World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, Ed Berger said:

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... 

I was hoping you would know.  Hank never discussed the 6 subsidiary entities while working on Coup.  If you mentioned Connally in context of Falconbridge, I missed it.

I trust @David Josephs is okay that I mention we discussed the potential for a multi-dimensional app. Apparently they're on the market but not yet mass produced, ergo $$$.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Ed Berger]

20 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I was hoping you would know.  Hank never discussed the 6 subsidiary entities while working on Coup.  If you mentioned Connally in context of Falconbridge, I missed it.

I trust @David Josephs is okay that I mention we discussed the potential for a multi-dimensional app. Apparently they're on the market but not yet mass produced, ergo $$$.

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... 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Ed Berger

[Jonathan Cohen]

What does ANY of this have to do with the Kennedy assassination?

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Ed Berger said:

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... 

Thanks for this level of detail @Ed Berger

re:
Biddle Sawyer: chemical company of which the WCC took a "controlling interest" 
 

' . . . As evidenced in his private papers, by the early 1950s, Skorzeny was very much involved financially and operationally with WCC. Over the years the WCC had acquired the majority stock in worldwide trading group Biddle Sawyer Corp. headquartered in NYC which dealt in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, botanical drugs, waxes, gums, and essential oils. The transaction secured Anthony J. Drexel Biddle a membership on the board of WCC. In 1961, Biddle became US Ambassador to Spain, placing him in close proximity to Otto and Ilse Skorzeny, arms merchant Victor Oswald, and Johannes Bernhardt among various other “former” Nazis ensconced in Madrid. 

            Biddle returned to the US in April ’62, and World Commerce folded, allegedly for tax reasons, on August 31st of that year with reported gross income from trading—commodities included—to commissions and interest to just under $1 million with a total net income of $514,000, a far cry from its first year of operation, 1947 when it posted a $50,000 loss. This history of conglomerates tied directly to global commodities markets while at the same time serving as fronts for political and intelligence operations, contributes to the argument that the stock scandal with the valued food commodity vegetable oil—mostly soybean—at its center, brewing since 1962 and climaxing hours before the assassination deserves greater coverage whether tied directly to this investigation or not. 

            Prior to its folding, from 1950 through to 1958, Otto Skorzeny was in written communication with WCC president Frank Ryan and vice-president, as well as international playboy and one of Bill Donovan’s OSS agents, Ricardo Sicre. Named in Otto’s private papers, Sicre (frequently using the alias Richard Stickler) had established a training school for spies who crossed into Vichy, France into Spain. After the war, Sicre was installed as a vice president of WCC, adding to a body of evidence that WCC was being used as a privately controlled international espionage and assassination network. In time, he would arrange countless covert arms shipments facilitated under the auspices of WCC, often directly linked to US Military Assistance Advisor Groups. Much of this covert work of which Sicre played a major role involved former CIA Madrid Station Chiefs Alfonzo Rodriquez (1951) and James A. Noel (1963). Rodriguez, a.k.a. Earle Williamson and Wallace Growery, and Noel, a.k.a. Woodrow Olien, each had a lengthy history in agency operations in Cuba as well as Spain (see Endnotes) Whether they were witting participants or not, Rodriguez and Noel serve as a segue between WCC and any serious exposition of the maneuvers among elements of the CIA hierarchy that contributed to the assassination plot.  — CiD

(and can you speak to the claim that WCC folded in 1962?)

[Leslie Sharp]

@Ed Berger
Did Ladenburg Thalmann appear on your radar?

 
' . . . At first Donovan appears to have played no formal part in the establishment of either BACC or WCC, although his law firm, at that time known as Donovan Leisure Newton Lombard & Irvine acted as legal advisers.” (A few amateur historians have written that Allen Dulles’s law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, served as advisers to BACC and WCC, but we found no hard evidence of that. Additionally, it has been written that Dulles encouraged Donovan to participate in BACC and WCC, but again no hard evidence of that was found.) This leads us to speculate that Donovan may have initially been the “face” of WCC rather than the inspiration as those listed in early documents for WCC include Harry Beaston Lake and W. W. Cumberland, both investment bankers at the firm Ladenburg Thalmann, 25 Broad St. NYC. 

