28-05-2009, 01:54 PM
Born in 1917. Graduated from West Point. Graduate of the Army War College and was a commandant of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, a post that the Army reserves for its most promising officers. Joined the U.S. Army in 1938. Commander of U.S. forces in China, Burma and India during World War II.
Appointed in January 1946 as assistant military advisor to secretary of state James F. Byrnes, who was a U.S. member of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the quadripartite organization designed to deal with post-war problems. As an outgrowth of this assignment, Stilwell became special military advisor to the American ambassador in Italy from 1947 to 1949. In this position, his staff responsibilities encompassed the Trieste question, finalization of the Italo-Yugoslav boundary and Italian rearmament.
Chief of the Far East Division of the CIA from 1949 to 1952, and head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). His area of responsibility included Burma, China, Indochina and Korea. This was one of the most, if not thé most, important CIA/OPC division at the time, since the Korean war had just started and the French were fighting in Indochina. In early 1951 the first of many airdrops were made to the remnants of the anti-communist KMT army in Burma. The KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, lost the battle for China in 1949 to Mao had his communist army. Chiang retreated to the island now known as Taiwan, but several other KMT armies withdrew from China via the south-west, into Burma. The Burmese army fought the KMT and drove them into Laos and a small area near the Thai border. The situation looked very bleak for the KMT, until early 1951, when they started receiving weapons, food, and training from the CIA to prevent a possible communist take over of South-East Asia.
1972, Alfred W. McCoy, 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia': "The first signs of direct CIA aid to 'the KMT appeared in early 1951, when Burmese intelligence officers reported that unmarked C-46 and C-47 transport aircraft were making at least five parachute drops a week to KMT forces in Mong Hsat. (143) With its new supplies the KMT underwent a period of vigorous expansion and reorganization. Training bases staffed with instructors flown in from Taiwan were constructed near Mong Hsat..."
The KMT never successfully invaded China, but they did manage to take control of the Shan State's (eastern Burma) opium production, which increased from about 40 tons in the early 1950s to about 300 to 400 tons in 1962. In these early days, KMT controlled opium was sold to the general Phao Sriyanonda of the Thai police, a CIA agent, who redistributed the opium through his airplanes, motor vehicles, and naval vessels, which were provided to him by the CIA.
1972, Alfred W. McCoy, 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia': "The KMT shipped bountiful harvests to northern Thailand, where they were sold to General Phao Sriyanonda of the Thai police, a CIA client. The CIA had promoted the Phao-KMT partnership in order to provide a secure rear area for the KMT, but this alliance soon became a critical factor in the growth of Southeast Asia's narcotics traffic... Usually the KMT dealt with the commander of the Thai police, General Phao, who shipped the opium from Chiangmai to Bangkok for both local consumption and export. (160)... In 1951 a CIA front organization, Sea Supply Corporation, began delivering lavish quantities of naval vessels, arms, armored vehicles, and aircraft to General Phao's police force. (194) With these supplies Phao was able to establish a police air force, a maritime police, a police armored division, and a police paratroop unit. "
The OPC, founded in 1948 and not responsible to the DCI until 1950, was a secret continuation of the tasks of the OSS, having been established in accordance with NSC 10/2. According to its secret charter, the OPC's responsibilities included "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."
The OPC was largely created by the State Department's George Kennan (CFR), who came up with the policy of Containment around the same time. Head of the OPC was Frank Wisner, a veteran of the OSS, who initiated Operation Mockingbird (to subvert the foreign and domestic media), was involved in Operation Bloodstone (one of the programs that involved the recruiting of former German Nazi officers and diplomats who could be used in the covert war against the Soviet Union), and was a co-planner of the coups which brought down Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
By 1952, the OPC had 4,000 agents in forty-seven stations with a budget of $82 million. Money for the project was drawn from untraceable government accounts, such as those of the CIA, and laundered through American corporations whose leaders had expressed a willingness to work with Wisner and the OPC. Gehlen was deeply involved in the OPC project.
Stilwell was in command of a regiment in Korea in 1953. Instructor at the Army War College in Korea 1954-1956. Chief of staff of the Presidential Mission to Far East in 1954. Chief of strategic planning at SHAPE 1956-1958. Left SHAPE in June 1958 to become Commander of the Western Area, Germany. In 1959, he drafted his recommendations for a special Presidential Committee under General William Draper reporting to President Eisenhower: that the U.S. help develop "higher level military schools" with political-economic curricula in the Third World, to encourage local armies to become "internal motors" for "socio-political transformation". He later formed a group of retired military personnel called the 'Gray Eagles', whose intent was to train third world armies. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations since at least 1961. Member of the Atlantic Council.
Involved in 1962 in creating the big business and CIA-affiliated American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), aimed at taking control over trade union movements in Latin America. The AIFLD used to be chaired by Pilgrims Society, 1001 Club, and SMOM member J. Peter Grace. Stilwell's partner in creating the statutes of the AIFLD was Col. Edward G. Lansdale, a some time NSA director and designer of Operation Mongoose in 1961 and Operation Northwoods in 1962. Stilwell went on to command Army units in Vietnam and the the United States. Stilwell was at least informed of the 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem coup before it happened, and may have had an active role in planning it. Chief of operations of the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam in 1963. Chief of staff of U.S. Military Assistance Command, under general William C. Westmoreland, in Vietnam 1964-1965. Chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Thailand 1965-1967. Commanding general of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas 1967-1968. Deputy commander general at the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force. Commanding general of the XXIV U.S. Army Corps 1968-1969. In 1969, as opposition to the Vietnam war grew, Stilwell was the one who personally quashed the reports of dissenting colonels, and who, though he was not in intelligence at the time, went through the intelligence reports, tidying them up. Deputy chief of staff of military operations of the U.S. Army and senior Army member of the U.S. delegations Military Staff Committee of the United Nations 1969-1972. Commanding general of the 6th U.S. Army, San Francisco 1972-1973. Commander-in-Chief of UN and American forces in Korea from 1974 to 1976. Member of the in 1976 revived Committee on Present Danger, a reactionary anti-communist think tank that included people like John F. Lehman, Clare Booth Luce, Paul H. Nitze, Richard Perle (friend of Brian Crozier, head of Le Cercle at that time), Richard Pipes, (a later associate of Crozier), Eugene Rostow, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt (former Chief of Naval Operations), George Shultz, William Casey (Le Cercle), Richard Allen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and David Packard. Friend of General John K. Singlaub, who set up the American chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in the late 1970s.
