Selective Memory of George H.W. Bush

[Chad Williams]

First I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Charles Williams (aka Chad). I'm 30, from Midwest.... I currently run two websites thedivineeye.wordpress.com (formerly thedivineeye.net) and new spinoff researchjfkassassination.wordpress.com... The former is an archive of audio/visual/literature files for researchers and the latter is my attempt to create an archive of all free and downloadable materials from around the web and offer a one stop place to learn about the different researchers, theories, witnesses, etc..... Without having to know anything about the assassination previously... I have found there is so much great information available online, but had I been someone who had no idea what I was looking for, I may not have found it. So while both sites are still in process of being expanded, there is still plenty of information available...

Anyways, back to the topic (btw I hope this is right place for topic) , I was reading the latest issue of Popular Mechanics and the main article was about the Challenger explosion, which happened 30 years ago. One of the individuals who was interviewed was George Bush made the following quote:

"At the age of ninety-one my memory is not what it used to be. I am beginning to think I have now forgotten more than I ever knew to begin with. But like all Americans who are of a certain age, I Remember the Day The Challenger Blew Up."

I was a little stunned when I read this and read it over a couple of times. Because here is a man admitting he remembered the day the challenger blew up (He was never accused of having insider knowledge or blowing up the challenger himself ;-)), which happened 30 years ago. Yet at about the age of 60 he could not remember anything from a day 15-20years prior (11-22-63) and arguably a more dramatic and devastating day.

Anyways, I created a fancy little image of Poppy with the quote. And thanks for allowing me to be part of this forum.

- Charles

[Kathleen Collins]

There is a picture on youtube of George H.W. Bush leaving the funeral of Cord Meyer. He is on the steps. He

had to be CIA to attend that funeral. In front of him on the ground is President John F. Kennedy also leaving

Meyer's funeral. Cord Meyer was some sort of manic-depressive. He once entered the Oval Office to see

Kennedy and immediately picked up a phone and yelled, "Scramble the planes!" which he thought was funny.

He was in the OSS and then the CIA. He was friends with Kennedy and John Kennedy had an affair with Mary

Pinchot Meyer, later murdered. Here is the clip:

https://youtu.be/Wap7YX1OeUs

Kathy C

[Brian Schmidt]

You mean Philip Graham? Cord Meyer died in 2001. How would Bush (if that is him) attending Graham's funeral prove he was CIA?

[Kathleen Collins]

You are right, Brian. I didn't know Cord Meyer lived so long, but I now see I was wrong about whose funeral

it was. It must have been Philip Graham. That definitely was George HW Bush in the picture. The person

who made that video on youtube said it was proof that Bush was in the CIA. If Bush was just an owner of

Zapata Oil, what was he doing at Graham's funeral? I know Phil Graham shot himself shortly after being

taken out of a mental hospital. Some writers believe there was something not kosher about his death and

Katherine Graham became the owner of the Washington Post. I'm sorry if I confused anybody.

Kathy C

[Chuck Schwartz]

Here is an essay on Bush / Zapata:

