Ed Berger

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Tue, Dec 5, 1967: Reserve Honors, Retires Col. Crichton DALLAS (API) Col. Jack Crichton. commanding officer of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, was awarded the Legion of Merit Monday night on his retirement from the Army Reserve after 30 years of service. The medal was presented in a ceremony by Col. Robert D. Offer, commander of the VIII U.S. Army Corps at Austin. An oil man and petroleum consultant, Crichton organized his Reserve unit in 1956 and has been its only commander. The award cited him for "exceptionally outstanding service" as commander and for the preparation of a series of military intelligence studies. The above definitely leads credence to the reality of the 488th and Crichton's role in it: the reference to military intelligence studies conforms to what is known about the 488th's own activities, and it seems unlikely to me that false information cooked up by Crichton himself would be filtered out through a Legion of Merit award ceremony and announcement. Picture of Crichton and Col. Robert Offer here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Army_Reserve_Magazine/cW3UxFbBfScC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA13&printsec=frontcover

Leslie, this bit: seems so critically important here. Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett seem to suggest, in their book Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, that the Rockefeller stake in the Congo-based monopoly was, among other things, a catalyzing factor in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. After all, we have here the specter of American capital (Rockefeller interests) and a key nexus of Anglo-American economic and political power (Ladenburg, Thalmann) having become effectively the backers of Belgian neocolonialism in Africa. Imperial preservation, in so many words. Colby and Dennett point out that the Tanganyika Concessions were not the only Rockefeller holdings in the region: Laurance Rockefeller, for example, held a Congolese textile mill called Filatures et Tissage Africains. One of his fellow investors was none other than C. Douglas Dillon. There's another odd line that leads sideways from this towards Canadian intrigue, where familiar names begin to pop up with alarming regularity. The Belgian interests that held the sizable chunk of Union Miniere, Societe Generale, maintained a Canadian mining holding called Sogemines, Ltd. Sogemines, in turn, held Canadian Petrofina, the Canadian arm of the giant Belgian oil company. (Worth keeping in mind that American Petrofina had absorbed Panhandle Producing and Refining Company, which had been an affiliate of the Atlas Corporation. The head of Panhandle, Roger Gilbert, was a vice president of the Atlas Corporation and a director of the WWC). Two of the directors of Sogemines, J.R. Timmins and Jean Raymond, were directors of Noranda Mines, one of the mining interests owned and controlled by James Y. Murdoch—a president of the Bank of Nova Scotia and one of the Canadian board members of the WCC. This Jean Raymond held an additional directorship at Dosco, a steel-producing company owned by A.V. Roe, a company where Wood, Gundy exerted significant influence. Wood, Gundy, in turn, was one of the entities that helped organize the WCC. But there are additional connections: throughout 1957, A.V. Roe began to scoop up shares of Algoma Steel, a company held by the estate of James Dunn. The executor of Dunn's estate, and thus the person who managed this sale, was Canadian technocrat C.D. Howe, who during the war had served as head as the Minister of Munitions and Supply. Serving under him were E.P. Taylor and W.E. Phillips, both of the WCC and the organizers of the Argus Corporation (formed with Atlas Corporation capital). Howe also sold large Algoma shares to a curious German company, Mannesmann steel. Libbie and Frank Park (The Anatomy of Big Business) have the following to say about Mannesmann: The Mannesmann firm and the Dunn estate are now the largest shareholders in Algoma. Mannesmann is one of the major steel companies of the Ruhr, in existence since 1885. The association with Algoma had begun before the death of Sir James Dunn. In 1953 the Mannesmann Tube Co. (a subsidiary of Mannesmann Steel) had built a $20 million plant at Sault Ste. Marie, based on steel from Algoma. W. Zangcn, chairman of Mannesmann since 1934, was a former member of the N-a-z-i party and of the SS; he was one of the group of big German industrialists who financed the Nazi rise to power and provided the armaments for the N-a-z-i war machine. In the days of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Mannesmann opened short-lived affiliates in Kiev and Dniepropetrovsk. The Mannesmann board includes figures from the Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank of West Germany. Zangen is a director of Algoma Steel.

