Assassination, Terrorism and the Arms Trade: Debate

[John Simkin]

There's a documentary opening on Friday entitled "Why We Fight." The previews begin with Ike's speech about the MIC and go on to claim that of the 750 billion dollar annual defense budget, 25% is pure gravy. Should be an interesting response. No doubt the Bush Administration has an attack strategy already planned.

Do you know any good books on this subject. I have found various examples from different books. For example, in Laton McCartney’s Friends in High Places, he tells the story of how in 1942 John McCone and Steve Bechtel obtained a contract to build aircraft at Willow Run in Alabama. The War Department agreed to pay all the company’s costs plus 5 percent on work estimates presented by Bechtel-McCone every six months.

A 300-acre factory was built and 8,000 employees hired to staff it. However, no aircraft were built. Employees were paid for doing nothing. A local man, George P. Alexander, discovered details of this scam and collected affidavits from workers who admitted that they “went in every day at 9.00, punched the time clock, then went home”. They then returned to the factory at 5.00 to “punch out”.

Alexander filed suit against Bechtel-McCone in federal district court on 31st July, 1943. He claimed that the company had made “many and various claims against the government of the United States, or a department or officer thereof, knowing such claims to be false, fictitious or fraudulent.”

However, the judge dismissed the case. The problem was with the contract, not the claims by Bechtel-McCone. As John McCone admitted to Fortune Magazine on 17th May, 1943: “Every six months, we estimate how much work we expect to do in the next six months and then we get a fee of five percent of the estimated amount of work regardless of how much work we actually do turn out.”

Bechtel-McCone was also involved in another scandal concerning war contracts. Lieutenant General Brehon Somervell, head of the Army Sources of Supply Command, decided to build “a major refinery at the Norman Wells oilfields in Canada’s Northwest Territories, and run a pipeline from there 1,200 miles southwest through the Yukon Territory into Alaska.”

The contract to do this was given to John McCone and Steve Bechtel. It was a very good contract as Bechtel-McCone were guaranteed a 10% profit on the project (the kind of deal that George Bush gave to Halliburton in Iraq). The other surprising thing about the Canol Project was that it was to be a secret contract. It seems that Somervell did not want anyone outside the War Department and the Bechtel-McCone Corporation to know about this deal. The reason for this is that Harold Ickes, as Interior Secretary and the head of the Petroleum Administration for War, should have been the person who oversaw this project.

The $35 million for the project came from within a massive war appropriations bill that was passed by Congress in April 1942. After working on it for a year the cost had reached over $100 million. It was finished in May 1945. However, the wrong sized pipes had been used and it was discovered that to pump the oil it cost $150 per barrel rather than the $5 estimated by Somervell, Bechtel and McCone. Less that a year after it was finished, the plant and pipeline was abandoned. It had cost the American taxpayer $134 million.

[Pat Speer]

John, the Howard Hughes bio-pic The Aviator dealt in no small part with war-profiteering. Hughes had been given millions of dollars in contracts during WW2 and had not created one acceptable war plane. Senator Owen Brewster tried to use this against Hughes in order to force Hughes to give his international flights over to Pan-Am. But Hughes started discussing how many HUNDREDS of millions went to the other contractors for unfilled contracts, and started talking about Brewster's personal ties to Pan-Am. This killed the hearings. (Of course we know Hughes had some help in this from Pearson and Maheu etcl)

You've piqued my interest in Corcoran. While I doubt he personally was involved in the assassination, his career is symptomatic of the corruption of the period. Can you imagine the conversations between men like Davidson, Williams, Maheu, and Corcoran, should they have ever shared a drink?

[Pat Speer]

Some more bits on "The Cork" from Pat's stack o' books.

The Washington Pay-Off 1972, Robert Winter-Berger. pg. 206-207 The Cork represents Burlington in an anti-Trust case. His mere presence is credited with providing an effectiive defense. pg. 274. The Cork befriends Anna Chenault in 1959. He shows her the ropes in becoming an effective lobbyist for South Vietnam. In 1969, Flying Tigers Airline, part-owned by Chennault, is given a lucrative contract through Nixon's manipulations. (Chennault of course has admitted that she interfered with the 1968 Peace talks at Nixon's request.)

