TBR News September 19, 2019
The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. September 19, 2019:
“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
His latest business is to re-institute a universal draft in America.
He wants to do this to remove tens of thousands of unemployed young Americans from the streets so they won’t come together and fight him.
Commentary for September 19: In-house rumor has it that Trump has been warned repeatedly that his emotional outbursts might lead to a serious war and he is now trying to keep his mouth shut and make the appearance of a moderate, peaceful man. The Iranians could wreak havoc on the US if a war broke out and their allies, the Shiite Hezbollah, could wipe Israel off the map so Trump is trying to appear to be a peace maker. The attack on the Saudi oil refinery is an opening move that proves the vulnerability of that country and, worse, could cut back the production of oil which would wreak politically dangerous civil havoc in the United States.”
The Table of Contents
- Democrats seek details on U.S. military use of Trump resort hotel
- How did oil attack breach Saudi defences and what will happen next?
- Conspiracies for Fun and Profit
- The Interrogation of suspects under arrest
- American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies
- These ‘Alien’ Mummies Appear to Be a Mix of Looted Body Parts
- Why Germany Invaded Poland
- The Potocki Reports
- The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
- Encyclopedia of American Loons
- Effects of global warming
- Why an ice age occurs every 100,000 years: Climate and feedback effects explained
Democrats seek details on U.S. military use of Trump resort hotel
September 18, 2019
by Mark Hosenball
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Documents from the Pentagon show that “far more taxpayer funds” were spent by the U.S. military on overnight stays at a Trump resort in Scotland than previously known, two Democratic lawmakers said on Wednesday, as they demanded more evidence from the Defense Department as part of their investigation.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the heads of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee and one of it subcommittees said that while initial reports indicated that only one U.S. military crew had stayed at President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort southeast of Glasgow, the Pentagon had now turned over data indicating “more than three dozen separate stays” since Trump moved into the White House.
Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Representative Jamie Raskin, who chairs the civil rights subcommittee, said that while the Defense Department had not given Congress information about the total number of rooms it had booked at the resort, it did say the average cost of a room for U.S. service personnel between August 2017 and July 2019 was $189 per night.
They said the Pentagon had also informed them that during that time period, Pentagon expenditures “specifically associated with the Trump Turnberry … amounted to $124,578.96.”
If the Pentagon figures on the total costs are accurate, the lawmakers said, “it appears that U.S. taxpayer funds were used to purchase the equivalent of more than 659 rooms at the Trump Turnberry just since August 2017 – or the equivalent of one room every night for more than one-and-a-half years.”
Asked to comment, a Pentagon spokeswoman said: “As with all congressional correspondence, we will respond directly to the authors of the letter.”
The lawmakers said their estimate did not include another $59,729 in “unspecified charges to government travel cards” as well as $16.6 million in fuel purchased by the U.S. military at nearby Prestwick Airport between Jan. 20, 2017, and June 21, 2019.
The congressmen said they were concerned the department had refused to turn over communications with “outside entities” about Turnberry or Prestwick Airport, and instead had referred their inquiries to the White House.
In a recent exchange in Scotland’s regional parliament, a Liberal Democrat member, Mike Rumbles, asked Scotland’s government to confirm how much money Prestwick Airport had received from the U.S. military for its operations, and whether the government could confirm news reports that the Pentagon provided the airport’s “largest single income stream.”
Scotland’s Transport Minister, Michael Matheson, responded that Prestwick Airport had been used by military units since the 1930s for “stopovers and refueling.”
Matheson said the airport itself “generally” only booked rooms for the U.S. military at Trump’s resort if other hotels were unavailable or customers specifically requested it. “There is no commercial relationship between Prestwick and Turnberry,” he said.
Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tom Brown
How did oil attack breach Saudi defences and what will happen next?
Escalation is dangerous because infrastructure could be exposed to retaliation
September 18, 2019
by Michael Safi and Julian Borger
The Guardian
Saudi Arabia’s state-of-the-art missile defence systems could do nothing to stop the swarm of drones and cruise missiles that struck some of its most important oil infrastructure at the weekend. They were designed to deal with different threats – and they were looking in the wrong direction.
The audacious strike against the Abqaiq petroleum processing facilities and Khurais oil field on Saturday morning – which the Saudis say was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran” – has exposed the limits of the defences of the world’s largest military spender per capita.
The kingdom’s ability to ward off any future attacks is also constrained, analysts said, and depends heavily on Donald Trump’s willingness to make a deal with Iran.
Like other conventional armies across the region, Saudi Arabia’s armed forces are scrambling to protect against the rise of cheap, low-tech threats such as drones. The kingdom has spent billions in recent years on US-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down high-flying targets such as enemy jets or ballistic missiles. Satellite imagery suggests at least one was installed at Abqaiq in the recent past.
But drones and cruise missiles fly too low to be detected by the Patriot’s ground-based radar. “They aren’t threats these systems are designed to cover,” said Omar Lamrani, from the strategic analysis firm Stratfor.
Even if they could see the threats, experts said, Saudi Arabia’s missile-defence systems – with a field of vision of about 120 degrees – would likely have been pointed across the Gulf towards Iran and south towards Yemen, but at least some of the missiles and drones are believed to have struck from the west.
The missile debris the Saudis displayed at a press conference on Wednesday evening appeared to be that of an Iranian Quds-1 missile, with a range of less than 1000km, and possibly as little as 500km, said Michael Elleman, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Thus, it seems more probable that they were launched from either Iraq or Iran territory, but certainly not Yemen,” he said.
At least four shorter-range defence systems, designed to take out smaller targets, were also present around Abqaiq, according to satellite images. But they were either positioned at the wrong end of the facility or would have seen the tiny drones and missiles too late to shoot them down, said Michael Duitsman, a research associate at the Monterey-based Centre for Nonproliferation Studies.
“This attack was something new, it was not something the Saudis were expecting to happen,” said Lamrani.
The US shares intelligence with Saudi Arabia, but that also has its own limitations, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Joseph Dunford. “We don’t have an unblinking eye over the entire Middle East at all times,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The Saudi reaction was also hampered by the organisation of its own forces, said Becca Wasser, a policy analyst at the Rand Corporation. Most US defence sales have gone to the Saudi military, but the country’s oil infrastructure falls under the responsibility of the interior ministry, which has traditionally focused on domestic threats. Meanwhile, separate air defences are operated by the National Guard.
Other crucial Saudi infrastructure such as the plants which cleanse Saudi drinking water, and the long pipelines that carry them to major cities, also now look vulnerable. “All these installations are very large and above ground,” said Eckart Woertz, a senior research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs.
“This attack was about Iran demonstrating that it has the means and will to execute exquisitely precise attacks on the most vital oil infrastructure in the world by far,” said Robert McNally, a former national security adviser to George W Bush, and now president of the Rapidan Energy Group. “And they can come back next Tuesday or a week from Friday – they can do this again.”
In its response, Riyadh will seek to avoid anything that might trigger a wider conflict, analysts said – especially if it cannot rely on American support. “Saudi Arabia’s air force has some capabilities but is very much reliant on the US for ammunition, refuelling and reconnaissance,” said Woertz.
“In terms of boots on the ground, their capabilities are more limited. They don’t have many soldiers within Yemen, they rely on mercenaries.”
Trump has made it clear in recent days that he is averse to following Saudi Arabia into a full-blown confrontation. “The president has made it clear he is not looking to go to war,” Dunford said in London on Tuesday. “What we saw was an unacceptable act of aggression [and] here are a number of ways to deal with that.”
Complicating the situation for Riyadh is that it has no way to de-escalate the standoff itself. Iran’s demand is that crippling sanctions on its exports be lifted – something only the United States can grant.
“But the escalation path is also very dangerous for Saudi Arabia because it exposes their energy infrastructure to retaliatory strikes by Iran,” said Lamrani.
The attack has put a diplomatic breakthrough between the US and Iran out of reach in the short term. More likely, said analysts, was a limited military response, delicately calibrated to deter Iran from raising the bar again without sparking an all-out conflict.
“A proportional, limited response would look like the Saudi armed forces, or the US armed forces, or both, firing a volley of cruise missiles … against the facilities or the territory where these attacks originated,” said McNally.
“It would be a symbolic strike that is directly proportional,” said Lamrani. “You struck our most important oil facility, and so we’re striking yours, and then we’re backing down
Conspiracies for Fun and Profit
A selection of correspondence with a conspiracy advocate and our responses
From: xxxxxxxxx
To: tbrnews@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Chemtrails
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:58:01 -0700
You have fallen into the logic trap that keeps the current 9/11 story alive. Since the FBI has classified all of the evidence and we cannot see it, we cannot determine who was behind 9/11. But what we do know is that everything the government has told us about 9/11 has been proven false.
Response: I did not know the FBI had “classified all of the evidence.” Where can this information be found? And how do we know that “everything the government has told us…” is false? Can you be specific?
This wide, deep and persistent spread of disinformation by the government can only be done if someone inside the government is deliberately orchestrating it.
Response: This is an underlying theme to all massive governmental conspiracy theories but, like all such theories, legends and fictions, it simply does not hold water for logistical reasons. People always will talk and such a huge conspiracy, involving thousands of people, could never remain a secret for long.
There are some very simple questions that one can ask, that cause the entire government story to collapse.
In the history of air transportation, never has there been a crash where at least one of the two black boxes were not recovered from the plane. To have 4 crashes in the same day and no black boxes recovered is an impossibility.
Response:I would strongly disagree here. A search of crash stories on the Internet shows that in many cases, the black boxes have not been recovered.
Jet fuel burns at 1800 degrees, but it takes a temperature over 2300 degrees to cause structural steel to fail. I watched on television during the event the view from a helicopter, circling the burning crash site. In one specific incident, we saw the large hole in the outer fabric of the building, obviously caused by the impact. There were heavy marks of burning on the surrounding walls. As the helicopter made its circuit of the building, one could very clearly see the sagging support beams and I did comment to someone else watching that it looked like a pending structural failure. Unless, of course, the film was made in a Hollywood studio months in advance of the event. Also, when the commercial hijacked aircraft impacted with the WTC buidings, the burning jet fuel set fire to anything combustible inside the building at the site. These fires are what weakened the supporting steel beams, causing the ultimate collapse of the buildings. The “explosions” the conspiracy people love to dwell on, were caused, solely, by the compression of the various floors as the enormous weight of the building above descended.
Pools of molten metal were found in the basement of the world trade center that were still 1400 degrees months after the buildings collapsed. The only way this type of heat could have bee produced is from explosives in an enclosed space.
Response: This is an urban legend. There were no such pools and this fabrication was produced by Chris Bolleyn whom I know and who lies like a rug. He was sacked from one paper for producing similar stories (the “plasmoid cloud” theory was one of his children) This is a total and complete impossibility and not even to discuss.
Why did building seven fall, even though it was not struck by a plane?
Response: The Deutsche Bank (“building seven”) building contained a huge tank of diesel fuel which caught on fire after a portion of the collapsing adjacent WTC building fell onto it during the destruction of the larger buildings. The fire raged for some time, easily and clearly visible on many television stations, until the basic support structure weakened, causing a partial collapse. Connected to this legend are more stories that “many reliable witnesses (name two)” saw men in uniform running into the Deutsche Bank building carrying crates of explosives. Instead of uniforms, couldn’t they have been wearing bunny suits? Or mauve evening gowns?
Where is the evidence that the wings/engines of an aircraft struck the pentagon? And why won’t the FBI release the video of the ‘plane’ striking the pentagon taken from a gas station across the street?
Response: A good friend of mine whose veracity is well beyond question, has an office overlooking the side of the Pentagon that the American Airlines aircraft struck, saw the entire thing. He has told me many times that he saw an American Airlines plane impact with the building. I have seen many shots of parts of the destroyed aircraft on the ground in front of the Pentagon. What gas station photographs? Who took the pictures? How do we know anyone took films? Couldn’t the site have been a tanning salon or a MacDonalds?
How did terrorists pass through securitiy in 4 airports without a video of them appearing on any security camera.
Response: They didn’t. I have seen at least one surveillance movie of Atta going through security on his way to the plane he subsequently hijacked. This was shown extensively on TV shortly afterwards. Of course, the same clever plotters who must have made up other shots, could have done this one too. It did look a lot like Robert Blake, come to think of it.
Why were no fighters scrambled to intercept the hijacked planes, when the previous year planes were sent up more than 100 times.
Response:This has been extensively and well covered. Military aircraft were indeed sent up but were too late to intercept. Again, well covered in the media and I have the official paperwork on this.
Why, after the European press found at least 8 of the hijackers listed by the FBI alive an well living outside the US.And why does the FBI still present these names and pictures as the hijackers to this day?
Response: I am afraid that pictures of the Saudi terrorists have been extensively shown in the print and television media, both in this country and abroad.
The FBI has admitted that no calls were made from any of the planes.
The FBI has admitted that no passport from a hijacker was found on the ground in NYC even though they held a press conference announcing that they had found such a passport. (Google this)
Response: So? No passports were found? What does that prove? All kinds of statements are made at the time of an incident and many of them are inaccurate. This proves nothing at all.
Why has no one refuted the findings of the BYU physics professor who has proven that the speed that the buildings fell could only have been caused by the bottom of the buildings collapsing first, as occurs in a planned demolition?
Response: The Brigham Young University person is a friend of the aforementioned Chris Bolleyn and was subsequently sacked from his job for, in essence, making a fool of himself and the school. I think this sacking was in error because he did not make a fool of himself; God had done that long before.
The most recent evidence is that traces of C4 have been found in the wreckage of the buildings. Another urban legend? There has been no wreckage of any of the buildings left for a long, long time. Who found the C4? Where did they find it? Where can one find reputable reportage of this?
For months, even years, I presented evidence like this and much more to people who had no place to hold this.
It takes intelligence, effort and intention to understand the flaws in the government case. If you are not willing to make that effort on your own, I will not waste my time. I have read the official stories and the conspiracy ones and the latter are so filled with errors and fictions as to be totally imbecilic and absolutely worthless.
But I will tell you I have an IQ over 140, I studied the evidence for over two years, and know positively that everything the government told the US populace about 9/11 can be disproven with evidence that would hold up in a court of law.
