Le Cercle

[David Guyatt]

The following report is fairly lengthy but packed full of important information. It is a tribute to Joel van der Reijden research effort that almost half of the report is taken-up with footnotes - sources and citations.

http://www.isgp.eu/organisations/Le_Cercle.htm

Le Cercle and the struggle for the European continent

Private bridge between Vatican-Paneuropean and Anglo-American intelligence

"I had first learned about it in October 1967 when Carlo Pesenti, the owner of a number of important Italian corporations, took me aside at a Chase investment forum in Paris and invited me to join his group... The discussions were conducted in French, and usually I was the sole American present... Members of the Pesenti Group were all committed to European political and economic integration... My Chase associates, who feared my membership could be construed as "consorting with reactionaries," eventually prevailed upon me to withdraw."

- 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', p. 412-413.

"Formed in the Fifties... One of the most influential, secretive, and, it goes without saying, exclusive political clubs in the West... One member contacted by this newspaper said he could not talk about it "even off, off the record". Another simply put the phone down... The source of its funding is a mystery..."

- June 29, 1997, The Independent, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club', one of the very few mainstream reports on Le Cercle.

"Coudenhove said: "You know, it is awfully difficult to make Europe with the English, but without them, it is impossible". That is very true."

- Otto von Habsburg, key founder of Le Cercle, head of the Paneuropa Union and one of the most central players in the underground Vatican-Paneuropa network.

Intro

Le Cercle is a secretive, privately-funded and transnational discussion group which regularly meets in different parts of the world. It is attended by a mixture of politicians, ambassadors, bankers, shady businessmen, oil experts, editors, publishers, military officers and intelligence agents, which may or may not have retired from their official functions. The participants come from western or western-oriented countries. Many important members tend to be affiliated with the aristocratic circles in London or obscure elements within the Vatican, and accusations of links to fascism and Synarchism are anything but uncommon in this milieu. The greatest enemy of the Cercle has been the Soviet Union and members have been crusading against communist subversion for many decades. During this process, Cercle members unfortunately have accused almost every nationalist and socialist government, every labour union, every terrorist, and every serious investigator of western intelligence of being in bed with the KGB.

In addition, the Cercle is also strongly focused on European integration, going back to the efforts of its early members to bring about Franco-German rapprochement. The significant presence of Paneuropa-affiliated Opus Dei members and Knights of Malta, together with statements of the Vatican and Otto von Habsburg, clearly indicate there's an agenda in the background to some day bring about a new Holy Roman Empire with its borders stretching from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and from the Baltic Sea to North Africa. Interestingly, the latest generation of British Cercle members, whose predecessors were keen on joining the European Union, now do everything in their power to keep Britain out of the emerging European superstate, having lost faith they can become a significant force within Europe. Their American associates, however, would like for them to continue the effort of breaking into the Franco-German alliance and possibly to establish a new Anglo-German alliance.

It seems like a cold war is raging in Europe. One that doesn't directly involve the Soviets.

Origins
Le Cercle used be known as the Pinay Circle, or Cercle Pinay by its original French founders. Although the group was named after a French statesman who was prime minister from March to December 1952, the real organizer of this group was a person named Jean Violet, a close associate of Pinay since 1951 (1).

Jean Violet has a murky past to say the least. In French and later English literature, Violet is named as a pre-WWII member of the Comite Secret pour l'Action Revolutionnaire (CSAR), a secretive fascist group which, like Freemasonry, had its own initiation rites (2). Some authors have suggested that CSAR, popularly known at the time as the Cagoule, or "hooded ones", was one of the most important branches of the legendary Synarchist Movement of Empire and worked to undermine the French Republic in preparation for the coming Nazi invasion (3). Whatever truth can be found in this claim, it is known that Jean Violet was arrested after the war for having collaborated with the enemy. He was released however "on orders from above" (4), went to work as a lawyer in Paris, and decided to become a member of Opus Dei (or, possibly, he became a member first, which resulted in his release). In 1951, Violet came into contact with Antoine Pinay, a Catholic also said to have been in bed with Opus Dei, who asked him to solve a problem with a Geneva-based firm that had been sieged by the Nazis during WWII. As the story goes, Pinay was so impressed with the way Violet handled his assignment that he recommended him to French intelligence, the SDECE (5). Also, Violet soon managed to hook up with Opus Dei luminaries as Alfredo Sanchez Bella and Otto von Habsburg (6), who had founded the European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI) in 1949 (7). Habsburg was chairman for life of CEDI and later also of the Paneuropa Union. Sanchez Bella was the Spanish ambassador to Rome under Franco in the 1960s while his brother was head of Opus Dei in Spain (8). Violet also became an associate of Father Yves-Marc Dubois, a senior member of Vatican intelligence and possibly its head (9).

CEDI was one of the first in a long line of hard-right, often aristocratic institutions part of the Vatican-Paneuropa network. One of these institutions, founded by Antoine Pinay and Jean Violet, became Cercle Pinay, and besides that it was set up "somewhere in the 1950s" (10), the exact date remains unknown. The claim that Cercle Pinay was put together in 1969 (11) is wrong and has probably been a mix-up with the Belgian Cercle des Nations, which was founded that year by a secretary general of CEDI (12). Violet was one of the few French members of this Cercle des Nations (13) that was part of the same Opusian Vatican-Paneuropa network. The crowd of Cercle des Nations has featured in a number of Belgian conspiracies and some were involved with the "Dutroux network" that allegedly didn't exist. Bit more about that later.

Like many others, Pinay and Violet understood that the basis for a stable united Europe would be a Franco-German reconciliation. Therefore they recruited in their Cercle the most important individuals that were working towards this aim.

From Germany they invited the long time chancellor and foreign minister Konrad Adenauer, and two of his closest associates, Franz Joseph Bach, who ran Adenauer's office; and Franz Joseph Strauss, the controversial hard-right political figure from Bavaria who was a defense minister in Adenauer's second cabinet.


Early Cercle members representing the Paneuropa Union, the European Coal and Steel Community, France, Germany and Italy. Andreotti was not a founding member; the others were.

Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, in addition to Pinay, were recruited from France. Schuman had been French prime minister from 1947 to 1948 and French foreign minister from 1948 to 1953. Jean Monnet, as Planning Commissioner of the National Economic Council from 1945 to 1952, and appointed by De Gaulle, carried out essential work for the reconstruction of the French economy. He was connected to the highest financial and political circles in North America, the UK, and western Europe, and was one of the major players in the push for an integrated Europe in the aftermath of WWII. As founding vice-chairman of the Committee for European Economic Co-operation (CEEC), which oversaw the Marshall Plan aid, he was the most influential player in this organization. This short description doesn't even begin to describe the life of this extraordinary Frenchman, so lets take a more in depth look at him.

