_______________________________________________________________ | | The Bush - Nazi secrets reach mainstream U.S. press | | | As this newspaper article argues, the Bushies have probably | been deeply involved in war profiteering since Hitler's | days. And another interesting comment is the role that Nazi | recruits played in the creation of CIA - in which Bush was | of course involved. The red line that runs from Hitler to | Bush is thickening... | | | ``Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951'' - Federal | Documents | By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael | from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, | 2003 | | After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he | managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, | Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, | failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy | national" relationships that continued until as late as | 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. | | Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues | routinely attempted to conceal their activities from | government investigators. | | Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled | ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell | Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their | quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from | 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking | firm, Brown Brothers Harriman. | | The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment. | | Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the | Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents | from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm | that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings | unabated. These activities included a financial relationship | with the German city of Hanover and several industrial | concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after | World War Two. | | At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from | their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as | President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's personal emissary to | the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On | October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-run | businesses were being seized by the U.S. government, | Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to | discuss the war effort. | | Denial and Deceit | | While Harriman was concealing his Nazi relationships from | his government colleagues, Cornelius Livense, the top | executive of the interlocking German concerns held under the | corporate umbrella of Union Banking Corporation (UBC), | repeatedly tried to mislead investigators, and was sometimes | supported in his subterfuge by Brown Brothers Harriman. | | All of the assets of UBC and its related businesses belonged | to Thyssen-controlled enterprises, including his Bank voor | Handel en Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, the documents state. | | Nevertheless, Livense, president of UBC, claimed to have no | knowledge of such a relationship. "Strangely enough, | (Livense) claims he does not know the actual ownership of | the company," states a government report. | | H.D Pennington, manager of Brown Brothers Harriman and a | director of UBC "for many years," also lied to investigators | about the secret and well-concealed relationship with | Thyssen's Dutch bank, according to the documents. | | Investigators later reported that the company was "wholly | owned" by Thyssen's Dutch bank. | | Despite such ongoing subterfuge, U.S. investigators were | able to show that "a careful examination of UBC's general | ledger, cash books and journals from 1919 until the present | date clearly establish that the principal and practically | only source of funds has been Bank voor Handel en | Scheepvaart." | | In yet another attempt to mislead investigators, Livense | said that $240,000 in banknotes in a safe deposit box at | Underwriters Trust Co. in New York had been given to him by | another UBC-Thyssen associate, H.J. Kouwenhoven, managing | director of Thyssen's Dutch bank and a director of the | August Thyssen Bank in Berlin. August Thyssen was Fritz's | father. | | The government report shows that Livense first neglected to | report the $240,000, then claimed that it had been given to | him as a gift by Kouwenhoven. However, by the time Livense | filed a financial disclosure with U.S. officials, he changed | his story again and reported the sum as a debt rather than a | cash holding. | | In yet another attempt to deceive the governments of both | the U.S. and Canada, Livense and his partners misreported | the facts about the sale of a Canadian Nazi front | enterprise, La Cooperative Catholique des Consommateurs de | Combustible, which imported German coal into Canada via the | web of Thyssen-controlled U.S. businesses. | | "The Canadian authorities, however, were not taken in by | this maneuver," a U.S. government report states. The coal | company was later seized by Canadian authorities. | | After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers | Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The | Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed | the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family | after the initial 1942 seizures. | | The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted | business after the war with related concerns doing business | in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and | Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi | capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen | died in Argentina in 1951. | | One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the | U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida | Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who | also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, | where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, | attempted to convince government investigators that the | baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore | should be allowed to maintain her assets. | | "It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the | Nazi party," government investigators concluded. | | At the same time the last Brown Brothers Harriman client | assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate | campaign that led to his election in 1952. | | Investigation Investigated? | | In 1943, six months after the seizure of UBC and its related | companies, a government investigator noted in a Treasury | Department memo dated April 8, 1943 that the FBI had | inquired about the status of any investigation into Bush and | the Harrimans. | | "I gave 'a memorandum' which did not say anything about the | American officers of subject," the investigator wrote. | "(Another investigator) wanted to know whether any specific | action had been taken by us with respect to them." | | No further action beyond the initial seizures was ever | taken, and the newly-confirmed records went unseen by the | American people for six decades. | | What Does It All Mean? | | So why are the documents relevant today? | | "The story of Prescott Bush and Brown Brothers Harriman is | an introduction to the real history of our country," says | L.A. art book publisher and historian Edward Boswell. "It | exposes the money-making motives behind our foreign | policies, dating back a full century. The ability of | Prescott Bush and the Harrimans to bury their checkered | pasts also reveals a collusion between Wall Street and the | media that exists to this day." | | Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist | who will soon launch a liberal talk radio network, says the | importance of the new documents is that they prove a long | pattern of Bush family war profiteering that continues today | via George H.W. Bush's intimate relationship with the Saudi | royal family and the bin Ladens, conducted via the | super-secret Carlyle Group, whose senior advisers include | former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III. | | In the post-9/11 world, Drobny finds the Bush-Saudi | connection deeply troubling. "Trading with the enemy is | trading with the enemy," he says. "That's the relevance of | the documents and what they show." | | Lawrence Lader, an abortion rights activist and the author | of more than 40 books, says "the relevance lies with the | fact that the sitting President of the United States would | lead the nation to war based on lies and against the wishes | of the rest of the world." Lader and others draw comparisons | between President Bush's invasion of Iraq and Hitler's | occupation of Poland in 1939 - the event that sparked World | War Two. | | However, others see an even larger significance. | | "The discovery of the Bush-Nazi documents raises new | questions about the role of Prescott Bush and his | influential business partners in the secret emigration of | Nazi war criminals, which allowed them to escape justice in | Germany," says Bob Fertik, co-founder of Democrats.com and | an amateur 'Nazi hunter.' "It also raises questions about | the importance of Nazi recruits to the CIA in its early | years, in what was called Operation Paperclip, and Prescott | Bush's role in that dark operation." | | Fertik and others, including former Justice Department Nazi | war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, a Constitutional attorney | in Miami, and a former Veterans Administration official, | believe Prescott Bush and the Harrimans should have been | tried for treason. | | What Next? | | Now, say Fertik and Loftus, there should be a Congressional | investigation into the Bush family's Nazi past and its | concealment from the American people for 60 years. | | "The American people have a right to know, in detail, about | this hidden chapter of our history," says Loftus, author of | The Secret War Against the Jews. "That's the only way we can | understand it and deal with it." | | For his part, Fertik is pessimistic that even a | Congressional investigation can thwart the war profiteering | of the present Bush White House. "It's impossible to stop | it," he says, "when the worst war profiteers are George W. | Bush and Dick Cheney, who operate in secrecy behind the vast | powers of the White House." | | --- | | John Buchanan is a journalist and magazine writer based in | Miami Beach. He can be reached by e-mail at | jtwg@bellsouth.net. | | Stacey Michael is a New Orleans-based journalist and the | author of Religious Conceit. His most recent book is Weapons | of Mass Dysfunction: The Art of "Faith-Based" Politics, due | in early 2004. He can be reached by email at | staceymichael@religiousconceit.com. | | | (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this | material is distributed without profit to those who have | expressed a prior interest in receiving the included | information for research and educational purposes.) |______________________________________________________________