Susan Lindauer's second cousin (Andrew Card) tells George Bush that the towers had been hit -youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rO3F6mZUaE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Lindauer
Susan Lindauer wikipediaSusan Lindauer (born 17 July 1963) is an American journalist, author, and antiwar activist. She was accused of conspiring to act as an agent for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein.[1][2] Lindauer was found mentally unfit to stand trial and all charges were dropped in 2009.[3]
[edit] Birth
She is the daughter of John Howard Lindauer II, the newspaper publisher and former Republican nominee for Governor of Alaska.[3][4] Susan's mother was Jackie Lindauer (1932-1992) who died of cancer in 1992. In 1995 her father married Dorothy Oremus, a Chicago attorney who along with other members of her family owned the largest cement company in the Midwest.[4][edit] Education and employment
Lindauer attended East Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska where she was an honor student and was in school plays.[5] She graduated from Smith College in 1985. She earned a masters degree in public policy from the London School of Economics.[1] She worked as a temporary reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for 13 weeks in 1987, and as an editorial writer at the The Everett Herald in Everett, Washington in 1989. She then was a reporter and researcher at U.S. News & World Report in 1990 and 1991.[5][6][4][7] Her co-workers said she was a woman "prone to mood swings and erratic behavior".[7]She then worked for Representative Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon (1993) and then Representative Ron Wyden, D-Oregon (1994) before joining the office of Senator Carol Moseley Braun, D-Illinois, where she worked as a press secretary and speech writer.[6][4]
[edit] Activism
She started making visits to the Libyan Mission to the United Nations in 1995.[6] She held meetings with Iraqi Intelligence Service officials at the United Nations in 1999.[1] Andrew Card is her second cousin. Her first contact with the former Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush was around 2001.[1] On January 8, 2003, she delivered a letter to Card urging the White House to not invade Iraq.[8][9][edit] Arrest
Lindauer was arrested on Thursday, 11 March 2004 in Takoma Park, Maryland and charged with "acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government". The indictment alleged that she accepted US$10,000 from Iraqi intelligence services in 2002. Lindauer denies receiving the money, but admits taking a trip to Baghdad.[1] She was released on bond on March 13, 2004 to attend an arraignment the following week.[2] In 2005 she was incarcerated in Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas for psychological evaluation then moved to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.[9][edit] Unfit to stand trial
In 2006, she was released from prison after Michael B. Mukasey ruled that Lindauer was unfit to stand trial and could not be forced to take antipsychotic medication to make her competent to stand trial.[3][9]In 2008, Loretta A. Preska of the Federal District Court in New York City reaffirmed that Lindauer was mentally unfit to stand trial.[4][10]
On January 16, 2009 the government decided to not go ahead with the prosecution saying "prosecuting Lindauer would no longer be in the interests of justice."[3][11]
[edit] Media
Lindauer has written a book "Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-Ups of 9/11 and Iraq" about her experience.[12]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carl_Fuisz
Richard Carl Fuisz wikipedia
Excerpt:
^ a b "From Russia with Sex". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/nymetro/nightlife/barsclubs/features/3047/index1.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. "Though she didn't know it, her modeling career was facilitated by Richard Fuisz (pronounced fuse), a former actor, psychiatrist, pediatrician, congressional candidate, whistle-blower, and entrepreneur who declines to comment on a published report that he has intelligence ties. Fuisz, who owned a company that did joint ventures in Moscow, was approached by the then-Soviet ambassador to Washington, Yuri V. Dubinin, to set up a modeling agency to prepare the first waves of Soviet beauties for American commerce (which often meant substantial dental work) and protect them from "adverse influences" and bad publicity like magazine "spreads about their teeth," Fuisz says ... Sukhanova was the first of ten girls he would oversee. But first, he had to free her from the Soviet Union. He did it with the help of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now one of Russia's oil billionaires but then the head of the Komsomol, or Young Communist League, and beginning his business career in a computer venture with Fuisz."
http://wiretap.stumblers.net/2010/04/promis-trail-leads-to-justice-3-of-4/
Promis trail leads to Justice 3 of 4
Excerpt:
In a 1991 affidavit to William and Nancy Hamilton, the owners of Inslaw who had developed PROMIS, Riconosciuto not only swore that he put the backdoors into a stolen version of the software but also claimed that Videnieks, the Department of Justice official who in the early 1980s oversaw the PROMIS-software contract, participated in the alleged scheme along with a man named Earl W. Brian. Both men, Riconosciuto swore under penalty of perjury, visited him often at the Cabazon/Wackenhut facilities.
Click Earl W. Brian. and see how awesome it is. ...cal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/07/mikhail-khodorkovsky-film-stolen-berlin
Excerpt:
Project Hammer
Excerpt:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Blog/?tag=mikhail-khodorkovsky
Posts Tagged ‘Mikhail Khodorkovsky’
The Bush Family’s Project Hammer
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 - by Terry MelansonDeanna Spingola | 2010-02-09 - In 1989 President George H. W. Bush began the multi-billion dollar Project Hammer program using an investment strategy to bring about the economic destruction of the Soviet Union including the theft of the Soviet treasury, the destabilization of the ruble, funding a KGB coup against Gorbachev in August 1991 and the seizure of major energy and munitions industries in the Soviet Union. Those resources would subsequently be turned over to international bankers and corporations. On November 1, 2001, the second operative in the Bush regime, President George W. Bush, issued Executive Order 13233 on the basis of “national security” and concealed the records of past presidents, especially his father’s spurious activities during 1990 and 1991. Consequently, those records are no longer accessible to the public. The Russian coup plot was discussed in June 1991 when Yeltsin visited with Bush in conjunction with his visit to the United States. On that same visit, Yeltsin met discreetly with Gerald Corrigan, the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve.
http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/12/27/17760/
Excerpt:
http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/12/27/17760/
Excerpt:
Are There Positive Outcomes From the Khodorkovsky Affair?
Russian investors don’t usually think of stockmarket gains coming from the Mikhail Khodorkovsky affair but this week’s news offers up a slim chance.
On Monday, the Russian stockmarket dropped slightly, apparently shrugging off the news of the former Yukos Oil tycoon’s guilt as the court began its lengthy reading of the verdict which could take days.
Investors probably felt “initial mild disappointment” at the latest guilty verdict but are probably waiting for the final details of the verdict and sentence, Troika Dialog strategist Kingsmill Bond said on Monday.
Most observers had expected a guilty verdict, since after all, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin less than two week ago said on state television that “a thief must be behind bars”.
But the full implications of the trial aren’t yet known, as the verdict and sentence are still being read. If, for example, Mr. Khodorkovsky were to get a sentence of nine years—and if the time behind bars were counted from his arrest in 2003— then he could be out of jail in less than two years, a result that could put the whole affair in the past before long and dispel some of the unpopularity of Russian stocks.