Spooks, 1978, Jim Hougan. pg. 266 It's mentioned that Robert Maheu performed work for The Cork (Maheu's book never mentions this.)

Counsel to the President 1991, Clark Clifford. pg. 190 Truman hated "the cork" intensely. Truman questioned The Cork's commitment to the New Deal. Clifford questioned his ethics. Notes that Truman had Hoover bug The Cork's phone calls from 1945 to 1948. pg. 581 Notes that Anna Chennault dedicated her memoirs to The Cork. Also notes that the back channel used by Nixon to communicate with Chennault and Thieu in 1968 included John Mitchell and John Tower. (I'd forgotten about Tower's involvement.)

The Court Years 1980, William O. Douglas pg. 260 Refers to Cork as FDR's "hatchet man." Notes that Cork was an active lobbyist who worked underground, contacting key staff members to put pressures on agencies. Notes that the Cork told Justice Brennan that if Brennan would not allow a specific merger he'd get a bill through congress to approve it. Says the bill was introduced in March 1971. (Douglas fails to mention that the Cork had been one of his biggest supporters.)

Command of Office, 2004, Stephen Graubhard. pg. 328 Notes that in 1956 Joseph and Robert Kennedy approached The Cork with an offer that he was to take to LBJ. The offer? Johnson tack JFK on as VP and Joe would arrange the financing for Johnson's presidential campaign. Johnson refused.

Washington Confidential, 1951, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer. pg.158. Notes that "Persuasion on the Department of Justice is handled by Laughlin Currie, a former Truman appointee, through Tommy "The Cork" Corcoran, a Roosevelt favorite." (Note that this is roughly when Rosselli was released.)

Bitter Fruit, 1983, Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, pg. 90-94 Notes Corcoran's role in getting the U.S. to overthrow Arbenz. pg. 229 Notes that Corcoran's lobbying on United Fruit's behalf back-fired and Dulles et al sat back and watched as United Fruit was dragged into an anti-trust lawsuit. It eventually had to return 100,000 acres to the Guatemalan peasants.

From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, 1975 Joseph P. Lash. pg. 36 Lash Notes that Frankfurter helped arrange for a Young Cork to become Oliver Wendell Holmes' law secretary. pg. 233 May 4, 1943. Frankfurter notes that Justice Frank Murphy was disturbed by The Cork's power over the FCC and was dissenting from the majority opinion allowing the FCC to control NBC. (This oughta help feed John's suspicions about Operation Mockingbird.) pg. 310. April 7, 1947 Frankfurter notes that Frank Murphy "went on to speak deprecatingly of the efforts to run Bill (William O. Douglas) for the vice-Presidency. Quotes Murphy as saying that Joe Kennedy is behind it. "He continued to speak very disparagingly, as he has often spoken, of Douglas' political manifestations through "Tommy Corcoran" and "those fellows". Murphy then went on to talk of Kennedy at length, and told Franfurter of an approach made to him by Kennedy, to run Kennedy's legal affairs, at the very time Murphy was being rumored for a spot as Attorney General. Kennedy's emissary? Arthur Krock (the journalist who, only weeks before the assassination, would write about the likelihood of the CIA pulling a coup d'etat on JFK).

These last passages raise a question I'd never before considered. Was Joseph Kennedy part of the Suite 8F Group?

Memoirs, 1968 Arthur Krock. pg. 162. Recounts one day in 1935 when he hid upstairs at Joe Kennedy's mansion after FDR and The Cork stopped by. Listens as they drink, sing songs, and tell stories for hours. He was hiding from FDR because he'd just attacked him in a column about the "wealth tax"(at SEC Chairman Kennedy's request?). pg. 337. Recounts Corcoran's role in getting LBJ onto the ticket with JFK. Corcoran, probably at Joe Kennedy's request, convinced everyone that JFK would lose without Johnson. Johnson said no unless Sam Rayburn--the head of the party--recommended it. Edward Foley and Corcoran then met with Rayburn, but to no avail. Hale Boggs (???) then went in and met with Rayburn, telling Rayburn that LBJ would swing Louisiana to the Dems, and this did the trick.

