir Eric Drummond. Drummond was a British diplomat aged forty-three, whose skill, courtesy, and discreet efficiency had recommended him to Grey, Asquith, and Balfour. ...
    It was the first Conference that the League [of Nations] had held, and I had prepared it very carefully with Salter, Blackett, Walter Layton, and Robert Brand. It embodied the still lively hopes of our London team. ... Our great friend Bob Brand kept to himself the loss of his only son. ...
    One of them, Andre Meyer, I have known for forty years. I have been to see him every time I go to the United States. The same is true for Pierre-David Weill, George Murnane, Floyd Blair, and Dean Jay. ...
    On my return, I wrote to Adenauer, who was leaving to meet Kennedy in the United States: "... Talking with [Kennedy], as I did at length, I came to the conclusion that you would get on well together. ... The men around him have been well chosen. Our friends McCloy and Acheson have very important roles and enjoy great influence, McCloy for disarmament and Acheson for NATO. There are also Douglas Dillon, George Ball - whom you have just seen in Bonn, David Bruce, US Ambassador in London, and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who is the expert on domestic affairs and has very great influence in the Senate." ...
    We had taken the advice of one of the most brilliant New York attorneys, John Foster Dulles. I had met him at the [1919] Peace Conference, and we had become friends. ... "
19. January 21, 1930, New York Times, 'E. Walker as head of Transamerica': "Mr. Giannini will resign his present office and become chairman of the advisory committee of the corporation at the annual meeting of Feb. 8. Mr. Walker, after becoming chairman of the board, will remain chairman of the executive committee. He will resign the presidency of the Bancamerica-Blair Corporation. Jean Monnet of Bancamerica-Blair, will become vice-chairman of the Transamerica board."
    December 10, 1931, New York Times, : "A. P. Glannini announced tonight that he personally would head a "fight to the finish" to oust Elisha Walker, chairman of the Transamerica Corporation, and "Wall Street domination" from the corporation which he founded. He made the statement after he had read a letter from Mr. Walker and James A. Bacigalupi to Transamerica's stockholders. He called the letter "an attack on my personal honesty and integrity"... He said the letter had been timed "to catch me unaware" as it was not released for publication until after he had left San Francisco tonight for Ventura and Santa Barbara, where he planned to carry on the battle for proxies on behalf of Associated Stockholders."
    Giannini won his Transamerica fight in February 1932, which is when Walker had to resign as chairman. Monnet seems to have been fired at the same time. Monnet was also fired as a director of the Transamerica-controlled Bancamerica-Blair Corporation in March 1932.
20. *) 1978, Jean Monnet, 'Memoirs: Jean Monnet', pp. 115-116: "My own business address there was that of Monnet-Murnane and Co., the firm I had set up in New York with a skilful business partner, and which at that time was chiefly working with the China Finance Development Corporation. By January 1936...
    One dat in September 1935 we were having dinner with [George] Murnane on Long Island, when Foster Dulles arrived with news of Hitler's decrees against the Jews in Germany. I said to my friends: 'A man who is capable of that will start a war.' ... In New York, George Murnane and I worked on a number of different projects of which I have only dim recollections. In fact, I was growing bored with international finance..."
    *) 2003, Charles D. Ellis, James R. Vertin, 'Wall Street People: True Stories of the Great Barons of Finance', Volume 2, pp. 28-30 (biography of Andre Meyer): "He brought with him, as Meyer knew he would, a network of contacts that was the envy of almost every investment banker in America. He was a director of Allied Chemical & Dye and American Steel Foundries, and was the main American adviser for Belgium’s great industrial dynasties, the Solvays and the Boëls. What’s more, he was the key investment banker for many of America’s leading glass companies. His prestige was such that wherever he went, this business followed... Murnane, in fact, was the only other individual at Lazard, other than Pierre David-Weill, whom Meyer could or would accept as a peer. He needed George Murnane, a lot more than Murnane needed him."
21. 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, 'The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union', p. 21: "Following his lucrative spell in China, Monnet's career as a merchant banker had continued to be murky. On his return to America he had been investigated for tax evasion. In 1938 his company company had even come under suspicion by the FBI for having laundered Nazi money, although this inquiry was called off without any charges being laid."
22. *) 2005, A. T. Lane, Elzbieta Stadtmuller, 'Europe on the Move: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on the European Union', p. 192: "In his methods and networking he was the East European equivalent of Jean Monnet."
    1978, Jean Monnet, 'Memoirs: Jean Monnet': "At the time of my letters to Bidault and Schuman, preparations were being made for a great Congress at The Hague in May 1948, under the chairmanship of Winston Churchill. Many of our friends attended it: Anthony Eden, Lord Layton, Harold MacMillan, Paul van Zeeland, Paul Reynaud, Francois Mitterrand, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, Andre Francois-Poncet. There were also, less well known - a German party leader named Konrad Adenauer... In the profusion of ideas that typifies such meetings, I am sure that despite vain aspirations there were also some fruitful lines of action. But I confess that I paid little attention to the Hague Congress; and the fate of its enthusiastic resolutions, which a year later led to the founding of the Council of Europe, confirmed my belief that this approach would lead nowehere.
    Nor would the more pragmatic methods of OEEC bring unity, because there it was laid down that anyone could be exampted from decisions that he found difficult. It was the opposite of the Community spirit. ...
    But one thing was clear: what we had established was not another European Movement or a federalist party..."
    *) 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, 'The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union', p. 43: "Shortly after The Hague Congress, two of the most active campaigners for integration, Josef Retinger and Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys, went to America to lobby for support for their campaign for European unity. Here they met two key figures, William J. 'Wild Bill' Donovan, founder in 1947 of the CIA, and his colleague Allen Dulles, later to become head of the CIA under President Eisenhower... A new organization was set up, the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE). From this time on, as academic research has established, the ACUE was used as a conduit to provide covert CIA funds, augmented by contributions from private foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Institute [Rockefeller Foundation], to promote the State Department’s obsession with a united Europe, in what one historian has called a 'liberal conspiracy'.
    Over the next few years, ACUE funding was secretly channelled to a range of individuals and organisations working for European integration, from politicians such as Paul-Henri Spaak and trade unions to such influential British magazines as Lord Layton’s The Economist and the intellectual monthly Encounter. However, the major beneficiary of ACUE funding was the European Movement. Between 1949 and 1960, it was kept afloat almost entirely on $4 million of CIA money, these contributions amounting to between half and two-thirds of the Movement’s income. ACUE funds were also used for a range of other purposes in Europe, including the financing of anti-Communist parties. In 1948, for instance, the CIA paid $10 million to support the Italian electoral campaign of Alcide de Gasperi a staunch supporter of European integration. This substantial contribution was intended to help avert an Italian civil war in which the Communists might prevail."
    *) Information on the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE) was taken from the 2001 book 'The Hidden Hand' from Richard J Aldrich, a professor of politics at Nottingham University who had acquired a load of newly declassified files.
    *) June 24, 2001, The Mail on Sunday, 'CIA supported pro-Euro group': "AMERICA'S Central Intelligence Agency secretly funded the European integration movement and undermined British opposition, it can be revealed. Newly declassified files show the American secret service put at least $4 million - the equivalent of $28 million today - into the movement in the post-war period when it was on the verge of collapse. At the same time, it also provided secret backing for a programme to undermine staunch resistance to the plan in Britain from Labour and Conservative Governments. With the Anglo-American 'special relationship', the United States has often been seen as the antidote to European federalism. But it had a different agenda during the Cold War, when the CIA wanted a rapid approach to Western European integration as part of a strategy to combat the threat of Soviet expansion. By 1953, a top secret CIA report judged the acceleration of European unity to be one of its most successful covert operations. Details of the massive American interference in the creation of modern Europe are revealed in a new book, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America And Cold War Secret Intelligence, written by Richard J Aldrich, professor of politics at Nottingham University, and published by John Murray. In Washington, the European Movement was seen as the brainchild of Winston Churchill, who in 1943 offered his vision of a United Europe. But by 1950 Churchill and his son-in-law, Cabinet Minister Duncan Sandys, were believed to be 'dragging their feet'. When Sandys tried to disband the European Movement, the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), led by Allen Dulles, later head of the CIA, forced him to stand down as its president. French politicians took over the lead role and, with ACUE help, set up a secretariat in Brussels with the goals of a free trade area using a single currency. The ACUE believed that: 'Britain will be forced sooner or later, and in a greater or lesser degree, to come along.'"
23. *) Ibid.
    *) 1972, John Pomian and Joseph Retinger, 'Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise' , pp. x, 210, 212, 228: "[Words of Jozef Retinger:] "In 1946 I felt the time had again come to make a new effort in the direction of the unity of Europe. I made a start by giving a lecture at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House on 7 May under the title European Continent? A few weeks later I went to Brussels, where I had a long talk with Paul van Zeeland, who agreed with me that we should try to revive the concept of the unity of Europe by applying it first to the economic field. Thus we started the Independent League for Economic Cooperation - a clumsy title, but the word "independent" was intended to convey that we were in no way associated with any government...
    We wanted to have the help of the extra-European countries: first of all the United States and Canada, and also Russia, which we saw as a continent in itself. While in Belgium I also talked with Paul-Henri Spaak and Roger Motz, who both concurred in the idea, and that is how the League was started in Brussels in June 1946. Mr van Zeeland, who was not yet in the Government, had a good deal of time to devote to the League and until he later became Foreign Minister was extremely active, travelling round, contacting people and promoting our ideas. ...
    I found in America a unanimous approval for our [Independent League for Economic Cooperation] ideas among financiers, businessmen and politicians: Mr. [Russell] Leffingwell, a senior partner in J. P. Morgan's, Nelson and David Rockefeller, Alfred Sloan ... Sir William Wiseman, partner in Kuhn Loeb, George Franklin and especially my old friend Adolf Berle Jr. were all in favor, and Berle agreed to lead the American section [of ILEC]. John Foster Dulles also agreed to help us. ...
    Later on, whenever we needed any assistance for the European Movement, Dulles was among those in America who helped us the most." ...
    American and European personalities that were later to be known as the 'Bilderberg Conferences'. With his typical modesty, Dr Retinger always contrived to remain in the background; but he was, in point of fact, the prime mover. ...
    And of course all sorts of things were rumoured. 'Tell me, Joseph,' asked Denis de Rougemont one day, 'people say you are a Free Mason, an agent of the [Secret] Intelligence Service, and of the C.I.A., and of the Vatican and also a fellow traveller. They sometimes even add that you are a Jew and a pederast. Is that true? What am I to say?' 'Well, well,' chuckled Retinger, 'say it's far from being all!' He travelled a lot and knew all the hotels and the best restaurants. Seeing the well-known faces of his visitors or his table companions he was treated with respect and in turn became well-known."
24. 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, 'The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union', p. 58.
25. *) July 25, 1969, Time Magazine, 'Seeking Unity--Slowly': "They were all there, those aging statesmen who years ago committed their dreams to the ideal of European unity. Jean Monnet, 80, "the father of the Common Market," last week convened a session of his nonofficial Action Committee for a United States of Europe in Brussels. Former Common Market President Walter Hallstein was there, along with veteran French Politicians Antoine Pinay and Maurice Faure and dozens of other ranking European statesmen. Together, they constitute a sort of European shadow government. They had come to Brussels in an attempt to spur Common Market bureaucrats and the respective ministers of the Six (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany) to start immediate negotiations to admit Britain to the economic community."
    *) March 1997, Richard J. Aldrich in Diplomacy & Statecraft, 'OSS, CIA and European unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60', pp. 187-224: "It is also particularly striking that the same small band of senior officials, many of them from the Western intelligence community, were central in supporting the three most important transnational elite groups emerging in the 1950s: the European Movement, the Bilderberg Group and Jean Monnet's Action Committee for a United States of Europe. ...
    Monnet's strategy was not entirely welcomed by ACUE, who complained that he had 'concentrated deliberately on labour and socialist elements' at the expense of the participation of French industrialists and the right.89 Although Monnet's activities are specifically identified in ACUE reports on supported programmes, the documentation linking Monnet and ACUE is limited. This is not surprising since Monnet was even more cautious than the European Movement concerning the potential political damage that might be caused by revelations about American funding. The only precisely quantifiable American funds passed to Monnet during this period came through the Ford Foundation to support his immediate secretariat. ...
    As early as 1949, at the behest of Allen Dulles, the Ford Foundation was cooperating with the CIA on a number of European programmes."
26. 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, 'The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union', pp. 89-91.
27. November 29, 2002, the Telegraph, 'The Earl of Perth' (obituary): "John David Drummond was born on May 13 1907 into a family of Hungarian origin which, according to tradition, is descended from a Drummond who arrived in Scotland from Hungary during the 11th century... [his father] served as private secretary to the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and attended the Paris peace conference in 1919, before heading the League of Nations until 1933 [with Monnet under him]; his final post was as Ambassador in Rome... [David] went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining J Henry Schroder, the merchant bank. For a time he worked with Monnet, then a financial adviser to the Chinese government... Perth was a keen Europhile. Deeply conscious of his father's role on the international stage as the first secretary-general of the League of Nations, he arranged a meeting in his flat during the early 1960s between Edward Heath, the minister responsible for the EEC negotiations, and Jean Monnet, the "father" of European union... He was a keen promoter of Anglo-American relations, taking holidays in Florida and for three years chairing the Ditchley Foundation... director of the Royal Bank of Scotland... sworn of the Privy Council in 1957. As a prominent Roman Catholic, he represented Britain at the last and most solemn of nine Requiem Masses for Pope Pius XII in Rome in 1958. He went again in 1963 to represent the Queen at the Requiem for Pope John XXIII. He was for some years the Catholic vice-president of the Council of Christians and Jews."
28. *) David Drummond: The future 17th Lord Perth; from a Catholic Hungarian family which emigrated to Scotland in the 11th century; two members of this family were among the eight original founders of the Order of the Thistle; raised by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, a very old Catholic aristocratic family; later Privy Councillor; later chair of the Ditchley Foundation for 3 years; later representative of the queen to the Vatican; became a member of the extremely elite Roxburghe Club, together with members of the Cecil, Cavendish, Howard (Dukes of Norfolk), Mellon, Rothschild, and Oppenheimer families.
    *) Membership list of the Roxburghe Club, which includes Lord Perth and families mentioned, taken from: 1999, Donald Young and Quentin Keynes, 'The search for the source of the Nile - Correspondence between Captain Richard Burton, Captain John Speke and others, from Burton's unpublished East African Letter Book' ("Dedicated and presented to the president and members of the Roxburghe Club"). Can be found at cypherpress.com/books/burton/burton.pdf. Membership has been quite secretive and very few references to the important members have existed - until this booklet was uploaded, that is. The important families tend to be in the club for generation after generation. Some of these families also meet each other at the Other Club (July 29, 1997, The Times, Secret members of the Other Club).
    *) As for Paul Mellon, the late Pilgrims Society member: February 3, 1999, The Times, Paul Mellon obituary: "Mellon was widely honoured by academic and sporting institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, the Jockey Club and the Royal Veterinary College. As one of the great book collectors of the world, he was a member of both the Grolier Society and the Roxburghe Club."
29. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p.192.
30. The Bruges Group, 'Franco-German Friendship and the Destination of Federalism'. In this lengthy article, largely about de Gaulle's policies towards Britain, de Gaulle is quoted as having said: "England is, in fact, insular. She is maritime, she is linked to her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most distant countries. She pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities and only slightly agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked, very original habits and traditions. In short, England's nature, England's structure, England's very situation differs profoundly from those of the continentals."
    brugesgroup.com/mediacentre/index.live?article=110
31. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 29-33.