@Leslie Sharp—an important connection with Ladenburg, Thalmann "U.S. Investors Buy Large Share in African Development Concern" New York Times, November 3, 1950 A group headed by Ladenburg, Thalmann Co. and Lazard Freres, both of New York, has purchased 600,000 of the 1,667,961 shares outstanding of Tanganyika Concessions, it was officially reported here yesterday. The stock involved was sold by the British Treasury last April to an Anglo-Belgian-South African group. Associated in the purchase of the shares were the International Basic Economy Corporation, an international development corporation of the Rockefeller family, and David Rockefeller. It was asserted that none of the shares would be reoffered for public sale in this country. At a meeting in London yesterday Harry B. Lake, a partner in Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Alexander L. Hood, formerly ith that concern, were elected directors of Tanganyika Concessions. George Murnane, a partner in Lazard Freres, also was named a director. The transaction was carried out at official exchange rates. The understanding between the American group and the British Exchange Control Authorities provides that the sterling invested for the acquisition of the Tanganyika shares may be withdrawn at the official rate of exchange at any time. [...] Tanganyika Concessions owns a 90 per cent interest in the Benguela Railroad, which serves the copper and uranium mines in the Belgian Congo. It also owns a 14 per cent interest in the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the large Belgian mining company which owns and operates these mines. Up until a year prior to this deal, the managing director of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga—a holding of Société générale de Belgique—was a Belgian mining engineer named Edgar Sengier (Sengier actually remained affiliate with both Union Miniere and Société générale at the time of the deal, having stepped back from his leadership role while maintaining a spot on an administrative board). It may be important, given the relationship between Ladenburg Thalmann and the WCC, and the status of the IBEC as a suspected WCC 'adjunct', that Sengier himself had crossed paths with other WCC principles prior to the formation of the company in 1945. Consider the case of Sengier and Congo's Shinkolobwe mine during World War 2: After being warned by British scientists regarding the potential danger were the uranium ore to fall into the wrong hands, Sengier decided to transport half the uranium stockpile from the Congo to the United States in 1940. The ore was stored in warehouses on Manhattan Island, while Sengier himself came to New York to conduct his company’s operations. At the time, the US Army had been actively searching for uranium. When Col. Kenneth Nichols came to Edgar Sengier, he was surprised to learn that Sengier already had 1,200 tons of it on American soil. Another 3,000 tons from the Shinkolobwe mine was also sold to the US Army and transported to the United States. Sengier’s efforts were instrumental in helping the Americans develop the atom bomb. Before uranium ore had been brought over from Africa, the Americans relied on Canadian uranium ore, which contained only .02% uranium. By contrast, the Shinkolobwe ore contained 65% uranium. And the circumstances surrounding the access to the mine: On September 26, 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom finally reached agreement with the Belgian Government that African Metals (acting for Union Miniere) would contract with the Combined Development Trust for the 1,720 tons of uranium oxide... The Combined Development Trust began to function in July, 1944, when General [Leslie] Groves and Sir Charles Hambro, the principal American and British members, undertook to negotiate the Shinkolobwe contract with Sengier. The Trust assumed control of the uranium and thorium supplies liberated by the advancing allied armies. Most important, it surveyed for the Combined Policy Committee the present and potential sources of raw material throughout the world. At the end of November, Groves, who served as chairman of the CDT, sent Stimson a report that depended heavily on the work done for the Manhattan District. It found the uranium situation encouraging. If Britain and the United States could augment their own resources with the ore of the Congo, they would have over 90 per cent of the world's likely supply. Thorium was so scattered throughout the world that such complete control was virtually impossible, but the two governments could obtain a dominant position by controlling sources in India and Brazil. If they could supplement these with the thorium of the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and Madagascar, so much the better. In short, the Anglo-American raw-material position was strong. But the United States and Britain should not fall into a false sense of security. Groves told Stimson that until the Combined Policy Committee instructed otherwise, the Trust would assume it should purchase major uranium deposits and remove them to safe storage. Its stockpile of uranium should be as large as possible. It probably was not yet wise to purchase thorium, but the Trust should seek options and political agreements to assure control should the mineral become as important as it seemed it might. Thus the Combined Development Trust arrived at a program of aggressive action. So here we have General Leslie Groves, British spymaster/banker/future WCC figure Charles Hambro, and Sengier working in tandem to deliver over uranium supplies from the Congo to the Anglo-American Combined Development TRUST. Less than a decade later, two other WCC-linked entities—Ladenburg, Thalmann and the Rockefeller's IBEC—arrive in Africa the buy into the very neocolonial enterprise that Sengier was running. Obligatory IBEC - Baird Foundation interlinkages, via stock movement (of Chemway Corp, a chemical company controlled by Serge Semenenko) on behalf of IBEC's Robert Purcell: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tax_exempt_Foundations_and_Charitable_Tr/DltzAolBXbQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA28&printsec=frontcover

