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 #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.

FTR #501 Norbert Schlei and the Strange Case of the “57’s”

Nor­bert Schlei, for­mer assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al under JFK, attempt­ed to redeem Japan­ese gov­ern­ment bonds issued against the M‑Fund, a slush fund from Japan­ese loot from WWII.

FTR #451 Petals from the Golden Lily

Record­ed March 21, 2004 Lis­ten: MP3 Side 1 | Side 2 RealAu­dio Pur­su­ing the sub­ject of the fab­u­lous amount of wealth stolen by the Japan­ese dur­ing World War II under Gold­en Lily (the for­mal name of the Japan­ese loot­ing pro­gram), this broad­cast sup­ple­ments dis­cus­sion pre­sent­ed in oth­er ‘For The Record’ pro­grams. Hav­ing secret­ed over $100-bil­lion […]

FTR #426 The Return of the Rising Sun, Part 2

” . . . this pro­gram high­lights the pro­found cor­po­rate con­nec­tions between Amer­i­can finan­cial and indus­tri­al insti­tu­tions and . . . the giant fam­i­ly trusts that con­trolled Japan. . . .”

Norbert Schlei, 73; Principal Author of Civil Rights Act, Other Landmark Laws

Nor­bert A. Schlei, key lawyer in the Kennedy and John­son admin­is­tra­tions who found legal under­pin­ning for the 1962 block­ade of Cuba, wrote land­mark civ­il rights leg­is­la­tion and once waged a strong bid to replace an entrenched Repub­li­can Cal­i­for­nia sec­re­tary of state, has died. He was 73.

FTR #290 The Japanese Economy and the Kido Organization

The post-war Japan­ese econ­o­my is inex­tri­ca­bly linked with the flight cap­i­tal pro­gram set up by Koichi Kido, Hiro­hi­to’s prin­ci­pal assis­tant.