June 16, 1978, Washington Post, 'Intelligence Bill Called 'Overreaction' to Abuses': "Former U.S. intelligence officers protested yesterday that a Senate plan for restructuring the nation's intelligence community would come close to stopping all covert operations. Continuing a series of intelligence-establishment complaints about the omnibus bill, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers assailed it at a Senate hearing as far too restrictive, "an overreaction to a few abuses of the past," in the face of a growing Soviet threat. Association President Richard G. Stilwell, a retired Army general who once served as the Central Intelligence Agency's chief of covert actions for the Far East, said his organization also feels that the bill is mislableled in being called "the National Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act of 1978."... The head of the retired spy group, which claims more than 2,500 members, was even more critical of proposed controls on surveillance of foreign intelligence operations in this country. The Senate has already approved legislation to require the issuance of judicial warrants for such surveillance. Stilwell denounced the idea, insofar as it applies to "agents of foreign powers," as "incredible . . . unnecessary" and even "unconstitutional." He said it ought to be called "An Act to Convey Fourth Amendment Rights on the Soviet Embassy and all KGB Officers in the United States and All Other Foreigners.""
Stilwell went to the January 1980 Le Cercle Meeting in Zurich. In November 1980, as one of the national security advisers to the newly elected Reagan, Stilwell co-wrote a report called 'Strategic Guidance' that claimed the United States had to be ready to use force on its own without its allies and that no part of the world would be outside US interest. Then he came up with the idea to administer lie-detector tests to civilian staff on a regular basis before giving them access to sensitive information. Stilwell was Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy from 1981 to 1985.
Brian Crozier, a friend, Cercle chairman, and founder of The 61 secret intelligence group, wrote in his 1993 book (p.177): "A four-star general, Dick Stilwell had served with distinction in Vietnam. Under President Reagan, he was appointed Assistant Defense Secretary. While in this post, he joined the inner group of The 61... (He was not related to General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, who had liaised with Chiang Kai-shek during World War II: an assumption frequently made, to the annoyance of Dick Stilwell.)" Stilwell's 1991 obituaries concur, sometimes after a correction, that he was not related to General Joseph Stilwell. May 15, 1994, The Washington Times, 'Crozier, covert acts, CIA and Cold War': "I hesitate to envision the reaction of the late Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, with whom I worked in the 1980s, should he see himself publicly identified as a "61-er."... But Mr. Crozier is one of the heroes who spent a lifetime keeping the barbarians outside the gate. He, of all people, deserves a gloat over his victory."
In 1981, Stilwell was involved in the creation of the Washington-based U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC), together with media-magnate and Pilgrims Society member Henry Luce III (his grandfather bought and held on to the JFK Zapruder film; President of the Pilgrims of the United States since 1997), and former CIA deputy-director Ray Cline (a member of the World Anti-Communist League - WACL).
As deputy under-secretary of defense from 1981 to 1985, he created SFD-K, a secret intelligence group which mainly operated in South-East Asia and was involved in trying to rescue US POWs in North Korea and North Vietnam. After it was exposed in the early 1980s, Stilwell began patroning (some sources claim he founded it) Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), a top secret special forces unit set up under Jimmy Carter to retrieve South-East Asia POWs and to conduct the most secret and sensitive special operations around the world. It trained and worked with Delta Force and DEVGRU (the follow-up of Seal Team 6) and had no Congressional oversight. The DIA and Navy tried to gain control over ISA in later years. July 23, 1998, Michael Ruppert, 'The POWs, CIA and Drugs': "The ISA, which ran Gritz's mission, was created by Army General Richard Stilwell. It has been repeatedly linked to drug smuggling by sources including the daughter of Col. Albert Carone who served as Oliver North's bagman and bill-payer during the eighties. Records left behind after Carone's death in 1990 and eyewitness statements clearly indicate that Carone handled both drugs and drug money for CIA, North and the NSC. Carone's personal phone book contains the home addresses and telephone numbers of William Casey [Le Cercle; Wackenhut legal counsel; CIA; SMOM; Bohemian Grove camp Mandalay], Gambino crime boss Pauly Castellano and Stilwell [Le Cercle]." 2004, Michael Ruppert, 'Crossing the Rubicon', p. 164: "A retired NYPD Detective, also a “made” member of the Genovese crime family, Carone spent his entire working career as a CIA operative... For more than 25 years before his mysterious death in 1990, Al Carone served as a bagman and liaison between George Bush, CIA Director Bill Casey, Oliver North, Richard Nixon [Le Cercle] and many other prominent figures including Robert Vesco [1001 Club], Manuel Noriega and Ferdinand Marcos." Carone, a member of the Knights of Malta, was good friends with Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, Vito Genovese, and William Casey. Casey used Carone as a "cut out" to pass sensitive insider information to Mob capo Pauley Castellano, says his daughter, Dee. Carone was the bagman for Casey and Oliver North in many of their drug trafficking exploits. Deputy Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, in a memo to Stilwell, described the ISA in 1982 as "Our own CIA... uncoordinated and uncontrolled".
On February 4, 1983, a short cancellation notice was sent to a number of Defense Department officials at the request of Stilwell. The memo asked recipients to "remove and destroy immediately" any copies of two Defense Department directives in their possession--the top secret and confidential versions of a directive titled "The Defense Special Plans Office." As Stilwell explained in a memo two days earlier, "The directives were charter documents establishing a DoD activity whose establishment subsequently was not authorized by Congress." Chairman of the DoD Security Review Commission in 1985. Member of the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group (SOPAG) in the mid-1980s, together with general Richard Secord. It had been set up in 1983 by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Fred Ikle, and was chaired by general John Singlaub. Aderholt and Singlaub would both play a role in fund-raising for the contras and arranging their resupply. December 5, 1986, Philadelphia Inquirer, 'Secord lost position over disclosure form': "Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, considered a key figure in the Iran arms-contra aid controversy, was quietly dropped from his last Pentagon post a year ago because he refused to complete a personal financial- disclosure report, Defense Department officials said yesterday. Secord was removed from an unpaid position on the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group, an 11-member panel dominated by retired senior generals who advise the secretary of defense and his top military and civilian officials on special and covert operations policy... According to R. Lynn Rylander [former executive director of SOPAG] and others, the panel was created in late 1983 to help Pentagon officials expand the role of Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS and Air Force Air Commandos in missions to aid anti-communist insurgencies and counterinsurgencies - including the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras... Rylander described the special advisory group, which meets six to 10 times a year, as "totally non-sinister . . . merely a policy advisory group divorced from operational matters." An informed Defense Department official, however, said that the group was empowered to review all Pentagon covert operations, and one panel member said the group could consider such sensitive issues as military relations with the CIA. Both the panel member and the Defense Department official asked not to be identified. Current members of the group, all retired from active duty, include: Army Lt. Gen. Sam Wilson, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Army Central Command Gen. Robert Kingston; Air Force Lt. Gen. Leroy Manor, a Southeast Asia commando leader during the Vietnam War; Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eugene C. Meyer; Army Gen. Richard Stilwell, a Korean War commander; Army Lt. Gen. William Yarborough, special forces commander in the Kennedy administration, and Army Brig. Gen. Donald D. Blackburn, former commander of the 77th Special Forces Group. They advise the secretary of defense, Caspar W. Weinberger; the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Richard L. Armitage, and the commander of the Joint Special Operations Agency, Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Kelly."