32. 1972, Alfred W. McCoy, 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia', pp. 95-96: "The French intelligence community, having secretly taken over the opium trade, had all theirs [budget problems] solved. The Opium Monopoly had gone underground to become "Operation X." ... During its peak years from 1951 to 1954, Operation X was sanctioned on the highest levels by Colonel Belleux for SDECE and Gen. Raoul Salan for the Expeditionary Corps."
33. *) 2003, William Blum, 'Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II', pp. 150-151.
    *) May 2003, issue 51, Press for Conversion! magazine (Coalition to Expose the Arms Trade), pp. 22-23.
    Blum book excerpt: coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue51/articles/51_22-23.pdf (accessed: January 31, 2018).
34. Ibid.
35. April 26, 1968, Time magazine, 'Some Sinister Secrets', pp. 31-39.
36. 2004, Douglas Valentine, 'The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs', p. 270. Excerpt in Pilgrims Society membership list.
37. March 16, 2011, The Times, 'John Philipsborn'. Excerpt in Pilgrims Society membership list.
38. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 62: "... in the late 1950s during my Economist years, ... I had been among the priviliged few journalists invited to his [Jock Whitney's] small lunches at the Connaught Hotel, and the more formal receptions at his residence in Regent's Park."
39. All described in Crozier's book Free Agent, including his involvement with Richard Mellon Scaife. Only the Foreign Affairs Research Institute (FARI) isn't mentioned.
40. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 96.
41. Ibid., p. 97.
42. July 22, 2005, The Guardian, 'François Duchêne obituary'.
    The information about the Trilateral Commission comes from the membership lists.
43. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 191: "In fact, neither Marenches nor Dickie Franks ever attended a Pinay Cercle meeting during the years I was involved with it: between 1971 and 1985."
44. Ibid., p. 97.
45. November 1988, Issue 17, David Teacher for Lobster Magazine, 'The Pinay Circle and Destabilisation in Europe' (quoting from the 1980 Hans Langemann papers): "Gehlen, who was always interested in the undertaking [of the Pinay Circle], its figures, its personalities and its results, succeeded in recruiting Violet as a special agent and granted him 6000 DM a month for many years. He also claimed that this sum had been agreed with the former head of the SDECE, General Jacquier because Violet is also receiving the same sum from the SDECE." Teacher translated this from publications in Der Spiegel, No. 37, 1982, 'Victory for Strauss'.
46. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 191-192.
47. Ibid., p. 193: "In Pinay's day, the old man himself presided over the meetings, but the chairmanship of each session was shared out among others, including Pesenti, Sir Peter Tennant, and myself."
48. Franz-Josef Bach's leading role in the Cercle from at least 1980 to 1991 can be concluded from the following two sources:
    1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 193: "In 1980, Violet, who had serious health problems, asked me to take over the Pinay Cercle. In practice, I mostly shared the burden with a leading German member of the Cercle, Franz-Josef Bach..."
    1993, Alan Clark, 'Diaries', p. 369 (About Clark's 1991 experience with the Cercle): "The Cercle, an Atlanticist Society of right-wing dignitaries, largely compered by Julian Amery and Herr Franz-joseph Bach..."
49. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 193: "Within the wider Cercle, a smaller gathering called the Pinay Group met on occasion to discuss possible action."
50. November 1988, Issue 17, Lobster Magazine, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith' (quoting and translating from the Langemann papers): "One recent development is the establishment within the Circle of a command staff or of an inner circle which then works out particularly suitable means for action on current political questions."
51. 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pp. 412-413: "Bilderberg overlapped for a time with my membership in a relatively obscure but potentially even more controversial body known as the Pesenti Group. I had first learned about it in October 1967 when Carlo Pesenti... took me aside..."
52. June 10, 1975, New York Times, 'Northrop Apologizes on Saudi Bribes; Senator Church Urges Sales Reforms'.
53. Ibid.
54. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 193: "In 1980, Violet, who had serious health problems, asked me to take over the Pinay Cercle."
55. June 29, 1997, the Independent, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club': "For the past few years Mr Aitken has been chairman of Le Cercle..." Alan Clark's 1991 description of Aitken seems to indicate Aitken was being groomed to take over the Cercle.
56. Lamont's biography at Benador Associates, for example: "Among his numerous international activities, he has since 1996 been Chairman of Le Cercle..." The info on Le Cercle in his biography on this site seems to have expanded since the last time I checked it. Maybe the webmaster updated it after I mailed him, asking if he had more info. No response, as usual with Le Cercle.
57. February 21, 2012, Cercle history by chairman Lord Lothian (PDF).
58. Louis de Rothschild and Max Warburg sponsored Coudenhove's initial Paneuropa idea. 1984, prof. Kees van der Pijl, 'The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class'. His original sources:
    A) 1925, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, 'Praktischer Idealismus'.
    B) 1958, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, 'Eine Idee erobert Europa. Meine Lebenserinnerungen'.
59. March 1986, EIR, Special Report, 'Moscow's Secret Weapon: Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Mafia': "A third meeting scheduled for Nov.15, 1982 was to include Sharon, Kissinger, Lord Harlech (David Ormsby-Gore), Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Lord Carrington, British Member of Parliament Julian Amery, Ernst Kux of Neue Zeurcher Zeitung, Robert Moss, Sir Edmund Peck, Armin Gutowski of the Hamburg West Germany World Economic Archives, and former British intelligence Mideast station chief Nicholas Elliot, then a senior MI-6 official. The Nov.15 meeting discussed the implementation of the New Venice project, through specific investments to be made in Israel, which was to significantly include massive investments in the West Bank. An EIR exposé of the meetings in early 1983, and opposition to the Begin government's West Bank and related policies by President Reagan, forced a delay in implementation of the policies. " I have no idea what the original source is.
60. 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pp. 412-413.
61. 2014, Johannes Grossmann, 'Die Internationale der Konservativen. Transnationale Elitenzirkel und private Außenpolitik in Westeuropa seit 1945', pp. 465-466.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. 2017 (5th edition), David Teacher, 'Rogue Agents', p. 62: "Several telcons between Kissinger and Rockefeller show that Kissinger accompanied Rockefeller to least two Cercle meetings in 1969-1970, the first on 2 nd July 1969 and the second on 2nd December 1970."
65. February 2010, Alice Arduini (University of Florence) for Stato, Chiese e Pluralismo Confessionale (statochiese.it), 'The Fight Against Communist Subversion within the Catholic Church: the Sint Unum plan. From a memorandum by Henry Kissinger for President Nixon'. (March 1970, Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, 'Subject: Study on Subversion in the Catholic Church').
66. 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pp. 412-413.
67. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 135-136.
68. Ibid., info about The 61 is spread over the whole book.
69. Ibid., p. 135.
70. Ibid., p. 142
71. Ibid., pp. 189-190: "In addition to our own [61] network, we gained access to a number of existing networks, both private and official. In Germany, we had three prime sources. One was the ex-diplomat turned politician, Count Hans Huyn, a close friend of the Bavarian leader, Franz Josef Strauss, and a leading authority on Soviet policy."
72. May 1, 1995, The Persbundel, 'Pioneer for the Truth' (translated from Dutch; clearly part of the Cercle network): "Aida Parker first met him [Brian Crozier] during a visit to Carmona (Angola), where the communists under the command of Holden Roberto had murdered women and children in electrical saw machines. ... It was the beginning of 30 years of Marxist terror where Rhodesia, South-West Africa and finally Africa would become the victims of. ... [Crozier] pointed to the merciless methods of the I.R.A. and P.L.O. .... the A.N.C. followed in their wake en added to it the burning of people with car tires and gasoline. ... From 1979-1989 the members of 'The 61' [including Crozier] did all they could to fight the communist, anywhere in the world. The costs on average were 1 million dollars a year, coming from fortunate friends as Rupert Murdoch, Sir James Goldsmith and Richard [Mellon] Scaife."
73. *) By Sterling Seagrave, Aug 22 2007, 06:43 PM: "Bill Casey was one of the key men in the acquisition of media after WW2. It was one of his proteges (a young German immigrant to the US) who was sent back to Germany after the war to take over Bertelsmann and build it up. Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep. At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America."
    *) 2009, Jacques Vallee, 'Forbidden Science: Volume Three: Journals: 1980-1989', p. 228: "Sunday 16 March 1986: ... On Friday [CIA science directorate officer] Kit [Green] was in San Francisco, wearing the presidential Medal of Intelligence at his buttonhole. He received it from Reagan for his work on "Yellow Rain" in Indochina. I had lunch with him in the financial district. We spoke of his friend [intelligence operations author Sterling] Seagrave (23), of John Fowles' novels, and his old boss Ed Gregor."
74. April 28, 2015, The Guardian, 'How Thatcher and Murdoch made their secret deal'.
75. June 19, 2016, Consortium News, 'How Roy Cohn Helped Rupert Murdoch'.
76. *) October 9, 1998, John Pilger for The New Statesman, p15: "... a meeting in the White House in March 1983. Attended by Murdoch and the late Sir James Goldsmith..."
    *) November 2, 1990, Executive Intelligence Review, ''Green mole' Sir James Goldsmith becomes top ecofascist warrior': "A former senior Reagan National Security Council (NSC) staffer recalls giving a private briefing to Sir James and media mogul Rupert Murdoch on U.S. arms control policy in the office of Kenneth deGraffenreid, then head of Intelligence Programs at the NSC."
77. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, Their Kingdom Come, p. 359: "Casey's first reaction was to fly to Rome and consult the Pope. He and two other members of Reagan's inner team, Alexander Haig and Vernon Walters, were Knights of the Sovereign Order of Malta, which gave them instant and confidential access to the papal apartments."
78. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid. Speculation of Fritz Kraemer, a key mentor to Kissinger and Walters.
81. June 23, 1972, Nixon White House Tapes, discussion between President Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman: "[Haldeman:] But the way to handle this now is for us to have [CIA deputy director Vernon] Walters call Pat Gray [FBI acting director from May 3, 1972, a day after Hoover's death, until April 1973] and just say, "Stay the hell out of his. This is--there's some business here we don't want you going any further on." That's not an unusual development. And that would take care of it. [President Nixon:] What's the matter with Pat Gray? You mean he doesn't want to? [Haldeman:] Pat does want to. He doesn't know how to, and he doesn't have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis." Walters and Helms refused to intervene and with that caused Watergate to happen.
82. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
83. March 25, 2005, Executive Intelligence Review, 'Nazis, Operation Condor, and Bush's Privatization Plan': "By the Summer of 1974, the CIA's operations focussed on "liaison relationships" with Chile's security services. Shortly after the DINA was created, CIA deputy director Gen. Vernon Walters arrived in Santiago to confer with Pinochet about CIA assistance."
84. 2003, Peter Kornbluh (a National Security Archive publication), 'The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability', p. 222.
85. June 8, 2005, BBC, 'Condor legacy haunts South America'.
86. *) June 12, 1982, The Nation, 'Follow-up on the Leletier case: The CIA's Link To Chile's Plot'.
    *) August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
87. nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/january7-e1450879551174.jpg (accessed: February 5, 2018; photocopy of January 7, 1975 CIA briefing document of Walters to Kissinger).
88. June 12, 1982, The Nation, 'Follow-up on the Leletier case: The CIA's Link To Chile's Plot'.
89. *) June 12, 1982, The Nation, 'Follow-up on the Leletier case: The CIA's Link To Chile's Plot'.
    *) 2005, J. Patrice McSherry, 'Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America', p. 162.
90. June 12, 1982, The Nation, 'Follow-up on the Leletier case: The CIA's Link To Chile's Plot'.
91. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
92. June 12, 1982, The Nation, 'Follow-up on the Leletier case: The CIA's Link To Chile's Plot'.
93. December 16, 1985, Washington Post, 'Vernon Walters, Back in His World'.
94. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
95. December 16, 1985, Washington Post, 'Vernon Walters, Back in His World'.
96. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. April 25, 1986, Washington Post, 'Ethiopian Security Police Seized, Tortured CIA Agent': "Two years ago, Ethiopian security police abducted and tortured a Central Intelligence Agency officer involved in a CIA covert propaganda campaign against the Marxist government in Addis Ababa, according to informed sources. The officer was held captive for more than a month, suffering a fractured skull, chipped vertebrae and dislocated shoulders during his captivity. He was freed in February 1984 when then ambassador-at-large Vernon A. Walters flew secretly to Addis Ababa, confronted Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile-Mariam and obtained the officer's release, the sources said."
100. 1983, Teun van Dijk and Walter Kintsch, 'Strategies of Discourse Comprehension', p. 1: "'Zero': The Guatemalan oligarchs hated Jimmy Cart er for cutting off U.S. military aid in 1977 to protest human -rights abuses -and the right -wingers hired marimba bands and set off firecrackers on the night Ronald Reagan was elected. ...
     The Guatemalans have snubbed visiting U.S. congress men. calling some of them “communists. ” They have even given the cold shoulder to Reagan ’s special emissary, Gen. Vernon Walters, w ho visited Guatemala twice last year. On the first trip Guatemala ’s President Romeo Lucas Garcia finally agreed to receive Walters at the last minute. On the sec ond visit the President’s plane was preparing for takeoff just as Walters ’s landed. “They feel they are waging our war in Central America, and we ’re not helping them. ” says one American in Guatemala. ...
     The government is certainly making every effort to “do it. ” Guatemal a ha s acquired Brazilian armored vehicles and an array of arms and equipment from France, Yugoslavia, South Korea and Romania. But the principal [supplier] of weapons for the Lucas Garcia government appears to be Israel. ...
     Still, Reagan can hardly mend relations with a Guatemalan Government that seems to have made murder an official policy. More than 13,000 people have been killed since 1978, and the State Department estimates th at 300 more are murdered each month. The morning papers are full of reported kill ings by desconocidos (unknowns). Most murders seem to be the work of right -wing death squads like the Secret Anti -Communist Army, widely as sumed to be covert agents of the g overnment. "
101. *) May 5, 1981, Washington Post, 'Honduran Military Girds For War With Nicaragua'.
     *) Winter 1983, Number 18, Covert Action Quarterly.
102. 1998, Peter Dale Scott, 'Cocaine Politics', p. 48.
103. *) 1999, Gary Webb, 'Dark Alliance', p. 258: "In court records, federal agents charged that the cash money was drug money destined for El Salvador. They cited DEA records that said [Francisco] Guirola had been "reportedly involved in cocaine and arms smuggling in El Salvador and Guatemala" and noted that he was a top aide to Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson. The latter claim was confirmed by the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Guirola had accompanied D'Aubuisson to a "very sensitive" meeting with former CIA deputy director Vernon Walters in May 1984. According to the story, Walters had been dispatched in a frantic attempt to talk D'Aubuisson out of assassinating Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador. Guirola, who attended college in California with one of Anastasio Somoza's nephews, had allowed D'Aubuisson to use his house as a campaign headquarters when he ran for Salvadoran president in 1984. Guirola's passport, which was signed by D'Aubuisson, identified him as a "special advisor" to the Salvadoran Assembly. ... the source of the funds was never made public. "The investigation came to a sudden, abrupt halt with a lot of questions unanswered," U.S. Customs agent Ernest Allison complained. ... Les than a year later, DEA agent Castillo and his informants were watching Guirola zoom in and out of Illopango, hauling drugs in, carrying cash to the Bahamas, and flashing credentials from the Salvadoran Air Force and the Salvadoran president's office."When I ran Guirola's name in the computer, it popped up in 11 DEA files, detailing his South America-to-United States cocaine, arms and money laundering," Castillo wrote in his memoirs. ... A cable arrived from the Costa Rican DEA office reporting that a pilot named Carlos Amador was intending to fly into Ilopango [El Salvador], pick up cocaine at Hanger No. 4, and take it to Miami. ... CIA records show that Hanger No. 4 had been used by the Agency for covert operations until it was turned over in 1985 to the National Security Council and Oliver North's illegal arms network, "The Enterprise." CIA agent Felix Rodriguez also used the hanger for his helicopter-based counterinsurgency program. The Adjoining hanger, No. 5, was still being used by the CIA in support of the Contra project. Moreover, the suspected CIA pilot, Carlos Amador, had been working with the CIA for years, flying missions for the Costa Rican Contras. The CIA had been collecting information for at least a year indicating Amador was also flying drug planes between Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, and Miami for a pair of major cocaine traffickers, the Sarcovic brothers, at the same time he was flying for the White House."
