Douglas Caddy

From Jim Hoagland's Washington Post column reprinted in the Houston Chronicle of Dec. 9, 2007 titled, "Bush is to blame for collapse of presidential authority": "The intelligence community -- and particularly the CIA, which was conceived as an exclusive tool for the president's use in making and executing his most difficult decisions -- has today made itself a separate agency of government, answerable essentially to itself. The National Intelligence Estimate makes clear that for better or worse, spy agencies today make the finished product of policy rather than providing the raw materials."

In answer to the question posed in your second paragraph above, I am at loss to offer an explanation as to the circumstances that led to YAF presenting an award to Robert Morris in 1974. At that time I was attending New York University Law School and working in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, for Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. Between hitting the law books and working I had no time for YAF in those days. Actually it was in 1964 as posted above and not 1974. Were you involved with YAF in 1964 at all and were you ever invited to these YAF Man of the Year presentations? Could you speculate for us at least based on what you know about Dr. Robert J. Morris and his roles in The John Birch Society, his YAF work with Larrie Schmidt and his part in the Wanted For Treason Poster? Did you ever meet this man in person? What do you know about him? Can you ask Bill Buckley any of these questions as well? I apologize for misstating the year. In 1964 I was in law school. 1974 was post-Watergate. I was not active in YAF in 1964 for the reasons stated in my prior reply. I never met Robert Morris and am not in possession of any information that would answer the questions you pose. Bill Buckley is still suffering from the trauma of the recent death of his wife, Pat, and this coupled with his extremely poor health seem to present a circumstance whereby it would not be appropriate to bother him with any questions.

In answer to the question posed in your second paragraph above, I am at loss to offer an explanation as to the circumstances that led to YAF presenting an award to Robert Morris in 1974. At that time I was attending New York University Law School and working in the New York City office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, for Lt.-Gov. Malcolm Wilson. Between hitting the law books and working I had no time for YAF in those days.

Grasping at Stock Market Straws by Gary North www.lewrockwell.com On Tuesday, November 27, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 215 points. The next day, it rose by 330 points. Why? The financial press had an immediate answer on Tuesday. The news had broken that morning of the offer by the government of Abu Dhabi to pay $7.5 billion for 4.9% of America's largest and most prestigious bank, Citigroup. The news reports failed to explain the 4.9% figure. It has to do with U.S. government rules against allowing any single purchaser of stock to buy more than 4.9% without getting permission from the U.S. government. Abu Dhabi bought the limit of what it was allowed to buy. I have no doubt that it could have negotiated more than 4.9% for its $7.5 billion if there had not been a government-imposed limit, which would have eaten up precious time. The participants on both sides recognized that the bank was facing an emergency. It had squandered at least this much money and possibly much more in its ill-fated subprime mortgage lending schemes. Without warning, the bank in August suffered horrendous losses. There is no way that Citigroup would have sold 4.9% of the company last July. Citigroup was fat and sassy. Its president, the now-departed Charles Prince, was riding high. The stock fund managers started buying as soon as the news hit. The official interpretation: "This decision by Abu Dhabi indicates that America's largest bank is in good shape. This is the end of the subprime crisis." Here is my interpretation: A small percentage of a gigantic pool of oil-generated capital, which is managed by government bureaucrats in a city-state whose nation did not exist as recently as 1970, was used to buy 4.9% of the largest bank in the United States because this purchase was perceived as a better deal than buying T-bills denominated in a falling dollar. Here is a city-state that until half a century ago was an underdeveloped town in a desert. The Wiki Encyclopedia describes it in 1958. Into the mid-20th century, the economy of Abu Dhabi continued to be sustained mainly by camel herding, production of dates and vegetables at the inland oases of Al Ain and Liwa Oasis, and fishing and pearl diving off the coast of Abu Dhabi city, which was occupied mainly during the summer months. Most dwellings in Abu Dhabi city were, at this time constructed of palm fronds (barasti), with the wealthier families occupying mud huts. The growth of the cultured pearl industry in the first half of the twentieth century created hardship for residents of Abu Dhabi as pearls represented the largest export and main source of cash earnings. Today, the residents of Abu Dhabi are doing better financially. The net worth of each of the 420,000 citizens is $17 million. Of course, they can't actually get their hands on this money. It is administered on their behalf by salaried bureaucrats. These bureaucrats are in charge of allocating billions of dollars worth of oil revenue. They have decided to get into the banking business, a profession that is prohibited by Islamic law: usury taking. They have no experience in banking. But they thought, "Gee, let's buy part of a bank that is suffering major capital losses." Result? The Dow rose 215 points. Why does Abu Dhabi have this kind of money to invest? Because oil is up, and the world's economy is repeating the experience of 1973–79: a massive transfer of wealth to Arab, Iranian, and other oil kingdoms. To this group, add Russia, which now has almost $500 billion in foreign currencies, third only to China and Japan. In 1988, Gorbachev went begging to the West for money. Today, the West is at the mercy of the good graces of Putin. "Please sell us oil. Please sell us natural gas. We'll be good. We promise!" The only thing that will send oil back to 2006's level ($55) is a worldwide recession. Supply and demand favor the oil exporters from now on. This is permanent. The world's economic power will shift inexorably to the oil kingdoms and to China. Abu Dhabi's purchase points to the future: the sale of America's economic crown jewels to foreign owners. The profits from American-based companies will then flow to foreigners who own the companies. This scenario is unlikely to change in my lifetime or yours. Yet this purchase caused a 215-point rally in the Dow. Investors are short-sighted. They regard as a cause of celebration the most visible private transfer of American capital to foreigners in our lifetimes. WEDNESDAY On Wednesday, November 28, the Dow climbed 330 points. Why? Because of a vague remark by a member of the FED's Board of Governors in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. He said that the FED should be pragmatic. So what? This has been the FED's position since 1933. Here is what he said: "In my view, these uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking – nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago." This comment was interpreted to mean that the FED will lower the target rate for overnight bank loans by another .25 percentage point. Other than serving as a symbol of the FED's commitment to liquify the banks by a small percent, such a decline will have no impact on the massive, multi-billion dollar losses that have been sustained by the financial sector and which will continue, everyone admits, through 2008 and maybe into 2009. Kohn's actual speech was anything but reassuring. He began with an open admission of what is now apparent: financial experts don't know what is happening in the capital markets. Central banks, other authorities, and private-market participants must make decisions based on analyses made with incomplete information and understanding. The repricing of assets is centered on relatively new instruments with limited histories – especially under conditions of stress; many of them are complex and have reacted to changing circumstances in unanticipated ways; and those newer instruments have been held by a variety of investors and intermediaries and traded in increasingly integrated global markets, thereby complicating the difficulty of seeing where risk is coming to rest. In other words, those AAA-rated credit instruments back in April may today be worth approximately what Abu Dhabi was worth in 1958. The economy is facing uncertainty on a massive scale. Notice his phrase, "especially adverse outcomes." Another consequence of operating under a high degree of uncertainty is that, more than usually, the potential actions the Federal Reserve discusses have the character of "buying insurance" or managing risk – that is, weighing the possibility of especially adverse outcomes. The nature of financial market upsets is that they substantially increase the risk of such especially adverse outcomes while possibly having limited effects on the most likely path for the economy. When we see this sort of analysis from a high official, we had better understand what he is saying. Here is what he is saying: "When great chunks of that AAA-rated paper turns into something suitable for fan-hitting, don't blame the Federal Reserve when it finally hits." Then he launched into a theme made popular by Alan Greenspan: moral hazard. "Moral hazard" refers to a mental outlook that says, "The Federal Reserve will intervene to save the capital markets whenever it looks as though those markets are about to fall apart." Greenspan assured us again and again that this was not the FED's goal at all. Then he and the FOMC inflated the dollar, lowered the Federal Funds rate, and proved that the moral hazard effect was alive and well at the FED, as always. Kohn continued: Central banks seek to promote financial stability while avoiding the creation of moral hazard. People should bear the consequences of their decisions about lending, borrowing, and managing their portfolios, both when those decisions turn out to be wise and when they turn out to be ill advised. At the same time, however, in my view, when the decisions do go poorly, innocent bystanders should not have to bear the cost. Innocent bystanders: you know, the average Joe investor. Well, maybe the average head of Citigroup, who got a severance settlement of about $40 million. It's hazardous out there! Asset prices will eventually find levels consistent with the economy producing at its potential, consumer prices remaining stable, and interest rates reflecting productivity and thrift. That's what we need: productivity and thrift! And how will we get more productivity and greater thrift? By selling off our capital assets to oil-exporting governments that confiscated the oil in the name of the People 70 years ago. To be sure, lowering interest rates to keep the economy on an even keel when adverse financial market developments occur will reduce the penalty incurred by some people who exercised poor judgment. But these people are still bearing the costs of their decisions and we should not hold the economy hostage to teach a small segment of the population a lesson. Bearing the cost of their decisions, yes. Like the former head of Merrill Lynch, who walked away with $160 million for his trouble. It's tough being out there in the trenches! The Federal Reserve's reduction of the discount rate penalty by 50 basis points in August followed this model. It was intended not to help particular institutions but rather to open up a source of liquidity to the financial system to complement open market operations, which deal with a more limited set of counterparties and collateral. The "financial system," yes. But how was this accomplished in August? By lowering interest rates that banks charge to reach other, i.e., lowering capital costs for commercial banks. Banks, in fedspeak, are "the financial system." Unfortunately, things are looking a little dicey. However, the increased turbulence of recent weeks partly reversed some of the improvement in market functioning over the late part of September and in October. Should the elevated turbulence persist, it would increase the possibility of further tightening in financial conditions for households and businesses. Heightened concerns about larger losses at financial institutions now reflected in various markets have depressed equity prices and could induce more intermediaries to adopt a more defensive posture in granting credit, not only for house purchases, but for other uses a well. In other words, November's data point to a possible credit crunch, or, as he put it, "a more defensive posture in granting credit." How far will the ripple effect spread? He doesn't know. The underlying causes of the persistence of relatively wide-term funding spreads are not yet clear. Several factors probably have been contributing. One may be potential counterparty risk while the ultimate size and location of credit losses on subprime mortgages and other lending are yet to be determined. Do you recognize the phrase, "counterparty risk"? No? Let me clarify. It refers to contractual guarantees by major financial institutions to compensate holders of bonds and other credit assets if the market creates losses for them. Sadly, the net worth of most of the guarantors is far less than the contractual obligations incurred. Then who is holding the bag? Nobody knows: ". . . the ultimate size and location of credit losses on subprime mortgages and other lending are yet to be determined." Finally, banks may be worried about access to liquidity in turbulent markets. Such a concern would lead to increased demands and reduced supplies of term funding, which would put upward pressure on rates. What would be the effect of upward pressure on rates? A fall in the market price of bonds. Then the bond holders will contact the "counterparties" and ask them to cut a check for the loss. If you do not understand what this means, think "fan." All of this was the groundwork for Kohn's statement that caused a 330-point rise in the Dow. In my view, these uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking – nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago. In the conduct of monetary policy, as Chairman Bernanke has emphasized, we will act as needed to foster both price stability and full employment. He laid the groundwork to say that central banks are unable to do much about what is happening, because nobody knows what is happening, or to whom, or when it will end. This is not the stuff of a 36,000 Dow. This is the stuff of stock fund managers' optimism, which as recently as July was shared by the head of Citigroup and the head of Merrill Lynch. CONCLUSION The investing community wants to believe that the FED and Abu Dhabi can change the fundamentals of the economy, thereby restoring confidence in the stock market. In other words, the fund managers believe that symbols are more fundamental than the reality of the highly leveraged, self-monitored debt market which has created so many liabilities that the solvency of some of America's largest banks is at stake. The stock market will need many more interventions by Abu Dhabi and other Arab oil states, which now control the flow of funds America's capital markets. The great fire sale has begun. Senior American managers have begun to sell the nation's seed corn to the Arabs. They will continue to do so as the economic agents of American people. The sale of 4.9% of Citigroup is a visible turning point. Stock market investors cheered. They bought. Why? Because they expect to be able to sell later on to the Arabs. This is the greater-fool strategy. "Buy now; sell to a fool later." But the greater fools are the American buyers who are planning to sell their claims to the future of America's productivity. The only way that the Arabs will turn out to be greater fools is if America ceases to be productive. Without thrift, this is a real possibility. American households have been in a net negative position for two years. They are borrowing their way to the good life. In short, they are imitating the U.S. government. This is not going to turn out well. December 1, 2007 Gary North is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com.He is also the author of a free 20-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible. Find this article at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north589.html