Thank you for posting this! I actually wrote these years ago for my research partner and I had totally forgot that he had put them online

(and can you speak to the claim that WCC folded in 1962?) This is a bit of a mystery! There's a court case from 1962, Minerals & Chemicals Philipps Corp. V. Panamerican Commodities S.A. According to Minerals & Chemicals, the company was hired by Panamerican Commodities to act as its agent, but then Panamerican broke contract, dumped Minerals & Chemicals, and hired the World Commerce Corp. Minerals & Chemicals then began pursuing subpoenas against the WCC, which would force the WCC to turn over its internal books and the like. The WCC of course resisted this, arguing that the materials contained within the WCC's books constituted a 'trade secret'. It's around this time that we start getting stories that the WCC was folded up: this is reported in newspapers, and all activity appears to have ceased (in that context, I've been interested in the formation of the World Banking Corporation at the beginning of 1964, and the formation of the World Finance Corporation around 1971. WBC was organized by Robert B. Anderson, Clifford Folger and Bank of America; BofA's former holding company, Transamerica, had been on the initial WCC investors. WFC, meanwhile, was incorporated by OSS veteran Walter Surrey, who had acted as a lobbyist for the WCC). But the Panama incorporation papers for the WCC actually include dissolution papers, dating the dissolution to October-November 1985—many, many years after 1962. I thought at first that this must have been the mistaken inclusion of a different World Commerce Corporation's in with 'the' WCC (there is at least one other company with the name, a Nicaraguan firm), but these dissolution papers list the company's secretary as Margaret Tricker, who appears in WCC materials going back to the 1950s... These dissolution papers also identify a major shareholder in the WCC: an entity called the Atlantic Investment Corp S.A. Tracking Atlantic Investment Corp S.A. is difficult, but a company of that name was incorporated in Panama on October 30th, 1963. The principles of this Atlantic Investment, such as director Heide Wolf Kaufmann and agent Franco & Franco, had been involved in the formation of another company on June 18th, 1962, the General Finance & Development Corporation. Is this Atlantic Investment Corp SA the same as the one listed as a WCC shareholder in the dissolution papers? I don't know. But the person who acted as president of Atlantic Investment Corp, Nixia Aurora Zerna, appears like a front person: Nixia had sat as president for dozens and dozens of Panamanian companies over many years, a sizable handful of which seem to have been engaged in crime and fraud.

The WCC itself has been discussed in a handful of different JFK assassination works, such as Peter Dale Scott's efforts, that predate the Lafitte datebook by many years. And datebook and the questions around it aside, the ties into suspect elements in the Dallas business community stand independently...

The World Commerce Corporation was a private, CIA-linked entity formed by veterans of the American OSS and the British SOE to conduct a number of activities in a wide gamut of industries, sectors and shadowlands after the Second World War. It exhibited puzzling links to the international drug trade (via Willis Bird and Jim Thompson, for examples), to organized crime (Fassoulis), to various covert schemes and operations (the T2 Tanker Scandal, the Great Soybean Caper, the fraudulent Baird foundations, etc), and to high level factions of the ruling classes of the US, the UK, and Canada. It also exhibited a number of inroads into Dallas (see: the connection to Murchison via Latin American oil concessions; the ties to mobbed-up associates of Jack Ruby; etc). A number of these inroads cross paths with subjects probed by people who have studied the assassination of JFK (i.e., the tendrils that lead from the WCC to Great Southwest, identified as a key suspect by Peter Dale Scott in both his unpublished The Dallas Conspiracy and in the published Deep Politics and the Death of JFK; the lines leading to 'mystery man of banking' Serge Semenenko, who knew both Frank Brandstetter and George de Mohrenschildt; the connections between the WCC and Skorzeny, tackled by both Ralph Ganis and Hank Albarelli; the lines leading from the WCC to Permindex via William Donovan, David Baird, and other routes; etc etc etc). Why should discussion of the history of this most curious corporate entity be prohibited?

