Record­ed Sep­tem­ber 16, 2007
MP3: Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Record­ed in late 1982, this pro­gram sets forth infor­ma­tion about a pow­er­ful, but lit­tle known, Catholic order known as the Knights of Mal­ta. Formed dur­ing the Cru­sades, the orga­ni­za­tion draws togeth­er influ­en­tial polit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence and busi­ness offi­cials who have (or are in a posi­tion to) influ­ence world events in a man­ner ben­e­fit­ing the Vat­i­can. Strong­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the admin­is­tra­tions of Ronald Rea­gan, the knights were a lynch­pin of the Cold War endgame strat­e­gy that brought about the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union. Although the knights are cit­i­zens of many coun­tries around the world, the orga­ni­za­tion is rec­og­nized as a sov­er­eign state unto itself by more than 40 dif­fer­ent nations. In the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, the knights worked with oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics to real­ize the poli­cies of the Amer­i­can far right. Even though he is not Catholic, Nazi gen­er­al Rein­hard Gehlen was award­ed the order’s high­est dec­o­ra­tion for fight­ing “god­less com­mu­nism” while serv­ing the Third Reich and the fledg­ling CIA.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Dis­cus­sion of some of the most impor­tant Amer­i­can mem­bers of the order; an alle­ga­tion in a right-wing mer­ce­nary mag­a­zine that Ger­man Nazi ele­ments assist­ed in the shoot­ing of Pope John Paul II (oper­at­ing on behalf of an intel­li­gence front alleged­ly involved in the shoot­ing of Pres­i­dent Kennedy); SMOM mem­ber Lui­gi Gedda’s descrip­tion of the Protes­tant Ref­or­ma­tion as the seed ele­ment of what was to become com­mu­nism.

1. The focal point of the broad­cast is the Sov­er­eign Mil­i­tary Order of Mal­ta or SMOM, pop­u­lar­ly known as the Knights of Mal­ta. An order of Vat­i­can knights dat­ing to the cru­sades, the SMOM con­sists of influ­en­tial polit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, busi­ness and civic lead­ers who are viewed by the Vat­i­can as key fig­ures who either have helped, or who might some­day be of great assis­tance in fur­ther­ing the poli­cies of the Catholic faith. Record­ed in late 1982, the pro­gram high­lights the sig­nif­i­cant role of the SMOM in the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tions. Fig­ures like for­mer CIA direc­tor William Casey, James Buck­ley, Alexan­der Haig and oth­er knights col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics in the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tions. Togeth­er, they com­prised a very effec­tive engine of polit­i­cal reac­tion that helped dri­ve the Sovi­et Union out of exis­tence. Anoth­er key Amer­i­can knight was J. Peter Grace, who played a lead­ing role in bring­ing I.G. Far­ben researcher (and Nazi war crim­i­nal) Otto Ambros to the Unit­ed States.

2. When con­sid­er­ing the Knights of Mal­ta and its influ­ence on Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment, bear in mind that forty dif­fer­ent nations rec­og­nize the mem­bers of SMOM as cit­i­zens of a sep­a­rate, sov­er­eign nation. This presents a poten­tial con­flict of inter­est for SMOM mem­bers serv­ing in a gov­ern­ment that might find itself at log­ger­heads with Vat­i­can pol­i­cy.

3. Nazi gen­er­al Rein­hard Gehlen received the Gran Cro­ci Al Mer­i­to Conplacca—the order’s high­est dec­o­ra­tion, award­ed to a small hand­ful of recip­i­ents dur­ing the almost thou­sand year his­to­ry of the order. Oth­er mem­bers of Gehlen’s fam­i­ly were close to SMOM as well. Gehlen was not a Catholic, but was giv­en the pres­ti­gious award for his role in fight­ing com­mu­nism.

4. Oth­er promi­nent Amer­i­cans who belong to SMOM include for­mer Trea­sury sec­re­tary William Simon, for­mer CIA direc­tor John McCone and Tom Bolan, law part­ner of Roy Cohn (the late Sen­a­tor Joseph McCarthy’s right-hand man).

5. In AFA #21 (avail­able from Spit­fire), we exam­ined the degree of over­lap between the P‑2 Lodge and the SMOM.

6. A curi­ous detail in the pro­gram con­cerns an alle­ga­tion in a mer­ce­nary mag­a­zine called Eagle. The alle­ga­tion con­cerns the NPD, the top Ger­man neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tion. The arti­cle alleges that the NPD is con­nect­ed to a com­pa­ny called Per­min­dex, an appar­ent intel­li­gence front with strong fas­cist con­nec­tions. Alleged by Jim Gar­ri­son to have been involved in Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion, Per­min­dex moved from Italy to South Africa fol­low­ing dis­clo­sure by an Ital­ian news­pa­per of appar­ent con­nec­tions between Per­min­dex and the CIA. The Eagle arti­cle also alleged that the NPD was involved with the shoot­ing of Pope John Paul II in May of 1981. (For more about the shoot­ing of the Pope, see—among oth­er pro­grams—AFA#’s 17–21, avail­able from SPITFIRE. For more about Per­min­dex, see “The Guns of Novem­ber, Part IV”, also avail­able from SPITFIRE.)

7. Indica­tive of the mind­set that pre­vails in the SMOM, Lui­gi Ged­da of Catholic Action describes the Protes­tant Ref­or­ma­tion as the seed ele­ment of what was to become com­mu­nism and indi­cates that the elim­i­na­tion of polit­i­cal lib­er­al­ism is nec­es­sary and desir­able.

8. Two video pro­duc­tions are being gen­er­at­ed by a cou­ple of doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers. One is a DVD of a three-lec­ture series called “The First Refuge of a Scoundrel: The Rela­tion­ship Between Fas­cism and Reli­gion.” In addi­tion, there will soon be a doc­u­men­tary about Mr. Emory, titled “The Anti-Fas­cist.” For more about this project, vis­it TheAntiFascist.com.