The company traces its origins to Zapata Oil, founded in 1953 by future-U.S. President George H. W. Bush, along with his business partners John Overbey, Hugh Liedtke, Bill Liedtke, and Thomas J. Devine. Overbey was a ‘landman’, skilled in scouting oil fields and obtaining drilling rights cheaply. Bush and Thomas J. Devine were oil-wildcatting associates.[1] Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil.[2] The initial $1 million investment for Zapata was provided by the Liedtke brothers and their circle of investors, by Bush's father Prescott Bush and his maternal grandfather George Herbert Walker, and their family's circle of friends. Hugh Liedtke was named president, Bush was vice president; Overbey soon left.
According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975,[2] Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 through Bush's joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business, but who continued to work for the CIA under commercial cover. Devine would later accompany Bush to Vietnam in late 1967 as a "cleared and witting commercial asset" of the agency, acted as his informal foreign affairs advisor, and had a close relationship with him through 1975.[3]
In 1954, Zapata Off-Shore Company was formed as a subsidiary of Zapata Oil, with Bush as president of the new company. He raised some startup money from Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, and his son-in-law, Phillip Graham.[4][5]
Zapata Off-Shore accepted an offer from an inventor, R. G. LeTourneau, for the development of a mobile but secure drilling rig. Zapata advanced him $400,000, which was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function, followed by an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock when it did.
The U.S. government began to auction off mineral rights to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Central American coast in 1954, and in the late 1950s and early 1960, Zapata Off-Shore concentrated its business in these areas.[6] In 1958, drilling contracts with the seven largest U.S. oil producers included wells 40 miles (64 km) north of Isabela, Cuba, near the island Cay Sal.
In January 1959, the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista, and Bush bought control of Zapata Off-Shore, funded with $800,000,[7] splitting Zapata Corporation into two independent companies with the Liedtkes still in control of Zapata Petroleum. Bush moved his offices and family that year from Midland, Texas to Houston for access to the Caribbean through the Houston Ship Channel.[8] But although Zapata Offshore had only a few drilling rigs, Bush set up operations also in the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf, Trinidad, Borneo, and Medellín, Colombia, and the Kuwait Shell Petroleum Development Company was among the company's clients.[9]
In 1960, Jorge Díaz Serrano (es) of Mexico was put in touch with Bush by Dresser Industries. Dresser was owned by Prescott Bush's Yale friends Roland and W. Averell Harriman, and had been George H.W. Bush's first employer upon his graduation from Yale, giving him his start in both the oil business and the defense contractor business.[10] Serrano and Bush created a new company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo, aka Permargo, in conjunction with Edwin Pauley of Pan American Petroleum, with whom Zapata had a previous offshore contract. The deal with Permargo is not mentioned in Zapata's annual reports, and SEC records are missing. In 1988, a Bush spokesman claimed that the deal lasted only from March to September 1960. However, Zapata sold the oil-drilling rig Nola I to Pemargo in 1964.[citation needed]
Zapata's filing records with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955–1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960–1966 are missing. The commission's records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse, and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer), or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to, Wison Carpenter, a record analyst with the commission).[11]
During the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Zapata allowed its oil rigs to be used as listening posts.[12] In 1988, Barron's said Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the [Central Intelligence Agency]."[12]
In 1962, Bush was joined in Zapata Off-Shore by Robert Gow.[13] By 1963, Zapata Off-Shore had four operational oil-drilling rigs—Scorpion (1956), Vinegaroon (1957), Sidewinder, and (in the Persian Gulf) Nola III.
In 1963, Zapata Petroleum merged with South Penn Oil and other companies, to become Pennzoil.
By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.
In 1964, Bush ran for the United States Senate, and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to his business partner, Robert Gow, and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives.
On September 9, 1965, Hurricane Betsy struck the coast of Louisiana sinking the oil rig Maverick.[14] No lives were lost, however, $8 million in Zapata assets were lost.[14] A helicopter flew Bush over the area for several days until debris was located.[14] After evidence was submitted to Lloyd's of London for the loss, they paid Zapata for the claim.[14]
In 1966, William Stamps Farish III, age 28, joined the board of Zapata.
Decline[edit]