Pinay and especially Violet were the official founders of Le Cercle, with Habsburg, vice president of the Paneuropa Union under Coudenhove-Kalergi, acting as Violet's patron. These men initially brought together Schuman, Monnet, Adenauer and a number of other individuals. All of these men, except Monnet, were either members or sympathizers of Opus Dei. The financial empire of Pesenti, who has no known direct ties to Opus Dei, was funded by the Vatican Bank and he turned out to be Banco Ambrosiano's largest minority shareholder when it collapsed in 1982. Monnet, as the only one among these names, was connected to leading bankers in London and New York, and used to be secretary general of the League of Nations. N.b. Pesenti might not have been a founding member, but used to be a top level player in the 1960s, chairing meetings and inviting David Rockefeller. He later also financed some of the work of Violet and Crozier.

"Europe's founder" Jean Monnet

Right before and after WWI Monnet hooked up with leading figures in the Anglo-American establishment. One of the first was Lord Kindersley, who during his life was a partner in Lazard Brothers, a chairman of the Hudson's Bay Company, and a director of the Bank of England. Kindersley's son is known to have become a Pilgrims Society executive (14).

Another very important person was Arthur Salter, whom he first met in 1914 (15). Salter and Monnet would become involved in setting up the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council, the Supreme Economic Council at Versailles, and the League of Nations. In 1931, Salter wrote 'The United States of Europe', which favored a federal Europe within the framework of the League of Nations. Probably not by coincidence, Monnet's post-WWII proposal for a political structure of a united Europe was almost exactly the same. Three years after writing 'The United States of Europe', Salter became a professor at Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, named by Quigley as the center of the Round Table Group. In fact, Quigley identified Salter as a member of the Milner Group (16), and it is known that Salter shared a few boards with Lord Astor, a prominent Pilgrims Society family, and the Viscount Cecil of Chelwood of that time, a member of the family that is said to have coordinated the Round Table group (and appears in both Le Cercle and the Pilgrims). Salter also became a member of the Privy Council in 1941.

Others Monnet became a close associate of were Sir Eric Drummond, the 16th Earl of Perth, who was a member of a very aristocratic family in Britain; John Foster Dulles; Douglas Dillon; a Lazard Brothers' banker whose sister-in-law was Lady Nancy Astor; and John J. McCloy. He also was a long time business associate of Elisha Walker (American International Corporation; Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; CFR), with whom he clandestinely tried to take over A. P. Giannini's Transamerica Corporation and its Bank of America network. It failed after a lawsuit in which Giannini vowed to fight the "Wall Street domination" on the board of his company. In February 1932, Walker and Monnet were ousted as chair and vice chair respectively (17).

He then went into business with the leaders of the Chinese Green Gang Triad, Tse-Ven Soong and Chiang Kai-shek. He took his assistant, David Drummond (the future 17th Lord Perth; from a catholic Hungarian family which emigrated to Scotland in the 11th century; two members of this family were among the eight original founders of the Order of the Thistle; raised by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, a very old catholic aristocratic family; later Privy Councillor; later chair of the Ditchley Foundation for 3 years; later representative of the Queen to the Vatican; became a member of the extremely elite Roxburghe Club, together with members of the Cecil, Cavendish, Howard (Dukes of Norfolk), Mellon, Rothschild, and Oppenheimer families), the son of Monnet's superior at the League of Nations, to China where he lived until 1936.

In 1935, when Monnet was still in Shanghai, he became a business partner of George Murnane in Monnet, Murnane & Co. Murnane was connected to the Wallenbergs in Sweden, the Bosch family in Germany, the Solvays and Boëls in Belgium, and John Foster Dulles, André Meyer, and the Rockefellers in the United States. He was considered among the most connected persons of his time (18). John Dulles of Sullivan & Cromwell provided the financial backing for the partnership. After Monnet got back to the United States, he was briefly investigated for tax evasion. Then, in 1938, Monnet, Murnane & Co. was briefly investigated by the FBI, who suspected it of having laundered Nazi money (19). Nothing came of this investigation, but the Nazi-cooperation of some of Monnet's close friends, like Douglas Dillon and John Dulles, or Murnane's earlier firm, Lee, Higginson & Co., is well documented (20).

When WWII broke out, Monnet was one of the most important individuals in contact with both the French resistance and the Churchill government. While in London at the time that France was overrun, Monnet proposed to General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French government in exile, the creation of a Franco-British Union; a plan to completely unite France and Britain. The Churchill government accepted, even a desperate de Gaulle accepted, but eventually the (supposedly Synarchist) opposition in France, headed by Marshall Petain, killed the plan. They saw it as an attempt of Britain to wrestle control over France. Petain subsequently became the leader of Vichy France.

After the war, Monnet was appointed by de Gaulle to reorganize the French economy. But Monnet also began to reorganize the whole of Europe.

Together with an equally mysterious Joseph Retinger (connected to both MI6 and the Vatican; founder of Bilderberg), who was raised by European nobility (21), Monnet organized the May 1948 Congress of Europe, which met under the auspices of the United Europe Movement in The Hague. Chairman was Winston Churchill, whose son-in-law, Duncan Sandys, worked closely with Joseph Retinger and CIA heads Allen Dulles and Bill Donovan. Later Cercle members as Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer were in attendance, just as Alcide de Gasperi and Paul Henri Spaak. The CIA would become the primary source of funding for the United European Movement in the following decades (22).

In 1949, with the support of Adenauer, Robert Schuman proposed the so called "Schuman Plan", which became the basis for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It was established in 1952 and is usually seen as the birth of the European Union. In reality, Monnet, who became the first chairman of the ECSC's High Authority, had entirely written the "Schuman Plan". And interestingly, even this might only partially be true, as Monnet's structure for Europe turned out to be a slightly adapted version of Arthur Salter's 1931 paper 'The United States of Europe', which originally advocated a federal Europe within the framework of the League of Nations (23). Both men worked high up in the League of Nations and had a close relationship to the leading Anglo-American families, as has already been discussed.

One year later, on 24 October 1950, the French prime minister René Pleven introduced his "Pleven Plan". As happened earlier with Schuman, who didn't support this latest proposal, this document too had been written entirely by Jean Monnet (although he might have discussed it with his friend Arthur Salter). It proposed the creation of the European Defence Community (EDC): a Paneuropean defense force. Eventually this proposal was defeated by the Gaullist nationalists in France, and Europe's defense forces remained part of the newly-established NATO, which was (and is) mostly international, instead of supranational.

