Seymour Hersh: Many in Joint Spec'l Ops Command ... Kinghts of Malta

[David Guyatt]

If it looks like it, and smells like it, then it probably is.

Lies that is.

A spokesman for McChrystal said the general "is not and never has been" a member of the Knights of Malta, an ancient order that protected Christians from Muslim encroachment during the Middle Ages and has since evolved into a charitable organization. These days, the Knights, based in Rome, sponsor medical missions in dozens of countries. McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, said Hersh's statement linking McChrystal to the group was "completely false and without basis in fact."

On the other hand, there is a very different and powerful SMOM American chapter that does not publish its membership - whereas the Roman one does.

The American Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
(Knights of Malta, SMOM) was founded in 1927. "By 1941 Francis
Cardinal Spellman was listed as the 'Grand Protector' and
'Spritual Advisor' of the Order, with John J. Raskob as
Treasurer. Members included John Farrell, then President of U.S.
Steel, Joseph P. Grace, and John D. Ryan. In 1934 Raskob,
inspired by the French fascist Croix de Feu, and working closely
with Morgan Bank's John Davis, had been a principal financier in
the plot to organize a fascist coup in the U.S. The plan failed
when General Smedley Butler, who had been set up to lead the
project, denounced it."

His Eminence Cardinal Spellman, "Grand Protector" of the Knights
of Malta, worked with Pope Pius XII to help Nazi war criminals
escape justice. According to Frederic Laurent (*L'Orchestre
Noir. Pairs: Editions Stock, 1978),

http://www.io.com/~patrik/malta.htm

Cardinal Spellman, like J Edna Hoover, used to dress in ladies frocks. When he and SMOM weren't busy spending their time helping nazi war criminals escaping down the American-run Ratlines, anyway.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Of course over the years many researchers have found crucial leads ending up with SMOM.

Here's an old, but important, Covert Action article:

"The Catholic Right and the Knights of Malta, in particular Baron Franz von Papen (see sidebar), played a critical role in Hitler's assumption of power and the launching of the Third Reich's Twentieth Century Crusade."



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From ......... COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

Issue title: SPECIAL: NAZIS, THE VATICAN, AND CIA

WINTER 1986 Number 25

Pages 27-38

[1 of 4 ....... 27-29]

KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

INTRODUCTION

The Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, known also as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or SMOM, is juridically, politically, and historically unique in the world today.

Representing initially the most powerful and reactionary segments of the European aristocracy, for nearly a thousand years beginning with the early crusades of the Twelfth Century, it has organized, funded, and led military operations against states and ideas deemed threatening to its power. It is probably safe to say that the several thousand Knights of SMOM, principally in Europe, North, Central, and South America, comprise the largest most consistently powerful and reactionary membership of any organization in the world today.

Although an exclusively [Roman] Catholic organization, in this century it has collaborated with, and given high awards to non-Catholic extremists in its current crusade against progressive forces in the West, the national liberation movements, and the socialist countries.

To be a Knight, one must not only be from wealthy, aristocratic lineage, one must also have a psychological worldview which is attracted to the "crusader mentality'' of these "warrior monks." Participating in SMOM � including its initiation ceremonies and feudal ritual dress � members embrace a certain caste/class mentality; they are sociologically and psychologically predisposed to function as the ''shock troops" of Catholic reaction. And this is precisely the historical role the Knights have played in the wars against Islam, against the Protestant "heresy,'' and against the Soviet ''Evil Empire."

The Catholic Right and the Knights of Malta, in particular Baron Franz von Papen (see sidebar), played a critical role in Hitler's assumption of power and the launching of the Third Reich's Twentieth Century Crusade.

SMOM's influence in Germany survived World War II intact. On November 17, 1948 SMOM awarded one of its highest honors, the Grand Cross of Merit, to Reinhard Gehlen, the Nazi chief of intelligence on the Soviet front. He was subsequently installed by the Americans as the first chief of West Germany's equivalent of the CIA, the Bundesnachtrichtdienst (BND: federal secret service), under West German Chancellor Adenauer, a devout Catholic who had received the Magistral Grand Cross personally from SMOM Grand Master Prince Chigi.

After the appointment of Knight of Malta William Casey as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and another Knight, James Buckley, as head ot U.S. propaganda against Eastern Europe at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, several historians noted with interest President Reagan's call during the summer of 1982 for a "crusade" against the "Evil Empire" in Eastern Europe.

[ including Balkans ...... JP ]

In addition to Casey, and James Buckley, its current members, or Knights, after the feudal fashion, include Lee Iacocca, John McCone, William Buckley, Alexander Haig, Alexandre de Marenches (the chief of French Intelligence under Giscard d'Estaing, himself a Knight of SMOM), Otto von Hapsburg, and various leaders of the fascist P-2 Masonic lodge in Italy. While its organizational funding is relatively modest, its leverage is maximized by the presence of its Knights in key positions in other private and governmental structures throughout the world.

FRANZ von PAPEN

A leading figure in Hitler's coming to power was SMOM Franz von Papen, known as "the devil in a top hat." A devout Catholic aristocrat from an old family of Westphalian nobility, a former military attache and spy against the United States in 1915, von Papen became Chancellor in May 1932, with the support of the Nazis. In June he ordered the dissolution of the Reichstag, calling for new elections in July, in which the Nazis emerged as the largest party in the new Reichstag. After a meeting with Hitler, von Papen persuaded President von Hindenberg to offer Hitler the Chancellorship, which he assumed on January 30, 1933. Von Papen became his Vice-Chancellor.