Here is the background on my writing both The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff and subsequently How They Rig Our Elections. Both books were my own idea. No one suggested their topics to me. They were both written by me in the years immediately following the breaking of the Watergate case in June 1972. The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff, published in 1974, is 99 percent comprised of the systematic compilation of internal union documents that revealed how organized labor used its members’ dues money to engage in partisan political activity. These documents were obtained through legal discovery in a landmark federal case, George L Seay, et. at, v. Grand Lodge International Association of Machinists, et al. As I wrote in the book’s Introduction, “One of the most significant revelations of the multifaceted Watergate scandal has been the number of corporations (perhaps as many as twenty) that contributed corporate funds to the reelection campaign for President Nixon....These contributions from corporate treasuries to the Nixon campaign are indefensible. Violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act should be prosecuted no matter who is involved – corporations, national banks, or labor organizations, all of which are covered by the act...One object of this book is to trace the sources of organized labor’s financial support of political activity.” Because I was aware of the thousands of union documents that had been revealed in the Seay case, I conceived of the idea of writing a book that would, hopefully, bring some balance to the partisan political atmosphere that pervaded in the wake of Watergate. I received a $15,000 grant from the Robert M Schuchman Memorial Foundation to write the book. Schuchman, while a student at Yale University Law School, was the first National Chairman of Young American for Freedom. He died at an early age while studying under Professor Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. As to how Gerald Ford came about to endorse the book: (1) When Ford was serving as Vice President under Nixon, he sent me an unsolicited personal letter on his VP letterhead in 1974 complimenting me on "The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff." (2) On the day he became President, after Nixon resigned, the Washington Star interviewed Ford. He said in reply to a question as to what book he was currently reading, that he every night before he went to bed he spent 15 minutes reading from my book, The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff, which he described as “a very serious study on the tremendous amount of political clout organized labor has.” (3) I was invited to be the principal speaker on my book and on the political role of organized labor at an officially sanctioned luncheon sponsored by the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City. Before I was invited, someone in the White House telephoned me for material to support my statement that President Ford, who was to be nominated at the Convention, had praised my book. I sent that person in the White House the letter I had received from VP Ford and the Washington Star article. Once those were received, my invitation to speak was confirmed and officially announced. The University of Oregon Library Archives in Eugene, Oregon contain my personal and professional papers, which include a ticket to the luncheon bearing the sponsorship by the Republican National Convention as well as the original letter from VP Ford to me and a copy of his interview that appeared in the Washington Star. Elsewhere in the Forum I have described the moment when the Right Went Wrong. This occurred at a 1974 meeting of the Schuchman Foundation’s Board of Directors when Joseph Coors, President of Coors Beer, told the directors that they must follow his orders and those of his lackeys, Ed Fuelner and Paul Weyrich, or face retaliation. The Board refused to buckle to Coors’ demands. Subsequently Fuelner founded the Heritage Foundation and Weyrich founded the Committee for a Free Congress – both funded by Coors. These two organizations brought about the emergence of the Radical Right, which has been a calamity of the entire world and the driving force to curtail individual liberty and impose a police state. Only a few weeks ago President George W. Bush delivered a major address at the Heritage Foundation.

Friends lobbied for 'Deep Throat' to head FBI while he was leaking Watergate secrets 11/29/2007 Filed by Nick Juliano www.rawstory.com http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=8419 Newly released papers from Richard Nixon's White House files show the now-disgraced former president was urged to appoint Mark Felt -- the man who years later would be revealed as Deep Throat -- as the head of the FBI. The National Security Archives released more than 10,000 pages of Nixon documents this week, including letters, postcards and telegrams that were sent as part of a lobbying campaign to see Felt, then the Bureau's No. 2 official, become FBI director after J. Edgar Hoover's death, according to the Associated Press. "He has the integrity, the ability, the experience and the image to insure that our FBI will continue to deserve and maintain world esteem," Harold L. Child Jr., legal attache to the embassy in Japan and a 30-year FBI veteran, told Nixon in an April 1973 letter. That very same month, Felt called reporter Bob Woodward in the Washington Post newsroom to pass along a tip about then-FBI Director L. Patrick Gray, a Nixon loyalist who replaced Hoover. Gray resigned that month after it was revealed that he destroyed documents related to the Watergate investigation. Woodward recounts the phone call in his book The Secret Man, which documented his relationship with his secret source. About 9:30 p.m. [on April 26, 1973] my phone at the Post rang. "Give me a number to call you on," Mark Felt said. I gave him a basic city desk line and picked it up myself when the call came in. "you've heard the Gray story?" Felt said. "Well, it's true." Felt was confirming early speculation about Gray's pending resignation. Over the previous 10 months, Felt, who was at the time in the No. 2 position at the FBI, had passed along scores of tips to Woodward, helping the young reporter and his colleague Carl Bernstein expose the massive corruption within the Nixon White House that became known as Watergate. It was not until 2005 that Felt unmasked himself as Deep Throat, although Nixon's secret tape recordings revealed that White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman suspected Felt was Woodward's leaker as early as October 1972. Felt expected to replace Hoover upon his death earlier that year -- before the Watergate hotel break-in -- but Nixon, whose administration already was engaged in myriad political treacheries, decided against the career FBI officer in favor of loyal Gray. "As best I could tell Felt was crushed but he put on a good face," writes Woodward, who first met Felt years earlier while still in the Navy. Woodward first used Felt as a source for an article he wrote about the assassination attempt aimed at George Wallace, but it was June 19, 1972 that the pair first spoke about the story that would launch Woodward's career. Two days after the Watergate break-in, Felt warned that the case was going to "heat up" and abruptly ended their telephone conversations, according to Woodward's account. Over the following weeks and months, Felt continued to pass along tidbits of information and guide the young reporter in his efforts to expose the corruption within Nixon's White House and presidential campaigns. The two would often meet in the dead of night in an abandoned parking garage, scenes memorably portrayed by Hal Holbrook and Robert Redford in the film adaptation of All the President's Men. Felt's role in exposing Watergate remained a secret to virtually everyone aside from Woodward, Bernstein and the Post editors. Within the FBI Felt was well renowned for his years of service and tenacity -- qualities that apparently didn't interest a president trying to shield himself from investigations led by that very agency. "Mr. Felt is a man of outstanding loyalty, character, reputation, habits," wrote Efton A. Stanfield in a telegram to Nixon. The "fidelity, bravery, and integrity of Mr. Felt are unquestioned." Felt himself was the lead agent in a telegram sent to the White House by a group of agents asking that a highly qualified professional be nominated. The police chief in Kodiak, Alaska, made the case for Felt, and so did ordinary citizens. Writing from Brooklyn, N.Y., Viena K. Neaville told Nixon that choosing Felt would be good for him because, "You would be spared the tremendous aggravation to which you are subjected by so many factions."

