Wednesday 27 August 2014

James Bond, The V2 and The World Trade Centers


Chapter IX - Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Nagy's, Chronological Activities, and Wernher Von Braun.

1. June 1946. As Hungarian Prime Minister, Nagy visits the United States and receives permission for the U.S. Army in Germany to return fifty-two million dollars in gold reserves (taken from Hungary by Hitler) to Hungary. At the same time, Nagy spends one full week in Knoxville, Tennessee, Huntsville, Alabama and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he meets and visits with Nazi scientists working at American Redstone Arsenal and with Tennessee Valley Authority management and security agents under direction of the FBI at Knoxville, Tennessee and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Albert Osborne, the A.C.C.C missionary from Mississippi, worked for the security division of the Tennessee Valley Authority since 1933, and he constantly reported to the Muscle Shoals, Huntsville, and Knoxville offices of TVA since 1942, the time he moved to Mexico.163

2. May 28, 1947. Prime Minister Nagy resigns his post from Basal, Switzerland, on the German-Swiss border.164 

3. Fall of 1947. Ex-Prime Minister Nagy and family settle on 120 acre farm on outskirts of Herndon, Virginia, twenty-five miles from Washington, D.C., and Nagy becomes agent for any Communist speaking engagements for Division Five of the FBI.165

4. Fall of 1947 to 1951. Nagy covers United States and becomes closely associated with H.L. Hunt of Dallas, Texas.166

5. 1951. Nagy becomes president of Central Eastern European Committee of Refugee Exiles.167

6. 1956 to 1962. Nagy is President and on the Board of Directors of Permindex, a Swiss Corporation, and CMC, Rome, Italy, and commutes between Dallas, Washington, D.C., Herndon, Virginia, Switzerland and Italy.168

7. Spring 1963. Nagy settles in Dallas, Texas with offices in the 600 block of Fort Worth Avenue, ten blocks west of the Dallas School Book Depository Building. He is associated in the 600 block of Fort Worth Avenue in Dallas with Ralph Paul, C.A. "Pappy" Dolsen, Jack Ruby, and Sergio Arcacha Smith, the first two named being close business associates of Jack Ruby. Nagy's relatives make their residence at 1024 Magellan Circle Apartment D, right next door to Sylvia Odio's abode who was visited by the two Cubans and William Seymour on or about September 28, 1963. The 600 block address of Ferenc Nagy is three blocks from the Fort Worth Avenue address of Dal-Land Memorials, where Penn Jones reports the person impersonating Lee Oswald left clothing shortly prior to the assassination. The 600 block of Fort Worth Avenue is seven blocks west of the City Lincoln Mercury plant where a person impersonating Oswald tried to buy an automobile and made statements which could later be used to incriminate Oswald some few days before November 22, 1963.169

Then on November 22, 1963, Ferenc Nagy appears in more than thirty-five photographs at the site of the assassination. He is shown with an open umbrella at a point to the right of President Kennedy's car at Dealey Plaza. After the President's car passed within a few feet of Nagy, he suddenly closed his umbrella and the last and fatal shots were fired.

He is depicted in pictures after the shots with his umbrella folded and then departing the area.170

Nagy is easily recognizable in a number of the photos taken by bystanders. Nagy's forward area of cranium is fully bald while the back one-fourth portion is covered and the hair is combed across the back section of his head.

Nagy, the former Prime Minister of Hungary, President of Permindex and upper echelon boss of Division Five of the FBI, along with Clay Shaw of New Orleans and L.M. Bloomfield of Montreal, Canada carried out his assignment in Dallas with dispatch, but he had his picture taken in the process.

From 1932 until 1945 Wernher Von Braun was Adolph Hitler's most dedicated Nazi rocket scientist. As a matter of fact, given a few more months time, Von Braun's "buzz bomb" and V-2 rocket in 1945 could have turned the tide and forced the Allies to seek something less than total victory over the Third Reich. The enthusiastic Nazi, Von Braun's V-2 rocket had killed thousands and thousands of British Isle residents, and the sound of the approach of the V-2 was terrorizing the entire English countryside.

In 1945, as the Russians were approaching Von Braun's rocket headquarters, he and one hundred and fifteen other of his Nazi rocket scientists escaped with valuable papers and traveled west in Germany until they could turn themselves in to the Allied armies on the West. Later the same year, Von Braun and the 115 other German scientists were removed to Fort Bliss, Texas, where they remained until 1950. In 1950, Von Braun and the others were moved on the the old Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, where they remain to this date.

Von Braun, immediately upon arriving in the United States, made close personal friends with J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson; and the relationship remained close with Von Braun working with Hoover in security in the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Redstone Arsenal; and later, beginning in 1958, they worked together in the security of the National Space Agency.

1958 was the year that Lyndon Johnson, as Majority Leader of the Senate, helped to push through the National Space Act and later, when he became Vice-President, he was made chairman of the National Space Committee.

Ferenc Nagy, ex-Hungarian Prime Minister, and Albert Alexander Osborne, alias John H. Bowen, the overseer of the assassins in Mexico, both reported consistently to the Muscle Shoals, Huntsville, Alabama area; and there is substantial evidence their contact in this area was Wernher Von Braun.171

Another of the Nazi space scientists who worked with the Cabal was Walter Dornberger. He had been the commanding officer of Wernher Von Braun while both were working for Adolph Hitler's rocket program. During the time period involved, Walter Dornberger was a directing officer in the Bell Aerospace Corporation along with Fred Korth. The former Nazi rocket officer was directly in charge of the assignment of Michael Paine to Bell Helicopter Corporation, a subsidiary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Paine's assignment was to provide a place for Marina Oswald during the approximate eight months prior to November 22, 1963. He provided for Marina to live with his wife, Ruth, in Irving Texas. Ray Krystinik testified to the Warren Commission that Michael Paine, immediately after Lee Oswald was captured at the theater, said, "The stupid ________, he was not even supposed to have a gun."

Von Braun first met Clay Shaw in 1945 when he, Walter Dornberger and about 150 other Nazi rocket scientists abandoned Peenemunde and traveled south to join the American forces in Germany close to the French border. The Nazis were brought to the Deputy Chief of Staff's headquarters where Major Clay Shaw was aide-de-camp to General Charles O. Thrasher, Deputy Chief, European Theatre of Operations. Von Braun, Dornberger, and Shaw maintained the relationship over the years through their mutual connection with the Defense Industrial Security Command, an operational arm of the counter-espionage division of the FBI.172

Ordnance Colonel Holgar N. Toftoy was in charge of the Nazi scientists, and Clay Shaw in the European Command section gave firm assistance to the transfer of 127 of them to the United States after they had spent about five months with the command in Europe.173

In the transfer of the Nazi rocket scientists, the services of Adolph Hitler's intelligence agency was used extensively, and Shaw, Von Braun, Dornberger and the others began a very close association with the Nazi agency and its commander.
The Bundesnachrichtendienst, better known as the Federal Intelligence Agency, or FIA, is largely dependent on the CIA, which subsidizes and controls it. The director in 1963 was Reinhard Gehlen, a former ex-Nazi Colonel 'recuperated' in August 1945 by Allen Dulles, who at the time headed the OSS in Switzerland and was in charge of American intelligence activities in occupied Germany.

