Linda Minor Wrote:The "Letters-to-the-Editor" section was the most interesting part of the publication. Here is a typical contribution from the issue for June 1946:

Sirs:
I flew my last combat mission on May 26, [1945] when I was shot up over Bassein and ditched my ship in Ramaree Roads off Chedubs Island. I was missing five days. I requested leave at Kashmere (sic). I and Capt. (deleted by request) left Srinagar and went to Rudok then through the Khese pass to the northern foothills of the Karakoram. We found what we were looking for. We knew what we were searching for.

For heaven's sake, drop the whole thing! You are playing with dynamite. My companion and I fought our way out of a cave with submachine guns. I have two 9" scars on my left arm that came from wounds given me in the cave when I was 50 feet from a moving object of any kind and in perfect silence. The muscles were nearly ripped out. How? I don't know. My friend has a hole the size of a dime in his right bicep. It was seared inside. How we don't know. But we both believe we know more about the Shaver Mystery than any other pair.

You can imagine my fright when I picked up my first copy of Amazing Stories and see you splashing words about on the subject.

The identity of the author of this letter was withheld by request. Later Palmer revealed his name: Fred Lee Crisman. ...

Linda Minor Wrote:

Linda Minor Wrote:The "Letters-to-the-Editor" section was the most interesting part of the publication. Here is a typical contribution from the issue for June 1946:

Sirs:
I flew my last combat mission on May 26, [1945] when I was shot up over Bassein and ditched my ship in Ramaree Roads off Chedubs Island. I was missing five days. I requested leave at Kashmere (sic). I and Capt. (deleted by request) left Srinagar and went to Rudok then through the Khese pass to the northern foothills of the Karakoram. We found what we were looking for. We knew what we were searching for.

For heaven's sake, drop the whole thing! You are playing with dynamite. My companion and I fought our way out of a cave with submachine guns. I have two 9" scars on my left arm that came from wounds given me in the cave when I was 50 feet from a moving object of any kind and in perfect silence. The muscles were nearly ripped out. How? I don't know. My friend has a hole the size of a dime in his right bicep. It was seared inside. How we don't know. But we both believe we know more about the Shaver Mystery than any other pair.

You can imagine my fright when I picked up my first copy of Amazing Stories and see you splashing words about on the subject.

The identity of the author of this letter was withheld by request. Later Palmer revealed his name: Fred Lee Crisman. ...

http://www.scifi-fantasy-info.com/richard-sharpe-shaver.html

...These Dero still lived in the cave cities, according to Richard Sharpe Shaver, kidnapping surface-dwelling people by the thousands for meat or torture, and using the fantastic "ray" machines that the great ancient races left behind to project tormenting thoughts and voices into our minds. Dero could be blamed for nearly all misfortunes, from minor "accidental" injuries or illnesses to airplane crashes and catastrophic natural disasters. Women especially were singled out for brutal treatment, including rape, and Mike Dash notes that "Sado-masochism was one of the prominent themes of Shaver's writings." Though generally confined to their caves, Richard Sharpe Shaver claimed that the Deros sometimes traveled by spaceships or rockets, and had dealings with equally evil extraterrestrial beings. Shaver claimed first-hand knowledge of the Dero and their caves, insisting he had been their prisoner for several years.

Palmer edited and rewrote the manuscript, increasing the total word count to a novella length 31,000. Palmer insisted that he did nothing to alter the core elements of Richard Sharpe Shaver's story, but that he only added an exciting plot line so the story would not read "like a dull recitation." Retitled "I Remember Lemuria!"; it was published in March, 1945 issue of Amazing. The issue sold out, and generated quite a response: between 1945 and 1949, letters poured in attesting to the truth of Richard Sharpe Shaver's claims (tens of thousands of letters, according to Palmer). The correspondents, too, had heard strange voices or encountered denizens of the hollow Earth.

One of the letters to Amazing was from a woman who claimed to have gone into a deep subbasement of a Paris, France building via a secret elevator. After months of rape and other torture, the woman was freed by a group of Teros. Another letter claiming involvement with Deros came from Fred Crisman, later to gain notoriety for his role in the Maury Island Incident and the John F. Kennedy Assassination....

Ron Williams Wrote:

Magda Hassan Wrote:...Any ideas about the 'gypsies'?...

This is an important question and one very much misunderstood in the bigger Crisman picture.

When Crisman moved back to his home town of Tacoma, Washington, in 1966, another old friend he got in touch with was Miller Stevens who was a Gypsy. What followed is a good case study of how Crisman operated, and I think there is much between the lines that one can speculate on.

