Michele Metta Permindex docs in Excellent Translation

[Jim DiEugenio]

I had a special interest in this material about the murky Italian business organization called the Centro Mondiale Commerciale, and sometimes termed Permindex.

The reason I did was something that comes through in this wonderful translation done by expert linguists Albert Rossi and Paz Marverde, who are both fluent in Italian/English. Way back in the early nineties, when I was working on the first edition of Destiny Betrayed, I was puzzled by an entry in Clay Shaw's address book to a Princess Marcella Borghese. The Borghese family was a rather infamous rightwing Italian klan who attempted a coup in 1970, reportedly with the help of commando Otto Skorzeny and his Paladin group. In all of our wonderful research community at that time, only Mae Brussel noted the importance of that detail. Everyone else sort of ignored it.

But my thought was why would someone who declared himself a Wilson-Roosevelt-Kennedy liberal, as Shaw did, be associating with the Borghese family? I sensed this was part of a cover up around Shaw to hide who he really was. Another part of the lie was his alleged association with CMC. Shaw said he was called to Rome by them after the fact, to give some advice since he ran the ITM in New Orleans. Yet, I uncovered an internal Time-Life document which contradicted this. It said that from their reporting, Shaw was sent to Italy BEFORE the CMC was announced, to help organize it in advance after it was ejected from Switzerland. Again, why lie about something like that? The discoveries coming out of Canada from the Bloomfield archives, and Metta's work, now seem to expose the worst about all this. In fact, the Bloomfield family wants the Montreal archives shut down.

It seems to me that what CMC was a part of was the resistance to, and reversal of, JFK's policy in Italy as described by David Talbot in his book The Devil's Chessboard. On the advice of Schlesinger, Kennedy visited Italy in 1963 and pushed a policy which, in English was called "the opening". This meant that the socialists would be brought into the Christian Democratic Party. Both Harvey and Angleton were dead set against this. As had been Eisenhower and was Henry Luce. Yet Kennedy openly advocated it in his trip there in 1963. Needless to say after Kennedy's death this was subverted. (See Talbot, Chapter 17)

Anyway, this provides a background to this fine translation by Mr. Rossi and Ms Marverde of Metta's interesting work:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B00c8f...JfbW81TjVV

[Anthony Thorne]

Thanks for this, looks good. Jeffrey Bale's 1994 thesis on Borghese - the longest study of Borghese's activities that I've seen in English - is below.

https://www.scribd.com/document/36253206...of-Tension

[Anthony Thorne]

Also of tangential interest - this oral history with FSO Peter Bridges. From page 13, he makes a note of his department head at Middlebury College in 1953.

http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Bridges,%2...0S.toc.pdf

The Dartmouth Russian department was headed by a Russian-American with the name of Dmitri von Mohrenschildt, who came from a family of Baltic Germans in pre-1917 St. Petersburg. I told him that I wanted to go on to graduate studies in Russian at Harvard. He had gotten his Ph.D. at Columbia and he convinced me that Columbia was somehow more serious and a better place to study than Harvard. So I went to Columbia in the fall of 1953 and was working ultimately toward a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and Russian literature, but I was also a student in what was then the Russian Institute, and is now called the Harriman Institute thanks to Averell Harriman's gift of several million dollars. So while I took courses in Russian literature and Slavic languages, I also took courses through the Russian Institute in other fields having to do with Russia and the Soviet Union - law, history, economics and so forth.

Bridges later served at various embassies, and was the Ambassador to Somalia from 1984 to 1986. He also worked for some oil companies on the side. All fair enough. Then Wikileaks published this leaked embassy cable a few years ago. It implicated Bridges in the Gladio activities that were ongoing in Italy through the early 70's. Though he isn't mentioned in the below cable, Borghese popped up in and around the Gladio story in Italy, and the aborted Golpe Borghese government coup of December 1970 was named after him. The domestic investigations into Gladio conducted years after the event all made a point of acknowledging the role that NATO and US intelligence played in stirring things up through the period.

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1...261_b.html

ISSUE OF SENSATIONAL WEEKLY NEWS JOURNAL QUOTE PANORAMA UNQUOTE CARRIED SCURRILOUS COVER STORY ENTITLED QUOTE THE FASCIST POISON UNQUOTE LINKING THE RIGHT-WING MSI, THE CIA, AND FSO PETER BRIDGES (ASSIGNED ROME 1966 TO 1971) IN PLOT ALLEGED TO INCLUDE 1969 PIAZZA FONTANA (MILAN) BANK BOMBING WHICH TOOK 16 LIVES AND INJURED 88 OTHERS. STORY ALLEGES PLOT AND BOMBING INTENDED TO SPARK SWING TO RIGHT IN PUBLIC OPINION TO PERMIT RIGHT-WING "CHANGE OF COURSE." CHANNELS OF FUNDS TO SUPPORT MSI IN GENERAL, AND THEREFORE CONSPIRACY ALSO, WERE NAMED AS ROME OFFICES OF FEED GRAINS COUNCIL, MERRILL LYNCH, AND CONTINENTAL ILLINOIS BANK OF CHICAGO (LINKED IN STORY TO MICHELE SINDONA). ARTICLE IS BEING TRANSLATED AND WILL BE POUCHED TO ADDEES ASAP.

