The History of AIG (Part I)

[Linda Minor]

[COLOR="Blue"]

The History of AIG (Part I)

Cornelius V. Starr was born at Fort Bragg, California in 1892. His father was also named Cornelius Starr, but he died in 1895, according to the son's passport applications in 1919 and 1921, which state that his father had been born in Illinois. C.V.'s mother, interestingly enough, was named Frances Arabelle Starr aka Belle Starr, who had been born in Tennessee in 1868. Census records indicate that in 1910 Belle was head of the house where she lived in the timber logging area of Ten Mile River in northern California's Mendocino County, where her mother and brother, Frances and William J. Hart (age 36 and a machinist at a railroad shop), lived with her, as well as a widower named Thomas Shelton and his two sons. As an occupation, she merely listed "own income," whereas Shelton indicated he was a "tree marker" in the woods. Most of the neighbors in the area were employed in the timber industry that monopolized Mendocino County at that time.

Ten years earlier (1900) the head of household was her husband, John B. Starr, possibly her first (deceased) husband's brother. John had been born in Illinois to Dutch parents in 1873 and listed his occupation as "hotel keeper." There was also Benjamin Starr, two years older than C.V. and John, four years younger, born one year after C.V.'s father had died. At that same time her future "husband," Shelton, was also living in Fort Bragg (Ten Mile River) with his wife Grace and their two sons--Clarence and George--and working as a bartender.

In 1919, when she applied for a passport to go to Japan, she lived at 1204 Grand Street in Alameda, CA., the same address given for her son John, who signed an affidavit for his brother's passport, giving his occupation as "engineer." Her next passport application in 1923 gave an address of 2469 55th Avenue in Oakland, southeast of the previous address. See google map (at http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ei=m-n...e&resnum=1) and zoom out to get a good overview of this area:
Note that Alameda Naval Air Station is very close to both addresses.
The campus of UC Berkeley is just to the north.
See also the island in San Francisco Bay just west of Oakland called "Treasure Island."

http://www.think-aboutit.com/conspiracy/...MANSON.htm
MAE BRUSSELL: Now, we're going to talk briefly about Charles Manson and Charles Watson, and the implications in this particular case, and how I follow it and why it's of interest to me. Because every case beyond what the news media tells you, you're looking for facts. You're looking–like in the Oswald case, they tell you that Oswald was a communist, or he was a misfit in society. But then when I see my documents, that he had cameras and walkie-talkies, and electronic devices, security clearances–then I want to know more about Lee Harvey Oswald. And I want to know more about Charles Manson because he was thirty-two and did spend twenty-two years of his life in jail.

Now a prominent attorney by the name of George Shibley who works with groups in the Middle East–in Beverly Hills, has powerful connections–met with Charles Manson just before he got out of jail in Treasure Island. And no one will know what conversation transpired between Mr. Shibley, or why he was up there. Or why Charles Manson is unknown, this illegitimate child of a sixteen year-old girl, no family or kin. No one would know how Charles Manson would get such a famous Beverly Hills attorney to visit him before he's paroled. No one will ever know the conversation that transpired between those men. But what we do know is that when Charles Manson got out of Treasure Island in 1967, at the height of the Haight Ashbury scene, he got a bus, a large bus–and he did not buy it. He did not have a job, and he had credit cards for gasoline. Now in the trial some subject was made up that one of the girls stole a credit card from her family to buy Charley gasoline. I am sure the parents would have had him arrested before long; you can't go for two years on a stolen credit card. Charley was never arrested. And one of the questions in one of the articles I have is, it simply said: He had a credit card. And in order to do a study of a covert operation, or a murder, or a simple murder: who paid the gasoline for Charley Manson?

Let's pause here and try to figure out whether Mae was correct in what she was saying. According to Wiki, Treasure Island:

is entirely within the City and County of San Francisco, whose territory extends far into San Francisco Bay and to the tip of the island of Alameda, California. Built by the federal government, Treasure Island was planned for and used as an airport for Pan American Airline's Pacific Rim service of flying boats, of which the China Clipper is an example. After the World's Fair 1939–40 exhibition, the island was scheduled to be used as an airport when the Navy offered to exchange Mills Field on the San Francisco Peninsula near the city of Millbrae for the island. The City and County of San Francisco accepted the swap, and the airport was built at Mills Field. During World War II, Treasure Island became part of the Treasure Island Naval Base, and served largely as an electronics and radio communications training school, and as the major Navy departure point for sailors in the Pacific. In 1996, Treasure Island and the Presidio Army Base were decommissioned and opened to public control, under stipulations. Treasure Island is now part of District 6 of the City and County of San Francisco, though it is still owned by the Navy.

Where did Mae get the information that Manson was locked up at Treasure Island? He had previously been at Terminal Island near Los Angeles; then later at McNeil Island in Washington State, from which he was, according to Bugliosi in Helter Skelter, transferred in June 1966 to Terminal Island for release. "He was released at 8:15 a.m. on March 21, 1967, and given transportation to Los Angeles. That same day he requested and received permission to go to San Francisco. It was there, in the Haight-Ashbury section, that spring, that the Family was born."