According to the way Crisman explains it Miller Stevens asked for his help in getting an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) plan approved for the Gypsies. Here are a few quotes from Chapter 3 in Crisman's book Murder of a City:

Miller [Stevens] knew that I had been a school teacher and administrator and he was aware that I knew something about the Federal Aid to Education programs. He had contacted me to tell me that his people needed special help and that he could get no person to listen to his pleas. …I assumed that the Office of Economic Opportunity, in its great wisdom, had arranged to take care of the Gypsy peoples of this nation as well as they categorized the rest of the minority peoples. Negroes, Number 1, Indians, Number 2, Latin-Americans, Number 3…and so on down their ever wise and never wrong ladder! Miller insisted that the Gypsy peoples were being left out completely. I was again amazed… (p. 17)

[and here, I believe is a good example of the access in high places that Crisman had all over the country]

I called Jim Wickwire, in Senator Henry Jackson’s [D-Washington] office and Jim told me that he would check and see if Miller knew what he was talking about. …I soon had some letters from Jim Wickwire and several calls from him that expressed surprise that the all-knowing OEO had little knowledge or information on the Gypsy peoples as they now exist in the U.S. …I wrote a complete research paper on the Gypsy tribes in the U.S. with some notes on their way of life and their problems with public education… I finally wrote a complete education plan for the local Gypsy people and it was given a grudging $6700 to see if it could work. The program was a success, but was not renewed. (pp. 17-18)

Whether Crisman was motivated by altruism or friendship could be questioned, but what does seem clear is that he used this project as just another weapon in the local political war that (it appears) he had instigated and managed.

I walked away from the Gypsy project after having charged Miller not one penny for the long hours and research done for his favor. I was later accused by this same team Lee & Jeffords as having made a lot of money from the Gypsy program. By that time it did not worry me for I had been assured that most of the local politicians knew Lee as a liar and Jeffords as a cheap hippie-in-residence at the [Tacoma News] Tribune. Any knock from them was a boost in most quarters of the city. (p. 20)

For me, one of the most amazing things Micheal Riconosciuto said to Kenn Thomas in the 1996 prison interview was this: "Crisman was a master at emotional contagion. An absolute master at it…" (Maury Island UFO, p. 281)

Ron Williams

David Guyatt Wrote:The Deros story is very reminiscent of the Agartha myth and I very much suspect that is actually the true root of it. If that is the case then we are looking at the same general occult grouping that sits around Martinism or splinter groups thereof (for similar connections see HERE)

The reference to "Lemuria" merely lends weight to this conclusion imo.

"Saucers" are very much a part of this whole subject matter as can be demonstrated by, for example, Brinsley Le Poer Trench's classic books "Finding Lost Atlantis inside the Hollow Earth" (Aka "Secret of the Ages" 1974), and "Secret of the Ages - UFO's from Inside the Earth" (published 1974).

Quote:August 1984
Issue 5

Ian Macgregor, Lazards, Pearsons, and Amax

PART 1
See also Part 2 in Lobster 6 [next post in this thread]
Summary

This article attempts to show that the present chairman of the National Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, is far more than the "right man for the job" imported from the U.S. by a Government set simply on technical efficiency. Macgregor's appointment in this country epitomises the direction in which the ruling class is pushing the economy. Not only does MacGregor have longstanding connections in the mining industry and within an important banking group, he is also strongly tied up in the armaments industry. While MacGregor is our starting point, the article will range beyond him as an individual and will indicate the circles within which he moves, circles which overlap with, and are integrated into, the British State.
Introduction

When Thatcher was first elected to office in 1979, unemployment was already rising fast and the Labour Party leadership (Callaghan and Healey in particular) had, in practical terms, already been converted to 'monetarism'. (1) It was not long before Ian MacGregor was appointed to run British Steel.(2) The 'rescue plan' which he was responsible for implementing was resisted by the steel workers but they were unable to prevent the implementation of closures and layoffs. This is no place to analyse the reasons for this defeat, but I am convinced that the I.S.T.C. leader, Bill Sirs, played a central role in undermining the strike.(3)

It was not long before it was rumoured that Ian MacGregor was to be moved to take up the chairmanship of the National Coal Board (NCB). From the start the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) opposed the appointment.

It seems highly unlikely that the people who took the decision to cut coal production, something which had long been sought by the ruling class (4), were ignorant of what, or rather whom, they were taking on. Heath's experience in 1974 should have been enough. But things are more desperate now and those who took the decision set their minds on the rewards which victory would give them, for this victory would open the way to a more total onslaught on the entire working class and the trade unions - the road would, therefore, be opened for a more authoritarian order, an order more suited to the depressed economic climate of the present with worse to come in the future.(5)

MacGregor's butchering of the steel industry was done against a background of world market contraction, a situation which has given rise to increasing antagonism between US and European steel producers. (6) Under MacGregor, Britain has led the way in Europe in making adjustments in its steel production in compliance with American demands. But while the state sector of the steel industry has been forced to contract, the private sector has also been cutting back. In April 1983 a "rationalisation" scheme for the high alloy sector of the steel castings industry (which is privately owned) was agreed to.(7) The scheme is being run by the merchant bank Lazards Brothers and Co., which is based in London. But there are also Lazards in Paris and New York. Ian MacGregor is a partner in the New York Lazards.
Lazards

Lazards in Britain has had links with the steel industry in the past. For example, Lord Kindersley, now a vice chairman of Lazards, was a director of the Steel Company of Wales from 1959 to 1967, and Sir Campbell Adamson, who joined Lazards in 1977, held management positions in Richard Thomas Baldwins Ltd and the Steel Company of Wales Ltd from 1947-1969. Interlocking directorships linked Lazards with Lloyds Bank in the past and Lloyds has close past links with the steel industry.(8)

Although the three Lazards groups have common origins, it is said that they have for a long time drifted apart. Recently, however, they have begun to move together and this has been confirmed by the news that a new holding company is being set up in Delaware called Lazards Partners, which will bind the ownership of the three more closely together.(9)