Edited January 18, 2006 by Pat Speer

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

On the topic of defense spending at a critical time for corporate flow charts, I recommend Harry Truman and the War Scare of 1948 by Frank Kofsky, who is a Historian somewhere within the University of California.

Its great regarding this topic, because it starts with an overall analysis of the aircraft industry transitioning

from 1945 into the Cold War, and then goes into the politics of this massive transfusion of our taxes into said industry.

[John Simkin]

John,

To keep things in perspective, I think it's important to establish that the details of the crime and conspiracy fits in with the overall history, the little pieces make the big picture understandable.

Priscilla Johnson McMillan hit the nail on the head when she said that people didn't want to believe that a lone nut could come out of the woodwork and change history, an anamolly that doesn't make sense, when in fact what happened at Dealey Plaza does fit very nicely into the secret covert history of Current Events.

John Judge says that real history ends with World War II when we begin to study Current Events, a managed history.

At one ASK conference in Dallas Judge was ridiculed by "Oswald Talked" Mary for mentioning Mae Brussell's article on the Nazis and the JFK Assassination, and indeed, the network that was responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza committed successful political assassiantons and coups before and since then.

A number of those involved in the failed assassinaton and coup attempt on Hitler in 1944 - Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft, Hans Gissivius and Volkmar Schmidt's stepfather were all directly involved in that plot - and after it failed, hundreds of suspects and their families were executed.

After World War II, Project Paperclip, Wringer and other similar operations brought Nazi scientists (Von Braun, et al) and Russian spy networks (Gehlen) to the United States, a program that also included Gen. Dornberger, Allen Dulles, Clay Shaw and other JFK assassination personas.

When they went from OSS to CIA - Frank Wisner set up the Old Boys Blue Blood network from among the rich - mainly defense contractors - Larry Bell at Bell Hel, Art Collins at Collins Radio, or like Cummins Catherwood - whose family made theri money in munitions, institutionalizing their funding and often going from government to private operations.

We have many examples besides TC, of moving from government ops to private ops - Contras -Ed Wilson, and even last week - Rummy was quoted as saying he can't wait to get out of government and into the corporate world where there will be less restraints on what he wants to do.

While I have yet to read Joe Trento's book, I do take exception to one of your references to it.

JOHN WRITES:

In 1945, U.S. forces captured the banking documents held by the Nazis regarding Prescott Bush. Robert Cowley was one of those who saw these documents. He told Joseph Trento that the “file was damning”. (60) It seems that this information was “far more detailed than the records the Justice Department had obtained during its banking investigation”.

According to Joseph Trento, this information was passed to Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and John J. McCloy, the German High Commissioner. (61) This information was kept from the American public. However, over the years, Prescott Bush and his family had to pay a price for this secrecy.

Dulles was himself involved in working with fascists fleeing from Germany. In his book ‘The Secret History of the CIA’, Trento argues that “Donovan and Dulles secretly threw in America’s lot with the worst of the Third Reich. America was actively recruiting Nazis – not simply scientists, but high-level military and civilian officials of the Hitler regime.” (62) This included Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo, and Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s top assistant.

John J. McCloy helped Dulles to help Nazis to escape punishment. As German High Commissioner he controversially ordered the release from prison of German industrialists such as Alfried Krupp and Friedrich Flick who had been convicted of serious war crimes at Nuremberg.

NOTES :

60. Robert Crowley was a member of the OSS and later became associate director of the CIA.

61. Joseph Trento, Prelude to Terror, 2005 (page 3)

62. Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, 2001 (page 29)

END JOHN'S EXCERPT

Now John, I don't know if you've followed this story, but the idea that Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo survived WWII and with the help of the CIA, lived out his life quietly in California, is what Gregory Douglas (Sic) says in his book "Regicide." Douglas attributes Mueller's post-war USA sorjurn to the late Robert Crowley, who also, according to Greg Doug, organized the JFK assassination in a series of DC meetings chronicled in the apparantly bogus Zipper Documents, discussed in a separate thread.

I wouldn't trust Trento without double checking, and don't believe Gregory Douglas, Crowley or Angleton.