In April 1933 von Papen was elevated to Knight Magistral Grand Cross of SMOM. After the murder of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss in Vienna in July 1934, von Papen became Hitler's Ambassador to Austria, and, in March 1938 stood by the Fuhrer's side at his triumphal entry into Vienna. From 1939 until August 1944 he was the Nazi Ambassador to Turkey, and at the Nuremberg trials he was charged with conspiracy to wage aggressive war. He was one of several Nazi leaders acquitted, and subsequently received a generous pension from the first postwar Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.

Page 28

The President of the American Eastern Association of SMOM is J. Peter Grace, President of W.R. Grace Company, who was a key figure in Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists to the U.S. 1

SMOM's Sovereign Diplomacy

As its name suggests, SMOM is both a ''sovereign'' and, historically, a "military" organization. Its headquarters, occupying a square block in Rome at 68 Via Condotti, enjoys the extra-territorial legal status granted to an embassy of a sovereign state. The Italian police are not welcome on its territory, it issues its own stamps, and has formal diplomatic relations and exchanges ambassadors with a number of countries.

On November 13, 1951 Italian President Alcide de Gasperi recognized the diplomatic sovereignty of SMOM, although he held off formal exchange of diplomatic envoys.2 On January 11, 1983 the New York Daily News announced that,

"The Vatican and the order of the Knights of Malta, believed to be the smallest sovereign state in the world, have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, a joint statement said today. "

President Reagan's Ambassador to the Vatican, William Wilson, is, coincidentally, a Knight of Malta.3

On September 5, 1984 French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson signed a formal protocol with SMOM for various cooperative projects includlng "aid to victims of conflicts."4 (See below on Americares.)

Historical Antecedents

Already in existence at the time of the first Crusade in 1099, in 1113 the Order of St. John was given its independence by Pope Pascal II, permitted to elect its own Grand Master, and soon the Order began military participation in the Crusades along with with the Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights. The Order of St. John recruited successfully among the Eurupean aristocracy and soon controlled extensive estates throughout the continent, assimilating those previously belonging to the Knights Templar which it had helped crush during the first two decades of the 14th Century, with the Templar leadership burned alive as heretics.

J. Peter Grace and Project Paperclip

On January 16, 1980 ABC-TV broadcast a special "News Closeup," "Escape from Justice: Nazi War Criminals in America" which discussed Grace's Role in Project Paperclip.

The transcript of the program, available from ABC on request, states,

"Project Paperclip ....... from the end of WW II to the mid-1950's brought more than 900 German scientists to the United States. ..... Otto Ambros ..... was a chemist and a Director of the notorious I.G. Farben Company which supplied gasoline and rubber for Hitler's war effort. Ambros ...... played a supervisory role in the construction of Farben's plant in the Polish village of Auschwitz. For I.G. Farben, Auschwitz concentration inmates provided a plentiful source of cheap labor. ..... The Nuremberg prosecution charged that each day at Farhen's plant one hundred people died from sheer exhaustion. ...... Otto Ambros was convicted of slavery and mass murder and sentenced to eight years in prison. But even while on trial at Nuremberg, Ambros was a target for U.S. recruiters from 'Project Paperclip.' His prison sentence was commuted after only three years by American officials and he was helped in a bid to enter the United States by ...... J. Peter Grace, President of W. R. Grace, a major American chemical company. .....

An internal State Department document describes how J. Peter Grace helped Otto Ambros in his efforts to enter the U.S. In a memorandum to the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Grace acknowledges that Ambros was a war criminal. But he adds that in the years he's known Ambros, ...... 'we have developed a very deep admiration, not only for his ability, but more important, for his character in terms of truthfulness and integrity.'

Today Otto Ambros does consulting work tor W. R. Grace and Company and lives here in Mannheim, Germany. In a recent telephone interview Ambros [said] 'I'm happy to still be working as a chemist ...... but it's funny. Now I'm helping the Americans.' "

In June 1981, largely in response to the efforts of well known war crimes researcher Charles Allen, Yeshiva University cancelled a $150-a-plate dinner it had organized to honor Grace. (See also, Joe Conason and Martin A. Rosenblatt, "The Corporate State of Grace," 'Village Voice', April 12, 1983.)

When the scandal broke in West Germany over the Flick company paying huge sums of money to various politicians and parties, it was learned that additionally Flick had taken improper tax waivers and used the money to pump millions of dollars into W. R. Grace Co., becoming a major shareholder. Friedrich Karl Flick himself sits on the Grace Board. As the Moscow New Times reminded its readers (No. 8, 1983, citing Der Spiegel), Friedrich Karl's father, Flick Sr., had poured money into the coffers of the Nazi party in January 1933, and, ''after Goering had promised the Ruhr magnates that "the March 5 elections will be the last elections in this decade and perhaps in this century,'' he contributed another 200,000 marks; this sum was handed to SS Reichfuhrer Himmler. Flick Sr. was subsequently sentenced at Nuremberg to seven years for using slave labor, spoliation and being an accessory to the crimes of the SS. To ensure a good beginning for his son, the war criminal sent him after the war for early training with W. R. Grace.

