Introduction: These programs continue (from FTR#‘s 1349 & 1350) exploration of the history of U.S. involvement with Asian fascism from the pre-World War II period until the present.
Critical background information on U.S. capital support for Japanese fascism and Japan’s centuries-long subjugation of Korea may be found in FTR#‘s 905 and 1141.
Introduction: These programs continue (from FTR#‘s 1345 & 1346) exploration of the history of U.S. involvement with Asian fascism from the pre-World War II period until the present.
Critical background information on U.S. capital support for Japanese fascism and Japan’s centuries-long subjugation of Korea may be found in FTR#‘s 905 and 1141.
1. It is interesting to contemplate the text of a letter that Jack Ruby smuggled out of prison. In the letter, Ruby hints that Japanese fascists participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. Certainly, elements of what were to become the World Anti-Communist League (including the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League) were involved.
The Man Who Knew Too Much; Dick Russell; Carroll & Graf [HC]; Copyright 1992 by Dick Russell; ISBN 0–88184-900–6; p. 684.
. . . Don’t believe the Warren [Commission] Report, that was only put out to make me look innocent. . . .I’m going to die a horrible death anyway, so what would I have to gain by writing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of people that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Nazi’s [sic], and that is who is in power in this country right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South America is also full of these Nazi’s [sic]. . . . if those people were so determined to frame me then you must be convinced that they had an ulterior motive for doing same. There is only one kind of people that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Master Race. . . .
2. While in Okinawa during Japan’s surrender in World War II, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty was witness to the early commitment of decisive military resources to the wars that were to take place in Korea and Indochina/Vietnam.
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by Col. [Ret.] L. Fletcher Prouty; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2011 by L. Fletcher Prouty; ISBN 978–1‑51073–876‑8; pp. 17–18.
. . . . I was on Okinawa at that time, and during some business in the harbor area I asked the harbormaster if all that new material was being returned to the States. His response was direct and surprising: ‘Hell, no! They ain’t never goin’ to see it again. One-half of this stuff, enough to equip and supply at least a hundred and fifty thousand men, is going to Korea, and the other half is going to Indochina.’ In 1945, none of us had any idea that the first battles of the Cold War were going to be fought by U.S. military units in those two regions beginning in 1950 and 1965–yet that is precisely what had been planned, and it is precisely what happened. Who made that decision back in 1943–45? . . . .
3a. The shooting war in Asia did not end with V‑J Day.
The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy by Fred J. Cook; Copyright 1971 by Fred J. Cook; Random House [HC]; ISBN 0–394-46270‑x; p. 219.
. . . . When the war ended, China was in utter chaos. Thousands of Japanese troops wandered around the countryside, fully armed, with no one accepting their surrender. John F. Melby [a State Department officer], in a day-by-day diary he kept at the time, reflected in bewilderment upon this anomaly. On December 27, 1945, he noted: “I still don’t understand about the Japanese. Officially they are being disarmed, but the fact is they never seem to be. In Shanghai, fifteen thousand still walk the streets with full equipment. In Nanking, the high Japanese generals are bosom buddies of the Chinese. In the north, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers are used to guard railroads and warehouses and to fight the Communists. If you ask what this is all about, the answer is either a denial or in more candid moments a ‘Shh, we don’t talk about that.’ ” In another entry on January 30, 1947, a good sixteen months after V‑J Day, Melby noted that, though it was being kept “very quiet,” there were “eighty thousand holdout Japanese troops in eastern and northwestern Manchuria, who are fully equipped, fighting the Communists.” . . . .
3b. Of great significance is the presence of John Foster Dulles, Kodama Yoshio and Machii Hisayuki (head of the Korean Yakuza in Japan) in Seoul South Korea on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War.
Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [SC]; Copyright 2003, 2005 by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–84467-531–9; p. 115.
. . . . In October of 1949, the People’s Republic of China came into being. Eight months later, in June of 1950, the Korean War broke out. Just before the war began, Kodama [Yoshio] accompanied John Foster Dulles to negotiations in Seoul. The Dulles party also included Kodama’s protege Machii Hisayuki, boss of the Korean yakuza in Japan. Efforts to discover under Freedom of Information what Kodama and Machii did during the trip with Dulles have run into a stone wall. In the MacArthur Memorial archive we discovered a personal letter from Kodama to General MacArthur offering to provide thousands of yakuza and former Japanese Army soldiers to fight alongside American soldiers in Korea. According to sources in Korea and Japan, the offer was accepted and these men joined the Allied force on the Peninsula, posing as Korean soldiers. . . .
3c. Japan’s looting of Korea took place over centuries. In Gold Warriors, the Seagraves present the history of Japan’s rape of Korea, beginning with their account of the grisly murder of Korean Queen Min in 1894. (For more about the Japanese conquest, subjugation and looting of Korea, see FTR#1141.) ” . . . . the defenseless queen was stabbed and slashed repeatedly, and carried wailing out to the palace garden where she was thrown onto a pile of firewood, drenched with kerosene, and set aflame. An American military advisor, General William Dye, was one of several foreigners who heard and saw the killers milling around in the palace compound with dawn swords while the queen was burned alive. . . .”
A snapshot of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, a focal point of criticism of the late Park Won-soon:” . . . . [General] Terauchi was extraordinarily brutal, setting a precedent for Japanese behavior in all the countries, it would occupy over coming decades. Determined to crush all resistance, he told Koreans, ‘I will whip you with scorpions!’ He set up a sadistic police force of Korean yakuza, ordering it to use torture as a matter of course, for ‘no Oriental can be expected to tell the truth except under torture’. These police were closely supervised by Japan’s gestapo, the kempeitai. . . . ‘Japan’s aim,’ said Korean historian Yi Kibeck, ‘was to eradicate consciousness of Korean national identity, roots and all, and thus to obliterate the very existence of the Korean people from the face of the earth.’ . . . the peninsula was stripped of everything from artworks to root vegetables. As Korea now belonged to Japan, the transfer of cultural property—looting—was not theft. How can you steal something that already belongs to you? . . .”
