Record­ed Feb­ru­ary 18, 2007
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Intro­duc­tion: Exam­in­ing and updat­ing a num­ber of dif­fer­ent paths of inquiry, the pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of the pro­found rela­tion­ship between Gen­er­al Motors and Nazi Ger­many. GM prof­it­ed hand­some­ly from its asso­ci­a­tion with the Third Reich, and that company’s sup­port was essen­tial to the Third Reich’s mil­i­tary con­quests. A Ger­man finan­cial firm that was a main­stay of the Nazi mon­ey machine—Deutsche Bank—may be real­iz­ing one of Hitler’s geopo­lit­i­cal goals by gain­ing con­trol over much of Russia’s fos­sil fuels indus­try. Sup­ple­ment­ing a long-stand­ing inquiry by Mr. Emory, the pro­gram sets forth a recent devel­op­ment in the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. A dis­pute has erupt­ed over the pro­posed release of doc­u­ments belong­ing to the late Mon­tre­al attor­ney Louis Mor­timer Bloom­field. Some JFK assas­si­na­tion researchers believe that Bloom­field was involved in the assas­si­na­tion. Bloomfield’s fam­i­ly is seek­ing to delay the release of Bloomfield’s per­son­al papers to the pub­lic. Next, the pro­gram delves into the sub­ject of the pri­va­ti­za­tion of nation­al secu­ri­ty mat­ters. The broad­cast notes CIA alarm at the close rela­tion­ship between the Black­wa­ter secu­ri­ty firm and the CIA. Con­clud­ing with com­pet­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the death of an Iran­ian sci­en­tist, the pro­gram high­lights the var­i­ous hypothe­ses about the death of Ardeshir Has­san­pour. The Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty firm Strat­for the­o­rized that the Mossad (the Israeli for­eign intel­li­gence ser­vice) assas­si­nat­ed Has­san­pour as part of a cam­paign to neu­tral­ize the Iran­ian nuclear devel­op­ment pro­gram. An Iran­ian dis­si­dent stat­ed that Has­san­pour was killed by the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment because of his oppo­si­tion to the regime of Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad and added that he was not a nuclear sci­en­tist. The Iran­ian gov­ern­ment stat­ed that Has­san­pour died an acci­den­tal death.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The enthu­si­asm of Gen­er­al Motors exec­u­tives for Hitler’s regime; GM’s adher­ence to the Nazi racial doc­trine; L.M. Bloomfield’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in Permindex—a prob­a­ble intel­li­gence front to which Gar­ri­son sus­pect Clay Shaw belonged; Blackwater’s coop­tion of con­tacts devel­oped by the CIA.

1. Begin­ning with a sub­ject Mr. Emory has cov­ered for almost thir­ty years, the pro­gram exam­ines part of the his­to­ry of the col­lab­o­ra­tion between cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca and Nazi Ger­many. The coop­er­a­tion between Gen­er­al Motors and the Third Reich was exten­sive and essen­tial to Hitler’s pros­e­cu­tion of the war. (For more about the sub­ject of U.S. col­lab­o­ra­tion and Nazi Ger­many, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 29, 370, 435, 506, 511, as well as many of the books avail­able at: https://spitfirelist.com/Books/books.html. Many of the same indus­tri­al­ists and financiers—including peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Gen­er­al Motors—tried to over­throw Franklin D. Roo­sevelt in a fas­cist coup in 1934. For more about this, see—among oth­er programs—FTR#’s 448, 475, 481.) “ . . .. Nonethe­less, GM and Ger­many began a strate­gic busi­ness rela­tion­ship. Opel became an essen­tial ele­ment of the Ger­man rear­ma­ment and mod­ern­iza­tion Hitler required to sub­ju­gate Europe. To accom­plish that, Ger­many need­ed to rise above the horse-drawn divi­sions it deployed in World War I. It need­ed to motor­ize, to blitz — that is, to attack with light­ning speed. Ger­many would lat­er unleash a blitzkrieg, a light­ning war. Opel built the 3‑ton truck named Blitz to sup­port the Ger­man mil­i­tary. The Blitz truck and its numer­ous spe­cial­ized mod­els became the main­stay of the Blitzkrieg. In 1935, GM agreed to locate a new fac­to­ry at Bran­den­burg, where it would be geo­graph­i­cal­ly less vul­ner­a­ble to feared aer­i­al bom­bard­ment by allied forces. In 1937, almost 17 per­cent of Opel’s Blitz trucks were sold direct­ly to the Nazi mil­i­tary. That mil­i­tary sales fig­ure was increased to 29 per­cent in 1938 — total­ing about 6,000 Blitz trucks that year alone. The Wehrma­cht, the Ger­man mil­i­tary, soon became Opel’s No. 1 cus­tomer by far. Oth­er impor­tant cus­tomers includ­ed major indus­tries asso­ci­at­ed with the Hitler war machine. Expand­ing its Ger­man work­force from 17,000 in 1934 to 27,000 in 1938 also made GM one of Ger­many’s lead­ing employ­ers. Unques­tion­ably, GM’s Opel became an inte­gral facet of Hitler’s Reich.”
(“Nazis Rode to War on GM Wheels” by Edwin Black; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 1/7/2007; pp. E1-E6.)