Going back through my notes and here's a partial web of WCC corporate ties: Main body: British-American-Canadian Corporation/World Finance Corporation Subsidiaries: 6 subsidiaries in 6 locations: Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Panama and the Philippines Ore Marketing Corp S.A.: Panama-based subsidiary of the WCC. Described as having a stake in a company called Cia Minera Santa Barbara in Peru. Also has ties to an East Branson Shipping, a company whose details I cannot track down. "Divisions" and corporate holdings: [NOTE: "division" and "subsidiary" are sometimes used interchangeably by the WCC; division and subsidiary may also morph into "affiliate" over time] Joensson & Cross: commodity trading company specializing in spices. Acquired by the WCC and transformed into a 'division' Biddle Sawyer: chemical company of which the WCC took a "controlling interest" H.L. Raclin & Sons: commodity trading company with close ties to Bache & Company (controlled by the Ryan family). Acquired by the WCC in 1950. H.L. Raclin head Robert Raclin then became a WCC director. "Affiliate" and "partner" companies: Compania Petrolera Del Golfo Del Darien: Panamanian oil concession; ultimately ends up with Murchisons. Described as an "affiliate" of the WCC in numerous trade journals. AMVECO C.A.: Asbestos mining operation in Venezuela. In 1958, Mining World listed AMVECO as an "affiliate" of the WCC; that same year, Rock Products called AMVECO as subsidiary of the WCC. In 1961, Mines Magazine called described AMVECO as the former "asbestos division of the WCC. Caribbean Cement Company Limited: Jamaican cement company organized by William Stephenson. Foreign Commerce Weekly in 1949 described Caribbean Cement as being "promoted" by the WCC. Houdry Process Corporation: company developing catalytic cracking systems for petroleum refining. WCC acted as their foreign representative/agent. Thai Silk Company: Thailand silk concern of the WCC's point man in the country, Jim Thompson. WCC reportedly provided start-up funds for the Thai Silk Company. 'Adjunct' companies [i.e. companies set up by WCC figures that appear to have run parallel to the operations of the WCC. Some of these may in fact be WCC subsidiaries, while others most certainly were not]: Argus Corporation: Canadian conglomerate modeled on—and initially founded by—the Atlas Corporation. Organized by two WCC directors: E.P. Taylor and W.E. Phillips. Newfoundland and Labrador Company: Newfoundland and Labrador-based natural resource cartel, organized in part by William Stephenson and other WCC figures. Web of corporate holdings interlocked with that of the Argus Corporation. Eventually transformed into a subsidiary of Canadian Javelin. Philippine-American Finance and Development Company: Philippines-based gold and other mineral mining and processing company. Organized in part by the WCC's Edward Stettinius, along with Paul McNutt and Joseph Hirshhorn. Could be the Philippines subsidiary of the WCC. Liberian Company: Liberia-based development combine organized by Edward Stettinius. Interests in mining, banking, shipping, rubber, education, and various other sectors of the Liberian economy and civil society. Besides Stettinius, several other WCC principles on the board, including Frank Ryan. International Basic Economy Corporation: sprawling economic development machine led by Nelson Rockefeller that effectively dominated Brazil; also had tendrils elsewhere, such as Thailand (where it was involved with Jim Thompson's silk interests). North African Commerce Corporation/Commerce International Corporation: Corporate vehicle of Sonny Fassoulis, may or may not be a WCC subsidiary. Evidence suggests some WCC connection, and the company was undoubtedly used in covert operations and later exhibited ties to organized crime networks. I have more, but won't have access to my full notes until I get back home this weekend...

I'm currently out of town so don't have full access to all my research notes, BUT to a couple of these: R.W. Dowling—Dowling was indeed president and chairman of City Investing. I wasn't aware of his connection to Material Services, but that would fit very nicely in this web! Murchison/DEVCO—by summer of 1964, Clint Murchison Jr, alongside Charles Allen of Allen & Co, had joined the Seven Arts Board, thus granting Murchison and the Allens (acting as Murchison investment advisors in this time) an interest in DEVCO. Stafford Sands/DEVCO—totally part of the same milieu. DEVCO rolls directly out from the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, which allocated the land on Grand Bahama to develop Freeport. Hawksbill was the offspring of two figures working in deep collusion: Wallace Groves, who goes on to establish DEVCO with Chesler, and Stafford Sands. I like this way of putting it a lot. It seems very clear to me that this was the case! Can you say more on this?