4. Topics and Points of Discussion For Inclusion in this series: The Cabinet Research Officer next to Ruby at the press conference; General Arisue and his myriad connections; Tsuji Masanobu and his links to Arisue, the Bataan Death March and also highlighting the death of Iris Chang in this discussion; Both Syngman Rhee’s and Ngo Dinh Diem’s work for the Japanese; The use of the Uighurs by the Japanese and their immediate successors; The dividing of Korea at the 38th parallel by Col’s David Dean Rusk and Bonesteel; Rusk’s work for Admiral Hillenkoetter at CIA, as well as any other intelligence links you have for him (There was at least another, but I can’t remember if off the top of my head); Colonel Bonesteel’s later work in Vietnam as a General and for CIA; General Kim Sook Won and his work as a “Bandit Hunter;” Kim Sook Won’s role as commander of Syngman Rhee’s border forces; We will discuss I.F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War, noting that it appears that South Korea attacked first, bating the North to counterattack; What the Korean War did strategically for MacArthur & Company—precluding an attack by Mao’s forces on Formosa/Taiwan, as well as solidifying Rhee’s position in South Korea (which might have been ended by a popular referendum); JFK’s cutting loose of Syngman Rhee and his White Terror—undoubtedly another major reason for his assassination; Willoughby, of course; Jim Wilcott and the Japanese fascists with whom he worked; Oswald in Japan and E. Howard Hunt’s role in covert operations in Japan; Review of JFK’s attempts to extricate us from Vietnam; Eisuke Ono’s role as a Japanese Naval Intelligence paymaster in the U.S. in1933; Frederick Rutland’s work for Mitsubishi and the operational links to Kodama Yoshio and Arisue (Rutland was the guy Ono was paying); The position of Ono in the post-WWII banking milieu inextricably linked with Golden Lily—The links to Tiarks, Norbert Bogdan and the role of the Bank of Tokyo as the successor to the Yokohama Specie Bank.
These programs begin an exploration of the history of U.S. involvement with Asian fascism from the pre-World War II period until the present.
Critical background information on U.S. capital support for Japanese fascism and Japan’s centuries-long subjugation of Korea may be found in FTR#‘s 905 and 1141.
1. It is interesting to contemplate the text of a letter that Jack Ruby smuggled out of prison. In the letter, Ruby hints that Japanese fascists participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. Certainly, elements of what were to become the World Anti-Communist League (including the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League) were involved.
. . . Don’t believe the Warren [Commission] Report, that was only put out to make me look innocent. . . .I’m going to die a horrible death anyway, so what would I have to gain by writing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of people that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Nazi’s [sic], and that is who is in power in this country right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South America is also full of these Nazi’s [sic]. . . . if those people were so determined to frame me then you must be convinced that they had an ulterior motive for doing same. There is only one kind of people that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Master Race. . . .
The Man Who Knew Too Much; Dick Russell; Carroll & Graf [HC]; Copyright 1992 by Dick Russell; ISBN 0–88184-900–6; p. 684.
2. While in Okinawa during Japan’s surrender in World War II, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty was witness to the early commitment of decisive military resources to the wars that were to take place in Korea and Indochina/Vietnam.
. . . . I was on Okinawa at that time, and during some business in the harbor area I asked the harbormaster if all that new material was being returned to the States. His response was direct and surprising: ‘Hell, no! They ain’t never goin’ to see it again. One-half of this stuff, enough to equip and supply at least a hundred and fifty thousand men, is going to Korea, and the other half is going to Indochina.’ In 1945, none of us had any idea that the first battles of the Cold War were going to be fought by U.S. military units in those two regions beginning in 1950 and 1965–yet that is precisely what had been planned, and it is precisely what happened. Who made that decision back in 1943–45? . . . .
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by Col. [Ret.] L. Fletcher Prouty; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2011 by L. Fletcher Prouty; ISBN 978–1‑51073–876‑8; pp. 17–18.
3a. The shooting war in Asia did not end with V‑J Day.
. . . . When the war ended, China was in utter chaos. Thousands of Japanese troops wandered around the countryside, fully armed, with no one accepting their surrender. John F. Melby [a State Department officer], in a day-by-day diary he kept at the time, reflected in bewilderment upon this anomaly. On December 27, 1945, he noted: “I still don’t understand about the Japanese. Officially they are being disarmed, but the fact is they never seem to be. In Shanghai, fifteen thousand still walk the streets with full equipment. In Nanking, the high Japanese generals are bosom buddies of the Chinese. In the north, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers are used to guard railroads and warehouses and to fight the Communists. If you ask what this is all about, the answer is either a denial or in more candid moments a ‘Shh, we don’t talk about that.’ ” In another entry on January 30, 1947, a good sixteen months after V‑J Day, Melby noted that, though it was being kept “very quiet,” there were “eighty thousand holdout Japanese troops in eastern and northwestern Manchuria, who are fully equipped, fighting the Communists.” . . . .
The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy by Fred J. Cook; Copyright 1971 by Fred J. Cook; Random House [HC]; ISBN 0–394-46270‑x; p. 219.
3b. Of great significance is the presence of John Foster Dulles, Kodama Yoshio and Machii Hisayuki (head of the Korean Yakuza in Japan) in Seoul South Korea on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War.
Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [SC]; Copyright 2003, 2005 by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1–84467-531–9; p. 115.