The David-Weill family seem to dominate the Paris firm - the holding company, Eurafrance, is at the centre of their web. Interlocking directorships link Lazard Freres et Cie in France to some of the largest European concerns, including the electrical engineering and electronics firm Thomson-Brandt (also an armaments producer), the automobile firms Peugot-Citroen and Fiat, and the aluminium and chemicals giant Pechiney. Through Christian Valesi the French Lazards is well connected with the French State and he is also the director of a steel company.(10)

The David-Weill family also appear to exert an influence on the New York and British Lazards, though it seems likely that Lazard Freres and Co. NY, is close to, or part of, the Rockefeller empire.(11) Interlocking directorships link the New York firm with the following: Amerada Hess, General Dynamics, Allis-Fiat, American Motors, Pechiney (see above), Owens-Illinois, Pfizer, Minerals and Resources, Schlumberger, Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals, and many others. However, the New York Lazards is a private concern and it is difficult to find out much about its activities. It seems clear though, that it is close to extractive industries.(12)

As already mentioned, the David-Weill family appear to have some influence in the London Lazards. However, the driving force here appears to be the Pearson family and their allies. The control over Lazards in Britain by the Pearson family (of which Lord Cowdray is the head) is carried out in a complicated way. Through the Cowdray Trust and the Dickinson Trust the family owns about 36% of S. Pearson and Son, a holding company. This, in turn, owns and controls an array of other companies amongst which is the Whitehall Trust, which owns 80% of Lazard Bros. and Co. Ltd. (The remaining 20% is owned by the French Lazards.)

Among the array of Pearson-owned companies are: Pearson Longman (Financial Times, 50% of The Economist, Penguin and Ladybird Books); Goldcrest Films; a string of provincial newspapers; Doulton and Co.; Fairey Engineering (engineering with longstanding armaments business) (14); Madame Tussauds, Chessington Zoo, the London Planetarium, Warwick Castle, the Wookey Hole Caves; various land and farming interests and mineral extraction companies.

But the spread of interests does not end here. Lazards Bros. is seen by many to be the true hub of the Pearson empire. Again, the connections established by this firm are too vast to enumerate here in any detail but some of the more obvious ones will be mentioned. Two big engineering firms which rely heavily on armaments for their survival, Vickers and Rolls Royce, were merged in 1980 when Ian Fraser, the chairman of Lazards, was deputy chairman of Vickers and chairman of Rolls Royce.(15) Lazards has or has had financial links and interlocking directorships with GEC - again, with much of its business in armaments (16) - Babcock International (17), Davy Corporation (18), BOC International (19), Wilkinson Match (20), Dalgety (21). All of these are among the largest British industrial firms. Interlocking directorships also link Lazards with Phoenix Assurance (22), Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance (23) and Sun Alliance and London Insurance (24).

This does not mean that Lazards is the sole link which these companies have with the banking sector, though in a number of cases Lazards is the most important connection. Thus, Lazards in Britain has particularly close links with the British engineering industry, with armaments and with publishing and the mass media.

But the influence of the Pearson-Lazard group extends beyond the realm of industry, finance and the media and into the state itself.

During the 1940s Lord Brand was managing director of Lazards and simultaneously heading the British Food Mission and the British Supply Council in America. He was also a representative of the British Treasury in America at the time. Adam Marris, employed at Lazards from 1929-1939, spent a short time in the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London, joined the British Embassy in Washington in 1949 as 1st Secretary, and later became Counsellor. After the war he returned to Lazards until the 1970s, and was also a director of Barclays Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Commercial Union Assurance.

Another board member, Lord Poole, was a Tory MP from 1945-1950 and chairman of the Conservative Party organisation from 1955-57. The 1st Viscount Blakenham married a daughter of the 2nd Viscount Cowdray and held several positions of state, as well as being chairman of the Conservative Party organisation from 1963-65. His son is now chairman of S. Pearson and Son.

Sir Campbell Adamson, as well as his former positions on State steel bodies and Director-General of the CBI from 1969-1976, was a deputy under-secretary at the Department of Economic Affairs from 1967-69; a member of the BBC advisory committee from.1964-67, and from then till 1975; on the Social Science Research Council from 1965-69; and on the National Economic Development Council from 1969-76.

A daughter of the 2nd Viscount Cowdray married the 9th Duke of Atholl (Duke is as high as you can go in the aristocratic hierarchy - there are only 26 of them). Their son, 10th Duke of Atholl, holds a number of directorships of Pearson companies including the Westminster Press and Pearson-Longman. Being a large Scottish landowner, he is a member of the Scottish Landowners Federation, and was convenor of that body from 1976-79. With this connection the Pearson-Lazard group joins the other 'Royal' merchant banking families - the Rothschilds, Barings et al.(25) Lord Cowdray has been described as the richest peer (26) and the largest donator of funds to the Tory party.(27)