Zapata, under Robert Gow's direction, sought to acquire a controlling interest in the United Fruit Company in 1969, but was outbid by AMK Corp.[15] Robert's father, Ralph Gow, was on United Fruit's board of directors.
In the 1970s, under chairman and CEO William Flynn, Zapata expanded its business to include subsidiaries in dredging, construction, coal mining, copper mining and fishing.
By the late 1970s, saddled with weak operations, high debt and low return on investment, the company again began undergoing changes in management and direction. Led by John Mackin, who succeeded William Flynn, the company began selling off some of those businesses and refocused on offshore oil and gas exploration and production.
In 1982, chief operating officer Ronald Lassiter assumed the role of CEO, and presided over a decade of loss-making brought on by the collapse of oil prices. In 1982, Zapata Off-shore became Zapata Corporation. Its stock performed poorly. By 1986, Zapata was one of the bad loans that shook the foundations of San Francisco-based Bank of America, with a debt of more than $500 million and a fiscal year loss of $250 million. The company announced several restructurings during those years and managed to stave off bankruptcy, but continued to incur major losses. In 1990 the oil drilling company proposed selling its entire fleet of offshore drilling rigs to focus solely on fishing. The company had not had a profitable quarter in more than five years.
In 1990, Zapata Offshore sold 12 of its drilling rigs to Arethusa Offshore, which a few years later merged with Diamond Offshore. Still struggling with debt by 1993, Zapata signed a deal with Norex America to raise more than $100 million through a loan and stock sale. But financier Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL franchise and at the time owner of 40 percent of Zapata, did not want his holdings diluted and filed a lawsuit to block the deal.
Glazer era and the birth of Harbinger Group Inc.[edit]
By 1994, the company had come under Glazer's control, after a proxy fight. Glazer became chairman of Zapata, replacing Ronald Lassiter, and in 1995 Avram Glazer was named CEO and president of Zapata. De facto headquarters moved from Houston to Rochester, New York. It no longer engaged in exploration, but owned several natural gas service companies. It also produced protein products from the menhaden fish. In subsequent years Zapata sold its energy-related businesses and focused on marine protein.
Between 1998 and 2000, Zapata tried to position itself as an internet media company under the "zap.com" name. In July 1998, Zapata announced its plans to acquire several web sites, including ChatPlanet, TravelPage and DailyStocks.com.[16] The company's stock boomed and crashed along with other dot-coms, and in 2001 the company conducted a 1 for 10 reverse stock split. The venture was cited by many investment journalists as an example of a company jumping on the internet bandwagon without any relevant experience. This period is probably best remembered for Zapata's unsolicited (and unsuccessful) takeover bid of the Excite internet portal.[17]
During this period, Zapata also built up a controlling stake in Safety Components International, a manufacturer of air bag fabrics and cushions.
On December 2, 2005, Zapata Corporation Chairman, Avram ("Avi") Glazer, announced the sale of 4,162,394 shares, 77.3%, of Safety Components International to Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. for $51.2 million. The company sold its remaining stock in Omega Proteine on December 1, 2006, leaving it with no active subsidiary. The Glazer family sold its controlling stock of the Zapata Corporation to Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital in 2009, and the company's name was changed to Harbinger Group Inc. with the ticker symbol HRG on the NYSE.[18][19] In 2010–2011, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC transferred its 54.4% interest in Spectrum Brands to Harbinger Group Inc. giving the company controlling interest in that company.[20][21] Also in 2011 Harbinger Group Inc. acquired the insurance company Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings, Inc.[22][23]
In 2013, Salus Capital (a unit of Harbinger Group) and Cerberus Capital Management issued a quarter-billion dollars in financing to struggling retailer RadioShack Corporation.[24] Among the terms of this deal were restrictions which prevented RadioShack from closing more than 200 of its 4275 company-owned retail stores a year and limited its ability to refinance, which proved to be a key obstacle leading to that firm's February 2015 Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the chain was forced to keep more than a thousand unprofitable stores open.[25][26] Fidelity & Guaranty Life, the insurer backed by Harbinger Group, also has a $50 million stake in the RadioShack bankruptcy.[27]
References[edit]
1. Jump up ^ Baker, Russ, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p. 13.
2. ^ Jump up to: a b Withheld (sanitized, unclassified document), Central Intelligence Agency (November 29, 1975). "Memorandum: To: Deputy Director of Operations; Subject: Messrs. George Bush and Thomas J.". NARA Record Number: 104-10310-10271.
3. Jump up ^ "MEMORANDUM:MESSRS. GEORGE BUSH AND THOMAS J. DEVINE", 3 pp.
4. Jump up ^ Hasty, Michael (February 5, 2004). "Secret admirers: The Bushes and the Washington Post". Online Journal. Archived from the original on April 5, 2004.
