FTR #1106 Reflections on the Passing of Peggy and Sterling Seagrave

This broad­cast com­mem­o­rates the lives and pass­ing of Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave, inves­ti­ga­tors, jour­nal­ists, authors and heroes.

A periph­er­al inter­net search con­duct­ed while re-read­ing Gold War­riors yield­ed the sad news that both Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave had passed. Peg­gy passed away in 2016 and Ster­ling in the spring of 2017.

Authors of a num­ber of ground-break­ing and over­lap­ping historical/political expos­es, they cul­mi­nat­ed their remark­able careers with Gold War­riors, which Mr. Emory feels is as impor­tant a book as has ever been writ­ten and is a MUST read for any­one gen­uine­ly con­cerned with the state of world affairs, past, present and future.

More admirable than even their con­sum­mate inves­tiga­tive and lit­er­ary skills is the fact that they con­tin­ued their research and report­ing in the face of seri­ous death threats and attempts, as well as lethal con­se­quences vis­it­ed on some of the par­tic­i­pants in the “Black Gold” trans­ac­tions and, appar­ent­ly, on some of those inves­ti­gat­ing the machi­na­tions of the nations, com­mer­cial insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als involved with the oper­a­tions.

(FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese to loot Asia. That loot was merged with Nazi gold, became the Black Eagle Trust, which not only financed Cold War covert oper­a­tions but under­wrote much of the post-war glob­al econ­o­my.)

In FTR #‘s 446 and 509, we high­light­ed and reviewed the death threats and hands-on inter­fer­ence expe­ri­enced by the Sea­graves in response to their inves­ti­ga­tions. In 509, we also not­ed the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of the hero­ic Iris Chang, who aid­ed the Sea­graves in their Gold War­riors project. Hav­ing authored a book on the Rape of Nanking and work­ing on anoth­er about the Bataan Death March, Ms. Chang had crossed the very pow­er struc­ture delin­eat­ed at length, depth and detail in the Sea­graves vol­ume.

In our last vis­it with the Sea­graves, a 2009 inter­view that was the focus of FTR #689, Ster­ling expressed anx­i­ety about the prox­im­i­ty of their res­i­dence in South­ern France to the Span­ish bor­der and the for­mi­da­ble pres­ence of Opus Dei in Fran­co’s for­mer domain.

(The Vat­i­can’s rela­tion­ship to fas­cism, includ­ing Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croa­t­ia, is high­light­ed in, among oth­er pro­grams AFA #17.)

The remark­able Sev­eri­no San­ta Romana, prime mover in the Black Eagle Trust oper­a­tions in the Philip­pines and the gold recov­er­ies in those islands was, in addi­tion to his work for U.S. intel­li­gence, an oper­a­tive of the pow­er­ful Vat­i­can order Opus Dei. It appears that Opus Dei was San­ta Romana’s pri­ma­ry affil­i­a­tion and his U.S. intel­li­gence con­nec­tions were deriv­a­tive.

With strong con­nec­tions in Spain, dat­ing to the Fran­co fas­cist regime (which main­tains pow­er­ful pres­ence in con­tem­po­rary Spain), Opus Dei is a major fac­tor in the con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal scene. Ster­ling opined in FTR #689 that his and Peg­gy’s prox­im­i­ty to the Span­ish bor­der might expose them to vio­lence.

His fear turned out to be pre­scient. On Christ­mas Day of 2011, he nar­row­ly escaped assas­si­na­tion while return­ing home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been moti­vat­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Span­ish lan­guage edi­tion of Gold War­riors.

After detail­ing the attempt on his life, we set forth San­ta Romana’s rela­tion­ship with Opus Dei. San­ta Romana’s Opus Dei oper­a­tions were essen­tial for the fis­cal rein­force­ment of the Vat­i­can’s finan­cial insti­tu­tions, which ben­e­fit­ted from the Gold­en Lily-derived trea­sure from the Philip­pines.

We have dis­cussed the Vat­i­can bank in, among oth­er pro­grams, AFA #18.

FTR #1095 The Destabilization of China, Part 6: Asian Deep Politics

In this pro­gram we present some of the deep polit­i­cal Asian his­to­ry that bears on Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics. In par­tic­u­lar, the harm done to Chi­na by Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-shek’s drug-deal­ing Kuom­intang gov­ern­ment, its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the bru­tal Japan­ese occu­piers of Manchuria, as well as the Unit­ed States is impor­tant in under­stand­ing the Chi­nese polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal out­look.