It was noted soon after the Falklands War had ended that it had been a great boon to the armaments industry.(28) Amongst those which seem to have benefitted are Fairey and GEC, which, as we have seen, have links with the Pearson-Lazards group. It is also interesting that the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, who resigned at the start of the conflict, became chairman of GEC when he left the government, while John Nott (knighted for the bravery he displayed in running the war), became a director of Lazards when he left the Government. It should be mentioned here that GEC also has close links with the merchant bank Morgan Grenfell, which used to be directly controlled by the US Morgan group. The Pearsons have longstanding relations with the Morgans of America, going back to the time when the 1st Lord Cowdray, Weetman Pearson, made some millions out of the Mexican oil business in rivalry with the Rockefellers at the beginning of the century.(29). In 1957 Lord Kindersley (see above), then chairman of Lazards, stated that Morgans and Lazards were probably closer than any other two issuing houses.(30)

A more obscure link connects the Pearson-Lazard group into the orbit of Anglo-American politics. This is the so-called "Round Table Groups" which are said to have been set up on lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes in 1908-11. (31) Finance was contributed by the Morgan group and a group of international financiers based in London led by Lazards. At the head of the organisation, whose aim appears to have been to establish a world government centred on the two Anglo-Saxon heartlands, was Lord Milner, a powerful figure in Whitehall and the City of London.(32) Milner died in 1925. Later Robert (who became Lord) Brand, whom we have already met, took over. When he died in 1963, Adam Marris, whom we have also met, took charge.(33) It is not clear whether this organisation still operates or, if it does, how powerful it is. There are, however, plenty of traces of its former existence and plenty of indications that the Anglo-American collaboration which it strove for has had profound effects upon the British economy, polity and military.

E. H.

Part 2, MacGregor and Amax, MacGregor and Armaments will be in Lobster 6.