Page 29

In 1187 the Order was driven militarily from Jerusalem by Saladin. The Knights were forced to flee successively to Acre, Cyprus (1291), and finally Rhodes (1310) where they subdued the local population and establishcd a military dictatorship enjoying territorial sovereignty for the first time. In 1522 they were defeated by Sultan Suleiman's forces of 200,000 troops and 250 ships after a six-month siege. By 1530 under Grand Master Villiers de l'lsle-Adam, the Knights established their headquarters on the island of Malta which had been given to them by Charles V.

Martin Luther was born in 1483, the same year that Torquemada unleashed the fury of the Inquisition, and while the Knights waged war against foreign heresies, they were soon confronted by the liberalizing Reformation challenge to Catholic Orthodoxy.

In England Henry Vlll's assertion of an independent national policy was complicated by his marriage to Katherine who was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, patron of the Knights of Malta who in England were a militant bastion of Papal loyalty. By 1534 Pope Clement VII had excommunicated the King and two years later Pope Paul III published a Bull deposing the King and charging the Emperor with its execution. According to King and Luke's authoritative history 5 of the Order in England

The staunchest supporters of Papal supremacy were naturally to be found among the religious Orders, and ....... the Knights were the loyal servants of the Pope, whose claims to universal dominion [the King] had repudiated, ....... it was thus a sheer impossibility for the King to permit the existence in England of an Order so powerful and so highly organized unless it was prepared to renounce its loyalty to his most determined enemy. Inevitably the Knights would become a center of disaffection and a rallying point for all the forces of reaction. ......

In July 1539, after two of the Knights had already chosen the martyr's crown, the King wrote letters to the Grand Master which practically constituted an ultimatum, demanding that the Papal supremacy should cease to be recognized by the Order in England. ..... But it was impossible to accept the King's conditions. In April 1540 ..... Parliament passed an Act dissolving the Order in England and conferring its estates upon the Crown. ...... 6

Meanwhile on the continent and in the Mediterranean the wars against the infidels of the East continued. Since the military defense of Christendom required naval support, the Order created a powerful fleet and patrolled the seas of the Eastern Mediterranean fighting many naval actions.

Military operations ranged as far as Egypt and Syria, and by 1565 under Grand Master Valette, they resisted the Turkish siege of Malta. In 1571 SMOM's fleet participated in the defeat of the Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto, and remained a major military presence in the Mediterranean until 1789 when Napoleon defeated the Knights and occupied the island. The Order finally sought temporary protection under the Russian Emperor Paul I in 1797; in 1834 Pope Leo XIII established its headquarters in Rome.

- END QUOTE -

[ continue to 2 of 4 ]

COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

P.O.BOX 50272 WASHINGTON, DC 20004

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/
"All studies [of the post-WWII Nazi networks] have shown the determining role played by the [Roman] Catholic Church in the flight of war criminals."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From ......... COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

Issue title: SPECIAL: NAZIS, THE VATICAN, AND CIA

WINTER 1986 Number 25

Pages 27-38

[2 of 4 ....... 30-33 ]

KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

Page 30

The American Association of SMOM

In Europe SMOM's membership had been traditionally limited to those who could prove a requisite purity of noble blood for several generations. Nevertheless, as a concession to the rising political, economic, and military power of the United States, in 1927 SMOM agreed to incorporate an American National Association whose members were not obliged to prove their genealogical pedigree.

When the American Association of SMOM was created in 1927 the founding members included Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Edward L. Hearn, Nicholas F. Brady, Howard F. Carry, Patrick E. Crowley, James A. Farrell, James A. Fayne, Edward N. Hurley, James J. Phelan, Morgan J. O'Brien, John J. Raskob, and John D. Ryan.

By 1941 Francis Cardinal Spellman was listed as the "Grand Protector" and "Spiritual Advisor" of the Order, with John J. Raskob as Treasurer. Members included John Farrell, then President of U.S.Steel, Joseph P. Grace, and John D. Ryan. In 1934 Raskob, inspired by the French fascist Croix de Feu, and working closely with Morgan Bank's John Davis, had been a principal financier in the plot to organize a fascist coup in the U.S. The plan failed when General Smedley Butler, who had been set up to lead the project, denounced it.

The 1941 list also included Joseph J. Larkin. According to Charles Higham's Trading With the Enemy (see review in this issue),

Joseph J. Larkin . . . [vice-president of Chase Manhattan Bank in charge of European affairs] kept the Chase Bank open ....... in Nazi-occupied Paris throughout World War II. .... [He] had received the Order of the Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta from Pope Pius XI in 1928. He was an ardent supporter of General Franco and, by extension, Hitler. Morgenthau first suspected him as a fascist sympathizer in Octoher 1936. ..... With the encouragement of Schacht, Larkin took on the Franco account and the Reichsbank account, though the Reichsbank was under the personal control of Hitler. ..... 7



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The Role of Felix A. Morlion

In the latter part of April 1948 the Romanian Timpul published an article, "The Vatican Espionage Service," cited in the Soviet journal New Times, No.31, 1948, at pp. 5, 6. As reported, the article indicated that,

"In 1946 the Pope entrusted the Dominican friar [Felix A.] Morlion, a Belgian, with the reorganization of the Vatican intelligence service and its merger with the jesuit espionage network. The central intelligence department of the Vatican is headed by Janssens, a general of the Jesuit Order. His deputy is Montini, the acting Vatican Secretary of State, and his assistants are Schmider, the administrative director of the central jesuit espionage bureau, and Morlion, director of Centro d'informazione pro Deo. The central intelligence department is subdivided into branches and sections dealing with the various countries. One of the main branches is the so-called 'special division' which operates under the signboard of the Centro d'informazione pro Deo press agency. Similar divisions have been set up in the Centro d'informazione pro Deo units in all parts of the world. In New York the 'special division' is directed by Cardinal Spellman, in Innsbruck (Austria) by Regent, the rector of a jesuit college, in Coblenz (Germany) by the Catholic priest Poelaert who is also director of the Catholic press agency. The branch in charge of espionage in Eastern and Southeastern Europe is supervised by Schmider and Preseren, the jesuits' chief expert on the Slav countries and adviser to the Vatican Secretary of State."