General Edward Lansdale and general Harry Aderholt were other members of the panel. Secord was one of the key players in Iran Contra, and heavily involved with Shackley and the Nugan Hand Bank, which laundered billions of dollars of dope money coming from the Golden Triangle. Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute and Wall Street Journal journalist Jonathan Kwitny both exposed Secord's role in this bank. September 11, 1988, Washington Post, 'The ultimate conspiracy theory': "Serving first as the CIA's East Asia operations chief and later as assistant deputy director of clandestine operations, Shackley (with his trusty aide Clines) supposedly stole tons of U.S. weapons from South Vietnam and stashed them in Thailand. Later, Sheehan claims, Shackley, Clines, Secord and a member of the "shooter team" named Rafael "Chi-Chi" Quintero siphoned off millions of dollars in Southeast Asia opium profits and laundered them through the mysterious Nugan Hand bank of Australia." General Leroy Manor was head of the Philippine branch of the Nugan Hand Bank (name given by: August 17, 1983, Wall Street Journal, 'Bank's Links to Ex-CIA Men Detailed).
Air Force colonel and CIA insider Fletcher Prouty wrote that general Sam Wilson of the DIA, also a member of the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group, was aware of the use of drugs to pay some troops in Burma during WWII. Richard Armitage was one of the most important players in handling the financial aspects of the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle. On the other hand, Col. Bo Gritz, who exposed several of these dope dealers, named general Yarborough as one of his personal heros.
President of Stilwell Associates from 1986 to his death in 1991, a consulting firm that specialized in national security affairs. It counted the Defense Department and the CIA among his clients (December 27, 1991, The Milwaukee Journal, Obituary of Stilwell). Consultant to the secretary of defense and to the CIA at the time of his death. Dick Cheney was secretary of defense in these years and William Webster was DCI. In 1987, one year after setting up his company, he travelled to the Philippines, where at that moment a coup against president Corazon C. Aquino was in the final stages of its planning. Aquino, a moderate socialist, was not very popular with either the Reagan administration or the communists. The coup would fail. September 16, 1987, Philadelphia Inquirer, 'U.S. backing for Philippine junta alleged': "In part because of the heavy U.S. military presence - as well as memories of four decades of American colonial rule and Washington's longtime support of Ferdinand E. Marcos - Filipinos are markedly wary of American intervention in their affairs... No available evidence directly links any U.S. officials to the political upheaval here. Lack of documented evidence, however, has not been enough to check the spread of reports of improper U.S. involvement. For example, according to an official familiar with the operations of the U.S. Embassy, such reports were fueled early this year by the presence of Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, a key figure in the channeling of funds to the contra forces in Nicaragua and a leader of the World Anti-Communist League. Singlaub came to the Philippines in November and early this year on visits that he described as purely private, a search for sunken treasure [some have alleged that the Golden Lilly, an enormous Japanese war loot that was mostly buried in the Philippines, has been dug up over the decades to finance covert operations. Col. Lansdale, another close associate of Stilwell, is said to have been a key figure in this process]. But when the visits were disclosed in the Philippines, Singlaub immediately left Manila amid reports that his real purpose may have been linked to covert operations. "Such presence in the country over the past year has made a lot of people suspicious," the official said. "There has been some right-wing American involvement in this country."... Last month, another American visitor to the islands raised further suspicions of U.S. covert involvement. That visitor was Richard G. Stilwell... Stilwell visited the Philippines for 10 days in August, leaving the country shortly before the Honasan uprising. He visited the islands of Cebu, Negros and Mindanao - islands that have been fertile ground for both the 23,000- member communist New People's Army (NPA) and right-wing separatist movements. Sources in Manila indicated that his mission was to look into a "contra- type" operation against the NPA. In an telephone interview from his consulting office in Washington, Stilwell denied that there was any official U.S. backing for his trip. "I was traveling at the request of no one," he said. "I had a compelling desire to see it firsthand." Stilwell however, did not deny that he was circulating a report on his findings in the U.S. military and intelligence community. In his report, Stilwell said that unless Aquino acted decisively on military and political fronts - and embraced the right-of-center leaders in the private and public sector - there could be "a political breakdown" resulting in a coalition government with the communists within the next two years. "Washington is worried" about that, he said, adding that the United States "very desperately wants her (Aquino) to succeed, wants to preserve her as the one unifying symbol of the non-communist populace."... He reiterated that Washington's overriding interest was the establishment of a stable democracy. "The U.S. interest in the bases," he said, "is less than, or subsumed to, the emergence of the Philippine government as a member of the free world."... Another official who closely follows event in the U.S. Embassy noted that embassy personnel could not be sure what individual Americans were doing in the Philippines. "The problem," the official said, "is that in the post-Iran era, people in the embassy aren't so sure any more that there is not some offshoot group operating here that they don't know anything about." One senior aide to Aquino said internal intelligence reports indicated that more than 150 CIA operatives were active in the Philippines. Last year, according to Reagan administration sources, President Reagan issued a ''finding" authorizing covert CIA operations in the Philippines. It is unclear exactly what that decision allows, but according to sources in Washington, Reagan's move would authorize the CIA to step up surveillance, counterrevolutionary training and assistance programs, and to sponsor and fund pro-U.S. groups in the Philippines. In a meeting Friday with several U.S. Embassy officials, a high-level Philippine government official described his own suspicion that a "lost command" of the CIA, maneuvering outside the normal channels of operations, played a role in events surrounding the Aug. 28 military revolt. In an interview later, the official said he met with the U.S. Embassy representatives at their request. They wanted to know, he said, "about perceptions of U.S. involvement in the events of the last two weeks." The palace official said he responded that "there was a general feeling that the U.S. was involved." He said he was not convinced that the United States had no role in the events and recalled, "I asked them why some CIA types were in town over the last eight weeks and what were they doing here." He said the U.S. officials did not answer that question directly but instead responded that Reagan "made this very strong statement" in support of the Aquino government. Still, the palace source said he believed that American involvement could not be ruled out. "They never tell you what they are up to," he said. "These CIA guys who are in town, we perceive as part of the lost command.""