In turn, the deep eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship between the Japan­ese fas­cists and the U.S. is to be fac­tored in to any under­stand­ing of how the Chi­nese view this coun­try and the West.

In that con­text, we do NOT think Chi­na’s present gov­ern­ment will go down eas­i­ly in the face of an obvi­ous desta­bi­liza­tion effort by the U.S. and the West.

In addi­tion to the Euro­pean col­o­niza­tion of Chi­na and Britain’s vio­lent impo­si­tion of the opi­um drug trade through the Opi­um Wars, Chi­na’s polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry is vivid­ly ani­mat­ed by the drug-financed fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship of Nation­al­ist Chi­nese Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-shek. Dubbed “the Peanut” by Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well dur­ing World War II, Chi­ang was com­pared by Stil­well (the chief Amer­i­can mil­i­tary advis­er and liai­son to the Kuom­intang forces dur­ing World War II) to Mus­soli­ni.

Chi­ang’s entire gov­ern­ment and bru­tal nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus rest­ed on the foun­da­tion of the nar­cotics traf­fic, as was well known by the US Com­mis­sion­er Bureau of Nar­cotics, Har­ry Anslinger.

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis of this rela­tion­ship include: The deci­sive role of the Green Gang of Shang­hai crime lord Du (some­times ‘Tu”) Yue-sheng in both financ­ing Chi­ang’s forces and sup­ply­ing mus­cle and intel­li­gence to Tai Li, Chi­ang’s intel­li­gence chief and inte­ri­or min­is­ter, nick­named “The Himm­ler of Chi­na;” the impor­tant role of Chi­ang’s drug traf­fic in sup­ply­ing Amer­i­can t’ongs who, in turned, sup­plied the Mafia with their nar­cotics; the role of Chi­ang’s finance min­is­ter as Du Yue-sheng’s pro­tec­tor; the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Du and Chaing Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang appa­ra­tus with the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion gov­ern­ment of Manchuria in the nar­cotics traf­fic; the role of Chaing’s head of Nar­cotics Con­trol in sup­ply­ing Chi­nese offi­cials with drugs; the role of the Super­in­ten­dent of Mar­itime Cus­toms in Shang­hai in super­vis­ing the traf­fick­ing of drugs to the U.S.; Du Yueh-sheng’s flight to Hong Kong after the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Shang­hai; Du’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Hong Kong-based British financiers in sell­ing drugs to the Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion; the delib­er­ate decep­tion on the part of Anslinger and king­pins in the US Chi­na Lob­by, who know­ing­ly mis­led the Amer­i­can pub­lic by blam­ing the U.S. drug traf­fic on the Com­mu­nist Chi­nese; the nar­cotics kick­backs to U.S. Chi­na Lob­by fig­ures by Chi­ang’s dope traf­fick­ing infra­struc­ture; the over­lap of the Kuom­intang dope trade with arms sales by Chi­na Lob­by lumi­nar­ies; the sup­port of the CIA for Chi­ang’s nar­cotics traf­fic; the destruc­tion of the career of For­eign Ser­vice offi­cer John Ser­vice, who not­ed that “the Nation­al­ists were total­ly depen­dent on opi­um and ‘inca­pable of solv­ing Chi­na’s prob­lems;’ ” the cen­tral role of Tai Li’s agents in the U.S. in fram­ing John Ser­vice.

Sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion about these top­ics is con­tained in AFA #11 and AFA #24.

It is impos­si­ble to under­stand World War II and the glob­al and eco­nom­ic polit­i­cal land­scape that emerged from it with­out digest­ing the vital­ly impor­tant book Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave.

Cov­er­ing the Japan­ese equiv­a­lent of the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal net­work, the vol­ume is a hero­ic, mas­ter­ful analy­sis and pen­e­tra­tion of the Asian wing of the car­tel sys­tem that spawned fas­cism, as well as the real­i­ties of the post-World War II eco­nom­ic land­scape. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese to loot Asia.)

An inci­sive, elo­quent review and encap­su­la­tion of the book is pro­vid­ed by Doug Valen­tine, pro­vid­ing fur­ther insight into the polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment and result­ing stance toward any pres­sure to be mount­ed against that nation by the U.S. and the West.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is the detailed analy­sis of the Japan­ese devel­op­ment of occu­pied Manchuria as an epi­cen­ter of the opi­um traf­fic with which to enrich their oper­a­tions and to help sub­ju­gate the Chi­nese. Chi­nese sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the Japan­ese, Kuom­intang, Amer­i­can and British roles in using drugs to enslave the Chi­nese peo­ple is very much in the fore­front of Japan­ese polit­i­cal con­scious­ness.