The name definitely rings a bell but I can't say I know too much about him. Of the Odlum lieutenants, Boyd Hatch is definitely the one I'm more familiar with.

In October 1948, the World Commerce Corp leased space on the 20th floor of 25 Broad Street in Manhattan. 25 Broad Street, known also as the Broad Exchange Building, was long associated with the New York Stock Exchange, and had housed for a time the Curb Exchange. The building's owner, until 1940, was the Broad Exchange Company, and it was subsequently owned from 1940 to 1945 by Prudential, the finance and insurance giant. In 1945—the year that the WCC and so many of its affiliates and adjuncts were organized—25 Broad was purchased by the City Investing Company. The real estate broker who leased this space to the WCC was the Charles F. Noyes Company, itself the vehicle of a fairly prominent player in New York's high-powered real estate field, Charles Noyes. It appears that Noyes might have had very close ties to the controller of 25 Broad, City Investing: in July of 1932, he began a many-decade stint as an advisor to Chemical Bank, where the Goelet family of New York had held significant influence. At the same time, two generations of Goelets populated the board of City Investing (another interlock between Chemical Bank and City Investing was the presence of Percy Johnston, Chemical's chairman, on the City Investing board). One of these latter Goelets was Robert Goelet, eventually of the board of the CIA's Air America. Noyes also appears to have involved in the fraudulent use of philanthropies to shield private business activities from taxation and scrutiny. As noted in the Congressional report on fraudulent foundations, Noyes was using foundations to "churn" money: to borrow from one entity (often Chemical Bank) at a lower interest rate, and re-loan that money at a higher interest rate. It brings to mind David Baird's own use of fraudulent philanthropies (and indeed, the inquiry into Baird's work and the above on Noyes are published in the same set of report volumes), which also used a philanthropic shield to mask securities dealing and probable money laundering. Even more incredible, given the deep ties between the WCC and those in Baird's network—in my opinion these networks are in fact one and the same—is that Baird himself would wind up on the board of City Investing, the company in control of 25 Broad. City Investing stock would also be moved about by the Baird foundations But what's more is that Noyes himself tracks straight into the Baird web. The Congressional report notes Noyes' affiliation with the Empire State Building Corp as a director. This was the company that owned the Empire State Building; Noyes initial role was that he had brokered the sale of the Empire State Building to the Empire State Building Corp in 1951. And who was the Empire State Building Corp? The founder and chairman was Baird foundation client, Hilton Hotels executive, General Dynamics owner, and Chicago mob-insider Henry Crown. Serving on the board, under Crown and alongside Noyes, was Conrad Hilton himself, yet another Baird foundation client. A third and very important Baird Foundation client on the board of the Empire State Building Corp was Joseph Binns. Like Crown and Conrad Hilton, Binns was a Hilton hotel man: he was a board member of Hilton Hotels Corp, Hilton Hotels International, Hilton Hotels Canada, and Hilton Inns Inc. Binns was also an insider to Crowns' various affairs, serving on the board of his Material Service Corp, which was eventually absorbed into General Dynamics. Unsurprisingly, Binns held a spot on City Investing Co alongside David Baird himself (who also populated Hilton boards), the ultimate landlord of the WCC. Furthermore, Binns was a close friend of Baird's banker—and George De Mohrenschildt associate—Serge Semenenko. The pair were sometimes found in Acapulco together, where they undoubtedly crossed paths with another Semenenko associate who spent considerable time there: Frank Brandstetter. And, finally, Binns was a repeat business associate of Meyer Lansky frontman (and Baird client) Lou Chesler. He was a director of Chesler's General Development Corporation, a Florida-based real estate development vehicle, and was on the board of Chesler's Seven Arts Productions—the film company that Chesler had used to hold his interest in the Grand Bahamas Development Corporation, DEVCO. All in all, a rich tapestry for the WCC's real estate broker to be woven into.