That could come as a positive surprise for the market, boosting it for a day or two, said a Moscow fund manager, especially since a “harsh” sentence is widely expected.
The original arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky, often seen as a politically-motivated prosecution, sent Russia’s RTS Index down 24% in October 2003.
Some observers say Mr. Khodorkovsky’s prison term is less important in the long term than the consistent application of the law in Russia. If Mr. Khodorkovsky cheated and stole, then many other top Russian businessmen did as well, the argument goes.
Asked about selective prosecution last week, President Dmitry Medvedev said he has no such evidence of crimes committed by others.
Whatever happens in the coming days, Mr. Khodorkovsky will remain a symbol of the Kremlin administration’s ultimate power over businessmen who are perceived as a threat. And for some international investors, he’ll also remain a broader symbol of what’s wrong with modern Russia.
Ted Gunderson Reveals Gov. Corruption & It's Ties to "Tim Osman" on Alex Jones Tv 1/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQS5NXKaxeY
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=144908.5;wap2
Excerpt:
CIA whiz-kid Michael Riconosciuto told author Carol Marshall that the US government "sanctioned" met laboratories in Fresno, Madera and Mariposa County in California.
Marshall had been earlier involved in an investigation in Mariposa County that involved Police Sergeant Roderick Sinclair of the Mariposa Sheriff’s Department. Sinclair, had according to a number of witnesses been a long-term user of drugs had, while on duty, veered the car he was driving across the road and hit another car. Inside were three US Secret Service men who were all killed outright.
What grabbed Carol Marshall’s attention, however, was the way the Judge in the subsequent trial appeared to cover-up Sinclair’s drug habit. The author later realized that a "tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County" when she discovered that Rod Sinclair’s father, Colonel Sinclair, had been a military attaché to General Douglas MacArthur during WWII -- and later supervised training of Japanese in intelligence methods.
What grabbed Carol Marshall’s attention, however, was the way the Judge in the subsequent trial appeared to cover-up Sinclair’s drug habit. The author later realized that a "tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County" when she discovered that Rod Sinclair’s father, Colonel Sinclair, had been a military attaché to General Douglas MacArthur during WWII -- and later supervised training of Japanese in intelligence methods.
MacArthur and members of his team have long been associated with the Octopus -- perhaps because of the General’s role as Japan’s "Shogun" after WWII and the inevitable contacts created with the Japanese crime clans, the Yakuza.
It has recently been revealed that MacArthur appears to have personally benefited from war loot plundered by the Japanese and later secretly recovered by the OSS and the CIA. This was in the form of gold bullion accounts set-up in MacArthur’s name by the OSS/CIA officer Santa Romana.
http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__cat/_c149/Stories
Excerpt:
Lansdale reported the find to MacArthur in Tokyo, who ordered him to brief Truman’s security adviser, Clark Clifford.
According to the Seagraves, MacArthur himself and Henry Stimson flew to Manila secretly to inspect the treasure caves. They concluded that the Golden Lily sites in the Philippines contained several billion dollars’ worth of gold.
In order to keep the discoveries secret, MacArthur decided to have Yamashita tried by a court-martial for war crimes and then hanged on February 23, 1946.
Lansdale was put in charge of the recovery of the Golden Lily treasures. The Seagraves aver that Santa Romana was instructed by members of Stimson’s staff to deposit the gold in 176 banks in 42 countries. The deposits were in his name or in one of his many aliases. Negotiable certificates were issued by the banks against the gold deposits.
It was this money, the Seagraves alleged, that the CIA used to buy politicians in Japan, Greece, Italy, the UK and many other countries around the world. It also paid for the secret rearmament of Japan after the outbreak of the Korean War.
In 1974 Santa Romana died. He left a hand-written will that named Tarciana Rodriguez and Luz Rambano, his common-law wife, as his heirs.
With the help of Melvin Belli, a San Francisco lawyer, Rambano filed a suit against John Reed, the CEO of Citibank, for the “wrongful conversion” of some $20 billion of Santa Romana’s gold. The case is still unresolved.
http://forwardamerica.blogspot.com/2007/04/michael-riconosciuto-mathscience-wizard.html
On Monday, the Russian stockmarket dropped slightly, apparently shrugging off the news of the former Yukos Oil tycoon’s guilt as the court began its lengthy reading of the verdict which could take days.
Investors probably felt “initial mild disappointment” at the latest guilty verdict but are probably waiting for the final details of the verdict and sentence, Troika Dialog strategist Kingsmill Bond said on Monday.
Most observers had expected a guilty verdict, since after all, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin less than two week ago said on state television that “a thief must be behind bars”.
But the full implications of the trial aren’t yet known, as the verdict and sentence are still being read. If, for example, Mr. Khodorkovsky were to get a sentence of nine years—and if the time behind bars were counted from his arrest in 2003— then he could be out of jail in less than two years, a result that could put the whole affair in the past before long and dispel some of the unpopularity of Russian stocks.
That could come as a positive surprise for the market, boosting it for a day or two, said a Moscow fund manager, especially since a “harsh” sentence is widely expected.
The original arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky, often seen as a politically-motivated prosecution, sent Russia’s RTS Index down 24% in October 2003.
Some observers say Mr. Khodorkovsky’s prison term is less important in the long term than the consistent application of the law in Russia. If Mr. Khodorkovsky cheated and stole, then many other top Russian businessmen did as well, the argument goes.
Asked about selective prosecution last week, President Dmitry Medvedev said he has no such evidence of crimes committed by others.
Whatever happens in the coming days, Mr. Khodorkovsky will remain a symbol of the Kremlin administration’s ultimate power over businessmen who are perceived as a threat. And for some international investors, he’ll also remain a broader symbol of what’s wrong with modern Russia.
Ted Gunderson Reveals Gov. Corruption & It's Ties to "Tim Osman" on Alex Jones Tv 1/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQS5NXKaxeY
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=144908.5;wap2
Excerpt:
CIA whiz-kid Michael Riconosciuto told author Carol Marshall that the US government "sanctioned" met laboratories in Fresno, Madera and Mariposa County in California.
Marshall had been earlier involved in an investigation in Mariposa County that involved Police Sergeant Roderick Sinclair of the Mariposa Sheriff’s Department. Sinclair, had according to a number of witnesses been a long-term user of drugs had, while on duty, veered the car he was driving across the road and hit another car. Inside were three US Secret Service men who were all killed outright.