Ed Sanders says in The Family:

After five years at McNeil Island, several friends of Manson, "prison lawyers"--prisoners with legal expertise--worked out a legal maneuver whereby on June 29, 1966, Charlie was transferred from McNeil Island, Washington, to Terminal Island prison in San Pedro, California near Los Angeles. Probably it was felt that he stood a better chance of early release at Terminal Island. At Terminal Island Manson really began to prepare for operation superstar. He spent the better part of a year there. Friends remember him as being fanatically dedicated to music and singing....Phil Kaufman, in jail on a federal marijuana charge,...gave Manson the name of a person at Universal Studios in Hollywood where Manson, in late '67, would record his songs.

So what happened between March and late 1967? Sanders is totally at odds with Bugliosi here. Sanders says:
At first, Charlie walked around and rode buses in Los Angeles for about three days after leaving Terminal Island. Then he went north to Berkeley to visit some friends he had met in prison....He spent time at the University of California Berkeley campus with his guitar....[At UC campus] he met slim, red-haired Mary Brunner of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin who was working at the library at the U.C. Also working in Berkeley then, at the U.C. Art Museum, was Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger Coffee Company fortune....A young redhead named Lynne Fromme joined Mary Brunner as addition number two to the inner circle of ladies....picked up near the beach in Venice...Redondo Beach...spring and summer of 1967...636 Cole in Haight Ashbury....

Mary Brunner kept her job at the library, and her address in Berkeley was the one given to Manson's parole officer...In July of 1967 he was picked up by a man named the Rev. Dean Morehouse, who took him home to San Jose, where he met his wife and fourteen-year-old daughter, Ruth Ann aka Ouish. Manson's tale of meeting Morehouse, told to a lawyer during his later trial for murder, was that Rev. Morehouse, driving a pickup truck, picked Charlie up and kicked off a friendship of great duration. Until Morehouse a year or so later would be sent to prison for forking over LSD to a thirteen-year-old girl.

Manson admired a piano at the Morehouse home, and the reverend gave it to him. Manson spotted a Volkswagen van in Morehouse's neighborhood and made a deal to trade the piano for it. Morehouse brought the piano over in his truck, and Manson owned a 1961 microbus bearing the license plat CSY 087.

At the end of July 1967 the troupe traveled to the Mendocino coast north of Frisco where Mary Brunner became pregnant....On July 28, 1967, Manson was arrested in Mendocino County for trying to come to the aid of a runaway being apprehended by the police. The runaway was Ouish, the daughter of Reverend and Mrs. Morehouse, whom Manson had enticed into joining his voyage. The parents had sent the fuzz after him, and he received a suspended sentence.

The girls were detailed well at a website under the the title of Charles Manson & Family, but nothing explains how Charlie really got to San Francisco and why he took a trip to Mendocino County, where C.V. Starr was born.[/COLOR]

[Jan Klimkowski]

According to Mae Brussell, Shibley was involved in Sirhan Sirhan's trial, see post 11 at the thread linked below:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...1#post5751

Now this same Lawrence Schiller is the man who gave Sue Atkins a $150,000 to turn the state's evidence to say that Manson masterminded the murders. She made $150,000. It was described as an unusual legal trick. Joseph Ball, who worked with the Warren Commission, was with parties involved in the Sharon Tate massacre. George Shibley, who worked with Sirhan–and McKissick was in his office–they worked with the Sirhan case. They were in on the Sharon Tate case. The lawyers overlap.

[Carol Thompson]

Clement James Smith and Helen Bruce Cleveland met in 1919, while both were in Siberia working for the Red Cross. She was the daughter of Mrs. Ralph Dwinel Cleveland of New York City. After marrying, they planned to reside in Shanghai, China. (Red Cross Workers Abroad to Wed. New York Times, Jun. 17, 1920; Miss Cleveland Weds C.J. Smith. New York Times, Jul. 2, 1920.) He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Smith of Alameda, Cal. (Red Cross Worker Back From Siberia. Oakland Tribune, Jun. 20, 1920.) They lived in the Orient for 18 years before returning to San Francisco in 1938. Four years later they bought a house in the suburb of Hillsborough. Mr. Smith was president of American International Underwriters. (Chat and Comment. San Mateo Times, Jul. 14, 1942.) "1920 was a momentous year for Smith, who that year joined C.V. Starr and the American Asiatic Underwriters. He worked and traveled in China for seven years, spent a year in New York, and then returned to Shanghai where he and his wife decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives. The couple did build a home in Shanghai in 1932, but he returned to the United States four years later to help in the reorganization of the United States Life Insurance Company as chairman of the AIU Corporation. During World War II, he was an expert on China with "Wild Bill" Donovan. In 1945, Smith, Merv Griffin Sr. (the father of the TV personality), Kemper Smith, and Robert Koshland formed the Ascot Tennis Club on Smith's private courts. He was a co-founder [with C.V. Starr] of the Mount Mansfield Corporation which developed the ski resort at Stowe, Vt. He was a member of the "Totem Sun" Camp of the Bohemian Grove. (Ascot Tennis Club Founder Is Honored on His Birthday. Talk of the Times, by Mary Jane Clinton. San Mateo Times, Nov. 21, 1971.) He gave $1 million to Mills Hospital in San Mateo, and another $1 million to the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation at the Pacific Medical Center. (Magnate Gives Another Million to Medicine. Modesto Bee and News, Feb. 20, 1973.) He died a few weeks later. (Peninsula Benefactor Dies at 78. San Mateo Times, Mar. 8, 1973.)


