Richard McGarrah Helms

[David Guyatt]

John Kerry’s Ties to Bankers Trust

You will recall that Landon Thorne, Sr. worked out of an office at the White & Case law firm, located in the Bankers Trust Building at 14 Wall Street, and that his son—father of John Kerry’s wife Julia—spent his entire career at Bankers Trust. In 1966, in fact, John Kerry designated his fiancee Julia Thorne as a beneficiary of his Navy life insurance, with her address as 14 Wall Street. He and Julia were married in 1970, shortly before her twin brother began grooming Kerry for his first run for Congress. Her father died in 1980. In 1988 she divorced Kerry—the same year the Senator issued the “Kerry Report” on Iran-Contra, in which he covered up the Mena drug-smuggling [subject of Terry Reed's book, Compromised, about the Clintons' involvement in Mena] that helped pay for the arms sent to Nicaragua. [15] We have never found out the entire truth of that operation.

Linda, we're like a double-act. Hopefully a good one though.

On White & Case, boy did I have some fun chasing down that firm. The following is extracted from Project Hammer Reloaded:

THE EMPIRE STATE CONNECTION

During his April 2000 deposition, just days before his death from cancer, Brigadier-General Erle Cocke, when asked about the overall objective of Project Hammer, replied:
Well, it was mainly to bring back monies to the United States from all types of activities, both legitimately and illegitimately. Not that they were in the smuggling business per se, but they were all in the arms business, they were all retracing dollars of one description or another that had accumulated all through the ’40s and ’50s, really. And that probably is as broad a definition as I can give you
General Cocke then added that involvement in Project Hammer extended to:
the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies of all types, Pentagon in the broad sense of it and as such, the Treasury, Federal Reserve. Nobody got out of the act, everybody wanted to get in on the act." 5
Cocke’s involvement with clandestine CIA activities dates back many years. At the very least, he is known to have been involved with the CIA’s Nugan Hand Bank. For example, US Treasury records obtained by veteran journalist and author Jonathan Kwitny show Cocke as the registered "person in charge" of Nugan Hand’s Washington office. 6

Cocke also indicated in his affidavit that he was regularly contacted by the CIA for expert assistance over the years and was usually debriefed by them following overseas travel. Despite this, a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA made on behalf of this writer was dismissed with the statement that "no records responsive to your request were located" --which is not entirely the same thing as saying that no records exist. 7

It also appears that the CIA is not the only one that cares to deny knowledge of General Cocke. Another is former Citibank CEO and Chairman John Reed, who, in a sworn affidavit dated 5 December 2000, stated he had "no knowledge of any persons named Erle Cocke, Jr, or Barrie D. Wamboldt". Both the CIA and Citibank’s John Reed hold at least one major advantage over General Cocke: they are alive and he is dead; and while it is true that the dead can’t lie, it is also true that they can’t rebut anyone’s testimony--sworn or otherwise. 8

In his deposition, Cocke states that although he had never "met" John Reed, he had attempted on numerous occasions to speak with him, but was continually rejected:
We did our best to make the normal approaches, but I can see the President of the United States with no trouble. I cannot see Reed. 9
The "we" Cocke was referring to, besides himself, was Paul Green, a "long-time real estate lawyer in New York" with "50 years practice", who "had done most of his real estate dealings through Citibank".10 Green also did some of his banking business with Citibank at its Fifth Avenue, New York, branch under account FOCUS #946 963 94.

According to Cocke, Paul Green was an outside counsel for Citibank and went back "30-odd years with large transactions through that bank, buying and selling big buildings. He was very much involved buying and selling the Empire State Building one time." 11 Asked if Green was involved in the purchase and sale of collateral instruments, Cocke replied:
Probably not as an individual. But he represented the clients that certainly wanted to do the same thing. 12
News in late March 2003 revealed that the Empire State Building had just been sold by casino king Donald Trump and the heirs of shady Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi for US$57.5 million. Yokoi (who, at the time, was serving a prison sentence and had secretly negotiated the transaction through a middleman) and his partner Trump had gained ownership of the building in 1991 for US$42 million. Little is known about Yokoi’s World War II activities.

The building last changed hands four decades earlier in 1961, when it was acquired by real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley from the Prudential Insurance Company in a sale-leaseback deal. The world-renowned skyscraper was built on land owned by the Astor family and sold to the DuPonts in 1929.

Construction of the Empire State Building began in 1930. John Jacob Astor was one of the first Americans to become involved in the opium trade, from which his later fortune derived. This he invested in Manhattan real estate. The architects of the Empire State Building were Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates --designers of One Bankers Trust Plaza, the HQ of Bankers Trust, together with the Credit Lyonnais building in New York City.

It is of more than passing interest that one law firm represents many of the "actors" who appear in this story. That firm is White & Case. Amongst numerous notable achievements listed on its website background/history is its representation of the DuPont Group in its sale of the Empire State Building in 1954 for the princely sum of US$51.5 million.

As we noted earlier, almost 40 years later, in 1991, the building sold for the less than princely sum of US$42 million. I am not certain how the real estate investors define investment performance over the years, but an aggregate loss of US$9.5 million over the course of 37 years doesn’t usually constitute an investment accomplishment by any standard I know.13

Meanwhile, a brief review of White & Case’s client list tell us that they also represented,
the First National Bank (the forerunner of Citibank)
Astor Trust Company 14
Prudential
J. P. Morgan & Co.
Saudi Aramco
Swiss Bank Corporation
Seagram Company Ltd of Canada, controlled by the Bronfman family --regarded by some as the kings of the Canadian mafia 15
But White & Case’s most "enduring" client is Bankers Trust Company, a J. P. Morgan-controlled bank which the law firm was "centrally involved" in forming back in 1903.