What grabbed Carol Marshall’s attention, however, was the way the Judge in the subsequent trial appeared to cover-up Sinclair’s drug habit. The author later realized that a "tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County" when she discovered that Rod Sinclair’s father, Colonel Sinclair, had been a military attaché to General Douglas MacArthur during WWII -- and later supervised training of Japanese in intelligence methods.
What grabbed Carol Marshall’s attention, however, was the way the Judge in the subsequent trial appeared to cover-up Sinclair’s drug habit. The author later realized that a "tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into Mariposa County" when she discovered that Rod Sinclair’s father, Colonel Sinclair, had been a military attaché to General Douglas MacArthur during WWII -- and later supervised training of Japanese in intelligence methods.
MacArthur and members of his team have long been associated with the Octopus -- perhaps because of the General’s role as Japan’s "Shogun" after WWII and the inevitable contacts created with the Japanese crime clans, the Yakuza.
It has recently been revealed that MacArthur appears to have personally benefited from war loot plundered by the Japanese and later secretly recovered by the OSS and the CIA. This was in the form of gold bullion accounts set-up in MacArthur’s name by the OSS/CIA officer Santa Romana.
http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__cat/_c149/Stories
Excerpt:
Lansdale reported the find to MacArthur in Tokyo, who ordered him to brief Truman’s security adviser, Clark Clifford.
According to the Seagraves, MacArthur himself and Henry Stimson flew to Manila secretly to inspect the treasure caves. They concluded that the Golden Lily sites in the Philippines contained several billion dollars’ worth of gold.
In order to keep the discoveries secret, MacArthur decided to have Yamashita tried by a court-martial for war crimes and then hanged on February 23, 1946.
Lansdale was put in charge of the recovery of the Golden Lily treasures. The Seagraves aver that Santa Romana was instructed by members of Stimson’s staff to deposit the gold in 176 banks in 42 countries. The deposits were in his name or in one of his many aliases. Negotiable certificates were issued by the banks against the gold deposits.
It was this money, the Seagraves alleged, that the CIA used to buy politicians in Japan, Greece, Italy, the UK and many other countries around the world. It also paid for the secret rearmament of Japan after the outbreak of the Korean War.
In 1974 Santa Romana died. He left a hand-written will that named Tarciana Rodriguez and Luz Rambano, his common-law wife, as his heirs.
With the help of Melvin Belli, a San Francisco lawyer, Rambano filed a suit against John Reed, the CEO of Citibank, for the “wrongful conversion” of some $20 billion of Santa Romana’s gold. The case is still unresolved.
http://forwardamerica.blogspot.com/2007/04/michael-riconosciuto-mathscience-wizard.html
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Before entering Cal Tech, he was recruited for the CIA at age 17. Michael studied physics under Arthur Shallo, inventor of the laser and a Nobel Prize winner. By most accounts he worked for the agency for about 25 years At age 16 or 17, Michael was recruited for the CIA by Al Holbert, a Mossad agent who was connected with federally sanctioned methamphetamine operations in Madera and Mariposa counties. This would have been in 1966. Holbert was allegedly involved in the California drug trade, probably in partnership with CIA people. Michael said learned that Al was also a Soviet agent and he severed his ties with Hobart . In time. Michael became Director of Research for a Wackenhut operation in the California desert. Wackenhut provides security at sensitive military bases, and is filled with former CIA and NSA people. Some say Wackenhut is the “CIA’s CIA.” CIA Director Bill Casey had once been its outside counsel. Wackenhut had a number of joint ventures with the Cabazon Indians, whose reservation was an ideal site for its operations because the tribe has some of the benefits of sovereignty.
http://howtheneoconsstolefreedom.blogspot.com/
Excerpts:
1) Bernays clients were, for the most part, the large industrialists who wanted to sell product which Americans were resistant to buying. Using this simple plan of execution Bernays changed our diet, introducing a hearty breakfast with bacon as a nutritional improvement, persuaded women to smoke, and accustomed us to accepting his carefully selected 'experts' instead of thinking for ourselves. He viewed manipulation of opinion as both the road to riches and a fascinating intellectual challenge.
Edward Bernays, the brother-in-law of Sigmund Freud, viewed ordinary Americans as 'a herd,' needing guidance from an enlightened elite. Such guidance was provided by appealing to what he identified as 'need for security,' 'self-preservation', 'aggression,' or ' sex.'
Bernays can be viewed as an early Leo Strauss, who instead of creating a 'philosophy,' cherry picked 'expert' opinions without associating himself with any specific institution. The outcome is the same, in either case.
2) Touching down on the visit of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, to Yosemite in 1983, the book lays the ground for Seymour's entrance into the story. The Queen's visit, which brought 500 journalists to massive stands built at Inspiration Point to photograph the royal entourage, produced no news except for media reports of a collision taking the lives of three Secret Service, agents. The deaths were broadly reported as a tragic accident, the story falling off the front pages as rapidly as most accidents after the clean-up.
But for Cheri Seymour, formerly a small town journalist living in Mariposa, California, the event set in motion ripples which, in the fall of 1986, drew her into the miasma of corruptions which exist all around us, just out of sight around some corner of our individual perception. Cheri's awareness of the problems began with a note asking her to meet a sheriff's deputy at the Gold Coin Saloon after work. There, Cheri listened to a story of local corruption and the murder of Ron Van Meter, another sheriff's deputy, who refused to be silenced over corruption in his own department. The accident was caused by Rod Sinclair, a man with connections in high places who was addicted to drugs. A cover-up had begun immediately. Agreeing to investigate what Seymour thought was a matter of local corruption eventually lead to the shock of finding connections between drugs, the creation of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the rise of the NeoCons, and the tentacles reaching out into the lives of both Americans and people around the world from places and people we thought we knew and could trust.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp10.html
Excerpt:
Just as the denazification of Germany had been sabotaged, the democratization of Japan was sabotaged by MacArthur and his staff with additional help coming from the former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, and former President Herbert Hoover. Grew had been ambassador to Japan appointed to the post by Hoover in 1932 and was acting secretary of state in 1945. His wife was a grand niece of Commodore Perry and her mother was a Cabot. Grew was from the top society of Boston and was deaf to those beneath his stature in society. Grew’s family had longtime ties to Asia. The Grews had been bankers, who underwrote the opium clipper ships of the 1800s.
Grew had started sabotaging the democratization of Japan during the war. During the war Grew held private talks with Japan’s ambassador to Switzerland and promised that the United States would not prosecute Hirohito and that he would be allowed to keep his throne. Such a promise was adamantly opposed by both the Roosevelt and the Truman administrations, which both called for unconditional surrender and prosecution of war criminals.