Notes to Part 1

1. See The Economics of Crisis and the Crisis of Economics, Gunder Frank in Critique No 9, 1978 .
2. MacGregor was appointed deputy chairman (part-time) in May-June 1980, before becoming chairman later in 1980. Sir Charles Villiers was chairman during the steel workers' strike. Sir Charles was executive deputy chairman of Guinness Peat, a merchant bank, and a director of Banque Belge Ltd., Courtaulds and Sun Life Assurance.
3. Bill Sirs seems to have taken a consistently rightist position on nuclear weapons and was a signatory of a recent pro-Nato advertisement in which he reveals a connection with the Royal Institute for International Affairs, a body which has been linked with the Round Table Groups (which we meet later), and which is close to the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations in the US.
4. See Guardian 5th August 1983 - Power Industry Cuts Contract For Coal. In April 1975, Mary Goldring wrote in Investors' Chronicle (18th April) that coal is the biggest offender by far and stated that "if British miners could average even half the output of the American - which would mean shutting the poorest mines - the £700 million annual wage bill would be halved."
5. In a TV programme last Christmas on the future, John Eatwell, the economist, using sophisticated econometric models, showed Britain's short-run future to be extremely gloomy, even on the most optimistic assumptions. See his book Whatever Happened To Britain? which was shown as a TV series in 1982. Also Bob Beckman, The Downwave (1982), for a pro-capitalist holocaustic view of the future. Note than neither of these authors introduces the problem of world war into the analysis.
6. This has been evident since at least 1982. The following articles from the Guardian show that it continues to be a serious problem: 'US steel firm acts to cut import limits' (18th November 1983); 'Europe and US in steel clash' (8th Feb.1984); 'Transatlantic trade friction growing' (27th Feb. 1984). The last article shows that the trade disputes are general and affect food, textiles and other goods.
7. Guardian 5th April 1983 'Lazard Bros steel cuts proposal is agreed'.
8. Who's Who and Directory of Directors. Adamson was also director of Richard Thomas and Baldwins from 1959-'69 and held important positions on State steel bodies.
9. Guardian (19th May 1984) 'Lazard Bros. together again'. Although it seems likely that the three groups co-operated throughout their existence, this greater pooling of finance suggests a closing of the ranks in the face of world economic collapse, a phenomenon we meet throughout this article.
10. Lazard Freres is "part of the French empire of the holding company Eurafrance, which controls insurance companies, property companies, television rentals, and other banks; but David-Weill now spends most of his time in New York, where the Lazard connection is even more wide-ranging." Anthony Sampson The Money Lenders (1981) p240
11. See Charles Levinson's Vodka-Cola (1978) "Meyer provided the link between the Rockefeller family and the French banks..Lazard Freres was the largest shareholder in the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, which opened a branch in New York called Paris-bas Corporation. Directed by Robert Craft, vice-president of the Chase-Manhattan, it numbered Andre Meyer, David Rockefeller and John McCloy, former president of the World Bank, among its members." Meyer was president of the New York Lazards and Chase-Manhattan is a Rockefeller vehicle. The magazine Lords of the Realm (now defunct) in the 2nd and final issue (1983) numbered Lazards in New York as one of the five major Rockefeller allies.
12. Details from Standard and Poor's Register 1982
13. See Who Owns Whom and Extel
14. Fairey manufactures bridges and trackways. In 1934 the Union of Democratic Control published a booklet The Secret International which described Fairey as "the most important firm manufacturing military aeroplanes", but the document named Vickers as the most important arms firm of the day. Fairey, as we shall see, is connected to the Lazards group, but Vickers is no longer the king pin. The defence industry must change with the times, and British Aerospace is now at the heart of Britain's weapons programme. See War Lords - CIS Report on the UK Arms Industry (1982)
15. The 1979 report of Rolls Royce shows that Lazards' chairman and Rolls chairman Ian Fraser, was the largest shareholder of Rolls' shares of all the directors, by a long chalk. It should also be noted that the chairman and other directors of Vickers have wide-ranging interests and are not necessarily members of the Pearson-Lazards group. Their connections include Lloyds, RTZ, Toronto Dominion Bank, Hill Samuel and Shell. One of them, Sir Alistair Frame, also born in Scotland, chief executive and deputy chairman of RTZ, director of the electronics firm Plessey, Toronto Dominion Bank and Britoil, and a director of the UK Atomic Energy Authority from 1964-68 was actually tipped to become the next chairman of BSC after MacGregor (Guardian 18th February 1983), but the unknown Bob Haslam got the job instead. Compare Frame's connections with those of MacGregor outlined in part 2 of this article.
16. The firms which combined to form GEC have strong Lazards connections. In 1931 Napiers was bought by Lazards and in 1937 Lord Brand of Lazards was a director of the company. In 1929 Lazards (then owned 50% by Pearson and 50% by David-Weill) gained 60% of English Electric's shares and in 1942 took over Napiers. The Morgan group owned 46% of AEI's shares and 34% of GEC's in the 1920s and 30s but in 1935, 400,000 shares in GEC were sold by the Americans to a group headed by Lazards. AEI was merged with GEC in 1967 and English Electric joined the fold in 1968. Lord Kindersley of Lazards was a director of GEC from 1968-1970. See R. Jones and 0. Marriott Anatomy of a Merger (1970)
17. Lord Netherthorpe of Lazards is a director. Lazards arranged the finance for Babcock's building of a power station in Zimbabwe in 1982. Babcock is deeply involved in building nuclear power stations in Britain and elsewhere.
18. lan Frazer, Lazards' chairman, is a director of Davy. Lazards were lead managers in a $1 billion issue for the company in 1982. Davy is an engineering and contracting firm which builds plants for a variety of industrial processes. Both Davy and Babcock hint at the origins of the Pearson empire which was built by Weetman Pearson, the first Lord Cowdray, on the basis of large-scale contract engineering work throughout the world.
19. Ian Fraser is a director of BOC.
20. Kindersley (see above) is a director of Wilkinson, as is S. H. Wright of Lazards.
21. Lord Netherthorpe of Lazards is deputy chairman of Dalgety; Lt. Col. C.P. Dawney and J.A. Turner of Lazards are former directors. Dalgety is a conglomerate mainly involved in foodstuffs.
22. Dawney (see 21) is chairman, and E. W. Phillips of Lazards is a director of Phoenix, which owns 12.98% of Vickers preference stock at time of merger.
23. Kindersley is director and ex-chairman of Guardian Royal which owned 5.5% of preference stock and 5.12% of preference stock of Vickers at time of merger.
24. Kindersley is director of Sun Alliance. Sir Peter Matthews, chairman of Vickers is also a director of Sun Alliance.
25. Who's Who and Carroll Quigley's The Anglo-American Establishment (1981) p304
26. See D. Sutherland The Land Owners (1968)
27. Anthony Sampson Anatomy of Britain Today (1965)
28. Guardian (4th June 1982) "One important aerospace industry supplier, Fairey, admits that it has cleared the decks in some cases to meet urgent demands from the MOD."
29. See Desmond Young, Member for Mexico (1966); R. O'Connor The Oil Barons (1972); P. Calvert The Mexican Revolution (1968)
30. See Sampson (note 27) p437. It seems to be commonly believed that the Morgan group which dominated American politics and economy from the end of the last century was pushed into second place by the Rockefellers in the 1930s and '40s. According to the US Progressive Labor Party they did this by 'placing their man Roosevelt in the White House and used government projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority to attack Morgan interests.' From their pamphlet Who Rules Britain?
31. Carroll Quigley Tragedy and Hope(1966) pp950-951
32. ibid. Milner apparently refused to become a partner in Morgan Grenfell but did become a member of the London Joint Stock Bank, a precursor to the Midland Bank.
33. ibid. His father, Sir William, was apparently a founder member of the Round Table group.

Quote:Ian MacGregor
Part 2: AMAX and armaments
See also Part 1 in Lobster 5 [previous post]
Ian Macgregor and AMAX

We have followed one of Macgregor's leads into the British Establishment; now we return to the man himself. He was born in 1912 in Kinlochleven and graduated from Glasgow University with a BSc in metallurgical engineering. He was a trainee manager at the British Aluminium Co., worked for William Beardmore Co. in Glasgow, and participated in the Mission of the Ministry of Supply to North America in 1940, where it seems likely that he met Brand and/or Marris. After his wartime service he went on to pursue a business career in the US and became a US citizen. By 1957 he had become Vice President of the Climax Molybdenum Co., which later merged with the American Metal Co. to form AMAX Inc. MacGregor held top positions in AMAX during the 1960s and was Chairman from 1969 to 1977, and honorary chairman from 1977 to 1982.(1)

AMAX (we shall examine its ownership later) is a gigantic mining conglomerate, involved in the extraction and refining of molybdenum, coal (3rd largest producer in the US with a bad reputation for its open-cast mining operations and labour relations), tungsten (2nd largest producer in the US), and copper. It is a major nickel producer in the US and mines/refines lead, silver, cadmium and zinc in Africa (including Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa), and iron ore in Australia. In the latter the company earned itself a very bad reputation for its involvement in destroying the communal lands occupied by the Aboriginals - this involved a massive police presence to prevent opposition from the Aboriginals and trade unionists. (2)

In its 1982 report AMAX claims to be the western world's largest producer of tungsten and this includes major prospects for future mine developments when needed in the Canadian northwest and Great Britain. It has large silver holdings in Honduras and is getting into gold in a big way. It is the 2nd largest magnesium producer in the US and the 3rd largest in the western world. Also, AMAX owns the only nickel refinery in the US.