2. More about just how pro­found the rela­tion­ship between GM and the Third Reich was: “More than just an effi­cient man­u­fac­tur­er, Opel open­ly embraced the bizarre phi­los­o­phy that pow­ered the Nazi mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex. The Ger­man com­pa­ny par­tic­i­pat­ed in cul­tic führer-wor­ship as a part of its dai­ly cor­po­rate eth­ic. After all, until GM pur­chased Opel in 1929 for $33.3 mil­lion, or about one-third of GM’s after-tax prof­it that year, Opel was an estab­lished car­mak­er with a respect­ed Ger­man per­sona. The Opel fam­i­ly includ­ed sev­er­al promi­nent Nazi Par­ty mem­bers. This iden­ti­ty appealed to rank-and-file Nazis who con­demned any­thing for­eign-owned or for­eign-made. For all these rea­sons, dur­ing the Hitler years, Sloan and Mooney both made efforts to obscure Opel’s Amer­i­can own­er­ship and con­trol. Of course, GM’s sub­sidiary vig­or­ous­ly joined the anti-Jew­ish move­ment required of lead­ing busi­ness­es serv­ing the Reich. Jew­ish employ­ees and sup­pli­ers became ver­boten. . . .” (Idem.)

3. Next, the pro­gram sets forth the fun­da­men­tals of a pos­si­ble takeover of the Russ­ian YUKOS oil com­pa­ny by Deutsche Bank. If such a devel­op­ment does take place, it would cement Ger­man influ­ence on the Russ­ian fos­sil fuel busi­ness, there­by reach­ing a long­stand­ing Ger­man eco/political goal. “YUKOS chair­man of board Vik­tor Gerashchenko told Kom­m­er­sant that Deutsche Bank is in talks about redeem­ing debts and buy­ing the con­trol­ling stock of YUKOS. If Deutsche Bank man­ages to car­ry this out, it will have in its hands the fate of the major cur­rent cor­po­ra­tion con­flict in Russia’s econ­o­my – that of Gazprom and Ros­neft. Two inde­pen­dent sources in the invest­ment bank­ing sphere told Kom­m­er­sant last week that Deutsche Bank and its Russ­ian sub­sidiary Deutsche UFG are inter­est­ed in YUKOS assets. YUKOS chair­man of board Vik­tor Gerashchenko con­firmed the infor­ma­tion in his inter­view to Kom­m­er­sant yes­ter­day. He said that last week he received a let­ter signed by Ilya Shcher­bovich, head of the bank’s sub­sidiary in Rus­sia Deutsche UFG. The let­ter said that the bank is inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing ‘YUKOS’s con­trol­ling stock’ and ‘is ready to under­take’ redeem­ing the company’s debts. . . .”
(“YUKOS Assets to Become Ger­man” by Dmit­ry Butrin, Denis Rebrov; Kom­m­er­sant: Russia’s Dai­ly Online; 10/16/2006.)