The Solidarists and Gehlen had conceived the idea of the "Vlassov Army" which were Russian anti-communist troops, and Gehlen was given the responsibility for the underground that continued to operate behind Communist lines until 1950. In Poland, Gehlen's guerillas on March 28, 1947 murdered General Karol Swierczenski, Vice-Minister of Defense, who, under the name of Walter, had commanded the 14th International Brigade in Spain, and who served as the model for one of the characters in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Gehlen developed his network under the cover of a firm known as the "Economic Association for the Development of South Germany". He employed former members of the Gestapo such as Boemel-Burg, his intelligence chief in Berlin, and Franz Alfred Six, former SS General and one of Eichmann's subordinates, who was put in charge of Gehlen's contacts in Western Europe.

With the aid of other highly-qualified specialists, Gehlen successfully infiltrated East Germany and the Eastern European states, uncovered Soviet intelligence rings, planted agents among groups of expatriate workers, and took charge of the refugee organizations. He worked for the CIA, Solidarists, and J. Edgar Hoover.

After two years of intense and extensive investigation, Jim Garrison made a well-recorded public statement showing beyond doubt that the had traced the Nazi rocket scientists, the World Trade Center and Permindex, the Fascist Solidarists, American Council of Christian Churches, Free Cuba Committee, the gambling syndicate and Mafia, and NASA's Security Division into its umbrella controlling organization, the Defense Industrial Security Command of Columbus, Ohio and Huntsville, Alabama. 

Garrison; had traced DISC into its larger umbrella, Division Five of the .i.FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency supervised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. Here is how Garrison's statement came about. On October 31, 1968, Jim Garrison subpoenaed a Tacoma, Washington man for questioning in his continuing investigation of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Fred Lee Crismon, a "bishop" of the Universal Life Church, was called to appear before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury on November 21, 1968. Garrison's office said that Crismon "has been engaged in undercover activity for a part of the industrial warfare complex for years. His cover is that of a 'preacher' and a 'person engaged in work to help the Gypsies.'"

Garrison's statement continued, "Our information indicates that since the early sixties, Crismon has made many trips to the New Orleans and Dallas areas in connection with his undercover work. He is a 'former' employee of the Boeing Aircraft Company in the sense that one defendant in the case is a 'former' employee of the Lockheed Aircraft Company in Los Angeles. In intelligence terminology, this ordinarily means that the connection still exists, but that the 'former employee' has moved into an underground operation."
Garrison said that evidence has been developed indicating a relationship between Crismon and "persons involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

Garrison further reiterated the general findings of his controversial investigation. "President Kennedy was murdered by elements of the industrial warfare complex working in concert with individuals in the United States Government. At the time of his murder, President Kennedy was working to end the Cold War.

The annual income of the defense industry was well over twenty billion dollars a year, and there were forces in that industry and in the U.S. Government which opposed the ending of the Cold War."

As has been pointed out earlier, Fred Lee Crismon used the alias John Howard Bowen and traveled and worked with the Mexico based assassins, Albert Osborne, Thomas Beckham and others. Bowen, alias Crismon, and Becham are shown in photographs taken November 22, 1963. In the picture on page 48, they are shown being taken after arrest by Dallas police across Dealey Plaza immediately after the President's murder.

Fred Lee Crismon, alias John H. Bowen, alias Dr. Jon Gold, and his partner, Thomas Edward Beckham, and Albert Osborne were all working for the Defense Industrial Security Command through the American Council of Christian Churches.

Garrison also revealed that the Grand Jury records confirmed Johnson's part when he said, "Who had the most to gain from the murder? Answer - Lyndon Johnson."
Crismon, alias John H. Bowen, and Beckham played only small roles in the big picture, but not Jack Ruby and Ferenc Nagy. Jack Ruby, agent for DISC through the Mafia and Syndicate had to be in the basement of Dallas City Hall two days after the assassination to dispose of a dangerous witness.

Ferenc Nagy, fellow director of Permindex and the World Trade Center, with Clay Shaw under L.M. Bloomfield, was also in the Dallas City Hall basement the morning of November 24, 1963. Buford Lee Beaty, a city detective, said Captain Tabbert "requested him to watch a man of obvious Hungarian origin who allegedly was in the basement to secure the release of two of his employees."174 Beaty and other policemen have confided to friends that the Hungarian was a former high official and was highly suspect on the morning of the 24th.

About five years after that memorable morning, a few American publications uncovered the fact that the Defense Industrial Security Command was employing agents provocateur. 

These are the historic agents used over the centuries by despots to foment division among the population in order to give the government the people's support in suppressing an unpopular segment of the country involved. Provoking agents are also used effectively in creating a munitions market.

The New York Times reported in 1968 that Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown were Federal agents provocateur. Other media named Eldridge Cleaver and a number of other trouble makers as provocative agents of the FBI. Such reports were not confirmed, but they do make interesting food for thought.



Chapter X - Tryall Club in Jamaica and World Commerce Corporation Successor to the German Munitions Cartels.


The genesis of the munitions cartels is found in the following quotations from H. Montgomery Hyde's book, Room 3603. Hyde's book is a biography of the experience of Sir William Stephenson during and after World War II. Stephenson was head of British Intelligence in the United States during World War II. Here is what Hyde had to say:175
(In 1946) Stephenson had gone to live in Jamaica, where he had bought a property at Hillowton, overlooking Montego Bay - "the finest house in the island," he called it. (Incidentally, it was his wife's choice). His example was followed by several of his friends, including Lord Beaverbrook, Sir William Wiseman, Noel Coward and Ian Fleming, all of whom acquired estates on Jamaica's beautiful north shore at this time. For a year or so he showed little interest in the outside world and was content to enjoy life on this island in the sun. Only gradually did he recover his interest in commerce and industry. With some of his war-time associates, such as financiers Sir Rex Benson and Sir Charles Hambro in London, General Donovan in Washington, and a number of Canadian and American industrialists like Edward Stettinius, former chairman of the U.S. Steel Corporation, he formed the British-American-Canadian Corporation, which developed into the World Commerce Corporation, originally designed to fill the void left by the break-up of the big German cartels which Stephenson himself had done much to destroy. Thus he and his colleagues on the board raised an initial $1,000,000 to help 'bridge over the breakdown in foreign exchange and provide the tools, machinery and "know how" to develop untapped resources in different parts of the world'."

The World Commerce Corporation also played a useful part in the development and rehabilitation of economically backward countries. As one American newspaper editorial put it at the time, "if there were several World Commerce Corporations, there would be no need for a Marshall Plan". Barter trade was facilitated on a massive scale. A typical transaction took place in the Balkans in 1951. Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were short of dollars and also short of medicinal drugs. But each country had about $300,000 worth of paprika on its farms. World Commerce accordingly exchanged a year's supply of penicillin and sulfa for the paprika, which they then sold on other markets. While normally working on a commission basis, the Corporation would sometimes forgo its profit if it felt it could help an impoverished or economically backward country by giving it the facilities of its international connections."