Response: And I have an IQ of 187 and I do not believe a word of the conspiracy nonsense. Conspiracy addicts, be they Kennedy assassination buffs, believers in HAARP or Remote Viewing, the Loch Ness monster, the Christian gospels as reported in the Bible or a legion of other fictions, to include the second coming, have no relationship to reality or the truth as witness the howls of rage they utter over the excellent PM article that effectively debunks the myths.
The one conclusion that I have come to that I expect no one to agree with is that George W was supposed to have died in an attack on the school and that the attack was to have been blamed on the Iraqis. There was a team of Arabs intercepted in Florida in what appeared to be a news van, and when discovered fled and were not caught.
Response:This is a new one for me. How about a cruise ship, the SS ‘Arabian Terrorist’, lying offshore Miami on 9/11 with many boats carrying known terrorists back and forth to the shore. This was witnessed by the entire staff of a hotel, fifteen FBI agents having breakfast nearby, seven television stations, a troop of Boy Scouts camping on the beach (one of whom was trampled by a camel) and Rupert Murdoch himself who was taking a vacation nearby. Why are we not told about this? Again, the conspirators are so powerful they shut this off. But it is rumored that some pictures exist and that even as I speak, FBI covert teams are frantically looking for them.
Two reasons I say this. One, after Bush left the school, they did not know what to do with him and that is why he first went to Louisiana and then to Offut in Omaha. His plane had not fighter escort until he reached Louisiana. Secondly, this would have given the neocons everything they wanted. Cheney in as president and an excuse to attack both Iraq and Afghanistan with complete support of the American people.
Response: Who are ‘they’? ”The Illuminati? The CIA, the Bilderburgers? the Templars? The KGB? The Power Elite? The Hidden Hand? The great bulk of the entertaining plots now found on the Internet and published in cheap booklets talk about mysterious forces involved here. Could these be the same mysterious forces that blew up the Hindenburg? Put the iceberg in the path of the ‘Titanic?’ Caused hurricane Katrina using fiendish Tesla Weather Control Rays?
As far as chemtrails go, again, if you want evidence to prove why they are being created, again you are trapped. What recently happened in Germany, is that chemtrails were spotted being created in weather radar and satellite photographs. When the German military was confronted, they at first denied and then admitted that they had created them as part of a military exercise. The scientist that first discovered them went back through previous data, and found the same anomalies, not created by weather, occurring on numerous occasions when no military exercises were taking place. I have many friends in the German military and civil areas and when I asked about this, no one seemed to have heard about it. Could it have appeared in some of Paul Fetzer’s creative writings?
If you really bother to research chemtrails, there is radar and sattelite evidence available in massive amounts showing the chemtrails being created in deliberate patterns hundreds if not thousands of times.
Response:I really hate to shatter your precious dream but what you and your people call ‘chemtrails’ are actually ‘contrails’ and I ought to inform you that these are not detectable on radar and of course, since they are visable to the naked eye, they would quite naturally be seen on satellite pictures. This in no way “proves” that there is a long on-going evil plot to spray unknown poisons all over the world.
So if you are the kind of person who is stuck in their beliefs until the full story is available to disprove what you think, then you are one of the sheeple. If you are willing to look at evidence that disproves what you believe even though no explanation is available as an alternative, then you are useful in what is necessary for the truth to eventually come out.
Reponse: I do not feel I am “stuck” in any belief. I am well-founded in knowledge, quite different from mindless, disconnected and totally illogical mythology. I have found that those who flock to the banner of The Grand Conspiracies League, like fanatical Christian fundamentalists, cannot be dissuaded from their beliefs by any process known to rational people. As a case in point, I was once talking with a rabid Jesus Freak who discussed the “discovery of Noah’s Ark” on Mt. Aarat. First of all, what was once thought might be such a relic turned out to be a woodman’s hut of about a hundred years previously. Secondly, the rotting timbers were found at an altitude of 5,000 feet. Assuming that the mythical ark came to rest as the waters receded, it must follow that the sea level was at the aforesaid 5,000 feet. If that is true, and it must appear reasonable,, where, pray tell, did all that water go? My dribbling fanatic solemnly informed me that “It all ran down the big hole in the ground!” (As opposed, I say, to the big hole in his head.)
You wrote: There is no viable evidence that “Chemtrails” exist and I will tell you that this is pure bullshit. You simply haven’t looked. Your investigative skills obviously suck.
Response: And where, idiot child, would I look for evidence? Traces of chemicals littering the streets and homes across America? If you persist in wasting what little time God has given you on earth with such unprovable and nonsensical idiocy, why not make up your own theory and become beloved of your tribe? I once invented, as a pure joke, the myth of “Robot Geese.” These were created in the labs of the CIA (with Bilderburger funding of course) and programmed by the NSA to fly in military formation all over American, especially in the fall and spring, taking infrared pictures of America’s homes to prepare for the inevitable Republican military take-over by military force. A joke, of course, but this was immediately seized upon by the dim of wit and one can now find it burgeoning on various “informational websites,” run by intellectual basket cases for those of the population even dumber than they are.
The Interrogation of suspects under arrest
CIA Operational Manual
Your virtuous interrogator, like the virtuoso in any field, will tell you that formulating the principles of his art would be a presumptuous and sterile procedure. Interrogators are born, not made, he almost says, and good interrogation is the organic product of intuition, experience, and native skill, not reducible to a set of mechanical components. Yet the organic whole can usefully be dissected, and examination will reveal its structural principles.
This article selects from the many different ramifications of the interrogation art that genre which is applicable to suspected agents under arrest, and sets forth some of the principles and procedures which characterize it. The essay is slanted toward relatively unsophisticated cases, and does not cover the subtler techniques which should be used, for example, against a suspected double agent, nor those required when access to the subject or the control of his person is limited. It does, however, treat interrogation as a process designed to yield the highest possible intelligence dividend. Such an interrogation is usually incompatible with one intended to produce legal evidence for a court conviction, since statements by the accused may be barred as court evidence on the ground that they were made under duress, during prolonged detention without charge, or in some other violation of legal procedures.
An interrogation yields the highest intelligence dividend when the interrogee finally becomes an ally, actively cooperating with the interrogator to produce the information desired. It is to a discussion of principles and procedures helpful in transforming a recalcitrant prisoner into something approaching an ally that this article is devoted. This kind of interrogation is essentially a battle of wills in which the turning-point is reached as the subject realizes the futility of his position. It usually develops in three tactical phases: a) breaking the cover story; b) convincing the subject that resistance is pointless and acquiescence the better part of valor; and c) getting active cooperation.
The question of torture should be disposed of at once. Quite apart from moral and legal considerations, physical torture or extreme mental torture is not an expedient device. Maltreating the subject is from a strictly practical point of view as short-sighted as whipping a horse to his knees before a thirty-mile ride. It is true that almost anyone will eventually talk when subjected to enough physical pressures, but the information obtained in this way is likely to be of little intelligence value and the subject himself rendered unfit for further exploitation. Physical pressure will often yield a confession, true or false, but what an intelligence interrogation seeks is a continuing flow of information.
No two interrogations are the same. The character, behavior, and degree of resistance of each new subject must be carefully assessed, and his estimated weaknesses used as the basis of a plan for intensive examination and exploitation. Each interrogation is thus carefully tailored to the measure of the individual subject. The standard lines of procedure, however, may be divided into four parts: a) arrest and detention; b) preliminary interview and questioning; c) intensive examination; and d) exploitation. The first three stages may often be merged; they constitute the softening-up process during which the cover story is broken and the subject may be shown up as a liar, an important step in making him realize the futility of further resistance.
In the matter of proving the subject a liar a word of caution is necessary. Showing some subjects up as liars is the very worst thing to do, because their determination not to lose face will only make them stick harder to the lie. For these it is necessary to provide loopholes by asking questions which let them correct their stories without any direct admission to lying.
When the cover story and the will to resist have been broken, when the subject is ready to answer a series of carefully prepared questions aimed at an intelligence target, the exploitation can begin, often in a veiled spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance. At this stage the interrogation may for example be moved to an office assigned the subject, where he might even be left alone for a few minutes to show that he is being trusted and that there is something constructive for him to do. This feeling of trust and responsibility can be very important to a broken subject, because he may now have suicidal inclinations; he must be given something to occupy his mind and keep him from too much introspection.
We shall examine in detail each stage of the interrogation procedure after a word on the language problem. Without doubt an interrogator using the subject’s language is in a much better position than one who has to work through an interpreter. But the interrogation skill is infinitely more important than the language skill, and a good linguist should not be substituted for a good interrogator. In the absence of an interrogator who speaks the language, an interpreter should be used, preferably one with some training in interrogation techniques. It is very important that the interpreter not only report accurately what both parties say but also reflect as faithfully as he can their inflection, tone, manner, and emphasis. He should try to become part of the furniture in the room rather than a third personality, and the interrogator should act as though he were not there.
Arrest and Detention
The interrogations officer, since his critical objective is breaking the subject’s will to resist, should attempt to control the psychological factors in every aspect of the subject’s life from the earliest possible stage, normally the time of arrest. If possible, he should plan in advance the conditions of arrest and immediate detention. If the subject is already in detention, the principles set down in the following paragraphs may be applied to his removal from ordinary detention to the place of interrogation.
The arrest should take the subject by surprise and should impose on him the greatest possible degree of mental discomfort, in order to catch him off balance and deprive him of the initiative. It should take place at a moment when he least expects it and when his mental and physical resistance is at its lowest. The ideal time which meets these conditions is in the early hours before dawn, when an abrupt transition from sleep to alert mental activity is most difficult.
If the arrest cannot be made during the pre-dawn sleep, the next best time is in the evening, when a person is normally relaxed in his own home. One is most impressionable when relaxing at home, as witness the findings of advertising firms who have studied the impact of television commercials. A less desirable time is in the morning when the day’s routine begins, especially in the case of underground personnel, because they will have thought through the day ahead of them and steeled themselves to its risks.
The police detachment which effects the arrest, or removal from detention to the interrogation center, should impress the prisoner with its cool efficiency and assurance. This scene is important enough to justify a rehearsal, if necessary. A subject arrested by three or four ill-dressed, clumsy policemen is more likely to regain his composure after the initial shock and draw some confidence from his superiority over his captors. If he is abruptly awakened by an arresting party of particularly tall, smart, well-equipped and business-like officers, he will probably be exceedingly anxious about his future.
The arresting party should also be schooled in observing the prisoner’s reactions and in the techniques for a quick but thorough search of his room and person. In ordinary arrests there are arguments for having the prisoner witness the searching of his room: he cannot then claim theft or willful damage to his property; he can be asked questions about what is found; and his reactions may help the searchers uncover hidden objects. But during the search preceding an intelligence interrogation it is usually better to have the subject out of the room; his ignorance as to what has been found there will foster uncertainty and uneasiness in his mind. One member of the arresting party should be specifically charged with watching the prisoner’s reaction to everything that goes on.
Other aspects of the arrest and the conditions of initial detention should be governed by the interrogator’s preliminary assessment of the subject’s personality and character on the basis of records, reports, and any other sources available. If, for example, the prisoner belongs to a subversive organization which makes a practice of stressing the harsh and summary treatment its members should expect if they let themselves fall into the hands of the security authorities, the arresting party might make a point of treating him correctly and even courteously. This unanticipated finesse might disconcert his antagonism and be a useful factor in winning him over later.
Some of the alternative detention conditions from which the interrogator must choose according to his preliminary assessment of the subject are: a) a long period or brief interval between arrest and initial questioning, b) solitary confinement or quartering with other prisoners, c) comfortable or discomfiting accommodations, and d) subjection to comprehensive personal search or no. Some subject-types would be enabled by any delay between arrest and questioning to firm up a cover story, regain their composure, and fortify themselves against the interrogation. On the other hand, a prisoner left in solitary confinement for a long period with no one, not even his custodian, speaking a word to him may be thoroughly unnerved by the experience. When this course is chosen it is important to deprive the prisoner of all his personal possessions, especially of things like snapshots and keepsakes, symbols of his old life which might be a source of moral strength to him.
Other techniques which may or may not be employed at this stage, according to the subject’s personality, include the use of a stool-pigeon, the double stool-pigeon routine, microphoning the cell and doctoring it in other ways. The double stoolpigeon technique has two stool-pigeons in the cell when the prisoner arrives. One of them befriends him, warns him that the other is a stool-pigeon, and if possible enlists his help in agitating for the removal of this plant. When the third man has been removed the subject may have come to trust his fellow-agitator and confide in him. The cell can be doctored by having messages written on the walls, either with deceptive content recommending for example some attendant as a sympathetic channel to the outside or with discouraging and depressive impact.
The Preliminary Interview
The preliminary interview is not intended to obtain intelligence, but only to enable the interrogators to make a firm assessment of the character and type of subject with whom they will have to deal. It is useful to have the interrogators – preferably two of them – seated behind a table at the far end of a long room, so that the subject after entering will have some distance to walk before taking his chair in front of them. This device will enable them to observe his poise and manner, and may often quite unsettle the subject. The interrogators should sit with their backs to the main source of light in order to obscure their faces, veil their expressions, and place a strain on the prisoner.
The subject can be placed under further strain by providing him an uncomfortable chair, say one with a polished seat and shortened front legs so that he tends to slide off it, or one with wobbly legs. On the other hand, an opposite technique has sometimes been successful: the prisoner is made so comfortable, after a hearty lunch with beer, that he drops his guard in drowsiness.
The interview must of course be recorded, either on tape or in stenographic notes. The interrogators must on no account try to do this job themselves; it would distract them from the critical task of framing questions and steering the course of interrogation according to the implications of the subject’s replies. Whether the stenographer or recorder should be concealed or visible depends on the subject’s sophistication and the state of his alert. If the recording process is not evident some subjects may become careless of what they say when they see that the interrogators are not taking notes, whereas a visible recording would alert them to be more cautious. For others, consciousness of a recording going on in full view may be unnerving, and they may betray the weak links in their stories by showing signs of distress at these points.
At a later stage of the interrogation it may be of value to play back to the subject some part of this recording. The sound of his own voice repeating his earlier statements, particularly any with intonations of anger or distress, may make a psychological breach in his defenses.