After the failure of his European Defence Community (EDC), Monnet doubled his efforts and founded the very low-profile Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE). It brought together leading international members of governments and labour unions, mainly to discuss European economic integration. ACUSE, together with the US State Department, lobbied and pressured a great deal behind the scenes in the run up to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which created the actual European Economic Community (EEC; "Economic" was dropped in '91). All of Monnet's most important associates in this process were members of the Pilgrims Society: David K.E. Bruce, the Dulles brothers, John J. McCloy, George Ball, C. Douglas Dillon, and president Eisenhower. Cercle member Konrad Adenauer was among the signers of the treaty, just as Paul Henri Spaak. Also, the founding vice president of the ACUSE was Max Kohnstamm, who became the initial 1973 European chairman of the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission. Kohnstamm used to be private secretary to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Antoine Pinay was another important member of ACUSE, the organization that Time Magazine dubbed a "European shadow government" in 1969 (24).

In 1961, Monnet managed to replace the OEEC, initially established to oversee the Marshall Plan, with the broader Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (25). The OECD since then has been one of the most influential institutions promoting globalization and free trade, today working in partnership with the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization. Mainland European governors of the Atlantic Institute of International Affairs, which also was founded in 1961, have had a relatively strong presence in these institutions, especially in the OECD. Pilgrims Society members have been dominant in the other institutions while the Vatican-connected Paneuropa members have always played a minor role in the institutions above and tend to criticize the Anglo-American Liberal establishment.

Around the same time Monnet replaced the OEEC with the OECD, he met with Edward Heath (As Lord Privy Seal 1960-1963 responsible for the initial talks to bring Britain into the European Common Market; head Conservative party 1965-1975; Conservative prime minister UK 1970-1974; very committed to the EU; a close Sun Myung Moon associate) at the house of his good friend David Drummond, the 17th Lord Perth (26), a member of an old aristocratic family with very good connections to both the Vatican and the highest levels in British society, including the Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Mellons, Cecils, and Howards (27). Lord Perth was a chairman of the Ditchley Foundation and his father was the initial secretary-general of the League of Nations while Monnet was his deputy. Heath became a member of Monnet's Action Committee and in 1973 he signed Britain into the European Economic Community. This only became possible after De Gaulle had ceased to be president of France.

Monnet was an early supporter of de Gaulle, as he was of the opinion that this legendary general was the only person who might be able to reunite the French people after WWII. However, in later years some friction developed between these two men. De Gaulle was a nationalist who supported a strong intergovernmental Europe, preferably with France being the major influence. Monnet, on the other hand, was a no holds barred supranationalist.

Franco-German rapprochement

Jean Monnet clearly was among the most influential and secretive of the Cercle members that pushed for a united Europe. However, according to Brian Crozier, a former chairman of Le Cercle, Jean Violet himself also played an important behind the scenes role several years after the European Economic Community (EEC) had been founded:

"By far the dominant theme in de Gaulle's foreign policy (as Violet interpreted it) was Franco-German reconciliation. A genius at (non-violent) operations of influence, Violet played an historically key role between 1957 and 1961 in bringing about this rapprochement, which is the real core of the European Community. He had developed a close friendship with Antoine Pinay, who had served as French Premier in 1951 under the unstable Fourth Republic. At a lower level, a complementary role was played by his SDECE colleague Antoine Bonnemaison. Violet was the go-between in secret meetings between Pinay and the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and his coalition partner Franz Josef Strauss. These paved the way for Charles de Gaulle's own encounters with Adenauer, which culminated in the Franco-German Treaty of January 1963. [Treaty of Elysée]" (28)

The Treaty of Elysée is a relatively unknown agreement (for the average person) between France and Germany in which both countries agreed to consult with each other on important foreign policy and economic issues, ahead of time of general EEC meetings. It is the core of the often-discussed Franco-German alliance, which has had great influence on the European project ever since. Some say, too much.

The Elysée agreement was made at the time that de Gaulle first vetoed the accession of Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC). The decision was quietly backed by Adenauer. De Gaulle argued that Britain's economy was based on trade with its Commonwealth and did not have a large agricultural economy, like France and most other countries in mainland Europe. This, together with Britain's historical "special relationship" with the United States, convinced de Gaulle that Britain would never be fully committed to the interests of Europe (29). Of course, it's far from unreasonable to think that de Gaulle's primary reason was that he saw Britain and its ally the United States as a threat to France's influence within the European Union. A few years later de Gaulle also withdrew from NATO, expelled all Allied forces from France, and tried to get on good terms with the Soviet Union. In addition to the enemies he had made when he withdrew from Algeria, he now also angered people like Brian Crozier and his French intelligence associate Colonel Antoine Bonnemaison. Bonnemaison ran a Cercle-like operation (let's shorten it to Le Centre), of which Crozier had become a member (30). Members of the Centre had already labeled de Gaulle "the enemy" in 1965, and were looking for ways to evict him from office (31). Within four years they got what they wanted, although it's not known if they had any active involvement in ousting de Gaulle, besides spying on him. But they certainly had the connections to do that.

It would still be several years before the Opusian Jean Violet and Anglo-Saxon Brian Crozier would meet and join hands. Ironically, at this time, when Crozier was involved in spying on de Gaulle, Violet was carrying out de Gaulle's defense and foreign policy objectives, and possibly was the French president's most important intelligence agent. Even when Crozier was head of Le Cercle from 1980 to 1985, he did not know Jean Violet's full background:

"It was not until the spring of 1993 that I learned the details of Jean Violet's real secret service role when General de Gaulle was in power. A background document was given to me by one of Violet's ex-colleagues. Ironically, a few years before Gabriel Decazes and I started spying on de Gaulle, Violet was masterminding a Service Spécial to promote the General's objectives in defence and foreign policy.

The document began with a paragraph of wistful praise for Britain's remarkable achievements in intelligence and clandestine action. But France, too, offered a precedent: Louis XV had set up a special service known to the few who were aware of it as the Secret du Roi. This service reported directly to the King, bypassing the Foreign Ministry of the day.