Hi Gary, John Judge implied in an email that a streaming audio will be available through the Coast to Coast AM internet archive, though I don't know how that works. I taped it pretty clear through my phone, but only got snippits of other parts of the show via my internet, so I only have my part of the show. I'll see if John Geherity, our man in Dublin, can link to what's out there, if anything. I did find a link that tells us more about John Ziegler, the guy who cut us off at the pass and bushwacked Cyril in the first round: http://www.johnziegler.com/editorial.php?e=144 I'm sure we haven't heard the last from him. BK Please see my above posting of Nov. 23 that contains the link to the coasttocoastam website to replay the program.

Here is the summary of the program following its broadcast that appears on the coasttocoastam website. For a nominal fee one can listen on the Internet to a replay of the program. I was a live listener and found the program fascinating. ---------- JFK Assassination Special V November 22, 2007 coasttocoastam radio program http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2007/11/22.html#recap In our 5th JFK Assassination Special a variety of guests presented theories and evidence that generally ran counter to the single gunman theory of the Warren Commission. An exception to that was second hour guest, radio host John Ziegler, who recently published an editorial outlining his belief that Oswald acted alone. Ziegler debated forensic expert Dr. Cyril Wecht, who has cited the difficulty in drawing conclusions based on the poorly performed autopsy of JFK. Kicking off the third hour, researcher Walt Brown said the assassination could not have happened without the CIA knowing about it, and the evidence points towards LBJ being involved. Another researcher, J. Harrison, told him that JFK was killed as part of a group of 17, including Malcolm Wallace, whose fingerprint likely matched an unaccounted-for print at the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald was found. Independent researcher William Kelly called for a Grand Jury to reopen the investigation of JFK's murder, and for a review of the JFK Assassination Records Act. Author and photographic consultant Robert Groden, who made the Zapruder film public in 1975, said the explosion in Kennedy's head, as seen in the film, reverses the assumption that the bullet came from in front. It must have come from behind where the Grassy Knoll was located, he suggested. In the last hour, Dr. Gary Aguilar spoke about the mishandling of the medical information and inexplicable elements in JFK's autopsy. Investigator John Judge, who helped put the evening's guests together, noted that history has become a "stolen commodity" leaving citizens in a position where they are allowed to believe anything. His research indicates that Johnson knew the assassination was coming and that he was put into office by war profiteers. In our Fast Blast poll, 80% of the respondents believe in the conspiracy angle rather than the lone gunman theory. For more on the JFK assassination, check out recaps from our shows in 2003, 2004 , 2005, and 2006. Related Articles JFK Assassination Marking the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination, a crowd gathered today in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where witness Ernest Brandt shared his account. Meanwhile, an assassination plot to kill JFK in Chicago was recently revealed.

I agree and apologize. However, before I posted the above story, I carefully checked the Forum and there was no other posting that covered the same item. I am at a loss to explain how the double posting came about unless there was some sort of procedural computer glitch.

Posthumous book claims Ford knew of CIA coverup in Kennedy assassination 1. 11/21/2007 @ 8:59 am Filed by David Edwards and Nick Juliano www.rawstory.com Did the CIA orchestrate a cover-up in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=8340 According to the publisher of a new book, who appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning, the last living words of former President Gerald Ford fingered the CIA in the orchestration a cover-up of Kennedy's assassination. Ford, who died late last year, was the longest surviving member of the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination. The new book, "A Presidential Legacy and the Warren Commission," was written by Ford before his death, its publisher claims. "This book, actually authored by Gerald Ford, finally proves once and for all that the CIA, our government, did destroy documents and cover-up many facts that day in Dallas," publisher Tim Miller told Fox & Friends Wednesday morning. Kennedy was killed as his motorcade rolled through downtown Dallas Nov. 22, 1963. Officially seen as the work of a single shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Kennedy assassination has sparked myriad conspiracy theories placing responsibility for the assassination on a variety of suspects, including the CIA, the Mafia or Cuban President Fidel Castro. Although Miller was given little time to go into detail about the book on Wednesday morning's show, a press release gives more detail on the book, being published by Flat Signed publishers. In the book, Ford argues that the CIA destroyed information about the assassination, but he "contends with interesting specificity that Oswald was the only shooter," Miller says. "There was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy," says Tim Miller, CEO of FlatSigned.com, in the release. "There is no doubt that President Gerald Ford knew more about the JFK death. There is no doubt President Clinton knows more. Has he or any other US President since November 22, 1963 ever swore under oath that they know no more?" This video is from Fox's Fox & Friend's, broadcast on November 21.

Clendenin Ryan was a student at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, at the same time I was (1956-60). He was one of my roommates in a off-campus house during that period, along with David Franke. Our house was the scene of laying the groundwork for the modern Conservative movement that was about to be born. From what I vaguely remember, as this occurred some 50 years ago, he was the son of Clendenin Ryan, and grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan. During one of our talks, Clendenin told me that his father had contributed the beautiful stain glass window that adorns to this day the front of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Clendenin, my former roommate, was tangentially involved in the founding of YAF. His contribution was in the area of activity, not in funding. YAF was founded by funds advanced by Charles Edison, son of Thomas Edison, for whom I worked following my graduation from Georgetown. Charles Edison, former governor of New Jersay and former Secretary of the Navy under FDR, had his home and office in the Towers of the Waldorf. His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away. Clendenin Ryan, former roommate and friend, died from cancer in the late 1960's, on a date that I cannot pinpoint from memory. My guess is that he was under 30 years of age when he passed. I never met his father nor, of course, his grandfather. The posting above about his father's political activity comes as news as his son never mentioned any of this to me. ************************************************************** "His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away." A wonderful and commendable sentiment, to be sure. But, I have little hope of ever seeing this ideal come to fruition again, Doug. Unfortunately, both parties have become too definitively melded to ever make a reasonable judgment call, in our lifetime. At least, that's how it appears from my P.O.V. Actually, my p.o.v. is very close to yours. While I was attending Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in the late 1950's, I happened to go into a Hot Shoppes for one of its famous hamburgers (the best ever.) There was a man sitting at the counter and he was talking outloud to himself. One thing that he exclaimed then has stuck with me over the years. He said, "It's amazing how much poison the American system can absorb." After seven years of Bush and Cheney, I fear that the American system has ingested a fatal dose, one that will lead to the demise of the Republic as we have known it since its founding over 200 years ago. If the U.S. has a presidential election in 2008 (I write "if"), and a Democrat is elected, that person will face a daunting task in undoing the immense damage that has been inflicted. Still it is best to try to maintain a positive attitude and cling to the hope that the American Eagle after 2008 will again soar straight-away.

Clendenin Ryan was a student at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, at the same time I was (1956-60). He was one of my roommates in a off-campus house during that period, along with David Franke. Our house was the scene of laying the groundwork for the modern Conservative movement that was about to be born. From what I vaguely remember, as this occurred some 50 years ago, he was the son of Clendenin Ryan, and grandson of Thomas Fortune Ryan. During one of our talks, Clendenin told me that his father had contributed the beautiful stain glass window that adorns to this day the front of St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Clendenin, my former roommate, was tangentially involved in the founding of YAF. His contribution was in the area of activity, not in funding. YAF was founded by funds advanced by Charles Edison, son of Thomas Edison, for whom I worked following my graduation from Georgetown. Charles Edison, former governor of New Jersay and former Secretary of the Navy under FDR, had his home and office in the Towers of the Waldorf. His philosophy, which I have adopted to this day, is that the American Eagle must have two strong wings to fly a straight course: a left one and a right one. The right wing has been way too strong for the past 30 years; hopefully, the left wing will strengthen in 2008 and the Eagle will again soar straight-away. Clendenin Ryan, former roommate and friend, died from cancer in the late 1960's, on a date that I cannot pinpoint from memory. My guess is that he was under 30 years of age when he passed. I never met his father nor, of course, his grandfather. The posting above about his father's political activity comes as news as his son never mentioned any of this to me.

FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes Lee Wayne Hunt is one of hundreds of defendants whose convictions are in question now that FBI forensic evidence has been discredited. By John Solomon Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 18, 2007; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found. The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup. In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence." A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis. But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show that the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show. "We cannot afford to be misleading to a jury," the lab director wrote to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in late summer 2005 in a memo outlining why the bureau was abandoning the science. "We plan to discourage prosecutors from using our previous results in future prosecutions." Despite those private concerns, the bureau told defense lawyers in a general letter dated Sept. 1, 2005, that although it was ending the technique, it "still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis." And in at least two cases, the bureau has tried to help state prosecutors defend past convictions by using court filings that experts say are still misleading. The government has fought releasing the list of the estimated 2,500 cases over three decades in which it performed the analysis. For the majority of affected prisoners, the typical two-to-four-year window to appeal their convictions based on new scientific evidence is closing. Dwight E. Adams, the now-retired FBI lab director who ended the technique, said the government has an obligation to release all the case files, to independently review the expert testimony and to alert courts to any errors that could have affected a conviction. "It troubles me that anyone would be in prison for any reason that wasn't justified. And that's why these reviews should be done in order to determine whether or not our testimony led to the conviction of a wrongly accused individual," Adams said in an interview. "I don't believe there's anything that we should be hiding." The Post and "60 Minutes" identified at least 250 cases nationwide in which bullet-lead analysis was introduced, including more than a dozen in which courts have either reversed convictions or now face questions about whether innocent people were sent to prison. The cases include a North Carolina drug dealer who has developed significant new evidence to bolster his claim of innocence and a Maryland man who was recently granted a new murder trial. Documents show that the FBI's concerns about the science dated to 1991 and came to light only because a former FBI lab scientist began challenging it. In response to the information uncovered by The Post and "60 Minutes," the FBI late last week said it would initiate corrective actions including a nationwide review of all bullet-lead testimonies and notification to prosecutors so that the courts and defendants can be alerted. The FBI lab also plans to create a system to monitor the accuracy of its scientific testimony. The Post-"60 Minutes" investigation "has brought some serious concerns to our attention," said John Miller, assistant director of public affairs. "The FBI is committed to addressing these concerns. It's the right thing to do." The past inaction on bullet-lead contrasts with the last time the FBI's science was called into question, in the mid-1990s, when 13 lab employees were accused of shoddy work and of giving overstated testimony involving several disciplines, including explosives as well as hair and fiber analysis. Back then, the Justice Department reviewed hundreds of cases in which FBI experts testified, and it notified prisoners about problems that affected their convictions. The government did so because prosecutors have a legal obligation to turn over evidence that could help defendants prove their innocence. Current FBI managers said that they originally believed that the public release of the 2004 National Academy of Sciences report and the subsequent ending of the analysis generated enough publicity to give defense attorneys and their clients plenty of opportunities to appeal. The bureau also pointed out that it sent form letters to police agencies and umbrella groups for local prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers. Even the harshest critics concede that the FBI correctly measured the chemical elements of lead bullets. But the science academy found that the lab used faulty statistical calculations to declare that bullets matched even when the measurements differed slightly. FBI witnesses also overstated the significance of the matches. The FBI's umbrella letters, however, glossed over those problems and did little to alert prosecutors or defense lawyers that erroneous testimony could have helped convict defendants, one of the recipients said. "Frankly, the letters that they sent them, you know, were minimizing the significance of the error in the first place," said defense lawyer Barry Scheck, whose nonprofit Innocence Project has helped free more than 200 wrongly convicted people. The letters said that "our science wasn't really inaccurate. Our interpretation was wrong. But the interpretation is everything." The FBI said last week that the 2005 letters "should have been clearer." Scheck has now been asked to assist the FBI's review. Since 2005, the nonpartisan Forensic Justice Project, run by former FBI lab whistle-blower Frederic Whitehurst, has tried to force the bureau to release a list of bullet-lead cases under the Freedom of Information Act. The Post joined the request, citing the public value of the information. But the government has stalled, among other things seeking $70,000 to search for the documents. "By stonewalling and delaying the release, Justice has ensured that wrongfully convicted citizens are deprived of their right to appeal or seek post-conviction relief because the statute of limitations in many states has expired," said David Colapinto, the lawyer for the group. As part of its review, the FBI will release all bullet-lead case files involving convictions. The Scope of the Cases Most of the estimated 2,500 instances in which the FBI performed bullet-lead exams involved homicide cases that were prosecuted at the state and local levels, where FBI examiners often were summoned as expert witnesses for the prosecution. To compile an independent list, The Post and "60 Minutes" conducted a nationwide review, interviewing dozens of defense lawyers, prosecutors and scientific experts. The effort also included a sweep of electronic court filings conducted by four summer associates at the New York law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. In many of the cases that raise the most compelling questions, the inmates might have a hard time winning the public's sympathy. Some had criminal backgrounds and most were convicted with at least some additional circumstantial evidence linking them to gruesome crime scenes. But the common thread is that removing the flawed bullet-lead evidence has created reasonable doubt about guilt in the minds of legal experts, the courts and at least one juror. In North Carolina, Lee Wayne Hunt, 48, remains in prison after being convicted 21 years ago of a double murder. Hunt was an admitted marijuana dealer, but has steadfastly denied involvement in the killings. The FBI testified that its bullet-lead analysis linked fragments from the victims to a box of bullets connected to Hunt's co-defendant. That was the sole forensic evidence against Hunt. State prosecutors recently conceded that the analysis should not be considered "scientifically supported and relied upon." In addition, the attorney for Hunt's co-defendant, who committed suicide in prison, has since declared that his client carried out the murders alone. Despite both developments, Hunt has been denied a new trial. "What they're relying on here is technicalities to keep an innocent man in prison," said Richard Rosen, Hunt's attorney. Another North Carolina case highlights the impact that FBI bullet-lead testimony had on local jurors. James Donald King faces execution after being convicted of killing his two wives. He admitted to killing his first wife, spent time in prison, was released on parole, remarried and then was convicted of murdering his second wife. The court is considering whether to grant a new trial. "If the state had not introduced evidence linking a bullet in Mr. King's car to the bullet fragments in the victim, there would have been reasonable doubt in my mind as to Mr. King's guilt," juror Michelle Lynn Adamson said in an affidavit supporting his appeal. Other defendants have had mixed results: • In Maryland, the Court of Appeals last year reversed the murder conviction of Gemar Clemons and ordered a new trial, concluding that the FBI's bullet-lead conclusions "are not generally accepted within the scientific community and thus are not admissible." • In New Jersey, courts have reversed and reinstated convictions in cases involving bullet lead. The conviction of one defendant, Michael Behn, was reversed, but he recently was re-convicted on other evidence. • Shane Ragland's conviction in the 1994 killing of a University of Kentucky football player was reversed after Kathleen Lundy, an FBI bullet-lead examiner, pleaded guilty to giving false testimony in his case about bullet-lead manufacturing. A few weeks ago, Ragland pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and is now free. Ernest Roger Peele, a retired FBI agent who testified about bullet matching in 130 cases, stands by his testimony but said that sometimes the nuances of science get "lost in the adversarial nature of the courtroom." He said he would no longer tell jurors that bullets can be linked to specific boxes because of the science academy's findings. Peele, who said he was frustrated that he was never contacted by the academy, added that his bullet matches were meant to be "a part of a puzzle" and never the only forensic evidence. "Is it possible there are innocent people in jail? Yes. Is it possible that bullet lead was part of that process? Yes." The Origins of the Science The FBI's bullet-lead analysis was created more than four decades ago to link suspects to crimes in cases in which bullets had fragmented to the point where traditional firearms tracing -- based on gun-barrel groove markings -- would not work. So FBI scientists used chemistry to try to find matches. Their assumption was that bullets made from the same batch of lead would have the same chemical composition. U.S. bullet-makers recycle lead from car batteries and melt it down in huge amounts, and it was believed that each batch would produce bullets sharing the same trace elements. The FBI first used the technique after Kennedy's assassination, hoping to determine whether various bullet fragments came from the same gun. In July 1964, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to the commission investigating the assassination that the bureau's findings were "not considered sufficient" to make any matches. By the early 1980s, the bureau was the only practitioner of the science and routinely used it to help state and local police link crime-scene bullets to those in a gun or a box owned by a suspect. There are few federal murder statutes, but the FBI routinely helps local law enforcement by providing forensic expertise in homicide cases. In the mid-1990s, Lundy used the science to help prove that Clinton White House lawyer Vincent W. Foster committed suicide, internal FBI documents show. In the early days, bullet fragments were subjected to neutron beams that would allow scientists to measure the presence and amounts of at least three chemical elements: antimony, arsenic and copper. If two bullets had similar measurements of those three elements -- the FBI allowed for a small margin of error -- they were declared a match. In 1996, the bureau switched to a new method called "inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy," in which scientists identified and measured seven trace elements in the bullets, adding the elements bismuth, cadmium, tin and silver. The goal was to increase the precision of the tests. But at the same time that it was measuring more elements, the FBI doubled the margin of error for declaring matches. "Not enough suspects were being caught in the new net using seven elements, so they chose to use a bigger net," said Clifford Spiegelman, a statistician at Texas A&M University who reviewed the FBI's statistical methods for the science academy. The bureau conducted a study in 1991 that called bullet-lead analysis a "useful forensic tool" that produced "accurate" and "reproducible" matches. The study, however, raised two concerns. First, it found that bullets packaged 15 months apart -- a span that assumed separate batches of lead -- had the exact composition, potentially undercutting the theory that each batch was unique. Second, it found that bullets in a single box often had several different lead compositions. That finding, it cautioned, should have "significant impact on interpretation of results in forensic cases." Peele, the retired bullet-lead examiner, was the primary author of that study. He said he still felt comfortable having told jurors in the past that bullets from the same box could be expected to match, as long as his remarks were carefully qualified. In the Hunt case, he testified that his match of the crime-scene bullets to those in the suspects' box was "typical of everything we examined coming from the same box or the next closest possibility would be the same type, same manufacturer, packaged on or about the same day." Peele said that he always tried to tell jurors that some bullets in the same box might not match. Still, he said it was reasonable for jurors to conclude that matching bullets could have come from the same box. "I don't think it's misleading as long as it's fully explained," he said. Some of Peele's colleagues went further. FBI examiner John Riley told a Florida jury: "It is my opinion that all of those bullets came from the same box of ammunition." A New Jersey prosecutor suggested that the bullets matched by the FBI were as unique as a "snowflake or fingerprint." Today, the FBI regards all such testimony as inaccurate. "The science does not and has never supported the testimony that one bullet can be identified as coming from a particular box of bullets," said Adams, the retired FBI lab director. A Challenge From Within The FBI's about-face was prompted by a challenge from within its ranks. William Tobin, an FBI lab metallurgist for a quarter-century, won accolades working on cases such as the crash of TWA Flight 800, in which he helped prove that the plane was downed by an accidental fuel-tank explosion, not terrorism. Shortly before he retired, Tobin was approached by a woman who believed that the bullet-lead science used against her brother, a New Jersey murder defendant, was flawed. Still employed by the bureau, Tobin was not permitted to help. But when he retired in 1998, he decided to look further. Bullet matching had always been done by the lab's chemists, and as a metallurgist, Tobin wondered about their assumptions. Soon he joined with Erik Randich, a metallurgist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By 2001, the two had finished a study that challenged the key assumptions that the FBI had been making about bullet lead. They found that bullets made from the same batch did not always match, because subtle chemical changes occurred throughout the manufacturing process. Tobin bought bullets at several stores in Alaska and found that a large number of bullets with the same composition and manufacturing date were often sold in the same community, suggesting that it was wrong to assume that a bullet match could be narrowed to one suspect. "It hadn't been based at all on science but, rather, had been based on subjective belief," Tobin said in an interview. "Courts, and even practitioners, had been seduced by the sophistication of the analytical instrumentation for over three decades." Soon, Tobin began appearing as a witness for defendants challenging FBI bullet-lead matches. Courts began to take notice, too, and the FBI suddenly faced a barrage of questions about a science that had gone unchallenged for three decades. Adams asked the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 to examine the FBI's work, temporarily halting new bullet-lead matches. Two years later, the academy's findings stunned the bureau. The panel concluded that although the FBI had been taking accurate bullet-lead measurements in its lab, the statistical methods and its expert testimonies were flawed. The science "does not . . . have the unique specificity of techniques such as DNA," and "available data does not support any statement that a crime bullet came from a particular box of ammunition," the panel concluded. All the FBI could say going forward was that bullets made from the same batch "are more likely" to match in chemical makeup than those made from different batches. Adams soon declared that such testimony was so general that it had no value to jurors, and he ended the technique. The FBI Response The FBI went on the offensive to portray its decision in the best light. In a news release dated Sept. 1, 2005, the bureau declared that it "still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis" but that it was ending the technique because of the questions about its "relative probative value," the "costs of maintaining the equipment" and the "resources necessary to do the examinations." The bureau also sent form letters to the more than 300 police agencies it had assisted with the science and to the umbrella groups representing local prosecutors and local criminal defense lawyers so they could "take whatever steps they deem appropriate." The letters cited the academy's report but did not call attention to the magnitude of the FBI's internal concerns. For instance, the letters stated that the impact of the academy's findings "on previously issued examination reports remains unaddressed." In fact, the FBI had conducted its own review to determine how often bad statistics led to mistaken matches. In March 2005, the chief of the FBI chemistry unit that oversaw the analysis wrote in an e-mail that he applied one of the new statistical methods recommended by the National Academy of Sciences to 436 cases dating to 1996 and found that at least seven would "have a different result today." Marc A. LeBeau estimated that at least 1.4 percent of prior matches would change. If the FBI employed other statistical methods the number of non-matches would be "a lot more," LeBeau wrote. In fact, when the bureau tested one method recommended by the academy on a sample of 100 bullets, the results changed in the "large majority of the cases," he wrote. Despite the concerns, the FBI provided affidavits in at least two cases seeking to help prosecutors sustain convictions that were based on bullet-lead matches. In one such affidavit introduced in Maryland, the FBI cited the academy's report but did not mention it faulted the bureau's statistical methods. That omission concerns the chairman of the academy panel. The affidavit "does not discuss the statistical bullet-matching technique, which is key and probably the most significant scientific flaw found by the committee," said Kenneth MacFadden, a private chemistry expert. MacFadden and Spiegelman said they also believed the affidavit was misleading, because it estimates that the maximum number of .22-caliber bullets in a batch of lead was 1.3 million. The academy said the number could be as high as 35 million. In a May 12, 2005, e-mail, the deputy lab director told LeBeau, "I don't believe that we can testify about how many bullets may have come from the same melt and our estimate may be totally misleading." FBI officials said Friday they will stop using the affidavit. "They said the FBI agents who went after Al Capone were the untouchables, and I say the FBI experts who gave this bullet-lead testimony were the unbelievables," Spiegelman said. "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft and producers Ira Rosen and Sumi Aggarwal, Washington Post research editor Alice Crites and staff researcher Madonna Lebling, and freelance researcher Jilly Badanes contributed to this report.