The North Jamaican Hillowton property was later transformed to Tryall, the exclusive club of John Connally, Paul Raigorodsky and many others of the cabal.
World Commerce Corporation received funds from the U.S. International Cooperation Agency and worked closely with Clay Shaw's World Trade Development Commission and Permindex's various World Trade Centers.
George DeMohrenschildt, William Dalsell and a number of the White Russians had worked for I.C.A. for a number of years. This increased DeMohrenschildt's knowledge of the subject of who was behind the conspiracy.
The following from Volume XXIV, page 642 of the official Commission evidence is especially interesting since Albert Osborne and Gordon Novel had been reported at Tryall, Jamaica on a number of occasions.
Ylario Rojas continued as follows:
The latter part of December, 1962, the Cuban visited him in Guadalajara, gave him 900 pesos ($72 U.S.), and on the instructions of the Cuban, he proceeded to Cozumel by bus, arriving there shortly after Christmas, 1962. In Cozumel, ROJAS was met by two Cubans, whose names he could not recall, and also by a Cuban woman whose first name was CRISTINA. Although he could not recall the names of the Cubans, he claimed to have them written in a notebook which he lift with DANIEL SOLIS, a municipal policeman in Cozumel, and he affirmed SOLIS would not deliver the notebook to anyone but him.
About December 20, 1962, .OSWALD; arrived in Cozumel, having proceeded there from Jamaica via Compania Mexicana de Aviation (CMA) Airlines. OSWALD, the three Cubans, and ROJAS discussed the introduction of Cuban propaganda into Mexico. During the time of these discussions, OSWALD; and the three Cubans stayed at the Hotel Playa in Cozumel and ROJAS resided at the home of DANIEL SOLIS. OSWALD; remained in Cozumel for two or three days and returned to Jamaica by air, and ROJAS and the three Cubans remained in Cozumel until about February 15, 1963, when OSWALD; again appeared in Cozumel from Jamaica and on this occasion stayed three days. The day following OSWALD'S arrival, an American by the name of ALBERT arrived from Jamaica.
ROJAS claimed the Cuban woman, CRISTINA, told him that she, the other two Cubans, OSWALD; and ALBERT had discussed the elimination of President KENNEDY. According to ROJAS, she stated OSWALD; was in favor of killing President KENNEDY, but ALBERT and the Cubans did not agree with SWALD;. ROJAS was told by CRISTINA that OSWALD; had stated to the Cubans that he and ALBERT had laid plans to eliminate the President. ALBERT had stayed at the Hotel Isleno in Cozumel and returned to the United States via Jamaica the day after his arrival in Cozumel.
ROJAS claimed to have stayed in Cozumel until early March, 1963, when he returned by bus to Guadalajara.

The officials investigating for the Commission pressured Rojas until he recanted his story. However this action on the part of the investigators is not reliable in that a large amount of hanky panky was going on in the Mexican part of the inquiry.
Some of this is reflected in Volume XIV beginning on page 621:
On March 31, 1964, GILBERTO LOZANO GUIZAR, manager of the Mexico City terminal of the Transportes Frontera bus company, Calle Buenavista No. 7, Mexico, D.F., emphatically advised that the original passenger list of manifest relating to departure No. 2 of bus No. 340 on October 2, 1963, of the Transportes Frontera bus company, is an authentic record of data pertaining to that particular trip.. . . . .

He advised that officers of the Presidential Staff appeared at the bus terminal shortly after the assassination of President KENNEDY, seeking to review passenger lists of the bus company for early October, 1963, and it was found at that time that the completed block of forms for most of the month of October, 1963, which included the above described passenger list, was still in the baggage room at the terminal prior to being discarded. He stated he had torn the October 2, 1963 manifest from the block of forms and furnished it to one of the officers. LOZANO advised that one Lieutenant ARTURO BOSCH, an investigator of the Presidential Staff, had reviewed the above manifest.

LOZANO expressed the opinion that ARTURO BOSCH had filled in the blanks in ink at the top of the form as to the time, destination, trip number, bus number, and date, and had crossed out the date 'November 1', replacing it with the notation 'October 2' which appeared on the manifest. . .
LOZANO stated the hand-printed notation appearing at the bottom of the manifest, 'Driver, DIONISIO REYNA, FCO. SAUCEDO,' was also filled in by BOSCH. 
LOZANO advised that there definitely was only one section of bus No. 340 which departed Mexico City at 1:00 pm on October 2, 1963, en route to Monterrey, Mexico, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He explained that the notation 'Departure 2' appearing on the top of the manifest, which he believed BOSCH had filled out, merely indicated the second departure of a Transportes Frontera bus on that particular day, October 2, 1963. The first departure of one of their buses on that day from the Mexico City terminal occurred at 9:00 am with the terminal point being Monterrey, Mexico. He stated the second departure of a Transportes Frontera bus from the Mexico City terminal on October 2, 1963, was the departure at 1:00 pm with the terminal point being Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and the passengers on this bus were recorded on the above-mentioned manifest of October 2,1963. He stated there were three other departures on that day from the Mexico City terminal, the third departure having occurred at 3:30 pm with the terminal point being Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico; the fourth departure having occurred at 9:00 pm with terminal point at Nuevo Laredo; and the fifth departure at 10:00 pm with terminal point being Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. LOZANO advised the only bus operating on their line which would have arrived at Nuevo Laredo between the hours of 12:00 am and 8:00 am on October 3, 1963, is bus No. 340, which departed from the Mexico City terminal at 1:00 pm on October 2, 1963.
At another point the report goes on:
He (ALEJANDRO SAUCEDO) recalled that shortly after the assassination of President JOHN F. KENNEDY two investigators, whom he described as being with the "Policia Federal Judicial" (Federal Judicial Police), appeared at the Flecha Roja terminal, Mexico, D.F., and requested the original passenger list of bus No. 516 of September 26, 1963, for review. SAUCEDO remembered that the two investigators examined the passenger lists, filed by dates, in a storeroom at the offices of the Flecha Roja bus terminal and found the original copy for the pertinent date and borrowed same. He could not recall the names of the investigators or the exact date they appeared at the office.
SAUCEDO now recalled clearly that these two investigators, whom he could only describe as being "in their thirties," had the duplicate copy of the passenger list which apparently had been at the Flecha Roja bus terminal office in Nuevo Laredo when the trip for September 26, 1963, began.
The investigators stated they wanted the original list because the duplicated copy was not completely legible. 
SAUCEDO stated they had the original and duplicate copy of the passenger manifest for Flecha Roja bus No. 516 for September 26, 1963, when they left.
SAUCEDO stated the investigators did exhibit to him government credentials, agency not recalled, and advised they were interested only in finding the passenger list for the incoming trip of bus No. 516 on September 26, 1963. When SAUCEDO asked them if they were interested in locating a departure trip, they stated they were not, explaining they had just been at the bus terminal of Transportes Frontera in Mexico, D.F., where They had located the passenger list for L. H. OSWALD'S departure from Mexico. . . . . .

During this search and review, an untied, loose bundle dated October 5, 1963, was located thrown aside in a cardboard box on the floor of the storage room outside the bin area. This bundle was reviewed and found to include passenger lists for dates September 21, 1963 to October 5, 1963, but no passenger list for bus No. 516 for September 26, 1963 was found.
The information hereinunder was furnished by T-13:
On March 24, 1963, Captain FERNANDO GUTIERREZ BARRIOS, Assistant Director of the Mexican Federal Security Police (DFS), advised that his agency had conduced no investigation in connection with the travel in Mexico of LEE HARVEY OSWALD; and did not have in its possession any passenger lists from any bus lines . . . . . 176
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA.

Ukrainian "Independence Day"

Upgraded Soviet-era military equipment on display during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.


Artillery equipment on display during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.

A Scarab rocket (OTR-21 Tochka) passes through during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.


Ukrainian soldiers march in central Kiev during the Independence Day parade on August 24.

US-made Cougar infantry carrier on display during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.


BTR-4 armored vehicles on display during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.

A Scarab rocket on show through during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.
Artillery equipment on display during the Independence Day parade in Kiev on August 24.

In Excess - The Death of Michael Hutchence



Music critic David Fricke, writing in Rolling Stone, supplemented the standard metro daily obituary: "His body bore the marks of a severe beating (a broken hand, a split lip, lacerations)."