            In 1879, American banker Ernst Thalmann, teamed up with Adolph Ladenburg, the scion of a German banking family. As confirmed in “History of Ladenburg Thalmann,” by World War II the firm was providing banking services for British Security Coordination (BSC), including acquisition of foreign currency which was required in small denominations by a plethora of British covert wartime agencies as well as escape packs for Allied aircrew. The SOE turned to the BSC, and the close links between the BSC and Donovan's OSS meant that there was continual collaboration between all three entities in support of this task. Harry Lake and Bill Donovan shared an address at the exclusive One Sutton Place for a number of years. It should be noted that Lake was on the board of the American Moroccan Corporation, which will have greater relevance as we pursue the role of Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. in Chapter 5. 

            In a convenient web of other addresses, Donovan’s law partner, George Stanley Leisure lived at 640-660 Park, sharing a prestigious address with J. Russell Forgan, another founding board member of World Commerce. Leisure was on the board of financial investment giant Empire Trust whose web extends over time to those active on the ground in Dallas that managed the immediate aftermath of the assassination. Forgan’s company, Glore Forgan was heavily invested in J. Peter Grace’s W. R. Grace & Co., a global maritime shipping concern. Grace, the first Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a.k.a. the Knights of Malta, in America, sat on Forgan’s board for decades. 

            Of note, at the height of the war, the man at the official helm of the SOE, Roundell Palmer, the 3^rd Earl of Selborne, was also in charge of economic warfare, placing him in close proximity to decisions involving the services Ladenburg Thalmann provided. Reporting directly to Lord Selborne was Viscount Frederick Leathers, a former Minister of Transport who was placed in charge of war support. For those more familiar with the esotericism that pre-occupied the shadows of power at the time, both in the US and Britain, both men were alleged members of the Prieuré de Sion, a neo-chivalric fraternal order with alleged roots in the Crusades, established legally in 1956 in France. In an instance of continuity, Viscount Leathers later appears in the roster of board members of the World Commerce Corporation. 

            Brown explains that among those legal advisers [Donovan and Leisure’s firm] was Lt. Col. Otto C. Doering, Donovan’s second in command at the OSS. Donovan only became an official director of WCC in October 1947. At the same time, Edward R. Stettinius, Secretary of State from November 1944 to July 1945, who had substantial holdings in WCC joined the board. According to Brown, in due course a number of other people prominent in intelligence and special operations joined the firm, as directors, officer, or shareholders. They included J. Russell Forgan of the Glore Forgan group of merchant bankers (and future career ambassador David Bruce’s successor as chief of OSS Europe; Lester Armour (former deputy chief mission to Moscow who would inherit the chairmanship of the Swift Armour packing company of Chicago); W.K. Eliscu (a member of Donovan’s OSS staff); Lieutenant Colonel Rex L. Benson (staff member of the British Secret Intelligence Service and chairman of merchant bankers Robert Benson and Company of London. Here it should be noted that Benson was the lead SOE interrogator of Otto Skorzeny after his surrender. Brown adds that the WCC board also included several persons who had been prominent in the Canadian intelligence services.

            In addition, Brown tells us that people with intelligence connections, but not formally members of any intelligence service, took an interest in the corporation. They included Nelson Rockefeller (son of John D., and former coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, an organization with intelligence responsibilities and associations in South America); John Jay McCloy (former undersecretary of the War Department and high commissioner in Germany) Richard Mellon (of Gulf Oil corporation); and Sir Victor Sassoon. The list of WCC board members and “interested parties'' reflects America and Britain’s future power brokers that would influence matters on a global scale as the Cold War escalated. 

            With so many powerful corporate titans interested in the WCC, in hindsight the holding company emerges as a quango, an acronym for ‘quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organization, a term coined in the 1970s inspired by remarks of the president of Carnegie Corporation in 1967 describing “a genus of organization which represents a noteworthy experiment in the art of government.” Were the founders of the WCC following European models established under fascist regimes for the control of and profit from global supply chains and markets, and did that agenda require the services of the sophisticated intelligence apparatus established by Donovan and Stephenson being shuttered by democratically elected government officials after the war? A former employee of WCC recounts, “The idea was to take advantage of the organization and international contacts that were set up during the war… The goal was to set up various companies, mostly in Central and South America.” And as British writer and wartime intelligence officer Roald Dahl argued in support of the creation of WCC, “we all needed jobs in civilian life.”' CiD 

[Guest Doug Campbell]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

What does ANY of this have to do with the Kennedy assassination?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

[Leslie Sharp]

further to the World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas . . .

Aline’s [Countess Romanones] assignment in Madrid, January 1944 to August 1945, meant that she worked for OSS officer, Frank T. Ryan. As mentioned, Ryan, the son of a wealthy industrialist John J. Ryan, was the OSS chief of SI for Spain. At the end of the war, in April 1945, we now know that Frank Ryan helped his boss, William Donovan and William Stephenson (Intrepid), formerly of the SOE, form the BACC, the first incarnation of the World Commerce Corp.

. . . Aline explains that she was instructed to prolong her visa by reopening offices for John J. Ryan and Sons where she would obtain bona fide sales to Catalan manufacturers. Then, abruptly, she was ordered to Paris to work for World Commerce Corporation, in a similar role she had filled in Madrid, but focused on French firms and their business in Czechoslovakia and Sweden. Six months later, she was sent to Zurich, Switzerland where she would again work for World Commerce to establish a similar office. The future countess writes:

"My boss at the time was Frank Ryan, who had been the Chief of SI for Spain and Portugal in Washington. I had the impression that I would eventually be organizing networks for information on Soviet intelligence activities. I was scheduled to move to Prague to open offices there when I married. Only 40 years later [approximately 1990] did I learn that this company [WCC] was not openly being used as a cover for US government intelligence, even though everybody I saw and worked with during the two years in that job had been an OSS agent in one country or another. The company’s set-up seems to have been a precursor to the Iran-Contra situation, where sales from private companies were used to bolster pro-US groups in a foreign country." 

Said Aline shortly before she died on December 11, 2017:

"It was [different] after eight or nine years. Otto [Skorzeny] came in as leader and everything changed . . . everything went through him. For me it was for the better. With the [assassination] transfer to Otto we were far more sophisticated. More weapons at our use . . . anything really . . . staff I didn’t know we had use of . . it became very sophisticated, more widespread. I was soon out of it. . . . I didn’t want to know half of what we were doing. . . ."
 

from the record of Pierre Lafitte, Skorzeny's manager on the ground for Lancelot Project:

A page from the financial ledger maintained by Pierre Lafitte brings the Countess’s story full circle. He writes, “Using old American Oil Mission cover with Harvey (JA),” which is clear reference to Aline’s American Oil Office. That particular ledger sheet also includes the names of Willoughby—a primary suspect in this investigation, Conrad Hilton [Hilton Hotels and board member of General Dynamics behind the F-111 scandal which Bobby Baker was embroiled in during the fall of ’63], ad man Rosser Reeves who was the brother-in-law of David Ogilvy who authored the mission statement for Bill Donovan’s WCC, and Charles Spofford, Gen. Eisenhower’s trusted confidant who along with Ogilvy ran Ike’s presidential campaign, coining the tag, “I Like Ike.” The other name, “Rothermel,” can be safely assumed to refer to Paul Rothermel, confidential assistant to Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt. Aline’s service to Frank Ryan and the World Commerce Corp. and reference to her old cover, American Oil indicate a certain continuity of intelligence operations throughout the Cold War. . . .



The Pilot

/Nov 22/

Willoughby backup

team  squad — tech

building — phone booth/bridge

O [Otto Skorzeny] says turn them.

Silverthorne-

Ft. Worth

-Airport

     Mexico    

—Lafitte datebook, November 15, 1963

 

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

 

further to the World Commerce Corporation and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas . . .

Aline’s [Countess Romanones] assignment in Madrid, January 1944 to August 1945, meant that she worked for OSS officer, Frank T. Ryan. As mentioned, Ryan, the son of a wealthy industrialist John J. Ryan, was the OSS chief of SI for Spain. At the end of the war, in April 1945, we now know that Frank Ryan helped his boss, William Donovan and William Stephenson (Intrepid), formerly of the SOE, form the BACC, the first incarnation of the World Commerce Corp.

. . . Aline explains that she was instructed to prolong her visa by reopening offices for John J. Ryan and Sons where she would obtain bona fide sales to Catalan manufacturers. Then, abruptly, she was ordered to Paris to work for World Commerce Corporation, in a similar role she had filled in Madrid, but focused on French firms and their business in Czechoslovakia and Sweden. Six months later, she was sent to Zurich, Switzerland where she would again work for World Commerce to establish a similar office. The future countess writes:

"My boss at the time was Frank Ryan, who had been the Chief of SI for Spain and Portugal in Washington. I had the impression that I would eventually be organizing networks for information on Soviet intelligence activities. I was scheduled to move to Prague to open offices there when I married. Only 40 years later [approximately 1990] did I learn that this company [WCC] was not openly being used as a cover for US government intelligence, even though everybody I saw and worked with during the two years in that job had been an OSS agent in one country or another. The company’s set-up seems to have been a precursor to the Iran-Contra situation, where sales from private companies were used to bolster pro-US groups in a foreign country." 