AMAX is interlocked with the other big multinational mining companies. For example, in Botswana it jointly owns nickel and copper mines together with Anglo-American Corp. (the South African Oppenheimer monopoly), and Charter Consolidated (a big British mining finance company active in South Africa also). AMAX owns 11% of the French Rothschild mining conglomerate Imetal. which has extensive interests in Africa and elsewhere.

The ownership of AMAX is complex and seems to have changed over the years. During the 1930s American Metal Co. became a large copper miner, refiner and smelter. Although it was an independent group it was linked to Morgan, and Morgan was a powerful influence on the major copper producer Kennecott, which was owned by the Guggenheim family. At that time big copper mines had just opened up in what was then called Rhodesia. Two big interconnected groups dominated there. Morgan was well represented in one and the other was controlled by Rhodesian Selection Trust. Since then things have changed several times (3) During the 1960s Selection Trust (described as a British company) owned 11.5% of American Metal Climax and had 4 representatives on the board.(4) By the end of the 1970s Selection Trust had only 8% of AMAX and Standard Oil of California owned 21.7% of the stock. SOCAL tried to take over AMAX completely (offering $4 billion) but were beaten off. (5) By 1983 SOCAL's share of AMAX had fallen to 19.7% but Selection Trust had been taken over by B.P. for $925 million in 1980 and B.P. now owns 6.5% of AMAX. It is also noteworthy that the B.P.-dominated Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO) in America successfully took over the formerly Guggenheim/Morgan preserve, the giant Kennecott Corp. in 1981, so that B.P. now owns what is probably the largest copper producer in the world.

Since SOCAL still owns a major stake in AMAX it is worth looking at the ultimate ownership of SOCAL itself. It is thought by some that no external interests control this company.(6) However, others see a major chunk of this part of the original Rockefeller-Standard Oil empire as being in the hands of the Rockefeller family still (or again). (7) The group is, of course, based in California and has long-standing connections with the banks in that part of America. In particular it has interlocks with the Crocker National Bank. The Crocker family is big in America's largest bank, Bank of America, which is based in San Francisco. (According to SOCAL's 1983 annual report Samuel H. Armacost is a director of SOCAL and president of Bank of America.) But the Crocker National Bank was sold to the Midland Bank group a few years ago. A recent publication lists Midland Bank group, Rockefeller interests and Sarofilm (Fayez) and Co. as the three top shareholders, in that order.(8) Midland, one of Britain's big 4 clearing banks, crops up again, later on.

Ian MacGregor moves in this world of takeover and rivalry and since the end of the 1970s the predatory activities of the giant oil, minerals and financial groups has increased. At the same time as being an inter-industrial reorganisation and rivalry, what has been happening involves both British and American firms. I return to the objectives of this movement that is still going on later, but it undoubtedly involves some kind of rationalisation among the extractive industries. In 1983 it was announced that Charter Consolidated, having divested itself of its interests in Selection Trust, was aiming to take over a loss-making Scottish engineering company, Anderson Strathclyde, which specialises in making long-wall mining equipment for the NCB. The movement also indicates a strong inter-penetration of US and UK capital, as seen with the Midland Bank take-over of Crocker and the BP take-over of Kennecott. American companies have also been moving in on British firms - in 1982 it was announced that Aetna Life and Casualty, the US insurance and pensions giant which has old Morgan connections, was to take over Midland's merchant banking subsidiary, Samuel Montagu.(9)
Ian MacGregor and Armaments

Many of the metals mined and refined by AMAX have military applications. Molybdenum, of which AMAX is the world's leading producer, is used in conjunction with other alloying elements in high-speed cutting tools, propeller shafts, turbine rotors and armour - piercing projectiles etc. Nickel (AMAX is a major producer), which is used to increase steel's toughness, ductility and strength, is used for armour plating and the cycles for its demand follow the fluctuations in demand for armaments - thus demand for nickel rose during World Wars 1 and 2, and during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, falling after these.(10)

International Who's Who lists MacGregor as a director of the Brunswick Corporation which manufactures marine power and recreational equipment (including sports equipment with the 'MacGregor' label), and technical products for various industries, including the defence department of the USA. [This would seemingly connect him to Robert Booth Nichols.] In the latter it is listed as producing aircraft radomes, rocket motor cases, missile and rocket tubes, pressure vessels, transportable shelters, camouflage materials, and other products for defensive systems against chemical/biological warfare etc. I can only speculate here that some of the metals it must use are bought from AMAX. It would be interesting to know if Brunswick Corporation makes parts used in the construction of Cruise missiles. The informed reader will have noted already that Lazards in New York has a directoral interlock with the firm which constructs the Cruise missile, General Dynamics. (11)

MacGregor's connections with the armaments business do not end here. He is listed as having been, among other things, a director of the giant conglomerate LTV which, in 1979, was the 26th largest supplier to the US Dept. of Defence. (12) He is also a director of Atlantic Assets Trust an investment trust which, like many British investment trusts, is based in Scotland and is heavily into US companies. While Atlantic Assets is not big - in 1979 the capital employed totalled £147 million - and most of its holdings are in relatively small companies, and are minority stakes only, it aims at representation on the boards of the companies in which it invests and at some control over their corporate plans for future growth.