In 1991 Stilwell was identified as a member of the Advisory Committee of Americares, the largest US relief organization tied to the Knights of Malta and the Bush family. August 11, 1991, Hartford Courant, 'Americares' success hailed, criticized charity uses clout and connections...': "Other international relief agencies marvel at AmeriCares' ability to cut red tape, navigate complex international protocol, perform in the public spotlight and simultaneously claim some of the lowest administrative expenses among groups of its kind... Much of AmeriCares' success comes from its ability to harness three potent forces: powerful political connections, alliances with influential religious figures and groups and cooperative ventures with businesses... Knowledgeable former federal officials, many with backgrounds in intelligence work, help AmeriCares maneuver in delicate international political environments. Its connections with the Roman Catholic Church have brought AmeriCares an influential ally in the Knights of Malta, a Catholic group that helps deliver relief supplies. And its ventures with pharmaceutical companies have filled AmeriCares' warehouses with donated supplies... in the international relief community, where there is an expectation that groups will operate altruistically and free of political motives, some complain about the way AmeriCares aggressively seeks media coverage and appears to design its missions to benefit conservative political causes... Photographs on the office's forest-green walls show [Robert C.] Macauley [wealthy; founder and chairman of AmeriCares] with former President Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa... Macauley's friendship with [George W.] Bush dates back to childhood... Bush's son, Jeb, and the president's grandson, George P. Bush, went with AmeriCares to Armenia in 1988 to help survivors of a devastating earthquake... The president's brother, Prescott S. Bush Jr. of Greenwich, is a member of AmeriCares' advisory board... The chairman of the advisory committee is J. Peter Grace Jr... Retired Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, former deputy undersecretary of defense in charge of intelligence under Reagan, is also on the advisory committee. Another member is William E. Simon... Simon was also president of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, a now defunct private group formed by the Washington Times newspaper to send aid to the contras. (The Washington Times is owned by a group that includes officials of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.) Gordon J. Humphrey, a retired Republican senator from New Hampshire who was a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, is also on the committee. And Zbigniew Brzezinski, the conservative former national security adviser for President Carter, is honorary chairman of the AmeriCares board of directors."... "Personally I have some questions about the way they focus," said one longtime worker in international aid. "They're connected into the American Republican power elite. You might say they work in areas where there is a large anti-communist benefit."... criticism has come from writers who contend that AmeriCares made shipments of aid to the contras in Nicaragua... Among the aid AmeriCares sent to Nicaragua in 1985 was newsprint for La Prensa, the anti-Sandinista newspaper... A review of AmeriCares' well publicized airlift missions shows that the organization sends aid rapidly and frequently to "hot spots" of public attention, places where disaster aid from America might reflect favorably on the U.S. government... In 1988, AmeriCares sent a series of airlifts to Armenia in the Soviet Union to help survivors of an earthquake. "That did more for the image of the United States than anything in recent history," Macauley said... In the early 1970s, at a time when his interest in international aid was beginning to coalesce into AmeriCares, Macauley heard about a Catholic priest named Bruce Ritter who was struggling to help runaway children on the streets of New York City... The alliance between Macauley and Ritter led to an audience with Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1982. (Ritter left Covenant House in February 1990 after accusations of sexual misconduct with some male runaways he was helping). The meeting with the pope gave life to AmeriCares. Although Macauley started AmeriCares in 1979, the organization did not go on its first relief mission until 1982, when the pope asked Macauley to send aid to his native Poland. AmeriCares' contacts with important Catholic figures brought it a valuable ally in the Knights of Malta, a Catholic organization that has helped distribute AmeriCares supplies. The Knights of Malta, formally known as the Sovereign Military Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John and Jerusalem, is a worldwide Catholic charity founded in the 11th century to care for soldiers in the Crusades. Today, the group is based in Rome. J. Peter Grace, a member of AmeriCares' advisory board, is president of the American chapter of the Knights of Malta, based in New York City. William Simon, another AmeriCares advisory committee member, is also a member... The Knights of Malta make AmeriCares' job easier because of its worldwide network of volunteers, said Johnson, the president of AmeriCares. Members of the group, many of whom are independently wealthy, can be trusted to deliver the aid to its intended destination and do so more efficiently than AmeriCares, he said. "By using the Knights, there's very little opportunity for diversion," Johnson said. "They've all made their fortunes. Now they're interested in charity."... Because almost 50 countries afford the Knights of Malta the same status as a sovereign nation, they are often exempt from fees for border crossings and can pass customs inspections more easily. "The host country will generally waive inspection and duty," said Thomas L. Sheer, executive director of the American chapter of the Knights of Malta and an assistant to J. Peter Grace. "We can use that diplomatic status to move right through customs and to not pay customs fees. We can exploit that, particularly within a time of crisis."... Despite his ties to the Roman Catholic Church, Macauley is not Catholic, although he describes himself as a religious man. "They say I'm a right-wing Catholic conservative," Macauley said. "I'm not a Catholic, even though I go to Mass almost every day. I'm a very devout Protestant, I guess you'd call it." AmeriCares also receives small donations from Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. AmeriCares has kept the commitment to Poland it began at the behest of the pope. "We go to Poland every week, either by ship or by plane," Macauley said. Between 1982 and this March, AmeriCares sent $94 million in aid to Poland, almost a quarter of all the aid it has dispensed. When the pope called on Macauley to help Poland, Macauley turned to corporate America for help... To get donations for Poland, he and some colleagues sat down with lists of the boards of directors from the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies. Among them, the group found, they knew at least one person on every board."
Chairman of the Korean War Veterans Memorial advisory board. Personal military decorations included two Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart, as well as awards from Vietnam, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, the Soviet Union, Thailand and South Korea. According to Al Martin in an interview with Uri Dowbenko, "Stilwell was also very close to Armitage, Carlucci, and Pete Peterson." According to Al Martin, in his 'The Conspirators', Stilwell was part of William Casey's (Le Cercle) "Restricted Access Groups". On the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of American Wars, a research center set up in 1984. Other members of the advisory board were Alexander Haig, Dean Rusk and Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., with John H. Harkanson, a Wilmington manager of Du Pont, as chairman. Died in 1991. His son and namesake, who also used the name "Dick", died in a car accident in 2002. His son was a retired colonel.
Sources: November 1988 – Issue 17, Lobster Magazine, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith' (quoting the Langemann papers - spelled wrongly, like a couple of other names)
The original (translated) text named a DIA-affiliated "General D. Stinwell" as a participant of the 1980 meeting in Zurich. The proper name must have been Stilwell (often spelled as Stillwel), because the name Stinwell doesn't exist, especially not as a general. The "D" seems to refer to "Dick", like he was often called, and even how his name was often written down on official occasions. His son, who had the same name also used the name "Dick" himself (only a colonel). The name of Paul Volcker was also spelled wrong in the text ("Volker").