Leslie, this is incredible stuff! It's very sad that this leg of the project wasn't completed. I've tried my own attempts (many times, as a matter of fact) to create visual guides for the WCC interlocks, corporate organization, adjunct corporations etc, but I've never been able to wing it. Something for a more visually-oriented, artistic mind! Something that leaps out to me... A cursory examination of a mere 6 WCC subsidiary entities done for this proposal reveals that 5 of the 6 had board members who were closely identified with the CIA and the Pentagon, and that 4 of the 5 had two or more interlocking board of director members. Additionally, two of the 6 subsidiary entities had John Connolly, wounded on November 22, 1963 during the JFK assassination in Dallas, as a board of director member. Would you happen to know—or be willing to share—the names of the subsidiary entities that Connally was involved with? Connally is on my radar in a big way, and been tracking him across numerous corporate positions and deep events. But a WCC connection is new to me! But not unsurprising, given his ties to Falconbridge of Canada...

The chairman of the DCA, on the other hand, was H. Struve Hensel, a former general counsel for the Department of Defense (1952) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (1954). In summer of 1955, Hensel left the DoD, where he took up a position at the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett (which interlocked with General Dynamics stakeholder Atlas Corporation via William G. Dillon, also of Cosmos Bank). It was a month following his arrive at the firm when Hensel took the spot on the DCA board. On September 30th, 1955, the Spokane Chronicle announced that William G. Dillon of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett had been made vice president of the International Oil & Metals Corporation, a Delaware company that began a series of acquisitions in the western American mining sector (chiefly: uranium and gold). Perhaps the addition of Dillon, a board member of WCC investor Atlas Corporation, allowed International Oil & Metals to gain access to the wider tapestry of corporate-intelligence connections that this milieu fostered. And indeed, on August 14th, 1956, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that International Oil & Metals had "acquired a 75% interest in the 10,000,000 acre oil concession of the Compania Petrolera del Golfo del Darien, affiliate of the World Commerce Corp, in Panama..." Almost exactly one year later the Salt Lake Tribune carried the announcement that "International Oil & Metals Corp has farmed out" this Panama concession to Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp, Dallas, Texas.. The agreement also provides that Delhi will spend three million dollars in the next three years in prospecting for oil on the acreages near Darien, Panama". In other words, a Panamanian oil concession set up by the World Commerce Corporation translated into an overseas venture for Murchison oil interests.

I'm not sure—all that I can really find on Western Tube is that it listed its address as 666 S. 29th Road, Arlington VA, with attorney Leonard Sussholz as its registered agent. 666 S. 29th Road appears to have been residential, and might have been Sussholz's home address (there's other companies where Sussholz is listed as agent, such as R.S. Hogan Inc., located at this address). Unfortunately Virginia corporate records online search doesn't list Western Tube. It's a similar pattern with the other companies listed. World Recovery Corp—named as an import-export company—tracks back to the offices of a patent lawyer in Washington DC, but doesn't turn up in DC records searches. Leon Frenk appears to have spent the early 1940s in Argentina as a businessman involved in (among other things) perfumes. A business partner of his was one Pablo Adolfo Ehrenhaus. There was a Western Tube Corporation out in California, founded by Nicolae Malaxa, "a former financier of the Iron Guard, a Fascist group in wartime Rumania". Linda Minor has the following in a blog post: In May 1951, at the height of the Korean War when all industry was under war-time control, Malaxa organized the Western Tube Corporation. The company, of which Malaxa was treasurer and sole stock owner – a thousand dollars worth – planned to manufacture seamless tubes for oil refining... On May 17,1951, the Western Tube Corporation filed for a "certificate of necessity" to give top war-time priority to its materials and personnel. Also, the company filed a petition seeking "first preference quota" for its treasurer, Nicolae Malaxa, on the grounds that he was indispensable to the operation of Western Tube. These two applications were personally promoted by Senator Nixon. Nixon telephoned the executive assistant to INS Commisioner James Hennessy to plead for Malaxa's permanent entry. And a letter sent by Nixon to the Defense Production Administrator marked "Urgent" insisted, "It is important strategically and economically, both for California and the entire United States, that a plant for the manufacturing of seamlees tubing for oil wells be erected … urge that every consideration it may merit be given to the pending application."... A year after becoming a permanent resident, Malaxa visited with Juan Peron in Argentina. Malaxa also met in Buenos Aires, according to the CIA, with Otto Skorzeny, the Nazi parachutist who had rescued Mussolini in 1943. Skorzeny, now settled in Madrid, remained a close associate of other Rumanian exiles, including Horia Sima, the head of the Iron Guard. While interesting, I haven't found anything suggesting a corporate relationship between the Western Tube Corporation in California and the Western Tube Division Inc in Virginia.