You're framing the Big Picture correctly, but the devil's in the details.

Of course it is exciting that the intelligence network responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza is still active today, but to really unravel such a network, it takes equally powerfull counter-measures, knowing that you are going up against those who so far got away with killing a president.

Bill Kelly

Thank you for pointing this out. I should have remembered the point about Heinrich Mueller as I have written about him in the past.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERmullerH.htm

I agree that Joe Trento is sometimes unreliable. I think that all investigative journalists are vulnerable on this point. It is very much a psychological problem. They find someone who has worked in the field of covert operations who is willing to talk about their experiences. If they believe the testimony they have a big story. If they don’t, they don’t have a story. Therefore, there are psychological reasons why they want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Trento did this with Angleton and Cowley. No doubt that some of the things they told Trento were true. However, they also told him things that were untrue. This is something that he does not want to admit to as it undermines their credibility as witnesses. Therefore he responds by claiming everything they told him is true. In doing so, he undermines his own credibility.

[John Simkin]

John,

Betchel is certainly a most interesting character.

As a sidebar, in 1976, the National Business Leadership Conference inducted 4 in the Business Hall of Fame. Betchel was one, Cyrus Smith from American Airlines, Thomas John Watson from IBM and George Stevens Moore from the First National City Bank were the others.

The presenters were W.F. Rockwell Jr., board chairman of Rockwell International which is the parent company for Richardson's Collins Radio Co., and John Swearingen of Standard Oil.

Below is an interesting collection of folk. Research into any one of them will reveal a staggering array of associations and influence.

From left to right we have, William DeForest Manice, Kenneth Isaacs, Henry Corbett, Harvey Mudd, Landon Thorne, James Black, Steve Betchell, E.A. Craft, H.J. McKenzie, William Crocker, Allen Chickering, Cleveland Dodge, A.T. Mercer, V.H. Rossetti, John Walsh and Everette DeGolyer.

It is circa 1953.

James

I am afraid I have not come across most of these people before. Is it possible that they were involved in the funding of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI)? This became a very important organization in the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

The person I am very interested in is John L. Simpson. He was a close friend of an interesting group of people including Allen and John Foster Dulles, Dean Acheson and William Donovan. Simpson was recruited into the OSS by Allen Dulles. His official title was chief financial advisor for the U.S. Army in Europe.

In 1944 Simpson returned to San Francisco and became a consultant to the company run by John McCone and Steve Bechtel (Betchtel-McCone Corporation). His arrival brought even more contracts from the War Department. In 1946 Simpson was appointed as chief financial officer. Simpson was Betchtel-McCone’s link man to the CIA. He arranged for several people in the company to work as CIA agents while working in countries like Iran. In fact, according to Laton McCartney (Friends in High Places), Simpson was closely associated with the CIA backed coup in Iran in 1953. As a result of this coup, the Betchtel Corporation (by this time John McCone was a silent partner using his position in government to arrange for large contracts to be given to his former company) obtained vast profits from business deals with the new rulers in Iran.

Do you have any information or photos of John L. Simpson?

[John Simkin]

In the summer of 1940 Steve Bechtel and John McCone had a meeting with Admiral L. Vickery of the U.S. Maritime Commission. Vickery told the men he “had received a telegram from the British Purchasing Commission (BPC) urgently requesting that the Maritime Commission arrange the building of 60 tankers to replace the ships the British had lost to German torpedoes”. At another meeting a few weeks later, Maritime Commission chairman, Admiral Emory S. Land, told Bechtel and McCone that: “Besides building ships for the British, they would have to build them for the Americans as well. Not merely tankers, but Liberty and Victory cargo ships, troop transports, the whole makings of a merchant navy.” Admiral Land confidently added that thousands of vessels would be needed as “America was headed into war.”

As a result of these two meetings, Bechtel, McCone and Kaiser built shipyards at Richmond and Sausalito. Several of their companies were involved in this project that became known as “Operation Calship”. It was a terrible gamble because at that time they were relying on the predictions of Admiral Emory S. Land. However, Land was right and only a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Maritime Commission awarded Calship its first shipbuilding contract. Within a year, Calship was employing over 42,000 workers at its two shipyards.