In August 1966, Morlion approached H. L. Hunt for funding Vatican anti-Communist operations in Latin America. Hunt gave an interview to the British Guardian Weekly, February 27, 1969:

" 'I was approached by Paolo Cardinal Marella, who said he spoke for the Pope and asked if I would supply members of my [20,000 member] Youth Freedom Speakers' movement who spoke Spanish to be sent south [to Latin America] to engage in speechmaking and activities. I was told the Pope was thinking in terms of 11 million dollars a year support for the entire movement against communism in Spanish-speaking countries.' ......... The project was now centered in New York, at the Asian Speakers Bureau, with the Free Pacific Association, Inc., on Riverside Drive [another front for the Rev. Moon's Unification Church]. A key figure in this papal concern over Leftist threats to the Vatican's greatest stronghold was thc Rev. Felix A. Morlion, who was present at the original discussions. "

Subsequently, Morlion emerged as a key figure in the "Bulgarian Connection" hoax when the fascist Grey Wolf Agca attempted to assassinate the Pope: It appears that Morlion lived in Rome directly below the apartment of the Bulgarian Antonov, and was a possible source of Agca's description of Antonov's apartment. (See, Il Mondo, April 8, 1985; L'Espresso, May 19, 1985.)



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The American-Italian Conneclion

From 1932 until 1938 Myron Charles Taylor was the Chairman of U. S. Steel. In 1939 he became the U.S. envoy to Pope Pius XII, a post he would maintain until 1950. Meanwhile, according to Anthony Cave Brown, OSS chief William Donovan secretly had established an intelligence connection with the Vatican as early as 1941, when he evacuated from Lisbon to New York the Dominican Father Felix A. Morlion, who had founded "a European Catholic anti-Comintern'' called Pro Deo. (See sidebar.) Throughout the war Donovan financcd Morlion's Pro Deo service and in June 1944 he "went to considerable expense, time, and trouble to transport Morlion from New York and establish him at the Holy See.''8

Subsequently Morlion became a key figure in Vatican intelligence, working closely with Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Paul VI.

According to Frederic Laurent,

"All studies [of the post-WWII Nazi networks] have shown the determining role played by the Catholic Church in the flight of war criminals. Since April 1943, following negotiations between Pius XII and the ultra-reactionary American archbishop Francis Spellman, the Holy See became the clandestine center of Anglo-American espionage in Italy. This collaboration in fact had begun the previous year ...... between Earl Brennan, a veteran of the American State Department and Gian Battista Montini, at the time a bishop and Under-Secretary of State at the Vatican. This close collaboration between the future Paul VI and the Ameriean secret services continued after the war through the intermediary James Angleton. ..... 9"

With the American Grand Protector of SMOM already in contact with the Vatican, and Allen Dulles busy negotiating with Nazis in Switzerland, the Amerieans entered Rome June 4, 1944. On July 7 General Mark Clark was made a Knight Grand Cross of SMOM.

According to British journalist Stuart Christie,

25 April 1945 [three days before the German forces capitulate in Italy] Admiral Ellery Stone, U.S. Proconsul in occupied Italy, instructs James Angleton to rescue Prince Valerio Borghese from the possibility of arrest by the Resistance Committees which had sentenced him to death for war crimes .......... Stone is a close friend of the Borghese family.10

Borghese was to be heard from again on the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (See below.)

- Truman's Vatiean envoy Myron C. Taylor received SMOM's Gran Croci Al Merito Con Placca May 23, 1945.

- On June 12, 1945 Admiral Ellery W. Stone was awarded the Croci Al Merito Di Prima Classe Con Corona from the SMOM.

- On December 27, 1946 James Angleton received the Croci Al Merito Seconda Classe from the Order, the same day as George Raymond Rocca. Rocca went on to become Angleton's deputy chief of Counterintelligenee Division of the CIA and was the liaison between the Warren Commission and the CIA following the Kennedy Assassination. (See sidebar.)

[Also, about this same time, head of OSS "Wild Bill" Donovan was decorated by the papacy ....... JP ]

According to declassified documents from the American Department of State, in February 1948, in anticipation of the upcoming elections scheduled for April 18, the Vatican created organizations called 'Civic Committees' under the leadership of Luigi Gedda, a 45-year-old doctor from Turin who was also the leader of the rightist 'Catholic Action'. By March 17, 1948 Gedda became a Knight of the Grand Priory of Lombardy and Venice. The liaison to Gedda was through an Ecclesiastical Assistant, Mgr. Fiorenzo Angelini, a member of the National Executive of the Civic Committees, who had become a ranking member of the Rome Priory of SMOM also on March 17, 1948.11 At that time the Grand Priory was headed by Ferdinando Thun Hohenstein, Director of Ceremonies of SMOM, a member of the all powerful five-member Sovereign Council of the Order, and nephew of a former SMOM Grand Master.