The ancestor of all trust companies is England’s Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, which dates back to 1868 and was conceived by one of the foremost legal minds of the day, Lord Westbury. The current Lord Westbury, Richard Bethell, will appear later in this story.

And on the Lord Westbury angle, the following too:

Richard Bethel – elevated to Lord Westbury following the recent death of his father – was a former SAS and Scots Guards officer and, like Alan Shepherd, an Old Harrovian. The Hart Group of which he is the Chief Executive officer, is one of a number of companies that form the Global Marine Security Systems Company (GMSSCO). If one is a distinct cynic – as this writer has become – it would be easy to conclude that a marked similarity in structure exists between GMSSCO and Rolf van Rooyen’s South African “Eastcorp Syndicate” that was closely allied with the “London Network” of Executive Outcomes. For example, companies belonging to the Eastcorp syndicate also had a maritime and security theme.

But the similarity doesn’t end there. Lord Westbury, is currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Defence Systems Limited which, as we have already seen, is an integral member of the London “network” of the Palace Group (named so because of its close proximity to the Royal family’s official London residence, Buckingham Palace).[65] Moreover, Executive Outcomes has been described as “the advance guard for major business interests engaged in a latter-day scramble for the mineral wealth of Africa."[66] This is a particularly incisive description when readers of part one of this series will recall that one aspect of Project Hammer apparently involved the disappearance of substantial quantities of gold reserves as well as stocks of De Beers diamonds, just prior to the takeover of the Republic of South Africa in 1994 by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. This theft has become known as “Apartheid’s missing billions.”

Defence Systems Limited have a client list that comes straight from the top-drawer and includes oil and gas companies like British Petroleum, Shell, British Gas of the UK and “Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil and Texaco of the United States.” Major mining and mineral extraction companies such as Canada’s Cambior and De Beers and Anglo American of South Africa and the giant US construction firm of Bechtel also feature.

Another client is Canadian based Ranger Oil, which by happy coincidence, is the same name as an entity that forms part of the Palace Group and which is run by arms trader Mick Ranger. By miraculous good fortune, Mick Ranger was also a board member of Bridge S A, which was one of the entities formed and run by Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander. Meanwhile, Sandline, which many knowledgeable insiders believe is Executive Outcomes by another name, has a client base that includes Rio Tinto Zinc.

DSL is now owned by Armor Holdings Inc of Jacksonville, Florida, but is still headquartered in London. This affiliation seems, on the face of it, to be a particularly binding one for Armor Holdings is said to have its very own US spook-type “network.”[67] The senior executives of Armor Holdings are predominantly bankers of one strain or another. Take, for example, Thomas W. Strauss, formerly a vice chairman of Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank that was once minority owned by the Oppenheimer’s Anglo-American & De Beers strategic holding company Minorco.[68] Until 1993, Salomon’s owned the controlling interest in Bank of New York, which as you will recall, is the current affiliated clearing bank of Gregory Serras’s Vanguard Capital. Today, Salomon’s is owned by Citigroup.[69]

We might also mention Armor Holdings director, Burtt R Ehrlich, whose family securities firm, Ehrlich and Boger is owned by Cater Allen Bank of the Channel Islands and which specialises in “offshore finance.” Likewise, Nicholas Sokolow, formerly a partner in the Wall Street firm of Coudert Brothers, and Warren B Canders, a former senior vice president of Orion Bank Ltd – a merchant bank owned by the Royal Bank of Canada.

A subsidiary of Armor Holdings is the very shadowy United States Defense Systems Inc (USDS) that on paper is based in Chantilly, Virginia. However, its real operating headquarters are Manassas, Virginia. Staff recruited by USDS are usually former military types or specialists with criminal intelligence backgrounds possessing surveillance skills. They are usually told they will be working in support of Department of Defense programmes and require a DoD security clearance. Operations have, in the past, included surveillance of US citizens during Fourth of July at Capitol Mall in DC.[70]

A Google internet search using the search term “Armor Holdings Inc revealed a curious message dated September 2001 from an aggrieved investor who wanted to know:

I'm horrified to find one of my investments is in a company with links to Bin Laden. Apparently it is common knowledge in London that a senior figure in Armor, Ambrose Cary has familial ties to Bin Laden and uses those in his work. How can it be allowed that a US company providing security to US companies, embassies and airports round the world can deal simultaneously with this type of person? Does anyone else have further information on this?

And further on White & Case:

White & Case: No doubt by sheer coincidence alone, the Marcos account at Southeast Bank held by Roberto Benedicto was a “White & Case Trust” account (number 018-410191). It may also have been mere coincidence that Peter Seaman’s and Stuart Root’s attorney Kenneth C Ellis – who was the registered addressee at Southeast Bank building for the Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation – is also listed on the White & Case website as a Partner of that firm who specialises in financial matters and who now works out of their Singapore office.

The foregoing just goes to show that once you lever up the iron lid that covers the underground sewers, the tunnels thereby revealed lead absolutely everywhere.

Edit = PS, Linda, I just read the above again. Actually I didn't interview Cocke,he was dead by the time I came along. But I did acquire the 68-page affidavit he made shortly prior to his death - a sort of "going way" present, I think. I also acquired various other paperwork from him and about him. I wanted to interview his wife but that didn't happen, unfortunately. I did put in a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA about him, but they seemed unable to locate any information pursuant to my request. :lollypop: I also had a copy of the affidavit made by Citibank CEO and Chairman John Reed. Most curiously I thought, he also didn't appear to know Cocke either.

When connected people die, those around seem to instantly forget they ever knew them.