. . . . In October of 1949, the People’s Republic of China came into being. Eight months later, in June of 1950, the Korean War broke out. Just before the war began, Kodama [Yoshio] accompanied John Foster Dulles to negotiations in Seoul. The Dulles party also included Kodama’s protege Machii Hisayuki, boss of the Korean yakuza in Japan. Efforts to discover under Freedom of Information what Kodama and Machii did during the trip with Dulles have run into a stone wall. In the MacArthur Memorial archive we discovered a personal letter from Kodama to General MacArthur offering to provide thousands of yakuza and former Japanese Army soldiers to fight alongside American soldiers in Korea. According to sources in Korea and Japan, the offer was accepted and these men joined the Allied force on the Peninsula, posing as Korean soldiers. . . .
4. Topics and Points of Discussion For Inclusion in this series: The Cabinet Research Officer next to Ruby at the press conference; General Arisue and his myriad connections; Tsuji Masanobu and his links to Arisue, the Bataan Death March and also highlighting the death of Iris Chang in this discussion; Both Syngman Rhee’s and Ngo Dinh Diem’s work for the Japanese; The use of the Uighurs by the Japanese and their immediate successors; The dividing of Korea at the 38th parallel by Col’s David Dean Rusk and Bonesteel; Rusk’s work for Admiral Hillenkoetter at CIA, as well as any other intelligence links you have for him (There was at least another, but I can’t remember if off the top of my head); Colonel Bonesteel’s later work in Vietnam as a General and for CIA; General Kim Sook Won and his work as a “Bandit Hunter;” Kim Sook Won’s role as commander of Syngman Rhee’s border forces; We will discuss I.F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War, noting that it appears that South Korea attacked first, bating the North to counterattack; What the Korean War did strategically for MacArthur & Company—precluding an attack by Mao’s forces on Formosa/Taiwan, as well as solidifying Rhee’s position in South Korea (which might have been ended by a popular referendum); JFK’s cutting loose of Syngman Rhee and his White Terror—undoubtedly another major reason for his assassination; Willoughby, of course; Jim Wilcott and the Japanese fascists with whom he worked; Oswald in Japan and E. Howard Hunt’s role in covert operations in Japan; Review of JFK’s attempts to extricate us from Vietnam; Eisuke Ono’s role as a Japanese Naval Intelligence paymaster in the U.S. in1933; Frederick Rutland’s work for Mitsubishi and the operational links to Kodama Yoshio and Arisue (Rutland was the guy Ono was paying); The position of Ono in the post-WWII banking milieu inextricably linked with Golden Lily—The links to Tiarks, Norbert Bogdan and the role of the Bank of Tokyo as the successor to the Yokohama Specie Bank.
These broadcasts supplement FTR#‘s 509, 1107 and 1108.
Significant sections of the latter two broadcasts are recapped in these programs and this description.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis Include:
1.–Iris Chang’s mother, Ying-Ying Chang, could not rule out the “dark conspiracy” that Iris was facing. Ying-Ying’s point of view was shaped, in part, by Steven Clemons’ observations.
2.–In an appendix titled “Requiem for Iris Chang,” Steven Clemons noted the alleged “suicide” of his associate Juzo Itami, who was battling the same forces as Iris Chang. “I have never bought the story about Juzo Itami, who was at war in his films with the Japanese right-wing crowd and yakuza.”
3.–Iris’ best-known work, “The Rape of Nanking”, inspired a congressional resolution supporting Japanese compensation for those who had been compelled to labor as slaves and slave prostitutes or “comfort women.”
4.–Iris was working on a book and documentary film project about the survivors of the Bataan Death March. Some of those veterans had been used as slave laborers by Japanese corporations during the war. The Bataan Death March veterans were among those who sued the Japanese corporations that had enslaved them.
5.–The presiding judge ruled against the veterans and for the Japanese corporations. On the day of Iris’ “suicide” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was meeting with Japanese businessmen to promote California-Japanese trade.
6.–In early September of 2001, Iris spoke at a conference assembled to protest the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the U.S./Japanese treaty of 1951 (negotiated by John Foster Dulles). Iris called “the San Francisco Peace Treaty a travesty of justice, a betrayal of our own American veterans.” Recall the congressional resolution passed in the aftermath of, and because of The Rape of Nanking.
7.–After watching a spirited discussion between Iris and the Japanese ambassador to the U.S., a friend of Iris’ father advised her to hire a bodyguard.
8.–As will be noted at greater length below, Iris was very critical of the George W. Bush administration and had written several articles critical of his policies.
9.–Iris was very critical of the George W. Bush administration, and had taken stances against many features of his foreign policy, Bush’s invasion of Iraq in particular. Iris had long opposed all forms of racism in this country.
10.–Sadly, many of those close to Iris dismissed her fears concerning the government’s targeting of her and the overlapping ideological animosity and targeting of her by the Japanese right-wing. The historical and operational overlap between the two is fundamental and is explored in some of the material below.
11.–When she traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to interview survivors of the Bataan Death March, she felt she was under physical surveillance and harassment. We note below that Kentucky was a place where Bush confidant William Stamps Farish III had powerful connections.
12.–During her book tour for The Rape of Nanking, Iris was approached by someone she felt was recruiting her. He said “You will be safer to join us.” Was this and attempt at recruitment by the CIA?
13.–We repeat the information in #11, for purposes of emphasis.
14.–Iris was convinced to her dying day that she was the focal point of hostility from the Bush administration. A remake of the movie The Manchurian Candidate heightened her anxiety. Her articles critical of the Bush administration and, as we have and shall see, the overlapping dynamics of her work on The Rape of Nanking and Gold Warriors further deepened her peril. She first purchased a firearm for protection and was hoping that John Kerry would defeat Bush in 2004.
15.–Despite the fact that Iris’ corpse was found in her car in the early morning, her parents weren’t notified of her death until almost midnight. Why?
16.–Iris’ corpse was discovered early in the morning with her head against the driver’s side window, her hands crossed in her lap and the gun on her left leg. While not physically impossible, this is altogether unlikely for someone who had allegedly committed suicide by firing a powerful hand gun into her mouth. She felt that her problems were “external,” while those around her thought they were “internal,” i.e. “all in her head.”