Page 32

On March 22, 1948 the New York Times reported that Gedda had appealed to American Catholics to provide financial assistance to Italian Catholics in their fight against communism. On April 5, it was reported that

"Myron C. Taylor arrived from Madrid for what Catholic circles described as an 'important mission' closely related to the Italian general elections."

By April 13 the paper reported that Taylor would meet with Pius once a week, and that based on the information recently received, the Pope was "considerably more optimistic'' about the outcome of the elections.

Page 33

Two days later with the Italian military staging massive parades and as fascist gangs attacked leftists in the streets, C. L. Sulzberger reported from Rome that Catholic Action "is armed, active, and tough."

The State Department documents cite Angleton as "feel[ing] quite strongly that Gedda can be effectively used to further our interests in Italy in the political, labor and social fields," and that the Civic Committees were to receive CIA funds. The Pope had allegedly met with Gedda three times during the month after the elections.

One of those reported to have loeen involved in interference in the April 18 election was Baron Luigi Parrilli. Parrilli, son of an Italian admiral, and who had reportedly worked for the American firm Kelvinator before the war, was a fascist and had extensive industrial interests in Italy. He was made a Knight of Malta on December 7, 1942 and by early 1945 had excellent contacts with the top Schutzstaffel (SS: elite guard) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD: secret service) German officers in Northem Italy. By April 1945 he became a representative of SS General Karl Wolff to Allen Dulles and U.S. Gen. Lemnitzer during the period that the latter two were involved in private negotiations to recruit top Nazis before the end of the war. It has been rumored that Parrilli also had "concocted a plan to transport ex-Nazis from Germany to Paraguay."12 (See article by Peter Dale Scott in this issue.)

In 1949 SMOM published an Official General Roll of the Grand Magistery with a preface by Pius XII which referred to "The ancient laurels collected on the battle-fronts" of earlier wars. As noted above, among only four recipients of the Order's Gran Croci al Merito con Placca at the time was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's Chief of Intelligence on the Eastern Front, who received the award November 17, 1948.

By this time Reinhard Gehlen's brother had already been in Rome serving as the Secretary to Thun Hohenstein. Conveniently for Reinhard, who was negotiating with the U.S. for the preservation of his Nazi colleagues, Thun Hohenstein was Chairman of one of SMOM's grand magistral charities, the Institute for Associated Emigrations, and had arranged for two thousand SMOM passports to be printed for political refugees.

Thun Hohenstein was also related to the leading German Knights of SMOM, and at a crucial time in an internal SMOM controversy after the war had received the active support of Prince Frederic von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Honorary Chairman of the Silesian Association of the Order, the head of the Catholic Hohenzollerns, of which several members were Knights of SMOM. The Silesian Knights, led by their Chairman Prince von Hartzfeld and Graf Henckel von Donnersmark, maintained a refugee camp at Ulm which in 1951 alone had received 134,000 refugees from the East.13 Meanwhile, both the Polish and Hungarian Associations of SMOM had also relocated safely to the West.

In 1950, the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism was created. The trustees included J. Peter Grace, Charles Edison, William Henry Chamberlain, H. J. Heinz II, Isaac Don Levine, and Eugene Lyons. The Committee (now known as Radio Liberty), under the guiding hand of the CIA's Frank Wisner, funded numerous emigre "research institutes'' which, according to John Loftus [see UNHOLY TRINITY ], were "little more than front groups for ex-Nazi intelligence officers.''14



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CROCI AL MERITO

(PRO PIIS MERITIS)

GRAN CROCI AL MERITO CON FASCIA

10 4 1948 S.E. Gen. PAUL DARIUS DASSAULT

CRAN CROCI AL MERITO CON PLACCA

23 5 1945 S. E. HAROLD ALEXANDER, visconte di Tunis

23 5 1945 S. E. MYRON C TAYLOR

11 11 1948 Brig. Gen. Barone DEAN de MARGUERITTES

17 11 1948 REINHARD GEHLEN

Document shows SMOM's honor bestowed on Hitler's intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen and on U.S. Admiral Ellery W. Stone.



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footnotes

1. See generally, Clarence G. Lasby, Project Paperclip (New York: Atheneum, 1975). Grace had also served as the Chairman of the Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Fund, a CIA front infested with Nazi collaborators, and of the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), another CIA-funded organization. The Chairman of the W. R. Grace Executive Committee Felix Larkin, is also a SMOM. The Chancellor of the Order, John D. J. Moore, was a Director of the Grace company until at least 1982 having been with the company since 1946 managing its Peruvian operations from 1947-1950. From 1969-1975 Moore was the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. See sidebar on J. Peter Grace.

2. Roger Peyrefitte, Knights of Malta (New York: Criterion Books, 1959), at p. 137.

3. See the illustrated feature story on SMOM in Town and Country, April 1984, pp. 194, ff. 4. Point de Vue, September 23, 1983.

5. Sir Edwin King and Sir Harry Luke, The Knights of St. John in the British Realm, 2d ed. (London: St. John's Gate, 1967).