5. Jump up ^ Perin, Monica (April 23, 1999). "Adios, Zapata! Colorful company founded by Bush relocates to N.Y.". Houston Business Journal.
6. Jump up ^ King, Nicholas (1980). George Bush: A Biography. Dodd Mead. ISBN 0-396-07919-9.
7. Jump up ^ "Zapata Oil Files, 1943–1983". George Bush Personal Papers. George Bush Presidential Library. Archived from the original on August 20, 2007.
8. Jump up ^ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p. 36.
9. Jump up ^ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p. 35.
10. Jump up ^ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp. 23–28.
11. Jump up ^ Jonathan Kwitny, "The Mexican Connection: A look at an old George Bush business venture", Barron's September 19, 1988. Cited with further discussion by Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp. 37 and 503.
12. ^ Jump up to: a b Bardach, Ann Louise Bardach (2009). "The Island and the Empire". Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 60. ISBN 9781416580072. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
13. Jump up ^ http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/green-acres/
14. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Schweizer, Peter; Schweizer, Rochelle (2005) [2004]. "Chapter 14: Mainstream". The Bushes. New York: Anchor Books (published January 2005). p. 174. ISBN 0-385-49864-0.
15. Jump up ^ "Prettying Up Chiquita", Time (magazine). September 3, 1973
16. Jump up ^ July 1998. Zapata's next shot at the Net. http://news.cnet.com/Zapatas-next-shot-at-the-Net/2100-1023_3-212978.html
17. Jump up ^ Suzanne Galante (May 21, 1998). "Excite rejects Zapata's bid". CNET News.com.
18. Jump up ^ Bloomberg, Manchester United Owner Glazer Turns to Falcone (Update1)
19. Jump up ^ Harbinger Group, Inc., Zapata Corporation Announces Third Quarter Results and Reincorporation Merger.
20. Jump up ^ Harbinger Group, Inc., Harbinger Group Inc. and Harbinger Capital Partners Enter into Definitive Agreement on Transfer of Spectrum Brands Majority Interest
21. Jump up ^ Harbinger Group, Inc., Harbinger Group Inc. Completes Spectrum Brands Share Exchange with Harbinger Capital Partners
22. Jump up ^ Harbinger Group, Inc., "Harbinger Group Inc. Completes Acquisition of Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings, Inc.: $350 million purchase price represents approximately 39% of Statutory Capital and 22% of IFRS Net Book Value"
23. Jump up ^ Harbinger Group, Inc., "Harbinger Group Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement for Acquisition of Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings, Inc.: $350 million purchase price represents approximately 39% of Statutory Capital and 22% of IFRS Net Book Value. Further value secured through comprehensive life reinsurance commitment provided by Wilton Re to address life insurance redundant reserves requirements. New management team to be led by Lee Launer, CEO and Chairman."
24. Jump up ^ http://seekingalpha.com/article/2725915-radioshack-to-fight-covenant-breaches-claim-from-harbinger-unit
25. Jump up ^ "Behind RadioShack's Collapse Is a Tiny Distressed Lender". Bloomberg. February 8, 2015.
26. Jump up ^ http://www.bidnessetc.com/34376-small-lenders-interests-might-have-bankrupted-radioshack-corporation/
27. Jump up ^ Tracer, Zachary (February 10, 2015). "RadioShack Creditors Said to Include Harbinger's Insurer F&G". Bloomberg.
Public records[edit]
• SEC filings of Zapata Corporation
• Zapata Offshore Annual Reports, Microform Reading Room, Library of Congress.
• National Security Archives documentation of GHW Bush's CIA involvement in the early 1960s.[dead link]
• United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action 88–2600 GHR, Archives and Research Center v. Central Intelligence Agency, Affidavit of George William Bush, September 21, 1988.
Zapata[edit]
• Franklin, H. Bruce, "Net Losses", Mother Jones, March 2006 – extensive article on role of Menhaded in ecosystem and possible results of overfishing. Retrieved February 21, 2006
George Bush[edit]
• Kevin Philips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Penguin (2004), esp. pp. 200–208.
• Joseph McBride, "The Man Who Wasn't There: 'George Bush,' CIA Operative", The Nation, July 16/23, 1988, p. 42.
• Joseph McBride, "Where Was George?", The Nation, August 13/20, 1988, on the whereabouts of GHW Bush on November 22, 1963.
• Nicolas King, George Bush: A Biography.
• Anthony L. Kimery, "George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends", Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1992.
• The Mafia, CIA & George [HW] Bush, Pete Brewton, S.P.I. Books, 1992
CIA[edit]
• Baker, Russ. 2009. Family of Secrets: The Bush dynasty, the powerful forces that put it in the White House, and what their influence means for America. New York: Bloomsbury Press. Reissued in paper (2009) with the subtitle The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years.
• Beschloss, Michael R. 1991. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–63 Edward Burlingame Books, p. 89 refers to "Operation Zapata" as the codename for the Bay of Pigs operation.
• Bissell, Richard M. Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo. 1996. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-06430-8
• Phillips, David Atlee, The Night Watch.
• Trento, Joseph J. 2005. Prelude to Terror: The Rogue