Helen C. Smith died in 1957. (Deaths. San Mateo Times, Jul. 20.) Her father, Raph Dwinel Cleveland (b. 1851) was traveling auditor of Illinois for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad until 1885. He married Aurora Eustis of Milton, Mass., the daughter of Alexander Brooks Eustis and Aurora Grelaud. They lived in Burlington, Iowa until 1885, then Minneapolis, and Chicago in the 1890s. His brother, Henry Russell Cleveland, was a submarine engineer in Colombia in 1880. After Henry's wife, Carmen Sanchez, died in 1894, their children lived in Chicago with their grandfather, Horace William Shaler Cleveland. (The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families, Vol. 2. By Edward James Cleveland. The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1899, p. 1770.)

http://www.archive.org/details/genealogyofcleve02clev

Ralph D. Cleveland's grandfather was the China sea captain and capitalist, Richard Jeffry Cleveland (1773-1860), of Salem, Mass., who worked for Elias H. Derby and made his first voyage in 1792. He knew Thomas H. Perkins from those days, and met James Perkins [Jr.] in 1806. Later, William Shaler was his business partner. He founded a prep school at Lancaster, Mass. whose first teacher was Jared Sparks, later President of Harvard. He reportedly "never used tobacco in any form." He lived in Burlington, N.J. until 1854, when he moved to Danvers, Mass. to live with his son. (Voyages of a Merchant Navigator of the Days that are Past. By Richard Jeffry Cleveland and Horace William Shaler Cleveland. Harper, 1886, p. 238.)

http://www.archive.org/details/voyagesof...00clevuoft

Ralph D. Cleveland's uncle, Henry Russell Cleveland, married James Perkins Jr.'s daughter, Sarah Paine Perkins, in 1838. (Marriages. Boston Atlas, Feb. 3, 1838; Cleveland - Perkins Family Papers. From Eliza Callahan Cleveland. New York Public Library.) Henry and his older brother, Richard J. Cleveland, both graduated from Harvard in 1827. Richard was a pioneering settler in Olin, Iowa. (Commencement. New York Spectator, Sep. 7, 1827; Obituary. Boston Daily Advertiser, Sep. 12, 1877.)

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rb...erkins.pdf

[Linda Minor]

According to a 1966 syndicated story by Ken McKenna in the Herald Tribune Service:

Cornelius V. Starr is probably the most dedicated skiing businessman. A man of scattered interests, he built his fortune in China as owner of the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, was deported in 1940 and returned to expand his wealth through insurance investments.

He began skiing at 47 and was attracted to the Stowe-
Mount Mainsfield area of Vermont by its dependable winter
conditions. Over the years, he financed construction of ski lifts, gradually boosted his investment past $2 million, acquired the majority interest in a Mt. Mansfield hotel, the mountain highway, an elaborate inn and 3,000 acres of mountainside.
But his enchantment with skiing stops short of bad business procedures. He once told a friend: "I've never put more into Mt. Mansfield than I can afford to lose."

The short version of his rise to riches is found at http://www.earnshaw.com/shanghai-ed-indi...rtune2.htm
in "Tales of old Shanghai - Library - Fortune magazine Jan 1935":

Born in Fort Bragg, California, switched to insurance, joined the Army, caught the wanderlust,
got a job with Pacific Mail S. S. Co., arrived in shanghai in 1919 as stenographer with 300 Japanese yen in his pocket. Destiny led him to the office of Frank Jay Raven and with Mr. Raven he founded American Asiatic Underwriters Federal, Inc. U. S. A. Which prospered
mightily....
He is forever on the go-Shanghai to New York, New York to London, London to Singapore. He goes with, and in quest of, ideas, talks insurance everywhere, spreads his interests out through Asia, has just purchased the United States Life Insurance Co. in the U. S. (assets, $6,000,000). In his rare periods of quiescence he lives with a maiden aunt on the eighth floor of the North-China Building, 17 the Bund, where Asia Life and American Asiatic are also housed. He belongs to the usual Shanghai clubs, dines out, drinks sherry flips solemnly in
corners of hilarious night clubs. He is not really social. And he has never married.