Only two people were aware of de Gaulle's latter-day model: General Grossin, the then head of the SDECE, and a certain 'Monsieur X'. It required no great deductive powers to assume that Monsieur X had to be Maître Violet, but Jean refused to comment when I asked him. My other source, however, confirmed my supposition. No wonder, in retrospect, that Violet's shadowy role and apparently bottomless purse stirred resentful envy among his colleagues and poisoned Alexandre de Marenches's mind against Violet, whom he had never met." (32)

Violet saw Franco-German rapprochement as de Gaulle's most important foreign policy objective, but judging by his association with people who wanted Britain in the European Union as a "third pillar" it is doubtful he supported all of de Gaulle's later decisions. In 1980, Violet picked Crozier as his follow-up to the presidency/chairmanship of Le Cercle (33). Crozier had been recruited by the Frenchman nine years earlier, and introduced by a person who had been a close assistant to Cercle member Jean Monnet (who struggled for a long time to get Britain into the EEC).

"On 1 March 1971, a long interview I had given to Joseph Fromm appeared in US News and World Report. The theme was terrorist and Communist intentions. On reading this interview, a Frenchman named Maitre Jean Violet came to see me in my Piccadilly office, with an introduction from Francois Duchene, my former Economist colleague and Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.... Violet impressed me with the clarity and precision of his arguments - Gallic logic at its best - and with the breath of his intellectual grasp of world problems." (34)

Duchene had met Monnet in exactly the same way as Crozier met Violet. In 1950, Duchene wrote a series of articles for the Manchester Guardian which came to the attention of Jean Monnet. In response, Monnet invited Duchene to become one of his assistants in building a united Europe. Duchene followed Monnet when the latter became head of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). He then followed Monnet to Paris and became an editor of the Economist. In 1958, Duchene became a director of Monnet's Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE), which struggled to get Britain in the EEC under the dictations of the Treaty of Rome. He remained on the board until 1963. During this time, he suffered a nervous breakdown for some unknown reason. In 1963, he went on to become leader writer for the Economist and from 1967 to 1969 he was a Ford Foundation fellow (a huge US intelligence-connected foundation). From 1969 to 1974 he was a director of the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank on international affairs with directors linked to intelligence and the high financial circles. In 1974 or 1975, Duchene became the European deputy chairman of the Trilateral Commission, working under Max Kohnstamm, Monnet's partner at the Action Committee (35).

So, as can be concluded from the above text, during Duchene's time as a director of the IISS, he approached Brian Crozier on behalf of Jean Violet, and very likely on behalf of the Cercle in general, as Crozier mentioned that his involvement with the Cercle started that same year (36). Interestingly, Duchene not only introduced Violet as a person who worked for French intelligence, but also as a person who "represented a powerful consortium of French business interests." (37)

It seems there's no end to the interests Cercle-founder Jean Violet represented during his lifetime: the fascist CSAR group, Opus Dei, Paneuropa, the French government, French business, French intelligence, and even German intelligence, as former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen recruited him at one point for his involvement with Le Cercle (38). Whereas Jean Violet is tightly locked into the Paneuropa-Vatican network, his associates Jean Monnet, Francois Duchene, Brian Crozier and several other (Duchene is not confirmed as a Cercle member) British Cercle members seem to be more connected to the Anglo-American interests.

Crozier's anti-communist propaganda network
In the 1950s and early 1960s Crozier worked as a journalist and editor for the Sunday Times, the Economist, and the BBC. During this time he made his first intelligence contacts

Brian Crozier: "[Reagan] shared my view that Nel- son was more intelligent than his banker brother, David. He was critical of the role of David Rocke- feller's Chase Manhattan Bank in easing technology transfers to the Soviet Union. Reagan also men- tioned, with mild distaste, the role of the Trilateral Commission in sponsoring Jimmy Carter." (Free Agent, p. 182) and used them for scoops. When John Hay "Jock" Whitney was ambassador to Great Britain from 1957 to 1961, Crozier was invited to his inner circle (39). Whitney was a Rockefeller associate, a friend of the British royal family, a CIA associate, and a Pilgrims Society vice president until the day he died (40). A few years later, Crozier went to work for the IRD, doing studies (some prefer to call it "disseminate propaganda") on KGB subversion. He also started to work with the CIA, MI6, and the intelligence agencies of France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Morocco, Iran, Argentina, Chile, and Taiwan. The CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) also approached him to reconstruct and commercialize their organization. Crozier, however, turned down this offer as he was too busy with his other undertakings. He later did a study for the CCF, investigating its South American network. Some time after that study, in 1965-1966, he reconstructed the CCFs Forum Service, turning it into Forum World Features (FWF). John Hay Whitney was the one who took over the financial burden of FWF from the CIA when it was commercialized. Another billionaire CIA associate, Richard Mellon Scaife, later took over funding of FWF from Whitney. Scaife also funded Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), which he
founded in 1970, and showed up at gatherings of the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, an anti-communist and anti-terrorist propaganda group headed by several British Cercle members, including Crozier (41). In his book 'Free Agent' Crozier summarized the purpose of his ISC:
"Throughout my period as Director, the Institute for the Study of Conflict was involved in exposing the fallacies of 'détente' and warning the West of the dangers inherent a policy of illusion." (42)

Crozier and associates rejected Kissinger's Détente, aimed at reducing tensions between the superpowers, because, this group claimed, the Soviets continued to infiltrate and significantly influence Western Labour and Green parties, trade unions, media, and intelligence agencies. Also, they were of the opinion that the initial post-WWII policy of Containment (the Truman doctrine) was flawed. Instead, they argued that the West not only should resist a further communist encroachment, but also that it had to liberate countries that had fallen under the control of the Soviet empire. Every piece of territory that the Soviets conquered had to be taken back.

A noble and intelligent idea you would think. Unfortunately, many people who headed this lobby from behind the scenes just happen to be so far to the right they could actually be labeled as fascists. And in between these left and right wing extremists you had the Rockefeller clique, seemingly with their own agenda, encouraging technology to be sold to the Soviets (43). Even Crozier and some of his associates criticized that, probably never entertaining the idea that these people might know a thing or two they didn't (44).

In his book Crozier claims that the people who exposed his Forum World Services, The 61, and his Cercle were mostly manipulated or working for the KGB. He also presents information in such a way that will lead you to conclude that people like Mohammed Mossadeq and Harold Wilson were KGB paws, and that Pope John Paul I & II were both targeted by the KGB for assassination (only John Paul I died of that, allegedly). The KGB is basically behind everything. Crozier even repeated a 1978 claim by Time Magazine that the most effective KGB propaganda was that of discrediting the CIA (45). He also likes to state that "neo-colonialism" was a term invented by the Soviets, etc. Many of his accusations are based on statements from anonymous intelligence officers. At times, although he normally focuses on his own connections, he has used or referred to such reliable sources as the CIA sponsored Encounter magazine, the CIA sponsored Reader's Digest, his own CIA sponsored ISC think tank, the CIA sponsored journalist Claire Sterling, or to the CIA connected Zionist extremist Michael Ledeen.