"The sex game cover is a very useful mechanism in a murder. Not only does it provide a disguise for the actual means and method of death, it trashes the reputation of the victim and blunts the energy of any subsequent investigation."
Crispin Black - former government intelligence adviser



Prozac Package Insert : 

ADVERSE REACTIONS -
"Male and female sexual dysfunction with SSRIs— Although changes in sexual desire, sexual performance, and sexual satisfaction often occur as manifestations of a psychiatric disorder, they may also be a consequence of pharmacologic treatment. In particular, some evidence suggests that SSRIs can cause such untoward sexual experiences. 

Reliable estimates of the incidence and severity of untoward experiences involving sexual desire, performance, and satisfaction are difficult to obtain, however, in part because patients and physicians may be reluctant to discuss them. 

Accordingly, estimates of the incidence of untoward sexual experience and performance, cited in product labeling, are likely to underestimate their actual incidence.



"Police won't confirm the cause of death - but they've taken a leather belt into possession for scientific examination." 


- Initial ABC News Reports


"In a July 1998 interview that appeared in a fan newsletter, Colin Diamond, Hutchence's attorney and former executor of his estate, was asked about the vocalist's September 1996 opium bust and his defense that the narcotic was planted by police.

"Perhaps you should try and figure it out for yourself!", Diamond snapped.

"Got off, GOT OFF?? I think the question should be who tried to get him on!

You figure it out!"


The Holy Alliance - By CARL BERNSTEIN

Reagan and Karol compare bullet-wounds

Albino Lucciani, neé Pope John Paul I 
- A True Priest

Trouble Brewing.


At a news conference, when Carter was asked about the new pope, Brzezinski says that Carter replied, “Yes, I am very happy about the news. He is best friends with my national security advisor!”

Brzezinski was horrified.
In 1976, Polish Archbishop Karol Wojtyla visited the United States and had tea with Brzezinski, a fellow Pole. It was the first time they had met. Two years later Woktyla was elected pope (Pope John Paul II), the first non-Italian elected head of the Catholic Church in 455 years. When Brzezinski heard the the news, he called Carter, who was at Camp David, to tell him that he thought he should know that a Pole had just been elected pope. Later, at a news conference, when Carter was asked about the new pope, Brzezinski says that Carter replied, “Yes, I am very happy about the news. He is best friends with my national security advisor!” Brzezinski says he was horrified, lest the Pope would hear that and think he had bragged to Carter about them being such great friends after only having met once for tea. Fortunately, his worries proved to be unfounded and both men kept in touch up until the Pope’s death.