Appointed in January 1946 as assistant military advisor to secretary of state James F. Byrnes, who was a U.S. member of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the quadripartite organization designed to deal with post-war problems. As an outgrowth of this assignment, Stilwell became special military advisor to the American ambassador in Italy from 1947 to 1949. In this position, his staff responsibilities encompassed the Trieste question, finalization of the Italo-Yugoslav boundary and Italian rearmament.
Chief of the Far East Division of the CIA from 1949 to 1952, and head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). His area of responsibility included Burma, China, Indochina and Korea. This was one of the most, if not thé most, important CIA/OPC division at the time, since the Korean war had just started and the French were fighting in Indochina. In early 1951 the first of many airdrops were made to the remnants of the anti-communist KMT army in Burma. The KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, lost the battle for China in 1949 to Mao had his communist army. Chiang retreated to the island now known as Taiwan, but several other KMT armies withdrew from China via the south-west, into Burma. The Burmese army fought the KMT and drove them into Laos and a small area near the Thai border. The situation looked very bleak for the KMT, until early 1951, when they started receiving weapons, food, and training from the CIA to prevent a possible communist take over of South-East Asia.
1972, Alfred W. McCoy, 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia': "The first signs of direct CIA aid to 'the KMT appeared in early 1951, when Burmese intelligence officers reported that unmarked C-46 and C-47 transport aircraft were making at least five parachute drops a week to KMT forces in Mong Hsat. (143) With its new supplies the KMT underwent a period of vigorous expansion and reorganization. Training bases staffed with instructors flown in from Taiwan were constructed near Mong Hsat..."
The KMT never successfully invaded China, but they did manage to take control of the Shan State's (eastern Burma) opium production, which increased from about 40 tons in the early 1950s to about 300 to 400 tons in 1962. In these early days, KMT controlled opium was sold to the general Phao Sriyanonda of the Thai police, a CIA agent, who redistributed the opium through his airplanes, motor vehicles, and naval vessels, which were provided to him by the CIA.
1972, Alfred W. McCoy, 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia': "The KMT shipped bountiful harvests to northern Thailand, where they were sold to General Phao Sriyanonda of the Thai police, a CIA client. The CIA had promoted the Phao-KMT partnership in order to provide a secure rear area for the KMT, but this alliance soon became a critical factor in the growth of Southeast Asia's narcotics traffic... Usually the KMT dealt with the commander of the Thai police, General Phao, who shipped the opium from Chiangmai to Bangkok for both local consumption and export. (160)... In 1951 a CIA front organization, Sea Supply Corporation, began delivering lavish quantities of naval vessels, arms, armored vehicles, and aircraft to General Phao's police force. (194) With these supplies Phao was able to establish a police air force, a maritime police, a police armored division, and a police paratroop unit. "
The OPC, founded in 1948 and not responsible to the DCI until 1950, was a secret continuation of the tasks of the OSS, having been established in accordance with NSC 10/2. According to its secret charter, the OPC's responsibilities included "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."
The OPC was largely created by the State Department's George Kennan (CFR), who came up with the policy of Containment around the same time. Head of the OPC was Frank Wisner, a veteran of the OSS, who initiated Operation Mockingbird (to subvert the foreign and domestic media), was involved in Operation Bloodstone (one of the programs that involved the recruiting of former German Nazi officers and diplomats who could be used in the covert war against the Soviet Union), and was a co-planner of the coups which brought down Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
By 1952, the OPC had 4,000 agents in forty-seven stations with a budget of $82 million. Money for the project was drawn from untraceable government accounts, such as those of the CIA, and laundered through American corporations whose leaders had expressed a willingness to work with Wisner and the OPC. Gehlen was deeply involved in the OPC project.
Stilwell was in command of a regiment in Korea in 1953. Instructor at the Army War College in Korea 1954-1956. Chief of staff of the Presidential Mission to Far East in 1954. Chief of strategic planning at SHAPE 1956-1958. Left SHAPE in June 1958 to become Commander of the Western Area, Germany. In 1959, he drafted his recommendations for a special Presidential Committee under General William Draper reporting to President Eisenhower: that the U.S. help develop "higher level military schools" with political-economic curricula in the Third World, to encourage local armies to become "internal motors" for "socio-political transformation". He later formed a group of retired military personnel called the 'Gray Eagles', whose intent was to train third world armies. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations since at least 1961. Member of the Atlantic Council.
Involved in 1962 in creating the big business and CIA-affiliated American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), aimed at taking control over trade union movements in Latin America. The AIFLD used to be chaired by Pilgrims Society, 1001 Club, and SMOM member J. Peter Grace. Stilwell's partner in creating the statutes of the AIFLD was Col. Edward G. Lansdale, a some time NSA director and designer of Operation Mongoose in 1961 and Operation Northwoods in 1962. Stilwell went on to command Army units in Vietnam and the the United States. Stilwell was at least informed of the 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem coup before it happened, and may have had an active role in planning it. Chief of operations of the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam in 1963. Chief of staff of U.S. Military Assistance Command, under general William C. Westmoreland, in Vietnam 1964-1965. Chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Thailand 1965-1967. Commanding general of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas 1967-1968. Deputy commander general at the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force. Commanding general of the XXIV U.S. Army Corps 1968-1969. In 1969, as opposition to the Vietnam war grew, Stilwell was the one who personally quashed the reports of dissenting colonels, and who, though he was not in intelligence at the time, went through the intelligence reports, tidying them up. Deputy chief of staff of military operations of the U.S. Army and senior Army member of the U.S. delegations Military Staff Committee of the United Nations 1969-1972. Commanding general of the 6th U.S. Army, San Francisco 1972-1973. Commander-in-Chief of UN and American forces in Korea from 1974 to 1976. Member of the in 1976 revived Committee on Present Danger, a reactionary anti-communist think tank that included people like John F. Lehman, Clare Booth Luce, Paul H. Nitze, Richard Perle (friend of Brian Crozier, head of Le Cercle at that time), Richard Pipes, (a later associate of Crozier), Eugene Rostow, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt (former Chief of Naval Operations), George Shultz, William Casey (Le Cercle), Richard Allen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and David Packard. Friend of General John K. Singlaub, who set up the American chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in the late 1970s.