17.–Same as 16.
18.–Iris’ ordeal was remarkably similar to what Rita Katz endured following her work on Operation Green Quest and the SAAR investigation.
19.–George W. Bush was pursuing Philippine Golden Lily loot in order to increase U.S. gold reserves and, perhaps more importantly, to fortify his blind trust. That trust was overseen by William Stamps Farish III, who had considerable political and economic gravitas in the state of Kentucky.
20.–Bush’s Harken Energy may well have served as a money laundering front, perhaps for some of the gold recovered in the Philippines. We note that a director of Harken, Talat Othman, interceded directly with then Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill on behalf of the targets of the 3/20/2002 raids. The SAAR network was a primary target of those raids: we have seen how Rita Katz and her fellow investigators came under surveillance and harassment for digging into that case.
21.–We revisit the deep politics of the Bush family, the family of Douglas MacArthur and William and Alan Quasha.
22.–More about the deep politics of the Philippines, the Bush family, father and son Quasha, and the possibility that Alan Quasha’s dominant presence in Harken Energy may be derivative of the clandestine acquisition of Golden Lily loot.
23.–The program concludes with review of the operations of Golden Lily and their involvement with things Iris was investigating. The Rape of Nanking marked the formal beginning of Golden Lily.
24.–Colonel Tsuji Masanobu was heavily involved with Golden Lily and the Bataan Death March, the survivors of which were a focal point of Iris Chang’s research at the time of her death.
In numerous programs, we have covered the re-institution of Imperial Japanese fascism in the aftermath of World War II. That re-constitution embraced the political, financial and industrial elements of the Japanese power elite prior to, and during, World War II. Reviewing a recent film set against the background of Unit 731 (a relative rarity in, and of, itself), “The New York Times” noted the institutionalized historical revisionism that is part of contemporary Japanese life. ” . . . . In Tokyo, black vans often prowl the streets spouting propaganda that rewrites the country’s role in the war. And publishers churn out books disputing the most basic facts about atrocities. . . .” WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
The program begins with discussion of two articles that frame the analysis of the New Cold War with China.
” . . . . ‘the political-economic system of the People’s Republic is precisely that what no one expects, in the West — where agitational reporting usually only confirms resentful clichés about China. . . .”
Much journalistic bloviating and diplomatic and military posturing in the U.S. has been devoted to China’s occupation of uninhabited atolls in the South China Sea and waters around China.
In addition to failure to understand this in the historical context of China’s experience during the Opium Wars and the conflict with the Japanese during World War II, the coverage in the West has omitted discussion of similar occupation and (in some cases) militarization of such islands in those waters by other countries in the region: ” . . . . Officially, Berlin justifies the frigate Bayern’s deployment to East Asia with its intention to promote the implementation of international law. This pertains particularly to conflicts over numerous islands and atolls in the South China Sea that are contested by the riparians and where China claims 28 of them and uses some militarily, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). According to CSIS, the Philippines control nine, Malaysia, five and Taiwan, one island, whereas Vietnam has established around 50 outposts of various sorts. All four countries also have a military presence on some of the islands and atolls they are occupying. . . .”
As noted in the German Foreign Policy article, the German (and U.S. and U.K.) position is blatantly hypocritical: ” . . . . The frigate Bayern, which set sail for East Asia yesterday, will soon make a port call at Diego Garcia, an island under occupation, in violation of international law, and serving military purposes. It is the main island of the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the site of a strategically important US military base. The Chagos Archipelago is an old British colonial possession that had once belonged to Mauritius. It was detached, in violation of international law, during the decolonization of Mauritius, to allow the United States to construct a military base. The population was deported to impoverished regions on Mauritius. In the meantime, several international court rulings have been handed down and a UN General Assembly resolution has been passed on this issue — all concluding that Mauritius has sovereignty over Diego Garcia and calling on the United Kingdom to hand back the illegally occupied Chagos Archipelago. To this day, London and Washington refuse to comply. . . .”
Another German Foreign Policy article sets forth many of Mr. Emory’s fears and observations concerning contemporary China and the U.S.
Among those concerns and fears:
1.–” . . . . the major shift in the global balance of power, shaping our present, with China’s rise and the USA seeking to hold the People’s Republic of China down, to preserve its global dominance. The consequences are a dangerous escalation of the conflict, which could lead to a Third World War. . . .”
2.–” . . . . At the beginning of the 19th century, the Middle Kingdom (China) — which had one-third of the world’s population — was still generating a third of the world’s economic output. Therefore, it was the world’s greatest economic power — as it had already been for many centuries. . . .”
3.–” . . . . China’s resurgence, following the devastation brought on particularly by the western colonial powers was possible, Baron explains, not least because ‘the political-economic system of the People’s Republic is precisely that what no one expects, in the West — where agitational reporting usually only confirms resentful clichés about China. It is ‘highly flexible, adventurous, and adaptable.’ Baron quotes Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth Perry, both experts on China, saying politics is explicitly understood as a ‘process of constant transformations and conflict management, with trial runs and ad hoc adaptations.’ The Chinese system is a far cry from being a rigid, inflexible authoritarianism. . . .”
4.–” . . . . Baron depicts the foreign policy the USA — at home increasingly decaying — has been indulging in since the end of the cold war: an extremely aggressive approach toward Russia, grueling wars — such as in Iraq — in addition to ‘regime change operations’ and unscrupulous extra-territorial sanctions. ‘The military-industrial-complex and the intelligence services (...) have seized an enormous amount of power,’ notes the publicist, and warns that only external aggression can hold the country together: ‘The conviction that America must be at the top in the world,’ is, at the moment, ‘almost the only thing that the deeply antagonistic Democrats and Republicans can still agree on.’ Baron speaks of ‘imperial arrogance.’ . . .”