Grew however, knew he had the backing of some of the most powerful figures in American politics and high finance. He left it up to Bonner Fellers to see to it. Fellers was a former OSS agent attached to MacArthur’s command who had been stationed in Cairo in 1941. While stationed in Cairo to observe the British operations in North Africa, he transmitted reports back to his superiors using the black code. The Italians had broken the black code and within minutes of Feller’s transmissions, Rommel knew the positions of British forces and battleplan. After being transferred to the states for a brief period Fellers was attached to MacArthur’s command.
The groundwork for sabotaging the peace in Japan had been laid out by Grew and Hoover. Fellers was friends with both and had acquired a reputation of being an expert on Japan. He had been stationed in the Philippines in the 1930s and had made frequent trips to Japan during that time. Hoover used Fellers during the occupation of Japan to convey ideas to MacArthur. MacArthur used Fellers in turn to push his presidential ambitions to Hoover and the Republican hierarchy.
http://tuong2008.blogspot.com/2008/08/guilding-lilythe-japanese-looting-of.html
2) Touching down on the visit of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, to Yosemite in 1983, the book lays the ground for Seymour's entrance into the story. The Queen's visit, which brought 500 journalists to massive stands built at Inspiration Point to photograph the royal entourage, produced no news except for media reports of a collision taking the lives of three Secret Service, agents. The deaths were broadly reported as a tragic accident, the story falling off the front pages as rapidly as most accidents after the clean-up.
But for Cheri Seymour, formerly a small town journalist living in Mariposa, California, the event set in motion ripples which, in the fall of 1986, drew her into the miasma of corruptions which exist all around us, just out of sight around some corner of our individual perception. Cheri's awareness of the problems began with a note asking her to meet a sheriff's deputy at the Gold Coin Saloon after work. There, Cheri listened to a story of local corruption and the murder of Ron Van Meter, another sheriff's deputy, who refused to be silenced over corruption in his own department. The accident was caused by Rod Sinclair, a man with connections in high places who was addicted to drugs. A cover-up had begun immediately. Agreeing to investigate what Seymour thought was a matter of local corruption eventually lead to the shock of finding connections between drugs, the creation of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the rise of the NeoCons, and the tentacles reaching out into the lives of both Americans and people around the world from places and people we thought we knew and could trust.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp10.html
Excerpt:
Just as the denazification of Germany had been sabotaged, the democratization of Japan was sabotaged by MacArthur and his staff with additional help coming from the former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, and former President Herbert Hoover. Grew had been ambassador to Japan appointed to the post by Hoover in 1932 and was acting secretary of state in 1945. His wife was a grand niece of Commodore Perry and her mother was a Cabot. Grew was from the top society of Boston and was deaf to those beneath his stature in society. Grew’s family had longtime ties to Asia. The Grews had been bankers, who underwrote the opium clipper ships of the 1800s.
Grew had started sabotaging the democratization of Japan during the war. During the war Grew held private talks with Japan’s ambassador to Switzerland and promised that the United States would not prosecute Hirohito and that he would be allowed to keep his throne. Such a promise was adamantly opposed by both the Roosevelt and the Truman administrations, which both called for unconditional surrender and prosecution of war criminals.
Grew however, knew he had the backing of some of the most powerful figures in American politics and high finance. He left it up to Bonner Fellers to see to it. Fellers was a former OSS agent attached to MacArthur’s command who had been stationed in Cairo in 1941. While stationed in Cairo to observe the British operations in North Africa, he transmitted reports back to his superiors using the black code. The Italians had broken the black code and within minutes of Feller’s transmissions, Rommel knew the positions of British forces and battleplan. After being transferred to the states for a brief period Fellers was attached to MacArthur’s command.
The groundwork for sabotaging the peace in Japan had been laid out by Grew and Hoover. Fellers was friends with both and had acquired a reputation of being an expert on Japan. He had been stationed in the Philippines in the 1930s and had made frequent trips to Japan during that time. Hoover used Fellers during the occupation of Japan to convey ideas to MacArthur. MacArthur used Fellers in turn to push his presidential ambitions to Hoover and the Republican hierarchy.
http://tuong2008.blogspot.com/2008/08/guilding-lilythe-japanese-looting-of.html
Aug 14, 2008
Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II
Source: http://spitfirelist.com/f427.html
FTR#427—Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II—(One 30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 9/29/2003.)
Click Here to Support the Work of Dave Emory
Foreshadowing information presented at greater length in FTR#428 and supplementing information presented in FTR#’s 290, 291, 426, the program sets forth the fascinating tale of “Golden Lily,” the name for the looting of Asia by Japan during the Second World War. Overseen by Emperor Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu, Golden Lily concentrated incredible amounts of wealth in secret locations, where it became the foundation for Japan’s postwar “economic miracle”—much as the Bormann organization effected the resurrection of Germany after the war.
As American submarine warfare made the transfer of loot to Japan increasingly difficult, the wealth (chiefly gold bullion, platinum and gems) was stashed in the Philippines, where much of it was subsequently recovered by the Japanese. A major outgrowth of Golden Lily was the utilization of much of the gold secreted in the Philippines by US intelligence to finance postwar covert operations.
Program Highlights Include: The John Birch Society’s recovery of some of the gold stashed in the Philippines to finance its postwar anti-communist activities; the Japanese sinking of ships loaded with treasure for subsequent recovery; Japan’s use of hospital ships to transfer the loot to the Home Islands; US intelligence agents’ transfer of much of the Golden Lilly wealth to Switzerland and elsewhere; the use of Golden Lily bullion to establish accounts for Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover; the role of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana in recovering the Golden Lily treasure, in company with General Edward Lansdale—a prime mover in the world of postwar covert operations.
1. Beginning with an overview of the Japanese plunder of Asia, the program sets forth the story of “Golden Lily”—the formal name for the program of looting from the occupied nations of Asia. “During World War II, Japan’s militarism became a heady mixture of glory and greed as the army and navy embarked upon a binge of conquest and looting, from which Tokyo could not extricate itself. We know a log about the conquest, but amazingly little about the looting. In the Japanese holocaust, millions wee killed and billions were stolen, but the loot vanished. One of the great mysteries of World War II is what happened to the billions of dollars’ worth of treasure confiscated by the Japanese Army from a dozen conquered countries. The answer involves the imperial family, so it is an essential part of this biography.” (The Yamato Dynasty; Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Copyright 1999 by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave; Broadway Books [a division of Random House] [HC]; ISBN 0-7679-0496-6; p. 18.)