2. FEED GRAINS COUNCIL HAS INFORMED US THEY CONSIDERING LEGALACTION AND HAVE ASKED ADVICE. EMBASSY IS RESPONDING WITH ADVICE NOT TO DIGNIFY AND ENCOURAGE REPLAY OF ARTICLE BY ANY VOLUNTEERED REBUTTAL OR LEGAL ACTION, BUT TO CATEGORICALLY AND EMPHATICALLY DENY STORY (UNDERSCORE) IF ASKED (END UNDERSCORE). FCC WILL BE TOLD EMBASSY WILL SAY NOTHING PUBLICLY BUT IF ASKED WILL REPLY TO ANY PRESS QUERY WITH STATEMENT THAT STORY IS QUOTE TOTALLY WITHOUT FOUNDATION AND NOT WORTHY OF REPLY UNQUOTE. TO QUESTIONS BY OTHERS THAN PRESS, EMB OFFS WILL LABEL ARTICLE AN OUTRAGEOUS LIE.

So I found it funny that Bridges went from hanging out with George de Mohrenschildt's brother, to being implicated in the anti-communist bombings that had been pushed by guys like William Harvey and Vernon Walters. Small world I guess. Bridges is on LinkedIn. If I was feeling lucky, I'd ask him about it.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks so much Anthony.

Those are three very interesting links. Just what I am talking about.

These guys really turned the tide in Italy against Kennedy's policy.

And I think Shaw was a part of it.

[Anthony Thorne]

This thread has made me take another look at the Wikileaks cable. The Panorama article cited in the Wikileaks cable referenced the Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, and criminal banker Michele Sindona. The Washington Post article below does the same. Folks who are skimming this thread, or who aren't familiar with the background story of Gladio, should recall that - as I stated above - later Italian government enquiries found links between NATO and the bombings of the period. A 300 page report released by the Italian government in 2000 stated that "..those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence."

According to a Mother Jones article by Martin E. Lee, Sindona "..functioned as a financial conduit for numerous CIA operations, passing funds, for example, to the Greek colonels before they seized power in 1967."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1983...b-and-cia/

Sindona was also "paymaster for Propaganda Due (P-2), the most secretive cell in Italian freemasonry, led by Grand Master Licio Gelli, a die-hard Mussolini fascist.

"Gelli and his P-2 members have been implicated in ... a wave of spectacular bombing attacks by right-wing terrorists that culminated in the 1980 Bologna train station massacre, in which 80 people were killed and 160 injured.."

Gelli developed close ties with Alexander Haig in 1969, when Haig was Assistant to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Haig became the Supreme Commander of NATO from 1974 to 1979, and was made an 'honorary' member of P2 at some point through that period. Gelli would later attend Reagan's 1981 inauguration as President.

The article below on Nixon's treasury secretary, David Kennedy, describes the relationship he had with Sindona during and after his role as chairman of the Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago. David Kennedy had known Sindona for years. Sindona visited Kennedy to discuss 'problems in Italy'. After Kennedy resigned from the Treasury in 1971, he "..became a roving ambassador and then ambassador to NATO through 1972." It's always a tangled web with these guys.

DAVID KENNEDY TESTIFIES TO LINK WITH SINDONA

by John F. Berry, Washington Post, January 10th 1979

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/b...e3f04ff64f

Former Treasury Secretary David Kennedy testified at a criminal trial here that after leaving government he developed a close business relationship with controversial financier Michele Sindona.

Kennedy testified that he once borrowed $200,000 from Sindona for an Arizona land venture. He said that Sindona also set up a $150,000 trust fund in a Swiss bank for his "out of pocket expenses."

The former treasury secretary in the Nixon administration told of introducing Sindona to top bank regulators and officials in the U.S. and abroad.

Kennedy was a surprise government witness at the ongoing criminal trial at U.S. District Court of three top executives of now defunct Franklin National Bank, once controlled by Sindona.

Franklin had been the 20th largest bank in America. Its scandalous collapse in 1974 ranks as the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

Sindona, who paid $40 million for control of Franklin in 1972, is not on trial. The government is trying to get him extradited to Italy where he faces charges that he embezzled $225 million from a bank he controlled there.

Sindona did appear briefly at the trial, but he refused to testify on the gounds of self-incrimination. He is waging his battle against extradition from a luxurious cooperative apartment at the Pierre Hotel, owned in his wife's name.

The three former bank executives are charged with falsifying Franklin's books in 1974 to make it look as if the bank had a $79,000 profit when, in fact, it was losing over $7 million.

The directors are also accused of creating profits of $2 million through fictitious foreign exchange transactions.

The defendants are Harold Gleason, 59, the former chairman of Franklin, Paul Luftig, 48, who was president, and J. Michael Carter, 59, senior vice president.

In addition to 14 counts of criminal conspiracy, Luftig is charged with committing perjury before the grand jury when asked if he ordered a subordinate to make false statements to Franklin's accountants.