About 50% of Atlantic Asset's investments are in the US, 40% in the UK and 5.5% in Canada. (13) In America it has a large share in Shared Medical Systems which is involved in the computer-aided financial management of private hospitals in the US. In the UK it owns about one third of the issued share capital of United Scientific Holdings, an armaments firm manufacturing armoured vehicles, optical and electronic equipment. In August 1981 USH acquired Alvis Ltd., manufacturers of armoured vehicles, from British Leyland. USH is a young company competing with older, larger and more established firms like GKN-Sankey. It seems likely that it is being helped along in some way.

One thing which is interesting here is that MacGregor's career through the British State-owned sector did not begin with his appointment at BSC but with his directorship at British Leyland back in 1975. Under Michael Edwardes, he was Deputy Chairman of BL too, from 1977 till 1980.

BL is, of course, not only a commercial automobile manufacturer but is also involved in the manufacture of military vehicles, though with the loss of Alvis to United Scientific this has probably been reduced a bit. It is also interesting that the chairman of United Scientific, Peter Levene, who has stated that his company is "run like a dictatorship ... I'm the dictator" (14), was appointed in January this year to work as an unpaid adviser to Michael Heseltine, the Defence Secretary, for 6 months to help improve the management of the Defence Ministry.(15) Many of Atlantic Assets' other investments are in high-tech firms (including Cable and Wireless), but it also has shares in Pennzoil, which as well as owning oil and mining interests owns molybdenum mines, and Teck Corporation, based in Canada, which owns a copper-molybdenum mine and mines silver, gold and other minerals, as well as oil and gas. (16)

Before we finish with MacGregor's armaments connections we can note one other interesting fact which further indicates the social milieu in which he moves. We have noted the Midland Bank connection via Socal with AMAX. One of the directors of Midland, Sir John Cuckney, was a director of Lazards from 1964-70. With an impressive set of connections both within business and in the service of the State, Cuckney is currently chairman of the Thomas Cooke group and of Brook Bond, and also of the engineering group John Brown. He has been a director of the Midland Bank since 1978 and of the Royal Insurance since 1979. His most interesting State appointment is as chairman of the International Military Services - the government's undercover arms sales organisation, the sole overseas representative for the weapons manufactured at Royal Ordnance factories - where he has been since 1974. He has also been governor for the Centre for International Briefing at Farnham Castle since 1974. (17)
Ian MacGregor - a man of prudence and principles?

Since Ian MacGregor came to Britain he has made it clear that the giant firms he has been put in control of must be made to "balance their books". The implication, forcefully promoted by the 'monetarist' Thatcher, is that the nationalised industries don't work and privatisation is necessary. But, as we have seen, a massive rationalisation movement has been going throughout the capitalist economies affecting firms whether they be private or State-controlled. Multinational monsters like IT and T have been divided up; indeed, it was Lazards of New York which enabled IT and T to grow big in the 1960s and after - this is an aspect of Lazards in New York we have not covered, though IT and T's involvement in the coup in Chile is well known. (18) Ideological arguments are spouted to justify the large-scale plunder that is taking place, but monetarism is merely a facade behind which the giant firms and the financial empires of which they are a part seize the remaining profitable areas of an economy which is sinking deeper into depression.

The effect of the recession is felt nowhere more deeply among the business community than in the minerals sector. According to one publication produced by Lloyds Bank:

"The full impact of the recession hit the minerals sector in early 1982. The metals sector, being the most sensitive to business cycles, moved into a deep trough. With key industries such as housing, construction and motors depressed, production cutbacks were necessary through temporary and some permanent mine closures." (19)

During the 1960s the metals firms were operating at full tilt. AMAX grew tremendously in the 1970s under MacGregor. He transformed the firm from one that was primarily concerned with copper and molybdenum into the mining conglomerate that it is today. Replying to critics who accused him of over-borrowing, MacGregor is said to have replied:

"I don't care what the balance sheet looks like, I'm going to acquire natural resources and someday they'll be valuable." (20)

MacGregor is, therefore, a man of the times. In the boom he is a big spender, speculating on the possibility that demand will exist in the future; in the depression he calls for cuts and pretends to be a paragon of prudence. At the same time, he and his colleagues search for ways in which to increase the demand for metals. The new technologies involving microprocessors are, however, not big enough to satisfy the enormous capacity set up at great cost by the minerals moguls in the post-war years. It has become increasingly clear to them that their only salvation is an increased demand for armaments. This demand is presently being supplied by Western governments. Civilisation rests of metals, but society's capacity to produce metals has outgrown ordinary consumer needs and they have become inextricably bound up with the production of arms.