[Joe Bauer]

Regards this fascinating Bush/Zapata essay;

incredibly revealing of how things really work in this corporate country of ours.

[Paul Brancato]

reslly great, especially the impressive sources. Russ Baker goes much further, investigating not just the history of the corporate entity known as Zapata and Zapata offshore, but the Bush family itself. So, was Zapata set up as a CIA front? Was George Bush CIA at the time? Well, I've posted on this many times, but in general people avoid it, and I think, based on minor personal dealings with the Bushes, perhaps wisely. Russ Baker showed a lot of courage writing his book, as did others. But why the research community won't take the Bush family connection to the assassination of JFK seriously is incomprehensible to me.

[Glenn Nall]

Interesting - I didn't realize it was so avoided by people. I'm certainly convinced that he was a lot more than he says, or "remembers," he was; and most likely at least "in the know" (probably more) of some of those events. Just his willingness to lie about it is consciousness of some guilt, in many eyes. (Along with Nixon...)

(And, as a Conservative, I'm still perfectly happy to attach Bush to Barry Seal's and Bill Clinton's, et al, 'games' in Mena, Arkansas.)

His, and his dad's and his grandad's, names come up way too often in the stuff i'm looking at to be ignored. It's certainly not like the Bushes were a family of saints. Not with their circle of friends and business associates. And congressional injunctions. gads.

reslly great, especially the impressive sources. Russ Baker goes much further, investigating not just the history of the corporate entity known as Zapata and Zapata offshore, but the Bush family itself. So, was Zapata set up as a CIA front? Was George Bush CIA at the time? Well, I've posted on this many times, but in general people avoid it, and I think, based on minor personal dealings with the Bushes, perhaps wisely. Russ Baker showed a lot of courage writing his book, as did others. But why the research community won't take the Bush family connection to the assassination of JFK seriously is incomprehensible to me.

[Glenn Nall]

"Zapata, under Robert Gow's direction, sought to acquire a controlling interest in the United Fruit Company in 1969, but was outbid by AMK Corp."

who wrote this essay? just curious, since the author isn't credited here...

I was under the impression that Zapata did purchase United Fruit in '69... is that wrong? I just read this somewhere else, didn't follow it up.

[Joe Bauer]

To me, G.H.W. Bush's nationally reported and recorded claim that he didn't remember ( and still doesn't ? ) where he was when he heard of JFK's murder was an outrageously brazen display of dismissive arrogance.

I always wondered if Bush truly realized how much that statement made tens of millions of American citizens who were alive on 11,22,1963 ( and over the age of say 10? ) instantly feel a twinge of uneasiness about his honesty.

I have personally never met anyone who was a teenager or older in America on 11,22,1963 that didn't remember where they were that day unless perhaps they were under anesthesia or mentally handicapped or very isolated ( camping, hunting, logging , etc ) from any TV, radio or newspaper reports.

This ridiculously illogical statement of Bush's ( "can't remember where I was on 11,22,1963" ) was actually insulting of millions of honest American's own memory intelligence and appropriately one of his most enduring top three negative historical association ones ... right up there with "Read My Lips."

Yet, he and the main stream historical community just seem to laugh it all off.

Ha, let the peons worry about my ridiculous absent minded explanation. Nothing will come of it.

And nothing really has, except that lingering twinge of doubt and suspicion.

But, even that concern is dying off as we of the JFK generation pass on.