2. The program was overseen by Emperor’s brother, Prince Chichibu and much of the plunder was secreted away in the Philippines. “Recognizing after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that the war was going badly, a number of imperial princes devoted the rest of the war to hiding the loot ingeniously to give Japan a hedge against disaster. This systematic campaign of looting and hiding treasure, codenamed Golden Lily, was under the direct supervision of Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu. Until now, he was assumed to have spent the war on medical leave from the army, recuperating from tuberculosis at a country estate beneath Mount Fuji, nursed by his wife. In fact, he traveled all over occupied China and Southeast Asia supervising the collection of plunder, using hospital ships to carry much of it to manila for onward shipment to Japan. From early 1943 til mid-1945, he was in the Philippines overseeing the hiding of this loot in bunkers, in vaults beneath old Spanish churches and in vast underground tunnel complexes. Golden Lily stripped Asia of currency, gold, platinum, silver, gems, jewelry, art treasures and religious artifacts, including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton. According to Japanese who participated, some $100 billion worth of gold and gems was hidden at more than two hundred sites in the Philippines when it became physically impossible to move the loot to Japan. We have corroborated accounts from eyewitnesses and participants, including Japanese, and members of Prince Chichibu’s personal retinue.” (Ibid.; pp. 18-19.)
3. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 428, the wealth looted by the Japanese during World War II was instrumental in financing the resurrection of the Japanese economy after World War II. “Faced with Allied invasion of the Home Islands, and the total destruction of Japan’s heritage, Emperor Hirohito was finally persuaded to opt for a quick surrender. This was a bitter pill, but it allowed Japan to survive the war with the bulk of its assets intact, including billions of dollars of loot that would help put the nation back on its feet. Since the war, the gold hidden in a number of sites in the Philippines has been recovered by teams from Japan and other countries, and these recoveries have been verified. A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts. In 1997, a Japanese investigative team from Asahi Television was taken to an underground vault in Luzon where they filmed (and took core samples of) 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million—gold that was stolen from Sumatra, Cambodia and Burma. This gold had been melted down in occupied Malaya, recast and marked in accordance with the accounting procedures of Golden Lily, and then sent to Manila on fake Japanese hospital ships. Treasure looted from China was taken to Japan by way of Korea and hidden in underground vaults in the mountains near Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Gold bullion aboard ships at the time of surrender in 1945 was sunk in Tokyo Bay and other points along the coast, and some of it has since been recovered.” (Ibid.; pp. 19-20.)
4. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 426, 428, the successful recovery of this wealth was realized in considerable measure through the deliberate subversion of attempts at reforming Japanese political and economic life after World War II. “Thanks to Prince Chichibu and Golden Lily, when the U.S. occupation ended in 1952 ‘bankrupt’ Japan was able to begin a ‘miraculous’ recovery, on its way to becoming the world’s second-richest economy. War reparations were dodged, the imperial family evaded punishment, and Japan’s financial elite resumed control as if the war had not occurred. Claims that Japan and its imperial family were left virtually penniless by the war would therefore appear to be completely false. War loot also provided a huge pool of black money used by postwar politicians to corrupt Japan’s bureaucracy, bringing the country full circle again at the millennium to the verge of economic collapse.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)
5. Further detailing the realization of “Golden Lilly,” the program sets forth details of the establishment of the Philippines as a primary repository for the vast sums of looted wealth. “Because of the failure of its economic strategy, Japan’s financial rape of Asia became more important than its military conquest. Loot and plunder became the only way Japan could stay afloat and continue to finance the war . . . Until the end of 1942, this treasure was accumulated in Rangoon, Penang, Singapore and Jakarta, then shipped by sea to Manila for transshipment to Japan. There was no overland route by way of China until the brief success of Operation Ichigo in late 1944. The merchant ships used were painted to resemble hospital ships, one of which—the Awa Maru—was sunk by an American submarine anyway, in fairly shallow water just off the coast of China. (By international agreement, hospital ships are supposed to be immune to attack.) Warehouses along the Manila Bay front became clogged with bullion and oil drums full of gems and coins. A 35-mile-long tunnel half as wide again as a loaded army truck, was dug by POW’s so that this loot could be trucked from the bay front to the old Spanish military forts on the eastern perimeter of Manila, where there were catacombs available to hide it. The tunnel is still there, although Filipinos are unaware of it . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 184-186.)
6. “ . . . When the U.S. submarine blockade became effective early in 1943, and the war turned increasingly against Japan, a huge quantity of looted treasure was still in the pipeline, unable to move beyond the Philippines. According to Japanese sources, Prince Chichibu moved Golden Lily’s headquarters from Singapore to Luzon, the northern island of the Philippines, where he devoted two and a half years to inventorying and hiding the treasure I carefully engineered vaults, tunnels, bunkers and caves at 172 ‘imperial’ sites. (There were many other sites for which the army was separately responsible.) According to Japanese who participated, a second inventory team in Luzon was headed by Asaka’s son, Prince Takahito. The Japanese hoped that they would be able to arrange a cease-fire that would allow them to hold on to the Philippines, essentially annexing it, so that they could recover the war loot at their leisure. If they were unable to annex the Philippines, they reasoned that they could still recover the treasure gradually under a variety of covers—which is essentially what did happen after the war. Having gambled and lost, it was essential not to forfeit the plunder, which would be needed to rebuild Japan.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)
7. “In the last year of the war, Japan also hid large quantities of bullion at sea, deliberately scuttling ships including the cruiser Nachii, sunk with all hands in Manila Bay by a Japanese submarine that then machine-gunned all the Japanese crew members who came to the surface. The gold aboard the Nachii was recovered from its hulk in the late 1970’s by President Marcos. The Japanese sub I-52, a cargo vessel the length of a football field was attempting to deliver two tons of gold worth $25 million to the Nazi sub base at Lorient, France, when it was sunk in mid-Atlantic by a U.S. Navy plane. It has now been located and a recovery operation is under way. Other bullion shipments were made by sub to Europe and South America, and deposited in overseas branches of Swiss banks.” (Ibid.; p. 187.)
8. “For decades after the war, the existence of this hidden treasure was regarded by many as sheer fantasy. It served Japan’s purpose to have people think so, while recovery efforts went on secretly. But in the 1990’s, courts in America and Switzerland concluded that billions of dollars in gold were looted by Japan and hidden in the Philippines. In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province . . . Sources at Asahi Television said they were discouraged from doing a full investigation because of fear of reprisals by Japanese extremists.” (Idem.)
9. “There is growing evidence confirming that Prince Chichibu was indeed in the Philippines during this period, heading the treasure effort. But a full and detailed study of Golden Lily must be the subject of another book. In Tokyo in the 1950’s, after Chichibu’s premature death from TB, a member of the imperial family confided to a foreign visitor that the army had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, and much of this was hidden in the Philippines, where ‘it will take a century to recover.’ He confirmed that Chichibu was in Luzon for two and a half years, escaping to Japan by submarine early in 1945. The involvement of the imperial family in such activities has been acknowledged in Japan, although in recent years it has been widely discussed in private. Nazi war loot got more attention because of the powerful postwar Jewish lobby which was able to mount an effective, coordinated campaign for which there was no Asian equivalent. Both wars had horrific consequences. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis but as many as 30 million Asians died as a result of Japan’s aggression, 23 million in China alone.” (Ibid.; pp. 187-188.)