This article originally appeared in TIME Magazine on Monday, Feb. 24, 1992
Cover Story: The Holy Alliance
By CARL BERNSTEIN
Only President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were present in the Vatican Library on Monday, June 7, 1982. It was the first time the two had met, and they talked for 50 minutes. In the same wing of the papal apartments, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli and Archbishop Achille Silvestrini met with Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Judge William Clark, Reagan's National Security Adviser. Most of their discussion focused on Israel's invasion of Lebanon, then in its second day; Haig told them Prime Minister Menachem Begin had assured him that the invasion would not go farther than 25 miles inside Lebanon.
But Reagan and the Pope spent only a few minutes reviewing events in the Middle East. Instead they remained focused on a subject much closer to their heart: Poland and the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe. In that meeting, Reagan and the Pope agreed to undertake a clandestine campaign to hasten the dissolution of the communist empire. Declares Richard Allen, Reagan's first National Security Adviser: "This was one of the great secret alliances of all time."
The operation was focused on Poland, the most populous of the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe and the birthplace of John Paul II. Both the Pope and the President were convinced that Poland could be broken out of the Soviet orbit if the Vatican and the U.S. committed their resources to destabilizing the Polish government and keeping the outlawed Solidarity movement alive after the declaration of martial law in 1981.
Until Solidarity's legal status was restored in 1989 it flourished underground, supplied, nurtured and advised largely by the network established under the auspices of Reagan and John Paul II. Tons of equipment -- fax machines (the first in Poland), printing presses, transmitters, telephones, shortwave radios, video cameras, photocopiers, telex machines, computers, word processors -- were smuggled into Poland via channels established by priests and American agents and representatives of the AFL-CIO and European labor movements. Money for the banned union came from CIA funds, the National Endowment for Democracy, secret accounts in the Vatican and Western trade unions.
Lech Walesa and other leaders of Solidarity received strategic advice -- often conveyed by priests or American and European labor experts working undercover in Poland -- that reflected the thinking of the Vatican and the Reagan Administration. As the effectiveness of the resistance grew, the stream of information to the West about the internal decisions of the Polish government and the contents of Warsaw's communications with Moscow became a flood. The details came not only from priests but also from spies within the Polish government.
Down with Yalta
According to aides who shared their leaders' view of the world, Reagan and John Paul II refused to accept a fundamental political fact of their lifetimes: the division of Europe as mandated at Yalta and the communist dominance of Eastern Europe. A free, noncommunist Poland, they were convinced, would be a dagger to the heart of the Soviet empire; and if Poland became democratic, other East European states would follow.
"We both felt that a great mistake had been made at Yalta and something should be done," Reagan says today. "Solidarity was the very weapon for bringing this about, because it was an organization of the laborers of Poland." Nothing quite like Solidarity had ever existed in Eastern Europe, Reagan notes, adding that the workers' union "was contrary to anything the Soviets would want or the communists ((in Poland)) would want."
According to Solidarity leaders, Walesa and his lieutenants were aware that both Reagan and John Paul II were committed to Solidarity's survival, but they could only guess at the extent of the collaboration. "Officially I didn't know the church was working with the U.S.," says Wojciech Adamiecki, the organizer and editor of underground Solidarity newspapers and now a counselor at the Polish embassy in Washington. "We were told the Pope had warned the Soviets that if they entered Poland he would fly to Poland and stay with the Polish people. The church was of primary assistance. It was half open, half secret. Open as far as humanitarian aid -- food, money, medicine, doctors' consultations held in churches, for instance -- and secret as far as supporting political activities: distributing printing machines of all kinds, giving us a place for underground meetings, organizing special demonstrations."
At their first meeting, Reagan and John Paul II discussed something else they had in common: both had survived assassination attempts only six weeks apart in 1981, and both believed God had saved them for a special mission. "A close friend of Ronald Reagan's told me the President said, 'Look how the evil forces were put in our way and how Providence intervened,' " says Pio Cardinal Laghi, the former apostolic delegate to Washington. According to National Security Adviser Clark, the Pope and Reagan referred to the ) "miraculous" fact that they had survived. Clark said the men shared "a unity of spiritual view and a unity of vision on the Soviet empire: that right or correctness would ultimately prevail in the divine plan."
"Reagan came in with very simple and strongly held views," says Admiral Bobby Inman, former deputy director of the CIA. "It is a valid point of view that he saw the collapse ((of communism)) coming and he pushed it -- hard." During the first half of 1982, a five-part strategy emerged that was aimed at bringing about the collapse of the Soviet economy, fraying the ties that bound the U.S.S.R. to its client states in the Warsaw Pact and forcing reform inside the Soviet empire. Elements of that strategy included:
-- The U.S. defense buildup already under way, aimed at making it too costly for the Soviets to compete militarily with the U.S. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- Star Wars -- became a centerpiece of the strategy.
-- Covert operations aimed at encouraging reform movements in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
-- Financial aid to Warsaw Pact nations calibrated to their willingness to protect human rights and undertake political and free-market reforms.
-- Economic isolation of the Soviet Union and the withholding of Western and Japanese technology from Moscow. The Administration focused on denying the U.S.S.R. what it had hoped would be its principal source of hard currency in the 21st century: profits from a transcontinental pipeline to supply natural gas to Western Europe. The 3,600-mile-long pipeline, stretching from Siberia to France, opened on time on Jan. 1, 1984, but on a far smaller scale than the Soviets had hoped.
-- Increased use of Radio Liberty, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to transmit the Administration's messages to the peoples of Eastern Europe.
Yet in 1982 neither Reagan nor the Pope could anticipate the accession of a Soviet leader like Mikhail Gorbachev, the father of glasnost and perestroika; his efforts at reform unleashed powerful forces that spun out of his control and led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Washington-Vatican alliance "didn't cause the fall of communism," observes a U.S. official familiar with the details of the plot to keep Solidarity alive. "Like all great and lucky leaders, the Pope and the President exploited the forces of history to their own ends."
The Crackdown
The campaign by Washington and the Vatican to keep Solidarity alive began immediately after General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law on Dec. 13, 1981. In those dark hours, Poland's communications with the noncommunist world were cut; 6,000 leaders of Solidarity were detained; hundreds were charged with treason, subversion and counterrevolution; nine were killed; and the union was banned. But thousands of others went into hiding, many seeking protection in churches, rectories and with priests. Authorities took Walesa into custody and interned him in a remote hunting lodge.
Shortly after Polish security forces moved into the streets, Reagan called the Pope for his advice. At a series of meetings over the next few days, Reagan discussed his options. "We had a massive row in the Cabinet and the National Security Council about putting together a menu of counteractions," former Secretary of State Haig recalls. "They ranged from sanctions that would have been crushing in their impact on Poland to talking so tough that we would have risked creating another situation like Hungary in '56 or Czechoslovakia in '68."
Haig dispatched Ambassador at Large Vernon Walters, a devout Roman Catholic, to meet with John Paul II. Walters arrived in Rome soon after, and met separately with the Pope and with Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state. Both sides agreed that Solidarity's flame must not be extinguished, that the Soviets must become the focus of an international campaign of isolation, and that the Polish government must be subjected to moral and limited economic pressure.
According to U.S. intelligence sources, the Pope had already advised Walesa through church channels to keep his movement operating underground, and to pass the word to Solidarity's 10 million members not to go into the streets and risk provoking Warsaw Pact intervention or civil war with Polish security forces. Because the communists had cut the direct phone lines between Poland and the Vatican, John Paul II communicated with Jozef Cardinal Glemp in Warsaw via radio. He also dispatched his envoys to Poland to report on the situation. "The Vatican's information was absolutely better and quicker than ours in every respect," says Haig. "Though we had some excellent sources of our own, our information was taking too long to filter through the intelligence bureaucracy."
In the first hours of the crisis, Reagan ordered that the Pope receive as quickly as possible relevant American intelligence, including information from * a Polish Deputy Minister of Defense who was secretly reporting to the CIA. Washington also handed over to the Vatican reports and analysis from Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a senior member of the Polish general staff, who was a CIA informant until November 1981, when he had to be smuggled out of Poland after he warned that the Soviets were prepared to invade if the Polish government did not impose martial law. Kuklinski had issued a similar warning about a Soviet military action in late 1980, which led the outgoing Carter Administration to send secret messages to Leonid Brezhnev informing him that among the costs of an invasion would be the sale of sophisticated U.S. weapons to China. This time, Kuklinski reported to Washington, Brezhnev had grown more impatient, and a disastrous harvest at home meant that the Kremlin did not need mechanized army units to help bring in the crops and instead could spare them for an invasion. "Anything that we knew that we thought the Pope would not be aware of, we certainly brought it to his attention," says Reagan. "Immediately."
The Catholic Team
The key Administration players were all devout Roman Catholics -- CIA chief William Casey, Allen, Clark, Haig, Walters and William Wilson, Reagan's first ambassador to the Vatican. They regarded the U.S.-Vatican relationship as a holy alliance: the moral force of the Pope and the teachings of their church combined with their fierce anticommunism and their notion of American democracy. Yet the mission would have been impossible without the full support of Reagan, who believed fervently in both the benefits and the practical applications of Washington's relationship with the Vatican. One of his earliest goals as President, Reagan says, was to recognize the Vatican as a state "and make them an ally."
According to Admiral John Poindexter, the military assistant to the National Security Adviser when martial law was declared in Poland, Reagan was convinced that the communists had made a huge miscalculation: after allowing Solidarity to operate openly for 16 months before the crackdown, the Polish government would only alienate its countrymen by attempting to cripple the labor movement and, most important, would bring the powerful church into direct conflict with the Polish regime. "I didn't think that this ((the decision to impose martial law and crush Solidarity)) could stand, because of the history of Poland and the religious aspect and all," Reagan says. Says Cardinal Casaroli: "There was a real coincidence of interests between the U.S. and the Vatican."
The major decisions on funneling aid to Solidarity and responding to the Polish and Soviet governments were made by Reagan, Casey and Clark, in consultation with John Paul II. "Reagan understood these things quite well, including the covert side," says Richard Pipes, the conservative Polish-born scholar who headed the NSC's Soviet and East European desks. "The President talked about the evil of the Soviet system -- not its people -- and how we had to do everything possible to help these people in Solidarity who were struggling for freedom. People like Haig and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and James Baker ((White House chief of staff at the time)) thought it wasn't realistic. George Bush never said a word. I used to sit behind him, and I never knew what his opinions were. But Reagan really understood what was at stake."
By most accounts, Casey stepped into the vacuum in the first days after the declaration of martial law in Poland and -- as he did in Central America -- became the principal policy architect. Meanwhile Pipes and the NSC staff began drafting proposals for sanctions. "The object was to drain the Soviets and to lay blame for martial law at their doorstep," says Pipes. "The sanctions were coordinated with Special Operations ((the CIA division in charge of covert task forces)), and the first objective was to keep Solidarity alive by supplying money, communications and equipment."
"The church was trying to modulate the whole situation," explains one of the NSC officials who directed the effort to curtail the pipeline. "They ((church leaders)) were in effect trying to create circumstances that would head off the serious threat of Soviet intervention while allowing us to get tougher and tougher; they were part and parcel of virtually all of our deliberations in terms of how we viewed the evolution of government-sponsored repression in Poland -- whether it was lessening or getting worse, and how we should proceed."
As for his conversations with Reagan about Poland, Clark says they were usually short. "I don't think I ever had an in-depth, one-on-one, private conversation that existed for more than three minutes with him -- on any subject. That might shock you. We had our own code of communication. I knew where he wanted to go on Poland. And that was to take it to its nth possibilities. The President and Casey and I discussed the situation on the ground in Poland constantly: covert operations; who was doing what, where, why and how; and the chances of success." According to Clark, he and Casey directed that the President's daily brief -- the PDB, an intelligence summary prepared by the CIA -- include a special supplement on secret operations and analysis in Poland.
The Pope himself, not only his deputies, met with American officials to assess events in Poland and the effectiveness of American actions and sent back messages -- sometimes by letter, sometimes orally -- to Reagan. On almost all his trips to Europe and the Middle East, Casey flew first to Rome, so that he could meet with John Paul II and exchange information. But the principal emissary between Washington and Rome remained Walters, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked easily with Casey. Walters met with the Pope perhaps a dozen times, according to Vatican sources. "Walters was sent to and from the Vatican for the specific purpose of carrying messages between the Pope and the President," says former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Wilson. "It wasn't supposed to be known that Walters was there. It wasn't all specifically geared to Poland; sometimes there were also discussions about Central America or the hostages in Lebanon."