The unindicted co-conspirators in the case include Sindona and three other bank officials: Carlo Bordoni, Peter R. Shaddick and Howard D. Gross.

Bordoni, 48, a close associate of Sindona, fled to Venezuela but was returned to the U.S. He pleaded guilty in September to falsifying Franklin's records and taking part in the misapplication of $30 million in bank funds through foreign currency speculation.

Shaddick and Gross also pleaded guilty to similar offenses, and all three are awaiting sentencing. Meanwhile, they have appeared as government witnesses during the current trial. It is expected to wind up later this week when closing arguments are presented to the jury.

Kennedy, 73, who was chairman of Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago until 1969 when he became Treasury secretary, testified that he has known Sindona since the late 1950s or early 1960s. "He came to see me at the Continental Bank," he said.

Sindona also visited him while he was in Washington, Kennedy said. "He came to see me about problems in Italy," Kennedy testified.

After resigning in 1971 from the Treasury, Kennedy became a roving ambassador and then ambassador to NATO through 1972. Soon after quitting, Kennedy joined the Board of Sindona's personal Swiss holding company, FASCO International. He said he remained on the board "until it blew" -- or collapsed.

Kennedy revealed that he appeared before a U.S. grand jury here probing Sindona's affairs. He said the jury asked him about the $200,00 loan he got from Sindona.

He said he received the loan in January, 1974, to enter an Arizona land venture. It turned out he needed only $100,000 of it, so he returned half of the loan. He has since paid off the balance, he said.

Kennedy said Sindona had at various times made the deposits on his behalf in Fina Bank, Switzerland. "There ws $50,000 and then there was another amount that I don't know whether it was a mistake or what it was of $100,000" he testified.

At one point, Kennedy testified that he learned of the account in 1977. But when asked the same question later, he claimed he found out about the Fina account in "early 1975."

He said that the money "is held in trust to go back to Mr. Sindona."

In testimony Kennedy said he met with Claridge's Hotel, London, on March 26, 1974, the very day that the government alleges the criminal conspiracy was hatched. He says defendant Gleason was also there. But Kennedy testified he stayed at the hotel only long enough to "exchange pleasantries."

He could not remember what else was said during the 15 minuties he said he was in the Sindona hotel suite.

Kennedy was helpful to Sindona, who was viewed with suspicion when the then high-flying Italian financier arrived in the U.S.

He said he traveled Europe speaking to Central Bankers on Sindona's behalf. He went to Japan when Sindona wanted to open a branch of the Franklin there, and he met with the Federal Reserve Board for Sindona.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Borghese family was a rather infamous rightwing Italian klan who attempted a coup in 1970, reportedly with the help of commando Otto Skorzeny and his Paladin group. In all of our wonderful research community at that time, only Mae Brussel noted the importance of that detail. Everyone else sort of ignored it.

Mae was really very prescient on so many things others ignored. A new book by Hank Albarelli is coming out any day now. Its thesis is that Skorzeny was either QJ/WIN or the person who hooked QJ/WIN up with the CIA under Harvey - and that he was used in the assassination of JFK. That coup attempt in Italy might have been Italian in origins, but it was also strongly CIA backed. A similar coup attempt against De Gaulle in 1961 was French in origin, but CIA backed - so attempting to kill Western Leaders and stage coup d'etats in their countries was nothing new for CIA when 11/22/63 rolled around....... Jean Soutre who was in Dallas on the day of the assassination had been deeply involved in the coup attempt against De Gaulle in 1961 which likely included De Gualle's murder. He also had deep CIA ties. Skorzeny is known to have had deep CIA ties post-Dallas [for example in Operation Condor - but other too], so why not his having been connected well before? Someone got him out of the POW camp he was in and was protecting him not long after the War....... The basic take-away is that Nazis and the Ultra-Right were and still are natural allies of the intelligence community and IMO played a role in the JFK Assassination, although the basic plan and impetus was homegrown for sure.

[Paz Marverde]

Hi, everybody.

First of all, my deep gratitude to Jim DiEugenio for his sharing and appreciation of Michele Metta's work, and for putting me in contact with Albert Rossi for the translation. I am a Metta's friend and collaborator, by the way.

I read with great interest your very well done comments, especially those about Michele Sindona. I have to add that Metta, just last week, published on the Italian newspaper L'Antidiplomatico loads of evidence showing how Sindona was enormously connected to CMC-Permindex. For example, one of CMC members, Corrado Bonfantini, was very close to Sindona and directly helped Sindona's dirty efforts

[John Kowalski]

Jim:

Do you know where I can obtain a copy of their translation of his book?

John

[Jim DiEugenio]

I thought Metta did a series of articles.

I did not know he wrote a book. Maybe Paz knows if he did or not.

[George Klees]

Jim, since you've studied Permindex, do you know if there's any truth to Roy Cohn (McCarthyist, CIA asset, mob lawyer, and Donald Trump's mentor) being on its board? I've heard that allegation, but it seems to trace back to not-very-reliable sources: either William Torbitt's "Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal" or a book by the LaRouche organization.