5.–” . . . . ‘To defend its lost hegemonic position’ the United States ‘is not primarily seeking to regain its competitiveness,’ Baron observes, but rather it is striving ‘by any means and on all fronts, to prevent — or at least restrain — China’s progress.’ . . . . Ultimately, ‘the threat of a Third World War’ looms large. . . .”
One cannot understand contemporary China and the political history of that country over the last couple of centuries without a comprehensive grasp of the effect of the Opium Wars on that nation and its people.
Indeed, one cannot grasp Chinese history and politics without an understanding of the narcotics trade’s central position in that country’s politics.
A viable understanding of China’s past yields understanding of its present.
Key points of analysis and discussion of the Opium Wars include:
1.–The economic imperative for the conflicts were the trade imbalance between China and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th century the demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. European silver flowed into China through the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. . . .”
2.–To alter that dynamic, the British East India Company turned to the opium trade: “ . . . . To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in Bengal and allowed private British merchants to sell opium to Chinese smugglers for illegal sale in China. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials. . . .”
3.–The Chinese attempt at interdicting the opium trade was countered with force of arms: “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalize and tax opium, appointed ViceroyLin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely.[8] Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, which she never saw, appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade.[9] Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants’ enclave. He confiscated all supplies and ordered a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River. Lin also confiscated and destroyed a significant quantity of European opium.[10] The British government responded by dispatching a military force to China and in the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire,[11] a tactic later referred to as gunboat diplomacy. . . .”
4.–Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, China experienced: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—which granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to British subjects in China . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for further opium trade, but ceded the territory of Hong Kong . . . . ”
5.–The trade imbalance between China and Britain worsened, and the expense of maintain new colonial territories—including Hong Kong (appropriated through the first Opium War)—led to the second Opium War. Note that the “extraterritoriality” granted to British subjects exempted them from Chinese law, including the official prohibition against opium trafficking: “ . . . . Despite the new ports available for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from China had reached nine times their exports to the country. At the same time British imperial finances came under further pressure from the expense of administering the burgeoning colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore in addition to India. Only the latter’s opium could balance the deficit. [30]Along with various complaints about the treatment of British merchants in Chinese ports and the Qing government’s refusal to accept further foreign ambassadors, the relatively minor ‘Arrow Incident’ provided the pretext the British needed to once more resort to military force to ensure the opium kept flowing. . . . Matters quickly escalated and led to the Second Opium War . . . .”
6.–As a result of the Second Opium War, China was obliged to Cede No.1 District of Kowloon (south of present-day Boundary Street) to Britain; grant “freedom of religion,” which led to an influx of Western Missionaries, U.S. in particular; British ships were allowed to carry indentured Chinese to the Americas; legalization of the opium trade.”
7.–Fierce, eloquent condemnation of the Opium Wars was voiced by British Prime Minister Gladstone: “ . . . . The opium trade incurred intense enmity from the later British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.[34] As a member of Parliament, Gladstone called it ‘most infamous and atrocious’, referring to the opium trade between China and British India in particular.[35] Gladstone was fiercely against both of the Opium Wars, was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China, and denounced British violence against Chinese.[36] Gladstone lambasted it as ‘Palmerston’s Opium War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China’ in May 1840.[37] A famous speech was made by Gladstone in Parliament against the First Opium War.[38][39] Gladstone criticized it as ‘a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace’. . . .”
The program begins by reviewing the death threats and intimidation that the authors of Gold Warriors received over the publication of this and other books.
” . . . .When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu. . . .”
Sterling’s fears about Opus Dei and his and Peggy’s proximity to Spain–the seat of that organization’s power 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.
” . . . . A hired thug tried to murder me on the serpentine road leading up to our isolated house on the ridge overlooking Banyuls-sur-Mer, and nearly succeeded. (We’ve had several serious death threats because of our books.) The road was very narrow in places, with tarmac barely the width of my tires. At 10 pm Christmas night, in 2011, after visiting Peggy at a clinic in Perpignan, as I turned the final hairpin, I clearly saw a guy sitting on a cement block path leading up to a shed for the uphill vineyard. He was obviously waiting for me because we were the only people living up there on that mountain shoulder. He jumped up, raised a long pole, and unfurled a black fabric that totally blocked the narrowest turn ahead of me. I tried to swerve to avoid him (not knowing whether he also had a gun), and my right front drive wheel went off the tarmac and lost traction in the rubble.
The car teetered and then plunged down through a steep vineyard on my right side, rolling and bouncing front and rear, 100 meters into a ravine where it finally came to rest against a tree. Thanks to my seatbelt and air bag, I survived. . . .”
One cannot understand contemporary China and the political history of that country over the last couple of centuries without a comprehensive grasp of the effect of the Opium Wars on that nation and its people.
Indeed, one cannot grasp Chinese history and politics without an understanding of the narcotics trade’s central position in that country’s politics.
A viable understanding of China’s past yields understanding of its present.
Awareness of key dynamics of Chinese history includes:
1.–The decisive role of European and American military domination and economic exploitation of China.
2.–The role of the narcotics traffic in the erosion of Chinese society in the 19th century.
3.–The British-led “Opium Wars,” which were the foundation of the destruction wrought by dope addiction in China.
4.–The Opium Wars and their implementation by “Gunboat Diplomacy” of British and European territorial expansion in China.
5.–The pivotal role of that “Gunboat Diplomacy” in the British acquisition of Hong Kong.
6.–Contemporary Chinese concern with the military safety of their ports, territorial waters, adjacent seas and oceans, shipping lanes, merchant marine traffic. This stems in large measure from China’s experience with “Gunboat Diplomacy” and the ravaging of China by Imperial Japan during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
7.–The introduction of Western missionaries into China–American missionaries, in particular.
8.–The fostering of the “Missionary position” toward China on the part of the U.S.
9.–American missionaries’ use of morphine to cure Chinese opium addicts, a practice so prevalent that the Chinese referred to morphine as “Jesus opium.”