He Aimed at the Stars but Hit London By ALEX ROLAND The New York Times Book Review November 18, 2007 VON BRAUN Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War. By Michael J. Neufeld. Illustrated. 587 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $35. Wernher von Braun was a giant of the 20th century. But what, in the modern imagination, did he represent? Visionary science? Cynical manipulation? The marriage of science and technology? The convergence of war and peace? Was von Braun the Columbus of space? The brains of the military-industrial complex? The face of modernity? Was he a war criminal, as many of his contemporaries believed? Or was he, as Michael J. Neufeld argues in “Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War,” a modern Faust, in league with the devil? Neufeld’s thoroughly satisfying biography confirms the broad outlines of its subject’s life as they have been known for many years. Born to aristocratic parents in 1912, von Braun told his mother when he was about 10 that he wanted his life to “turn the wheel of progress.” A precocious child, he discovered rocketry and spaceflight in his teens and committed himself to putting men (including himself) on the Moon. Even before Hitler came to power, an officer in the German Army selected von Braun from among the membership of the Society for Space Travel, an amateur rocket group, to pursue the possible military applications of this new technology. The army sponsored von Braun’s doctoral studies in physics and engineering and promptly classified and confiscated his dissertation, completed in 1934, when he was just 22. Over the ensuing decade von Braun worked on multiple rocket programs for Hitler’s Germany, including the ballistic missile designated by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry as Vengeance Weapon 2, or V-2. In the last days of the war, von Braun and his closest aides buried their records in a mine shaft and fled west, away from the approaching Soviet Army, to surrender to the Americans. Brought to the United States as part of Project Paperclip, von Braun and his colleagues shared with the Americans what they knew about ballistic missiles. Most found places for themselves in the emerging United States Army missile program, eventually becoming citizens and pillars of the cold war arms race. Through all this military activity, von Braun never lost his passion for spaceflight. He desperately wanted the Jupiter intercontinental ballistic missile that he developed at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., to be the first rocket to place a man-made satellite into orbit, but the Eisenhower administration refused to launch an instrument that would raise the thorny question of overflight of Soviet territory. When the Soviet satellite Sputnik was launched on Oct. 4, 1957, the space race was on. Von Braun and his rocket team were soon transferred to the new civilian space agency, NASA, to build the rocket that would carry humans to the Moon. The resulting Saturn launch vehicle, still the most powerful ever to leave Earth, powered the Apollo program to the fulfillment of von Braun’s dream. It did not, however, take the route he had recommended. Instead of building a large space station in Earth orbit as a way-station to the Moon, NASA flew directly from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. When the Apollo program ended prematurely in the early 1970s, von Braun and his fellow travelers had been unable to build the infrastructure in space that they had envisioned. Disillusioned, von Braun left NASA to take a high-paying position in the aerospace industry, only to have his life cut short by cancer in 1977, at age 65. Von Braun has been the subject of at least nine previous English-language biographies. But Neufeld’s version, exhaustively researched in German and American archives and written in clear, fast-paced prose, offers the most complete, fully documented and critical account that the imperfect documentary record is likely to yield. Neufeld acclaims him “the most influential rocket engineer and spaceflight advocate of the 20th century.” This book amply supports that judgment. Though most previous biographies have been hagiographic celebrations, some have noted his association with — if not his commission of — war crimes in Hitler’s Germany. Neufeld also sees him as a modern-day Faust, whose power came from a bargain with the devil. The devil in Neufeld’s analogy is Nazi Germany in general and Hitler in particular, from whom von Braun personally received the cherished title of “Professor.” Neufeld scours the historical record for evidence of von Braun’s crimes, rehearsing his membership in the SS, his development of deadly weapons and, most important, his participation in the notorious slave labor program that built his V-2s at a horrible human cost. Neufeld finds no smoking gun, no evidence that von Braun actively planned or even oversaw the crimes perpetrated on his workers, but he does believe that von Braun’s participation in the planning and operation of the Mittelwerk, the underground rocket factory manned by slave laborers from the adjacent Dora concentration camp, would make him guilty of crimes against humanity. And he demonstrates that von Braun covered up his past by dissembling and flat-out lying when confronted with the record. If not guilty of crimes against humanity, von Braun was certainly morally obtuse. Only in the summer of 1944, when the war was clearly lost, he later recalled, did there dawn on him “the realization that I might be aiding an evil regime.” Neufeld is less attentive to the moral guilt of American leaders and institutions. Many of them aided and abetted the suppression and misrepresentation of von Braun’s history, as well as the histories of many others in Project Paperclip. In the heat of the cold war, they, too, subordinated their moral principles to what they saw as higher purposes. As the physicist Herbert York later said: “Some people regard von Braun’s unwavering dedication to the grand dream of space flight as heroic and farsighted. Others cannot overlook the grotesque means and unprincipled behavior he used to realize his dreams. I am among the latter, but in this instance I was glad to exploit his willingness to go, without argument, wherever the money was.” Von Braun may have been, as the satirist Tom Lehrer said, “a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience,” but his keepers behaved expediently as well. To paraphrase Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox’s judgment on the Pentagon in “The Imperial Animal” (1971), if you have a von Braun, you will use him, and he will use you. PERHAPS the rocket baron’s most lasting legacy is his vision for space travel. In the 1950s, at the height of his popularity, von Braun used public appearances, Collier’s magazine and Walt Disney television productions to sell the public an idealized model of mankind’s future in space. His launching vehicles would be used to build a space station in Earth orbit from which humans would fly to the Moon and then to Mars. Von Braun actually cared more for the Moon mission than for Mars, but he appreciated the romantic appeal of the red planet. That paradigm so captured the imagination of NASA, and the American public, that the United States has been pursuing it ever since. Though the NASA administrator Michael Griffin has now declared the space shuttle and the space station mistakes, NASA has vowed to continue with both while beginning to pursue the “vision for space exploration” announced by George W. Bush in 2004. That vision is a slightly revised version of the von Braun model, omitting the increasingly troubled and expensive space station. For better or for worse, we remain in the thrall of von Braun’s potent imagination. Alex Roland is a professor of history at Duke University and a former NASA historian.