The attitude of the interrogators at the preliminary interview should usually be correct, studiously polite, and in some cases even sympathetic. It is imperative that they keep their tempers both now and throughout the interrogation. The prisoner may be given the true reason for his arrest or a false one, or he may be left in doubt, according to the circumstances of the case. The interrogators must try to determine whether his usually vigorous protestations of innocence are genuine or an act, but they should not at this stage give any indication of whether they believe or disbelieve him. A clever prisoner will try to find out how much the interrogators know; they should at all costs remain poker-faced and non-committal.
At this interview the interrogators should do as little as possible of the talking, however many questions they are anxious to have answered. The prisoner should be asked to tell his story in his own words, describe the circumstances of his arrest, give the history of some period of his life, or explain the details of his occupation. The object is to get him to talk without prompting in as much continuous narrative as possible; the more he talks the better the interrogators can assess his personality.
Personalities are individual, but some typing of subjects can be done cutting across factors of race or background. One category displays no emotion whatever and will not speak a word; another betrays his anxiety about what is going to happen to him; a third is confident and slightly contemptuous in his assurance; a fourth maintains an insolent attitude but remains silent; a fifth tries to annoy his interrogators by pretending to be hard of hearing or by some trick like repeating each question before answering it.
After the interview the interrogators should confer, formulate their assessment of the subject’s character, and work out a plan of intensive examination, including the kind of detention conditions to be applied between questionings. The details of this plan will vary widely, but it will be based on two principles, that of maintaining psychological superiority over the prisoner and that of disconcerting his composure by devices to bewilder him.
The Intensive Examination
The intensive examination is the scene of the main battle of wits with the prisoner, having the critical objective of breaking his cover story. The cover story, if it is a good one, will be a simple explanation of the subject’s activities as a straight-forward normal person, plausible even to his close friends, containing a minimum of fabrication and that minimum without detail susceptible to a check or ramifications capable of development. Its weakness may often lie in the subject’s abnormal precision about certain details, especially when two or more subjects are using the same cover story.
The most difficult subject is one who will not talk at all, and prolonging his solitary confinement usually increases the difficulty of getting him to talk. It is best to put him into a labor gang or some such group of prisoners where he may be drawn into conversation. After some days or perhaps weeks he may be communicating normally with these others, and may have concluded that his interrogators have given him up for good. At that time some incident can be created involving the labor gang which requires that they all be questioned. If innocuous questions are put to the silent prisoner rapidly in a routine and indifferent manner, he may answer them. He may then find it hard to revert to complete silence if caught off guard as the questioning is switched without break to matters of real interest. The device of starting with questions easy for the subject to answer is useful with many whose replies to significant questions are hard to elicit.
Everything possible must be done to impress upon the subject the unassailable superiority of those in whose hands he finds himself and therefore the futility of his position. The interrogators must show throughout an attitude of assurance and unhurried determination. Except as part of a trick or plan they should always appear unworried and complete masters of the situation in every respect. In the long and arduous examination of a stubborn subject they must guard against showing the weariness and impatience they may well feel. If a specialist in the subject’s field is used to interrogate him, say scientist to interrogate a prisoner with a scientific specialty, this interrogator must have unquestioned superiority over the subject in his own field.
Many prisoners have reported amazement at their own capacity for resistance to any stable pressures or distresses of an interrogation, such as onerous conditions of confinement or the relentless bullying of a single interrogator. What is demoralizing, they find, is drastic variation of cell conditions and abrupt alternation of different types of interrogators. A sample device in the regulation of cell conditions for unsophisticated prisoners is the manipulation of time: a clock in a windowless cell can be rigged to move rapidly at times and very slowly at others; breakfast can be brought in when it is time for lunch or in the middle of the night’s sleep; the interval between lunch and dinner can be lengthened to twelve or fifteen hours or shortened to one or two.
The questioning itself can be carried out in a friendly, persuasive manner, from a hard, merciless and threatening posture, or with an impersonal and neutral approach. In order to achieve the disconcerting effect of alternation among these attitudes it may be necessary to use as many as four different interrogators playing the following roles, although one interrogator may sometimes double in two of them:
First, the cold, unfeeling individual whose questions are shot out as from a machine-gun, whose voice is hard and monotonous, who neither threatens nor shows compassion.
Second, the bullying interrogator who uses threats, insults and sarcasm to break through the subject’s guard by making him lose his temper or by exhausting him.
Third, the ostensibly naive and credulous questioner, who seems to be taken in by the prisoner’s story, makes him feel smarter than the interrogator, gives him his rope and builds up false confidence which may betray him.
Finally, the kind and friendly man, understanding and persuasive, whose sympathetic approach is of decisive importance at the climactic phase of the interrogation. He is most effectively used after a siege with the first and second types, or after a troubled sleep following such a siege.
The course of the intensive questioning cannot be standardized, but some useful procedures are outlined in the following paragraphs.
When the subject is brought in he is asked to tell again the story he gave at his preliminary interview. Then he is asked to repeat it, and again a third time. He will be annoyed and with luck might even lose his temper. He at least will be worried about possible inconsistencies among the four versions he has given. In some cases it will be better that the interrogator not disclose his awareness of any such inconsistencies; in others it may be advantageous to emphasize them by making a comparison in his presence and perhaps playing back a recording.
If the cover story is still intact, the next step is to probe for detail. One of two interrogators questions rapidly into many details of a particular aspect of some incident. Then the other puts detailed questions on another aspect of the same incident. Then the first takes up a third aspect, and so on alternately for some time. The object is to force the subject to invent detail hastily. Finally, without any break, the interrogators start going back over their detail questions a second time; and the subject, not having had time to fix his improvisations in mind, is most unlikely to remember them.
By deliberately misquoting the subject’s replies the interrogator may often succeed in confusing him, or better yet in irritating him and making him lose his temper. A talkative subject should always be encouraged to give full and lengthy explanations; he is likely of his own accord to get mixed up and introduce inconsistencies into his story. Catching the subject in a lie of relatively little importance sometimes unnerves him and starts his resistance crumbling.
A not too sophisticated subject can be told that his fellow-conspirators have let him down, that an informer among them has betrayed his secret, or that some of them are in custody and have been persuaded to talk. Incriminating testimony from others, true or false, can be read to him, or a hooded man can pretend to recognize and identify him. The subject can be placed in profile at a window while two guards lead a “prisoner” past outside who will send in word that he recognizes his true identity.
Sometimes a very long period of silence while the interrogators are pretending to go over critical evidence will unnerve the subject.
The whole procedure is a probe for an opening – a confession of guilt, an admission to having lied, a state of confusion or even extreme concern on some particular point. Once an opening is found, however small, every effort is concentrated on enlarging it and increasing the subject’s discomposure. At this stage he is allowed no respite until he is fully broken and his resistance at an end.
The Exploitation
When the subject has ceased to resist his interrogators and is ready to talk freely he must be handled with great care, both because this attitude may change and because he may now have suicidal impulses. He should get better treatment and better detention conditions. He should be induced to ally himself with his interrogators, and encouraged to believe that he is doing something useful and constructive in assisting them. It is often important to keep him hard at work regardless of whether the product of his efforts is of any real value; he could be asked to write out a lot of details about his subversive organization, for example, whether or not such information were required. The object is to keep him busy, to keep his mind occupied, to prevent his having time for introspection.
Since interrogators for the exploitation must be well acquainted in the particular field of information involved, it may now be necessary either to introduce new specialist interrogators or to give the earlier ones a thorough briefing in this field. Which course is better will depend on the subject’s character, the way he was broken, and his present attitude toward those who have been handling him. Sometimes only a fresh interrogator can get real cooperation from him. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is so ashamed of having broken that he is unwilling to expose himself further and wants to talk only to his original questioner. And sometimes he has built up a trustful and confiding relationship with his interrogator which should not be destroyed by the introduction of another personality.
American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies
by S.A. Wells
www.colostate.edu
In a one-page article appearing in Naturwissenschaften, German scientist Svetla Balabanova (1992) and two of her colleagues reported findings of cocaine, hashish and nicotine in Egyptian mummies.
The findings were immediately identified as improbable on the grounds that two of the substances were known to be derived only from American plants – cocaine from Erythroxylon coca, and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. The suggestion that such compounds could have found their way to Egypt before Columbus’ discovery of America was patently impossible.
A criticism was raised by Bjorn (1993) who wondered if nicotine might have been absorbed by the mummies from cigarette smoke in the museums where the mummies have been preserved. According to Schafer, the only way to show that the compounds were taken into the bodies while they were alive would be to find different concentrations at different distances from the scalp – a procedure not undertaken by the authors.
Another interesting criticism of Schafer (1993) is that Balabanova et. al. might have been the victims of faked mummies.
Apparently people (living in the not too far distant past) believed that mummies contained black tar called bitumen and that it could be ground up and used to cure various illnesses. In fact the very word ‘mummy’ comes from the Persian ‘mummia’ meaning bitumen (Discovery, 1997). A business seems to have developed wherein recently dead bodies where deliberately aged to appear as mummies and that some of the perpetrators of such deeds were drug abusers.
The criticism that seems most popular is that the identified drugs might have been products of “necrochemical and necrobiochemical processes” (Schafer, 1993; Bjorn, 1993).
One explanation is that Egyptian priests used atropine-alkaloid-containing plants during the mummification process that subsequently underwent changes in the mummy to resemble the identified compounds.
Yet another argument is that there is nothing in the literature showing that any of the three compounds have been identified in bodies that have been dead for some time.
The major reason for the initial criticisms to Balabanova’s work is the disbelief in pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts.
Egyptologist John Baines (Discovery, 1997) went so far as to state, “The idea that the Egyptians should have traveled to America is overall absurd…and I also don’t know anyone who spends time doing research in these areas, because they’re not perceived to be areas that have any real meaning for the subjects.”
These ‘Alien’ Mummies Appear to Be a Mix of Looted Body Parts
March 2018
by Owen Jarus
Live Science
This week, reports and bizarre images of a group of five mummy-like bodies from Peru that have three-fingered hands led to claims by some that the mummies are not human … and may be aliens.
Clearly, they aren’t aliens. But even so, what gives? Are they even real mummies?
Live Science has found that some of these mummies may represent a combination of the looting and manipulation of real human mummy parts.
One of the mummies “looks like a typical Nazca mummy, in the flexed, seated position,” said Andrew Nelson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Canada. (The Nazca people were an ancient culture in Peru who bundled up their mummies in textiles and constructed the sprawling geoglyphs called the Nazca lines.)
Grotesquely, the hands and feet seen on this mummy, and possibly the others, may also be parts of real human mummies that have been manipulated by forgers, the white coating added afterward to hide the manipulations, said Nelson, who is not involved with research on the mummies.
A number of other researchers also believe that real human mummy parts were used to create these fakes. A dozen Peruvian mummy researchers have put out a statement condemning the practice saying that it “has violated numerous national and international norms.”
One of the researchers who signed the statement told Live Science that “I particularly find repulsive that anyone would [dare] to dehumanize deceased human bodies. You can’t take away the condition of human to a human being!” said Guido Lombardi a professor of forensic sciences at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.
According to Jose Jaime Maussan Flota, who is a journalist working with researchers studying these mummies, members of the team pay Mario an undisclosed sum to view the mummies, take samples of them and conduct X-rays and CT scans on them.
Looted in Nazca
The mummies were supposedly discovered in 2015 by tomb robbers working in the Nazca region, an area where the ancient Nazca culture flourished. The mummies come from “a group of ‘huaqueros,’ or archaeological treasure hunters, from the city of Palpa,” said Thierry Jamin, president of the Inkari-Cusco institute. Jamin is involved with research on the mummies and refers to the head of this looting group as Mario.
“Mario is a treasure hunter. He is a delinquent, who is well known to the police services of the Nazca region. It [his group] has looted archaeological sites on the Peruvian coast for more than 20 years. And justice does not do much to stop him,” Jamin said, claiming that he informed Peru’s Ministry of Culture about Mario’s activities, but has not heard back from the ministry. Officials from the Ministry of Culture did not return requests for comment from Live Science.
Mysterious researcher
Videos showing investigations of the mummies have appeared on the sites gaia.com and the-alien-project.com. The lead researcher for the group studying the mummies, a man named Konstantin Korotkov, gave an interview recently in Russian for the Russian Mir 24 TV station. The news site RT (formerly Russia Today) claims that Korotkov said that the mummies have 23 pairs of chromosomes (like a human), but their anatomy looks non-human. “They [the mummies] could be extraterrestrials or bio robots,” RT quotes Korotkov as saying. In a video on gaia.com, Korotkov claims that radiocarbon-dating results show that one of the mummies (the same one that Nelson says looks like it was made with parts from a Nazca mummy) dates back around 1,700 years, a time when the Nazca culture was flourishing.
Korotkov did not reply to requests for comment and the university gaia.com claims he is affiliated with ‘St. Petersburg University in Russia’ shows no record of him online. Officials at the university did not reply to requests for comment.
Another affiliation given in the media for Korotkov — the National Research University in St. Petersburg — doesn’t seem to exist.
The National Research University Higher School of Economics has a campus in St. Petersburg — but again no mention of Korotkov on that university’s website and officials with the university did not return requests for comment. Korotkov’s personal website sells a product called Bio-Well that he claims can detect “human light.” He makes no mention on his website of being a professor at St. Petersburg University in Russia or a National Research University in St. Petersburg.
Mummy looting
While the three-fingered mummies clearly seem to be fakes of some kind, scientists have discovered numerous mummified remains in Peru, including 171 mummies from tombs excavated near the site of Tenahaha, which date back around 1,200 years.
While some mummies in Peru have been discovered by scientists, others, such as the ones that may have been used to create these “aliens,” are stolen by looters, who are known to ransack ancient Peruvian tombs before archaeologists are able to scientifically excavate them. The United States has restricted the import of artifacts from Peru in an attempt to stem the tide of looting.
While Mario and his gang may still be pillaging tombs, the situation has been improving, said Ann Peters, a consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
“The protection of archaeological sites has greatly improved in the last decade with the establishment of legal requirements for environmental and heritage impact studies, the establishment of the Ministry of Culture and the employment of more professional archaeologists,” Peters said. “However, some looters and traffickers in antiquities still exist in Peru, as well as in the United States and other countries.”
Originally published on Live Science.