6. Ibid., pp. 103-105. Subsequently in England in the 19th Century, since each monarch has the authority to create any Order it wishes, Queen Victoria chartered, alongside the Rome-based British Association of SMOM, a predominantly Anglican Order called "The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem" under the aegis of the British crown.

On November 26, 1963 the Venerable Order and the Bntish Association of SMOM signed a treaty of mutual recognition and respect which can be seen in the Library of the Venerable Order in London. SMOM continues to regard the Venerable Order with somewhat amused score; while SMOMs are members of the highest levels of the Venerable Order, there do not appear to be any Anglican members of the Venerable Order in the British Association of SMOM.

7. Charles Higham, Trading With the Enemy: An Exploration of the Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933 -1949 (New York: Delacorte, 1983), pp. 20-31.

8. Anthony Cave Brown, Wild Bill Donovan, The Last Hero (New York: Times Books, 1982), pp. 683, 684.

9. Frederic Laurent, L'Orchestre Noir (Paris: Editions Stock, 1978), at p.29; see also Charles Allen, The Vatican and the Nazis, in Reform Judaism, Spring/Summer and Fall 1983; and Saul Friedlander, Pius XII and the Third Reich (New York: Knopf, 1966).

10. Stuart Christie, Stefano delle Chiaie, Portrait of a Black Terrorist (London: Anarchy Magazine, 1984), at p.6. One member of the family, S.E. Don Giangiacomo, Principe Borghese, had been a Bailiff Grand Cross Of Honor and Devotion of SMOM since June 4,1932. Christie's book includes a photo of Borghese driven by an unidentified SS officer in 1944, with the caption, ``Borghese was then [1944] head of 'XMAS' (Decima MAS), a special forces corps of 4,000 men founded in 1941. Borghese assumed command after the Italian armistice and XMAS was officially recognized by the Nazi High Command on September 14, 1943. Under his direction, XMAS was responsible for the torture and mass murder of Italian partisans. Ibid., p. 7; see also Laurent, op. cit., n.9.

11. Declassified documents of May 17, 1948 and October 11, 1948. Gedda was listed as a member of the "Comite de Patronage" of the French neo-Nazi 'Nouvelle Ecole' in April 1982 along with Robert Gayre. Gedda also served on the Advisory board of Gayre and Pearson's Mankind Quarterly from at least the mid 1960s until 1979.

12. R. Harris Smith, OSS, The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1972), at p.114; and Bradley F. Smith & Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise (New York: Basic Books, 1979). And see Peter Dale Scott's article in this issue.

13. See, Peyrefitte, op. cit., n. 2, pp. 172, 173, 214.

14 John Loftus, The Belarus Secret, ed. by Nathan Miller (New York Knopf, 1982), pp. 106-107, 178. [and see UNHOLY TRINITY by Loftus]

- END QUOTE -

[ continue to 3 of 4 ]

COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

P.O.BOX 50272 WASHINGTON, DC 20004

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Covert Action on the Sovereign Military Order of Mala continued:

From ......... COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

Issue title: SPECIAL: NAZIS, THE VATICAN, AND CIA

WINTER 1986 Number 25

pages 27-38

Pages picture captions, from page 32 and 34-35

[3 of 4 ]

KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

[Picture caption] - Plaque on SMOM headquarters' door proclaims sovereign status of the building; SMOM has been called "the smallest country in the world," but it has diplomatic relations with more than 40 countries.

[Picture caption] - State room of the Grand Magistry; Grand Master Fra Prince Angelo de Mojana di Cologna, seated, flanked by Grand Chancellor, left, and Hospitaller, right.

[Picture caption] - James Jesus Angleton.

[Picture caption] - Prince Valerio Borghese with SS officer, Italy, 1944.

[Picture caption] - Roger Pearson.

[Picture caption] - Document shows SMOM's honor bestowed on Hitler's intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen and on U.S. Admiral Ellery W. Stone.

[Picture caption] - A view through the well-fortified courtyard of the Knights of Malta building on Rome's Via Condotti.

[Picture caption] - The February 11, 1985 issue of 'Spotlight', the weekly of Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby, featured this photograph of J. Peter Grace in the Washington, D.C. offices of Liberty Lobby giving a cordial interview to 'Spotlight' Managing Editor Vincent J. Ryan.

[Picture caption] - Bishop Paul Marcinkus, still runs IOR.

From page 32

THE CHECKERED CAREERS OF JAMES ANGLETON AND ROGER PEARSON

Both James Jesus Angleton and George Raymond Rocca were forced into retirement in December 1974 following Seymour Hersh's revelations that Angleton's Division had been involved in illegal domestic operations, known as "the family jewels."1

By the Winter of 1977-78 Angleton became one of two Associate Editors of the Journal of International Relations under General Editor Roger Pearson. The other Associate Editor was Gen. Robert C. Richardson III; the Publisher was John Fisher, President of the American Security Council.

Pearson is perhaps the most important neo-Nazi contact and racist propagandist in the U.S. today and had been a former Editor of Willis Carto's Western Destiny.

According to Replica of January 1978, when the Executive Committee of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) met December 10 and 11, 1977 to plan for their upcoming conference in Washington D. C., ''The main speaker was ..... General Robert C. Richardson III who delivered a brilliant speech on the theme of USA-USSR nuclear balance ...... [and] ......... Dr. Roger Pearson [President of North American Regional WACL and later President and host of WACL in 1978] also made a brilliant exposition."