I also remember another Bush act of arrogance. When he was debating Clinton and Ross Perot, the camera caught him pulling up his coat sleeve to look at his watch with an expression of bothered "can't these people hurry this up" annoyance.

I guess that is the attitude one acquires after three generations of elitist affluence and power.

[Paul Brancato]

Joe - you got that right - arrogance.

[Chuck Schwartz]

Glenn, the essay is on Wikipedia. I got it via Google.

[Glenn Nall]

Glenn, the essay is on Wikipedia. I got it via Google.

cool. thanks. was just curious...

[Glenn Nall]

Let me add some more about GHWBush, Zapata "and friends" with some excerpts from the exquisite research of Richard Bartholomew and company written in 1996:

/***********************/

Prescott Bush, the father of former U.S. President George Bush, had just ended a record setting twenty-two year stint on Dresser's board to take his seat in the U.S. Senate in 1952. The senior Bush, who had been inducted into Yale's secret Order of the Skull and Bones with Neil Mallon in 1917, used his financial expertise to reorganize his friend's company in 1928 and 1929.

As [Researcher Bruce Campbell] Adamson points out, "It was at a Dresser subsidiary, International Derrick and Equipment Company (IDECO), where young George [bush] would get his first start in 1948." And "For clear evidence of George Bush's admiration for Mr. Mallon, one need look no further than the birth certificate of Bush's third son. Neil Mallon Bush was born on January 22, 1955, in Midland, Texas. In fact it was Mallon who personally offered George Bush the IDECO job." Like his father, the future president would form a close personal friendship with Mallon, "the man who used his company, friends and business contacts as cover for CIA-sponsored projects."

Adamson's research also indicates that Mallon and Dulles also formed a close friendship. They visited each other in Washington and Dallas, exchanged gifts, and noted significant family anniversaries. Bruce Adamson notes that, "it was Neil Mallon who helped introduce Allen Dulles to the wealthy and influential in Dallas society." He further notes that when George Bush was founding Zapata Oil (which later explored for oil near a Carribean base used for CIA raids against Cuba), Prescott Bush and Neil Mallon were meeting in Washington, D.C. with CIA Director Dulles to discuss a "Pilot Project" in the Caribbean.

Adamson also discovered that George Bush offered more pay to Wayne H. Dean, a top engineer at Kerr & McGee Oil, to come work for him as one of Zapata's first drilling superintendents. Adamson learned from another engineer who worked at Kerr & McGee in 1952, that "Wayne Dean and de Mohrenschildt were very good friends." Dean went on to become a top executive at Zapata.

According to Zapata's 1960 annual report, "In September, Mr. Wayne Dean resigned his position as executive vice president and director in order to go into the drilling business in Mexico. Mr. G.H. Walker, managing partner of G.H. Walker and Co., New York City, has been elected to fill the vacancy on the board." As we will see, in 1934, a shipping line established at the end of World War I in a deal arranged for Brown Brothers, Harriman by Prescott Bush's partner and father-in-law, G.H. Walker, was found by Congress to be subsidizing "a wide range of pro-Nazi propaganda efforts both in Germany and the United States."

In other Bush-de Mohrenschildt links, Adamson notes that wealthy oilman Edwin Wendell Pauley, with whom Bush and others at Zapata formed the Permargo drilling company in Mexico, is listed in de Mohrenschildt's phone book four times. An employee at Mexico's Pemex Oil Company, Antonio J. Bermudez, is also in de Mohrenschildt's phone book. Bermudez was "a very close friend to Everette DeGolyer, owner of DeGolyer & MacNaughton and father-in-law of one of LBJ's right-hand men, George Crew McGhee."

[...]

Zapata Off-Shore was the oil company owned by former President George Bush after he split it off from Zapata Oil partner Hugh Liedtke in 1954.283 Beginning in 1957 Zapata Off-Shore's rig was drilling on the Cay Sal Bank. These islands had been leased to Nixon supporter and CIA contractor Howard Hughes the previous year and were later used as a base for CIA raids on Cuba. In 1969, Zapata bought the United Fruit Company of Boston.