     *) May 8, 1994, Houston Chronicle, '"The Hillary of Honduras'; Aide was a one-woman CIA for Helms in Central America': "Many human rights activists and U.S. government officials believe he directed Salvadoran death squads that targeted suspected communist sympathizers. ""D'Aubuisson has served as principal henchman for wealthy landowners and as a coordinator of the right-wing death squads that have murdered several thousand suspected leftists and leftist sympathizers during the past year,'' says a 1981 CIA memo. Critics say [Jesse] Helms and De Moss should have heeded such warnings, as well as public news accounts implicating D'Aubuisson, who died two years ago. Instead, Helms portrayed him as a patriot. He attacked D'Aubuisson's critics, saying they had no hard evidence. De Moss, meanwhile, met with D'Aubuisson on several visits to El Salvador, and she was his Helms contact in Washington. In 1984, the Reagan administration suspected that D'Aubuisson planned to assassinate Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador. It sent Ambassador-at-large Vernon Walters to tell D'Aubuisson to back off. Before Walters arrived, D'Aubuisson got a call ""from a girl in Helms' office'' telling him that Walters was coming to talk about the feared murder plot, according to a cable Walters later sent."
104. October 17, 2006, Vanity Fair, 'The War They Wanted, the Lies They Needed'.
105. *) Ibid.
     *) January 26, 1983, BBC Summary of World Reports (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union in English), 'Weinberger's Support for ''Absurd Changes'' over Pope Assassination Attempt': "For example, Clare Sterling was recruited in Rome by the former head of the CIA counter-espionage department, James Angleton. Sterling, 'Covert Action' notes, worked in the 1950s on the journal 'The Reporter', which was controlled by the CIA, and later appeared more than once at various conferences together with the former CIA head W. [William] Colby as an ''expert'' on Italian politics. She in her turn brought in Michael Ledin [Ledeen], an anti-Soviet scribbler and a professional acquaintance of hers in Rome, to work for the American intelligence department. This disinformer, working on orders from the CIA, contributed to the Italian newspaper 'Giornale Nuovo' and had recently become assistant to Vernon Walters, special emissary and professional spy who had some years previously been deputy director of the CIA. Equally well known are the links between the CIA and yet another specialist in fabrications and the juggling of facts - Robert Moss, author of anti-Soviet detective ''works''. The claims about some ''connection'' between Agca, the Turkish terrorist who made an attempt on the Pope's life, and the socialist countries appeared for the first time, as the journal says, in the 'Giornale Nuovo', which has close contacts with the CIA and where Ledin was prominent. The falsification was picked up by the ABC television network in the USA, which referred to evidence given by . . . [Tass ellipses] Robert Moss. After this, provocative hearings into the ''case'' of the assassination attempt on the Pope were set up in the US Senate sub-committee on security and terrorism, where there appeared as chief ''witnesses'' those same Clare Sterling, Michael Ledin and Robert Moss. ''We are asked to believe'' 'Covert Action' says, ''that Sterling, Ledin and Moss, who throughout their careers have been spreading disinformation and been proud of it, have now all of a sudden begun to speak the truth.'' In this whole unsavoury tale, one can thus clearly discern the hand of the disinformers from the CIA headquarters in Langley, the journal notes. In spreading a patent lie about the assassination attempt in Rome - 'Covert Action' notes - the CIA was pursuing specific aims: to cast a shadow over the USSR and its allies, to whip up anti-communist psychosis in the West and to fuel moods hostile to the USSR among the leadership of the Catholic Church, where anti-war feelings are growing high alongside demands to freeze nuclear weapons and put an end to the arms race."
106. *) 2005, Joseph Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', p. 287.
     *) January 18, 1987, New York Times, 'Carlucci and the N.S.C.': "The genesis of the Iran arms sales may have been a memorandum written by a former high-ranking C.I.A. official, Theodore G. Shackley, whose book ''The Third Option'' arguing that the United States should greatly expand its use of covert operations, particularly in third-world countries, strikingly anticipated the Administration's Reagan Doctrine. Shackley was approached in November 1984 by an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who, during a subsequent series of meetings, reportedly mentioned the hostages and claimed he could get them released in exchange for cash. Shackley passed on this information to the Reagan Administration, and about eight months later Ghorbanifar, through Israeli connections, was introduced to Michael A. Ledeen, a close friend of Shackley's and a consultant to Reagan's N.S.C."
107. *) 2015, Peter Dale Scott a.o., 'Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence & International Fascism': "Michael Ledeen, a State Department terrorism consultant who in [March] 1980 penned a scathing New York magazine attack on Jimmy Carter's CIA director, Adm. Stansfield Turner, after Turner forced Theodore Shackley out of the Agency."
     *) 2005, Joseph Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', p. 287.
     *) 2009, Duane R. Clarridge, 'A Spy For All Seasons: My Life in the CIA', p. 187: "Shackley (now retired from the CIA) had gone into business together to provide war games—type training for European intelligence services in managing terrorist crises, and Santovito was a client. Shackley and Ledeen guided Santovito's officers through a series of exercises... At the same time, Ledeen had also been looking into Billy Carter's involvement with Muammar Qaddafi."
108. *) 2005, Daniele Ganser, 'NATO's Secret Armies', p. 273: "Quoted in Regine Igel, Andreotti, Politik zwischen Geheimdienst und Mafia (Munchen: Herbig Verlag, 1997), p. 49. Her undated reference is the US magazine New Statesman."
109. August 29, 1987, Associated Press, 'Philippine Senator Says Singlaub May Have Fomented Coup Attempt': "In June [1987], ousted Fijian Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra called on Congress to investigate unverified reports of American involvement in the May 14 coup that ousted his government. Bavadra and his adviser, Hawaii-based Dr. J.M. Anthony, cited reports that Singlaub and Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, were in Fiji before, during and after the coup in the Pacific island country."
110. *) Ibid.
     *) February 19, 1987, UPI, 'Singlaub denies hiring mercenaries'.
     *) August 14, 2003, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 'Delving into the coup plotter's mind'. For an excerpt, see Singlaub's biography in ISGP's American Security Council membership list.
111. June 1992, Issue 23, Lobster Magazine, 'Heritage of Stone; JFK and JFK': "Nearly ten years ago former BOSS [South African intelligence] agent Gordon Winter replied to a letter from Steve Dorril about BOSS's view of the assassination with the answer that BOSS files had attributed it to 'a General named Walters'. In 1963 Vernon Walters was Military Attaché in Rome. (It may be a coincidence that in Walters' autobiography there is nothing at all on what he was doing in 1963.) Also in Rome in 1963 as CIA station chief was William Harvey, who, it is widely reported, hated the Kennedys."
112. 2005, Daniele Ganser, 'Nato's Secret Armies', pp. 70-71: "Vernon Walters advised them, a notorious CIA Cold Warrior 'who has been involved directly or indirectly in the overthrow of more governments than any other official of the US government'.[42] Walters declared that if Kennedy allowed the PSI [Partito Socialisto Italiano] to win the elections the US should invade the country... Kennedy had allowed Italy to shift to the left. As the Socialists were given cabinet posts the Italian Communists, due to their performance at the polls, also demanded to be rewarded with posts in the cabinet and in May 1963 the large union of the construction workers demonstrated in Rome. The CIA was alarmed and members of the secret Gladio army disguised as police and civilians smashed the demonstration leaving more than 200 demonstrators injured. [46] But for Italy the worst was yet to come. In November 1963, US President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, under mysterious circumstances. And five months later the CIA with the SIFAR, the Gladio secret army and the paramilitary police carried out a right-wing coup d'etat which forced the Italian Socialists to leave their cabinet posts they had held only for such a short period. Code-named 'Piano Solo' the coup was directed by General Giovanni De Lorenzo whom Defence Minister Giulio Andreotti [Le Cercle] of the DCI [hard-right Democrazia Christiana Italiana] had transferred from chief of SIFAR to chief of the Italian paramilitary police, the Carabinieri. In close cooperation with CIA secret warfare expert Vernon Walters, William Harvey, chief of the CIA station in Rome, and Renzo Rocca, Director of the Gladio units within the military secret service SID, De Lorenzo escalated the secret war."
113. December 16, 1985, Washington Post, 'Vernon Walters, Back in His World'.
114. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
115. 2002 (third edition), John Cooley, 'Unholy Wars', p. 17: "de Marenches [and] General Vernon Walters ... sent out a series of suggestions to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Morocco that they formalize their Safari Club collaboration in a written pact."
116. 1986, No. 25-30, Covertaction Information Bulletin, p. 27, 'The Souvereign Military Order of Malta': "In addition to Casey, and James Buckley, its current members, or Knights, after the feudal fashion, include Lee Iacocca, John McCone, William Buckley, Alexander Haig, Alexandre de Marenches..."
117. 2002 (third edition), John Cooley, 'Unholy Wars', p. 17: "... de Marenches, a big, bluff man who his close American friend, General Vernon A. Walters, a Cold Warrior and CIA official called a "real French Kissinger,"..."
     Additionally: November 23, 1992, Washington Times, 'Anti-Everybody': "Vernon Walters... could be found overseas last week being inducted into the Al-Mamlaka al-Maghribiya's Royal Academy. That's Kingdom of Morocco, for short... Gen. Walters, a resident of Virginia, was sponsored for the honor by Alexandre de Marenches... Gen. Walters is a personal friend of Morocco's King Hassan II." At least one meeting of Le Cercle has been held in Morocco.
118. Ibid.
119. 2005, Joseph J. Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', pp. 99-106. See excerpt in ISGP's The Supranational Suspects Behind 9/11.
120. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 191: "In fact, neither Marenches nor Dickie Franks ever attended a Pinay Cercle meeting during the years I was involved with it: between 1971 and 1985."
121. November 1988, Issue 17, David Teacher for Lobster Magazine, 'The Pinay Circle and Destabilisation in Europe': "Strauss was a close friend of Alexandre de Marenches and was a frequent visitor to the SDECE's headquarters during Marenches' time."
122. 2002 (third edition), John Cooley, 'Unholy Wars', p. 106: "Before he left, de Marenches warned Reagan that the rank-and-file staff of the CIA, where a mutual friend, William Casey, would soon be taking over as chief, was not to be trusted."
123. Website of Baron de Bonvoisin: "Largely because of B. de B, Raes was forced to resign in 1990... B. de Bonvoisin was highly regarded by the head of the French secret services, Alexandre de Marenches, but the latter had no esteem for Albert Raes... [bashes Albert Raes a bit more]... he [Raes] tried to associate B. de B with the extreme right, a trick often used by the Soviet secret services."" On the same page: "Professor Lode Van Outrive concluded that: "Several times the Americans tried to convince Raes to concentrate first and foremost on the Eastern block countries whereas he seemed more interested in targeting extreme right wing movements. This clearly bothered the Americans who got him to resign.""
     baronbenoitdebonvoisin.com/Anglais/benoit.html
     Bonvoisin has been caught faking KGB files that were meant to prove a vast left conspiracy against him.
124. 2001, Joseph Trento, 'The Secret History of the CIA', pp. 410, 426: "Colby understood - as did Kissinger and Ted Shackley... - that the Israeli account was a large source of Angleton's power. For one thing, it had given them access to five American presidents. ... hackley made the Israeli account his own. He kept the relationship personal, as Angleton had done. According to Crowley and other Agency officials, Shackley told no one in the chain of command anything he was doing with respect to Israel."
125. 1976, Pike Report, pp. 112-113. For an excerpt, see Senator Henry Jackson's biography in ISGP's American Security Council membership list.
126. 2005, Daniele Ganser, 'Nato's Secret Armies', p. 74: "Frank Gigliotti [one-time assistant to a hypnotist; Presbyterian clergyman; worked with teenaged boys, for whom he organized a social club named the Guiseppe Mazzini Club; recruited by the OSS; active in Italy] of the US Masonic Lodge personally recruited Gelli and instructed him to set up an anti-Communist parallel government in Italy in close cooperation with the CIA station in Rome. 'It was Ted Shackley, director of all covert operations of the CIA in Italy in the 1970s', an internal report of the Italian anti-terrorism unit confirmed, 'who presented the chief of the Masonic Lodge to Alexander Haig'. According to the document, Nixon's Military adviser General Haig [later Pilgrims Society executive], who had commanded US troops in vietnam and thereafter from 1974 to 1979 served as NATO's SACEUR, and Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger [Le Cercle] 'authorized Gelli in the fall of 1969 to recruit 400 high ranking Italian and NATO officers into his lodge'. (60)... the secretive anti-Communist P2 members list confiscated [in 1981] counted at least 962 members, with total leadership estimated at 2,500... 52 were high-ranking officers of the Carabinieri paramilitary police, 50 were high-ranking officers of the Italian Army, 37 were high-ranking officers of the Finance Police, 29 were high-ranking officers of the Italian Navy, 11 were Presidents of the police, 70 were influential and wealthy industrialists, 10 were Presidents of banks, 3 were acting Ministers, 2 were former Ministers, 1 was President of a political party, 38 were members of parliament and 14 were high-ranking judges. Others on lower levels of the social hierarchy were mayors, Directors of hospitals, lawyers, notaries and journalists."
127. 2005, Joseph Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', p. 283.
128. 2005, Joseph Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', pp. 17-18, 53, 131. For an excerpt, look here.
129. June 16, 1988, Sun Sentinel, 'Mercenary Prefers Jail To Testimony In Suit'.
130. April 10, 1994, Miami Herald, 'Blame the lawyer, then blame ourselves'.
131. Thomas Spencer's bio at www.spencer-lawfirm.net (accessed: November 11, 2012). See Spencer American Security Council biography for citations.
132. October 10, 2006, Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, 'From our house to the White House RB Class of '56 grad Hoskinson rubbed elbows with three presidents': "Sam [Samuel] Hoskinson ... was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an analyst. Kissinger who served as the National Security Director in the first term of the presidency of Richard Nixon, hired Hoskinson to work as South Asia and Middle Eastern analyst for the National Security Council. ... When Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, Hoskinson stayed on at the National Security Council and worked under Brent Scowcroft during the Ford Administration and under Zbigniew Brzezinski during the first years of the Carter Administration. ... He was recruited by former Secretary of the Treasury George Schultz to work as manager for international corporate strategy for the Bechtel Corporation, so he moved to San Francisco."
133. africapetroleum.com/about_directors.html (accessed: June 4, 2004): "Board of Directors:
     - Paul Bristol, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Bristol is Chairman and Director of aFocus Limited and Executive Chairman of International Oil Club Limited.
     - Charles E. Waterman, President and Director: Mr. Waterman is President of Jefferson Waterman International, and former Vice Chairman of the U.S. Government's National Intelligence Council.
     - Samuel M. Hoskinson, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Director: Mr. Hoskinson is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Jefferson Waterman International, former Vice Chairman of the U.S. Government's National Intelligence Council, and former senior member of the U.S. National Security Council staff during three presidential administrations.
     - Daniel C. Arnold, Director: Mr. Arnold is a private businessman and investor, with financial interests and Board memberships across a variety of industries.
     Principal Partners:
     - Ambassador Richard T. McCormack: Former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS)...
     - David M. Thomas: Independent oil consultant specializing in West Africa."