Why Germany Invaded Poland
January 15, 2019
by John Wear
Unz Review
Great Britain’s Blank Check to Poland
On March 21, 1939, while hosting French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain discussed a joint front with France, Russia and Poland to act together against German aggression. France agreed at once, and the Russians agreed on the condition that both France and Poland sign first. However, Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck vetoed the agreement on March 24, 1939.[1] Polish statesmen feared Russia more than they did Germany. Polish Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz told the French ambassador, “With the Germans we risk losing our liberty; with the Russians we lose our soul.”[2]
Another complication arose in European diplomacy when a movement among the residents of Memel in Lithuania sought to join Germany. The Allied victors in the Versailles Treaty had detached Memel from East Prussia and placed it in a separate League of Nations protectorate. Lithuania then proceeded to seize Memel from the League of Nations shortly after World War I. Memel was historically a German city which in the seven centuries of its history had never separated from its East Prussian homeland. Germany was so weak after World War I that it could not prevent the tiny new-born nation of Lithuania from seizing Memel.[3]
Germany’s occupation of Prague in March 1939 had generated uncontrollable excitement among the mostly German population of Memel. The population of Memel was clamoring to return to Germany and could no longer be restrained. The Lithuanian foreign minister traveled to Berlin on March 22, 1939, where he agreed to the immediate transfer of Memel to Germany. The annexation of Memel into Germany went through the next day. The question of Memel exploded of itself without any deliberate German plan of annexation.[4] Polish leaders agreed that the return of Memel to Germany from Lithuania would not constitute an issue of conflict between Germany and Poland.[5]
What did cause conflict between Germany and Poland was the so-called Free City of Danzig. Danzig was founded in the early 14th century and was historically the key port at the mouth of the great Vistula River. From the beginning Danzig was inhabited almost exclusively by Germans, with the Polish minority in 1922 constituting less than 3% of the city’s 365,000 inhabitants. The Treaty of Versailles converted Danzig from a German provincial capital into a League of Nations protectorate subject to numerous strictures established for the benefit of Poland. The great preponderance of the citizens of Danzig had never wanted to leave Germany, and they were eager to return to Germany in 1939. Their eagerness to join Germany was exacerbated by the fact that Germany’s economy was healthy while Poland’s economy was still mired in depression.[6]
Many of the German citizens of Danzig had consistently demonstrated their unwavering loyalty to National Socialism and its principles. They had even elected a National Socialist parliamentary majority before this result had been achieved in Germany. It was widely known that Poland was constantly seeking to increase her control over Danzig despite the wishes of Danzig’s German majority. Hitler was not opposed to Poland’s further economic aspirations at Danzig, but Hitler was resolved never to permit the establishment of a Polish political regime at Danzig. Such a renunciation of Danzig by Hitler would have been a repudiation of the loyalty of Danzig citizens to the Third Reich and their spirit of self-determination.[7]
Germany presented a proposal for a comprehensive settlement of the Danzig question with Poland on October 24, 1938. Hitler’s plan would allow Germany to annex Danzig and construct a superhighway and a railroad to East Prussia. In return Poland would be granted a permanent free port in Danzig and the right to build her own highway and railroad to the port. The entire Danzig area would also become a permanent free market for Polish goods on which no German customs duties would be levied. Germany would take the unprecedented step of recognizing and guaranteeing the existing German-Polish frontier, including the boundary in Upper Silesia established in 1922. This later provision was extremely important since the Versailles Treaty had given Poland much additional territory which Germany proposed to renounce. Hitler’s offer to guarantee Poland’s frontiers also carried with it a degree of military security that no other non-Communist nation could match.[8]
Germany’s proposed settlement with Poland was far less favorable to Germany than the Thirteenth Point of Wilson’s program at Versailles. The Versailles Treaty gave Poland large slices of territory in regions such as West Prussia and Western Posen which were overwhelmingly German. The richest industrial section of Upper Silesia was also later given to Poland despite the fact that Poland had lost the plebiscite there.[9]
Germany was willing to renounce these territories in the interest of German-Polish cooperation. This concession of Hitler’s was more than adequate to compensate for the German annexation of Danzig and construction of a superhighway and a railroad in the Corridor. The Polish diplomats themselves believed that Germany’s proposal was a sincere and realistic basis for a permanent agreement.[10]
On March 26, 1939, the Polish Ambassador to Berlin, Joseph Lipski, formally rejected Germany’s settlement proposals. The Poles had waited over five months to reject Germany’s proposals, and they refused to countenance any change in existing conditions. Lipski stated to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that “it was his painful duty to draw attention to the fact that any further pursuance of these German plans, especially where the return of Danzig to the Reich was concerned, meant war with Poland.”[11]
Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck accepted an offer from Great Britain on March 30, 1939, to give an unconditional guarantee of Poland’s independence. The British Empire agreed to go to war as an ally of Poland if the Poles decided that war was necessary. In words drafted by British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Chamberlain spoke in the House of Commons on March 31, 1939:
I now have to inform the House…that in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to that effect.[12]
Great Britain for the first time in history had left the decision whether or not to fight a war outside of her own country to another nation. Britain’s guarantee to Poland was binding without commitments from the Polish side. The British public was astonished by this move. Despite its unprecedented nature, Halifax encountered little difficulty in persuading the British Conservative, Liberal and Labor parties to accept Great Britain’s unconditional guarantee to Poland.[13]
Numerous British historians and diplomats have criticized Britain’s unilateral guarantee of Poland. For example, British diplomat Roy Denman called the war guarantee to Poland “the most reckless undertaking ever given by a British government. It placed the decision on peace or war in Europe in the hands of a reckless, intransigent, swashbuckling military dictatorship.”[14]British historian Niall Ferguson states that the war guarantee to Poland tied Britain’s “destiny to that of a regime that was every bit as undemocratic and anti-Semitic as that of Germany.”[15]English military historian Liddell Hart stated that the Polish guarantee “placed Britain’s destiny in the hands of Poland’s rulers, men of very dubious and unstable judgment. Moreover, the guarantee was impossible to fulfill except with Russia’s help.…”[16]
American historian Richard M. Watt writes concerning Britain’s unilateral guarantee to Poland: “This enormously broad guarantee virtually left to the Poles the decision whether or not Britain would go to war. For Britain to give such a blank check to a Central European nation, particularly to Poland—a nation that Britain had generally regarded as irresponsible and greedy—was mind-boggling.”[17]
When the Belgian Minister to Germany, Vicomte Jacques Davignon, received the text of the British guarantee to Poland, he exclaimed that “blank check” was the only possible description of the British pledge. Davignon was extremely alarmed in view of the proverbial recklessness of the Poles. German State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker attempted to reassure Davignon by claiming that the situation between Germany and Poland was not tragic. However, Davignon correctly feared that the British move would produce war in a very short time.[18]
Weizsäcker later exclaimed scornfully that “the British guarantee to Poland was like offering sugar to an untrained child before it had learned to listen to reason!”[19]
The Deterioration of German-Polish Relations
German-Polish relationships had become strained by the increasing harshness with which the Polish authorities handled the German minority. The Polish government in the 1930s began to confiscate the land of its German minority at bargain prices through public expropriation. The German government resented the fact that German landowners received only one-eighth of the value of their holdings from the Polish government. Since the Polish public was aware of the German situation and desired to exploit it, the German minority in Poland could not sell the land in advance of expropriation. Furthermore, Polish law forbade Germans from privately selling large areas of land.
German diplomats insisted that the November 1937 Minorities Pact with Poland for the equal treatment of German and Polish landowners be observed in 1939. Despite Polish assurances of fairness and equal treatment, German diplomats learned on February 15, 1939, that the latest expropriations of land in Poland were predominantly of German holdings. These expropriations virtually eliminated substantial German landholdings in Poland at a time when most of the larger Polish landholdings were still intact. It became evident that nothing could be done diplomatically to help the German minority in Poland.[20]
Poland threatened Germany with a partial mobilization of her forces on March 23, 1939. Hundreds of thousands of Polish Army reservists were mobilized, and Hitler was warned that Poland would fight to prevent the return of Danzig to Germany. The Poles were surprised to discover that Germany did not take this challenge seriously. Hitler, who deeply desired friendship with Poland, refrained from responding to the Polish threat of war. Germany did not threaten Poland and took no precautionary military measures in response to the Polish partial mobilization.[21]
Hitler regarded a German-Polish agreement as a highly welcome alternative to a German-Polish war. However, no further negotiations for a German-Polish agreement occurred after the British guarantee to Poland because Józef Beck refused to negotiate. Beck ignored repeated German suggestions for further negotiations because Beck knew that Halifax hoped to accomplish the complete destruction of Germany. Halifax had considered an Anglo-German war inevitable since 1936, and Britain’s anti-German policy was made public with a speech by Neville Chamberlain on March 17, 1939. Halifax discouraged German-Polish negotiations because he was counting on Poland to provide the pretext for a British pre-emptive war against Germany.[22]
The situation between Germany and Poland deteriorated rapidly during the six weeks from the Polish partial mobilization of March 23, 1939, to a speech delivered by Józef Beck on May 5, 1939. Beck’s primary purpose in delivering his speech before the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, was to convince the Polish public and the world that he was able and willing to challenge Hitler. Beck knew that Halifax had succeeded in creating a warlike atmosphere in Great Britain, and that he could go as far as he wanted without displeasing the British. Beck took an uncompromising attitude in his speech that effectively closed the door to further negotiations with Germany.
Beck made numerous false and hypocritical statements in his speech. One of the most astonishing claims in his speech was that there was nothing extraordinary about the British guarantee to Poland. He described it as a normal step in the pursuit of friendly relations with a neighboring country. This was in sharp contrast to British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan’s statement to Joseph Kennedy that Britain’s guarantee to Poland was without precedent in the entire history of British foreign policy.[23]
Beck ended his speech with a stirring climax that produced wild excitement in the Polish Sejm. Someone in the audience screamed loudly, “We do not need peace!” and pandemonium followed. Beck had made many Poles in the audience determined to fight Germany. This feeling resulted from their ignorance which made it impossible for them to criticize the numerous falsehoods and misstatements in Beck’s speech. Beck made the audience feel that Hitler had insulted the honor of Poland with what were actually quite reasonable peace proposals. Beck had effectively made Germany the deadly enemy of Poland.[24]
More than 1 million ethnic Germans resided in Poland at the time of Beck’s speech, and these Germans were the principal victims of the German-Polish crisis in the coming weeks. The Germans in Poland were subjected to increasing doses of violence from the dominant Poles. The British public was told repeatedly that the grievances of the German minority in Poland were largely imaginary. The average British citizen was completely unaware of the terror and fear of death that stalked these Germans in Poland. Ultimately, many thousands of Germans in Poland died in consequence of the crisis. They were among the first victims of British Foreign Secretary Halifax’s war policy against Germany.[25]
The immediate responsibility for security measures involving the German minority in Poland rested with Interior Department Ministerial Director Waclaw Zyborski. Zyborski consented to discuss the situation on June 23, 1939, with Walther Kohnert, one of the leaders of the German minority at Bromberg. Zyborski admitted to Kohnert that the Germans of Poland were in an unenviable situation, but he was not sympathetic to their plight. Zyborski ended their lengthy conversation by stating frankly that his policy required a severe treatment of the German minority in Poland. He made it clear that it was impossible for the Germans of Poland to alleviate their hard fate. The Germans in Poland were the helpless hostages of the Polish community and the Polish state.[26]
Other leaders of the German minority in Poland repeatedly appealed to the Polish government for help during this period. Sen. Hans Hasbach, the leader of the conservative German minority faction, and Dr. Rudolf Wiesner, the leader of the Young German Party, each made multiple appeals to Poland’s government to end the violence. In a futile appeal on July 6, 1939, to Premier Sławoj-Składkowski, head of Poland’s Department of Interior, Wiesner referred to the waves of public violence against the Germans at Tomaszów near Lódz, May 13-15th, at Konstantynów, May 21-22nd, and at Pabianice, June 22-23, 1939. The appeal of Wiesner produced no results. The leaders of the German political groups eventually recognized that they had no influence with Polish authorities despite their loyal attitudes toward Poland. It was “open season” on the Germans of Poland with the approval of the Polish government.[27]
Polish anti-German incidents also occurred against the German majority in the Free City of Danzig. On May 21, 1939, Zygmunt Morawski, a former Polish soldier, murdered a German at Kalthof on Danzig territory. The incident itself would not have been so unusual except for the fact that Polish officials acted as if Poland and not the League of Nations had sovereign power over Danzig. Polish officials refused to apologize for the incident, and they treated with contempt the effort of Danzig authorities to bring Morawski to trial. The Poles in Danzig considered themselves above the law.[28]
Tension steadily mounted at Danzig after the Morawski murder. The German citizens of Danzig were convinced that Poland would show them no mercy if Poland gained the upper hand. The Poles were furious when they learned that Danzig was defying Poland by organizing its own militia for home defense. The Poles blamed Hitler for this situation. The Polish government protested to German Ambassador Hans von Moltke on July 1, 1939, about the Danzig government’s military-defense measures. Józef Beck told French Ambassador Léon Noël on July 6, 1939, that the Polish government had decided that additional measures were necessary to meet the alleged threat from Danzig.[29]
On July 29, 1939, the Danzig government presented two protest notes to the Poles concerning illegal activities of Polish custom inspectors and frontier officials. The Polish government responded by terminating the export of duty-free herring and margarine from Danzig to Poland. Polish officials next announced in the early hours of August 5, 1939, that the frontiers of Danzig would be closed to the importation of all foreign food products unless the Danzig government promised by the end of the day never to interfere with the activities of Polish customs inspectors. This threat was formidable since Danzig produced only a relatively small portion of its own food. All Polish customs inspectors would also bear arms while performing their duty after August 5, 1939. The Polish ultimatum made it obvious that Poland intended to replace the League of Nations as the sovereign power at Danzig.[30]
Hitler concluded that Poland was seeking to provoke an immediate conflict with Germany. The Danzig government submitted to the Polish ultimatum in accordance with Hitler’s recommendation.[31]