Bush, like Harry Ransom, is a Phi Beta Kappa and graduate from Yale. Liedtke was a graduate of the UT Law School. Former FBI agent and Magnolia Oil employee, W. Dewey Presley, was director, president and CEO of First International Bank Ltd. when George Bush became a director there after leaving the CIA in 1977.

Not only did Bush's father, former U.S. Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush, have post-war ties to Hitler assassination plotters Dulles, Bancroft, and Gisevius, through Dresser Industries, he had been deeply involved in companies used to finance Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In 1942, Prescott was the senior managing partner of Brown Brothers, Harriman. That year, "the Union Banking Corp., an affiliate of Brown Brothers, Harriman, was seized by the U.S. government as a front for German nationals who had helped bankroll Hitler since the early 1920s." In 1934, a shipping line established at the end of World War I in a deal arranged for Harriman by Prescott's partner and father-in-law, G.H. Walker, was found by Congress to be subsidizing "a wide range of pro-Nazi propaganda efforts both in Germany and the United States."

Bush's close friend and confidant, William "Will" Stamps Farish III, also has family ties to companies that helped sponsor the Nazis. In 1937, William Stamps Farish, Sr., became chief executive and president of Standard Oil of New Jersey after merging his own company, Humble Oil, with John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s. In 1942, a Senate committee headed by Harry S Truman found that Standard had extensive secret relations with both Germany and Japan; including close relations with Hitler's government and a virtual cartel with "Germany's giant I.G. Farben chemical complex, manufacturers of Zyklon B, the nerve gas used in the Nazi death camps to exterminate ‘undesirables.'" Bush goes quail hunting annually on Farish's Lazy F Ranch near Beeville, Texas.

[...]

Snubbed by the CIA, Hemming formed his own group, Interpen, "a kind of Dirty dozen times two." With him was Robert K. Brown, a graduate of the counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird, Maryland. Hemming funded Interpen with support from right-wing Dallas oilman Clint Murchison, who was a close associate of the Cabell brothers, Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover. Additional funding came from Howard Hughes associate C. Osmet Moody, who owned the Cay Sal Bank islands where George Bush's rig was drilling from 1957-1963. Funding also came from H.L.'s son Nelson Bunker Hunt, and right-wing radio station magnate Gordon McLendon.

McLendon owned the Dallas top-40 station, KLIF. Jack Ruby had a close relationship with McLendon and other staff at KLIF and visited the station several times during the weekend of the assassination. On the back of an envelope found in Ruby's pocket when he shot Oswald was the phone number (DA1-0467) of his friend, KLIF disc jockey, Russ "Weird Beard" Knight. Ruby had even called McLendon's home the night of the assassination.

[...]

It was Robert H. Stewart (director of GSW and FNBD) who hired George Bush in 1977 (after President Carter replaced him as CIA director) to be director of First International Bankshares, Inc. (FIB, Inc.) of Dallas.

Bush was also named a director of First International Bankshares, Ltd. (FIB, Ltd.), FIB, Inc.'s London Merchant bank. Another FIB, Ltd. director was W. Dewey Presley, the president and chairman of FIB, Inc.'s executive committee. He is also listed in the book Who's Who in CIA (the acronym CIA is used loosely here to mean any intelligence related work). Presley's entry reads:

b.: 26.5.1918;
1939-42 in Magnolia Oil and Pipe Line Companies;
1942-52 Special Agent of FBI; from 1960 Vice President of First National Bank, Dallas;
OpA [area of operation]: Dallas

[...]

There is, however, another intriguing individual at FIB with connections to Magnolia, George Bush, and others discussed in this paper. He is J. Rawles Fulgham Jr., president of FIB, Inc. and chairman of FIB, Ltd. Fulgham was identified in a 1982 news report as a director of Dorchester Gas Corp. (see Nexis). Dorchester Gas was the company owned by Jack Alston Crichton, which had D.H. Byrd as a director. It was Crichton who selected his and Ruth Paine's friend, Ilya Mamantov to be Marina's interpreter. And as we have seen, Mamantov was teaching scientific Russian to the Magnolia employees who met the Oswalds at the (Feb. 1963) party discussed earlier.