It is important to consider that Crozier perfectly fits the profile of someone like Colin Wallace, the British intelligence agent who was handed all kinds of forged material to be put into circulation (46). And just recently, a Belgian associate of Jean Violet, Crozier's closest colleague for years, was caught forging KGB documents that had to prove a vast left wing conspiracy against this person (47). Crozier's good friend Richard Perle (48), and some of the other people he is associated with, would also know a thing or two about cooking or inventing evidence to sway public opinion. Crozier himself has been very influential in the late 1970s and early 1980s in setting up the war on terrorism. His friend Perle would take it to the next level after 9/11. More about that later, as Crozier's bio is a lot longer.

Cercle leadership

We briefly discussed the history of some of the key players in Le Cercle: Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay, the official founders; and their patron, Otto von Habsburg; how Violet and Pinay recruited individuals like Jean Monnet, Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman, and influenced the early history of the European Union. We also discussed how an agent of both Monnet and Violet recruited a well-connected member of British and American intelligence, Brian Crozier, and made him head of their Cercle in 1980. We also discussed the anti-communist and pro-Europe activities of its key members.

However, more key people were involved with Le Cercle over the years. Take Carlo Pesenti from Italy and Sir Peter Tennant from England. Pesenti was a close associate of the Vatican's financial circles; Tennant an important trade promoter for the City of London. They acted as chairmen of Cercle sessions when it was under the presidency of Jean Violet (49). Another important person was Franz-Josef Bach, who used to run Konrad Adenauer's political office. Bach co-organized Cercle meetings from at least 1980 to at least 1991 (50). A quick summary follows of who these people were. Look in the membership list attached to this article for more details, including the source of each individual name.

Scion of what was one of the wealthiest families of Italy until the 1970s, together with the Agnellis and Pirellis. Financier of some of the enterprises of Jean Violet and Brian Crozier; possibly also of Le Cercle. Chaired some of the meetings of Le Cercle and invited David Rockefeller. Head of Italcementi/Italmobiliare, one of the few key firms in cooperation with the IOR, or Vatican Bank. Boards of some of the companies it owned were loaded with aristocrats and SMOM members. Italmobiliare was the largest minority shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano at the time of its collapse in 1982. Pesenti was investigated for his role in the collapse but died during the court proceedings.

Sir Peter Tennant Recruited into the SOE (WWII rival of MI6) by its founder, Colonel Sir Charles Hambro (head of Hambro, a Pilgrims Society bank; close friend of Churchill and the Wallenbergs; his son went to live with the Wallenberg family during WWII; head of the SOE 1942-1943; Sir Hambro's deputy in the SOE, Henry "Harry" Sporborg, also of Hambro Bank, ended up in the small inner circle committee of Crozier's Shield) as one of its first members. Helped Sefton Delmer (the Lord Beaverbrook agent who used to be in contact with Hitler's inner circle) with material for his propaganda broadcasts to the German armed forces. Deputy commandant of the British sector in Berlin 1950-1952. Went on to become a long time major trade representative for the City of London and had a lot of involvement in the negotiations leading up to the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Joined Barclays Bank in the City of London as a director and industrial advisor in 1972. Chaired some meetings of Le Cercle. Co-organized a fundraising in 1976 with a bunch of Pilgrims Society members and leading officers to save Canterbury Cathedral. Joined the board of the International Energy Bank in 1981, which financed worldwide oil and gas explorations, starting with the United States and Europe. Helped to establish the right-wing political pressure group Policy Research Associates.

Franz-Josef Bach Ran Konrad Adenauer's office, who was chancellor of the Federal Republic of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. German ambassador to Iran. Conservative member of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1972. Went to work for the Swiss-based Economic and Development Corporation (EDC), an unacknowledged lobbying group for Northrop. Named as a shareholder of EDC and acknowledged that he had "advised them [EDC] about political things - the stability of a country, whether it was going to be an industrial country or not, whether it was going to be stable or not... I go to the country, see the country and make a report." (51) Senator Church of the Church Committee said about the Northrop arrangement: "an intelligence network like a government would employ to get inside information, to pull the strings... the records itself show that Northrop has been doing it." (52) Commercial and financial advisor to the Siemens Corporation.
Other important members of Le Cercle were-are Lord Julian Amery, his protege Jonathan Aitken and Lord Norman Lamont, all three members of the Privy Council. In 1985, Amery was picked by Brian Crozier as his follow up as president of Le Cercle (53). Aitken was Amery's protege and is known to have chaired at least some meetings in the early 1990s (54). Lord Lamont, the Rothschild employee, has repeatedly been named chairman of Le Cercle since 1996 (55). Here are some additional details on these people:

Son of Leopold Amery (1873-1955), who was close associate of Lord Milner and the Rothschilds. Leopold was a British imperialist heavily involved in the creation of Israel. He also was a great supporter of Coudenhove-Kalergi's Paneuropa Union, which was initially funded by the Warburgs and Rothschilds (56), and was later headed by Otto von Habsburg. Leopold had two sons: John and Julian. John went to work for French, Spanish, German, and Italian fascists, and was eventually hanged for it. Julian was Churchill’s personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek in 1945. Reportedly a life-long MI6 operative, although it isn't really known what he has been doing in this function. In 1950, he became a Conservative member of parliament and served in the cabinets of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath. Married Harold Macmillan's daughter in 1950. Involved in the founding of the CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom in 1950. Representative to the Council of Europe 1950-1956. Representative to the Round Table Conference on Malta in 1955. Involved with the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Club in the 1950s and 1960s, together with the Oppenheimers. Became a member of the Privy Council in 1960. Member of the very aristocratic Other Club since 1960, over the years together with the Duke of Devonshire (Cavendish), the Cecils, Lord Rothschild, Lord Rees-Mogg, Prince Charles, Pilgrims Society president Lord Carrington, Pilgrims Society member Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne, and a whole string of ex-prime ministers. With his friends David Stirling and Billy McLean, and help from the Cercle-affiliated royal houses of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, he set up a private SAS war in Yemen in the early 1960s in an effort to get Nasser out. One of the most prominent supporters of the illegal pro-white dictatorship in Rhodesia during the 1970s. In 1975, he claimed that it seemed more and more that the British trade unions were infiltrated by the KGB. Said to have been at a meeting on November 15,1982 with Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis and several known Cercle members about an expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank (57). Chairman of the London chapter of the Global Economic Action Institute, a free-market organization that was exposed in 1986 as being funded by the Moonie cult. Julian not only was an avid empire-builder, just like his father, but also in favour of Britain joining the European Common Market. He was also a supporter of a strong nuclear deterrent against the Soviets. Picked by Crozier as the new president of Le Cercle in 1985. Consultant to the extremely corrupt BCCI in the 1980s. Mentor to Jonathan Aitken, the next president of Le Cercle. Good friend of the very powerful and dynastic Cecil family, which also was very prominent in the initial Round Table clique.