Józef Beck explained to British Ambassador Kennard that the Polish government was prepared to take military measures against Danzig if it failed to accept Poland’s terms. The citizens of Danzig were convinced that Poland would have executed a full military occupation of Danzig had the Polish ultimatum been rejected. It was apparent to the German government that the British and French were either unable or unwilling to restrain the Polish government from arbitrary steps that could result in war.[32]
On August 7, 1939, the Polish censors permitted the newspaper Illustrowany Kuryer Codzienny in Kraków to feature an article of unprecedented candor. The article stated that Polish units were constantly crossing the German frontier to destroy German military installations and to carry captured German military materiel into Poland. The Polish government failed to prevent the newspaper, which had the largest circulation in Poland, from telling the world that Poland was instigating a series of violations of Germany’s frontier with Poland.[33]
Polish Ambassador Jerzy Potocki unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Józef Beck to seek an agreement with Germany. Potocki later succinctly explained the situation in Poland by stating “Poland prefers Danzig to peace.”[34]
President Roosevelt knew that Poland had caused the crisis which began at Danzig, and he was worried that the American public might learn the truth about the situation. This could be a decisive factor in discouraging Roosevelt’s plan for American military intervention in Europe. Roosevelt instructed U.S. Ambassador Biddle to urge the Poles to be more careful in making it appear that German moves were responsible for any inevitable explosion at Danzig. Biddle reported to Roosevelt on August 11, 1939, that Beck expressed no interest in engaging in a series of elaborate but empty maneuvers designed to deceive the American public. Beck stated that at the moment he was content to have full British support for his policy.[35]
Roosevelt also feared that American politicians might discover the facts about the hopeless dilemma which Poland’s provocative policy created for Germany. When American Democratic Party Campaign Manager and Post-Master General James Farley visited Berlin, Roosevelt instructed the American Embassy in Berlin to prevent unsupervised contact between Farley and the German leaders. The German Foreign Office concluded on August 10, 1939 that it was impossible to penetrate the wall of security around Farley. The Germans knew that President Roosevelt was determined to prevent them from freely communicating with visiting American leaders.[36]
Polish Atrocities Force War
On August 14, 1939, the Polish authorities in East Upper Silesia launched a campaign of mass arrests against the German minority. The Poles then proceeded to close and confiscate the remaining German businesses, clubs and welfare installations. The arrested Germans were forced to march toward the interior of Poland in prisoner columns. The various German groups in Poland were frantic by this time; they feared the Poles would attempt the total extermination of the German minority in the event of war. Thousands of Germans were seeking to escape arrest by crossing the border into Germany. Some of the worst recent Polish atrocities included the mutilation of several Germans. The Polish public was urged not to regard their German minority as helpless hostages who could be butchered with impunity.[37]
Rudolf Wiesner, who was the most prominent of the German minority leaders in Poland, spoke of a disaster “of inconceivable magnitude” since the early months of 1939. Wiesner claimed that the last Germans had been dismissed from their jobs without the benefit of unemployment relief, and that hunger and privation were stamped on the faces of the Germans in Poland. German welfare agencies, cooperatives and trade associations had been closed by Polish authorities. Exceptional martial-law conditions of the earlier frontier zone had been extended to include more than one-third of the territory of Poland. The mass arrests, deportations, mutilations and beatings of the last few weeks in Poland surpassed anything that had happened before. Wiesner insisted that the German minority leaders merely desired the restoration of peace, the banishment of the specter of war, and the right to live and work in peace. Wiesner was arrested by the Poles on August 16, 1939 on suspicion of conducting espionage for Germany in Poland.[38]
The German press devoted increasing space to detailed accounts of atrocities against the Germans in Poland. The Völkischer Beobachter reported that more than 80,000 German refugees from Poland had succeeded in reaching German territory by August 20, 1939. The German Foreign Office had received a huge file of specific reports of excesses against national and ethnic Germans in Poland. More than 1,500 documented reports had been received since March 1939, and more than 10 detailed reports were arriving in the German Foreign Office each day. The reports presented a staggering picture of brutality and human misery.[39]
- L. White, an American journalist, later recalled that there was no doubt among well-informed people by this time that horrible atrocities were being inflicted every day on the Germans of Poland.[40]
Donald Day, a Chicago Tribune correspondent, reported on the atrocious treatment the Poles had meted out to the ethnic Germans in Poland:
I traveled up to the Polish corridor where the German authorities permitted me to interview the German refugees from many Polish cities and towns. The story was the same. Mass arrests and long marches along roads toward the interior of Poland. The railroads were crowded with troop movements. Those who fell by the wayside were shot. The Polish authorities seemed to have gone mad. I have been questioning people all my life and I think I know how to make deductions from the exaggerated stories told by people who have passed through harrowing personal experiences. But even with generous allowance, the situation was plenty bad. To me the war seemed only a question of hours.[41]
British Ambassador Nevile Henderson in Berlin was concentrating on obtaining recognition from Halifax of the cruel fate of the German minority in Poland. Henderson emphatically warned Halifax on August 24, 1939, that German complaints about the treatment of the German minority in Poland were fully supported by the facts. Henderson knew that the Germans were prepared to negotiate, and he stated to Halifax that war between Poland and Germany was inevitable unless negotiations were resumed between the two countries. Henderson pleaded with Halifax that it would be contrary to Polish interests to attempt a full military occupation of Danzig, and he added a scathingly effective denunciation of Polish policy. What Henderson failed to realize is that Halifax was pursuing war for its own sake as an instrument of policy. Halifax desired the complete destruction of Germany.[42]
On August 25, 1939, Ambassador Henderson reported to Halifax the latest Polish atrocity at Bielitz, Upper Silesia. Henderson never relied on official German statements concerning these incidents, but instead based his reports on information he received from neutral sources. The Poles continued to forcibly deport the Germans of that area, and compelled them to march into the interior of Poland. Eight Germans were murdered and many more were injured during one of these actions.
Hitler was faced with a terrible dilemma. If Hitler did nothing, the Germans of Poland and Danzig would be abandoned to the cruelty and violence of a hostile Poland. If Hitler took effective action against the Poles, the British and French might declare war against Germany. Henderson feared that the Bielitz atrocity would be the final straw to prompt Hitler to invade Poland. Henderson, who strongly desired peace with Germany, deplored the failure of the British government to exercise restraint over the Polish authorities.[43]
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. This non-aggression pact contained a secret protocol which recognized a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. German recognition of this Soviet sphere of influence would not apply in the event of a diplomatic settlement of the German-Polish dispute. Hitler had hoped to recover the diplomatic initiative through the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact. However, Chamberlain warned Hitler in a letter dated August 23, 1939, that Great Britain would support Poland with military force regardless of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Józef Beck also continued to refuse to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Germany.[44]
Germany made a new offer to Poland on August 29, 1939, for a last diplomatic campaign to settle the German-Polish dispute. The terms of a new German plan for a settlement, the so-called Marienwerder proposals, were less important than the offer to negotiate as such. The terms of the Marienwerder proposals were intended as nothing more than a tentative German plan for a possible settlement. The German government emphasized that these terms were formulated to offer a basis for unimpeded negotiations between equals rather than constituting a series of demands which Poland would be required to accept. There was nothing to prevent the Poles from offering an entirely new set of proposals of their own.
The Germans, in offering to negotiate with Poland, were indicating that they favored a diplomatic settlement over war with Poland. The willingness of the Poles to negotiate would not in any way have implied a Polish retreat or their readiness to recognize the German annexation of Danzig. The Poles could have justified their acceptance to negotiate with the announcement that Germany, and not Poland, had found it necessary to request new negotiations. In refusing to negotiate, the Poles were announcing that they favored war. The refusal of British Foreign Secretary Halifax to encourage the Poles to negotiate indicated that he also favored war.[45]
French Prime Minister Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain were both privately critical of the Polish government. Daladier in private denounced the “criminal folly” of the Poles. Chamberlain admitted to Ambassador Joseph Kennedy that it was the Poles, and not the Germans, who were unreasonable. Kennedy reported to President Roosevelt, “frankly he [Chamberlain] is more worried about getting the Poles to be reasonable than the Germans.” However, neither Daladier nor Chamberlain made any effort to influence the Poles to negotiate with the Germans.[46]
On August 29, 1939, the Polish government decided upon the general mobilization of its army. The Polish military plans stipulated that general mobilization would be ordered only in the event of Poland’s decision for war. Henderson informed Halifax of some of the verified Polish violations prior to the war. The Poles blew up the Dirschau (Tczew) bridge across the Vistula River even though the eastern approach to the bridge was in German territory (East Prussia). The Poles also occupied a number of Danzig installations and engaged in fighting with the citizens of Danzig on the same day. Henderson reported that Hitler was not insisting on the total military defeat of Poland. Hitler was prepared to terminate hostilities if the Poles indicated that they were willing to negotiate a satisfactory settlement.[47]
Germany decided to invade Poland on September 1, 1939. All of the British leaders claimed that the entire responsibility for starting the war was Hitler’s. Prime Minister Chamberlain broadcast that evening on British radio that “the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe (war in Poland) lies on the shoulders of one man, the German Chancellor.” Chamberlain claimed that Hitler had ordered Poland to come to Berlin with the unconditional obligation of accepting without discussion the exact German terms. Chamberlain denied that Germany had invited the Poles to engage in normal negotiations. Chamberlain’s statements were unvarnished lies, but the Polish case was so weak that it was impossible to defend it with the truth.
Halifax also delivered a cleverly hypocritical speech to the House of Lords on the evening of September 1, 1939. Halifax claimed that the best proof of the British will to peace was to have Chamberlain, the great appeasement leader, carry Great Britain into war. Halifax concealed the fact that he had taken over the direction of British foreign policy from Chamberlain in October 1938, and that Great Britain would probably not be moving into war had this not happened. He assured his audience that Hitler, before the bar of history, would have to assume full responsibility for starting the war. Halifax insisted that the English conscience was clear, and that, in looking back, he did not wish to change a thing as far as British policy was concerned.[48]
On September 2, 1939, Italy and Germany agreed to hold a mediation conference among themselves and Great Britain, France and Poland. Halifax attempted to destroy the conference plan by insisting that Germany withdraw her forces from Poland and Danzig before Great Britain and France would consider attending the mediation conference. French Foreign Minister Bonnet knew that no nation would accept such treatment, and that the attitude of Halifax was unreasonable and unrealistic.
Ultimately, the mediation effort collapsed, and both Great Britain and France declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939. When Hitler read the British declaration of war against Germany, he paused and asked of no one in particular: “What now?”[49]
Germany was now in an unnecessary war with three European nations.
Similar to the other British leaders, Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Germany, later claimed that the entire responsibility for starting the war was Hitler’s. Henderson wrote in his memoirs in 1940: “If Hitler wanted peace he knew how to insure it; if he wanted war, he knew equally well what would bring it about. The choice lay with him, and in the end the entire responsibility for war was his.”[50] Henderson forgot in this passage that he had repeatedly warned Halifax that the Polish atrocities against the German minority in Poland were extreme. Hitler invaded Poland in order to end these atrocities.
Polish Atrocities Continue against German Minority
The Germans in Poland continued to experience an atmosphere of terror in the early part of September 1939. Throughout the country the Germans had been told, “If war comes to Poland you will all be hanged.” This prophecy was later fulfilled in many cases.
The famous Bloody Sunday in Toruń on September 3, 1939, was accompanied by similar massacres elsewhere in Poland. These massacres brought a tragic end to the long suffering of many ethnic Germans. This catastrophe had been anticipated by the Germans before the outbreak of war, as reflected by the flight, or attempted escape, of large numbers of Germans from Poland. The feelings of these Germans were revealed by the desperate slogan, “Away from this hell, and back to the Reich!”[51]
Dr. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas writes concerning the ethnic Germans in Poland:
The first victims of the war were Volksdeutsche, ethnic German civilians resident in and citizens of Poland. Using lists prepared years earlier, in part by lower administrative offices, Poland immediately deported 15,000 Germans to Eastern Poland. Fear and rage at the quick German victories led to hysteria. German “spies” were seen everywhere, suspected of forming a fifth column. More than 5,000 German civilians were murdered in the first days of the war. They were hostages and scapegoats at the same time. Gruesome scenes were played out in Bromberg on September 3, as well as in several other places throughout the province of Posen, in Pommerellen, wherever German minorities resided.[52]
Polish atrocities against ethnic Germans have been documented in the book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland. Most of the outside world dismissed this book as nothing more than propaganda used to justify Hitler’s invasion of Poland. However, skeptics failed to notice that forensic pathologists from the International Red Cross and medical and legal observers from the United States verified the findings of these investigations of Polish war crimes. These investigations were also conducted by German police and civil administrations, and not the National Socialist Party or the German military. Moreover, both anti-German and other university-trained researchers have acknowledged that the charges in the book are based entirely on factual evidence.[53]
The book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland stated:
When the first edition of this collection of documents went to press on November 17, 1939, 5,437 cases of murder committed by soldiers of the Polish army and by Polish civilians against men, women and children of the German minority had been definitely ascertained. It was known that the total when fully ascertained would be very much higher. Between that date and February 1, 1940, the number of identified victims mounted to 12,857. At the present stage investigations disclose that in addition to these 12,857, more than 45,000 persons are still missing. Since there is no trace of them, they must also be considered victims of the Polish terror. Even the figure 58,000 is not final. There can be no doubt that the inquiries now being carried out will result in the disclosure of additional thousands dead and missing.[54]
Medical examinations of the dead showed that Germans of all ages, from four months to 82 years of age, were murdered. The report concluded:
It was shown that the murders were committed with the greatest brutality and that in many cases they were purely sadistic acts—that gouging of eyes was established and that other forms of mutilation, as supported by the depositions of witnesses, may be considered as true.
The method by which the individual murders were committed in many cases reveals studied physical and mental torture; in this connection several cases of killing extended over many hours and of slow death due to neglect had to be mentioned.