June 16, 1978, Washington Post, 'Intelligence Bill Called 'Overreaction' to Abuses': "Former U.S. intelligence officers protested yesterday that a Senate plan for restructuring the nation's intelligence community would come close to stopping all covert operations. Continuing a series of intelligence-establishment complaints about the omnibus bill, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers assailed it at a Senate hearing as far too restrictive, "an overreaction to a few abuses of the past," in the face of a growing Soviet threat. Association President Richard G. Stilwell, a retired Army general who once served as the Central Intelligence Agency's chief of covert actions for the Far East, said his organization also feels that the bill is mislableled in being called "the National Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act of 1978."... The head of the retired spy group, which claims more than 2,500 members, was even more critical of proposed controls on surveillance of foreign intelligence operations in this country. The Senate has already approved legislation to require the issuance of judicial warrants for such surveillance. Stilwell denounced the idea, insofar as it applies to "agents of foreign powers," as "incredible . . . unnecessary" and even "unconstitutional." He said it ought to be called "An Act to Convey Fourth Amendment Rights on the Soviet Embassy and all KGB Officers in the United States and All Other Foreigners.""
Stilwell went to the January 1980 Le Cercle Meeting in Zurich. In November 1980, as one of the national security advisers to the newly elected Reagan, Stilwell co-wrote a report called 'Strategic Guidance' that claimed the United States had to be ready to use force on its own without its allies and that no part of the world would be outside US interest. Then he came up with the idea to administer lie-detector tests to civilian staff on a regular basis before giving them access to sensitive information. Stilwell was Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy from 1981 to 1985.
Brian Crozier, a friend, Cercle chairman, and founder of The 61 secret intelligence group, wrote in his 1993 book (p.177): "A four-star general, Dick Stilwell had served with distinction in Vietnam. Under President Reagan, he was appointed Assistant Defense Secretary. While in this post, he joined the inner group of The 61... (He was not related to General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, who had liaised with Chiang Kai-shek during World War II: an assumption frequently made, to the annoyance of Dick Stilwell.)" Stilwell's 1991 obituaries concur, sometimes after a correction, that he was not related to General Joseph Stilwell. May 15, 1994, The Washington Times, 'Crozier, covert acts, CIA and Cold War': "I hesitate to envision the reaction of the late Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, with whom I worked in the 1980s, should he see himself publicly identified as a "61-er."... But Mr. Crozier is one of the heroes who spent a lifetime keeping the barbarians outside the gate. He, of all people, deserves a gloat over his victory."
In 1981, Stilwell was involved in the creation of the Washington-based U.S. Global Strategy Council (USGSC), together with media-magnate and Pilgrims Society member Henry Luce III (his grandfather bought and held on to the JFK Zapruder film; President of the Pilgrims of the United States since 1997), and former CIA deputy-director Ray Cline (a member of the World Anti-Communist League - WACL).
As deputy under-secretary of defense from 1981 to 1985, he created SFD-K, a secret intelligence group which mainly operated in South-East Asia and was involved in trying to rescue US POWs in North Korea and North Vietnam. After it was exposed in the early 1980s, Stilwell began patroning (some sources claim he founded it) Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), a top secret special forces unit set up under Jimmy Carter to retrieve South-East Asia POWs and to conduct the most secret and sensitive special operations around the world. It trained and worked with Delta Force and DEVGRU (the follow-up of Seal Team 6) and had no Congressional oversight. The DIA and Navy tried to gain control over ISA in later years. July 23, 1998, Michael Ruppert, 'The POWs, CIA and Drugs': "The ISA, which ran Gritz's mission, was created by Army General Richard Stilwell. It has been repeatedly linked to drug smuggling by sources including the daughter of Col. Albert Carone who served as Oliver North's bagman and bill-payer during the eighties. Records left behind after Carone's death in 1990 and eyewitness statements clearly indicate that Carone handled both drugs and drug money for CIA, North and the NSC. Carone's personal phone book contains the home addresses and telephone numbers of William Casey [Le Cercle; Wackenhut legal counsel; CIA; SMOM; Bohemian Grove camp Mandalay], Gambino crime boss Pauly Castellano and Stilwell [Le Cercle]." 2004, Michael Ruppert, 'Crossing the Rubicon', p. 164: "A retired NYPD Detective, also a “made” member of the Genovese crime family, Carone spent his entire working career as a CIA operative... For more than 25 years before his mysterious death in 1990, Al Carone served as a bagman and liaison between George Bush, CIA Director Bill Casey, Oliver North, Richard Nixon [Le Cercle] and many other prominent figures including Robert Vesco [1001 Club], Manuel Noriega and Ferdinand Marcos." Carone, a member of the Knights of Malta, was good friends with Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, Vito Genovese, and William Casey. Casey used Carone as a "cut out" to pass sensitive insider information to Mob capo Pauley Castellano, says his daughter, Dee. Carone was the bagman for Casey and Oliver North in many of their drug trafficking exploits. Deputy Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, in a memo to Stilwell, described the ISA in 1982 as "Our own CIA... uncoordinated and uncontrolled".
On February 4, 1983, a short cancellation notice was sent to a number of Defense Department officials at the request of Stilwell. The memo asked recipients to "remove and destroy immediately" any copies of two Defense Department directives in their possession--the top secret and confidential versions of a directive titled "The Defense Special Plans Office." As Stilwell explained in a memo two days earlier, "The directives were charter documents establishing a DoD activity whose establishment subsequently was not authorized by Congress." Chairman of the DoD Security Review Commission in 1985. Member of the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group (SOPAG) in the mid-1980s, together with general Richard Secord. It had been set up in 1983 by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Fred Ikle, and was chaired by general John Singlaub. Aderholt and Singlaub would both play a role in fund-raising for the contras and arranging their resupply. December 5, 1986, Philadelphia Inquirer, 'Secord lost position over disclosure form': "Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, considered a key figure in the Iran arms-contra aid controversy, was quietly dropped from his last Pentagon post a year ago because he refused to complete a personal financial- disclosure report, Defense Department officials said yesterday. Secord was removed from an unpaid position on the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group, an 11-member panel dominated by retired senior generals who advise the secretary of defense and his top military and civilian officials on special and covert operations policy... According to R. Lynn Rylander [former executive director of SOPAG] and others, the panel was created in late 1983 to help Pentagon officials expand the role of Army Green Berets, Navy SEALS and Air Force Air Commandos in missions to aid anti-communist insurgencies and counterinsurgencies - including the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras... Rylander described the special advisory group, which meets six to 10 times a year, as "totally non-sinister . . . merely a policy advisory group divorced from operational matters." An informed Defense Department official, however, said that the group was empowered to review all Pentagon covert operations, and one panel member said the group could consider such sensitive issues as military relations with the CIA. Both the panel member and the Defense Department official asked not to be identified. Current members of the group, all retired from active duty, include: Army Lt. Gen. Sam Wilson, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Army Central Command Gen. Robert Kingston; Air Force Lt. Gen. Leroy Manor, a Southeast Asia commando leader during the Vietnam War; Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eugene C. Meyer; Army Gen. Richard Stilwell, a Korean War commander; Army Lt. Gen. William Yarborough, special forces commander in the Kennedy administration, and Army Brig. Gen. Donald D. Blackburn, former commander of the 77th Special Forces Group. They advise the secretary of defense, Caspar W. Weinberger; the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Richard L. Armitage, and the commander of the Joint Special Operations Agency, Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Kelly."