134. jwidc.com/people/profiles/ (accessed: December 30, 2012): "Profiles Click to learn more about: Charles E. Waterman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Samuel M. Hoskinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. ... Crosshatch International, LLC — Security and Intelligence: ... Enrique Prado; Larry Sanchez ... JWI Board: ... Daniel C. Arnold ... Samuel Hoskinson ... Charles Waterman."
135. October 10, 2006, Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, 'From our house to the White House RB Class of '56 grad Hoskinson rubbed elbows with three presidents': "In 1994 Hoskinson got together with a few friends and founded Jefferson Waterman International..."
136. *) See the 1983-1985 Cercle lists below.
     *) September 15, 1987, Ted Shackley's Iran Contra deposition. Included in: March 1, 1988, Senate report, No. 216, 'Iran-Contra Investigation', Appendix B, Volume 25, Ted Shackley Deposition: "Q: Who are the officers in RAI [Research Associates International]? A: The officers are myself, Mr. Donald Jameson and my wife, Hazel Shackley. Q: And the directors? A: The directors are myself, Donald Jameson and a Mr. Ledbetter."
     *) 2002, Chief Executive Publishing (more detailed date and a headline were not given; scanned from some book or document, judging by one or two common OCR errors): "In 1986, deals with the Soviets were lucrative, wrote Donald F.B. Jameson, a former member of the CIA and vice president of Research Associates International, a risk assessment firm in Arlington, Va. "The Soviets pay above-market prices and pay promptly. Negotiating can be trying, even for the big boys," he wrote in Chief Executive in a spring article titled, 'Trading with the Soviets'..."But if you have what they want and are persistent, you may well end up with a good deal, and after having done one deal, others usually follow. Trading with the Soviets is a race that goes to the strong," Jameson said."
137. *) December 14, 2002, New York Times, 'Theodore Shackley, Enigmatic C.I.A. Official, Dies at 75': "In 1979, Mr. Shackley retired from the C.I.A. and founded Research Associates International Ltd., a Bethesda consulting firm specializing in analyzing risks and protecting executives".
     *) Additional: July 23, 1998, Michael Ruppert, 'The POWs, CIA and Drugs': "A former CIA officer told me in 1995 that Ollie North was leasing office space for his 1995 Senate run from Shackley's company, Research Associates International, in Rosslyn, Virginia."
138. *) Participants list of the June 1983 Cercle meeting in Bonn, Germany: "Theodore Shakley [sic]: Chairman Research Associates International. ... Donald Jameson: Research Associates International".
     *) Participants list of the January 1984 Cercle meeting in South Africa: "Donald Jameson: Research Associates International".
     *) Participants list of the February 1985 Cercle meeting in Washington D.C.: "Donald Jameson: Vice President, Research Associates International".
139. March 7, 1997, The Augusta Chronicle, 'Defector caught up in dispute - Former intelligence officer denies US prisoners of war taken in Korean wars': "At least two former U.S. intelligence officers say Mr. Rastvorov told them in separate conversations after his defection that he knew U.S. troops captured in the 1950-53 Korean War had been taken to Siberia and exploited by Soviet intelligence. One of those conversations is summarized in a long-secret White House memo that was declassified last spring... Publicity about the memo prompted the Pentagon to contact Mr. [Yuri] Rastvorov to see how much he knew. At a private meeting last Oct. 10, Mr. Rastvorov denied having any knowledge about U.S. POWs in Siberia. Further, he said that the statements in the White House memo were not his, and that he did not recall that any of the debriefings he underwent with U.S. officials in the 1950s dealt with POWs... Philip Corso, an intelligence officer in Korea during the war and later a National Security Council staff member in the Eisenhower White House, is equally emphatic that Mr. Rastvorov told him in a Jan. 28, 1955, debriefing that Americans had been taken to Siberia as part of a covert Soviet intelligence operation... Separate from Mr. Corso's assertions, Donald Jameson, a retired CIA officer, has said he recalls Mr. Rastvorov telling him in the 1950s that U.S. POWs had been taken to the Soviet Union and that Mr. Rastvorov had estimated it was 10 to 15 aviators. Mr. Jameson helped handle the Rastvorov debriefing after his defection."
140. January 25, 2003, The Gold Coast Bulletin, 'Focus': "The experiment was only one episode in a remarkable research program run by the Defence Intelligence Agency and CIA from 1972 until 1996. The project, known variously as Grill Flame, Sun Streak, and finally Star Gate, explored a variety of parapsychological phenomena but especially one known as 'remote viewing', the process by which someone in, say, Maryland visualises an office in the Kremlin and describes it both in words and drawings... The outlines of Star Gate have been sketched before, but new details of the project have come to light in 73,000 pages of previously classified records released by the CIA last November and made available just this month. (An additional 20,800 pages are undergoing review, and 17,700 pages were deemed too sensitive to release.)... In 1972, the CIA gave the institute $50,000 to study remote viewing. Russell Targ, who joined the project in 1972... Two years later, the institute received the geographical co-ordinates of a "Soviet site of ongoing operational significance.'' The target was Semipalatinsk, in what is now Kazakhstan. A remote viewer provided a layout of a cluster of buildings and drew a puzzling, 'damned big crane'. He identified the underground facility as storage for Soviet missiles. Satellite photos verified the viewer's report, according to Donald Jameson, then a senior CIA Soviet specialist, who called the event a 'turning point'. One group within the agency refused to look at the Semipalatinsk data, objecting to the unscientific methodology. Another group called the process 'demonic'. When the CIA cut the program in 1975, the funds shifted first to the Air Force and then, in 1980, to the Defence Intelligence Agency. Between 1979 and 1994 Fort Meade's viewing site conducted roughly 250 projects involving thousands of missions." (With all these (in this case Catholic) religious extremists in the top tiers of the CIA it's no wonder these projects were seen as "demonic".)
141. April 25, 2003, Associated Press, 'James Critchfield, CIA official who recruited Nazis, Iraqi Baathists, dies at 86'.
142. June 24, 1988, Executive Intelligence Review, 'John Deuss, Shackley's piggybank', p. 36.
143. 2001, Joseph Trento, 'The Secret History of the CIA', pp. 410, 426: "Colby understood - as did Kissinger and Ted Shackley... - that the Israeli account was a large source of Angleton's power. For one thing, it had given them access to five American presidents. ...
     For the government of Israel, the loss of James Angleton was a major blow, but one for which it was prepared. ...
     Shackley made the Israeli account his own. He kept the relationship personal, as Angleton had done. According to Crowley and other Agency officials, Shackley told no one in the chain of command anything he was doing with respect to Israel. ... "
144. 1976, Pike Report, pp. 112-113. For an excerpt, see Senator Henry Jackson's biography in ISGP's American Security Council membership list.
145. 2005, Joseph Trento, 'Prelude to Terror', p. 283: "The admiration of Israel by the neocons was shared by Ted Shackley."
146. See note 73.
147. June 19, 2016, Consortium News, 'How Roy Cohn Helped Rupert Murdoch'.
148. January 18, 1987, New York Times, 'Carlucci and the N.S.C.'.
149. June 24, 1988, Executive Intelligence Review, 'John Deuss, Shackley's piggybank'.
150. January 2002, interview by Matt Ehlingfor for Declassified Radio (which doesn't exist anymore).
     sf.indymedia.org/print.php?id=113300
151. *) May 2, 1990, Washinton Post, 'Man linked to Unification Church buys cable stake': "Jonathan S. Park, the son of the man described as Moon's chief deputy in the United States... Concept is co-owned by Park and Max Hugel, who directed President Reagan's New Hampshire campaign in 1980 and briefly served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
     *) October 1, 1993, Washington City Paper, ' Missing Link: Is the Sun Setting on the Rev. Moon's Local Video-Production Empire?: "Newslink was nearly bankrupt in 1987 when Republican consultant Max Hugel, a former CIA deputy director and longtime Moon ally, rescued it. Hugel promptly attempted to use the company to advance the Moon [Republican politics] cause..."
152. July 14, 1981, UPI, 'Max Hugel resigned as head of the CIA's covert operations'.
153. 1992, Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, part 11: "In the case of BCCI, former CIA officials, including former CIA director Richard Helms and the late William Casey; former and current foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil; and principal foreign agents of the U.S., such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy... On February 23, 1992, NBC News broadcast the allegation that former Director of Central Intelligence William Casey met secretly for three years with Abedi [1001 Club; head of the BCCI], that such meetings took place every few months at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C."
154. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 184-185.
155. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 230-231: "I had put together an impressive team of helpers in America [in tracking down and interrogating two Cuban defectors]. Robert Moss was one of them... Others who helped were... Donald Jameson; who for many years had been the CIA's top specialist on the Soviet Union. Apart from his fluent Russian, he also spoke Spanish and had a special interest in Latin America." This was about 1985.
156. 1993, Brian Crozier, Free Agent, p. 243: "... the 'Coalition of Peace to Strength'. Among them were personal friends of mine, including the late General Richard Stilwell and Richard Perle..."
157. December 5, 1986, Philadelphia Inquirer, 'Secord lost position over disclosure form': "Secord was removed from an unpaid position on the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group, an 11-member panel dominated by retired senior generals who advise the secretary of defense and his top military and civilian officials on special and covert operations policy... Current members of the group, all retired from active duty, include:... Air Force Lt. Gen. Leroy Manor... They advise the secretary of defense, Caspar W. Weinberger; the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Richard L. Armitage, and the commander of the Joint Special Operations Agency, Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Kelly." More detailed quote in General Stilwell's bio in the membership list.
158. *) Secord was operational head of the covert private arms network set up by Casey and North in 1984. He was involved with Shackley in Nugan Hand. September 11, 1988, Washington Post, 'The ultimate conspiracy theory': "Serving first as the CIA's East Asia operations chief and later as assistant deputy director of clandestine operations, Shackley (with his trusty aide Clines) supposedly stole tons of U.S. weapons from South Vietnam and stashed them in Thailand. Later, Sheehan claims, Shackley, Clines, Secord and a member of the "shooter team" named Rafael "Chi-Chi" Quintero siphoned off millions of dollars in Southeast Asia opium profits and laundered them through the mysterious Nugan Hand bank of Australia."
     *) August 17, 1983, Wall Street Journal, 'Bank's Links to Ex-CIA Men Detailed': "Among the high-level retired Pentagon and CIA officials associated with Nugan Hand were former CIA director William Colby, who was its attorney; three-star Gen. LeRoy J. Manor, former chief of staff for the pacific, who headed its Philippine operation..."
     *) Additional: September 21, 1980, Boston Globe, letter from a reader to the editor: "I fail to understand why an article such as "Heroin, banking and the CIA" would be relegated to page 42 (Sept. 7). The incredible details in Alan Berger's well-written article are front-page material. The implications, for example, in the connection between Gen. Ray Manors involvement with the defunct Nugan Hand International banking front and his responsibility as a CIA member to analyze the Iranian hostage incident are frightening, to say the least."
159. 1991, Bo Gritz (ISA and Delta Force commander), 'Called to Serve', p. 370. For details, see ISGP's article A History of CIA Drug Trafficking
160. 1993, Brian Crozier, Free Agent, p. 185.
161. January 28, 1990, Sunday Times, 'How the Colombian cocaine chain leads to Fidel Castro'.
162. *) January 28, 1990, Washington Post, 'The Case Against Noriega': "On Monday, November 14, 1983, Noriega's entourage took off for Washington... all expenses paid by the U.S. government. Almost two whole days, however, were set aside for the institutions that already had long-standing working relations with Noriega. At CIA headquarters in Langley, Noriega was swept off for a meeting with CIA Director William Casey. Back in Panama, Noriega would later boast about his four-hour lunch with Casey..."
     *) August 23, 1991, The Miami Herald, 'Noriega: CIA, DEA OKd Deals': "Manuel Noriega says he had good reasons for allowing drugs and guns to slip through Panama: The last seven CIA directors, including George Bush, asked him to help with the guns, while four directors of the Drug Enforcement Administration sought his help on the drugs... The weapons shipments were destined for Nicaragua and Honduras, the papers said. Besides Bush, the CIA directors who asked Noriega to allow them to travel through Panama included Richard Helms, William Colby, James Schlesinger, Stansfield Turner, William Casey and William Webster... The DEA directors who purportedly asked Noriega to allow drugs to pass through his country included Terrance Burk, Francis Mullen, Jack Lawn and John Ingersoll... Diane Cossin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said the prosecution will present evidence that links Noriega's BCCI money and drugs."
163. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 134: February 5, 1978, Time: "A Soviet KGB agent told a Time correspondent in Cairo last week: 'Of all the operations that the Soviet Union and the US have conducted against each other, none have benefited the KGB as much as the campaign to discredit the CIA. In our wildest scenarios, we could never have anticipated such a plus for our side. It's the kind of gift all espionage men dream about. Today our boys have it a lot easier, and we didn't have to lift a finger. You did all our work for us.'" A quote that couldn't have come at a more convenient time for the CIA as opinion of the CIA was at an all time low at this point.
164. October 10, 1996, The Daily Mail, 'MoD 'scapegoat' is cleared of karate killing': "The manslaughter conviction of a SAS-trained former Army information officer who claims he was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by the security services was quashed by the Court of Appeal yesterday. In a damning judgment, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham [Pilgrims Society], cleared 53-year-old Colin Wallace of the killing of antiques dealer Jonathan Lewis, who was found drowned in a river near his home in Arundel, West Sussex, in 1980... Outside court yesterday, Mr Wallace claimed the prosecution had been `disgraceful and totally dishonest' and that the police had suppressed evidence showing that Mr Lewis was killed by criminal members of the antiques trade in Brighton... The decision was the latest victory for the former Ministry of Defence official who claims that he may have been framed for the manslaughter, that he was thrown out of the Army for refusing to join an MI5 plot to topple Harold Wilson's government and whose warnings about child abuse at the infamous Kincora home in Belfast were ignored to protect an intelligence mole. Despite years of cover-up and government stonewalling, his allegations have one by one been vindicated... He also claimed to have worked in Northern Ireland on what he termed a 'psychological operation', which effectively involved inventing stories and planting them with journalists."
165. August 29, 1982, Boston Globe, 'Mystery Man of American Diplomacy'.
166. 2006, Allen Dulles, 'The Craft of Intelligence', 'Chapter 13: Myths, Mishaps and Mischief-Makers'.
167. March 6, 2003, De Standaard (prominent Belgian newspaper), 'Baron de Bonvoisin again to court': "Yesterday, the Black Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, with three of his compagnions, has been referred to the Brussels penal judge in the affair of forged KGB documents. Together with de Bonvoisin, his brother Pierre, Eric Van de Weghe and Christian Amory have to stand trial."
     Amory, like Baron de Bonvoisin, featured prominently in the Gang of Nijvel affair, a program to destabilize the Belgium state.
168. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 182.
169. August 15, 1978, Chronicle Telegram, 'U.S. vulnerable in computer war'.
170. *) January 16, 1977, Washington Post, 'Trilateral Commission-Web Enough for the Plot-Minded'.
     *) March 16, 1980, Washington Post, 'Carping At Carter'.
     *) April 25, 1992, Washington Post, 'Beware the Trilateral Commission!'
171. November 20, 2002, Der Standard, 'Das Pentagon ist heute eine jüdische Institution' The English Wikipedia article on Otto von Habsburg has adopted the quote.