Said Aline shortly before she died on December 11, 2017:

"It was [different] after eight or nine years. Otto [Skorzeny] came in as leader and everything changed . . . everything went through him. For me it was for the better. With the [assassination] transfer to Otto we were far more sophisticated. More weapons at our use . . . anything really . . . staff I didn’t know we had use of . . it became very sophisticated, more widespread. I was soon out of it. . . . I didn’t want to know half of what we were doing. . . ."
 

from the record of Pierre Lafitte, Skorzeny's manager on the ground for Lancelot Project:

A page from the financial ledger maintained by Pierre Lafitte brings the Countess’s story full circle. He writes, “Using old American Oil Mission cover with Harvey (JA),” which is clear reference to Aline’s American Oil Office. That particular ledger sheet also includes the names of Willoughby—a primary suspect in this investigation, Conrad Hilton [Hilton Hotels and board member of General Dynamics behind the F-111 scandal which Bobby Baker was embroiled in during the fall of ’63], ad man Rosser Reeves who was the brother-in-law of David Ogilvy who authored the mission statement for Bill Donovan’s WCC, and Charles Spofford, Gen. Eisenhower’s trusted confidant who along with Ogilvy ran Ike’s presidential campaign, coining the tag, “I Like Ike.” The other name, “Rothermel,” can be safely assumed to refer to Paul Rothermel, confidential assistant to Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt. Aline’s service to Frank Ryan and the World Commerce Corp. and reference to her old cover, American Oil indicate a certain continuity of intelligence operations throughout the Cold War. . . .



The Pilot

/Nov 22/

Willoughby backup

team  squad — tech

building — phone booth/bridge

O [Otto Skorzeny] says turn them.

Silverthorne-

Ft. Worth

-Airport

     Mexico    

—Lafitte datebook, November 15, 1963

 

 

The action taken regarding Major General Edwin Walker is amazing. Is it a crime nowadays to be a patriot? Is it a crime to teach Americanism to our troops? Must a general be “relieved of command” when he is giving his troops something to fight for? Who is relieving of command those in government who are responsible for the Communist foothold in this hemisphere? Who is being “relieved of command” for other Communists favoring actions in our State Department? 

                                —Frank T. Ryan, President, World Commerce Corporation

                                                                                                         June 25, 1961

 

This somewhat rousing endorsement by the president of the World Commerce may have gone unnoticed by the average American, but as reported in Chapter 2, the global power structure would recognize the WCC created by the director of the OSS, Bill Donovan and his counterpart in Britain, William Stephenson. As reported, the WCC had over the previous decade acted as an umbrella front for several hundred companies whose primary aim was self-serving information gathering and espionage, sprinkled heavily with sometimes deadly counterintelligence operations, while extracting profits from global markets. Frank Ryan, a former OSS officer under Donovan, had worked closely with Otto Skorzeny for years. For that reason alone, his remarks in support of Gen. Walker are revelatory.

[Leslie Sharp]

Just now, Leslie Sharp said:

 

 

The action taken regarding Major General Edwin Walker is amazing. Is it a crime nowadays to be a patriot? Is it a crime to teach Americanism to our troops? Must a general be “relieved of command” when he is giving his troops something to fight for? Who is relieving of command those in government who are responsible for the Communist foothold in this hemisphere? Who is being “relieved of command” for other Communists favoring actions in our State Department? 

                                —Frank T. Ryan, President, World Commerce Corporation

                                                                                                         June 25, 1961

 

This somewhat rousing endorsement by the president of the World Commerce may have gone unnoticed by the average American, but as reported in Chapter 2, the global power structure would recognize the WCC created by the director of the OSS, Bill Donovan and his counterpart in Britain, William Stephenson. As reported, the WCC had over the previous decade acted as an umbrella front for several hundred companies whose primary aim was self-serving information gathering and espionage, sprinkled heavily with sometimes deadly counterintelligence operations, while extracting profits from global markets. Frank Ryan, a former OSS officer under Donovan, had worked closely with Otto Skorzeny for years. For that reason alone, his remarks in support of Gen. Walker are revelatory.