At the same time as Bechtel, McCone and Kaiser were building shipyards for a war that they had been told was coming, Tommy Corcoran was telling friends that he was leaving government. He told Sam Rosenman: "I want to make a million dollars in one year." After leaving government in October, 1940, Corcoran's first client was Kaiser.

Corcoran then goes to China and helps establish China Defense Supplies with Chaing Kai-shek. FDR set this up in this way because he wanted to arm the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek without the support of Congress (Most members of Congress believed that this action would trigger a war with Japan).

Corcoran then goes on to work with Claire Lee Chennault and William Pawley to establish the Flying Tigers. Another operation that could triggered a war with Japan. Is this why Admiral Land, Bechtel, McCone, Kaiser, etc. were so convinced that America would soon be involved in the Second World War?

[Gerald McKnight]

All of this was new to me. I know McCone pushed the "Red Plot" business with Oswald in Mexico City, even after he was aware that the Alvarado Story was bogus. He also allowed Helms to take the lead in convincing the WC that Oswald was never an Agency operative or source. There is also the incident when Bobby went to him, as DCI, and asked him point blank whether the CIA had anything to do with Dallas. McCone, of course, assured him it did not.

[Pat Speer]

In the summer of 1940 Steve Bechtel and John McCone had a meeting with Admiral L. Vickery of the U.S. Maritime Commission. Vickery told the men he “had received a telegram from the British Purchasing Commission (BPC) urgently requesting that the Maritime Commission arrange the building of 60 tankers to replace the ships the British had lost to German torpedoes”. At another meeting a few weeks later, Maritime Commission chairman, Admiral Emory S. Land, told Bechtel and McCone that: “Besides building ships for the British, they would have to build them for the Americans as well. Not merely tankers, but Liberty and Victory cargo ships, troop transports, the whole makings of a merchant navy.” Admiral Land confidently added that thousands of vessels would be needed as “America was headed into war.”

As a result of these two meetings, Bechtel, McCone and Kaiser built shipyards at Richmond and Sausalito. Several of their companies were involved in this project that became known as “Operation Calship”. It was a terrible gamble because at that time they were relying on the predictions of Admiral Emory S. Land. However, Land was right and only a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Maritime Commission awarded Calship its first shipbuilding contract. Within a year, Calship was employing over 42,000 workers at its two shipyards.

At the same time as Bechtel, McCone and Kaiser were building shipyards for a war that they had been told was coming, Tommy Corcoran was telling friends that he was leaving government. He told Sam Rosenman: "I want to make a million dollars in one year." After leaving government in October, 1940, Corcoran's first client was Kaiser.

Corcoran then goes to China and helps establish China Defense Supplies with Chaing Kai-shek. FDR set this up in this way because he wanted to arm the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek without the support of Congress (Most members of Congress believed that this action would trigger a war with Japan).

Corcoran then goes on to work with Claire Lee Chennault and William Pawley to establish the Flying Tigers. Another operation that could triggered a war with Japan. Is this why Admiral Land, Bechtel, McCone, Kaiser, etc. were so convinced that America would soon be involved in the Second World War?

It also might be significant that Joe Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassor to England, was the former head of the Maritime Commission. He was also close with Corcoran. By 1940, FDR knew where things were heading and it only makes sense he told Land what to tell McCone and Bechtel. I wouldn't be surprised if Joe Kennedy bought Bechtel and Kaiser stock in this period.

[James Richards]

I am afraid I have not come across most of these people before. Is it possible that they were involved in the funding of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI)? This became a very important organization in the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. (John Simkin)

John,

I'm sure some of these folk were involved in the funding. Several years ago, I began connecting several of them to W. Lawrence Prehn Jr. who was at the Stanford Research Institute in 1954 before becoming manager in 1958. Prehn was a specialist in industrial economics and had conducted serious research into energy and chemicals. As a sidebar, his father was a 30 year veteran as the General Manager for South Western Bell Telephone Co. in Texas.

This line of enquiry for me became time consuming and very difficult so I have no details in which to completely connect the dots yet.