172. August 6, 2009, Gawker, 'Mystery Solved: Ron Silver Was Not a CIA Agent'.
173. November 1988, Issue 17, Lobster Magazine, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith' (quote is from a 1972 ISC report): "Mr Crozier said that M. Violet, who had commissioned the report on behalf of the Pinay Committee, had come to London with M. Pinay during that week... Pinay had given Mr Crozier documents relating to their next project. M. Pinay had presented a copy of European Security and the Soviet Problem to President Nixon and Dr Kissinger in America. Earlier that week he had had a three hour session with President Pompidou, during which time he had presented him with a copy of the publication in French. Maitre Violet had also presented copies to a number of German politicians, mainly Christian Democrats, who are having the report translated into German. And he had shown a copy to the Spanish Minister and to the Pope. NSIC in New York had bought 500 of the ISC's initial print order, and another 500 had been bought by the American Bar Association. " Lobster tracked down some of the leaked documents of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, reported on earlier by Time Out. In the same article Lobster acknowledges that most of the documents were gone by the time they got to them.
174. Ibid.
175. Ibid.
176. Crozier details the whole story in his book 'Free Agent'
177. January 11, 2005, Daily Telegraph, Stephen Hastings' obituary: "Hastings's background in MI6 gave him a certain mystique, and he was often embroiled in controversy concerning Communist infiltration. In 1977 he raised a storm of protest by alleging that five prominent trades union officials were agents for Communist countries. This information was culled from tape recordings made by the Czech former spy and defector Joseph Frolik. The following year, before Mrs Thatcher came into office, Hastings and Brian Crozier wrote her a paper setting out "the diabolical nature of the Communist conspiracy" against Britain. Mrs Thatcher was appalled: "Stephen," she said, "I've read every word and I'm shattered. What should we do?...""
178. 2005, BBC, 'The plot against Harold Wilson' (documentary).
179. Ibid.
180. Names given of those preparing or promoting a coup on Harold Wilson in:
     *) February 22, 2002, The Independent, 'The Airey Neave File' (often taking names from old Searchlight Magazine material): Airey Neave; George Kennedy Young; Chapman Pincher; General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, General Sir Walter Walker; David Stirling.
     *) January 9, 2005, The Observer, 'Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup': 7th Earl of Lucan; Sir James Goldsmith.
     *) 2005, BBC, 'The plot against Harold Wilson' (documentary): Lord Mountbatten of Burma; Earl of Cromartie; Cecil Harmsworth King; Queen Mother; General Sir Walter Walker; Edward Heath; Brian Crozier; Major Alexander Greenwood; Chapman Pincher; Lord Alun Chalfont; James Jesus Angleton.
     *) March 13, 2006, The Daily Mail, 'A very British coup': Sir Val Duncan; Brian Crozier; General Sir Walter Walker; Colonel David Stirling; Lord Mountbatten of Burma; Queen Mother; Earl of Cromartie; Major Alexander Greenwood; Chapman Pincher; Cecil Harmsworth King.
181. March 13, 2006, The Daily Mail, 'A very British coup': "Brian Crozier, the security expert who had made a study of communist insurgency in Britain and would later advise Margaret Thatcher, was twice invited to address officers at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. 'I took it upon myself to make them understand the problems of communism and that they might, at some time, have to intervene to destroy this danger,' he says. 'There was absolute silence as I explained how the trades unions were very heavily penetrated by communists and their sympathisers and were exerting a dangerous influence on the Labour Party, which largely depended on them. They wanted to hear every word I said.' After his speech, he received a number of private phone calls from very senior serving officers. 'I have never named them and I never will,' declares Crozier. 'They were standing ready to act if necessary. There were no "buts" about it. If things had gone on as they were, they would have moved.'"
182. Winter 1998, Issue 34, Lobster Magazine, 'Back to the future: the 1970s reconsidered'.
183. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 118: "I was one of the founder members [of the National Association for Freedom], with Lord De L'Isle as President, Michael Ivans of Aims of Industry, and Robert Moss, who became the first editor of the Association's journal, the Free Nation (later renamed to Freedom Today)." Crozier also mention the involvement of Winston Churchill, son of the famous prime minister. April 1986, Issue 11, Lobster Magazine, 'The National Association for Freedom': "Nugent's analysis fails most seriously in completely ignoring the military/intelligence input into NAFF. At various times NAFF attracted to its Council Robert Moss and Brian Crozier with links to CIA and MI6 via Forum World Features and ISC; Stephen Hastings MP (B), ex-MI6; Sir Gerald Templer (who was NAFF chair at one time and, as we showed above, played a role in the formation of Civil Assistance) (74); Sir Robert Thompson (B) who worked with Templer during the Malayan insurgency and who might claim to be Britain's leading counter-insurgency expert; Joseph Josten, Director of the Free Czech Intelligence News Agency (presumably funded by MI6) which played a role in the anti-Labour Party operations (see below); and W. E. Luke (B) and Hugh Astor (B) both with war-time experience in MI5."
184. November 1988, Issue 17, Lobster Magazine, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith'. In his book 'Free Agent' Crozier gives his version of the affair.
185. Have a list of Bohemian Grove Lakeside talks from the 1940s to the 1970s. Forgot the source.
186. July 2005, The Trumphet, 'From the Editor: German Election Crisis—and a New Charlemagne' (quotes from other articles).
187. Website of the Coudenhove-Kalergi-Stiftung
     coudenhove-kalergi-stiftung.org/ stiftung_stiftungsratsmitglieder1.asp
188. *) September 5, 1996, The Independent, Amery's obituary: "He threw himself with zest into the role of a backbencher, intervening, in that great, rumbling voice of his, on a wide variety of subjects but, increasingly, in support of the rebel Rhodesian government headed by Ian Smith, thus showing he was his Imperialist father's son to the core... When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 his first major foreign challenge was the conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in Lusaka in the autumn, where the main topic was to be Rhodesia (the government of which was now headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, with Smith in close attendance). Rhodesia was the main subject in the adjournment debate of 25 July, the last occasion for discussion of the matter before the summer recess. The Prime Minister took great care over her speech, seeking to placate both those who wanted to bring Muzorewa and Smith down, and the many on the Conservative back benches who sympathised with them. She succeeded, with one exception. Amery alone in the debate divined instantly that she had decided to abandon the Muzorewa-Smith government and, in a bitter and powerful speech, he castigated her for so doing. It was to no avail."
189. May 27, 1993, The Times, 'Talking of Tiny; Television': "Rowland emigrated to Rhodesia and went into mining with the help of his MP, one Ian Smith (the very same). Before you could say fool's gold Rowland had formed the London and Rhodesia Mining Company (Lonrho)."
190. August 1984, Issue 5, Lobster Magazine, 'The Angolan hostages episode, and more': "It is said that Dr. Savimbi [founder and leader of UNITA] was recruited by British intelligence 1964-66.(Covert Action No 4 April/May 1979). Even stronger are his links to Lonrho. Its boss, 'Tiny' Rowland, has visited Savimbi at the residence in Rabat, lent by the King of Morocco to Unita's President; and Lonrho executives have visited Unita's headquarters at Jamba. As long ago as 1974 Rowland provided Savimbi with a Hawker Siddley 125 and two pilots. He also set up a small company, Armitage Industrial Holdings, from the Slater/Walker group, to transport arms and supplies to Unita. (British Intelligence and Covert Action p193). When Savimbi visited Britain in 1980, Lonrho paid for expensive receptions hosted by Tory MP Edward Du Cann, a Lonrho director, at which Savimbi met Tory MPs."
191. August 16, 1992, Sunday Times, 'Gadaffi to buy 'SAS package' from Khashoggi': "Colonel Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, is recruiting disaffected former members of South Africa's special forces to train his commandos... Gadaffi is also seeking to buy large amounts of top-quality military equipment, including a sophisticated radar air defence system, American M-40 anti-tank weapons, and NBC combat suits designed to protect troops against the effects of nuclear, biological or chemical attack. According to documents obtained by The Sunday Times, the secret deal of special forces training and equipment for Libya has been negotiated by Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer recently involved in a controversial partnership between Gadaffi and Tiny Rowland... the relationship has blossomed, with both Khashoggi and Rowland promising Libya political influence in the West..."
192. 1999, Adam Curtis, 'The Mayfair Set' (broadcasted by BBC2). Documentary mentioned that David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, Tiny Rowland, and Lord Lucan were all members of the John Aspinall's Clairmont gambling club. The documentary received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000.
193. *) January 9, 2005, The Observer, 'Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup': "when he [Lucan] left Hatchards, the book under his arm was a Thirties translation of Hitler's political testament, Mein Kampf ... The Countess of Lucan confirmed this weekend that Lucan was an extremist in his politics: 'He did have very right-wing views, some might describe them as fascist. I didn't know he was indulging in extremist reading matter in 1972, although I knew he listened to recordings of Hitler's speeches at Nuremburg Rallies... he [Lucan] and his associates, who included casino owner and party host John Aspinall, and the tycoon Sir James Goldsmith, were increasingly convinced Britain had fallen victim to a socialist conspiracy. Daily Express journalist Charles Benson, one of Lucan's friends, said: 'He was very right wing and never watered it down in front of liberals. He would talk about hanging and flogging and niggers to get a reaction.' One biographer, Patrick Marnham, said: 'Seen from the Clermont Club [Lucan's favourite gambling haunt], the country was starting to resemble the less stable years of the Weimar Republic. Sir James Goldsmith began to develop his theory of "the Communist infiltration of the Western media". Over the smoked salmon and lamb cutlets, the talk turned to the pros and cons of a British military coup.'"
     *) July 27, 1998, The Financial Times, 'The talented but ultimately unacceptable face of capitalism': "Mr Rowland, born Roland Walter Fuhrhop, of a German father and Anglo-Dutch mother in India in 1917, was a natural outsider and maverick. Educated first in Germany, then briefly in England, he was detained on the Isle of Man during the war, where he was suspected of Nazi sympathies."
     *) According to Wikipedia, John Aspinall once claimed that Britain was in need of "a Franco-ite counter-revolution".
     *) Also: March 13, 2006, Daily Mail, 'A very British Coup': "As for Colonel David Stirling,... he too believed the situation in Britain had become so serious that a military coup had to be an option. According to his friend, Major Alexander Greenwood, Stirling also offered a more informal way of handling the trades union agitators - provoking them into a confrontation. 'He thought: "Let's attack the leaders, let's get them run over by a bus - then they'll start thinking," ' says Major Greenwood, who had become a stockbroker after his Army career."
194. 1999, Adam Curtis, 'The Mayfair Set': "David Stirling was a close friend of Julian Amery's and together they were determined to find a way to stop Nasser... Stirling and Amery had diner with the foreign secretary, Alec Douglas Hume, at the White's Club in St. James's. They proposed a plan: a group of SAS men would mount an operation to fight the Egyptians, but they would do it privately."
195. *) January 31, 1997, The Guardian, 'SAS linked to rogue force in South Africa': "The SAS has been linked to violence by a 'third force' that threatened to undermine South Africa's transition to majority rule, in a report considered so explosive it was suppressed by Nelson Mandela... It confirms the involvement of commando units in random violence, the use of poison - supplied by the Seventh Medical Division - by hit squads, and the supply of arms and training to the Zulu-dominated Inkatha movement... The truth commission document says evidence was given to Gen Steyn that destabilisation of the government and neighbouring countries was planned 'to enable the military to step in credibly to create order'. Preparations for this allegedly involved stockpiling arms in countries which included Kenya, Zambia, Mauritius and Portugal, to create 'springboards' for possible military action. It said there was 'a suggestion that there was close contact with the British SAS'... As reported by the Guardian, a group of SAS officers working for a private security firm in Britain [KAS] were hired by wealthy conservationists in the late 1980s to come to South Africa to fight elephant and rhinoceros poachers. They became involved with local intelligence agencies and reportedly took part in paramilitary training. The British security firm, Kas Enterprises, was owned by Sir David Stirling, the founder of the SAS, and taken over after his death by Sir James Goldsmith. The security firm's SAS mission to South Africa was headed by Ian Crooke, who led the SAS..."
     *) September 24, 1999, Kleintje Muurkrant, '"People have been murdered under the cover of nature protection" - Attorney severely criticises the World Wide Fund for Nature' (translated from Dutch to English): "It looks like the WWF to a large degree is responsible for several projects, especially in South Africa, where in two fases respectively one and a half million people and subsequently ten thousand people were killed. In the first phase it was about the battle in the frontline states against the ANC [the major anti-apartheid movement], especially against the military wing. The war has been waged under the cover of nature protection and while protecting nature these people have lobbied the legislator to adopt a "shoot to kill" policy, whereby it became legal to shoot poachers in the field before arresting them. Afterwards you have to say that among the victims were quite a lot of ANC members... After 1990 the struggle shifted to the territory of South Africa [instead of the whole of southern Africa]. During that time these people trained a number of elite black units in the wildlife parks [of the WWF], like the anti-cattle thieves brigade and the crowbar-unit that turn out to responsible for the murder of several ten thousand inhabitants of the townships. This was part of the plan to create a civil war between the Bantus and the Zulus, that is to say that the ANC had to be set up against Inkatha [of Inkatha Freedom Party, the second largest anti-apartheid movement which mainly represented the Zulus] and that operation has been conducted with the intention of destabilizing southern Africa. I have seen that these projects were completely financed by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Of course a certain Prince [Bernhard] has been involved in that, who has walked around there with a suitcase full of money, but the question remains how much this man knew about the projects."
     *) Executive Intelligence Review has published some information about the 1001 Club and Anglo-Dutch policies in southern Africa.
196. September 3, 2003, Energy Bulletin, 'Petro-Logistics is very well connected in the gulf and the Black Sea': "Mr Gerber freely admits that he first learned about the oil business in the 1970's when he was helping his country, then known as Rhodesia and now called Zimbabwe, to circumvent international sanctions and procure illegal oil... Mr Gerber worked as an economist in the government of Rhodesia... Among his business associates and friends, Mr Gerber counted Theodore G. Shackley... Mr Shackley engaged in some oil trading after he retired from the CIA in 1979. Mr Gerber said he was at Mr Shackley's bedside just before he died last year. His client base, initially built around an oil trader who worked with Mr Shackley, eventually expanded to include official agencies, major oil companies -- both private and government-owned -- and other traders." John Deuss was the "oil trader who worked with Mr Shackley".
197. June 28, 2005, Wall Street Journal, 'A Cartel and Its Snake oil - The Saudis claim to have huge oil reserves. Do they really?': "As a result, the world's most reliable source for OPEC production is a little company called Petrologistics, located over a grocery store in Geneva. Conrad Gerber, the principal, claims to have spies in every OPEC port. For all we know, Mr. Gerber is making up his numbers, but everyone -- including the Paris-based International Energy Agency -- takes him seriously, since OPEC produces nothing better." Review about the 2005 book of Matthew Simmons, 'Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy'.
198. January 15-21, 1998, Le Nouvel Observateur, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski: "According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire... Nonsense! [that Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace] It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries."
199. September 23, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 'How a holy war against the Soviets turned on the US': "In 1986, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey stepped up the war against the Soviet Union by taking three significant, but at that time highly secret, measures. He persuaded the U.S. Congress to provide the Afghan fighters known as Mujaheddin, "holy warriors" in Arabic, with American-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Soviet planes and to send U.S. advisers to train the guerrillas. Until then, no U.S.-made weapons or personnel had been used directly in the war effort. U.S.-financed weapons provided to the Afghans until then had been generally of Warsaw Pact manufacture, to provide deniability of U.S. support for the Mujaheddin. The CIA, Britain's MI6 intelligence service and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) also agreed on a provocative plan to launch guerrilla attacks into the then Soviet Republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the soft Muslim underbelly of the Soviet state from where Soviet troops in Afghanistan received their supplies... Casey was delighted with the news, and on his next secret trip to Pakistan crossed the border into Afghanistan with the late Pakistani President Zia al-Haq to meet the Mujaheddin groups... Third, Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight alongside the Afghan Mujaheddin. The ISI had promoted this idea since 1982, and by now all the other players had their reasons for supporting it."