Letter by Oswald Is Found With Late Senator’s Papers By JAMES BARRON The New York Times November 14, 2007 The box had sat untouched in the attic of a Washington house until recently, when the sale of the house forced some cleaning out, some poking around in long-overlooked places. Inside the box was a manila file folder headed: “Lee Harvey Oswald.” Inside the folder was a handwritten letter that Oswald had sent from Russia, complaining that the Soviet Union would not grant him an exit visa to the United States. It was addressed to Senator John Tower of Texas, who had lived in the house with his second wife in the 1980s. The other items in the folder are all typewritten — letters from Mr. Tower to the State Department, letters from the American consul in Moscow to Oswald, letters from the State Department to Mr. Tower, and brief memorandums from Mr. Tower’s staff after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as Mr. Tower defended himself against the impression that he had helped clear the way for Oswald’s return to this country. A Texas company plans to open an online auction of the items, perhaps as early as today. The company, EasySale, maintains that the letters are originals, not copies like the ones that are among Mr. Tower’s papers at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Tex. A handwriting expert hired by the company to examine the Oswald letter concluded that the tight script was Oswald’s. The Oswald letter to Mr. Tower, who died in 1991, is undated but was widely quoted after the Kennedy assassination and again in the Warren Commission report in 1964. It began as an appeal from a constituent: “My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, 22, of Fort Worth up till October 1959,” when, he wrote, he had gone to the Soviet Union “for a residential stay.” After explaining his visa problem, Oswald wrote, “I beseech you, Senator Tower, to rise [sic] the question of holding by the Soviet Union of a citizen of the U.S., against his will and expressed desires!!” According to the Warren Commission report, a caseworker in Mr. Tower’s office forwarded the letter to the State Department under a cover letter that was “machine signed by the Senator.” A copy of the cover letter was in the attic folder, and made clear that Mr. Tower’s office was simply passing along Oswald’s plea. “I do not know Mr. Oswald or any of the facts concerning his reasons for visiting the Soviet Union; nor what action, if any, this government can or should take on his behalf,” the letter said. Mr. Tower is known to have given the file to the Warren Commission for copying, but the originals were considered missing, said Kathryn Stallard, the archivist of the John Tower Library at Southwestern. “We have all been looking for this,” Ms. Stallard said. EasySale’s chairman and chief executive, David J. Edmondson, said that the house, in the Kalorama section of Washington, had been owned by Mr. Tower’s second wife, Lilla Burt Cummings Tower, a Washington lawyer, who died in 1993. Mr. Edmondson said she and Mr. Tower lived in the house in the early years of the Reagan administration. They divorced in 1987, and two years later, when the first President George Bush nominated Mr. Tower to be secretary of defense, her statements about her former husband’s excessive drinking helped cost him the job. Mr. Tower denied the accusations, but the Senate rejected the nomination. The issue of Oswald’s return to the United States dogged Mr. Tower after the Warren Commission report was released. The file in the attic contained a letter that Mr. Tower wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk

I am still in the midst of reading Timothy Good's new book, Need To Know. His documentation is impressive. However, in light of some of the postings here that contain concrete information that Crisman may not have been one of the Dallas tramps, I am writing author Good a letter, with a copy of the postings attached, to ask him what further documentation he might have to support his assertion. My original posting is comprised 99.9 percent of quotations from Good's book, which is the source of the claim that Crisman was one of the tramps. I had never heard of Crisman before reading Good's book and hearing the author interviewed. My original posting brought out additional information about him from forum members who are better informed that I am. I do not claim to be an expert researcher on the Kennedy assassination. I have learned a great deal from members since joining the forum, not only about the assassination but a whole host of other fascinating topics, which form a treasure trove of material deserved of further attention. I hazard to guess that there are a large number of individuals and groups out there who are very, very upset that information they thought was forever locked away in secret vaults is suddenly and continuously being thrust into the public light by forum members.

I am puzzled by the above posting by Mr. Gratz. This thread was started by me with my quoting from Timothy Good's new book "Need To Know" in which the author discusses the mysterious role of Fred Crisman. For Mr. Gratz in the same thread to post a reply, "By the way, I do not assume Mr. Caddy is a disinformation agent. I am sure he read somewhere that Crisman was one of the tramps. But this is a good demonstration of how false information spreads" confounds me. Actually, Mr. Gratz's reply in my thread is a good demonstration of someone who posts a reply in a thread without even bothering to read the original posting, which was what the thread is all about: namely, Timothy Good's take on Mr. Crisman. I do not accuse Mr. Gratz of spreading disinformation but maybe confusion.

How the world really works A mind-bending article that will truly shock you. The Bush Family’s connection to organized crime is spelled out in detail. http://www.dunwalke.com/