Starr's good and powerful friend in Shanghai is Frank Jay Raven, and the team of Starr and Raven has surged along with rare interruptions since 1919. Likewise a Californian, Mr. Raven came to Shanghai in 1904, when the foreign settlement was predominantly British. He got a job as engineer from the Shanghai Municipal Council. but was soon lured from his profession by the irresistible economic logic of Shanghai real estate. Starting with assets of $4,000, he had made enough by 1914 to found the Raven Trust Co., on which he proceeded to superimpose what Shanghai calls "the Raven interests" - chiefly the American-Oriental Finance Corp., the American-Oriental Banking Corp., and the Asia Realty Co.--a total of some $70,000,000 in assets. Such was the structure, at least partially built, into which young C. V. Starr stepped in 1919, with the purpose of adding an insurance empire thereto.

[Carol Thompson]

One of Mrs. Smith's sisters was Mrs. Amos R. Little. "Capt. Amos Little, parachuting doctor from the Colorado Springs, Colo. Army Air Base, was reported in Helena in readiness to drop down to the site of the [airplane] wreck." (Fresnan Is Copilot Of Lost Plane; Wreck Is Sighted. Fresno Bee, May 9, 1946.) "Dr. Amos Little of Helena, Mont., temporary chairman of the Olympic Ski Games committee, said the tryouts for the 1952 Olympic ski team will be held next March 10 and 11." (Sun Valley Named for Olympic Tryouts. Oakland Tribune, May 7, 1950.) [He was manager of the US Olympic ski team in 1960-1964], and a vice president of the Federation International de Ski in 1972. (Olympic Ski Disaster? By Omer Crane. Fresno Bee, Jan. 19, 1972.) Amos Rogers Little 3d was a skier of note until an injury in 1971 or 2. What a coincidence.

I'm not sure of their relationship to Amos Rogers Little b. Marshfield, Mass., who moved to Philadelphia and became a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He had a wife, but I haven't found any mention of children.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UyLtx_K...2&lpg=PA22

[Carol Thompson]

http://blog.nownews.com/carolc/textview.php?file=172764

Says Yahoo Babelfish:

AIG founder C.V. Starr (Cornelius Vander Starr) was born in 1892 an American California's small town, in 1914 he left home to San Francisco to sell the automobile insurance. in 1918 entered a war, but by on battlefield, a world war had not been ended. Finally, Starr to Japan's Yokohama, has held the post of the American Pacific Ocean Oil tanker Company's staff member. Japanese a half year later, he thinks Asia's financial center and his opportunity should in China, therefore on the body only brings 300 Japanese Yen to come to Shanghai.

He first in another American, the Frank J. Raven bank and the Real estate company worked, receives the insurance aspect service (Raven to come to Shanghai in 1904, has opened bank and Real estate company successfully very quickly, in 1935 enterprise collapsed, causes the Sino-US commercial world to shock scandal). Starr very quick has own Insurance company ─American Asiatic Underwriters, Inc., he hurried to hire two Chinese staff members, moved to Nanjing Rd. and the Sichuan road's street intersection the company - at that time happen to was 1919 at the end of December.
...
His good friend concurrently colleague Mansfield Freeman joined Starr in 1924 Asia Life Insurance Company. Before then Freeman is teaches the philosophy and English in Beijing's Tsinghua University (1919-1924). He returned to the US in 1941. 1930 to 1941 has been Asian Life insurance Company's President in Shanghai. In afterward years, Freeman also wrote one about to wear shakes (1724-1777) and Mencius's work.

From the US media: Money Career Ends [picture, caption "Frank J. Raven"] Climb to the heights as an international financier ended for Frank J. Raven, an American who headed a $50,000,000 business in Shanghai, China, when he was convicted on embezzlement charges growing out of the collapse of the "Raven Group" of companies of which he was president. The financial failure was so extensive that it virtually pauperized many thousands of people in China. Raven, a native of Alamo, Cal., went to China in 1904." (Tyrone Daily Herald, Mar. 2, 1936.)

http://www.archive.org/stream/mytwentyfi...p_djvu.txt
My Twenty Five Years In China (1945)
Author: John B. Powell

"...Shanghai became the base of operation for
salesmen of fake jewelry, worthless stocks, patent medicines,
dangerous drugs, etc. One group had promoted an insurance
company with the object of unloading the stock on rich Chinese
in Malaya, and were astonished when Chinese business flowed
in and the company unexpectedly became prosperous and
respectable.

Raven had come to China from California and obtained a
position in the Public Works Department of the municipal
government of the International Settlement. He worked in the
department long enough to obtain information regarding new
road extensions, then resigned and organized a real estate com-
pany. Using his inside knowledge of the location of new roads
and streets, the company successfully promoted a new subdi-
vision which it called "Columbia Circle." With this start the
company branched into various promotional activities, including
the organization of the American-Oriental Banking Corpora-
tion, Raven Trust Company, American Finance Company, and
various other enterprises, retail and industrial, all of a specula-
tive character. Shares in the various enterprises were widely sold
to Chinese and foreigners, and the banks launched an intensive
drive for deposits in the missionary community and among
foreign residents* of the Settlement."