10.–The enormous opium trade in China as the foundation for the coalescence and ascent of Shanghai’s Green Gang and Tu Yueh-Shen: “Big Eared Tu.”
11.–The dominance of the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
12.–The fundamental reliance of Chiang’s government on the narcotics trade.
13.–The dominant role of Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. narcotics trade.
14.–The doctrinaire fascism of Chiang Kai-Shek and his operational relationships with Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Imperial Japan.
15.–The central role of the Soong family in Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang; T.V. Soong, his sisters Mae-ling (married to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek), Ai-ling (married to H.H. Kung, a key finance minister of the Kuomintang), and several of T. V.‘s brothers, who also shared in the slicing of the pie under Chiang.
16.–The pivotal role of American publishing giant Henry Luce, whose missionary background in China informed and animated his adoration of Chiang Kai-Shek and Mme. Chiang.
17.–The role of the Luce publishing empire and the enormous financial influence of the consummately corrupt Soong family in spawning “The China Lobby.”
18.–The decisive role of the Chiang Kai-Shek’s refusal to fight the Japanese invaders, combined with the brutal repression and civic ineptitude in driving the Chinese people into the arms of Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Communist Party.
Key points of analysis and discussion of the Opium Wars include:
1.–The economic imperative for the conflicts were the trade imbalance between China and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th century the demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. European silver flowed into Chinathrough the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. . . .”
2.–To alter that dynamic, the British East India Company turned to the opium trade: “ . . . . To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in Bengal and allowed private British merchants to sell opium to Chinese smugglers for illegal sale in China. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials. . . .”
3.–The Chinese attempt at interdicting the opium trade was countered with force of arms: “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalize and tax opium, appointed ViceroyLin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely.[8] Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, which she never saw, appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade.[9] Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants’ enclave. He confiscated all supplies and ordered a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River. Lin also confiscated and destroyed a significant quantity of European opium.[10] The British government responded by dispatching a military force to China and in the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire,[11] a tactic later referred to as gunboat diplomacy. . . .”
4.–Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, China experienced: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—which granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to British subjects in China . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for further opium trade, but ceded the territory of Hong Kong . . . . ”
5.–The trade imbalance between China and Britain worsened, and the expense of maintain new colonial territories—including Hong Kong (appropriated through the first Opium War)—led to the second Opium War. Note that the “extraterritoriality” granted to British subjects exempted them from Chinese law, including the official prohibition against opium trafficking: “ . . . . Despite the new ports available for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from China had reached nine times their exports to the country. At the same time British imperial finances came under further pressure from the expense of administering the burgeoning colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore in addition to India. Only the latter’s opium could balance the deficit. [30]Along with various complaints about the treatment of British merchants in Chinese ports and the Qing government’s refusal to accept further foreign ambassadors, the relatively minor ‘Arrow Incident’ provided the pretext the British needed to once more resort to military force to ensure the opium kept flowing. . . . Matters quickly escalated and led to the Second Opium War . . . .”
6.–As a result of the Second Opium War, China was obliged to Cede No.1 District of Kowloon (south of present-day Boundary Street) to Britain; grant “freedom of religion,” which led to an influx of Western Missionaries, U.S. in particular; British ships were allowed to carry indentured Chinese to the Americas; legalization of the opium trade.”
7.–Fierce, eloquent condemnation of the Opium Wars was voiced by British Prime Minister Gladstone: “ . . . . The opium trade incurred intense enmity from the later British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.[34] As a member of Parliament, Gladstone called it ‘most infamous and atrocious’, referring to the opium trade between China and British India in particular.[35] Gladstone was fiercely against both of the Opium Wars, was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China, and denounced British violence against Chinese.[36] Gladstone lambasted it as ‘Palmerston’s Opium War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China’ in May 1840.[37] A famous speech was made by Gladstone in Parliament against the First Opium War.[38][39] Gladstone criticized it as ‘a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace’. . . .”
The program concludes with two key excerpts from The Soong Dynasty.
After detailing Tu Yueh-Sheng’s ascent to the pinnacle of Chinese power through his reorganization of China’s opium trade into a cartel, the program sets forth Chiang Kai-shek and the Green Gang’s control of the Whampoa Military Academy, which spawned control of the Kuomintang Army by the Green Gang.
With virulent anti-Chinese ideology driving American foreign, domestic and nati0nal security policy, we begin a long series of programs setting forth the history of China during the last couple of centuries.
The anti-China pathology gripping the U.S. was concisely expressed in a New York Times article a couple of years ago. The Steve Bannon-led anti-China effort has now become U.S. doctrine: ” . . . . Fear of China has spread across the government, from the White House to Congress to federal agencies, where Beijing’s rise is unquestioningly viewed as an economic and national security threat and the defining challenge of the 21st century. . . .”
A viable understanding of China’s past yields understanding of its present.
Awareness of key dynamics of Chinese history–the Opium Wars in particular–includes:
1.–The decisive role of European and American military domination and economic exploitation of China.
2.–The role of the narcotics traffic in the erosion of Chinese society in the 19th century.
3.–The British-led “Opium Wars,” which were the foundation of the destruction wrought by dope addiction in China.
4.–The Opium Wars and their implementation by “Gunboat Diplomacy” of British and European territorial expansion in China.
5.–The pivotal role of that “Gunboat Diplomacy” in the British acquisition of Hong Kong.
6.–Contemporary Chinese concern with the military safety of their ports, territorial waters, adjacent seas and oceans, shipping lanes, merchant marine traffic. This stems in large measure from China’s experience with “Gunboat Diplomacy” and the ravaging of China by Imperial Japan during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
7.–The introduction of Western missionaries into China–American missionaries, in particular.
8.–The fostering of the “Missionary position” toward China on the part of the U.S.