Often in the Reagan years, American covert operations (including those in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola) involved "lethal assistance" to insurgent forces: arms, mercenaries, military advisers and explosives. In Poland the Pope, the President and Casey embarked on the opposite path: "What they had to do was let the natural forces already in place play this out and not get their fingerprints on it," explains an analyst. What emerges from the Reagan- Casey collaboration is a carefully calibrated operation whose scope was modest compared with other CIA activities. "If Casey were around now, he'd be having some smiles," observes one of his reluctant admirers. "In 1991 Reagan and Casey got the reordering of the world that they wanted."
The Secret Directive
Less than three weeks before his meeting with the Pope in 1982, the President signed a secret national-security-decision directive (NSDD 32) that authorized a range of economic, diplomatic and covert measures to "neutralize efforts of the U.S.S.R." to maintain its hold on Eastern Europe. In practical terms, the most important covert operations undertaken were those inside Poland. The primary purposes of NSDD 32 were to destabilize the Polish government through covert operations involving propaganda and organizational aid to Solidarity; the promotion of human rights, particularly those related to the right of worship and the Catholic Church; economic pressure; and diplomatic isolation of the communist regime. The document, citing the need to defend democratic reform efforts throughout the Soviet empire, also called for increasing propaganda and underground broadcasting operations in Eastern Europe, actions that Reagan's aides and dissidents in Eastern Europe believe were particularly helpful in chipping away at the notion of Soviet invincibility.
As Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, a member of the House Intelligence Committee from 1985 to 1990, who was apprised of some of the Administration's covert actions, observes, "In Poland we did all of the things that are done in countries where you want to destabilize a communist government and strengthen resistance to that. We provided the supplies and technical assistance in terms of clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, propaganda, money, organizational help and advice. And working outward from Poland, the same kind of resistance was organized in the other communist countries of Europe."
Among those who played a consulting role was Zbigniew Brzezinski, a native of Poland and President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser. "I got along very well with Casey," recalls Brzezinski. "He was very flexible and very imaginative and not very bureaucratic; if something needed to be done, it was done. To sustain an underground effort takes a lot in terms of supplies, networks, etc., and this is why Solidarity wasn't crushed."
On military questions, American intelligence was better than the Vatican's, but the church excelled in its evaluations of the political situation. And in understanding the mood of the people and communicating with the Solidarity leadership, the church was in an incomparable position. "Our information about Poland was very well founded because the bishops were in continual contact with the Holy See and Solidarnosc," explains Cardinal Silvestrini, the Vatican's deputy secretary of state at that time. "They informed us about prisoners, about the activities and needs of Solidarity groups and about the attitude and schisms in the government." All this information was communicated to the President or Casey.
"If you study the situation of Solidarity, you see they acted very cleverly, without pressing too much at the crucial moments, because they had guidance from the church," says one of the Pope's closest aides. "Yes, there were times we restrained Solidarnosc. But Poland was a bomb that could explode -- in the heart of communism, bordered by the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Too much pressure, and the bomb would go off."
Casey's Cappuccino
Meanwhile, in Washington a close relationship developed between Casey, Clark and Archbishop Laghi. "Casey and I dropped into his ((Laghi's)) residence early mornings during critical times to gather his comments and counsel," says Clark. "We'd have breakfast and coffee and discuss what was being done in Poland. I'd speak to him frequently on the phone, and he would be in touch with the Pope." Says Laghi: "They liked good cappuccino. Occasionally we might talk about Central America or the church position on birth control. But usually the subject was Poland."
"Almost everything having to do with Poland was handled outside of normal State Department channels and would go through Casey and Clark," says Robert McFarlane, who served as a deputy to both Clark and Haig and later as National Security Adviser to the President. "I knew that they were meeting with Pio Laghi, and that Pio Laghi had been to see the President, but Clark would never tell me what the substance of the discussions was."
On at least six occasions Laghi came to the White House and met with Clark or the President; each time, he entered the White House through the southwest gate in order to avoid reporters. "By keeping in such close touch, we did not cross lines," says Laghi. "My role was primarily to facilitate meetings between Walters and the Holy Father. The Holy Father knew his people. It was a very complex situation -- how to insist on human rights, on religious freedom, and keep Solidarity alive without provoking the communist authorities further. But I told Vernon, 'Listen to the Holy Father. We have 2,000 years' experience at this.' "
Though William Casey has been vilified for aspects of his tenure as CIA chief, there is no criticism of his instincts on Poland. "Basically, he had a quiet confidence that the communists couldn't hold on, especially in Poland," says former Congressman Edward Derwinski, a Polish-speaking expert on Eastern Europe who counseled the Administration and met with Casey frequently. "He was convinced the system was falling and doomed to collapse one way or another -- and Poland was the force that would lead to the dam breaking. He demanded a constant ((CIA)) focus on Eastern Europe. It wasn't noticed, because other stories were more controversial and were perking at the moment -- Nicaragua and Salvador."
In Poland, Casey conducted the kind of old-style operation that he relished, something he might have done in his days at the Office of Strategic Services during World War II or in the early years of the CIA, when the democracies of Western Europe rose from the ashes of World War II. It was through Casey's contacts, his associates say, that elements of the Socialist International were organized on behalf of Solidarity -- just as the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe had been used as an instrument of American policy by the CIA in helping to create anticommunist governments after the war. And this time the objective was akin to creating a Christian Democratic majority in Poland -- with the church and the overwhelmingly Catholic membership of Solidarity as the dominant political force in a postcommunist Poland. Through his contacts with leaders of the Socialist International, including officials of socialist governments in France and Sweden, Casey ensured that tactical assistance was available on the Continent and at sea to move goods into Poland. "This wasn't about spending huge amounts of money," says Brzezinski. "It was about getting the message out and resisting: books, communications equipment, propaganda, ink and printing presses."
Look for the Union Label
In almost every city and town, underground newspapers and mimeographed bulletins appeared, challenging the state-controlled media. The church published its own newspapers. Solidarity missives, photocopied and mimeographed on American-supplied equipment, were tacked to church bulletin boards. Stenciled posters were boldly posted on police stations and government buildings and even on entrances to the state-controlled television center, where army officers broadcast the news.
The American embassy in Warsaw became the pivotal CIA station in the communist world and, by all accounts, the most effective. Meanwhile, the AFL- CIO, which had been the largest source of American support for Solidarity before martial law, regarded the Reagan Administration's approach as too slow and insufficiently confrontational with the Polish authorities. Nonetheless, according to intelligence sources, AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland and his aide Tom Kahn consulted frequently with Poindexter, Clark and other officials at the State Department and the NSC on such matters as how and when to move goods and supplies into Poland, identifying cities where Solidarity was in particular need of organizing assistance, and examining how Solidarity and the AFL-CIO might collaborate in the preparation of propaganda materials.
"Lane Kirkland deserves special credit," observes Derwinski. "They don't like to admit ((it)), but they literally were in lockstep ((with the Administration)). Also never forget that Bill Clark's wife is Czechoslovak, as is Lane Kirkland's wife. This is one issue where everybody was aboard; there were no turf fights or mavericks or naysayers."
But AFL-CIO officials were never aware of the extent of clandestine U.S. assistance, or the Administration's reliance on the church for guidance regarding how hard to push Polish and Soviet authorities. Casey was wary of "contaminating" the American and European labor movements by giving them too many details of the Administration's efforts. And indeed this was not strictly a CIA operation. Rather, it was a blend of covert and overt, public policy and secret alliances. Casey recognized that in many instances the AFL- CIO was more imaginative than his own operatives in providing organizational assistance to Solidarity and smuggling equipment into the country. According to former deputy CIA director Inman, Casey decided that the American labor movement's relationship with Solidarity was so good that much of what the CIA needed could be financed and obtained through AFL-CIO channels. "Financial support wasn't what they needed," says Inman. "It was organization, and that was an infinitely better way to help them than through classic covert operations."
The Solidarity office in Brussels became an international clearinghouse: for representatives of the Vatican, for CIA operatives, for the AFL-CIO, for representatives of the Socialist International, for the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, which also worked closely with Casey. It was the place where Solidarity told its backers -- some of whose real identities were unknown to Solidarity itself -- what it needed, where goods and supplies and organizers could be most useful. Priests, couriers, labor organizers and intelligence operatives moved in and out of Poland with requests for aid and with detailed information on the situation inside the government and the underground. Food and clothing and money to pay fines of Solidarity leaders who were brought before Polish courts poured into the country. Inside Poland, a network of priests carried messages back and forth between the churches where many of Solidarity's leaders were in hiding.
In the summer of 1984, when the sanctions against Poland seemed to be hurting ordinary Poles and not the communists, Laghi traveled to Santa Barbara to meet with Reagan at the Western White House and urge that some of the sanctions be lifted. The Administration complied. At the same time, the White House, in close consultation with the Vatican, refused to ease its economic pressures on Moscow -- denying technology, food and cultural exchanges as the price for continuing oppression in Poland.
Much of the equipment destined for Solidarity arrived in Poland by ship -- often packed in mismarked containers sent from Denmark and Sweden, then unloaded at Gdansk and other ports by dockers secretly working with Solidarity. According to Administration officials, the socialist government of Sweden -- and Swedish labor unions -- played a crucial role in arranging the transshipment of goods to Poland. From the Polish docks, equipment moved to its destination in trucks and private cars driven by Solidarity sympathizers who often used churches and priests as their point of contact for deliveries and pickups.
"Solidarity Lives!"
"The Administration plugged into the church across the board," observes Derwinski, now Secretary of Veterans Affairs. "Not just through the church hierarchy but through individual churches and bishops. Monsignor Bronislaw Dabrowski, a deputy to Cardinal Glemp, came to us often to tell us what was needed: he would meet with me, with Casey, the NSC and sometimes with Walters." John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia, whose father was born in Poland, was the American churchman closest to the Pope. He frequently met with Casey to discuss support for Solidarity and covert operations, according to CIA sources and Derwinski. "Krol hit it off very well with President Reagan and was a source of constant advice and contact," says Derwinski. "Often he was the one Casey or Clark went to, the one who really understood the situation."
By 1985 it was apparent that the Polish government's campaign to suppress Solidarity had failed. According to a report by Adrian Karatnycky, who helped organize the AFL-CIO's assistance to Solidarity, there were more than 400 underground periodicals appearing in Poland, some with a circulation that exceeded 30,000. Books and pamphlets challenging the authority of the communist government were printed by the thousands. Comic books for children recast Polish fables and legends, with Jaruzelski pictured as the villain, communism as the red dragon and Walesa as the heroic knight. In church basements and homes, millions of viewers watched documentary videos produced and screened on the equipment smuggled into the country.
With clandestine broadcasting equipment supplied by the CIA and the AFL-CIO, Solidarity regularly broke into the government's radio programming, often with the message "Solidarity lives!" or "Resist!" Armed with a transmitter supplied by the CIA through church channels, Solidarity interrupted television programming with both audio and visual messages, including calls for strikes and demonstrations. "There was a great moment at the half time of the national soccer championship," says a Vatican official. "Just as the whistle sounded for the half, a SOLIDARITY LIVES! banner went up on the screen and a tape came on calling for resistance. What was particularly ingenious was waiting for the half-time break; had the interruption come during actual soccer play, it could have alienated people." As Brzezinski sums it up, "This was the first time that communist police suppression didn't succeed."
"Nobody believed the collapse of communism would happen this fast or on this timetable," says a cardinal who is one of the Pope's closest aides. "But in their first meeting, the Holy Father and the President committed themselves and the institutions of the church and America to such a goal. And from that day, the focus was to bring it about in Poland."
Step by reluctant step, the Soviets and the communist government of Poland bowed to the moral, economic and political pressure imposed by the Pope and the President. Jails were emptied, Walesa's trial on charges of slandering state officials was abandoned, the Polish communist party turned fratricidal, and the country's economy collapsed in a haze of strikes and demonstrations and sanctions.
On Feb. 19, 1987, after Warsaw had pledged to open a dialogue with the church, Reagan lifted U.S. sanctions. Four months later, Pope John Paul II was cheered by millions of his countrymen as he traveled across Poland demanding human rights and praising Solidarity. In July 1988, Gorbachev visited Warsaw and signaled Moscow's recognition that the government could not rule without Solidarity's cooperation. On April 5, 1989, the two sides signed agreements legalizing Solidarity and calling for open parliamentary elections in June. In December 1990, nine years after he was arrested and his labor union banned, Lech Walesa became President of Poland.