By far the most important finding seems to be the proof that murder by such chance weapons as clubs or knives was the exception, and that as a rule modern, highly-effective army rifles and pistols were available to the murderers. It must be emphasized further that it was possible to show, down to the minutest detail, that there could have been no possibility of execution [under military law].[55]
The Polish atrocities were not acts of personal revenge, professional jealously or class hatred; instead, they were a concerted political action. They were organized mass murders caused by a psychosis of political animosity. The hate-inspired urge to destroy everything German was driven by the Polish press, radio, school and government propaganda. Britain’s blank check of support had encouraged Poland to conduct inhuman atrocities against its German minority.[56]
The book Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland explained why the Polish government encouraged such atrocities:
The guarantee of assistance given Poland by the British Government was the agent which lent impetus to Britain’s policy of encirclement. It was designed to exploit the problem of Danzig and the Corridor to begin a war, desired and long-prepared by England, for the annihilation of Greater Germany. In Warsaw moderation was no longer considered necessary, and the opinion held was that matters could be safely brought to a head. England was backing this diabolical game, having guaranteed the “integrity” of the Polish state. The British assurance of assistance meant that Poland was to be the battering ram of Germany’s enemies. Henceforth Poland neglected no form of provocation of Germany and, in its blindness, dreamt of “victorious battle at Berlin’s gates.” Had it not been for the encouragement of the English war clique, which was stiffening Poland’s attitude toward the Reich and whose promises led Warsaw to feel safe, the Polish Government would hardly have let matters develop to the point where Polish soldiers and civilians would eventually interpret the slogan to extirpate all German influence as an incitement to the murder and bestial mutilation of human beings.[57]
Endnotes
[1] Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 207.
[2] DeConde, Alexander, A History of American Foreign Policy, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971, p. 576.
[3] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 25, 312.
[4] Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 209.
[5] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 50.
[6] Ibid., pp. 49-60.
[7] Ibid., pp. 328-329.
[8] Ibid., pp. 145-146.
[9] Ibid., p. 21.
[10] Ibid., pp. 21, 256-257.
[11] Ibid., p. 323.
[12] Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power, New York: William Morrow, 1972, p. 560; see also Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961, p. 211.
[13] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 333, 340.
[14] Denman, Roy, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century, London: Indigo, 1997, p.
[15] Ferguson, Niall, The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, New York: Penguin Press, 2006, p. 377.
[16] Hart, B. H. Liddell, History of the Second World War, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970, p. 11.
[17] Watt, Richard M., Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate 1918 to 1939, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, p. 379.
[18] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 342.
[19] Ibid., p. 391.
[20] Ibid., pp. 260-262.
[21] Ibid., pp. 311-312.
[22] Ibid., pp. 355, 357.
[23] Ibid., pp. 381, 383.
[24] Ibid., pp. 384, 387.
[25] Ibid., p. 387.
[26] Ibid., pp. 388-389.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid., pp. 392-393.
[29] Ibid., pp. 405-406.
[30] Ibid., p. 412.
[31] Ibid. p. 413.
[32] Ibid., pp. 413-415.
[33] Ibid. p. 419. In a footnote, the author notes that a report of the same matters appeared in the New York Times for August 8, 1939.
[34] Ibid., p. 419.
[35] Ibid., p. 414.
[36] Ibid., p. 417.
[37] Ibid., pp. 452-453.
[38] Ibid., p. 463.
[39] Ibid., p. 479.
[40] Ibid., p. 554.
[41] Day, Donald, Onward Christian Soldiers, Newport Beach, Cal.: The Noontide Press, 2002, p. 56.
[42] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 500-501, 550.
[43] Ibid., p. 509
[44] Ibid., pp. 470, 483, 538.
[45] Ibid., pp. 513-514.
[46] Ibid., pp. 441, 549.
[47] Ibid., pp. 537, 577.
[48] Ibid., pp. 578-579.
[49] Ibid., pp. 586, 593, 598.
[50] Henderson, Nevile, Failure of a Mission, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940, p. 227.
[51] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 390.
[52] De Zayas, Alfred-Maurice, A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 2nd edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 27.
[53] Roland, Marc, “Poland’s Censored Holocaust,” The Barnes Review in Review: 2008-2010, pp. 132-133.
[54] Shadewalt, Hans, Polish Acts of Atrocity against the German Minority in Poland, Berlin and New York: German Library of Information, 2nd edition, 1940, p. 19.
[55] Ibid., pp. 257-258.
[56] Ibid., pp. 88-89.
[57] Ibid., pp. 75-76.
(Republished from Inconvenient History)
The Potocki Reports
by Christian Jürs
After the collapse of the Polish government and the occupation of the capital of Warsaw in September and October of 1939, the Germans located the secret archives of the Polish Foreign Ministery hidden in a bunker. A number of the documents were hastily translated and published by the German government as a “White Book” in 1940. A larger selection of these documents are now in the German Bundesarchiv
The Polish Ambassador to the United States, Count Jerzy Potocki, scion of a famous Polish family, wrote a number of important reports to the Polish Foreign Minister that gave a very clear picture of an educated European’s view of American politics and the forces that shaped US foreign policy.
Count Jerzy Potocki, Poland’s Ambassador to the United States, was a man of strong opinions, but was also very observant and very well connected in the Washington diplomatic circles. He wrote many reports to the Foreign Minister in Warsaw and four of them are reproduced here because they show a European diplomat’s view of Roosevelt’s foreign policy, or rather his lack of a rational and coherent one. These reports are not in chronological order, but are set forth in a more narrative sense. The first report here is under date of January 12, 1939 and is a discussion of Potocki’s view of Jewish influence on Roosevelt and its impact on his policies.
To The Foreign Minister in Warsaw:
Public opinion in America nowadays expresses itself in an increasing hatred of Fascism, Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with National Socialism. Above all, propaganda here is entirely in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100 percent of the radio, the films and the daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and is designed to present Germany as blackly as possible, when bearing American public ignorance in mind, their propaganda is so effective that people here have no real knowledge of the true state of affairs in Europe.
At the present time, most Americans are taught to believe that Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism are the greatest evil and the greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent program for public speakers of all kinds, among whom are many refugees from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with much effort and many patently false accounts, incite the American public. These speakers praise American liberty which they repeatedly contrast with totalitarian states.
It is interesting to observe that in this carefully thought-out campaign, which is primarily conducted against National Socialism, no reference at all is made to Soviet Russia. If that country is mentioned, it is referred to in a friendly manner and people are given the impression that Soviet Russia is part of the democratic group of nations. Thanks to astute propaganda, public sympathy in the United States is entirely on the side of Communist Spain. Side by side with this pro-Communist propaganda, an artificial war panic is created, The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a slim thread and that war is inevitable. No effort is spared to impress upon the American mind that in the event of a world war, the United States must take an active part in a struggle for “freedom and democracy.” President Roosevelt was the first in the field to give expression to this hatred of Fascism. He had a two-fold purpose in mind: firstly, he wanted to divert American public opinion from difficult and complicated domestic problems, especially the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Secondly, by creating a war-panic and inventing rumors about threats to Europe, he wanted to induce Americans to endorse his huge program of armaments, a program which far exceeds the United States defense requirements.
Regarding the first point, it must be said that the internal situation here on the labor front is growing steadily worse. The unemployed today already number twelve million. Federal and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only these huge sums, running into billions, which the US treasury expends for emergency labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken place. As to how long this artificial governmental aid can be kept up is difficult to predict at present. The unhappiness and growing indignation of public opinion coupled with the serious conflict between private enterprise and the enormous trusts on one hand and with a radicalized labor movement on the other, have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are no doubt causing him many sleepless nights.
As to the second point, I can only say that President Roosevelt is a skillful expert in domestic politics and a connoisseur of the American mentality and he has effectively turned public attention away from internal domestic problems and focused it on foreign policy. His means of achieving this effective distraction was simple. He needed, on the one hand, to highlight a fictional war menace threatening the world because of Chancellor Hitler, and on the other hand, to create a specter of war and invasion by speaking ominously about an attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend. He described it as the capitulation of France and England to growing and aggressive German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain at pistol point. Hence, France and England had no choice, but to back down and were compelled to conclude a shameful peace.
Furthermore, the brutal treatment meted out to the Jews in Germany, as well as the problem of the large number of Jewish and anti-German refugees flooding this country are both factors which intensify the existing hatred of everything connected with German National Socialism. In this campaign of hatred, individual Jewish intellectuals such as Bernard Baruch, Lehman, the Governor of New York State, Felix Frankfurter, the newly appointed Supreme Court Judge, Morgenthau, the Secretary of the Treasury and other well-known personal friends have taken a prominent part in this campaign of hatred. All of them want the President to become the protagonist of human liberty, religious freedom and the right of free speech and be the man who, in the future, will punish trouble-mongers, especially those who are not liked by Jews. This particular group of people, who are all in highly placed official American positions and who are desirous of being representatives of “true Americanism” and seen as “Champions of Democracy” are, in point of fact, linked with international Jewry by ties incapable of being torn asunder. For this Jewish international, so intimately concerned with the interests of its own race, President Roosevelt’s “ideal” role as a champion of human rights was indeed a godsend, In this way they are not only able to establish a dangerous center of hatred and enmity in this hemisphere, but name also succeeded in dividing the world into two warlike camps. The whole problem is being worked out in a most mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been given the power to enable him to energize American foreign policy and at the same time create huge reserves in armaments for a future war which the Jews are deliberately heading for. With regards to domestic policy, it is extremely convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is on the increase in the United States, by talking about the necessity of defending religious faith and individual liberty against the assault of Fascism.
/s/ Jerzy Potocki,
Ambassador of the Republic of Poland
The next report is under the date of April 30, 1939, which Potocki wrote immediately following a private meeting in his residence with General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, an aide and confidant of the American President. Two days earlier, on April 28, Adolf Hitler had delivered a scathing and sarcastic address to the German Reichstag in answer to an April 14 public appeal by Roosevelt to Hitler to guarantee the integrity of a number of countries, including Ireland, Syria and Palestine (which was then occupied by the British). This approach to Hitler was designed solely to appeal to the public in America because it contained so many factual and political blunders that Hitler was able to very effectively heap scorn and sarcasm on both its contents and author.
It was after this speech that General Watson came, at Roosevelt’s request, to have a private discussion with the Polish Ambassador.
To the Foreign Minister in Warsaw:
This evening I received in my private residence, General Watson, a close confidant of the American President. The General stated he was acting on the instructions of the President and wished me to convey the content of his information to the Polish Government in Warsaw.
It appears that Chancellor Hitler’s speech in Berlin of April 28 has infuriated the President, who the General assures me, believes that Chancellor Hitler has held him up to public ridicule and contempt. These were the exact words used by General Watson.
It was also stated that because the President’s family, on both his mother’s and father’s sides has Jewish blood, the President has additional reasons for hating Chancellor Hitler and the Germans.
The President was apparently surprised and most disturbed by the visit of the German Foreign Minister (von) Ribbentrop to Warsaw in January of this year. The President is aware that the Germans were, and are still, seeking to persuade Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact and I assured the General that Poland, while not well-disposed to the French, refused to ally themselves with Chancellor Hitler.
The General went on to state that President Roosevelt felt that Chancellor Hitler must be stopped before he began another war and before he mistreated and expelled all the Jews in Germany. The General especially mentioned Polish Jews in this light. There are very strong sentiments in the United States against becoming involved in another European war and the American President must find another way to fan the flames of war in Europe. It appears from my questions to General Watson that President Roosevelt has very little actual knowledge of conditions in Europe and is acting out of a spirit of vengeance alone.
President Roosevelt, his aide asserted, wishes the Polish Government to firmly resist any attempts on the part of Chancellor Hitler to arrive at a negotiated settlement over the question of Danzig and to stand firm. I was able to assure the General that the Polish Government has no intentions of bowing to pressure from Chancellor Hitler in this matter and would not yield an inch concerning Polish control over former German territories.
The General stated that the President was aware of our attitudes, but made a very strong suggestion that the Polish Government fight fire with fire, to quote directly, and openly defy Chancellor Hitler. The President has knowledge of groups of prominent Germans, many in high military and governmental offices, who are completely opposed to Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism and who would rise up against their regime at outbreak of a war.
General Watson furthermore has shown me a copy of a draft treaty with the Soviet Union in which it is set forth that the Soviet Army will join with the Polish Army in attacking the Germans at the slightest provocation. The President has further suggested that such a provocation could easily be supplied by the Polish Government and the ensuing aggression by the German forces would be countered by the bravery of the Polish forces and the might of the Soviet Union.
I attempted to explain to the General that the Polish Government was certainly not friendly with that of the Soviet Union, and in fact, viewed them as dangerous potential enemies, not allies. I also pointed out that the Soviets had invaded Polish territory in 1920 with a view to totally resubjugate the newly-formed Polish state. The General had no knowledge of the Battle for Warsaw in 1920, a battle in which this author certainly played a serious part. The General spoke warmly about the Soviet Union, assuring me that Stalin would have no territorial demands on the Polish state after a military defeat of the Germans and would immediately retire back behind his borders.
The President seems to be woefully lacking in any knowledge of the situation in Poland and one should note further that the Polish Embassy here has received no information about any such potential treaty between the Soviets and Americans. Although the General had with him a transcribed copy of this treaty, it was a draft only and had no identifying signatures of any kind.
This appears to this writer as a mere bluff on the part of the American President and as it was completely impossible to have an informed discussion with his communicant, the General was advised that his message would be passed to the Minister at once.
It does appear that the spite of the American President coupled with his ambition to remain in office is a very dangerous business and his devious meddling in matters he does not understand could lead to very serious consequences, not for the United States which would profit from a European war, but for all of Europe.
/s/ Jerzy Potocki,
Ambassador of the Republic of Poland
Roosevelt was rebuffed by the Poles who later refused passage to the Soviet Army when the British sought a treaty with Stalin before the outbreak of the war. It was Hitler, not Roosevelt, who signed a treaty with Stalin’s Russia. In a later attempt to involve the United States in the European war, Roosevelt produced what he claimed was a German plan to invade South America and later the United States. This was highly suspect at the time of its appearance and now is freely acknowledged to be a forgery, prepared at Roosevelt’s request.
Hitler’s response to Roosevelt was certainly one of his best speeches and deserves to be fully translated into English for the benefit of historians who appear to be oblivious to its impact. It obviously had a serious impact on Roosevelt’s ego and led him to a clumsy and extremely irresponsible attempt at involving Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union in a war. This would have been another War of Jenkins’ Ear with a petty motive, but with devastating consequences.
There are two other Potocki documents, one dealing with US foreign policy, and another that was an important paper penned just before the outbreak of the war in Poland and that contains material of some historical interest covering the coming Hitler-Stalin pact.
This report is dated March 7, 1939.
To the Foreign Minister in Warsaw
The current foreign policy of the United States, which also concerns the American people as well, is to be found in the public speeches of President Roosevelt. In nearly all of these speeches, he makes a clear reference to the necessary importance of inaugurating a foreign policy that will counter the current chaotic conditions, political and ideological, that he now believes is to be found in Europe.