9.–American missionaries’ use of morphine to cure Chinese opium addicts, a practice so prevalent that the Chinese referred to morphine as “Jesus opium.”
10.–The importing of Chinese laborers to the U.S., and the resultant, deadly anti-Chinese reaction by White America.
11.–The enormous opium trade in China as the foundation for the coalescence and ascent of Shanghai’s Green Gang and Tu Yueh-Shen: “Big Eared Tu.”
12.–The dominance of the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
13.–The fundamental reliance of Chiang’s government on the narcotics trade.
14.–The dominant role of Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. narcotics trade.
15.–The doctrinaire fascism of Chiang Kai-Shek and his operational relationships with Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Imperial Japan.
16.–The central role of the Soong family in Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang; T.V. Soong, his sisters Mae-ling (married to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek), Ai-ling (married to H.H. Kung, a key finance minister of the Kuomointang), and several of T. V.‘s brothers, who also shared in the slicing of the pie under Chiang.
17.–The pivotal role of American publishing giant Henry Luce, whose missionary background in China informed and animated his adoration of Chiang Kai-Shek and Mme. Chiang.
18.–The role of the Luce publishing empire and the enormous financial influence of the consummately corrupt Soong family in spawning “The China Lobby.”
19.–The decisive role of the Chiang Kai-Shek’s refusal to fight the Japanese invaders, combined with the brutal repression and civic ineptitude in driving the Chinese people into the arms of Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Communist Party.
NB: More detailed discussion of the Opium Wars is presented in the two programs following this one.
The program sets forth anti-Chinese racism past and present.
Peter Thiel–lynchpin of power in the Trump administration, the top dog in Palantir (the alpha predator of the electronic surveillance milieu), a key player in Facebook–has disseminated anti-Chinese vitriol about the “yellow peril” in Silicon Valley.
He has been joined in that effort by Steve Bannon, a coordinator of anti-China activity in Washington D.C.
” . . . . The billionaire investor Peter Thiel has accused Google of “treason” and called for a law enforcement investigation of the search engine’s parent company. He speculated that the Chinese government has invaded its employee ranks. A German immigrant via South Africa, Thiel is not alone; his remarks echo the repeated assertions of the rabble rouser Steve Bannon that there are too many Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley. These claims, combined with similar charges of wrongdoing against students and professors of Chinese origin on campuses across the country, are as ominous as they are lurid. While Thiel presents no evidence, Bannon displays ample prejudice. They are inspiring paranoia about everyone of Chinese heritage. . . .”
Among the outgrowths of the Opium Wars was an end to the Qing dynasty’s ban on Chinese emigration and the resultant “coolie trade.”
The Chinese have a long-standing and deserved reputation as good workers. The U.S. and British embrace of the “coolie trade” permitted large numbers of Chinese laborers to be imported into the U.S., where they were widely employed in the silver mining industry and the railroads.
This led to widespread, deadly retaliation by the white establishment against Chinese workers, encouraged by the media and political establishments.
Beheadings, scalping, castration and cannibalism were among the deadly outgrowths of the White Terror against Chinese.
The violence was accompanied by legal restrictions on the immigration by Chinese into the U.S.
The program concludes with review of the death threats and intimidation that the authors of Gold Warriors received over the publication of this and other books.
” . . . .When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu. . . .”
In “The Death of A Salesman” Arthur Miller (speaking through Mrs. Loman, Willy’s widow) said “Attention must be paid to such a person! You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away!” Before moving on from FTR #‘s 1107 and 1108, an aspect of the suspicious death of author Iris Chang bears emphasis: The people around her, friends, husband and family, attributed her “suicide” to psychological disturbances, despite evidence that she was the focal point of hostile action by intelligence agents and fascists, as well as subjected to forms of mind control. Ms. Chang said her problems were “external”–those around her felt they were “internal.” Her friend since college, writer Paula Kamen felt that Iris’ fertility treatments may have lay at the core of her problems. In FTR #‘s 1107 and 1108, we compared Iris’ experiences with those of Rita Katz, who helped investigate the 9/11 money trail that led to the Operation Green Quest SAAR network raids. When the Agents of Darkness gather to visit retribution on someone seen as a transgressor, it is, in effect, collaborative to increase the target’s isolation and consequent vulnerability by seeing them as “sick.” Rita Katz wasn’t experiencing what she did because of “fertility treatments.”
“The Seagraves have uncovered one of the Biggest Secrets of the Twentieth Century”–Iris Chang, quoted on the front cover of Gold Warriors.
Late last year (2019), the city of San Jose (California) opened a park dedicated to the memory of the late author Iris Chang.
These broadcasts update and supplement discussion of Iris Chang’s alleged “suicide,” highlighted in FTR #509. Of particular significance is the fact that the Golden Lily loot and the decisive political and economic factors stemming from the material covered in Gold Warriors, the other books by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, and Ms. Chang’s “The Rape of Nanking” have enormous and ongoing significance.
(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. Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos recovered a tremendous amount of the Golden Lily loot, some of which was shared with the Japanese, some with the U.S. and much of it kept by Marcos. The Marcos “Black Gold” figures prominently in the deep politics surrounding the death of Ms. Chang.)
In November of 2004, author and investigator Iris Chang was found dead of an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound. This program examines the circumstances surrounding her death.
In her landmark book “The Rape of Nanking,” Ms. Chang documented the Japanese atrocities which gave that occupation its name. The rape of Nanking saw the beginning of the Japanese Golden Lily program, which yielded the spectacular looted wealth and postwar economic and political intrigue documented in the Seagraves’ incisive text “Gold Warriors.”