A Cat Named Peaches


Peaches Geldof inquest told she hid heroin in sweet box
Peaches Geldof's husband Tom Cohen says the 25-year-old presenter had started using heroin again in February this year as inquest hears there was no evidence she intended to take her own life


The fatal heroin dose that killed Peaches Geldof was discovered in a box containing sweets, an inquest has heard.

The 25-year-old mother of two was found dead in April in the spare bedroom of her home in Kent, with her 11-month old son Phaedra, close by in another room.
Having successfully beaten her heroin addiction several months before, the inquest heard she had begun using again in February this year.

Police who searched the house after her death discovered almost seven grams of high purity heroin worth around £550 hidden in a cloth bag in a cupboard.

Elsewhere they also found almost 80 needles and a number of burnt spoons, used by addicts to prepare the drug for injection.

The syringe containing the fatal dose was discovered in a cardboard box next to the bed containing sweets.

Miss Geldof’s own mother, Paula Yates died of a heroin overdose in 2000 and the hearing heard how on the night before her death, she had posted a picture of herself as a child with her late mother on a social networking page, with the message: “Me and my mum.”

At the full inquest into her tragic death, the coroner for North West Kent, Roger Hatch, said Miss Geldof had been a regular heroin user, but had been successfully receiving treatment and had been free of the drug just four months before her death.

Her husband, Thomas Cohen, who discovered her body, told the inquest that in November 2013, routine tests had indicated that she was free of heroin.

He said she had also been working to reduce her dose of the heroin substitute, Methadone, prescribe to addicts.
But in February this year Mr Cohen said he had found messages on her phone, suggesting she had resumed her use of the drug.

After confronting her he said she had retrieved a quantity of heroin from the loft of their home and had flushed it down the lavatory.

The inquest heard how her tolerance to the effects of heroin would have been much reduced during the period when she was no longer using and that, combined with the high 61 per cent purity of the narcotics found, would have contributed to the fatal overdose.

Describing the scene at the four-bedroom house in Wrotham, Kent, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fotheringham, told the inquest in Gravesend, Miss Geldof had been found in a spare room, which was often used by her or her husband when they wanted to share a bed with one of their children.