Replica is the journal of the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL) which Jack Anderson revealed to be a CIA created anti-Semitic controller of neo-Nazi death squads.2

Pearson was removed as head of the U.S. branch of the World Anti-Communist League after its 1978 conference in Washington, D.C. because his ties to the neo-Nazi international were too extreme even for WACL which then included death squads, former Nazis, and Nazi collaborators.3

In the July 1978 issue of the racist Mankind Quarterly, the Editor-in-Chief, and Pearson's mentor, Robert Gayre, announced that Pearson would take over publication of the magazine. Robert Gayre had received the Grand Cross of Merit from SMOM in 1963, having already been editor of the Mankind Quarterly for three years. In June 1979 Pearson was listed as a member of the 'Comite de Patronage' (the Advisory Board) of the French neo-Nazi journal Nouvelle Ecole.

Today Pearson continues to publish in Washington, D.C. several journals including Mankind Quarterly; The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies; and The Journal of Indo-European Studies; he remains on the Board of Trustees of the American Foreign Policy Institute.4

According to Joseph C. Goulden,

"Brigadier General Robert C. Richardson ........ had served as deputy chief of staff for science and technology for the U.S. Air Force Systems command; he later was a field commander of the Defense Atomic Support Agency at the supersecret Sandia Base, New Mexico. When Richardson retired in 1967 he became a consultant in defense affairs; one of his positions, which he was to take in 1973, was a vice-president of Ed Wilson's Consultant's International.''5

Gen. Richardson is today one of the key members of the American Security Council (ASC) and the Coalition for Peace Through Strength (CPTS) and is Executive Director of the American Foreign Policy Institute of which Pearson, John Fisher, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, and Gen. Daniel O. Graham are members of the seven member Board of Trustees.

Angleton today is the Chairman of the Security and Intelligence Fund whose President is former Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow (the Chairman of the American Foreign Policy Institute) and whose Secretary-Treasurer is Robert C. Richardson III. Until its move in late 1984 to 1010 Vermont Avenue, N.W. in Washington, D.C., it shared offices with the ASC and the CPTS. The letter heads of the three organizations show extensive membership overlaps.

1. See, Seymour Hersh's stories in the New York Times, December 22 and 30, 1974; and Fensterwald and Ewing, Coincidence or Conspiracy? (New York: Zebra Books, 1977), at pp .182, 183, 186.

2. See, Jack Anderson stories of January 12, 13, 23, 26, 30 and February 9. See also, Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup (Boston: South End Press, 1980), and the series in the New York 'Village Voice' by Joe Conason, May 1 and 14, 1985.

3. See, Paul Valentine Fascist Specter behind the World Anti-Red League in the Washington Post, May 28, 1978.

4. See generally, Michael Billig, Psychology, Racism & Fascism, London: 1979; and Searchlight magazine, September 1984, no. 111; both available from Searchlight publications, 37B New Cavendish Street, London W1M 8JR. 'See also', Robert Gayre's entry in the British Who's Who.

5. Joseph C. Goulden, The Death Merchant: The Rise and Fall of Edwin P. Wilson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 47.

Page 34

In 1953 Catholic fanatic Clare Boothe Luce [ wife of Henry Luce ..... JP ] became U.S. Ambassador to Rome, and was made a Dame of Malta in 1956. In 1954, with the backing of Cardinal Spellman and the machinations of General Edward G. Lansdale, the Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem became Prime Minister of South Vietnam.

[ Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life magazines, was closely associated with Cardinal Spellman. See picture of Cardinal Spellman, Henry Luce and Ngo Diem in Luce and His Empire by Swanberg, published by Scribner ..... JP ]

Commenting on the events in Hungary in 1956, two Soviet journalists wrote,

...... we spoke with Count Karoly Khuen Hedervary [who] bears a great responsibility for the crimes the fascists had committed in Europe [but he] was not tried as a war criminal after 1945. ..... After Mindzenty's return to Budapest during the counter-revolutionary events, Karoly Khuen Hedervary took advantage of his being an old friend of the cardinal to meet Mindzenty several times, during which he received instructions for the organization [set up by the former fascist minister of industry Geza Bornemisza]. Hedervary served also as the liaison man of the organization and the Duke of Lichtenstein, who came officially to Budapest during the October events in the capacity of the representative of the International Red Cross, but actually as the representative of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta which had helped actively in promoting the counter-revolution in Hungary.15

By November 1961, President Kennedy 16 appointed John McCone as Director of the CIA. In 1963, when it became clear Diem could no longer stay in power in South Vietnam, McCone oversaw his regrettably necessary assassination. McCone is listed as a member of SMOM in the 1980 list.17

With McCone heading the CIA and Angleton as his Chief of Counterintelligence, another Knight of Malta of fascist fame, Italian General Giovani De Lorenzo, who had been the chief of the secret service (then known as Sifar) and in 1962 head of the carabinieri, organized an attempted fascist coup on July 14, 1964 (the Plan Solo) and later became a deputy from the fascist MSI party.18

Six and a half years later, on the night of December 7, 1970 Angleton's Prince Borghese gave the order for Stefano delle Chiaie to proceed with seizure of the Interior Ministry in Rome along with 50 fellow neo-Nazis. (See A Killer's Career, in this issue; and see The Fascist Network, in CAIB, Number 22.) This plot to trigger a fascist coup was called off at the last minute, and Borghese and his neo-Nazi protege delle Chiaie fled to Spain where former SS Commando Skorzeny among others was waiting. 19