It will be recalled that one of the three Mamantov students living at the house where the party took place, Volkmar Schmidt, had lived and studied with one of the survivors of the failed plot to assassinate Hitler -- a fact which brings us to another intriguing connection of FIB's president and chairman. Fulgham was identified as a director of Dresser Industries (see Nexis), where Bush's father had been a director and Bush himself got his first job. It is recalled that Dresser is also where Hans Gisevius, another survivor of the Hitler plot, friend of Allen Dulles and Ruth Paine's friend Mary Bancroft, "spent some time in Texas."

In Anthony Sutton's America's Secret Establishment, we find, on page 146, that this Posner firm [Wall Street law firm of Weinburg and Posner (relation to Gerald suspected but not yet known )] was also tied to Colonel Edward Mandell House, the man who put Wilson and his cabinet from the University of Texas in the White House with Allen Dulles' treasonous uncle, Robert Lansing. Also, Lansing was stirring up trouble in Mexico at the same time as William F. Buckley, Sr. With that in mind, look at page 615 of Dick Russell's book, The Man Who Knew Too Much (paperback ed.). Mamantov and Bush knew each other "very well." All of this makes me really want to read The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1959). I'm becoming more and more interested in "interior departments" and "commerce departments." Mexico's DFS (see below) was part of that country's Interior Ministry. A look at interior and commerce officials in this and other countries reveals a motley cast of characters.

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IF it could be conclusively shown that Bush and Ilya Mamantov knew each other in 1963 I'd surely look forward to the fireworks.

[Glenn Nall]

some more interesting stuff on Bush, Permindex, Brown & Root, Paul Raigorodsky, etc...

http://hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/coverups/bronfmanbush.html

much of this content is contributed by Linda Minor, I believe. there is some perhaps silly speculation intertwined, but an awful lot of 'interrelationships' documentation, such as:

"...principal financiers of Permindex were a number of U.S. oil companies, H.L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, John De Menil, Solidarist director of Houston, John Connally, as executor of Sid Richardson estate, Haliburton [sic] Oil Co., Sen. Robert Kerr of Okla., Troy Post of Dallas, Lloyd Cobb of New Orleans, Dr. Oechner [Ochsner] of New Orleans, George and Herman Brown of Brown & Root, Attorney Roy M. Cohn, Chairman of the Board for Lionel Corp., New York City, Schenley Industries of New York City, Walter Dornberger, ex-Nazi general and his company, Bell Aerospace, Pan American World Airways and its subsidiary, Intercontinental Hotel Corp., Paul Raigorodsky [founder of St Nicholas Parish Russian Community, CIA funded] of Claiborne Oil of New Orleans, Credit Suisse of Canada, and Heineken's Brewery of Canada and a host of other munitions makers and NASA contractors directed by the Defense Industrial Security Command."

"Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC), the Italian arm of Permindex, was incorporated in Berne Switzerland, and D' Amelio sat on the board of directors during the time that Seagrams' attorney, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield of Montreal, was chairman of Permindex.

When the role of CMC in the attempted assassination of President DeGaulle of France was discovered, it fled Europe and re-emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, the parent company, Permindex, continued to be managed from Montreal by Bloomfield. Clay Shaw, the man prosecuted in New Orleans by Jim Garrison for his role in the Kennedy assassination, was also a board member of CMC, with which his International Trade Mart had connections."

"In the same year that Zapata and Pennzoil were moving toward hostile takeovers, a new Swiss bank opened in Houston with J. Hugh Liedtke and George Bush's securities adviser, W.S. Farish III, among the directors. Called "Bank for Investment and Credit Berne" (BICB), its stock was owned by Capital National Bank and Paravicini Bank, but investors included Seagrams, Boeing, Minute Maid in Zurich, the London subsidiary of Brown and Root and the Schlesinger Organization of London and Johannesburg. These investors are more than interesting in light of the fact that Paravicini is a descendant of the Venetian Pallavicini family, whose attorney in Rome, Carlo d'Amelio, was the general counsel to Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC)."