10. Discovering some of the caches of wealth in the Philippines, US personnel subsequently recovered some of the loot for their own purposes. Among those was MacArthur’s intelligence chief General Charles Willoughby. An arch reactionary whose idol was Francisco Franco (the fascist dictator of Spain), Willoughby went on to become a key figure in postwar rightwing politics, including the John Birch Society. (For more about Willoughby, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 10, 11, 15, 37—available from Spitfire. Willoughby is also discussed in FTR#’s 54, 120.) The John Birch Society was among those interests that effected postwar recoveries of some of the Golden Lily bullion, in order to finance their political activities. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#’s 11, 12, available from Spitfire.) “During the closing months of the war, American guerrilla forces operating in the mountains of Luzon observed Japanese Army units hiding truckloads of very heavy small boxes in caves. They captured and interrogated Japanese soldiers and learned that the boxes contained gold bars. When the war ended, MacArthur’s G-2 General Charles Willoughby and other intelligence officers backed secret recovery operations that netted huge sums, according to some of the American officers who participated. The gold was slipped into the market cautiously to avoid affecting world gold prices. These recoveries continued intermittently over the years. One such effort involved the John Birch Society, a virulently anti-Communist organization named after an American who was killed by Marxist forces during the Chinese civil war. In the mid-1970’s, the society lent nearly$500,000 to an American treasure-hunter to finance a recovery in the Philippines, promising to help him launder up to $20 billion of the recovered gold. (The society seemed to believe that it was perfectly correct to break American laws regarding the illegal laundering of money, providing it was done to finance anti-communism.) Colonel Laurence Bunker, a close friend of General Willoughby who took over from Bonner Fellers as MacArthur’s chief aide, personal secretary and spokesman from 1946 until his retirement in 1952, was a charter member of the John Birch Society.” (Ibid.; pp. 226-227.)
11. Directly anticipating information presented in Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s Gold Warriors (see FTR#428), the program details the recovery of Golden Lily bullion by elements of US intelligence, its transfer abroad, and its development as an asset in order to finance CIA covert operations. “We refer here to a major recovery of Japanese war loot carried out in Luzon between 1945 and 1948. Severino Garcia Santa Romana, a Filipino-American OSS officer and later an officer in the CIA, under the direct field supervision of the CIA’s General Edward G. Lansdale, oversaw the recovery. Documents show that this massive recovery of war loot was known to OSS chief General William Donovan, to General MacArthur, to Brigadier General Fellers and to Herbert Hoover, and later to CIA director Allen Dulles and his deputies, so it was probably known to President Truman. We must assume that Truman’s close associate Pauley was also aware of it when he went to Japan.” (Ibid.; p. 294.)
12. “The Santa Romana recovery—the first of its kind—came about the following manner. In the closing months of the war, American OSS officers fighting alongside Filipino guerillas observed a heavily laden Japanese hospital ship unloading bronze boxes at Subic Bay. A convoy of army trucks carrying the cargo was tracked into the mountains where guerrillas watched Japanese soldiers carry the remarkably heavy boxes into a cave. When the Japanese sealed and disguised the cave entrance and left, the guerillas—including one American OSS major—opened the cave and discovered that the boxes contained gold bars. They then resealed the cave. After the war, Santa Romana was assigned by Generals Donovan and Lansdale to empty the cave secretly. Documents show that no attempt was made to return this bullion to its rightful owners, or even to set up a fund to benefit victims of the war. Instead, the gold bullion was deposited by Santa Romana in 176 bank accounts in 42 countries, and became the basis of the CIA’s ‘off the books’ operational funds during the immediate postwar years, to create a worldwide anti-Communist network. This was done by distributing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One single account in General Lansdale’s name at the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse, documents show, contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. It is only one of many. Here is a clear precedent to the secret accounts set up by Colonel Oliver North during the Iran-Contra arms conspiracy of the 1980’s which were trivial by comparison.” (Ibid.; pp. 294-295.)
13. Significantly, large amounts of gold appear to have ended up in accounts in the name of General Douglas MacArthur and former President Herbert Hoover, both deeply involved in subversion of the reform of Japan in the postwar period and the exoneration of Emperor Hirohito of war guilt. “Some of the bullion accounts that Santa Romana squirrelled away were set up for his own private use, with gold bars that he side-tracked during the recovery process. These accounts still exist in New York and elsewhere, and they are the object of numerous legal actions by people claiming to be Santa Romana’s heirs. But there is a lot more gold still in the ground in the Philippines, yet to be recovered. Documents also show that one of the big gold-bullion accounts set up by Santa Romana was in the name of General Douglas MacArthur. Other documents indicate that gold bullion worth $100 million was placed in an account in the name of Herbert Hoover. Both men were deeply involved in rescuing Emperor Hirohito, and suborning witnesses at the Tokyo war-crimes tribunal. What does this suggest?” (Ibid.; p. 295.)
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp10.html
FTR#427—Guilding the Lily—The Japanese Looting of Asia in World War II—(One 30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 9/29/2003.)
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Foreshadowing information presented at greater length in FTR#428 and supplementing information presented in FTR#’s 290, 291, 426, the program sets forth the fascinating tale of “Golden Lily,” the name for the looting of Asia by Japan during the Second World War. Overseen by Emperor Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu, Golden Lily concentrated incredible amounts of wealth in secret locations, where it became the foundation for Japan’s postwar “economic miracle”—much as the Bormann organization effected the resurrection of Germany after the war.
As American submarine warfare made the transfer of loot to Japan increasingly difficult, the wealth (chiefly gold bullion, platinum and gems) was stashed in the Philippines, where much of it was subsequently recovered by the Japanese. A major outgrowth of Golden Lily was the utilization of much of the gold secreted in the Philippines by US intelligence to finance postwar covert operations.
Program Highlights Include: The John Birch Society’s recovery of some of the gold stashed in the Philippines to finance its postwar anti-communist activities; the Japanese sinking of ships loaded with treasure for subsequent recovery; Japan’s use of hospital ships to transfer the loot to the Home Islands; US intelligence agents’ transfer of much of the Golden Lilly wealth to Switzerland and elsewhere; the use of Golden Lily bullion to establish accounts for Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover; the role of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana in recovering the Golden Lily treasure, in company with General Edward Lansdale—a prime mover in the world of postwar covert operations.