These references are immediately taken by the press and presented to their public in a manner designed to reinforce the ideas about Europe already planted there by Roosevelt and his cooperative press before. The basic theme of Roosevelt’s doctrine is that there is now a great danger of another European war and that this will cause the destruction of the democracies at the hands of fascism. In all of these speeches is to be found a central theme: the critical danger from Nazi Germany and Nazism to global peace.
The result of this propaganda is that the American public is now urged to fully support a vast rearmament and to approve of the spending of enormous sums of money for their Navy and Air Force. The unquestioned idea behind this is that in case of the outbreak of a war, the United States cannot remain neutral, but must take an active part in the conflict. As a direct result of a combination of the very effective speeches of Roosevelt and their almost complete support by the press, the American public is now being thoroughly manipulated to hate everything that appears to be totataliaristic and fascist. However, it is interesting to note that the USSR is not included in this at all. The American public now considers Russia to be on the side of the democratic states. This was also the situation during the civil war in Spain when the communist Loyalists were viewed here as the true defenders of democracy.The American Department of State conducts its operations without any public notice, but it is known here that the Secretary of State, Hull, and President Roosevelt both are in agreement on these matters. Unlike Roosevelt, Hull displays more reserve and caution and is careful to make a distinction between Nazism, Chancellor Hitler, and the rest of the German people. In his view, Hitler’s form of dictatorship is a transitory, but necessary evil. On the other hand, the American Depart¬ment of State is deeply concerned with the conditions in the USSR and most especially worries about its recent weaknesses and a possible decline. The most important reason for the American’s interest in the Soviets is the current situation in the Far East. The Roosevelt government would be most pleased to see the Red Army emerge as a victor in a war with Japan. This also explains why the American government is clearly in support of China and has only recently donated the sum of 25 million dollars to their aid.
Special attention is paid here to all information received from American diplomatic personnel and most especially to the personal emissaries of Roosevelt whom he appoints as his Ambassadors. President Roosevelt keeps in close contact with these emissaries and has them come very often to Washington to consult with him and receive a flood of notes and instructions from him. Very little is known here about this traffic of the diplomats and the press is careful to make no mention of the journeys. The American Department of State is also most cautious about releasing any information about the conversations with the President and his diplomats. This most practical method of dealing on the part of President is very effective because he is able to give direct and personal messages to his diplomats, most of whom are his personal friends. By this method, he is now leading the United States down the sinister path in world politics and with the obvious intention of abandoning the current American policy of isolationism.
The President considers the foreign policy of his country as a clean means of achieving his own personal political ambitions. He is now pleased to note the responses his policies are having in the capitals of the world. The only thing that blocks the American President and his people from immediately executing his policies is the American Congress which, under the one hundred and fifty year old Constitution, has the power to block the President as well as to be fully responsible for the enactment of laws.
President Roosevelt’s foreign policy has very recently been the subject here of strong debate in the lower house as well as in the Senate and this has caused turmoil. The Isolationists, well represented in both houses of the legislature, have emerged as strong opponents of the President, taking exception to his published statement that the borders of the United States are on the Rhine. However, President Roosevelt is a highly skilled political player and is fully aware of the power of his legislature. He has his partisans in that body and is aware of when he must retreat and when he can advance.
Acting with great political intelligence and even cunning, he links the question of his foreign policy with the issue of American rearmament, and in this he stresses in specific the vital necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a strong defense. It is his specific view that the United States is not rearming to either intervene or assist either England or France if they should become involved in a war, but because he wishes to show the world that America is well-armed and prepared in case of an armed conflict breaking out in Europe. It is his repeated view that the danger of this war is now becoming more and more acute, and as he says it, unavoidable.
By presenting these views in this manner, he has managed to lull the suspicions of both houses of his Congress who do not object. They have received and approved his rearmament programs and given him one billion dollars for this. The normal budget for the armament is 500 million dollars and his new emergency budget is also 500 million. Using this rearmament program as a cover, President Roosevelt even pushes forward his foreign policy which is unofficially believed throughout the world that in the event of a war, his United States will at once join the democratic states with all the financial and military power of that country.
We may say in concluding that all of the technical and psychological preparation of the American people for their participation in a war, in the event one should happen in Europe, is making swift progress. It now is evident that the United States would come to the aid of both France and Great Britain immediately if there is a war. On the other hand, I have knowledge of the attitudes of the American public as well as personal connections with the representatives and senators who have the final word in this matter, and I personally believe that the possibility of their permitting America to enter a new war as they did in 1917 is not foreseen. This is due to the resistance by the majority of the rural West and mid-West where avoidance of another war is strongly predominate. They clearly remember the Versailles Treaty and its famous phrase about saving the world for democracy and they know that this was only idle talk. Instead of remembering these hollow words, they remember the unpaid billions of dollars which the states of Europe still owe to America.
(s) Jerzy Potocki
Ambassador of the Republic of Poland
The final report from this Ambassador in Washington, was written on August 13, 1939, only weeks before the war in Poland broke out. Al¬though most historians believe that the Hitler-Stalin Pact was a great surprise to everyone concerned and happened almost without warning, there are other views that were current at the time and this report expresses them very clearly.
To the Foreign Minister in Warsaw:
This is being sent most urgently to Your Excellency because of the extreme importance of the information I have received.
We have heard recently, even this day, that some kind of a treaty is to be arrived at between Chancellor Hitler and Stalin. I have personally heard this information from my colleague, the British Ambassador who has heard it directly from his Foreign Office in London.
It appears that while we, the British and French have been negotiating with Moscow for some kind of a support pact, the Germans have been equally busy. Chancellor Hitler, it is said, fears a two-front war and is making every effort to prevent this, even if it means making peace with Stalin, his greatest enemy.
We know that Russia has, at our talks, wanted permission to cross Polish territory and we also know that this is impossible. Stalin obviously wishes to reconquer Poland and now wishes to do it without bloodshed and with permission of the British and the French!
We are told that the secret news of these German-Russian negotiations has come to the attention of President Roosevelt and he is now in a state of fury. The President is also beset with problems, which he feels might be very bad for his political organizations. If Hitler, who is Roosevelt’s biggest enemy and one whom he has constantly attacked in the press, makes a pact with Stalin, then the American President has a terrible problem. He, on the one hand, will have to criticize Stalin, who is the hero of the American communists and most especially of the many radical Jews who actively support Roosevelt and are powerful members of his government.
If this pact comes about, he will have to struggle about which course to take to keep his power in America. Because of his great support of both the communists and the Jews, he will have to make an attack on Stalin which would cause him to lose the only really effective support he has.
And might I not comment that if this pact is enforced, will not Poland be caught between the jaws of the nutcracker with Russia on the East and Hitler on the West? It is felt here, and also by the British, that such a pact would spell the doom of Poland as a state because, in spite of all their pious talking, neither England nor France could be of any assistance to us unless they at once attacked Germany in the West. No one here feels that either country could do this in time and because of the situation with the American legislature, it is not possible for Roosevelt to come to Poland’s assistance either.
I shall certainly keep you current with my knowledge in these very perilous days and you all have the prayers of myself and all my staff.
(s) Jerzy Potocki
Ambassador of the Republic of Poland
The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
September 19, 2019
by Dr. Peter Janney
On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.
Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.
Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.
After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.
The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.
When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..
A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.
The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.
Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks. ”
Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.
Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publication.
Conversation No. 115
Date: Saturday, December 6, 1997
Commenced: 2:11 PM CST
Concluded: 2:35 PM CST
GD: Well, I had a call from Bill late yesterday saying he never wanted to talk to me again and I knew the reason why. Of course, I did not and he just hung up on me. Do you know about this?
RTC: Actually, I do not. I suspect it’s because they know I sent you the more important papers for safekeeping. I think it was all set up that if and when I went off, all of them would come down at the request of the Langley bosses and take away anything of importance that I had. It was, I think, a sure thing. All set up. But then we started talking and this got everyone there angry. You are uncontrollable, you know, and they detest you. I’m not trying to be mean but that seems to be the way things are going here. They are now ignoring me and concentrating on you. I don’t think it’s the Mueller business that gets them in an uproar but the fact that certain material about the Kennedy business has gone west as it were. I would council you to be rather careful with all that stuff, Gregory. Don’t tell anyone what you have and believe me, they will try everything they can think of to try and find out what I sent you. They’ve already been poking around here and if they’ll do it to me, considering what I know about them, I can imagine you’ll get the business. Now by that, I don’t imply someone will shoot you but there will be attempts to break in if and when they know you’re out of the house. Your son is living with you now?
GD: Yes, he is.
RTC: This is not a nice question, Gregory, but do you trust him?
GD: Sadly, not at all. Very charming and intelligent but lies like a rug and if someone approached him with money, he would try to sell me out in a second. Sorry to say that, but it’s true.
RFC: Well, then, I know they are aware of him and the CIA offer to hire him will be the indicator. They will either turn him and get him to let them look over my papers when you’ve been lured off to some conference in DC. No, put these things away somewhere and never tell him where they are and certainly, don’t let him get a look at anything.
GD: Don’t worry. I have looked over the Kennedy business and have read through your manuscript on the CIA in Vietnam and I realize what I have. No, I put these in a very safe place and even if the entire FBI was on the case, they would never find a thing.
RTC: And they will certainly try, Gregory, so be specially careful. I haven’t been well lately and actually, I’m afraid to tell anyone about it because once they get you into a hospital, they can easily kill you or claim you’re senile and keep you away from the world until you die. Yes, they do that and with me, they would have to be careful because of what I know. I know it all, from the beginning, as I have told you and if they crossed me and I was, let’s say, living here, I could talk and if I did, there would be very serious problems for not only them but businesses and so on.
GD: Would you go public with the media? The Washington Post?
RTC: God no. The CIA has a powerful hold on the American media and, no, they would take down everything I said and send it posthaste to Langley. Print it? Never. You see, we got our hands on the Associated Press and every major and minor paper subscribes to their service. They send out news every fifteen minutes to all the major papers and the television and radio people. The news is funneled through them so we just got our hands on them so, in essence, we control the news in this country. And, of course, we have many friends at the New York Times and the Post, to mention only a few outlets. No, unless a plane crashed into the White House during the Easter Egg Roll with thousands of people present, we can cover up almost anything and also, destroy any enemy or potential enemy. They can’t do anything to you because, to be blunt, you aren’t anybody but if you had a business, or worked for a company, had relatives in business or the government, they would squeeze them and you would shut up. If we can get rid of a President, we could deal with you if you got too dangerous. Not to shoot you but start rumors and disinformation about you. We have a barrel of weasels, rats who do what they’re told. Praise this CIA friend and badmouth that CIA enemy. A Congressman gets too curious, we have a talk with him in private. If that doesn’t do any good, we uncover a terrible scandal about him and the Times or the Post has it on the front page before the next sun rises. In essence, at least when I was on board, we basically control most of this country. How? By controlling the media in that we can use it to put out cover stories, to get public support for, say, the invasion of Mexico or to put one of our bought and paid for people in Congress and then have him put onto committees where he can further our plans or sabotage any attempt to block us. That and the press is quite enough but they also put me in charge of relations with the major business factors. Ike was right when he complained about the military and industrial complex. In truth, the three of us run this country and will into the foreseeable future. If you attack any one of the trinity, they will discover a dead baby in your glove box or a box of cocaine in your desk at work.
GD: I prefer the hint of child abuse. I’ve had some of these creeps nosing around and in one case, I nailed one of these assholes by circulating a fake newspaper clipping that accused him of child molestation. I totally destroyed him and his family and I would do it again if and when. I think they are aware of this so they never some in person but send a cut out.
RTC: Absolutely. If you nail that one, they can raise their hands in horror like an old maid at a smoker and pretend ignorance. Why poor Mr. Wheatly, they would say, who could have done such evil things to him? Know him? Sorry, never heard of him.
GD: I know. I have a friend in the GRU who told me that the Russians always protected their agents but the CIA dumped them when they got found out and left them to rot in some Rumanian jail. Yes, ‘Who?’, they would say, just like you did. ‘Why what a pity’ and then back to the tennis match. I asked a CIC man once why your people didn’t have a nice sit-down like the Army did and he winked at his partner and told me the CIA would never talk to me because I hadn’t gone to Harvard. Actually, fuck Harvard and Yale. There is an old saying that you can always tell a Yale man but you can’t tell him very much. I’ve run into these establishment snobs and I have nothing but contempt for them. Clubby types.
RTC: Yes, we were overrun with them. Smoked pipes and played tennis. I know what you mean. No, they’ll never talk to you because you are beneath them. They’ll attack your back without a problem but never your face. Most of them are gutless old faggots sorry to say, but I suspect you agree with me. Well, just remember that when some grinning ape stops by and tells you he wants to be your friend, put your dogs on him.
GD: I think too much of my dogs to turn them loose on those people. If they bit one, they would have to have rabies boosters.
(Concluded at 2:35 PM CST)
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas
Encyclopedia of American Loons
Robert Sheaffer
This is an important entry. Robert Sheaffer is a writer and skeptic who has written sharp and illuminating articles, e.g. for Skeptical Inquirer, about such topics as UFOs and creationism. But Sheaffer is also an example of the remarkable powers of compartmentalization – though good at identifying the fallacies, sloppy thinking and denialist gambits employed by creationists and various conspiracy theorists, he effortlessly, and ostensibly without noticing, falls into employing the same tricks himself when talking e.g. about global warming.
Sheaffer is a global warming denialist, and has tried on an impressive number of global warming denialist PRATTs. Sheaffer has for instance suggested that global warming is due to the sun (it demonstrably isn’t), that there has been no warming since 1998 (false, and it really doesn’t take much background knowledge to recognize the stupidity of that claim), that we’re really heading into a new Little Ice Age (a stupid claim on many levels), that the “hockey stick” is broken (false and irrelevant), that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today (most likely false, and also irrelevant), that the IPCC was wrong about Himalayan glaciers (well, yes: there was, in fact, one minor error in a very long, technical document), that Michael Mann performed a trick in Nature to “hide the decline” (false, but a really good example of Sheaffer’s lack of understanding and his willingness to parrot nonsensical denialist talking points without bothering to try to understand them), and that the IPCC was wrong about Amazon rainforests (they were not; they did fail to properly refer to the studies that say precisely what the IPCC said about Amazon rainforests – this should be pretty illuminating).