200. September 1, 1991, Washington Post, 'Pakistan's illicit economies affect BCCI bank...': "According to diplomatic sources, Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal -- working with Pakistan's main intelligence agency -- distributed over $1 billion in cash to Afghan guerrillas during the late 1980s... The financial transactions were handled principally between Saudi intelligence and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the main liaison between the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Afghan guerrillas, the sources said... As for drug trafficking, the sources acknowledged that Pakistan's ISI routinely condoned heroin manufacture and sales by some Afghan guerrilla groups. But they said there were also occasions when ISI cooperated with U.S. government efforts to eradicate poppy fields in Afghanistan."
201. 1992, Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, part 11.
202. *) February 22, 1992, The Seattle Times: "Former CIA Director William Casey met secretly over several years with the Pakistani head of the illicit Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a television report to be aired this weekend alleges. A CIA spokesman denied the allegation, which is included in a 90-minute NBC News report on BCCI to be broadcast tomorrow morning... The NBC report, quoting unnamed BCCI sources, alleges Casey had secret meetings with Abedi every few months from 1984 through 1986 in a $2,000-per-night presidential suite at the Madison Hotel in Washington. The two men discussed the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages transactions and CIA arms shipments to the rebels in Afghanistan, the report says." More information on Abedi can be found in the 1001 Club membership list of ISGP.
     *) December 13, 2003, The Guardian, 'Smart money' (a combined review of Loretta Napoleoni's 'Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks' and Jeffrey Robinson's 'The Sink: Terror, Crime and Dirty Money in the Offshore World'): "William Casey, Reagan's CIA chief, used Pakistan and its BCCI bank as fronts to train Afghan rebels against the Soviets. Covert operations required a "black network" within the bank and its state equivalent, the notorious ISI. The bank financed and brokered covert arms deals, complete with full laundry service. The short and logical step from there was a BCCI/ISI/CIA move into drug smuggling to feed the needy, and leaky, money pipeline to the Mujahedin. The Pakistan-Afghan connection became the biggest single supplier of heroin to the US, meeting 60% of demand, with annual profits a stratospheric $100-$200 billion."
203. August 7, 1991, Washington Post, 'BCCI Adept at Courting the Powerful and Rich': "In Britain, two senior Conservative members of Parliament and one former member listed themselves as consultants to BCCI -- part of what has been described as a global network of highly placed advisers. They are Sir Julian Ridsdale, a former defense minister; Julian Amery; and former Parliament member Sir Frederic Bennett, an honorary director of BCCI in Hong Kong until 1986 who received $10,000 a year from BCCI, according to the Sunday Observer. Amery declined to tell the Observer how much he received and could not be reached for comment here, but he has said he advised the bank on international affairs." Bennett was an important aristocrat whose biography can be found in the membership list of Le Cercle attached to this article (in Amery's). Bennett is an unconfirmed member of Le Cercle, but was heavily involved in the adventures of Brian Crozier and Julian Amery.
204. 1984, Jurgen Roth and Berndt Ender, 'Dunkelmanner der Macht: Politische Geheimzirkel und organisiertes Verbrechen' ('Dark Men of Power: Secret Political Circles and Organized Crime'), pp. 39, 62, 68, 91, 133, 139, 145-146.
205. 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pp. 412-413.
206. 1990, Xan Fielding, 'One Man In His time: The Life of Lieutenant-Colonel N.L.D. ("Billy') McLean', p. 100. Full citation in Billy McLean's Cercle biography.
207. 1997, Robert Hutchinson, 'Their Kingdom Come – Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei', pp. 263-264: "P2 was formed in the late 1960s, allegedly at the behest of Giordano Gamberini, a Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy and friend of Gulio Andreotti. But he was much closer to Francesco Cosentino, who also was well introduced in Vatican circles. Either Andreotti or Cosentino, or perhaps both, were said to have suggested the creation of a small cell of trusted right-wing personalities in key national sectors, but especially banking, intelligence and the press, to guard against what they perceived as 'the creeping communist threat'. The person Gamberini chose to develop the P2 Lodge was a small-time textile magnate from the Tuscan town of Arezzo, midway between Florence and Perugia, who after two as a Freemason had risen to the Italian equivalent of Master Mason. His name, of course, was Licio Gelli. But the P2's top man, according to Calvi, was none other than Andreotti, followed in line of command by Cosentino and Ortolani[Umberto Ortolani; secret chamberlain of the Papal Household; member of the inner council of the Knights of Malta; said to be a member of Cardinal Giacomo Lercano; met with Licio Gelli, Roberto Calvi, and others in Rome in December 1969]. Andreotti always denied Calvi's allegation. But the fact remains that Calvi feared Andreotti more than Gelli or Ortolani. As for Cosentino, he died soon after the P2 hearings began."
208. 2005, Daniele Ganser, 'Nato's Secret Armies', p. 74: "Frank Gigliotti [one-time assistant to a hypnotist; Presbyterian clergyman; worked with teenaged boys, for whom he organized a social club named the Guiseppe Mazzini Club; recruited by the OSS; active in Italy] of the US Masonic Lodge personally recruited Gelli and instructed him to set up an anti-Communist parallel government in Italy in close cooperation with the CIA station in Rome. 'It was Ted Shackley, director of all covert operations of the CIA in Italy in the 1970s', an internal report of the Italian anti-terrorism unit confirmed, 'who presented the chief of the Masonic Lodge to Alexander Haig'. According to the document, Nixon's Military adviser General Haig [later Pilgrims Society executive], who had commanded US troops in vietnam and thereafter from 1974 to 1979 served as NATO's SACEUR, and Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger [Le Cercle] 'authorized Gelli in the fall of 1969 to recruit 400 high ranking Italian and NATO officers into his lodge'. (60)... the secretive anti-Communist P2 members list confiscated [in 1981] counted at least 962 members, with total leadership estimated at 2,500... 52 were high-ranking officers of the Carabinieri paramilitary police, 50 were high-ranking officers of the Italian Army, 37 were high-ranking officers of the Finance Police, 29 were high-ranking officers of the Italian Navy, 11 were Presidents of the police, 70 were influential and wealthy industrialists, 10 were Presidents of banks, 3 were acting Ministers, 2 were former Ministers, 1 was President of a political party, 38 were members of parliament and 14 were high-ranking judges. Others on lower levels of the social hierarchy were mayors, Directors of hospitals, lawyers, notaries and journalists."
209. constantinian.org.uk/ (accessed: November 2, 2006). You can't link directly to the relevant pages of this site. The names mentioned in this article can be found in the history of the organization and are spread throughout reports of the order's activities.
210. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, De Bende & Co., p. 174 (translated from Dutch to English): "Finally, Paul Vankerkhoven is also co-founder and vice chairman of 'l'Institut Européen de Développement', of which the seat is located in the castle of baron de Bonvoisin."
211. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, De Bende & Co., pp. 129-130.
212. *) orderofmalta.org/eur_paese.asp?idlingua=5&paese=2: "DELEGATION DE L'ORDRE AUPRES DU GOUVERNEMENT: BELGIQUE Domaine du Fuji, 21 - B 1970 Wezembeek - Oppem Tél: +322.731.30.60 - Fax: +322.782.16.00 E-mail: jacques.jonet@skynet.be"
     *) Jonet was recently raised to peerage.
     ordredemaltebelgium.org/belg_representations.html:
     "Représentations diplomatiques de l'Ordre et autres organisations : Belgique Représentant (1 janvier 2002) Le Baron Jonet Domaine de Fuji, 21 - B-1970 Wezembeek-Oppem Tél.: +32.2.731.30.60 Fax: +32.2.782.16.00 E-mail : jacques.jonet@skynet.be"
     *) Jonet's wife: ordredemaltebelgium.org/belg_org_admin.html:
     "CONSEIL D'ADMINISTRATION DE L'ASSOCIATION BELGE DE L'ORDRE DE MALTE
     Administrateurs membres du Comité de Direction
     Le Prince Baudoin de Merode, Président
     Le Baron de Barsy, Coadjuteur
     Le Baron Arnoud Papeians de Morchoven, Chancelier
     La Baronne Jonet, Hospitalier
     Le Comte Jean-Pierre de Beauffort, Trésorier.
     Administrateurs
     Le Comte de Borchgrave d'Altena Merghelynck..."
213. nettyroyal.nl/guestlist.htm (accessed: November 1, 2006).
214. wiltonpark.org.uk/general/friends.aspx (accessed: November 1, 2006).
215. A combination of two sources describing the same police documents.
     *) 1999, Annemie Bulté, Douglas De Coninck, & Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, 'The X-Dossiers - What Belgium was not supposed to know about the Dutroux case', pp. 345-346 (only available in Dutch and French and generally hard to get at the moment). This book does not give specific names (anywhere in the book) and does not mention Opus Dei.
     *) The French summary of the Dutroux X-Files made by investigative reporter Jean Nicolas who at some point gained access to the Dutroux and King Albert dossiers, consisting of more than 20.000 pages and many tape recordings of witnesses. Specific file numbers: pv. 250 (Z156) of January 8, 1997 and pv. 466 (Z156) of January 16, 1997. These file numbers match those given by the investigative reporters of the book 'The X-Dossiers' who worked for mainstream newspapers as De Morgen. The French summary also gives a few more details, including Thoma's statement that he was told this was part of an Opus Dei initiation. The hints about one or two of the perpetrators given in the book 'The X-Dossiers' match those named the French document.
216. 2001, Jean Nicolas and Frédéric Lavachery, 'Dossier Pédophilie - Le scandale de l'affaire Dutroux', p. 193. The authors have included an uncensored transcript of a meeting between Christine Doret, Jean-Claude Garot and André Pinon that was taped without the knowledge of participant/witness Doret. Other authors have reported on this tape, but censored the names. The descriptions of the persons involved match with the names given in other publications. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, De Bende & Co., p. 135 adds about Boeynants "In a May 1988 interview with Vrij Nederland [Free Holland] Congressman [now Senator] Hugo Coveliers [of Belgium] declares without any sign of doubt that Vanden Boeynants is mentioned in the Pinon dossier as one of the participants in the sex-parties. Vanden Boeynants, who has a habit of bombarding the press with demands for explanations and legal threats, lets these serious accusations blow over without response. He does not react in any way."
217. 1990, Hugo Gijssels, De Bende & Co., pp. 129-130.
218. Ibid.
219. Some examples of Opus Dei's influence on the Franco dictatorship from the 1957 to the 1970:
     *) February 9, 1960, The Times, 'Spanish Newspaper Ownership - Acquisitions by Opus Dei': "The acquisition of substantial holdings in Madrid and provincial newspapers is among the recent moves of Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic secular society which is becoming a force to watch in Spanish political life... Since General Franco's Cabinet reshuffle in February 1957, members of Opus Dei have penetrated into a number of key positions in the government and seats of learning."
     *) July 30, 1969, Star News, 'Spanish Catholic Lay Group May Hold Key to Future': "Now that 76-year-old chief of state Francisco Franco has named Prince Juan Carlos to succeed him, one of the most stabilizing forces in the transition to a post-Franco era will be a little-known and less understood organization called Opus Dei... Though the extent of their influence is not fully known, informed sources estimate that three or four major banking chains, vast real estate holdings and several key industries are in their hands. In addition, Opus Dei people are said to control two Madrid daily newspapers, a considerable share of the provincial press, a national press agency and a broadcasting station. Opus Dei's University of Navarro the only private university in Spain, turns out some of the country's most skilled journalists... Much of .the credit for Spain's rapid economic advance during the last decade goes to Opus Dei members. At present, five or six of Franco's cabinet members are generally regarded as being in the Opus Dei camp, thereby constituting the largest minority in the cabinet. The number of lower-ranking government officials with strong Opus Dei leanings is believed to run into the hundreds."
     *) August 26, 1969, The Times, ''Resign' call in Spain': "All the key economic ministries [in Spain] are controlled by Opus Dei members, or sympathizers."
     *) October 30, 1969, The Times, 'Riot as Franco alters Cabinet': "The Spanish government officially announced the names of General Franco's new Cabinet tonight, and confirmed earlier speculation that members of the powerful Roman Catholic lay organization Opus Dei will dominate Spain's future... Only four of the 18 Cabinet posts are unaffected... One of the most significant changes in the appointment of Senor Gregorio Lopez Bravo [Opus Dei], the former Minister of Industry, to be Minister of Foreign Affairs... Senor Lopez Bravo is widely credited in the Spanish capital with being pro-British, pro-European and pro-American. He will therefore carry the hopes of many Spaniards for a solution to problems such as the Gibraltar dispute, entry into the European Common Market and the question of continued American use of military bases in Spain. Senor Lopez Bravo has visited Britain twice in recent months and is and is well regarded there in British business circles... There is no doubt in Madrid that most of the new non-military ministers are members of Opus Dei... At the very least it is a victory of the 48-year-old [pro-Europe] Senor Loreano Lopez Rodo, a member of Opus Dei and hitherto Minister without Portfolio, who not only retains his authority to supervise various ministries, but is also reported to have gained the post Secretary to the Presidency, equivalent in authority to that of Vice-President." Alfredo Sanchez Bello, brother of the head of Opus Dei in Spain, became Minister of Information and Tourism. Federico Silva Munoz was one of the four ministers who remained in office.
     *) April 15, 1970, Winnipeg Free Press, 'Franco Tips Power To Opus Dei': "When Franco named his new government last October he broke precedent by giving the bulk of the power to a single group, the Roman Catholic lay organization Opus Dei. Public information officials of Opus Dei acknowledge that at least three members of their movement hold key spots in the cabinet... Other sources say at least 10 of the 19 cabinet ministers have close ties to Opus Dei... Opus Dei, for example, was influential in Franco's decision to name Prince Juan Carlos as his successor [through Otto von Habsburg]. But even while it was working for his selection, Opus Dei took the precaution of planting its men in the entourages of the other two pretenders to the throne; Juan Carlos' father, Don Juan, the Count of Barcelona; and Prince Hugo de Bourbon Parma. Prince Juan Carlos has had an Opus Dei priest as his confessor and by official account has studied under Opus Dei professors. Most of his advisers are reported to be Opus men."
     *) October 30, 1970, The Times, 'After Franco - the question that is still unanswerable; Hugh Thomas writes that Opus Dei, the 'New Templars', control Spain': "The arrival in power of the first members of Opus Dei was soon followed by Spain's application for association with the Common Market... But the last government reshuffle, in October 1969, coincided with a new hardening of the regime in many respects - for example, press censorship."
220. German Wikipedia article on Otto von Habsburg
     de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Habsburg
221. February 24, 1967, Time Magazine, 'Struggle for Freedom': "The most talked-about subject in Spain last week was something that did not happen: the failure of the Cabinet to pass a bill that would at last grant a measure of religious freedom to Spain's tiny non-Catholic minority... For years, Spain's non-Catholics have almost been non-people, barred from participating in the mainstream of Spanish life. They were, in fact, not even officially recognized as having been born, married or buried—since Spain acknowledged those milestones only when they were sanctioned by the Catholic clergy... Castiella, who has championed the bill for ten years, nevertheless pressed on with his familiar argument: granting religious freedom was not only the right thing to do morally but also the right thing for Spain if it wants to become a respected member of the world community. Several of the ministers who are identified with the Opus Dei laymen's organization supported him. But the opposition quickly closed ranks. Interior Minister Camilo Alonso Vega, 77, who as Spain's top cop maintains that the Spanish are "the most unruly people in Europe", argued that religious freedom would only stir up trouble, just as the earlier measures granting workers and students more freedom resulted in the present rash of strikes and student riots. On a more philosophical level, Public Works Minister Federico Silva Munoz, 43, contended that granting religious liberty to minority sects would shatter Spain's spiritual unity. The ministers connected with the military supported the views of Vega and Munoz..."