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/use...-0003.html
Descendants of Peter Raven
Generation No. 3

Children of HAMILTON RAVEN and ALMIRA BAKER are:
i. CHARLES HAMILTON4 RAVEN *, m. LILLIAN STACK *.
ii. FRANK JAY RAVEN, b. June 27, 1875, Alamo, CA; d. July 11, 1943, San Jose, CA; m. ELSIE MAUDE SITES, September 16, 1909.
More About FRANK JAY RAVEN:
Cause of Death: coronary thrombosis
Medical Information: arthritis, continuous stomach trouble, coronary thrombosis, angina pectoris

[Carol Thompson]

MOSZKOWSKI FUNERAL RITES IN NEW YORK
Interment In Doylestown Was This Afternoon
Lived in Bucks County
The funeral of George Alfred Moszkowski of Point Pleasant and New York City was held last night at The Abbey, Lexington avenue at 66th st., New York and interment was made today in the Doylestown Cemetery.

Mr. Moszkowski, who was a founder and leading figure in the American International Insurance Group, died in a New York hospital after a short illness.

He was born in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 18, 18?6, was an officer in both the Cavalry and Air Force of the Imperial Army of Russia prior to 1918. Upon the withdrawal of Russia from World War I, Mr. Moszkowski became attache to the British Army in the Middle East.

He had attended the University of Liege and was graduated from [illegible] degree of electrical engineer.

In 192?, Mr. Moszkowski became associated with Cornelius V. Starr, in American Asian Underwriters, Shanghai, China, the original unit of the worldwide American International insurance companies. President of American Asiatic Underwriters from 1923 to 1929, he came to New York in the latter year as vice president of American International Underwriters Corporation and served that company successively as chairman and president until 1941.

While he was president of American International Underwriters Corporation, Mr. Moszkowski established the Havana office of the group to promote the spread of insurance by United States companies throughout Latin America. From 1941 until he died, this was one of his primary interests. He served as chairman of American International Underwriters, S.A. (Cuba), and of Insular Underwriters of Cuba. At the time of his death, he was president and director of American International Insurance Company and of American International Life Insurance Company in Havana. He was also a director of International Underwriters for Latin America, and American International Reinsurance Company.

[illegible] Moszkowski was active in Squadron "A" of the New York National Guard from 1934 to 1940, and strongly supported the Ex-Members Association until his death. He was also a member of India House and The Drug and Chemical Club in New York.
He is survived by his wife, Helen (Karpelenia) and a daughter, Helena Adela.

(Doylestown Daily Intelligencer, Feb. 13, 1952.)

I don't know whether he was related to the Polish composer, Moritz Moszkowski, and his brother, Alexander Moszkowski, who was a friend of Albert Einstein.

[Linda Minor]

According to a 1966 syndicated story by Ken McKenna in the Herald Tribune Service:

Cornelius V. Starr is probably the most dedicated skiing businessman. A man of scattered interests, he built his fortune in China as owner of the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, was deported in 1940 and returned to expand his wealth through insurance investments.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...elPageId=3

Notice that E. Howard Hunt's early career was somehow connected to Starr's newspaper the Shanghai Post, a fact that the CIA chose to obscure from the public in 1974.

American Spy pg 31, by Hunt, E. Howard (2007)
THE END OF WAR 31 Once free Shanghai quickly came back to life and even the Shanghai Post started back into operation. Reading the paper one fateful day I was shattered to see a headline proclaiming...

Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent pg 48, by Hunt, E. Howard (1974)
case He suggested we might have a vodka one day in a cafe I agreed and we parted. But from then on Marusha and I met much more circumspectly. Then one morning I read in the reopened Shanghai Post that...

http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.bac...dhunt.html

...In the process of pursuing the case, I was required to obtain a certified copy of Dorothy Hunt's death certificate, which I did, obtaining it from the Cook County Coroner's office. A link to a scanned image of this document is at the end of this article. Note the clear copy of E. Howard Hunt's signature. Also note that while Dorothy Hunt was officially pronounced dead on December 8th, 1972, it wasn't until November of 1973--nearly a year later--that the Coroner's signature is dated. Also interesting on this certificate is the lack of a Social Security number.

Dorothy Wetzel Hunt was also an employee for the CIA in the late forties, stationed in Shanghai, China, where she met her future husband. E Howard Hunt lives in southern Florida with his second wife where he continues to write. One of his latest novels (1992) is Body Count. ...

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...eId=378207
This is a 1953 document:
Dorothy Louise Wetzel Goutiere
She worked at ECA after making application with CIA. She met Hunt in Shanghai in 1948 when he was working on Averell Harriman's staff in China. [At that time, it should be noted that Harriman had been a business partner of Prescott Bush for several years in investment banking firm.]