Great nephew of Hitler-intimate Lord Beaverbrook, whose son ended up in the 1001 Club. Served as a war correspondent, and reportedly an MI6 agent, during the 1960s in the Middle-East, Vietnam, and Africa. Became a politician and member of parliament. During the 1980s, Aitken was a director of BMARC, a company that exported weapons to intermediary countries, who sold these weapons again to the intended countries (like Iraq). CEO of TV-Am and chairman of Aitken Hume Plc, a banking and investment group. In 1992, he was appointed Defense Minister. During this time, he stood in close contact with co-Cercle member and MI6 head of Middle-East affairs Geoffrey Tantum. Chairman of Le Cercle. Accused of having lobbied for three arms contractors: GEC, Marconi and VSEL, in an effort to sell many millions worth of arms to Saudi-Arabia. Through multiple offshore companies in Switzerland and Panama, submarines, howitzers, medium-range laser guided bombs, Black Hawks, and EH101 helicopters were sold and shipped. After his trial and brief time in jail, Aitken is one of the few people who had to resign from the Privy Council. Seemingly funded by British intelligence during tough times. Has become an extremely religious evangelist who even went on a few Jesuit retreats. Claims that since Britain has failed to become the dominant power in the European Union, Britain should withdraw its membership in the EU.

Very influential British politician who was the campaign manager for John Major. Worked at Rothschilds from 1968 to 1979. Became an important politician and leading eurosceptic under Thatcher, who also led the Treaty of Maastricht negotiations for Britain. Handled Russia's negotiations with institutions as the IMF and World Bank on behalf of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Again director of N.M. Rothschild and Sons Ltd 1993-1995, personally appointed by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild against the advice of the other board members. Appointed chairman of Le Cercle in 1996 after Aitken had to step down. Member of the Privy Council. Director of Scottish Re and many other insurance, banking, and chemical corporations. Advisor to the Monsanto Corporation. Chairman of the obscure Oil Club. Member of the Neoconservative Benador Associates, together with Arnaud de Borchgrave, Alexander Haig, and James Woolsey. Director of General Mediterranean Holding of the controversial former Saddam associate and arms dealer Nadhmi Auchi, who also is a member of Le Cercle. Sought the release of Pinochet. Has visited Bilderberg. As chairman of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce, he's been promoting increased trade with Iran while the US is about to attack this country for allegedly trying to create nuclear weapons. As head of the Bruges Group he is a leader in the eurosceptic movement in Britain.
There is some confusion these days about who is president and-or chairman of Le Cercle. When Pinay was president of the group the chairmanship of the individual meetings was shared out among people like Pesenti, Tennant, and Crozier. The presidency was later handed over to Jean Violet, Brian Crozier, and Julian Amery. However, since then their successors have been referred to as chairmen of Le Cercle. Following is a list of heads of Le Cercle, compiled by comparing a number of different sources.

Chairman/president Term
Antoine Pinay 1950s - 1970s
Jean Violet 1970s - 1980
Brian Crozier 1980 - 1985
Julian Amery 1985 - 1990s (Likely until 1991, when Amery retired from public office)
Jonathan Aitken 1990s - 1996
Lord Norman Lamont 1996 - today

Subversive tendencies

At some point a more exclusive coordinating group, or "executive committee", was formed within the wider Cercle, initially referred to as the Pinay Group. Few details are available about this group, besides the fact that it worked out possible action on political issues that were current at the time. Both Crozier (58) and Langemann (59) acknowledged this, and David Rockefeller's reference to a "Pesenti Group" (60) likely was a reference to this inner circle. The Group might have been the same as the "Pinay Committee" that appeared in documents of the Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), leaked in 1975 to Time Out Magazine (the first known public references to the Cercle). The Pinay Committee commissioned Crozier's institute to produce several reports, which were then spread to right wing officials on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, the 1500 ISC documents that were leaked have mostly gone missing (61).

Several years after the ISC leak, German intelligence officer Hans Langemann provided more details on this coordinating group. Langemann was head of Bavarian State Security in the 1970s and early 1980s. One of his colleagues was Hans von Machtenberg (a pseudonym) who attended meetings of Le Cercle. Von Machtenberg agreed to pass on full briefings to Langemann about the Cercle meetings in exchange for information gathered by Langemann from his own intelligence contacts. Seemingly after questioning the motives of the Cercle, Langemann wrote down and recorded what he knew about it and eventually sold it to Kronket Magazine in the early 1980s. Der Spiegel soon picked up on the story of Kronket and exposed the role of their political enemy it, Franz Josef Strauss. The 1980 and 1982 articles of Der Spiegel were based on internal memos of Hans Langemann, seemingly informing persons within the German government about the clandestine efforts of the Cercle to get Franz Josef Strauss elected Chancellor. According to Der Spiegel, Langemann had written the following text on November 8, 1979 (translated) (62):

Protected source contributions to state security. Personal for the state minister only.

"The militant conservative London publicist, Brian Crozier, Director of the famous Institute for the Study of Conflict up to September 1979, has been working with his diverse circle of friends in international politics to build an anonymous action group, a 'transnational security organization, and to widen its field of operations. Crozier worked with the CIA for years. One has to assume, therefore, that they are fully aware of his activities. He has extensive connections with members, or more accurately, former members, of the most important western security and intelligence services..."

What the group can do:

provision of contributions by certain well-known journalists in Britain, the US and other countries
access to television
creation of a lobby in influential circles directly or indirectly through middlemen whether they are informed of this or not
organization of public demonstrations in particular areas on themes to be decided and selected
the involvement of the main intelligence and security agencies both as information sources and as recipients for information in these institutions
undercover financial transactions for political aims.
What the group can do if financing is available.