222. October 30, 1969, The Times, 'Riot as Franco Alters Cabinet': "The Spanish Government officially announced the names of General Franco's new Cabinet tonight, and confirmed earlier speculation that members of the powerful Roman Catholic lay organization Opus Dei will dominate Spain's future... Only four of the 18 Cabinet posts are unaffected... The new Cabinet is as follows... Public Works. - Federico Silva Munoz (unchanged)."
223. April 11, 1970, The Times, 'Resignation of Spanish Minister': "One of General Franco's "technocrat" ministers resigned today, possibly as the result of a deep ideological split in the government, reliable sources said. Senor Federico Silva Munoz, aged 46, Minister of Public Works since June, 1965, was said to have given his resignation to the General this morning... The present Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Senor Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora, was said to have been chosen as the new Minister of Public Works. Like most of the present Cabinet, and unlike his predecessor, he is known to be a sympathizer with, if not a member of, the powerful Roman Catholic lay organization Opus Dei... [Munoz] is also thought, as a technocrat without any strong political orientation, to have been opposed to the reactionary political attitude of of Vice-President Carrerro Blanco and some other ministries." Interesting, Munoz was among the most reactionary politicians of the post-Franco government.
224. October 11, 1976, The Times, 'Suarez regime challenged from the right as new party is launched by Franco era politicians': "Senor Silva Munoz, now head of Campsa, the oil concern..."
225. July 4, 1976, The Modesto Bee, 'King Juan Carlos names new premier of Spain': "A third name submitted to the monarch by the Council of the Realm, his top advisory body, was that of Federico Silva Munoz, 52, a Christian Democrat and former public works minister."
226. Winter 1986, Issue 25, Covert Action Information, 'Knights of Darkness - The Sovereign Military Order of Malta': "Recognition of the importance of Opus Dei at the highest levels of SMOM had already been established in the summer of 1976 when King Juan-Carlos, himself a Knight of Malta, chose Adolfo Suarez, a member of Opus Dei, as new chief of government following the death of Franco. (Point de Vue, January 14, 1983; Paris.)"
227. October 11, 1976, The Times, 'Suarez regime challenged from the right as new party is launched by Franco era politicians'. Munoz, Fernandez de la Mora, Fraga, and Rodo are mentioned as founders of Allianza Popular, together with two other anonymous ex-Franco ministers.
228. January 10, 1979, El Pais, 'Silva Muñoz unites with the ultraright to be presented at the elections' (translated from Spanish):"Federico Silva, Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora, Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, Blas Piñar, José Antonio Girón and other political leaders have formed a coalition named Union of the Right [that] involves all political forces to the right of the coalition Fraga-Areilza-Osorio, in other words, the Derecha Democrática Española and the gathering of national forces [a reference to Pinar's New Force, which had the aim of "gathering the national forces"]." This is a rough translation (as my Spanish is very rusty) from "... Girón y otros dirigentes políticos han formado una coalición unitaria que se llamará Unión de Derechas y que agrupa a todas las fuerzas políticas situadas a la derecha de la coalición Fraga-Areilza-Osorio, es decir, la Derecha Democrática Española y las llamadas fuerzas nacionales."
229. December 1, 1979, El Pais, 'The Constitution is a permanent factor of distortion, according to Federico Silva' (translated from Spanish): "The Constitution that was passed and that we accepted, even though we don't agree with most aspects of it, will continue be a permanent factor of distortion on the national life and of the life of the right[-wingers] in particular, says Federico Silva Munoz, promoter of Derecha Democrática Española, in a declaration to the European Press Agency. Their [political] group will celebrate their first national congress on the 8th and 9th of this month."
230. September-October 1997, Issue 85, Razón Española (translated from Spanish): "I met Federico in the 1940s at a conference of the National Catholic Association of Propagandist to which he belonged, and from then on we were united in great friendship." galeon.com/razonespanola/re85-sil.htm
231. Ibid. (translated from Spanish): "The Balmes Foundation was founded in 1983, supported by grants made by the German Hans Seidel Foundation. Its [Balmes Foundation] main purpose was to establish the magazine Razon Espanola on October 1, 1983. Without that initial German impulse, maintained in a decreasing way, our publication, which didn't have even minimal support of the Spanish Administration, would have been impossible. The name of Federico Silva is indissolubly linked to this magazine, in which he collaborated as an objective and neutral columnist over several years."
232. Can't get access any time soon to the sources the articles below refer to, so these will have to do for now:
     *) November 1987, Issue 14, Lobster Magazine, 'US involvement in the Fiji coup d'etat': "Another foreign influence in Fijian politics has been the Hans Seidel Foundation, the foreign arm of Franz-Josef Strauss' Christian Social Union, which has an impressive building in Suva. HSF functions as a West German version of NED/PDU, works closely with the Heritage Foundation, and in Fiji has been involved in aid projects, television programming, and assistance to the Alliance Party. The foundation is regarded with considerable suspicion in Fiji. It is credited with spending millions of dollars on a Fijian grassroots cultural revival which has been thin cover for fostering the Taukei movement."
     *) 1989, Issue 18, Lobster Magazine, '': ". "The Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, the political trust attached to Strauss' Christian Social Union party, is an important group in international parapolitical manipulation. Active in Latin America for the Contras,(3) supporting Mobuto in Zaire, involved in the Fiji coup in 1987, it was caught diverting state development aid from Germany into right-wing party coffers in Ecuador in the same year."
     *) January 1991, International Affairs (RIIA magazine), 'Foreign Political Aid: The German Political Foundations and Their US Counterparts': "The Seidel Foundation supported the personal links established between the CSU leader, Franz Josef Strauss, and such African politicians as President Mobutu of Zaire and President Eyadema of Togo."
     *) 1995, Catholics for a Free Choice, 'Opus Dei: The Pope's Right Arm in Europe': "The Hanns-Seidel Foundation, based in Germany, is accredited with and receives funding from the European Union. The foundation is linked with the CSU (the Bavarian Christian Democrat) party of the late Fritz Pirkl, who was in the European Parliament and served on the boards of directors of Hanns-Seidel and the Rhine-Danube Foundation. Together with Limmat, Hanns-Seidel has funded Opus Dei’s extensive operations in the Philippines, including the Centre for Research and Communication. The centre’s "self-declared task is to form the future economic and political elite of the country," writes Opus Dei critic Peter Hertel.[38] "Under President Corazon Aquino, Opus members have put a decisive stamp on the country’s Constitution."[39]"
233. May 30, 1980, The Times, 'A Strauss Profile', reply from Brian Crozier.
234. November 2, 1982, Brian Crozier in The Times, 'Is democracy such a good thing?': "We all have our intellectual assumptions, and the prevailing assumption in the West is that party democracy is necessarily good and dictatorship necessarily bad... The cause of relief was that the fragile flower of Spanish democracy was being saved - the important thing being the salvation of party democracy, not whether party democracy is necessarily good for Spain or will necessarily solve Spain's problems, which is at least open to doubt if hard facts mean anything. Since Franco died in 1975, inflation and unemployment have soared in Spain. So have terrorism and non-political crime. Moreover, the politicians have saddled their country with an unworkable constitution..."
235. November 1988, Issue 17, David Teacher for Lobster Magazine, 'The Pinay Circle and Destabilisation in Europe'.
236. February 5-6, 2004, European Navigator/Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Otto von Habsburg in an interview with European Navigator replies to the question what he thinks were the key players in European integration (translated from French): "Charles de Gaulle in the first place. Certainly one of the big visionaries of Europe... There are a lot of difficulties with the French, but we cannot make it without them. They are an essential element to us and without De Gaulle... France would have collapsed completely."
237. Paneuropa Jugend Bayern, 80 Jahre Paneuropa (translated from German):
     "At the 1973 general meeting in Straßburg [Austria], Otto von Habsburg was finally elected as international president [of the Paneuropa Union] at the suggestion of French president and excited Paneuropean Georges Pompidou after he [Otto] had occupied the office temporarily for a year."
     paneuropajugend-bayern.de/80%20Jahre%20Paneuropa.pdf
238. *) August 1984, Issue 5, Jonathan Marshall for Lobster Magazine, 'Brief Notes On The Political Importance Of Secret Societies': "[Opus Dei] was said to have influenced Robert Schumann, Antoine Pinay and Paul Baudoin, former President of the Banque de L'Indochine and Vichy Foreign Minister. Above all, however, Opus Dei made inroads through Baudoin's protege Edmond Giscard, who shared a variety of colonial enterprises with the BIC group. Edmond, father of Valery, was President of the Banque des Interets Francais (BIF), of which minority control rested with Opus Dei's Banco Popular Espanol. Another Opus Dei connection was forged through the treasurer of Valery Giscard d'Estaing's Independent Republican Party, the Prince Jean de Broglie. De Broglie was President of a Luxembourg firm, Sodetex S.A., an affiliate of the Spanish textile firm Matesa, which was at the centre of an enormous Opus Dei-linked financial scandal that rocked the Spanish government in the late 1960s. There is evidence that the Opus Dei-Matesa network siphoned off money for the campaign of Giscard..."
     *) Additional: 1994, R.T. Naylor (Professor of Economics at McGill University), Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, p. 267: "Pinay was installed by Bobby Leclerc in 1969 as president of the Compagnie de Guarantie des Investissements Industriels et Financiers in Geneva, which used Pinay's name to attract French funds. Leclerc also had good relations with... Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Not least important of Leclerc's activities was his role, with Prince Jean de Broglie, cofounder of Giscard's Independent Republican party, in the administration of Sodatex, the Luxembourg-based holding company through which the principals of the notorious MATESA were looting Spanish government subsidy money in the 1960s... After the MATESA scandal broke,... came charges that Sodatex was the center of a huge arms- and drug-dealing operation across the French-Luxembourg border. All this assured that, when de Broglie was gunned down in a Paris street in 1976, the subsequent exposure of links to Sodatex set off a run on Bobby Leclerc's bank." Original source of Naylor is: 1982, Jesus Ynfante, 'Une Crime sous Giscard'.
239. December 14, 1981, Time Magazine, 'The Rothschilds are roving': "Banque Rothschild is being nationalized by the socialist government of French President François Mitterrand, along with the country's other major banks and holding companies... Unaffected by the nationalization are the nonbank personal holdings of Baron Guy and Cousins Baron Alain and Baron Elie, including New Court Securities, a U.S. investment firm based in New York City, which will now receive more of the family's attention and money. And beginning Jan. 1, 1982, New Court will change its name to a more golden sounding sobriquet: Rothschild Inc. Founded with $2 million in 1967, New Court today manages a portfolio worth more than $1 billion, including funds from such corporate clients as General Foods, TRW and Hughes Aircraft... That bullishness on America's prospects is shared by Co-Chairman Guy, who has been commuting monthly since last June between Paris and New Court's offices in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Guy will not move permanently to the U.S., and Cousin Elie's son Nathaniel, 34, a graduate of the Harvard Business School, is a prime candidate to direct U.S. operations eventually. Says Guy: "My great-grandfather sent one of his sons, my grandfather Alphonse, to America in 1848. After returning to France, Alphonse pleaded with his father that the U.S. was the coming country and that there should be a House of Rothschild there. It's an enormous pity that my grandfather's advice was not heeded. As far as I'm concerned, we should have had a Rothschild bank in the U.S. since the middle of the 19th century. Our involvement in America now is really 100 years late in arriving.""
240. 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', pp. 217-218: "At the Cercle meeting in Washington in December 1980, Georges Albertini had brought along a quiet Frenchman named Francois de Grossouvre. This was an impressive example of his foresight. De Grossouvre, a physician, was the closest friend and confidant of the Socialist leader and presidential candidate Francois Mitterrand. For many years, Grossouvre had carried out special missions for Mitterrand. By nature and training, he was self-effacing. He played no part in our debates, but listened carefully, taking notes. Five months later, Francois Mitterrand narrowly defeated Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in France's presidential elections. One of his first actions was to appoint de Grossouvre as his coordinator of security and intelligence. Shortly after, having obtained his direct line from Albertini, I went to see him in his modest office in the Elysée Palace."
241. 2005, Daniele Ganser, 'NATO's Secret Armies', p. 101: "[The SDECE's] name changed to Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) and Admiral Pierre Lacoste became its new Director. Lacoste continued to run the secret Gladio army of the DGSE in close cooperation with NATO..." Ganser, p. 90: "Maybe the most famous member of the French secret anti-Communist Rose des Vents [French Stay Behind/Gladio] army was Francois Grossouvre who in 1981 became the adviser of Socialist President Francois Mitterand for secret operations."
242. October 6, 1985, New York Times, 'Greenpeace ship reaches test site': "The Greenpeace flagship has arrived off the coast of the French nuclear test site in the South Pacific, where it joined another protest ship from the organization... The Greenpeace replaced the Rainbow Warrior, which was blown up on July 10 by French agents in New Zealand's Auckland harbor... Meanwhile, the largest opposition newspaper in Paris, Le Figaro, reported Friday that Mr. Mitterrand must have known of plans to sink the Rainbow Warrior, which was preparing to lead the Mururoa protest. Mr. Mitterrand's Socialist Government acknowledged secret service responsibility for the sinking last month. Defense Minister Charles Hernu and Adm. Pierre Lacoste, the head of the secret service, resigned because of the scandal. Le Figaro, without citing its sources, said the decision to mine the Rainbow Warrior was made in June in a meeting at the Elysee Palace attended by Mr. Hernu, Admiral Lacoste and the presidential adviser, Francois de Grossouvre. It was ''not believable'' that Mr. de Grossouvre failed to inform Mr. Mitterrand of the sabotage plans, Le Figaro contended."
243. September 10, 1997, The Guardian, 'Inside story: The Vatican's Own Cult'.
244. May 18, 1986, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 'Violent language of the right recalls pre-war days'.
245. 2007, James G. Shields, 'The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen', pp. 95, 120.
246. *) 2007, Mathias Bernard, 'La Guerre des Droites', p. 164: "By spring 1964, [Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour] announced his candidacy for the election scheduled for late 1965 and brings together his most important supporters, mainly recruited from the right wing of the CNIP: Jean Dides, Lacoste- Lareymondie, Le Pen, Thomazo, Fraissinet and Raymond Bourgine, a press baron who since the late 1940s involved himself with the right and the extreme right."
     *) 1999, Edward G. DeClair, 'Politics on the Fringe', p. 150: "[In] the 1965 Tixier-Vignancour presidential campaign ... Le Pen served as Tixier-Vignancour 's campaign manager."
247. 1991, Jean-Pierre Rioux, Jean-François Sirinelli, 'La Guerre d'Algérie et les Intellectuels Français', p. 150.
248. October 13, 1997, Agence France Presse, 'Court suspends book implicating ex-ministers in murder'.
249. September 10, 1997, The Guardian, 'Inside story: The Vatican's Own Cult'.
250. July 14, 2004, Bloomberg News, 'France's Chirac Pledges Referendum on EU Constitution': "At the EU leaders summit in June when the constitution was agreed, Chirac said he views the U.K. referendum as a final test of whether Britain's allegiances are to Europe, the U.S. or its former empire. He also floated the idea in April of forcing any country that rejects the constitution to leave the EU."
251. April 15, 2005, BBC, 'Chirac makes case for EU treaty': "President Jacques Chirac has taken part in a live TV debate in France to try to persuade its people to vote in favour of the proposed EU constitution... Mr Chirac warned a No vote against the new constitution - designed to streamline institutions to make decision-making easier in an enlarged union of 25 countries - would be a disaster for Europe... It would halt the European project in its tracks, and pave the way to an unregulated, uncontrolled free-market world, dominated by the United States. He said it would be in the interest of Anglo-Saxon countries or the US to stop "European construction" and that France would be weakened if it voted No."