Dorothy had been married in France and divorced in 1948 from Peter Joffre Goutiere, a Frenchman, in Polk County, Florida.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...Id=1158771

----------
Keep in mind that when AIG was started, there was no OSS and no CIA, but there was an unofficial intelligence service operating overseas.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon279.htm
by Jon Christian Ryter
... Internet searches suggest that AIG was created in 1919 by a 27-year old named Cornelius Vander Starr, a recently discharged US Army buck private from Fort Bragg, California (a military installation from 1859-64). However, the facts don't support the legend. ...
Legend would have us believe a 27-year old, with no advanced education and no money, who served 8 months in the army at the end of WWI—and who never fought in the war and never took officer's training—was discharged as a 2nd Lieutenant after 8 months of service. Legend would have us believe he joined an insurance brokerage firm, Shean & Deasy and virtually overnight became its manager, yet quit his dream job after only a few months to become a mail clerk with the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. Starr, the legend goes, wanted to see the world—which was why he purportedly joined the Army. (Note: In 1914 the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., was purchased by AIC to get the US mail contracts for Asia, and to serve as a toehold in Asia for AIC. AIC in 1914 had already embarked on the path to creating a global economy. The first attempt by the money mafia to create world government would come in the Treaty of Versailles in 1920. The United States never signed it.)

C.V. Starr, who was born on Oct. 15, 1892, graduated from Fort Bragg [California] High School in 1909. He began selling life insurance for the James Nelson Realty Co. in Fort Bragg [Mendocino County] around 1913. In 1914 he moved to San Francisco to sell auto insurance for the Pacific Coast Casualty Co.

{NY Times, November 13, 1902--The Pacific Coast Casualty Company has been organized in San Francisco, with the following officers: President—Edmund F. Green; Vice President—William M. Pierson; Secretary—F. A. Zane.}

{In June 1914 charges were brought and soon dismissed against Edmund F. Green for embezzlement, as reported in Oakland, CA, which indicated he was a member of the Bohemian Club.}

In 1917 he went to work for an insurance brokerage firm, Shean & Deasy, leaving them to join the army.

{Cornelius J. Deasy was a long-time supervisor of San Francisco, who formed the insurance company in 1916, and who died in 1933 at the age of 59.
"The former supervisor was born in Antioch, Contra Costa County, and for 21 years was an employee of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company...and was one of the first advocates for the building of the Hetch Hetchy project. (Oakland Tribune, 10-18-1933). For more on Hetch Hetchy, see Brechin's Imperial San Francisco. http://books.google.com/books?id=UKFaw7g...t&resnum=1.}

Logic suggests he came out of the service 8 months later when the Armistice was signed as a buck private. As a soldier, he went no where and did nothing at a time when soldiers might spend one whole hitch waiting for one stripe. Some of Starr's biographers claim he came out of the army as a sergeant, others claim he made lieutenant. Neither makes sense and sound like someone remodeling Starr's past to give him a biography worthy of a wealthy man's latter-year stature.

Starr and Frank Raven formed American Asiatic Underwriters—an insurance agency selling policies, not issuing them. Raven had been selling insurance in China since 1904, and had been very successful. He amassed several million dollars, enough to begin underwriting policies. That history's probably correct. At some point, Starr and Raven formulated plans to create an insurance company that would actually insure the policyholders. That, too, is correct. But, that company was not AIG. It was AAU.

Starr returned to the United States and convinced several American insurers—in particular Globe Life, Rutgers and National Union—to act as a re-insurer, covering AAU's risk. There may have been a stipulation that forced AAU to open sales offices in the United States since that happened. But now, at age 29, Starr was on his way. But not with AIG. The new company was American International Underwriters [AIU].

(My research revealed an American International Group IPO to purchase AIU. I could not determine the date of the IPO.) Starr and his partner managed to build a very lucrative, very successful insurance company with relatively low capital in about two decades. They were so successful that AIU was under contract to manage all of AIG's overseas property-casualty business. Using guesswork alone it's likely the IPO was exercised sometime between 1947 when Mao overran China and 1950 when Starr created a new entity, CV Starr & Company. Or, at the latest, in 1955 when he formed the CV Starr Foundation whose wealth was comprised largely of AIG stock that is now worth about $3.5 billion. None of the various websites contain the history of AAU, AIU, AIG or AIC. It's almost like all of them encourage legend building.

The third layer of secrecy like the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh layers of secrecy are, well...heavily shrouded secrecy. Piled on, layer after layer, to make it impossible for anyone to learn the truth about the wealth of the wealthiest families in the world. That wealth is so vast that it simply can't be measured in terms of dollars and cents.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archiv...lPageId=78

[Carol Thompson]

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/20/obitua...al-97.html
Mansfield Freeman, Insurance Official, 97
Published: Friday, November 20, 1992
Mansfield Freeman, a retired insurance company executive who helped to develop the insurance industry in China in the 1920's and 30's, died on Tuesday at his home in Greensboro, Vt. He was 97 years old.
Mr. Freeman died of respiratory failure, said John Wooster, a spokesman for the American International Group.
Mr. Freeman, a retired vice president of C. V. Starr & Company, was the last surviving member of the original management group that started an insurance business in China that became the American International Group. During his career, Mr. Freeman held numerous senior executive posts with companies belonging to the group.
In 1921 Mr. Freeman, who spoke Mandarin Chinese, was a professor of philosophy and English at Tsing Hua College in Beijing. That year, he became one of the first employees of Asia Life Insurance Company. He was president of the company throughout much of the 1930's before returning to the United States in 1941.
Mr. Freeman was born in Waltham, Mass. His wife, Mary, died in 1983.
He is survived by his son, Houghton, of Tokyo; two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