1. Beginning with an overview of the Japanese plunder of Asia, the program sets forth the story of “Golden Lily”—the formal name for the program of looting from the occupied nations of Asia. “During World War II, Japan’s militarism became a heady mixture of glory and greed as the army and navy embarked upon a binge of conquest and looting, from which Tokyo could not extricate itself. We know a log about the conquest, but amazingly little about the looting. In the Japanese holocaust, millions wee killed and billions were stolen, but the loot vanished. One of the great mysteries of World War II is what happened to the billions of dollars’ worth of treasure confiscated by the Japanese Army from a dozen conquered countries. The answer involves the imperial family, so it is an essential part of this biography.” (The Yamato Dynasty; Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Copyright 1999 by Peggy and Sterling Seagrave; Broadway Books [a division of Random House] [HC]; ISBN 0-7679-0496-6; p. 18.)
2. The program was overseen by Emperor’s brother, Prince Chichibu and much of the plunder was secreted away in the Philippines. “Recognizing after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that the war was going badly, a number of imperial princes devoted the rest of the war to hiding the loot ingeniously to give Japan a hedge against disaster. This systematic campaign of looting and hiding treasure, codenamed Golden Lily, was under the direct supervision of Hirohito’s brother Prince Chichibu. Until now, he was assumed to have spent the war on medical leave from the army, recuperating from tuberculosis at a country estate beneath Mount Fuji, nursed by his wife. In fact, he traveled all over occupied China and Southeast Asia supervising the collection of plunder, using hospital ships to carry much of it to manila for onward shipment to Japan. From early 1943 til mid-1945, he was in the Philippines overseeing the hiding of this loot in bunkers, in vaults beneath old Spanish churches and in vast underground tunnel complexes. Golden Lily stripped Asia of currency, gold, platinum, silver, gems, jewelry, art treasures and religious artifacts, including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton. According to Japanese who participated, some $100 billion worth of gold and gems was hidden at more than two hundred sites in the Philippines when it became physically impossible to move the loot to Japan. We have corroborated accounts from eyewitnesses and participants, including Japanese, and members of Prince Chichibu’s personal retinue.” (Ibid.; pp. 18-19.)
3. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 428, the wealth looted by the Japanese during World War II was instrumental in financing the resurrection of the Japanese economy after World War II. “Faced with Allied invasion of the Home Islands, and the total destruction of Japan’s heritage, Emperor Hirohito was finally persuaded to opt for a quick surrender. This was a bitter pill, but it allowed Japan to survive the war with the bulk of its assets intact, including billions of dollars of loot that would help put the nation back on its feet. Since the war, the gold hidden in a number of sites in the Philippines has been recovered by teams from Japan and other countries, and these recoveries have been verified. A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts. In 1997, a Japanese investigative team from Asahi Television was taken to an underground vault in Luzon where they filmed (and took core samples of) 1,800 gold bars worth $150 million—gold that was stolen from Sumatra, Cambodia and Burma. This gold had been melted down in occupied Malaya, recast and marked in accordance with the accounting procedures of Golden Lily, and then sent to Manila on fake Japanese hospital ships. Treasure looted from China was taken to Japan by way of Korea and hidden in underground vaults in the mountains near Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Gold bullion aboard ships at the time of surrender in 1945 was sunk in Tokyo Bay and other points along the coast, and some of it has since been recovered.” (Ibid.; pp. 19-20.)
4. As discussed in FTR#’s 290, 426, 428, the successful recovery of this wealth was realized in considerable measure through the deliberate subversion of attempts at reforming Japanese political and economic life after World War II. “Thanks to Prince Chichibu and Golden Lily, when the U.S. occupation ended in 1952 ‘bankrupt’ Japan was able to begin a ‘miraculous’ recovery, on its way to becoming the world’s second-richest economy. War reparations were dodged, the imperial family evaded punishment, and Japan’s financial elite resumed control as if the war had not occurred. Claims that Japan and its imperial family were left virtually penniless by the war would therefore appear to be completely false. War loot also provided a huge pool of black money used by postwar politicians to corrupt Japan’s bureaucracy, bringing the country full circle again at the millennium to the verge of economic collapse.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)
5. Further detailing the realization of “Golden Lilly,” the program sets forth details of the establishment of the Philippines as a primary repository for the vast sums of looted wealth. “Because of the failure of its economic strategy, Japan’s financial rape of Asia became more important than its military conquest. Loot and plunder became the only way Japan could stay afloat and continue to finance the war . . . Until the end of 1942, this treasure was accumulated in Rangoon, Penang, Singapore and Jakarta, then shipped by sea to Manila for transshipment to Japan. There was no overland route by way of China until the brief success of Operation Ichigo in late 1944. The merchant ships used were painted to resemble hospital ships, one of which—the Awa Maru—was sunk by an American submarine anyway, in fairly shallow water just off the coast of China. (By international agreement, hospital ships are supposed to be immune to attack.) Warehouses along the Manila Bay front became clogged with bullion and oil drums full of gems and coins. A 35-mile-long tunnel half as wide again as a loaded army truck, was dug by POW’s so that this loot could be trucked from the bay front to the old Spanish military forts on the eastern perimeter of Manila, where there were catacombs available to hide it. The tunnel is still there, although Filipinos are unaware of it . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 184-186.)
6. “ . . . When the U.S. submarine blockade became effective early in 1943, and the war turned increasingly against Japan, a huge quantity of looted treasure was still in the pipeline, unable to move beyond the Philippines. According to Japanese sources, Prince Chichibu moved Golden Lily’s headquarters from Singapore to Luzon, the northern island of the Philippines, where he devoted two and a half years to inventorying and hiding the treasure I carefully engineered vaults, tunnels, bunkers and caves at 172 ‘imperial’ sites. (There were many other sites for which the army was separately responsible.) According to Japanese who participated, a second inventory team in Luzon was headed by Asaka’s son, Prince Takahito. The Japanese hoped that they would be able to arrange a cease-fire that would allow them to hold on to the Philippines, essentially annexing it, so that they could recover the war loot at their leisure. If they were unable to annex the Philippines, they reasoned that they could still recover the treasure gradually under a variety of covers—which is essentially what did happen after the war. Having gambled and lost, it was essential not to forfeit the plunder, which would be needed to rebuild Japan.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)
7. “In the last year of the war, Japan also hid large quantities of bullion at sea, deliberately scuttling ships including the cruiser Nachii, sunk with all hands in Manila Bay by a Japanese submarine that then machine-gunned all the Japanese crew members who came to the surface. The gold aboard the Nachii was recovered from its hulk in the late 1970’s by President Marcos. The Japanese sub I-52, a cargo vessel the length of a football field was attempting to deliver two tons of gold worth $25 million to the Nazi sub base at Lorient, France, when it was sunk in mid-Atlantic by a U.S. Navy plane. It has now been located and a recovery operation is under way. Other bullion shipments were made by sub to Europe and South America, and deposited in overseas branches of Swiss banks.” (Ibid.; p. 187.)