DCI Fotheringham said: “Peaches was wearing a grey dress and a long sleeved striped top. Peaches was located perched on the side edge of the bed with her left arm hanging down to the floor with her right foot tucked underneath her.

“She was slumped forward onto her front with her left arm draped over an open laptop computer
“Underneath Peaches body was an Apple iPhone, a packet of cigarettes and a pair of black tights with a knot tied into them. Also on the bed was a small clear coloured cap thought to have come from a syringe.

“Underneath the bed a dessert spoon was located with visible burn marks on the underside and a small amount of a brown residue on the upper side.

“Next to the bed and within reaching distance of Peaches was an open brown cardboard box containing sweets; a capped syringe was located in this box

“It was noted that there was a small amount of a brown fluid left in the main chamber and another small amount of residue/fluid inside the cap.

“This residue was tested by Forensic scientists who have confirmed that the brown residue found does contain traces of diamorphine, which is commonly known as heroin.”

DCI Fotheringham added: “Detailed searches of the whole premises took place and located heroin and various items used for the preparation and consumption of heroin.

“The major discovery in the second of four bedrooms was a black cloth bag stored in a cupboard over the bedroom door.

“Located within this cloth bag was part of a plastic bag tied together by a dark hair band, the bag contained a brown powder. This powder was later examined by a Forensic Scientist Dr Peter Cain.
“He confirmed that the brown powder was 6.91 grams of Diamorphine, more commonly known as Heroin with a purity of 61 per cent.”

The inquest was told that street heroin usually has a purity level of around 26 per cent.

DCI Fotheringham said there was an ongoing police investigation to establish who had supplied Miss Geldof with the heroin but no arrests had been made.

The inquest heard there was no evidence that Miss Geldof had intended to take her own life.

Summing up the findings, Mr Hatch said: “It is said that the death of Peaches Geldof is history repeating itself.


"This is not entirely so as by November last year she had ceased to take heroin as a result of the considerable treatment and counselling she had received."

“This was a significant achievement for her. For reasons we will never know, prior to her death she returned to taking heroin again.

“I am left with no alternative than to record that the death of Peaches Honeyblossom Cohen-Geldof was drugs related. May I express my sympathies to the family.”


Mr Cohen left the inquest without comment.

Shades of Grey - Sir Edward Grey Turned Sarajevo Crisis Into War





Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
Printed in The American Almanac, March, 1995

Even after decades of British geopolitical machinations, it still required all of Sir Edward Grey’s perfidy and cunning to detonate the greatest conflagration in world history by exploiting the diplomatic crisis surrounding the assassination of the Austrian heir apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Sir Edward Grey had learned an important lesson in the Moroccan crisis of 1911, when Germany sent the warship {Panther} to Agadir to secure German interests there, which were in conflict with those of France. This lesson was that if Germany clearly perceived in a crisis that there was a direct risk of Anglo-German war, Berlin would back down, frustrating the war party in London. In the Agadir crisis, the British minister Lloyd George had delivered a clear public warning to Berlin, and Germany had replied at once that she was not seeking a permanent presence on the Atlantic coast of Morocco; the crisis was soon resolved.
The German chancellor from 1909 to 1917, Dr. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, was an anglophile and a crony of the kaiser’s student days, anxious to make concessions to London in order to secure peace. Sir Edward Grey declared in 1912 that any differences between England and Germany would never assume dangerous proportions “so long as German policy was directed by” Bethmann-Hollweg.
During the Balkan Wars and the Liman von Sanders affair of 1913, Grey cultivated the illusion of good relations with Germany. By mid-1914, Anglo-German relations were judged by Sir Edward Goschen, the British ambassador to Berlin, as “more friendly and cordial than they had been in years.” But it was all a trick by Perfidious Albion.
Some weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian government, blaming Belgrade, addressed a very harsh ultimatum to Serbia on July 23 demanding sweeping concessions for investigating the crime and the suppression of anti-Austrian agitation. The Russian court slavophiles were demanding war against Austria and Germany in defense of Serbia; these slavophiles were madmen on the strategic offensive who sought a general European war. In Vienna, the leading minister, Count Berchtold, and the chief of staff, Conrad von Hoetzendorff, were determined to use the crisis to smash Serbia, which they saw as a threat to the survival of their empire. Berchtold and Hoetzendorff were madmen on the strategic defensive, even if they assumed the tactical offensive against Serbia. Their aggressive intentions involved Serbia, but not other great powers. When Serbia issued a conciliatory reply to the Austrian ultimatum, Kaiser Wilhelm II and others were relieved and thought that the war danger had receded; but the Vienna madmen seized on minor refusals by Serbia to declare war on July 28.
If Sir Edward Grey had sincerely wished to avoid war, he could have pursued one of two courses of action. The first would have been to warn Germany early in the crisis that in case of general war, Britain would fight on the side of France and Russia. This would have propelled the kaiser and Bethmann into the strongest efforts to restrain the Vienna madmen, probably forcing them to back down. The other course would have been to warn Paris and especially St. Petersburg that Britain had no intention of being embroiled in world war over the Balkan squabble, and would remain neutral. This would have undercut the St. Petersburg militarists, and would have motivated Paris to act as a restraining influence.
Grey, a disciple of Edward VII, did neither of these things. Instead he maintained a posture of deception designed to make Germany think England would remain neutral, while giving Paris hints that England would support Russia and France. These hints were then passed on to Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov, a British agent, and to Czar Nicholas II. In this way, French {revanchistes} and Russian slavophiles were subtly encouraged on the path of aggression.
Grey’s deception of Germany meant assuming the posture of a mediator rather than a possible party to the conflict. In early and middle July, Grey proposed direct conversations between Vienna and St. Petersburg to avoid war, but dropped this when French President Poincaré, a war-monger, responded that this would be “very dangerous.” On July 24, Grey shifted to a proposal for mediation by other great powers of the Austrian-Russian dispute. On July 26, Grey proposed a conference of ambassadors from England, France, Italy, and Germany, which was declined by Germany for various reasons. Grey’s charade of war avoidance contributed to complacency in Berlin and a failure to do anything to restrain the Vienna crazies, since, the kaiser thought, if England did not fight, France and Russia were unlikely to do so either.
Edward VII’s son King George V made a vital contribution to the British deception. Late on July 26, King George V told the kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry, who was visiting England, that Britain had “no quarrel with anyone and I hope we shall remain neutral.” This was seized upon by the pathetic kaiser as a binding pledge of British neutrality for which, he said “I have the word of a king; and that is sufficient for me.” The gullible Kaiser Wilhelm was kept thoroughly disoriented during the last critical period when Germany could have forced Vienna to back down and avoid general war, before the fateful Russian and Austrian mobilizations of July 30 and 31.

THE DECLARATION OF WAR

It was late on July 29 before any warning of British armed intervention in the looming conflict was received in Berlin. When German forces entered Belgium in the context of the Schlieffen Plan (the German plan for a two-front war against France and Russia), Grey declared war at midnight Aug. 4-5, 1914.
The British were the first of the great powers to mobilize their war machine, in this case the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy. On July 19, the British had already staged a formidable naval demonstration with a review of the Grand Fleet at Portsmouth. On the afternoon of July 28, Winston Churchill ordered the fleet to proceed during the night at high speed with no lights from Portsmouth through the Straits of Dover to its wartime base of operations at Scapa Flow, north of Scotland. On July 29, the official “warning telegram” was sent out from the Admiralty; the British fleet was now on a full war footing.
The first continental state to mobilize had been Serbia, on July 25. The order of general mobilizations was Serbia, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, France, and, finally, Germany.