252. June 16, 2005, BBC, 'EU: What kind of club?': "It is startling for example that Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the grandee who chaired the convention that wrote the constitution, now says it was mistake to send a copy of the 448-page document to every French home. He told the New York Times that he had begged President Chirac not to do this. "It is not possible for anyone to understand the full text," he pronounced."
253. February 28, 2006, speech at the London School of Economics entitled 'The Political Future of Europe'
     lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/ pdf/20060228-GiscarddEstaing.pdf
254. 2005, Ausgabe 2-3, Eurojournal pro management, p. 14, committee member Otto von Habsburg: "The original wording of the Constitution draft by Giscard d'Estaing was quite short and comprehensible. So why did it fail to convince the voters? This is plain: a campaign launched with the help of a book thick with legal terminology which, the bureaucrats hoped, voters would read and comprehend. Much money was spent, but nothing was gained. A Commission full of aged politicians to work on the draft which spoilt it just as "too many cooks spoil the broth". Giscard d'Estaing knew what would happen with his initial draft, and later photographs show the expression of a man in desperation who knew that should this revamped version fail, then he would be responsible anyway... No attempt was made to reach out to future generations as did the late pope John Paul II or as Pope Benedict XVI now does; two old men who somehow managed and manage to enthuse the masses. It is therefore no wonder that the battle was lost; the idea however still lives on, but we need new politicians to bring the idea home to voters."
255. September 2, 2005, ePolitix.com interview with Jonathan Aitken.
     epolitix.com/EN/Interviews/200508/8da73ee9-7d41-46f9-a47f-
     4db3234c49ac.htm
256. June 12, 1999, The Tablet, 'Jonathan Aitken says Sorry': "Earlier he had given an assistant editor of The Tablet access to a revealing text in which he bares his soul. "I am a man of unclean lips." The speaker is Jonathan Aitken, and he is referring quite explicitly to his perjury, for which he was sentenced on Tuesday to eighteen months in prison... The trouble with Jonathan Aitken is that the public will never take him seriously again. He held a press conference to launch his libel action against the Guardian and Granada television with these words, "I will cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism with the simple sword of truth", only to be impaled upon his own sword. The Guardian were able to uncover evidence to prove that he had lied over the question of who had paid his hotel bill in Paris. It might seem a small matter, but on it hung allegations of taking secret commission for multi-million-pound arms dealings, over which Aitken had lied not only to the press but also apparently to his own Government. The deceit even involved the corruption of Aitken's own daughter, 13 at the time of the hotel incident, whom he had persuaded to sign a false statement saying she was in Paris. Corruption of the young, and self-enrichment from arms dealings, are commonly put high on the list of mortal sins. How do you emerge from a reputation as a mega-liar?... he has been a church-goer for years. It is a surprise, however, to hear that he has done the Alpha course, not once but three times, graduating from a humble student to a helper who pours coffee. Even more astonishing, he has done Ignatian retreats. His first experience was in the Westminster retreats in daily life, for MPs and others working at Westminster, and in due course he went away to the Coach House in Inverness to make an individually directed eight-day retreat with the Jesuit Gerry W. Hughes... stripped as a bankrupt of his Rolex watch, still able to draw from an unspecified source living expenses of 11,400 [pounds] a month."
257. June 29, 1997, The Independent, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club'.
258. 1993, Alan Clark, 'Diaries', p. 369 (About Clark's 1991 experience with Le Cercle): "There is a distinguished attendance list, and Jonathan Aitken, who knows absolutely everybody in the world has, amusingly and indiscreetly, guided me through it."
259. 2005, Lamont's comment on the rejected European Constitution for the Bruges Group. brugesgroup.com/mediacentre/ releases.live?article=8757
260. Dr. Richard North and Helen Szamuely for the Bruges Group, 'The mythology of the EU - Countered'.
     brugesgroup.com:80/eurorebuttal/ index.live?article=242 (accessed: August 24, 2006)
261. August 2006, Ian Milne for the Bruges Group, 'Lost Illusions: British Foreign Policy'.
262. December 10, 2000, The Guardian, 'Revealed: Pinochet drug smuggling link'.
263. February 22, 2016, The Guardian, 'Who are the Tory MPs on each side of the EU debate?': "There are now 110 Tories who have declared they want to leave the EU with backbenchers flocking to the Brexit campaign."
264. September 13, 2016, Henry Jackson Society, 'France at the crossroads: How should Britain respond?'.
265. June 10, 2005, Hendrik Puschmann for the Henry Jackson Society, 'Five Reasons Why Europe Needs Anglo-German Leadership': "The defeat of the Constitutional Treaty in France has caused great damage to French leadership potential in Europe, which arguably has been at the heart of the European project from the outset... now that France has effectively propelled herself out of the driving seat, this will have to change if the European Union is to be safeguarded against the danger of disintegration. We believe that the only way to do so is to replace the Franco-German axis, the quasi-proverbial 'motor' of European integration that broke down on 29th May, with an Anglo-German one...
     Germany would have to abandon her focus on Franco-German cooperation, enshrined as a de facto doctrine since the foundation of the Federal Republic. Britain would have to undergo much greater transformation even. She would have to commit once and for all to a strong Europe, and that means a final devotion to the pooling of sovereignty... an Anglo-French alliance would suffer from both countries’ strongly developed international ambitions and military potential. By comparison, a London-Berlin axis looks like a natural symbiosis. Britain clearly would be senior partner, much as France was of old, but the weights would not be quite so crassly off balance... Post-war Germany has historically been an Atlanticist nation, standing firmly by the side of the United States and the United Kingdom. Recent anti-American moves by the Berlin government, most prominently the denial of even token support for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (or TELIC) and the subsequent transformation of Iraq, were primarily motivated by domestic factors, that is, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (unlike Tony Blair) playing to public opinion in order to secure his re-election."
266. *) henryjacksonsociety.org/about-the-society/signatories-to-the-statement-of-principles/ (accessed: February 13, 2018): "Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram QC, 13th Marquess of Lothian..."
     *) henryjacksonsociety.org/about-the-society/international-patrons-2/ (accessed: February 13, 2018): "Hubertus Hoffmann ... Bruce P. Jackson ... Robert Kagan ... Max Kampelman ... William Kristol ... Joshua Muravchik ... Richard Perle ... Natan Sharansky ... General Jack Sheehan ... James Woolsey..."
267. July 4, 2014, Washington Post, 'Richard Mellon Scaife, billionaire who funded anti-liberal causes, dies at 82': "Mr. Scaife donated millions to such tea party-friendly groups as FreedomWorks, known for its anti-union campaigns and calls for reducing government regulation of business, privatizing Social Security..."
268. July 2, 1995, Sunday Times, 'Rothschild rues its blues under the bed': "Last week it started to look as if Rothschild was planning to make a bid to become the government itself when John Redwood, a former Rothschild fund manager, launched his campaign to become the Tory party leader with Norman Lamont, a Rothschild director, at his side. But Rothschild's position as the hotbed of Tory Euro-sceptic activity is understandably raising some eyebrows both within the bank and outside... And whatever the political views of some in the bank, to project a Europhobic image while trying to win business from all over Europe is a far-from-brilliant marketing concept. Lamont's appointment, more than any other of the political refugees to appear on the Rothschild board, was made despite the opposition of senior Rothschild corporate financiers. Sir Evelyn, however, is renowned for making these sort of appointments without reference to anyone. "
269. September 22, 2002, Sunday Times, 'Rothschild bankrolls Mandelson think tank'.
270. September 1, 2001, Karina Robinson for The Banker, 'A hard nut to crack': "Karina Robinson talks to NM Rothschild's chairman Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and finds a man reluctant to give much away... The next hour (actually, the next 40 irritating minutes since I did not last the hour) was spent being told that everything is "going well," "doing well" and "with our name we can get in anywhere"... the meeting was set up by the bank's public relations firm. It seems an odd strategy to push forward someone who appears disinterested in communicating." Journalist Karina Robinson gave Sir Evelyn de Rothschild the award of being the 'most condescending' person she interviewed in recent times.
271. *) democracy-movement.co.uk:/main/goldsmith.html (accessed: March 5, 2002): "The Democracy Movement was launched in January 1999 through the amalgamation of two pro-pound campaigning organisations - The Referendum Movement (formerly Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party) and Paul Sykes' Euro Information Campaign.
     The Referendum Movement had been until 18 months earlier the Referendum Party, which was formed by Sir James Goldsmith in order to stand candidates in the 1997 general election. ...
     Sir James Goldsmith died in July 1997 after a brave fight against pancreatic cancer. Before his death, Sir James laid plans to transform the Referendum Party into a massive public pressure campaign that would fight for the same objectives but above all prevent what he saw as the most crucial and immediate threat to national democracy - the single currency. Thus the Referendum Movement, now the Democracy Movement, was formed to ensure that the British people would have a voice in the most important political issue to confront them for decades.
     In April 1998 Robin Birley became Chairman of the Referendum Movement. Mr Birley is the son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith and stepson of Sir James Goldsmith. At that time Lady Annabel and other members of her family made a grant of £200,000 to the Movement, paid over two years, which is still being received by the Democracy Movement."
     *) October 5, 2004, BBC, 'Profile: Paul Sykes'.
272. January 2, 199, Volkskrant, ''Red Groot-Brittannië, houd de euro tegen''.
273. January 5, 2015, The Mirror, 'Meet UKIP's 5 biggest donors'.
274. November 18, 2013, BBC, 'Tycoon Paul Sykes backs UKIP European election campaign'.
275. August 29, 2014, The Independent, 'Stuart Wheeler: The ace in Farage’s pack': "[Blackjack] drew him into the company of the likes of Lord Lucan (the two played together just a couple of days before the latter’s disappearance) and the late Jimmy Goldsmith. He once even played with the actor Omar Sharif and was a regular at the Clermont Club, the Mayfair casino owned by John Aspinall."
276. Linked to by The Mirror article, revealing the entire Mills family, including Christopher Mills as the person longest involved:
     datalog.co.uk/browse/detail.php/CompanyNumber/ 01692312/CompanyName/GROWTH+FINANCIAL+SERVICES+LIMITED (accessed: February 13, 2018).
277. September 25, 2016, Daily Mail, 'The East End payday loan tycoon and his VERY glamorous girls: Lavish lifestyle of the jet-set family behind a 'parasitic' lending company'.
278. December 27, 2015, Daily Mail, 'Ukip's anti-EU referendum campaign is accused of using ex-MI5 agents to spy on rival no-vote group'.
279. November 21, 2016, New York Times, 'With a Meeting, Trump Renewed a British Wind Farm Fight'.
280. April 4, 2014, Esquire, 'Erik Prince Is a Name You Need to Know'.
281. *) johcm.com/uk/about-us (accessed: February 13, 2018): "1993: J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) founded by Jamie Hambro and Christopher Mills."
     *) bloomberg.com/research/ stocks/private/person.asp?personId=793882&privcapId=875674 (accessed: February 13, 2018).
282. 1995, Gerald James, 'In the Public Interest', pp. 121, 124, 126-127, 140, 160.
283. September 26, 1981, The Spectator, 'Probing Jimmy's World'.
284. November 2, 1990, Executive Intelligence Review, ''Green mole' Sir James Goldsmith becomes top ecofascist warrior'.
285. *) 2000 annual report, Hollinger Inc., pp. 77-81: "Officers: ... Conrad M. Black ... Barbara Amiel Black ...
     Senior International Advisors: ... Baroness Thatcher .... Valery Giscard d'Estaing .... Lord Carrington ... Henry A. Kissinger ... Zbigniew Brzezinski ...
     International Advisory Board: ... Gianni Agnelli ... Dwayne O. Andreas ... William F. Buckley, Jr. ... Dr. Martin Feldstein ... New Gingrich ... Allan E. Gotlieb ... Lord Hanson ... Josef Joffe ... Richard N. Perle ... Lord Rothschild ... Robert S. Strauss ... Paul A. Volcker ... George F. Will [Washington Post, Newsweek]...
     Hollinger International: ... Conrad M. Black ... Richard Burt ... Henry A. Kissinger .... Marie-Josee Kravis ... Shmuel Meitar ... Richard N. Perle ... Robert S. Strauss ... Alfred Taubman ... James R. Thompson .... Lord Weidenfeld ... Leslie H. Wexner ...
     Telegraph Group Limited: ... Conrad M. Black ... Peter N. Buckley ... Lord Carrington ... Viscount Cranborne ... Paul Desmarais ... Rupert N. Hambro ... Henry N.K. Keswick ... Sir Evelyn de Rothschild ... Raymond G.H. Seitz ...
     The Spectator (1828) Limited: ... Conrad Black ... Lord Tebbit ..."
     *) 1997, Maude Barlow, ‎James P. Winter, 'The Big Black Book: The Essential Views of Conrad and Barbara Amiel Black', p. 52: "In 1987 Black set up an international advisory board for Hollinger that has included former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ... Henry Kissinger ... Lord Carrington ... Lord Rothschild, American conservative columnist George E. Will ... Paul Volcker ... Sir James Goldsmith ... William F. Buckley, Jr."
     *) March 18, 2007, New York Times, 'For a Press Baron, a Showdown in a City He Barely Knew': "Mr. Black held his annual Hollinger Dinner -- a black-tie gathering of the great and the good -- inviting the likes of Chaim Herzog, the former president of Israel..."
286. June 30, 2000, henryakissinger.com, 'Remembrances: Tribute To John Aspinall'.
287. November 13, 1997, henryakissinger.com, 'Remembrances: Eulogy for Sir James Goldsmith'.
288. July 20, 1997, bbc.adactio.com, 'Goldsmith Succeeded by McAlpine': " Lord McAlpine is to succeed Sir James Goldsmith as leader of the Referendum Movement. ... After the election, the [Refereumdum] party became the Referendum Movement.
     Lord McAlpine caused a major stir when he defected from the Tory Party to the Referendum Party last year. Previously, he had been both Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party."
289. April 1994, Scallywag magazine, 'Lord McAlpine and the Pedophile Ring' (PDF).
290. See ISGP's Beyond the Dutroux Affair article, the right column:
     *) September 10, 1962, The Times, 'New Investment Trust for Jersey'.
     *) January 15, 1970, The Times, 'JIB'.
     *) March 2, 2008, The Times, 'Picture: the Jersey 'child abuse cellar' uncovered by police'.
291. March 14, 2010, Mike James for the Truthseeker.co.uk (Holocause-denying alt-right conspiracy website), 'Revealed: British Premier Gordon Brown Is A Paedophile': "Labour Supremo Peter Mandelson's alleged role in the kidnapping of young girls and boys for the "pleasuring" of the European Union's elite commissioners in Brussels was the subject of intense speculation ... That name [Peter Mandelson] was first revealed to me by Norman Lamont at a private party in Clapham in 1986, during which time I worked as a scriptwriter for the British television media."
292. 1999, Adam Curtis, 'The Mayfair Set' (broadcasted by BBC2). Documentary mentioned that David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, Tiny Rowland, and Lord Lucan were all members of the John Aspinall's Clairmont gambling club. The documentary received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000.
293. January 31, 1997, The Guardian, 'SAS linked to rogue force in South Africa'.
     Excerpts and additional details in ISGP's 1001 Club article.
294. May 8, 2015, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed on his Medium blog, 'How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections'.
295. *) May 24, 2001, The Guardian, 'Tebbit suspects MI6 euro plot: Veteran peer claims anti-EU party has been infiltrated to damage Tories'.
     *) April 30, 2013, The Spectator, 'Did MI6 plot against UKIP?'.
296. See note 285.
297. 1995, Gerald James, 'In the Public Interest', pp. 154-155, 160. See the biography of the 1st Viscount Monckton in ISGP's Pilgrims Society list for an excerpt and some details.
298. February 21, 1967, Time magazine, 'Struggle for Freedom'.