General Edward Lansdale and general Harry Aderholt were other members of the panel. Secord was one of the key players in Iran Contra, and heavily involved with Shackley and the Nugan Hand Bank, which laundered billions of dollars of dope money coming from the Golden Triangle. Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute and Wall Street Journal journalist Jonathan Kwitny both exposed Secord's role in this bank. September 11, 1988, Washington Post, 'The ultimate conspiracy theory': "Serving first as the CIA's East Asia operations chief and later as assistant deputy director of clandestine operations, Shackley (with his trusty aide Clines) supposedly stole tons of U.S. weapons from South Vietnam and stashed them in Thailand. Later, Sheehan claims, Shackley, Clines, Secord and a member of the "shooter team" named Rafael "Chi-Chi" Quintero siphoned off millions of dollars in Southeast Asia opium profits and laundered them through the mysterious Nugan Hand bank of Australia." General Leroy Manor was head of the Philippine branch of the Nugan Hand Bank (name given by: August 17, 1983, Wall Street Journal, 'Bank's Links to Ex-CIA Men Detailed).
Air Force colonel and CIA insider Fletcher Prouty wrote that general Sam Wilson of the DIA, also a member of the Special Operations Planning and Advisory Group, was aware of the use of drugs to pay some troops in Burma during WWII. Richard Armitage was one of the most important players in handling the financial aspects of the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle. On the other hand, Col. Bo Gritz, who exposed several of these dope dealers, named general Yarborough as one of his personal heros.
President of Stilwell Associates from 1986 to his death in 1991, a consulting firm that specialized in national security affairs. It counted the Defense Department and the CIA among his clients (December 27, 1991, The Milwaukee Journal, Obituary of Stilwell). Consultant to the secretary of defense and to the CIA at the time of his death. Dick Cheney was secretary of defense in these years and William Webster was DCI. In 1987, one year after setting up his company, he travelled to the Philippines, where at that moment a coup against president Corazon C. Aquino was in the final stages of its planning. Aquino, a moderate socialist, was not very popular with either the Reagan administration or the communists. The coup would fail. September 16, 1987, Philadelphia Inquirer, 'U.S. backing for Philippine junta alleged': "In part because of the heavy U.S. military presence - as well as memories of four decades of American colonial rule and Washington's longtime support of Ferdinand E. Marcos - Filipinos are markedly wary of American intervention in their affairs... No available evidence directly links any U.S. officials to the political upheaval here. Lack of documented evidence, however, has not been enough to check the spread of reports of improper U.S. involvement. For example, according to an official familiar with the operations of the U.S. Embassy, such reports were fueled early this year by the presence of Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, a key figure in the channeling of funds to the contra forces in Nicaragua and a leader of the World Anti-Communist League. Singlaub came to the Philippines in November and early this year on visits that he described as purely private, a search for sunken treasure [some have alleged that the Golden Lilly, an enormous Japanese war loot that was mostly buried in the Philippines, has been dug up over the decades to finance covert operations. Col. Lansdale, another close associate of Stilwell, is said to have been a key figure in this process]. But when the visits were disclosed in the Philippines, Singlaub immediately left Manila amid reports that his real purpose may have been linked to covert operations. "Such presence in the country over the past year has made a lot of people suspicious," the official said. "There has been some right-wing American involvement in this country."... Last month, another American visitor to the islands raised further suspicions of U.S. covert involvement. That visitor was Richard G. Stilwell... Stilwell visited the Philippines for 10 days in August, leaving the country shortly before the Honasan uprising. He visited the islands of Cebu, Negros and Mindanao - islands that have been fertile ground for both the 23,000- member communist New People's Army (NPA) and right-wing separatist movements. Sources in Manila indicated that his mission was to look into a "contra- type" operation against the NPA. In an telephone interview from his consulting office in Washington, Stilwell denied that there was any official U.S. backing for his trip. "I was traveling at the request of no one," he said. "I had a compelling desire to see it firsthand." Stilwell however, did not deny that he was circulating a report on his findings in the U.S. military and intelligence community. In his report, Stilwell said that unless Aquino acted decisively on military and political fronts - and embraced the right-of-center leaders in the private and public sector - there could be "a political breakdown" resulting in a coalition government with the communists within the next two years. "Washington is worried" about that, he said, adding that the United States "very desperately wants her (Aquino) to succeed, wants to preserve her as the one unifying symbol of the non-communist populace."... He reiterated that Washington's overriding interest was the establishment of a stable democracy. "The U.S. interest in the bases," he said, "is less than, or subsumed to, the emergence of the Philippine government as a member of the free world."... Another official who closely follows event in the U.S. Embassy noted that embassy personnel could not be sure what individual Americans were doing in the Philippines. "The problem," the official said, "is that in the post-Iran era, people in the embassy aren't so sure any more that there is not some offshoot group operating here that they don't know anything about." One senior aide to Aquino said internal intelligence reports indicated that more than 150 CIA operatives were active in the Philippines. Last year, according to Reagan administration sources, President Reagan issued a ''finding" authorizing covert CIA operations in the Philippines. It is unclear exactly what that decision allows, but according to sources in Washington, Reagan's move would authorize the CIA to step up surveillance, counterrevolutionary training and assistance programs, and to sponsor and fund pro-U.S. groups in the Philippines. In a meeting Friday with several U.S. Embassy officials, a high-level Philippine government official described his own suspicion that a "lost command" of the CIA, maneuvering outside the normal channels of operations, played a role in events surrounding the Aug. 28 military revolt. In an interview later, the official said he met with the U.S. Embassy representatives at their request. They wanted to know, he said, "about perceptions of U.S. involvement in the events of the last two weeks." The palace official said he responded that "there was a general feeling that the U.S. was involved." He said he was not convinced that the United States had no role in the events and recalled, "I asked them why some CIA types were in town over the last eight weeks and what were they doing here." He said the U.S. officials did not answer that question directly but instead responded that Reagan "made this very strong statement" in support of the Aquino government. Still, the palace source said he believed that American involvement could not be ruled out. "They never tell you what they are up to," he said. "These CIA guys who are in town, we perceive as part of the lost command.""