8. “For decades after the war, the existence of this hidden treasure was regarded by many as sheer fantasy. It served Japan’s purpose to have people think so, while recovery efforts went on secretly. But in the 1990’s, courts in America and Switzerland concluded that billions of dollars in gold were looted by Japan and hidden in the Philippines. In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province . . . Sources at Asahi Television said they were discouraged from doing a full investigation because of fear of reprisals by Japanese extremists.” (Idem.)
9. “There is growing evidence confirming that Prince Chichibu was indeed in the Philippines during this period, heading the treasure effort. But a full and detailed study of Golden Lily must be the subject of another book. In Tokyo in the 1950’s, after Chichibu’s premature death from TB, a member of the imperial family confided to a foreign visitor that the army had amassed over $100 billion in treasure, and much of this was hidden in the Philippines, where ‘it will take a century to recover.’ He confirmed that Chichibu was in Luzon for two and a half years, escaping to Japan by submarine early in 1945. The involvement of the imperial family in such activities has been acknowledged in Japan, although in recent years it has been widely discussed in private. Nazi war loot got more attention because of the powerful postwar Jewish lobby which was able to mount an effective, coordinated campaign for which there was no Asian equivalent. Both wars had horrific consequences. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis but as many as 30 million Asians died as a result of Japan’s aggression, 23 million in China alone.” (Ibid.; pp. 187-188.)
10. Discovering some of the caches of wealth in the Philippines, US personnel subsequently recovered some of the loot for their own purposes. Among those was MacArthur’s intelligence chief General Charles Willoughby. An arch reactionary whose idol was Francisco Franco (the fascist dictator of Spain), Willoughby went on to become a key figure in postwar rightwing politics, including the John Birch Society. (For more about Willoughby, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 10, 11, 15, 37—available from Spitfire. Willoughby is also discussed in FTR#’s 54, 120.) The John Birch Society was among those interests that effected postwar recoveries of some of the Golden Lily bullion, in order to finance their political activities. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#’s 11, 12, available from Spitfire.) “During the closing months of the war, American guerrilla forces operating in the mountains of Luzon observed Japanese Army units hiding truckloads of very heavy small boxes in caves. They captured and interrogated Japanese soldiers and learned that the boxes contained gold bars. When the war ended, MacArthur’s G-2 General Charles Willoughby and other intelligence officers backed secret recovery operations that netted huge sums, according to some of the American officers who participated. The gold was slipped into the market cautiously to avoid affecting world gold prices. These recoveries continued intermittently over the years. One such effort involved the John Birch Society, a virulently anti-Communist organization named after an American who was killed by Marxist forces during the Chinese civil war. In the mid-1970’s, the society lent nearly$500,000 to an American treasure-hunter to finance a recovery in the Philippines, promising to help him launder up to $20 billion of the recovered gold. (The society seemed to believe that it was perfectly correct to break American laws regarding the illegal laundering of money, providing it was done to finance anti-communism.) Colonel Laurence Bunker, a close friend of General Willoughby who took over from Bonner Fellers as MacArthur’s chief aide, personal secretary and spokesman from 1946 until his retirement in 1952, was a charter member of the John Birch Society.” (Ibid.; pp. 226-227.)
11. Directly anticipating information presented in Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s Gold Warriors (see FTR#428), the program details the recovery of Golden Lily bullion by elements of US intelligence, its transfer abroad, and its development as an asset in order to finance CIA covert operations. “We refer here to a major recovery of Japanese war loot carried out in Luzon between 1945 and 1948. Severino Garcia Santa Romana, a Filipino-American OSS officer and later an officer in the CIA, under the direct field supervision of the CIA’s General Edward G. Lansdale, oversaw the recovery. Documents show that this massive recovery of war loot was known to OSS chief General William Donovan, to General MacArthur, to Brigadier General Fellers and to Herbert Hoover, and later to CIA director Allen Dulles and his deputies, so it was probably known to President Truman. We must assume that Truman’s close associate Pauley was also aware of it when he went to Japan.” (Ibid.; p. 294.)
12. “The Santa Romana recovery—the first of its kind—came about the following manner. In the closing months of the war, American OSS officers fighting alongside Filipino guerillas observed a heavily laden Japanese hospital ship unloading bronze boxes at Subic Bay. A convoy of army trucks carrying the cargo was tracked into the mountains where guerrillas watched Japanese soldiers carry the remarkably heavy boxes into a cave. When the Japanese sealed and disguised the cave entrance and left, the guerillas—including one American OSS major—opened the cave and discovered that the boxes contained gold bars. They then resealed the cave. After the war, Santa Romana was assigned by Generals Donovan and Lansdale to empty the cave secretly. Documents show that no attempt was made to return this bullion to its rightful owners, or even to set up a fund to benefit victims of the war. Instead, the gold bullion was deposited by Santa Romana in 176 bank accounts in 42 countries, and became the basis of the CIA’s ‘off the books’ operational funds during the immediate postwar years, to create a worldwide anti-Communist network. This was done by distributing gold certificates to influential people, binding them to the CIA. One single account in General Lansdale’s name at the Geneva branch of Union Banque Suisse, documents show, contained 20,000 metric tons of gold. It is only one of many. Here is a clear precedent to the secret accounts set up by Colonel Oliver North during the Iran-Contra arms conspiracy of the 1980’s which were trivial by comparison.” (Ibid.; pp. 294-295.)
13. Significantly, large amounts of gold appear to have ended up in accounts in the name of General Douglas MacArthur and former President Herbert Hoover, both deeply involved in subversion of the reform of Japan in the postwar period and the exoneration of Emperor Hirohito of war guilt. “Some of the bullion accounts that Santa Romana squirrelled away were set up for his own private use, with gold bars that he side-tracked during the recovery process. These accounts still exist in New York and elsewhere, and they are the object of numerous legal actions by people claiming to be Santa Romana’s heirs. But there is a lot more gold still in the ground in the Philippines, yet to be recovered. Documents also show that one of the big gold-bullion accounts set up by Santa Romana was in the name of General Douglas MacArthur. Other documents indicate that gold bullion worth $100 million was placed in an account in the name of Herbert Hoover. Both men were deeply involved in rescuing Emperor Hirohito, and suborning witnesses at the Tokyo war-crimes tribunal. What does this suggest?” (Ibid.; p. 295.)
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp10.html
9/11 whistleblower Susan Lindauer_on The Kevin Barrett Show
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