As for John L. Simpson, I have nothing beyond what you have already posted and I don't have a photograph. Sorry.

FWIW, W. Lawrence Prehn Jr, below.

James

[William Kelly]

To keep this On Topic:

George DeMohrenschildt's brother, I think his name is Sergi,

worked out of the Hover Institute at Stanford University.

Just a point of reference.

BK

[William Turner]

About time for the JFK case to be put in its historical perspective.

[John Simkin]

John, the Howard Hughes bio-pic The Aviator dealt in no small part with war-profiteering. Hughes had been given millions of dollars in contracts during WW2 and had not created one acceptable war plane. Senator Owen Brewster tried to use this against Hughes in order to force Hughes to give his international flights over to Pan-Am. But Hughes started discussing how many HUNDREDS of millions went to the other contractors for unfilled contracts, and started talking about Brewster's personal ties to Pan-Am. This killed the hearings. (Of course we know Hughes had some help in this from Pearson and Maheu etcl)

You've piqued my interest in Corcoran. While I doubt he personally was involved in the assassination, his career is symptomatic of the corruption of the period. Can you imagine the conversations between men like Davidson, Williams, Maheu, and Corcoran, should they have ever shared a drink?

I have not been able to find a connection between Howard Hughes and Tommy Corcoran. Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson’s behaviour is very strange during the hearings of the Senate War Investigating Committee in 1946. Its chairman, Owen Brewster appeared to be close to revealing the corruption that had gone on during the war. It would have exposed the activities of businessmen like Tommy Corcoran, John McCone, Steve Bechtel, Henry J. Kaiser but also senior figures in the military who were involved in this scam against American taxpayers. The fact that it had diverted billions of dollars from fighting the real enemy, it could be argued that their activities were close to treason.

However, Pearson and Anderson got these people off the hook by launching a campaign to expose Owen Brewster. He was corrupt but he was very small beer compared to Hughes, Corcoran, McCone, etc. Yet they got off as a consequence of Pearson’s campaign.

As a result of this campaign, Brewster backed down, and with the help of Sam Rayburn, who had been put in place by Corcoran, the Senate War Investigating Committee never completed its report on the non-delivery of the F-11 and the HK-1. The committee stopped meeting and was eventually disbanded.

It seems to me that Pearson was a fairly honest journalist. However, he made two serious errors of judgment.

(1) He helped Howard Hughes in 1946 and therefore prevented the exposure of Corcoran, McCone, etc.

(2) He backed down from his investigation of the relationship between LBJ and Brown & Root in 1956.

Both these cases would have gone to the heart of the conspiracy that have been outlining here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799

I don’t think this is a coincidence. The journalist who had discovered this scandal is I. F. Stone. See his articles when McCone was appointed Director of the CIA. Unfortunately, his work, published in the I.F. Stone Weekly, got virtually no press coverage and failed to make an impact. McCone kept his reputation and was therefore in a good position to cover up the JFK assassination.

[Ron Ecker]

Here's a NY Times review of "Why We Fight":

http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/movi...0figh.html?8dpc

[John Simkin]

Was Joseph Kennedy part of the Suite 8F Group?

No. You had to be based in Texas to become a member. Herman Brown was the gatekeeper.

The case of Lawrence Bell was an interesting one. He helped finance LBJ’s 1948 campaign. For example, he supplied LBJ with a 47-B helicopter (LBJ was the first American politician to use a helicopter for campaigning). Bell wanted to join Suite 8F Group but he was refused as he was based in New York State. As a result, Bell moved his operations to Fort Worth, Texas. This was the beginning of Bell obtaining lucrative government contracts.

Concoran was the only non-Texan member of the Suite 8F Group. He was so important to the fortunes of the group, that he was considered an honorary Texan.

Corcoran had been close to Joe Kennedy. When Corcoran left Roosevelt in 1940, Kennedy, unaware of what Corcoran was up to, offered him a full-time job. However, the two men fell out over a deal that took place in 1950 (I will write about this when I cover the period 1950-1960). From that point on, Corcoran lost access to the Kennedy family. That is why Corcoran had to work through LBJ. All this will become clearer, including Corcoran’s links with John McCone, etc. during the 1950s.