In 1991 Stilwell was identified as a member of the Advisory Committee of Americares, the largest US relief organization tied to the Knights of Malta and the Bush family. August 11, 1991, Hartford Courant, 'Americares' success hailed, criticized charity uses clout and connections...': "Other international relief agencies marvel at AmeriCares' ability to cut red tape, navigate complex international protocol, perform in the public spotlight and simultaneously claim some of the lowest administrative expenses among groups of its kind... Much of AmeriCares' success comes from its ability to harness three potent forces: powerful political connections, alliances with influential religious figures and groups and cooperative ventures with businesses... Knowledgeable former federal officials, many with backgrounds in intelligence work, help AmeriCares maneuver in delicate international political environments. Its connections with the Roman Catholic Church have brought AmeriCares an influential ally in the Knights of Malta, a Catholic group that helps deliver relief supplies. And its ventures with pharmaceutical companies have filled AmeriCares' warehouses with donated supplies... in the international relief community, where there is an expectation that groups will operate altruistically and free of political motives, some complain about the way AmeriCares aggressively seeks media coverage and appears to design its missions to benefit conservative political causes... Photographs on the office's forest-green walls show [Robert C.] Macauley [wealthy; founder and chairman of AmeriCares] with former President Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa... Macauley's friendship with [George W.] Bush dates back to childhood... Bush's son, Jeb, and the president's grandson, George P. Bush, went with AmeriCares to Armenia in 1988 to help survivors of a devastating earthquake... The president's brother, Prescott S. Bush Jr. of Greenwich, is a member of AmeriCares' advisory board... The chairman of the advisory committee is J. Peter Grace Jr... Retired Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, former deputy undersecretary of defense in charge of intelligence under Reagan, is also on the advisory committee. Another member is William E. Simon... Simon was also president of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, a now defunct private group formed by the Washington Times newspaper to send aid to the contras. (The Washington Times is owned by a group that includes officials of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.) Gordon J. Humphrey, a retired Republican senator from New Hampshire who was a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, is also on the committee. And Zbigniew Brzezinski, the conservative former national security adviser for President Carter, is honorary chairman of the AmeriCares board of directors."... "Personally I have some questions about the way they focus," said one longtime worker in international aid. "They're connected into the American Republican power elite. You might say they work in areas where there is a large anti-communist benefit."... criticism has come from writers who contend that AmeriCares made shipments of aid to the contras in Nicaragua... Among the aid AmeriCares sent to Nicaragua in 1985 was newsprint for La Prensa, the anti-Sandinista newspaper... A review of AmeriCares' well publicized airlift missions shows that the organization sends aid rapidly and frequently to "hot spots" of public attention, places where disaster aid from America might reflect favorably on the U.S. government... In 1988, AmeriCares sent a series of airlifts to Armenia in the Soviet Union to help survivors of an earthquake. "That did more for the image of the United States than anything in recent history," Macauley said... In the early 1970s, at a time when his interest in international aid was beginning to coalesce into AmeriCares, Macauley heard about a Catholic priest named Bruce Ritter who was struggling to help runaway children on the streets of New York City... The alliance between Macauley and Ritter led to an audience with Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1982. (Ritter left Covenant House in February 1990 after accusations of sexual misconduct with some male runaways he was helping). The meeting with the pope gave life to AmeriCares. Although Macauley started AmeriCares in 1979, the organization did not go on its first relief mission until 1982, when the pope asked Macauley to send aid to his native Poland. AmeriCares' contacts with important Catholic figures brought it a valuable ally in the Knights of Malta, a Catholic organization that has helped distribute AmeriCares supplies. The Knights of Malta, formally known as the Sovereign Military Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John and Jerusalem, is a worldwide Catholic charity founded in the 11th century to care for soldiers in the Crusades. Today, the group is based in Rome. J. Peter Grace, a member of AmeriCares' advisory board, is president of the American chapter of the Knights of Malta, based in New York City. William Simon, another AmeriCares advisory committee member, is also a member... The Knights of Malta make AmeriCares' job easier because of its worldwide network of volunteers, said Johnson, the president of AmeriCares. Members of the group, many of whom are independently wealthy, can be trusted to deliver the aid to its intended destination and do so more efficiently than AmeriCares, he said. "By using the Knights, there's very little opportunity for diversion," Johnson said. "They've all made their fortunes. Now they're interested in charity."... Because almost 50 countries afford the Knights of Malta the same status as a sovereign nation, they are often exempt from fees for border crossings and can pass customs inspections more easily. "The host country will generally waive inspection and duty," said Thomas L. Sheer, executive director of the American chapter of the Knights of Malta and an assistant to J. Peter Grace. "We can use that diplomatic status to move right through customs and to not pay customs fees. We can exploit that, particularly within a time of crisis."... Despite his ties to the Roman Catholic Church, Macauley is not Catholic, although he describes himself as a religious man. "They say I'm a right-wing Catholic conservative," Macauley said. "I'm not a Catholic, even though I go to Mass almost every day. I'm a very devout Protestant, I guess you'd call it." AmeriCares also receives small donations from Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. AmeriCares has kept the commitment to Poland it began at the behest of the pope. "We go to Poland every week, either by ship or by plane," Macauley said. Between 1982 and this March, AmeriCares sent $94 million in aid to Poland, almost a quarter of all the aid it has dispensed. When the pope called on Macauley to help Poland, Macauley turned to corporate America for help... To get donations for Poland, he and some colleagues sat down with lists of the boards of directors from the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies. Among them, the group found, they knew at least one person on every board."
Chairman of the Korean War Veterans Memorial advisory board. Personal military decorations included two Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart, as well as awards from Vietnam, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, the Soviet Union, Thailand and South Korea. According to Al Martin in an interview with Uri Dowbenko, "Stilwell was also very close to Armitage, Carlucci, and Pete Peterson." According to Al Martin, in his 'The Conspirators', Stilwell was part of William Casey's (Le Cercle) "Restricted Access Groups". On the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of American Wars, a research center set up in 1984. Other members of the advisory board were Alexander Haig, Dean Rusk and Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., with John H. Harkanson, a Wilmington manager of Du Pont, as chairman. Died in 1991. His son and namesake, who also used the name "Dick", died in a car accident in 2002. His son was a retired colonel.
Sources: November 1988 – Issue 17, Lobster Magazine, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith' (quoting the Langemann papers - spelled wrongly, like a couple of other names)
The original (translated) text named a DIA-affiliated "General D. Stinwell" as a participant of the 1980 meeting in Zurich. The proper name must have been Stilwell (often spelled as Stillwel), because the name Stinwell doesn't exist, especially not as a general. The "D" seems to refer to "Dick", like he was often called, and even how his name was often written down on official occasions. His son, who had the same name also used the name "Dick" himself (only a colonel). The name of Paul Volcker was also spelled wrong in the text ("Volker").
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.