[Carol Thompson]

The story traces back to that international Machiavelli, Charles Richard Crane, who in 1909 was nominated by President Taft to be Minister to China. "Mr. Crane has had large experience in foreign affairs, and has been seventeen times to Russia and speaks Russian. His uncle, Prof. Williams, was Professor of Chinese at Yale and wrote a book on China." (President Taft Delighted. New York Times, Jul. 17, 1909.) However, he was recalled by Sec. Knox just as he was about to board the boat for China.

His uncle was Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884): "Williams was born in Utica, New York and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. On graduation he was elected as a Professor of the Institute. On the June 15, 1833, and still in his twenties, he sailed for China to take charge of the printing press of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Guangdong, China. In 1837 he sailed on the Morrison to Japan. Officially this trip was to return some stranded Japanese sailors, but it was also an unsuccessful attempt to open Japan to American trade. On November 20, 1845 Williams married Sarah Walworth. From 1848 to 1851 Williams was the editor of The Chinese Repository, a leading Western journal published in China. In 1853 he was attached to Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's expedition to Japan as an official interpreter. In 1855, Williams was appointed Secretary of the United States Legation to China. During his stay in China, he wrote A Tonic Dictionary Of The Chinese Language In The Canton Dialect (英華分韻撮要) in 1856. After years of opposition from the Chinese government, Williams was instrumental in the negotiation of the Treaty of Tientsin, which provided for the toleration of both Chinese and foreign Christians. In 1860, he was appointed chargé d'affaires for the United States in Beijing. He resigned his position on October 25, 1876, 43 years to the day that he first landed at Guangzhou in 1833. Around 1875, he completed a translation of the Book of Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew into Japanese, but the manuscripts were lost in a fire before they could be published. He returned to the United States in 1877 and became the first Professor of Chinese language and Chinese literature in the United States at Yale University. Williams was nominated as president of the American Bible Society on February 3, 1881. He died on February 16, 1884. (Samuel Wells Williams. Wikipedia, accessed Jun. 28, 2009.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Wells_Williams

Samuel W. Williams' son, Frederick Wells Williams, was a member of Wolf's Head, 1879, He was instructor in Oriental history at Yale from 1893 to 1900, and then assistant professor of modern Oriental history until retiring in 1925. He was chairman of the executive committee of the Yale Foreign Missionary Society 1902-1917, and chairman of the board of trustees of Yale-in-China since 1917. His grandson, Wayland Wells Williams, graduated from Yale in 1910.

http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_re...927-28.pdf
http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_re...944-45.pdf

Charles R. Crane's brother, Richard Teller Crane Jr., was a member of Book & Snake 1895.

http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1925_1952/1931-32.pdf

In 1911, Charles R. Crane financed the China Press at Shanghai: "Most of the money for the purchase of type and mechanical equipment for the China Press was supplied by Charles R. Crane, a Chicago manufacturer, who became a stockholder and director in the enterprise." (My Twenty Five Years In China, by John B. Powell. Macmillan, 1945.)

http://www.archive.org/stream/mytwentyfi...p_djvu.txt


In politics, Charles R. Crane was a Progressive who supported Cleveland and Taft, but opposed Roosevelt. He was one of the biggest backers of Sen. Robert LaFollete of Wisconsin, and was vice chairman of the Finance Committee in Woodrow Wilson's campaign for President. His banker friends included James B. Forgan, David R. Forgan, George F. Roberts, and Charles G. Dawes. "His father came from Paterson, N.J., and Mrs. Crane was Cornelia W. Smith of that city." (Men Who Will Raise Money. New York Times, Aug. 18, 1912.)

From Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony Sutton, Chapter IV
"The best-documented example of Wall Street intervention in revolution is the operation of a New York syndicate in the Chinese revolution of 1912, which was led by Sun Yat-sen. Although the final gains of the syndicate remain unclear, the intention and role of the New York financing group are fully documented down to amounts of money, information on affiliated Chinese secret societies, and shipping lists of armaments to be purchased. The New York bankers syndicate for the Sun Yat-sen revolution included Charles B. Hill, an attorney with the law firm of Hunt, Hill & Betts. In 1912 the firm was located at 165 Broadway, New York, but in 1917 it moved to 120 Broadway (see chapter eight for the significance of this address). Charles B. Hill was director of several Westinghouse subsidiaries, including Bryant Electric, Perkins Electric Switch, and Westinghouse Lamp — all affiliated with Westinghouse Electric whose New York office was also located at 120 Broadway. Charles R. Crane, organizer of Westinghouse subsidiaries in Russia, had a known role in the first and second phases of the Bolshevik Revolution.... The work of the 1910 Hill syndicate in China is recorded in the Laurence Boothe Papers at the Hoover Institution. These papers contain over 110 related items, including letters of Sun Yat-sen to and from his American backers. In return for financial support, Sun Yat-sen promised the Hill syndicate railroad, banking, and commercial concessions in the new revolutionary China."