” . . . . .They [the Japan­ese] build roads and cre­ate indus­tries and, more impor­tant­ly, they work with cor­rupt war­lords and Chi­nese gang­sters asso­ci­at­ed with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang Par­ty to trans­form Manchuria into a vast pop­py field. By 1937 the Japan­ese and their gang­ster and Kuom­intang asso­ciates are respon­si­ble for 90% of the world’s illic­it nar­cotics. They turn Manchu emper­or Pu Yi into an addict, and open thou­sands of opi­um dens as a way of sup­press­ing the Chi­nese. . . .”

Far from being a periph­er­al polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tion; the Gold­en Lily plun­der is fun­da­men­tal to post­war West­ern real­i­ty.

” . . . . The Sea­graves con­clude their excit­ing and excel­lent book by tak­ing us down the Mon­ey Trail, and explain­ing, in layman’s terms, how the Gold War­riors have been able to cov­er their tracks. Emper­or Hiro­hi­to, for exam­ple, worked direct­ly with Pope Pius XII to laun­der mon­ey through the Vat­i­can bank. In anoth­er instance, Japan’s Min­istry of Finance pro­duced gold cer­tifi­cates that were slight­ly dif­fer­ent than ordi­nary Japan­ese bonds. The Sea­graves inter­view per­sons defraud­ed in this scam, and oth­er scams involv­ing the Union Bank of Switzer­land and Citibank. . . . ”

” . . . . the banks that main­tain the US government’s stolen gold are above the law, and if they stonewall long enough, any­one try­ing to sue them will even­tu­al­ly fade away. The Sea­graves asked the Trea­sury Depart­ment, Defense Depart­ment, and the CIA for records on Yamashita’s gold in 1987, but were told the records were exempt from release. Dur­ing the 1990s, the records mys­te­ri­ous­ly went miss­ing. Oth­er records were destroyed in what the Sea­graves caus­ti­cal­ly call ‘his­to­ry laun­der­ing.’ . . . . .”

Key Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: Dis­cus­sion of the war crimes com­mit­ted by the Japan­ese against the Chi­nese; the roles of the Japan­ese army, the Japan­ese roy­al fam­i­ly and yakuza gang­ster Kodama Yoshio (lat­er the CIA’s top con­tact in Japan and a key offi­cial with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church) in extract­ing the liq­uid wealth of Chi­na; the restora­tion of the Japan­ese fas­cists in the “new,” post­war Japan­ese gov­ern­ment by Dou­glas MacArthur’s occu­pa­tion forces; the fusion of the Gold­en Lily loot with Nazi World War II plun­der to form the Black Eagle Trust; the use of the Gold­en Lily plun­der to finance funds to rein­force the renascent fas­cists in Japan, to finance U.S. covert oper­a­tions in the post­war peri­od and to sup­press polit­i­cal dis­si­dence in Japan; the use of the M‑Fund to finance the Japan­ese Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and Richard Nixon’s trans­fer of con­trol of that fund to the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment in exchange for clan­des­tine finan­cial help in his 1960 elec­tion cam­paign; the use of Gold­en Lily loot by the U.S. to pur­chase the sup­port of Pacif­ic ally nations for the Viet­nam War; the use of Gold­en Lily trea­sure by Philip­pine dic­ta­tor Fer­di­nand Mar­cos; the sup­pres­sion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als attempt­ing to pen­e­trate the elite, selec­tive use of Gold­en Lily gold by the world’s large banks.

We con­clude by high­light­ing Fred J. Cook’s ana­lyt­i­cal account of the McCarthy peri­od, The Night­mare Decade. One of the focal points of Cook’s book is McCarthy’s theme that State Depart­ment [Com­mu­nist] treach­ery had “lost” Chi­na to Mao and his forces.

Exploit­ing the meme that “pinko” State Depart­ment offi­cials were respon­si­ble for Mao’s ascen­dance, McCarthy and his team suc­cess­ful­ly purged the State Depart­ment of offi­cials whose out­look on Chi­ang Kai-shek was real­is­tic.

The fate of John Service–described in the excerpt of The CIA as Orga­nized Crime–illus­trates this kind of activ­i­ty.

In FTR #s 932 and 933 (among oth­er pro­grams), we not­ed the piv­otal influ­ence of Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man Roy Cohn on the pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment of Don­ald Trump. We won­der what influ­ence Cohn and the McCarthy lega­cy may have had on Trump’s pol­i­cy toward Chi­na.