Synchronicity or revealing pattern? A 1957 issue of Red Island Lines News Digest discusses the creation of a railway and freight system set up to service the Great Southwest development project between Dallas and Fort Worth—the Great Southwest R.R. The article notes that many of the figures driving the construction and management of the line are the same as those running the Great Southwest project writ large. Angus Wynne, William Zeckendorf, Rockefeller Center and Amon Carter are all named, but then one unfamiliar: "Arthur Rubloff, Development Corporation of America". Zeckendorf appears to have been close to Rubloff, with the pair having conducted real estate business together since the late 1940s. The Development Corporation of America, the DCA, is meanwhile an intriguing entity. Items entered into a court case involving the company show that when the DCA carried out a public stock offering, one of the two underwriters it employed was Allen & Company. Given the amount of intrigue that Allen & Company and its leader, Charles Allen, bubble up in, this immediately raises a red flag. The ties are also very apparent: Rubloff appears on the board of the Grand Bahama Development Company (DEVCO), alongside Charles Allen. Other board members on the list are intriguing. One of them is Patrick Hoy, who long worked with Harry Crown. Described by Jonathan Marshall as somebody who personified the interface between big business and organized crime in Chicago, Southern California, and Las Vegas", Hoy had worked for Crown's Material Services Corporation. When Material Services was absorbed into General Dynamics, which made Crown the largest shareholder in the defense contractor, Hoy became the company's vice president. The chairman of the DCA, on the other hand, was H. Struve Hensel, a former general counsel for the Department of Defense (1952) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (1954). In summer of 1955, Hensel left the DoD, where he took up a position at the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett (which interlocked with General Dynamics stakeholder Atlas Corporation via William G. Dillon, also of Cosmos Bank). It was a month following his arrive at the firm when Hensel took the spot on the DCA board. Hensel also appears as a key figure in Major Ralph Ganis' The Skorzeny Papers. Ganis writes: In 1952, Hensel would go on to serve as General Counsel for the Department of Defense and then later as head of the ISA. Hensel would leave government service in July 1955, returning to private legal practice. He would also become a major lobbyist for the German steel industry, representing the firm of Otto Wolff, of which Skorzeny was also a representative. Hensel is found in the Skorzeny papers in reference to Otto Wolff business transactions, confirming he was dealing with Skorzeny. Assuming the accuracy of Ganis' claims, this would place Hensel as a contact for Skorzeny at the time that Hensel was at DCA, as well as at the time when the DCA was investing into Great Southwest's blitz of projects and programs. (Boy, what I wouldn't give to see Ganis' papers...) In a footnote, Ganis adds the following: A key businessman linked to the Hensel-Skorzeny association includes one Leon Frenk. Frenk and Hensel were business partners in a number of companies (most likely U.S. intelligence cover organizations) including U.S. Electronics Corp, a subsidiary of American Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Mundial Trade Corp (Mondale Corporation associated with Permindex), World Recovery Corp., and Western Tube Division (linked to [Ferenc] Nagy). The Mondail [sic?] Corporation has been found in JFK conspiracy studies. The author regards the Mondail corporation as one facet in the overall military intelligence industrial structure, a facilitating entity for covert operations, but not the operation heart of that covert structure. The relationship between Henzel, this Leon Frenk, and the U.S. Electronics Corp is confirmed in a 1969 law suit. The case summary also hits on the other companies mentioned by Ganis: "Hensel simultaneously herewith also wishes to sever, determine and terminate all other business relationships heretofore existing between Hensel and Frenk, including, but not limited to, Mundial Trade Corp., World Recovery Corp., Western Tube Division and Technical Equipment Corp.". But I'm a little confused about his other comments. What relationship does Mundial Trade have to do with Permindex, and where are those connections laid out? And where does Mundial (oddly misspelled suddenly by Ganis as 'Mondail') appear in JFK conspiracy theory? And, finally, how did he link Western Tube Division with Ferenc Nagy (and thus, presumably, back to Permindex)? The company name does not appear, insofar as I've been able to determine, in Nagy's personal papers...