The “Rape of Nanking” drew much hostile reaction from the Japanese right and related forces: . . . . At the same time, torrents of hate mail came in, Brett [her husband] said. ‘Iris is sensitive, but she got charged up,’ he recalled. ‘When anybody questioned the validity of what she wrote, she would respond with overwhelming evidence to back it up. She’s very much a perfectionist. It was hard for her not to react every single time.’ Most of the attacks came from Japanese ultranationalists. ‘We saw cartoons where she was portrayed as this woman with a great big mouth,‘Brett said. ‘She got used to the fact that there is a Web site called ‘Iris Chang and Her Lies.’ She would just laugh.’ But friends say Iris began to voice concerns for her safety. She believed her phone was tapped. She described finding threatening notes on her car. She said she was confronted by a man who said, ‘You will NOT continue writing this.’ She used a post office box, never her home address, for mail. ‘There are a fair number of people who don’t take kindly to what she wrote in The Rape of Nanking.’ Brett said, ‘so she’s always been very, very private about our family life.’ . . . .”
(As we have seen in–among other programs–FTR #‘s 813, 905, 969, 970, the Japanese “ultranationalists” were put right back in power by the American occupation forces, as the Seagraves document in Gold Warriors, as well as The Yamato Dynasty.)
At the time of her death, Ms. Chang was researching a book chronicling the experiences of survivors of the Bataan Death March—the brutal persecution of American POW’s captured in the siege of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. Many of the survivors were shipped to Japan to work as slave laborers for major Japanese corporations.
Many of these corporations have had profound connections with their American transnational counterparts, and were the beneficiaries of American investment capital in the run-up to World War II. More importantly, many of these corporations are a principal element of the US/Japanese commercial relationship today.
Lawsuits in California targeted those Japanese corporations for compensation for the slave labor wrung from the Battaan POWs. The State Department sided with the Japanese and Judge Vaughn Walker ruled against the Bataan survivors.
Perhaps most importantly, in-depth coverage of the Bataan Death March would uncover the Black Eagle Trust and the fundamental role in post-World War II American and Japanese politics of the vast wealth looted by Japan during World War II. That purloined “black gold” is inextricably linked with U.S. covert operations and is at the epicenter of postwar Japanese power politics and economy.
In addition to the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March survivors, Ms. Chang’s research cut across some deep political dynamics connected to then-President George W. Bush’s administration and his business dealings.
George W. Bush:
1.–Was using U.S. Naval forces to secure Japanese war gold from the Philippines for his personal blind trust, as well as shoring up American reserves.
2.–Was deeply involved with Harken Energy, which may well have been a corporate front for the acquisition and recycling of Golden Lily loot and Bormann money.
3.–Was heir to a deep political heritage involving, among others, the family of William Stamps Farish, the head of Standard Oil of New Jersey during the time it manifested its cartel agreements with I.G. Farben. Dubya benefited from his father’s legacy of involvement with the milieu of Douglas MacArthur. George H.W. Bush’s deep political connections in the Philippines include the involvement of both Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump and GOP trickster Roger Stone with Ferdinand Marcos while the dictator was involved with the recovery of Golden Lily loot.
4. Served as a director of Harken when the head of the firm was Alan Quasha, son of William Quasha, an attorney for the CIA-linked Nugan Hand Bank, a focal point of AFA #25. William had been Alien Property custodian in the Philippines under Douglas MacArthur, which placed him in a position to greatly influence the “Alien Property” placed there by the Japanese under Golden Lily.
There is evidence to suggest that Ms. Chang’s death may have resulted from mind control, administered to neutralize her as a threat to those clandestine economic and national security relationships that have governed US/Japanese affairs in the postwar period. Ms. Chang had received threats ever since the publication of her landmark text The Rape of Nanking.
(For more about the government’s mind control programs, see, among other broadcasts, AFA #‘s 5–7.)
She appears to have been under surveillance, and her “suicide” note alleged that a suspicious internment in a psychiatric hospital may have been initiated at the instigation of the elements opposed to a ruffling of the Japanese/US feathers. In addition to threatening to expose a dominant factor in U.S. covert operations, a key element in the postwar American and global economy, Ms. Chang’s investigation of Japanese war crimes was an irritant to the Japanese establishment that had thrived on the gold and other wealth looted from occupied countries since World War II.
Ms. Chang’s “suicide” note read, in part: “. . . .There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. . . . . I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me. Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government’s attempt to discredit me. . . .”
At the conclusion of the program, we review Rita Katz’s experiences after she helped break the investigation into the SAAR network that became known as Operation Green Quest. That investigation overlapped George W. Bush’s firm Harken Energy. Note the similarity between Iris Chang’s experiences and those of Rita Katz. ” . . . . White vans and SUV’s with dark windows appeared near all the homes of the SAAR investigators. All agents, some of whom were very experienced with surveillance, knew they were being followed. So was I. I felt that I was being followed everywhere and watched at home, in the supermarket, on the way to work . . . and for what? . Now—I was being watched 24/7. It’s a terrible sensation to know that you have no privacy. . . . and no security. That strange clicking of the phones that wasn’t there before. . . the oh-so-crudely opened mail at home in the office. . . and the same man I spied in my neighborhood supermarket, who was also on the train I took to Washington a week ago. . . Life can be miserable when you know that someone’s always breathing down your neck. . . .”
In conversations with friends, Ms. Chang noted that her problems were “external,” not in her head. She also felt she was being “recruited” to become a “Manchurian Candidate” for the CIA–i.e. being subjected to mind control. ” . . . . in her last year she became paranoid about everything from viruses attacking her computer to attempts by the government to “recruit” her, a la The Manchurian Candidate. . . .
Program Highlights Include: The alleged role of Japanese war criminal Tsuji Masanobu in aiding the Marcos gold recoveries in the Philippines; the role of Tsuji Masanobu in implementing the Bataan Death March; William Stamps Farish III’s stewardship of Dubya’s blind trust, for which Philippines war gold was apparently being sought; William Stamps Farish (II) and his stewardship of Standard Oil of New Jersey, when it collaborated with I.G. Farben; George H.W. Bush’s association with the descendants of American corporate figures who collaborated with the Third Reich.
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