The mysterious role of Fred Crisman, Dallas tramp Fred Crisman was one of the three tramps arrested in Dallas immediately after JFK’s assassination. In regard to Crisman and JFK, below are excerpts from “Need To Know” by Timothy Good, which has just been published in paperback by Pegasus Books (New York). According to the Sunday Times (London), “The evidence that Good has amassed is too overwhelming to ignore and it is clear that a more open debate is long overdue.” (Page 60) On 24 June 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold observed nine crescent-shaped objects flying near Mount Rainier, Washington. [it was Arnold who described the objects as “flying saucers”, which subsequently led to UFOs being known by this term.] (Page 101) On 1 August 1947, an AAF B-25 Mitchell twin-engined bomber crashed near Kelso, Washington, killing the pilots, Captain William Davidson and Lieutenant Frank Brown, both intelligence officers from the Fourth Air Force Headquarters at Hamilton Field, California. Two others parachuted to safety. Davidson and Brown were returning from Tacoma, Washington, where they had interviewed pilots Kenneth Arnold and Captain Edward Smith, both witnesses to UFO sightings that summer. Arnold and Smith had become embroiled in the complex and sinister Maury Island incident of 21 June when, according to witnesses in a boat, including the captain, Harold Dahl, six flying objects were seen circling above Puget Sound, one spewing “slag,” of which some fell on the boat. Arnold and Smith had introduced the officers to Fred Crisman, a mysterious character with a background in counter-intelligence (including “black operations” for the CIA) who had investigated (and “contaminated”) the case. At the end of the meeting Crisman gave the officers a heavy box containing large chunks of the recovered fragments, which were later loaded on the B-25 at McChord Field. Arnold noted that the fragments were rather different from the aluminum-type metals that he and Smith had been shown previously by Crisman. Arnold and Smith had run into many weird and disturbing experiences during their investigations into the Maury Island case. Was the B-25 crash in any way related to its cargo, they wondered. (Page 111- Footnote 7) Arnold, Kenneth and Palmer, Ray, The Coming of the Saucers, published by the authors, 1952. Those interested in this case, and in Crisman’s extraordinary background – including his arrest in Dallas as one of the three “tramps” following the assassination of President Kennedy – should read Maury Island UFO: the Crisman Conspiracy, by Kenn Thomas, IllumiNet Press, PO Box 2808, Lilburn, GA 30048, 1999. (Page 420) It has long been rumored that President J. F. Kennedy, whose navy career included commanding the motor torpedo board PT-109 in the Second World War, was well-informed about the subject. In Alien Base, for instance, I allude to his secret meeting in Washington, D.C. with George Adamski, who had been contacted by extraterrestrials and who liaised with a number of high-ranking military personnel and politicians at the time, including those in the UK (such as Lord Dowding and Lord Mountbatten, on one occasion). In addition to holding a passport bearing special privileges, Adamski held a US Government Ordinance Department card which gave him access to all US military bases and to certain restricted areas. He told my friend Madeleine Rodeffer that Kennedy had a meeting with extraterrestrials at a secret Air Force Base in Desert Hot Springs, California. In early 2006 I received some important information from an impeccable source who was close to Kennedy and a member of the White House Staff at the time that Kennedy had been granted “special access.” My source does not wish to be identified. “As you would expect from any ex-military officer,” he explained, “a strong sense of patriotism and loyalty exists, even after retirement and a long passage of time. However, the following may be helpful”: Around 1961/62 President Kennedy expressed a wish to see the alien bodies associated with an alien crash site. He had obviously been informed of their existence and wished to see for himself the evidence. General McCue was in charge of the arrangements at the time and Air Force One was used to take Kennedy and other top brass on this visit. The purpose of the flight was closely guarded; however, the reason for Kennedy’s flight became evident to senior personnel on board through unguarded comments and the whispering which went on. Remember, even the pilots were members of the White House Staff, ex-military and trusted implicitly. The whispering or muted talk was mainly about the metal-like material from the crash site and the unique property of this, apparently very light, flexible and seemingly indestructible, of unknown origin…and nothing like it on Earth. Originally the alien bodies were located a [Wright-Patterson in Ohio] and later removed to Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, near [Panama City]…According to information received, the alien bodies were taken to Florida when Kennedy went to see them [at] a medical facility. They have probably been moved around over time. [End of excerpts from "Need to Know" by Timothy Good]

The long awaited, much anticipated and most welcomed voluntary departure of that person who calls himself "Ashton Gray" will improve the forum's gene pool to such an extent that it cannot be measured.

Relevant quotes from a front-page article in today’s New York Times, “Markets and Dollar Sink as U.S. Slowdown Grows”: “’We are experiencing among our clients an awakening that the United States is in big trouble,” says Erik Nielsen, chief Europe economist at Goldman Sachs’”… “The most immediate trigger for the sell-off in the dollar, traders said, was a jarring signal that suggested China might shift some of its enormous hoard of dollars and dollar-denominated assets – more than $1.4 trillion—into other currencies to get a better return on its money.” “’We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will adjust accordingly,’ Cheng Siwei, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee at the National People’s Congress told a conference in Beijing Wednesday.”

Under Bush, the deficit has increased by $3.865 trillion, per the article below. _______ National Debt at Record $9 Trillion Wednesday November 7, 5:59 pm ET By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer National Debt Hits $9 Trillion for the First Time WASHINGTON (AP) -- The national debt has hit $9 trillion for the first time. The Treasury Department, which issues a daily accounting of the debt, said Wednesday that the debt subject to limit was at $9 trillion on Tuesday. It was $8.996 trillion on Monday. Last month, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law an increase in the government's borrowing ceiling to $9.815 trillion. It was the fifth debt limit increase since Bush took office in January 2001. Those increases have totaled $3.865 trillion. The administration contends the rising debt reflects such factors as slow economic growth during the 2001 recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the cost of fighting terrorism. Democrats place much of the blame for the exploding debt on Bush's first-term tax cuts, which they say are tilted to the wealthy. The administration says those tax cuts helped to jump-start the economy and resulted in falling budget deficits in recent years. The tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010. The administration and Republicans in Congress want to see them made permanent; many Democrats would like to see them revamped to provide more benefits to lower and middle-income taxpayers. The budget deficit for the 2007 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $162.8 billion, the lowest in five years. In 2004, the deficit was $413 billion, a record in dollar terms. The national debt is the total of the annual budget deficits plus money that the government borrows from the Social Security and other government trust funds. The total national debt is actually higher than $9 trillion because it includes borrowing by some agencies that are not covered by the congressional debt limit. That total was $9.086 trillion on Tuesday. It took the country from George Washington until Ronald Reagan to reach the first $1 trillion in debt.