Aside from the airy pre­sump­tion that Chi­na was “ours” to “lose,” McCarthy’s the­sis ignored the effects of U.S. pol­i­cy in that coun­try before, dur­ing and after, World War II. (This trans­gres­sion is, of course, sup­ple­men­tal to Tail­gun­ner Joe’s fab­ri­ca­tion of evi­dence against those he tar­get­ed.)

In addi­tion to sup­port for Chi­ang Kai-Shek, whom Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well com­pared to Mus­soli­ni, U.S. pol­i­cy of using scores of thou­sands of Japan­ese sol­diers as anti-Com­mu­nist com­bat­ants was loath­some to the Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion, who had felt the full mea­sure of Japan­ese atroc­i­ty dur­ing years of war­fare.

Leaf­ing through Night­mare Decade for the first time in years, we came across a pas­sage read into the record in AFA #11.

More than 16 months after V‑J Day (the offi­cial con­clu­sion of the hos­til­i­ties of World War II in Asia) the U.S. was coun­te­nanc­ing the use of 80,000 Japan­ese troops (rough­ly eight divi­sions) as anti-Com­mu­nist com­bat­ants in east­ern and north­west­ern Manchuria alone!

Hav­ing been raised on Vic­to­ry at Sea and sim­i­lar fare, this pas­sage is yet anoth­er reminder that–70 + years or so after V‑J Day–“we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.”

In ret­ro­spect, we nev­er were.

For more on the sub­ject of the Japan­ese fas­cism, see–among oth­er pro­grams–FTR #‘s 905, 969, 970.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Brief dis­cus­sion and overview of an arti­cle read in our pre­vi­ous pro­gram con­cern­ing HSBC and the bank’s his­tor­i­cal links to laun­der­ing nar­cotics mon­ey and jihadist financ­ing; the use of the racist term “shi­na” by the Hong Kong protesters–a term that had its gen­e­sis in the Sino-Japan­ese war.

Memorial Day Weekend Broadcast: Sunday, May 26th and Monday, May 27th

On Sun­day 5/26/2019 from 11 a.m. (Pacif­ic Time) until 7pm, and on Mon­day, 5/27/2019 from 10am until 7pm, KFJC-FM will fea­ture hours of pro­gram­ming doc­u­ment­ing the pro­found con­nec­tions of U.S. indus­try and finance to the fas­cist pow­ers of World War II. In the decades since the end of the Sec­ond World War, much has been writ­ten about the war and fas­cism, the dri­ving force behind the aggres­sion that pre­cip­i­tat­ed that con­flict. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much of what has been said and writ­ten has failed to iden­ti­fy and ana­lyze the caus­es, nature and method­ol­o­gy of fascism—German Nation­al Social­ism or “Nazism” in par­tic­u­lar. A deep­er, more accu­rate analy­sis was pre­sent­ed in pub­lished lit­er­a­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly vol­umes pub­lished dur­ing, or in the imme­di­ate after­math of, the Sec­ond World War. . . . . Fas­cism (Nazism in par­tic­u­lar) was an out­growth of glob­al­iza­tion and the con­struc­tion of inter­na­tion­al monop­o­lies (car­tels). Key to under­stand­ing this phe­nom­e­non is analy­sis of the Webb-Pomerene act, leg­is­lat­ed near the end of the First World War. A loop­hole in the Anti-trust leg­is­la­tion of 1914, it effec­tive­ly legal­ized the for­ma­tion of cartels—international monopolies—for firms that were barred from domes­tic monop­o­lis­tic prac­tices. Decry­ing what they viewed as exces­sive and restric­tive “reg­u­la­tion” here in the Unit­ed States, U.S.-based transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions invest­ed their prof­its from the indus­tri­al boom of the 1920’s abroad, pri­mar­i­ly in Japan and Ger­many. This process might well be viewed as the real begin­ning of what is now known as “glob­al­iza­tion.” This rein­vest­ment of the prof­its of the Amer­i­can indus­tri­al boom of the 1920’s in Japan­ese and Ger­man strate­gic heavy indus­try was the cap­i­tal that drove the engines of con­quest that sub­dued both Europe and Asia dur­ing World War II. On Sun­day, we will high­light the Amer­i­can-Ger­man indus­tri­al axis and its var­i­ous man­i­fes­ta­tions. On Mon­day, we will explore the Amer­i­can-Japan­ese indus­tri­al axis.

FTR #509 The Death of Iris Chang

At the time of her death, Iris Chang was research­ing a book chron­i­cling the expe­ri­ences of sur­vivors of the Bataan Death March.