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/...ter_04.htm

From Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony Sutton, Chapter II
TROTSKY LEAVES NEW YORK TO COMPLETE THE REVOLUTION
Consequently, by virtue of preferential treatment for Trotsky, when the S.S. Kristianiafjord left New York on March 26, 1917, Trotsky was aboard and holding a U.S. passport — and in company with other Trotskyire revolutionaries, Wall Street financiers, American Communists, and other interesting persons, few of whom had embarked for legitimate business. This mixed bag of passengers has been described by Lincoln Steffens, the American Communist:
The passenger list was long and mysterious. Trotsky was in the steerage with a group of revolutionaries; there was a Japanese revolutionist in my cabin. There were a lot of Dutch hurrying home from Java, the only innocent people aboard. The rest were war messengers, two from Wall Street to Germany....12
Notably, Lincoln Steffens was on board en route to Russia at the specific invitation of Charles Richard Crane, a backer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party's finance committee. Charles Crane, vice president of the Crane Company, had organized the Westinghouse Company in Russia, was a member of the Root mission to Russia, and had made no fewer than twenty-three visits to Russia between 1890 and 1930. Richard Crane, his son, was confidential assistant to then Secretary of State Robert Lansing. According to the former ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Crane "did much to bring on the Kerensky revolution which gave way to Communism."13 And so Steffens' comments in his diary about conversations aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord are highly pertinent:" . . . all agree that the revolution is in its first phase only, that it must grow. Crane and Russian radicals on the ship think we shall be in Petrograd for the re-revolution.14
Crane returned to the United States when the Bolshevik Revolution (that is, "the re-revolution") had been completed and, although a private citizen, was given firsthand reports of the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution as cables were received at the State Department. For example, one memorandum, dated December 11, 1917, is entitled "Copy of report on Maximalist uprising for Mr Crane." It originated with Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in Moscow, and the covering letter from Summers reads in part:
I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of same [above report] with the request that it be sent for the confidential information of Mr. Charles R. Crane. It is assumed that the Department will have no objection to Mr. Crane seeing the report ....15
In brief, the unlikely and puzzling picture that emerges is that Charles Crane, a friend and backer of Woodrow Wilson and a prominent financier and politician, had a known role in the "first" revolution and traveled to Russia in mid-1917 in company with the American Communist Lincoln Steffens, who was in touch with both Woodrow Wilson and Trotsky. The latter in turn was carrying a passport issued at the orders of Wilson and $10,000 from supposed German sources. On his return to the U.S. after the "re-revolution," Crane was granted access to official documents concerning consolidation of the Bolshevik regime: This is a pattern of interlocking — if puzzling — events that warrants further investigation and suggests, though without at this point providing evidence, some link between the financier Crane and the revolutionary Trotsky....
TROTSKY'S INTENTIONS AND OBJECTIVES
Consequently, we can derive the following sequence of events: Trotsky traveled from New York to Petrograd on a passport supplied by the intervention of Woodrow Wilson, and with the declared intention to "carry forward" the revolution. The British government was the immediate source of Trotsky's release from Canadian custody in April 1917, but there may well have been "pressures." Lincoln Steffens, an American Communist, acted as a link between Wilson and Charles R. Crane and between Crane and Trotsky. Further, while Crane had no official position, his son Richard was confidential assistant to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and Crane senior was provided with prompt and detailed reports on the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution. Moreover, Ambassador William Dodd (U.S. ambassador to Germany in the Hitler era) said that Crane had an active role in the Kerensky phase of the revolution; the Steffens letters confirm that Crane saw the Kerensky phase as only one step in a continuing revolution.
The interesting point, however, is not so much the communication among dissimilar persons like Crane, Steffens, Trotsky, and Woodrow Wilson as the existence of at least a measure of agreement on the procedure to be followed — that is, the Provisional Government was seen as "provisional," and the "re-revolution" was to follow.

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/...ter_02.htm

Wilson appointed Crane the Ambassador to China from 1919 to 1920. On his return, he took the Trans Siberian Railroad from Harbin, China, across Russia. "[B]y personal intervention with Lenin of the Far Eastern Republic's President, Krasnacheckoff, an ex-Chicago lawyer, permission to make the trip across Russia had been accorded." (Crane Tells of Trip With Load of Rubles. By Walter Duranty. New York Times, Aug. 12, 1921.)

Charles R. Crane was a member of the 1917 Special Diplomatic Commission, or Root Commission to Russia, service as a member of the American Section of the Paris Peace Conference, and the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey in 1919 that now bears his name (King-Crane Commission). Crane later helped finance the first explorations for oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was instrumental in gaining the American oil concession there. (Crane Family Papers at Columbia University)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/ind...m/word.doc