The World Commerce Corporation: Anthony Cave Brown, examining a letter written by WCC President Frank Ryan to General Lucius Clay, contends that the primary function of WCC was to aid in building up the post-WW2 productive capacity of Germany as a bulwark against a potentially encroaching Soviet Union, and that may well be the case.

Prof. Peter Dale Scott who has studied the assassination of President Kennedy for decades, offers a potent hint of a deeper clandestine reality, which bespeaks important connections with the narrative of this book: “…George White’s closest CIA contact, James Angleton, was still working for the US Army at this time (1947), reporting to future Army G-2 and DIA chief William Quinn. And when White turned up in Italy to meet with his former OSS boss William Donovan, Donovan was not working for CIA, but for the elusive World Commerce Corporation, a private intelligence service representing wealthy Americans like Nelson Rockefeller…CIC (China), a subsidiary of Donovan’s World Commerce Corporation, was the firm that employed mob figure Sonny Fassoulis, at the urging of army colonel (and FBN agent) Garland Williams, to procure arms for Taiwan in the period of private procurement before the Korean War.” — CiD

[Jonathan Cohen]

Once again, a series of posts that have no connection whatsoever to the JFK assassination. Will the moderators please intervene?

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Once again, a series of posts that have no connection whatsoever to the JFK assassination. Will the moderators please intervene?

Said Aline shortly before she died on December 11, 2017:

"It was [different] after eight or nine years. Otto [Skorzeny] came in as leader and everything changed . . . everything went through him. For me it was for the better. With the [assassination] transfer to Otto we were far more sophisticated. More weapons at our use . . . anything really . . . staff I didn’t know we had use of . . it became very sophisticated, more widespread. I was soon out of it. . . . I didn’t want to know half of what we were doing. . . ."
 

from the record of Pierre Lafitte, Skorzeny's manager on the ground for Lancelot Project:

A page from the financial ledger maintained by Pierre Lafitte brings the Countess’s story full circle. He writes, “Using old American Oil Mission cover with Harvey (JA),” which is clear reference to Aline’s American Oil Office. That particular ledger sheet also includes the names of Willoughby—a primary suspect in this investigation, Conrad Hilton [Hilton Hotels and board member of General Dynamics behind the F-111 scandal which Bobby Baker was embroiled in during the fall of ’63], ad man Rosser Reeves who was the brother-in-law of David Ogilvy who authored the mission statement for Bill Donovan’s WCC, and Charles Spofford, Gen. Eisenhower’s trusted confidant who along with Ogilvy ran Ike’s presidential campaign, coining the tag, “I Like Ike.” The other name, “Rothermel,” can be safely assumed to refer to Paul Rothermel, confidential assistant to Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt. Aline’s service to Frank Ryan and the World Commerce Corp. and reference to her old cover, American Oil indicate a certain continuity of intelligence operations throughout the Cold War. . . .



The Pilot

/Nov 22/

Willoughby backup

team  squad — tech

building — phone booth/bridge

O [Otto Skorzeny] says turn them.

Silverthorne-

Ft. Worth

-Airport

     Mexico    

—Lafitte datebook, November 15, 1963

 

[Ed Berger]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Once again, a series of posts that have no connection whatsoever to the JFK assassination. Will the moderators please intervene?

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?

Edited August 10, 2023 by Ed Berger

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Ed Berger said:

Why should discussion of the history of this most curious corporate entity be prohibited?

I'm not saying it should be prohibited. It should just be moved out of the JFK Assassination forum, because the only aspect that bears even a tangential relationship to the subject is the unverified "datebook."

[Ed Berger]

5 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

I'm not saying it should be prohibited. It should just be moved out of the JFK Assassination forum, because the only aspect that bears even a tangential relationship to the subject is the unverified "datebook."

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... 

[Robert Montenegro]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

I'm not saying it should be prohibited. It should just be moved out of the JFK Assassination forum, because the only aspect that bears even a tangential relationship to the subject is the unverified "datebook."

 

This is arguably, the single most important active thread on the Education Forum right now.

 

This thread is actually mapping out—for better or worse—the actual corporate and banking networks that were intrinsically behind the plot to murder President Kennedy. 

 

If you can uncover the consortium of intersecting international interests that are behind World Commerce Corporation, you have a map of the forces that were uniting against President Kennedy.

 

End of story.

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Robert Montenegro