So how, according to Sheaffer, did climate science go so wrong? Well, climate scientists must be lying about global warming to obtain research funding. Which makes sense: if you, as a student, don’t have scruples and want to get rich, go into weather and atmosphere research and make sure you stick to consensus (rather than the kinds of claims the oil companies, say, would have liked to hear): that’s where the money is! (hat-tip: R. Allen Gilliam. Sheaffer is also a consensus denialist; after all, he is able to name two or three people with credentials that disagree with the mainstream view, so “it is disingenuous to speak of a ‘consensus’”, which is exactly analogous to the claim the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture makes about the theory of evolution in biology. Also, “given that unknown factors have caused previous climate changes, how can we be certain that these same unknown factors are not active today?” Similarly, we suppose, for science in general: after all, scientific results are never certain and there is always the possibility that some hypothesis we haven’t thought about would explain the observed data better.
Sheaffer has also made numerous strange claims about feminism, an area he evidently knows nothing about.
Diagnosis: A striking example of how people who are apparently intelligent in one area can go on to violate even basic rules of critical thinking in another, especially one he knows little yet has nonetheless formed strong opinions about. Unfortunately, the utter lapse in reasoning on global warming suggests that one needs to show some care when encountering Sheaffer’s work in other areas as well.
Kristine Severyn
Medical Voices is an antivaccine website that seems to pretend to offer scholarly articles written by various quacks, pseudoscientists and denialists on various medical issues loosely related to vaccines (or: it used to be; at present it seems to have reverted to its origin as the International Medical Council on Vaccination). The publication criteria seem mostly to be that the author uses (or misuses) medical terms in their articles, and their academic standards are otherwise non-existent. The goal, however, seems clearly to be to have a repository of articles that quacks can cite in a manner that superficially looks scholarly practice, which they certainly need given that they otherwise struggle to have their rants published in outlets that care about details like evidence, fact and accuracy. The list of people who have published on the site accordingly makes for a fairly comprehensive list of the most egregious woo-promoters and antivaccine advocates in the US, including Joe Mercola, Suzanne Humphries, Bob Sears, Russell Blaylock and Sherri Tenpenny.
Kristine Severyn has also “published” with Medical Voices. Severyn is an “RPh, PhD” and antivaccine activist. For Medical Voices, Severyn published the article “Profits, Not Science, Motivate Vaccine Mandates,” where she argued that “[v]accines represent an economic boon for pediatricians. Profitable well-baby visits are timed to coincide with vaccination schedules established by the AAP and the CDC,” and therefore that vaccine mandates are not motivated by science – the shill gambit is a recurring strategy in Medical Voices articles. Of course, in real life (yes: there are studies on this), “the vaccination portion of the business model for primary care pediatric practices that serve private-pay patients results in little or no profit from vaccine delivery. When losses from vaccinating publicly insured children are included, most practices lose money.” It is worth emphasizing, however, that Severyn’s conclusion wouldn’t follow even if one assumed the opposite of what is actually the case with regard to profits.
Severyn is otherwise the founder of Ohio Parents for Vaccine Safety, which has long been fighting for religious as well as “moral and philosophical” exemptions to vaccinations in Ohio as well as pushing various myths and conspiracy theories about vaccines (including aborted fetal tissue scaremongering and falsely claiming that vaccines aren’t tested). Severyn, a registered Republican, has apparently also been involved in various anti-abortion campaigns.
Diagnosis: A tireless veteran campaigner for unreason, denialism and conspiracy theories, Severyn is perhaps not among the most notable celebrities in the antivaccine movement, but her persistent efforts to promote myths and falsehoods are surely not making a positive contribution to humanity.
Margaret Hunter
Creationists have, if nothing else, come up with some pretty amazing arguments, such as the banana argument, the peanut butter argument, pygmies+dwarfs and the evergreen “why are there still monkeys?” to mention a few. Margaret Hunter has an argument that, although it can’t perhaps quite compete with the aforementioned ones, is definitely in the same league.
Who is Hunter? Apparently she is a self-described mathematician (we haven’t verified her credentials) and the owner of Bible Charts and Maps in Duck, West Virginia. She also has a vanity press book. We haven’t read that one, but it came accompanied by a press release containing an argument that, if it is representative for the contents of the book, suggests that it is a unique experience. The press release was titled “Amazing Bible Timeline Highlights Math Supports Creationism,” and the argument concerns “the twelve events stated in the Biblical account of creation.” You see, “[s]cience has actually confirmed that these events are not only correct but they are stated in the correct order.” Naturally, Hunter wondered: “Without prior scientific knowledge, what are the chances Moses guessed the correct order of Earth’s evolution or creation when he wrote Genesis?” And she calculated that it must be “Less Than 1 Chance in 479 Million Moses Made Up The Creation Account.” Oh, yeah. Of course, she overlooked the fact that it’s not like it would have been a random guess (you don’t need to know much science to figure out that the Earth must be created before the plants, for instance). She also overlooked the fact that Moses didn’t get the chronology even remotely correct (light being created before the sun and the stars, plants being created before animals and so on). But you know. Details. Jesus.
Diagnosis: Astonishing crackpottery. It’s probably pretty harmless, though, and will hardly recruit many non-crazy people to the anti-science movement
Effects of global warming
The signs of global warming are everywhere, and are more complex than just climbing temperatures
September 5, 2019
National Geographic
The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole. Since 1906, the global average surface temperature has increased by more than 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius)—even more in sensitive polar regions. And the impacts of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future–the effects of global warming are appearing right now. The heat is melting glaciers and sea ice, shifting precipitation patterns, and setting animals on the move.
Many people think of global warming and climate change as synonyms, but scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems. Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts. All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Scientists already have documented these impacts of climate change:
- Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice. In Montana’s Glacier National Park the number of glaciers has declined to fewer than 30 from more than 150 in 1910.
- Much of this melting ice contributes to sea-level rise. Global sea levels are rising 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, and the rise is occurring at a faster rate in recent years.
- Rising temperatures are affecting wildlife and their habitats. Vanishing ice has challenged species such as the Adélie penguin in Antarctica, where some populations on the western peninsula have collapsed by 90 percent or more.
- As temperatures change, many species are on the move. Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have migrated farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
- Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average. Yet some regions are experiencing more severe drought, increasing the risk of wildfires, lost crops, and drinking water shortages.
- Some species—including mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, and crop pests—are thriving. Booming populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce and pine trees, for example, have devastated millions of forested acres in the U.S.
Other effects could take place later this century, if warming continues. These include:
- Sea levels are expected to rise between 10 and 32 inches (26 and 82 centimeters) or higher by the end of the century.
- Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger. Floods and droughts will become more common. Large parts of the U.S., for example, face a higher risk of decades-long “megadroughts” by 2100.
- Less freshwater will be available, since glaciers store about three-quarters of the world’s freshwater.
- Some diseases will spread, such as mosquito-borne malaria (and the 2016 resurgence of the Zika virus).
- Ecosystems will continue to change: Some species will move farther north or become more successful; others, such as polar bears, won’t be able to adapt and could become extinct.
In recent years, global warming and climate change have been the subject of a great deal of political controversy, especially in the U.S. But as the science becomes clearer and consensus grows impossible to ignore, debate is moving away from whether humans are causing warming and toward questions about how best to respond.
Evidence of rising temperatures is pervasive and striking: Thermometer records kept over the past century and a half show Earth’s average temperature has risen more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius), and about twice that in parts of the Arctic.
That doesn’t mean temperatures haven’t fluctuated among regions of the globe or between seasons and times of day. But by analyzing average temperatures all over the world, scientists have demonstrated an unmistakable upward trend.
This trend is part of climate change, which many people consider synonymous with global warming. Scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems. Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts
All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
How is climate change measured?
Although we can’t look at thermometers going back thousands of years, we do have other records that help us figure out what temperatures were like in the distant past. For example, trees store information about the climate in the place they’re rooted. Each year trees grow thicker and form new rings. In warmer and wetter years, the rings are thicker. Old trees and wood can tell us about conditions hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
Windows on the past are also buried in lakes and oceans. Pollen, particles, and dead creatures fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes each year, forming sediments. Sediments contain a wealth of information about what was in the air and water when they fell. Scientists reveal this record by inserting hollow tubes into the mud to collect layers of sediment going back millions of years.
For a direct look at the atmosphere of the past, scientists drill cores through the Earth’s polar ice sheets. Tiny bubbles trapped in the ice are actually samples from the Earth’s past atmosphere, frozen in time. That’s how we know that the concentrations of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution are higher than they’ve been for hundreds of thousands of years.
Computer models help scientists to understand the Earth’s climate, or long-term weather patterns. Models also allow scientists to make predictions about the future climate by simulating how the atmosphere and oceans absorb energy from the sun and transport it around the globe.
We are the reason
Several factors affect how much of the sun’s energy reaches Earth’s surface and how much of that energy gets absorbed. Those include greenhouse gases, particles in the atmosphere (from volcanic eruptions, for example), and changes in energy coming from the sun itself.
Climate models are designed to take such factors into account. For example, models have found that changes in solar irradiance and volcanic aerosols have contributed only about two percent of the recent warming effect over 250 years. The balance comes from greenhouse gases and other human-caused factors, such as land-use changes.
The speed and duration of this recent warming is remarkable as well. Volcanic eruptions, as an example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth’s surface. But they have no lasting effect beyond a few years. Events like El Niño also work on fairly short and predictable cycles. On the other hand, the types of global temperature fluctuations that have contributed to ice ages occur on cycles of hundreds of thousands of years.
The answer to the question, “Is global warming real?” is yes: Nothing other than the rapid rise of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity can fully explain the dramatic and relatively recent rise in global average temperatures
Why an ice age occurs every 100,000 years: Climate and feedback effects explained
August 7, 2013
ETH Zurich
Science has struggled to explain fully why an ice age occurs every 100,000 years. As researchers now demonstrate based on a computer simulation, not only do variations in insolation play a key role, but also the mutual influence of glaciated continents and climate.
Ice ages and warm periods have alternated fairly regularly in Earth’s history: Earth’s climate cools roughly every 100,000 years, with vast areas of North America, Europe and Asia being buried under thick ice sheets. Eventually, the pendulum swings back: it gets warmer and the ice masses melt. While geologists and climate physicists found solid evidence of this 100,000-year cycle in glacial moraines, marine sediments and arctic ice, until now they were unable to find a plausible explanation for it.
Using computer simulations, a Japanese, Swiss and American team including Heinz Blatter, an emeritus professor of physical climatology at ETH Zurich, has now managed to demonstrate that the ice-age/warm-period interchange depends heavily on the alternating influence of continental ice sheets and climate.
“If an entire continent is covered in a layer of ice that is 2,000 to 3,000 metres thick, the topography is completely different,” says Blatter, explaining this feedback effect. “This and the different albedo of glacial ice compared to ice-free earth lead to considerable changes in the surface temperature and the air circulation in the atmosphere.” Moreover, large-scale glaciation also alters the sea level and therefore the ocean currents, which also affects the climate.
Weak effect with a strong impact
As the scientists from Tokyo University, ETH Zurich and Columbia University demonstrated in their paper published in the journal Nature, these feedback effects between Earth and the climate occur on top of other known mechanisms. It has long been clear that the climate is greatly influenced by insolation on long-term time scales. Because Earth’s rotation and its orbit around the sun periodically change slightly, the insolation also varies. If you examine this variation in detail, different overlapping cycles of around 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years are recognisable.
Given the fact that the 100,000-year insolation cycle is comparatively weak, scientists could not easily explain the prominent 100,000-year-cycle of the ice ages with this information alone. With the aid of the feedback effects, however, this is now possible.
Simulating the ice and climate
The researchers obtained their results from a comprehensive computer model, where they combined an ice-sheet simulation with an existing climate model, which enabled them to calculate the glaciation of the northern hemisphere for the last 400,000 years. The model not only takes the astronomical parameter values, ground topography and the physical flow properties of glacial ice into account but also especially the climate and feedback effects. “It’s the first time that the glaciation of the entire northern hemisphere has been simulated with a climate model that includes all the major aspects,” says Blatter.
Using the model, the researchers were also able to explain why ice ages always begin slowly and end relatively quickly. The ice-age ice masses accumulate over tens of thousands of years and recede within the space of a few thousand years. Now we know why: it is not only the surface temperature and precipitation that determine whether an ice sheet grows or shrinks. Due to the aforementioned feedback effects, its fate also depends on its size. “The larger the ice sheet, the colder the climate has to be to preserve it,” says Blatter. In the case of smaller continental ice sheets that are still forming, periods with a warmer climate are less likely to melt them. It is a different story with a large ice sheet that stretches into lower geographic latitudes: a comparatively brief warm spell of a few thousand years can be enough to cause an ice sheet to melt and herald the end of an ice age.
The Milankovitch cycles
The explanation for the cyclical alternation of ice and warm periods stems from Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958), who calculated the changes in Earth’s orbit and the resulting insolation on Earth, thus becoming the first to describe that the cyclical changes in insolation are the result of an overlapping of a whole series of cycles: the tilt of Earth’s axis fluctuates by around two degrees in a 41,000-year cycle. Moreover, Earth’s axis gyrates in a cycle of 26,000 years, much like a spinning top. Finally, Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun changes in a cycle of around 100,000 years in two respects: on the one hand, it changes from a weaker elliptical (circular) form into a stronger one. On the other hand, the axis of this ellipsis turns in the plane of Earth’s orbit. The spinning of Earth’s axis and the elliptical rotation of the axes cause the day on which Earth is closest to the sun (perihelion) to migrate through the calendar year in a cycle of around 20,000 years: currently, it is at the beginning of January; in around 10,000 years, however, it will be at the beginning of July.
Based on his calculations, in 1941 Milankovitch postulated that insolation in the summer characterises the ice and warm periods at sixty-five degrees north, a theory that was rejected by the science community during his lifetime. From the 1970s, however, it gradually became clearer that it essentially coincides with the climate archives in marine sediments and ice cores. Nowadays, Milankovitch’s theory is widely accepted. “Milankovitch’s idea that insolation determines the ice ages was right in principle,” says Blatter. “However, science soon recognised that additional feedback effects in the climate system were necessary to explain ice ages. We are now able to name and identify these effects accurately.”