Conduct international campaigns aiming to discredit hostile personalities or events.
Creation of a (private) intelligence service specialising according to a selective point of view.
The establishment of offices under suitable cover each run by a co-ordinator from the central office. Current plans cover London, Washington, Paris, Munich and Madrid.
As one can imagine, the secrecy surrounding Le Cercle is not that much of a mystery, as most people would disapprove of a secret group consisting of persons tied to questionable corporate, political and religious interests, that is involved in political manipulation. More from Langemann (63):

Amongst other points in the (Crozier) planning paper are:

Specific Aims within this framework are to affect a change of government in
the United Kingdom - accomplished.

In West Germany to defend freedom of trade and movement and oppose all forms of subversion including terrorism ..

"On 5 and 6/1 1980 members of the Circle met in Zurich to discuss executive measures..."

The main things discussed were:

(a) international promotion of the Minister President (Strauss) in international publications
(b) influencing of the situation in Rhodesia and South Africa following a European Conservative guideline and
© the establishment of a powerful directional radio station aiming at the Islamic region and including the border populations of the Soviet Union.
"As far as can be judged by outsiders Crozier has initiated with his group the project 'Victory for Strauss' using the tactics applied in Great Britain, of major themes such as the communist, extremist subversion of government parties and trade unions, KGB manipulation of terrorism and damage to internal security."

Langemann presents a list of conspiracies which we know more about these days. Let's take a more in depth look into each of them and see who was involved specifically.

THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT in the United Kingdom refers to the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 in which Crozier's Shield, a covert advisory committee, played a crucial role (64). The initial idea for Shield came from MI6 agent Sir Stephen Haskings, a friend of Crozier who had formerly been a SAS soldier and SOE officer. Crozier put together Thatcher's election campaign by adopting Jean Violet's Psychological Action program, a technique to find quick, short answers to three basic questions: What do people want? What do they fear? And what do they feel strongly about? Shield also completely convinced Thatcher about the severe threat of domestic communist subversion. After Crozier and Haskings handed her their paper 'The diabolical nature of the Communist conspiracy', Thatcher's reaction was, "I've read every word and I'm shattered. What should we do?" (65). Harry Sporborg and Cercle member Nicholas Elliot were the other two members of inner circle of Shield. Sporborg worked at Hambros Bank and used to be a deputy head of the SOE during WWII. Elliot was a former MI6 agent who specialized in sabotage and unconventional warfare. He also had been a director of Lonrho.

Shield was hardly a new phenomenon, and its success can actually be seen as the culmination of twenty years of manipulation by the British far-right to get a prime minister elected they truly desired. This far-right group, which was, and is, closely affiliated with the British establishment, had already been meddling a great deal in Britain's domestic politics since the election of Harold Wilson as prime minister in 1964. Although the aristocrats, centered around the royal court, have never embraced Labour, the serious economic recession of the late 1960s and early 1970s caused so much concern that many individuals within these circles actually began planning a coup. It started with a dirty tricks campaign against Wilson, mainly orchestrated by rogue elements within MI5 and MI6 and with overseas support of CIA head James Jesus Angleton. During his two terms in office, and especially during his second term from 1974 to 1976, Wilson was smeared with accusations that he was a homosexual, a supporter of the IRA, and that he was a KGB agent. Private armies and action groups were set up to take over essential services in case the country broke down. In March 1976, Wilson unexpectedly decided to step down. Publicly he claimed that he was physically and mentally exhausted, but also that this is what he had always planned to do at age 60. Privately he explained that "business groups and other anti-democratic agencies", and also pointing to a rogue element in MI5, had made it absolutely impossible for him to run the country (66). Wilson's secretary, Baroness Marcia Falkender, supported his statements.

"MI5 were making a mockery out of us. Those people ought to be exposed for what they really are... but you can't identify them. We could be sitting in a room and you might be MI5 and I wouldn't know. Or I might have have been all these years and you wouldn't know." (67)


The group that was working to oust Wilson was the same group that got Thatcher elected. Lord Julian Amery, one time head of Le Cercle, was a good friend to both David Stirling and General Walter Walker, respectively the third and fourth person from the left. Crozier, another Cercle head, was involved in spreading KGB rumors about Wilson and later wrote Thatcher's election strategy. Interestingly, two men in the anti-Wilson plot were assassinated in 1979; Airey Neave (5th from left) in March and Earl Mountbatten (2nd from left) in August.

Among the people named that have been involved in the plot to get rid of Wilson were SAS founder David Stirling, Sir James Goldsmith (known Cercle associate), the 7th Earl of Lucan, Sir Val Duncan (chair of Rio Tinto Zinc; 1001 Club; Edmund de Rothschild associate), Cecil Harmsworth King (nephew Lord Northcliffe; MI5 agent; Bank of England), George Kennedy Young (ex-deputy director MI6; helped to overthrow Mossadeq; Monday Club; Kleinwort Benson; set up Tory Action; set up civilian armed resistance cells), Airey Neave (MI6/MI5 insider; set up Tory Action; set up civilian armed resistance cells), Army General Sir Walter Walker (set up private armies and Civil Assistance/Unison), Major Alexander Greenwood (set up private armies), the 4th Earl of Cromartie (WWII commander), Lord Mountbatten of Burma (uncle of Prince Philip; would have headed the provisional junta), and the Queen Mother. Angleton, a Knight of Malta, provided assistance from across the Atlantic (68).

Besides Brian Crozier, who was aware of the planned coup and actively supported it with his anti-communist lectures to military officers (69), a few other Cercle members have also played a supplementary role in the coup against Wilson and Labour in general. The president of Le Cercle after Crozier, Julian Amery, was a good friend of General Walter Walker and wrote the foreword of Walker's book 'The Next Domino'. Amery also was a member and later patron of the Conservative Monday Club, a center of anti-Labour activity. Additionally, Cercle member Anthony Cavendish was a member of the Unison Committee for Action, one of the anti-Labour action groups set up by George Kennedy Young and General Walter Walker (70). Cavendish also worked with James Goldsmith and was on good terms with Julian Amery. Cercle member Robert Moss was a protege of Brian Crozier and helped him internationally to spread the word of communist subversion. In 1975, Moss and Crozier, together with Viscount De L'Isle (Knight of the Garter; Privy Council) and others, were co-founders of the National Association for Freedom (NAFF), an anti-Labour and anti-Wilson pressure group that acted as a follow-up of GB 75 and the later Civil Assistance/Unison. Quite a number of NAFF members would find their way to prominent political positions under Thatcher (71).

Even after Wilson was ousted in 1976, many right-wing individuals were still not content with the new Labour prime minister James Callaghan. Only after three more years of underground politicking they were able to maneuver the hard-right Conservative Thatcher into office.