3. Sup­ple­ment­ing a long-stand­ing inquiry by Mr. Emory, the pro­gram sets forth a recent devel­op­ment in the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. A dis­pute has erupt­ed over the pro­posed release of doc­u­ments belong­ing to the late Mon­tre­al attor­ney Louis Mor­timer Bloom­field. Some JFK assas­si­na­tion researchers believe that Bloom­field was involved in the assas­si­na­tion. (For more about the JFK assas­si­na­tion, use the search func­tion.) “Does the key to the assas­si­na­tion of U.S. Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy lie buried in Canada’s nation­al archives? Or is it anoth­er secret that has pit­ted Mon­tre­al researcher Mau­rice Philipps against Library and Archives Cana­da and the wid­ow of a once promi­nent Mon­tre­al lawyer, Louis Mor­timer Bloom­field? One thing is cer­tain. What­ev­er Bloom­field­’s wid­ow is try­ing to keep under lock and key — out of con­cern for ‘pri­va­cy and the rep­u­ta­tion of Louis M. Bloom­field’ — it has left Canada’s nation­al archives wrestling with a dilem­ma that goes to the heart of the ques­tion of who con­trols access to pri­vate doc­u­ments donat­ed to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. A recent fed­er­al court rul­ing found the insti­tu­tion can­not arbi­trar­i­ly extend the restric­tion on access to Bloom­field­’s papers well past the orig­i­nal dead­line set by Bloom­field him­self. Now, the archives is strug­gling to decide when to lift the veil of secre­cy on papers that have been judged of excep­tion­al inter­est to Cana­da. . . .”
(“Do Lawyer’s Files Hide JFK Secrets?” by Eliz­a­beth Thomp­son; Mon­tre­al Gazette; 1/27/2007.)

4. Bloomfield’s alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion stems from his asso­ci­a­tion with a com­pa­ny called Per­min­dex. This top­ic is dis­cussed in The Guns of Novem­ber, Part IV. “ . . . At the cen­ter of the con­tro­ver­sy are 31 box­es of doc­u­ments that Bloom­field donat­ed to the archives a few years before his death in 1984. . . . Philipps, author of the book De Dal­las a Mon­tre­al, which explores a pos­si­ble Mon­tre­al con­nec­tion to JFK’s 1963 assas­si­na­tion in Dal­las, stum­bled on a ref­er­ence to the Bloom­field con­nec­tion in the mid-1990s and was intrigued — par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en alle­ga­tions advanced by some JFK con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists that tied Bloom­field to the shoot­ing, a com­pa­ny called Per­min­dex, the CIA and the agency that pre­ced­ed it, the Office of Strate­gic Ser­vices. While the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry con­nec­tion between Bloom­field and JFK’s assas­si­na­tion is a com­plex one and has evolved over time, it appears to stem from the fact he was named as a major share­hold­er in a shad­owy inter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny called Per­min­dex. Among the oth­er peo­ple involved in Per­min­dex was Clay Shaw, whom New Orleans dis­trict-attor­ney Jim Gar­ri­son sus­pect­ed was part of a con­spir­a­cy to mur­der the pres­i­dent. There are also alle­ga­tions Per­min­dex was a front or shell com­pa­ny for the CIA and was used to fun­nel mon­ey for intel­li­gence oper­a­tions. Some of the the­o­ries allege Bloom­field had been recruit­ed into the OSS and that he had ties to intel­li­gence cir­cles — some­thing Har­ry Bloom­field vehe­ment­ly denies. While Philipps does not believe the papers impli­cate Bloom­field in the shoot­ing — in fact, he believes they may clear Bloom­field­’s name — he believes they could con­tain clues that could help shed light on JFK’s assas­si­na­tion: ‘I think we will find infor­ma­tion on peo­ple oth­er than him ... but I don’t think that Mr. Bloom­field was direct­ly linked to that in a crim­i­nal way.’ . . .” (Idem.)