Supermodel Spurns the Dollar Dollar's Fall Collapses the American Empire; Bring Those 737 Overseas Military Bases Home! By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS www.counterpunch.org November 7, 2007 http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11072007.html The US dollar is still officially the world's reserve currency, but it cannot purchase the services of Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. Gisele required the $30 million she earned during the first half of this year to be paid in euros. Gisele is not alone in her forecast of the dollar's fate. The First Post (UK) reports that Jim Rogers, a former partner of billionaire George Soros, is selling his home and all possessions in order to convert all his wealth into Chinese yuan. Meanwhile, American economists continue to preach that offshoring is good for the US economy and that Bush's war spending is keeping the economy going. The practitioners of supply and demand have yet to figure out that the dollar's supply is sinking the dollar's price and along with it American power. The macho super patriots who support the Bush regime still haven't caught on that US superpower status rests on the dollar being the reserve currency, not on a military unable to occupy Baghdad. If the dollar were not the world currency, the US would have to earn enough foreign currencies to pay for its 737 oversees bases, an impossibility considering America's $800 billion trade deficit. When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, foreigners will cease to finance the US trade and budget deficits, and the American Empire along with its wars will disappear overnight. Perhaps Bush will be able to get a World Bank loan, or maybe one from the "Chavez bank," to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Foreign leaders, observing that offshoring and war are accelerating America's relative economic decline, no longer treat the US with the deference to which Washington is accustomed. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, recently refused Washington's demand to renew the lease on the Manta air base in Ecuador. He told Washington that the US could have a base in Ecuador if Ecuador could have a military base in the US. When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez addressed the UN, he crossed himself as he stood at the podium. Referring to President Bush, Chavez said, "Yesterday the devil came here, and it smells of sulfur still today." Bush, said Chavez, was standing "right here, talking as if he owned the world." In his state of the nation message last year, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Bush's blathering about democracy was nothing but a cloak for the pursuit of American self-interests at the expense of other peoples. "We are aware what is going on in the world. Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, and he eats without listening, and he's clearly not going to listen to anyone." In May 2007, Putin criticized the neocon regime in Washington for "disrespect for human life" and "claims to global exclusiveness, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich." Even America's British allies regard President Bush as a threat to world peace and the second most dangerous man alive. Bush is edged out in polls by Osama bin Laden, but is regarded as more dangerous than Iran's demonized president and North Korea's Kim Jong-il. President Bush has achieved his dismal world standing despite spending $1.6 billion of hard-pressed Americans' tax money on public relations between 2003 and 2006. Clearly, America's leader and America's currency are poorly regarded. Is there a solution? Perhaps the answer lies in those 737 overseas bases. If those bases were brought home and shared among the 50 states, each state would gain 15 new military bases. Imagine what this would mean: The end of the housing slump. A reduction in the trade deficit. And the end of the war on terror. Who would dare attack a country with 15 new military bases in every state in addition to the existing ones? Wherever a terrorist turned, he would find himself surrounded by soldiers. All of the dollars currently spent abroad to support 737 overseas bases would be spent at home. Income for foreigners would become income for Americans, and the trade deficit would shrink. The impact of the 737 military base payrolls on the US economy would end the housing crisis and bring back the 140,000 highly paid financial services jobs, the loss of which this year has cost the US $42 billion in consumer income. Foreclosures and bankruptcies would plummet. If this isn't enough to turn the dollar around, President Bush's pledge not to appoint an Attorney General if Michael Mukasey is not confirmed offers more promise. If the Democrats will defeat Mukasey's nomination, there are other superfluous cabinet departments that can be closed down in addition to the US Department of Torture and Indefinite Detention. The American empire is being unwound on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The year is two months from being over, but already in 2007, despite the touted "surge," deaths of US soldiers are the highest of any year of the war. The Taliban are the ones who are surging. They have taken control of a third district in Western Afghanistan. Turkey and the Kurds are on the verge of turning northern Iraq into a new war zone, another demonstration of American impotence. Bush's wars have endangered America's puppet regimes. Bush's Pakistani puppet, Musharraf, is fighting for his life. By resorting to "emergency rule" and oppressive measures, Musharraf has intensified his opposition. When Musharraf falls, thanks to Bush, the Islamists will have nukes. American generals used to say that the wars Bush started in the Middle East would take 10 years to win. On Oct. 31 General John Abizaid, former commander of US forces in the Middle East, put paid to that optimistic forecast. Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University, Gen. Abizaid said it would be 50 years before US troops can leave the Middle East. There is no possibility of the US remaining in the Middle East for a half century. The dollar and US power are already on their last legs, unbeknownst to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid who are preparing yet another blank check for Bush's latest request for $200 billion in supplementary war funding. There isn't any money with which to fund Bush's lost war. It will have to be borrowed from China. The Romans brought on their own demise, but it took them centuries. Bush has finished America in a mere 7 years. Even as Gisele throws off the dollar's hegemony, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Columbia are declaring independence of the IMF and World Bank, instruments of US financial hegemony, by creating their own development bank, thus bringing to an end US suzerainty over South America. An empire that has lost its backyard is finished. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Israel's Dilemma in Palestine A Land With People, For a People with a Plan By LUDWIG WATZAL November 5, 2007 www.counterpunch.org http://www.counterpunch.org/watzal11052007.html Two rabbis, visiting Palestine in 1897, observed that the land was like a bride, "beautiful, but married to another man". By which they meant that, if a place was to be found for a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine, the indigenous inhabitants had to leave. Where should the people of Palestine go? Squaring that circle has been the essence of Israeĺs dilemma ever since its establishment and the cause of the Palestinian tragedy that it led to. It has remained insoluble. Ghada Karmi's new book, Married To Another Man, Israeĺs Dilemma in Palestine, (published by Pluto Press, London-Ann Arbor) shows that the major reason for this failure was the original and unresolved Zionist quandary of how to create and maintain a Jewish state in a land inhabited by another people. Zionism was never able to resolve the problem of "the other man". There are only two ways: Either the "other man" had to be eradicated, or the Jewish state project had to be given up. Israel did not do either. It succeeded in 1948 in expelling and keeping out a large number of Palestinians, but Israel was never able to "cleanse" the land of Palestine entirely. The fundamental mistake of the Zionists was their belief that "the entire land of Palestine was Jewish and the Arab presence in it a resented foreign intrusion". All in all, the Zionists were "relatively" successful, but for the indigenous owners of the land it was a catastrophe which has been going on until today. "If Israel remains a colonialist state in its character, it will not survive. In the end the region will be stronger than Israel, in the end the indigenous people will be stronger than Israel, " as Akiva Eldar quoted the former Mazpen member Haim Hangebi in the Israeli Daily Haaretz on August 8, 2003. The author concludes: "Zionisḿs ethos was not about peaceful co-existence but about colonialism and an exclusivist ideology to be imposed and maintained by force." Ghada Karmi is a renowned commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a well-known figure on British radio and TV. She was born in Jerusalem, and forced to leave as a child in 1948. She grew up in Britain where she became a physician, academic and writer. Currently, Karmi is a research fellow and lecturer at the Insitute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. She has written several books, including In Search of Fatima, which was widely praised. The Zionist dilemma was perfectly and bluntly expressed by the so-called "post-Zionist" representative and professor, Benny Morris, which led not only to an uproar in the scientific community, but also to a deep disappiontment, because Morris was considered to belong to the "new historians". In his interview with the daily Haaretz and in his article in The Guardian he presented himself as an ardent Zionist. He encapsulates all Zionisḿs major elements, its inherent implausibility as a practical enterprise, its arrogance, racism and self-righteousness, and the insurmountable obstacle to it of Palestinés original population, which refuses to go away. For his colonialist and racist view he was severely critiziced by Baruch Kimmerling and many others who could not understand his attitude. Morris said incredible things: "A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population." According to him the Zionists made a mistake to have allowed any Palestinans to remain. "If the end of the story turns out to be a gloomy one for the Jews, it will because Ben-Gurion did not complete the transfer of 1948. (...) In other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves (...) in a situation of warfare (...) acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential (...) If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified." Morris concludes, Zionism is faced with two options: perpetual cruelty and repression of others, or the end of the enterprise. These alternatives give the whole enterprise an apocalyptic touch. For the time being, the Israeli security establishment has chosen the "iron wall"-concept which refers to a wall of bayonets. Ghada Karmi shows in one of her chapters,"The Cost of Israel to the Arabs", that the price they had to pay was horrendous. She holds not only Israel but also the West, especially the United States of America, is responsible for the rejectionist attitude of the Israeli political class. They just did never consider any compromise. In this chapter the author describes the damage that Israeĺs creation inflicted on the Arabs, how it has retarded their development and provoked a reactive and dangerous radicalization. The Arabs are always asked to be realistic and recognise the facts on the ground. "The Arabs were expected to make peace with Israel - and to love it as well." Under the surface Israel has made much progress towards normalisation with the Arab world. The Arab leaders have to conceal that truth from their own populations. Karmi views Western policy in Israeĺs case rather strategic than ideological. The installation of the Jewish state as the local agent of Western regional self-interest was an effective way of dividing the Arabs, so as to ensure that they remained dependent and subjugated." Egypt and Jordan are the best examples. In the Chapter "Why do Jews support Israel?" the author asks "Why did a project, which was, on the face of it, implausible in the first place and inevitably destructive of others, succeed so well? Just as importantly, why did it continue to receive support, despite a clear record of aggression and multiple breaches of international law against its neighbours that ensured its survival - not just as a state but as a disruptive force?" A number of disparate factors account for the unconditional support for Israel: the Holocaust and its associated trauma and guilts, the exigencies of Western regional policy, religious mythology, so-called common values, and Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East" et cetera. It is difficult to find a similar phenomenon for a state in the 21st Century that gets away with vast human rights violations, colonial subjugation of another people and a disdain of international law. Not only for the American Jewish community but also for many liberal Jews "Israel had taken on a mythic quality, part-identity, part-religion, and its dissolution, as a Jewish state, became psychologically and emotionally unthinkable. The obverse of this coin was of course a paranoid suspicion and hatred of anyone who threatened Israel in the slightest way." Karmi describes the Zionist desperate attempt to prove an unbroken chain between the Jews of Palestine and those of Europe. "Put like this, the absurditiy of the idea is obvious, but that in fact was the proposition Zionists wanted people to believe in order to justify the Jewish `return` to the ́homeland`." Because the Zionist claim rested on such shaky grounds, Jewish researchers "tried to use genetics as a way of demonstrating a link between European (Ashkenazi) Jews and their supposed Middle Eastern origins by way of finding a common ancestry with Middle Eastern Jews". The author discusses the relationship between the US and Israel and the dominant influence of the "Israel lobby", especially AIPAC which adopted an right-wing posture, both in its support for the Likud party in Israel and the political right in the US, including the Christian Zionists whose belief system goes like follows: They adhere literally to the Old Testament. Fundamental was the return of the Jews to the land of Israel, which was given them by God through the covenant with Abraham. According to this legacy all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates was granted to the Jews. The Jewish return to Palestine (Israel) was essential as a prelude to Christ́s Second Coming; in that sense, Jews were the instrument by which divine prophecy would be fulfilled. However, they were obliged to convert to Christianity and rebuild the Jewish Temple. Seven years of tribulation would follow, culminating in a holocaust or Armageddon, during which the converted Jews and other godless people would be destroyed. Only then would the Messiah return to redeem mankind and establish the Kingdom of God on earth where he would reign for a thousand years. The converted Jews, restored as God́s Chosen People, would enjoy a privileged status in the world. At the end of all this, they and all the rightous would ascend to heaven in the final `Rapture`. The Jewish role in all this meant: "Jews restored to Israel and converted, leading to the Second Advent, leading to mankind́s redemption." In chapter four, five and six the author critizices the so-called peace process, Arafat́s destructive final role and Israeĺs attempt to revive the Jordanian option. In signing the Oslo agreement, "Arafat legitimized Zionism, the very ideology that hat created and still perpetuates the Palestinian tragedy". The Israeli aim to destroy the Palestinans could not have been better described as in the words of the Israeli sociologist professor Baruch Kimmerling who wrote in his book Politicide that the process of gradual military, political and psychological attrition whose aim was to destroy the Palestinians as an independent people with a coherent political and social existence would make them vanish by their fragmentation and irrelevance. "Forty years of Israeli politicide had done its work on the Palestine question as a national cause. The Palestinians, already in an unenviable position of physical fragmentation after 1948, became politically fragmented with the Israeli occupation." In her chapter "Solving the problem Karmi argues that a two-state solution is out of reach. Consequently, she calls in chapter seven for a one-state solution. "In a single state, no Jewish settler would have to move and no Palestinian would be under occupation." The author thinks that creating a Jewish state was "crazy" at Herzĺs time and even now therefore "creating a unitary state of Israel/Palestine, far less implausible than the Zionist project ever was, should be no less successful". Refering to Hangebís statement that Israel as a "colonial state" cannot survive, Karmi proposes an unthinkable idea: "The best solution to this intractable problem is to turn back the clock before there was any Jewish state and return history as from there." But at the end, she turns back to realism: "The clock will not go back and, although the Jewish state cannot be uncreated, it might be, so to speak, unmade. The reunification of Palestinés shattered remains in a unitary state for all its inhabitants, old and new, is the only realistic, humane and durable route out of the morass. It is also the only way for the Israeli Jewish community (as opposed to the Israeli state) to survive in the Middle East." Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as an editor and a journalist in Bonn, Germany. He has written several books on Israel and Palestine.

My impression from the source who told me this story is that the secret meeting in Moscow in the midst of the Viet Nam War was not a rogue operation but a well-planned meeting of the top military leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It lasted a full week, which showed that the subjects discussed were of great significance to all concerned.