THE PROMOTION OF STRAUSS is a reference to articles written by Brian Crozier, his associate James Goldsmith, and others to improve the image of Franz Josef Strauss
within and outside Germany. They denounced all the accusations against Strauss as KGB propaganda, again with testimonies from defectors of Czech intelligence, like they used in their campaign against Wilson (72). Although Strauss never made the Chancellorship, he was a well known German politician, and in terms of political convictions somewhere to the right of Margaret Thatcher. His home base was the hard-right Roman Catholic Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), together with his co- Cercle friends Otto von Habsburg, Count Hans Huyn, and Alois Mertes.

Strauss, feeling Napoleon.

He went to the Bohemian Grove in 1962 and gave a speech there (73). After a long career, riddled with numerous scandals, he died in 1988 while on a hunting trip with Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis. More scandals followed after his death, some involving his son.

These Cercle friends of Strauss are interesting people. Otto von Habsburg, who claimed his political views on Europe were very close to those of Strauss (74), is head of the Paneuropa Union (the second head since its founding in 1922), where he followed up the well known

Cercle founder Otto Habsburg. The twelve stars on the European flag literally are a reference to the Virgin Mary and her halo of twelve stars. Until recently, that claim could also be found in an introduction article on the Paneuropa website. Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Anno 2006, Otto is an advisor to the Coundenhove-Kalergi Foundation, together with Count Hans Huyn, Jakob Coudenhove-Kalergi (nephew of Richard, the founder of the Paneuropa Union), Prince Carlo della Torre e Tasso (Italian branch of the Thurn und Taxis family), and Max Turnauer (ambassador of the Order of Malta in Liechtenstein). Nikolaus von Liechtenstein, the younger brother of Hans-Adam II, is an executive member of the the Coundenhove-Kalergi Foundation (75). The Paneuropa Union has a vast network of underground political organizations all over Europe, which include or included the European Centre of Documentation and Information, Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union de l'Europe, the Académie Européenne de Sciences Politiques, Ordre du Rouvre, the Institut Européen pour la Developpement, Cercle des Nations (renamed to Cercle de Lorraine and a much broader membership these days), and the Mont Pelerin Society. The amount of ties to the Vatican within these institutions, and in particular to Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, is absolutely staggering. Otto von Habsburg is closely associated with both organizations, not to mention his own Order of the Golden Fleece.

Count Huyn is a German aristocrat, and like Otto von Habsburg and Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi, descended from a prominent Austro-Hungarian family. His wife is a descendant of Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (1717-1780), the first and only female head of the Habsburg dynasty. Huyn was a foreign policy advisor to his friend Franz-Josef Strauss from 1971 to 1976. In 1976, Huyn became a long time member of the Bundestag himself and would serve on many government committees. He would also write quite a number of books on Soviet strategy and occasionally speak out in favor of the placement of nuclear weapons in Germany or participation in the Star Wars program, without any regards for public opinion. Crozier

Count Hans Huyn acknowledges in his book that Count Huyn was one of three primary intelligence sources in Germany for his 61 intelligence group (more about that later). Huyn might have a long Cercle history behind him, because he was involved in overseeing the 1963 Treaty of Elisée in which Cercle founder Jean Violet played such a crucial role. As a devout Catholic, Huyn used to head the German department of the Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need.

THE STORY OF RHODESIA and South Africa being manipulated by British Conservative politics will often produce the same names as those involved in ousting Harold Wilson.

In the late 19th century, the country later known as Southern Rhodesia was taken over through military force by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), founded by Cecil Rhodes (from which the name "Rhodesia" is derived). BSAC was mirrored on the British East-India Company. In 1953, after calls for independence, Southern Rhodesia became part of the Central African Federation (CAF), which also included Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1965, one year after the CAF had been dissolved and Northern Rhodesia had become the independent Zambia, the White minority government in Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared itself independent from Britain. This way they hoped to stop any further reforms that would result in black majority rule. Initially, the White minority government did recognize the Queen of England although she would (and could) never accept the title "Queen of Rhodesia".

Two of the biggest supporters of the White minority government at the time were Cercle members Julian Amery and Lord Robert Cecil, today the 7th Marquess of Salisbury (76). From 1961 to 1981, Robert Cecil's father and grandfather presided over the Conservative Monday Club, a center of post-WWII imperialism (and other major supporters of the White minority government). Julian Amery was a member of the club. The 7th Marquess of Salisbury was a good friend of Julian Amery and their families have been involved with each other since the early 20th century. Although Julian's father was a very important individual, working closely with the Rothschilds in building up the state of Israel, the Amery family pales in comparison with the historical influence of the Cecil family. There are only one or two dynastic families that might compete in terms of influence they had on British affairs since the 16th century. In fact, under Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), the Cecils are credited with having created the first known large scale spy network in Britain and Europe. It's possible however that they received some inspiration from Venice at the time.

Another important supporter of the racist illegal government in Rhodesia was Lonrho, a giant Pan-African raw materials corporation headed by reported Cercle-associate Tiny Rowland. Cercle member and MI6 agent Nicholas Elliot was a director of the company in the 1970s, although there seems to have been some friction with the Rowland camp (77). Ian Smith, head of the racist government in Rhodesia, had once helped Rowland to start up his mining business in Africa (78). After that Rowland had grown to become one of the most controversial figures ever to walk around on that continent. He has been accused of bribing numerous officials and working with British intelligence in supporting certain favorable regimes, one of them being UNITA in Angola (79). Together with an equally controversial Adnan Khashoggi, he was involved in selling top-quality military equipment to Libya and supplying it with mercenaries to build up its own special forces capability (80). Rowland used to be a member of John Aspinall's Clermont gambling club in the 1960s, together with Lord Lucan, and the earlier mentioned Sir James Goldsmith and SAS founder David Stirling (81). This group wanted to get rid of Wilson the day he set foot in the prime minister's office. They also loathed James Callaghan, the Labour follow-up of Wilson. Rowland, Lucan, and Aspinall were fascists (82). Sir James Goldsmith, the close associate of Brian Crozier, and David Stirling, a close private warfare buddy of Julian Amery (83) whose (Stirling's) niece married the 7th Marquess of Salisbury, were running the mercenary firm KAS Enterprises. Officially, KAS was hired to protect elephants and rhinos in southern Africa from poachers. But soon accusations arose that the firm was fighting the anti-apartheid movement, reportedly leaving 1,5 million dead. Most details about Operation Lock, as it was called, have been suppressed (84).

Conrad Gerber is another Cercle member with a connection to this region. He worked as an economist in the white minority government of Rhodesia in the 1970s, where he was involved in circumventing international sanctions to purchase oil for his country. He d...