5. Next, the pro­gram delves into the sub­ject of the pri­va­ti­za­tion of nation­al secu­ri­ty mat­ters, the broad­cast notes CIA alarm at the close rela­tion­ship between the Black­wa­ter secu­ri­ty firm and the CIA. (For more about the Black­wa­ter firm, see FTR#529. For more about the pri­va­ti­za­tion of nation­al secu­ri­ty, see FTR#451. For more about Joseph P. Schmitz, now the top man at Black­wa­ter, see FTR#476.) “ . . . A num­ber of senior CIA and Pen­ta­gon offi­cials have tak­en top jobs at Black­wa­ter, includ­ing firm vice chair­man Cofer Black, who was the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion’s top coun­tert­er­ror­ism offi­cial at the time of the 9/11 attacks (and who famous­ly said in 2002, ‘There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves came off.’) Robert Young Pel­ton, author of the new book, Licensed to Kill, says that an ear­ly Black­wa­ter contract—a secret no-bid $5.4 mil­lion deal with the CIA—came in 2002 after Prince placed a call to Buzzy Kro­n­gard, who was then the CIA’s exec­u­tive direc­tor. A CIA source with whom I spoke said that Prince is very tight with top agency offi­cials and has a ‘green badge,’ the secu­ri­ty pass for con­trac­tors who have access to CIA instal­la­tions. ‘He’s over there [at CIA head­quar­ters] reg­u­lar­ly, prob­a­bly once a month or so,’ this per­son told me. ‘He meets with senior peo­ple, espe­cial­ly in the D.O.’ (The D.O., or Direc­torate of Oper­a­tions, runs covert oper­a­tions; last year, it was absorbed by the new­ly cre­at­ed Nation­al Clan­des­tine Ser­vice.) Prince’s vis­its are prob­a­bly one rea­son that the revolv­ing door to Black­wa­ter keeps turn­ing. Last fall, Rob Rich­er resigned from the post of Asso­ciate Deputy Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions; he imme­di­ate­ly took a job as Black­wa­ter’s Vice Pres­i­dent of Intel­li­gence. Rich­er is a for­mer head of the CIA’s Near East Divi­sion and long served in Amman, where, for a peri­od begin­ning in 1999, he held the post of sta­tion chief. . .”
(“Revolv­ing Door to Black­wa­ter Caus­es Alarm at CIA” by Ken Sil­ver­stein; Harper’s Mag­a­zine; 912/2006.)

6. Con­clud­ing with com­pet­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the death of an Iran­ian sci­en­tist, the pro­gram high­lights the var­i­ous hypothe­ses about the death of Ardeshir Has­san­pour. The Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty firm Strat­for the­o­rized that the Mossad (the Israeli for­eign intel­li­gence ser­vice) assas­si­nat­ed Has­san­pour as part of a cam­paign to neu­tral­ize the Iran­ian nuclear devel­op­ment pro­gram. An Iran­ian dis­si­dent stat­ed that Has­san­pour was killed by the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment because of his oppo­si­tion to the regime of Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad and added that he was not a nuclear sci­en­tist. The Iran­ian gov­ern­ment stat­ed that Has­san­pour died an acci­den­tal death. “The esca­lat­ing con­fronta­tion between Iran and the West has pro­duced an atom­ic ‘who­dunit,’ with fin­gers point­ing across the Mid­dle East. Last month, Iran report­ed the death of Ardeshir Has­san­pour, 44, one of the country’s lead­ing nuclear sci­en­tists. The news fueled a wave of rumors and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries in cyber­space. . . .”
(“Iran­ian Scientist’s Death Stirs Talk of an Atom­ic ‘Who­dunit’” by Marc Perel­man; For­ward; 2/16/2007.)