AMAX in 1982 was operating the molybdenum end of its empire at less than half capacity. At the beginning of this year it agreed to form a joint venture with Britoil PLC to explore and develop offshore and onshore oil in the US. While this further underlines the close connections which this company has with British business it also shows how badly in the red AMAX is, since it has been argued that the deal was done merely as a means of raising cash to cover its short-term debt. (21)

MacGregor has no qualms about whom he deals with. In April 1983 while chairman of BSC and chairman elect of the NCB, MacGregor flew out to Moscow. His visit to the "evil empire" was "aimed to boost exports of steel and steel products to the Soviet Union." (22) His recent expressions of outrage at the National Union of Mineworkers' contacts with Libya should be viewed in this light.

There is a lot more to say about MacGregor and his connections (23) but it seems clear from all this that he is part of a shadowy network of highly-placed people, allied with other groups (some of which have not been mentioned here) which together dominate the British economy and aim to squeeze the last dregs out of it for themselves. In the process they are intent on building a more authoritarian regime in Britain, a regime which will allow them to push Britain into a more aggressive and war-like stance, one that would secure vast profits for the arms manufacturers and the banks, investment trusts and suppliers which surround them.

E. H.

AMAX personnel

Looking at the board of AMAX (Standard and Poor's 1984 and Who's Who in Finance and Industry) we find that at least 4 of its directorate are Republicans and none of them claim to be Democrats. Of these 4, one is none other than Gerald Ford, ex-President. Ford is also a director of the Twentieth Century Fund (since 1981) and American Express (since 1982) He also sits on the board of Shearson, Loeb, Roades Inc. A former partner of this firm, which is now merged under American Express and called Shearson/American Express, is C.M. Loeb who was on AMAX from 1932 and held several important positions in the firm. C.M. Loeb Jnr. is listed as a director of AMAX.

Pierre Gousseland, currently chairman and president of AMAX, is French by birth and education and arrived in America in 1948, 8 years after MacGregor. He joined AMAX a year later. He is also a director of American International Gp Inc and French American Banking Corporation (in which the Banque International de Paris appears to dominate). He is also a member of the British Iron and Steel Institute.

Another AMAX director, J.D. Bonney, was born in Blackpool in 1930 and joined AMAX in the sixties. Between 1959 and 1960 he worked for Iraq Petroleum Co, owned by Shell, B.P. and other oil companies. More significantly for us he has been vice president of SOCAL since 1972 (SOCAL Europe, that is.) Since SOCAL owns about 20% of AMAX it is not surprising that two other names listed in AMAX reports show interlocks with SOCAL - till 1983, Perrin Fay, V.P. of SOCAL and, till 1984, Sellers Stough, another SOCAL vice president.

NOTES

1. International Who's Who 1983/4
2. Information on AMAX is from Everybody's Business 1980 edited by Moskowitz, Katz and Levering. Information on AMAX in Australia from the magazine Natural Peoples' News, No 5 Spring 1981

AMAX is also involved in gold and silver extraction in Mexico and Central America and in many other mineral resources including phosphates and sulphuric acid.
3. See Anna Rochester Rulers of America pp166 -169. Rhodesian Selection Trust was owned by the American Metal Co.
4. D.M. Kotz Bank Control of Large Corporations in the US (1978)
5. Everybody's Business (above note 2)
6. For example, see Kotz, above.
7. Everybody's Business (above)
8. Berry, Wood and Preusch: Dollars and Dictators: A Guide to Central America Zed Press, 1983
9. Times 19 January 1983 'Take-over battle that rocked the City'
10. McDivitt and Manners Minerals and Men (1974) This work was sponsored by Resources for the Future, of which MacGregor is a director.
11. Details on Brunswick are from Standard and Poor's. Information on Cruise builders from Guardian 12 July 1980, by Michael Getler.
12. Everybody's Business (above)
13. See Hambro Company Guide and Extel Investment Trust Yearbook 1983
14. See Extel and McCarthy cards. Levene quote from Guardian 1 May 1984. Note that as MacGregor came to work in Britain in 1975 he was, like De Lorean, brought over by a Labour government.
15. Financial Times 22 November 1983
16. Penzoil information from Standard and Poor's. Teck information from Rowe and Pitman Qrtly Report, Base Metal and Coal, January 1982
17. Who's Who 1983, also War Lords (CIS Report)
18. On ITT see Sampson's The Sovereign State (1973)
19. Lloyd's Bank Group, Canada Economic Report 1984
20. Everybody's Business (above) p 547
21. Guardian 7 February 1984 and 6 February 1984
22. Guardian 26 April 1983
23. I want to mention only one other here. Who's Who In Finance in Industry lists MacGregor as a director of Resources for the Future. This is a group set up to tackle the problems arising from economic growth - eg pollution, urban expansion and so on. Opposing itself to the 'Limits to Growth' school, it promotes what it calls 'technological optimism' which boils down to finding arguments to justify fast-breeder reactors and so on. The organisation is financed and was set up by the Ford Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Board. It also receives substantial grants from the Rockefeller Foundation.

David Guyatt Wrote:The Deros story is very reminiscent of the Agartha myth and I very much suspect that is actually the true root of it. If that is the case then we are looking at the same general occult grouping that sits around Martinism or splinter groups thereof.