SMOM and P-2

Freemasonry generally purports to be hostile to Catholicism, and conversely, the Vatican has at various times forbidden Catholics to join Masonic organizations. Nevertheless, in December of 1969 an exclusive meeting was held in the Rome office of Count Umberto Ortolani, the Ambassador of the Order of Malta to Uruguay, who has been called "the brains" behind the fascist P-2 Masonic Lodge, which had been established in the mid-1960s.20 In addition to Ortolani, the meeting included only Licio Gelli, Roberto Calvi, and Michele Sindona.21

Gelli had fought for Franco (who was himself a Bailiff Grand Cross of SMOM) with Mussolini's troops during the Spanish Civil War. He was a committed fascist during WW II and at the end of the war was wanted by the partisans for collaborating with the Nazis. After the war he developed extensive interests in Latin America where he became close friends with the Argentinean dictator Juan Peron; he was also the Grand Master of P-2.22

Calvi had fought on the Eastern front during the war and was decorated by the Nazis. At the time of the 1969 meeting he was a senior officer at Banco Ambrosiano.

Sindona had set up business in 1943 with the help of Vito Genovese, whose Mafia contacts facilitated the American landing on Sicily. By 1948 Sindona had received a letter of introduction to Vatican intelligence operative Montini [later pope .... JP].

Page 35

According to Larry Gurwin's The Calvi Affair,

One of Sindona's first steps in cultivating the Vatican's money men occurred in the late 1950s when through a priest, he met Prince Massimo Spada, a Vatican nobleman and the senior layman at IOR. [Massimo Spada had become a Knight of Malta on September 21, 1944. IOR, the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (Institute for Religious Works), known generally as the Vatican Bank, was created in 1942 by Pius XII.] At the same time he nurtured his friendship with Giovanni Montini, who had become cardinal-archbishop of Milan in 1954.

In 1959 Montini needed to raise a large sum of money for an old people's home, and he turned to Sindona for help. Sindona reportedly raised $2 million in a single day. In 1960 Sindona purchased a small Milanese bank called Banca Privata and, thanks to his Vatican friendships, it soon began receiving deposits from IOR. Three years later Montini was elected Pope Paul VI and Sindona's Vatican connections were unbeatable."23

The Italian journal L'Espresso of June 28, 1981 indicates that numbers of high ranking members of the Italian military intelligence organizations were both SMOMs and members of P-2. The list of dual members included General Santovito, the former head of SISMI; Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, the head of the general staff of the Army, and General Giovanni Allavena, head of the intelligence service (then Sifar, which was later split into SISDE and SISMI).

The conclusion of the affair is generally known. When, in 1983, the Vatican was finally forced to establish an "independent'' commission to study the relationship between its IOR (since 1970 � and still � headed by Chicago-born Bishop Paul Marcinkus) and the P-2/Banco Ambrosiano criminal fascists, two of the three members selected were Hermann Abs and Joseph Brennan.

Abs, who features in nearly every book on the Third Reich and the Nuremberg trials, was Hitler's paymaster, as chairman of the Deutsche Bank from 1940 to 1945, and was a member of the board of I.G. Farben. He regained the board chairmanships of both firms after the war, even though in Yugoslavia he had been convicted of war crimes in absentia. In 1953 he received the Great Federal Service Cross for his services in restoring West Germany's financial power; and in 1960 he was decorated by Franco for his "services" to fascist Spain.24

The choice of Abs for the Vatican commission of inquiry was so outrageous that at the urging of Charles Higham, the Wiesenthal Center issued a special packet of documents clearly showing Abs's involvement in war crimes and publicly protested to the Vatican, all to no avail.

Joseph Brennan is the Chairman of the executive committee of the Emigrant Savings Bank of New York and a Knight of Malta.

SMOM, Americares, and Central America

Just as World Medical Relief and Refugee Relief International are fronts for Waffen-SS worshipping editors of Soldier of Fortune magazine, so too the SMOM advertises itself � to those who believe in the Tooth Fairy � as a "charitable'' organization greatly concerned for the suffering of the poor and sick around the world.

The New York Times of August 13, 1985 reported that the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund (NFF), one of many front groups for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, channelled $350,000 to the Americares Foundation in Connecticut.25 Clare Boothe Luce, a Dame of SMOM, is on the Board of Moon's Washington Times, and is a director of the NFF with fellow SMOM, William Simon [former U.S. Treasurer]. J. Peter Grace is the Chairman of the six member Advisory Board of Americares, which includes fellow Knight William Simon along with former CIA Director George Bush's brother, Prescott Bush, Jr.

Americares' published "Fact Sheet'' recites as specific projects:

Medical Shipments to El Salvador: Since November 1983 AMERICARES has shipped almost 700,000 pounds of medicines and supplies valued at over $8,000,000 in 15 sea shipments with local distribution being handled through the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta (SMOM).

Guatemala: In response to a request for aid from the Order of the Knights of Malta, 10 sea shipments of medical supplies worth over $4,000,000 have been sent to the people of Guatemala since January 1984.

Honduras: Since August 1984, three sea shipments of high priority medical supplies worth over $ 1,000,000 were sent to the people of Honduras in response to a request for aid from the Order of the Knights of Malta. .....

Brazil, October 1984: A shipment of vitamins worth $156,075 were sent to Brazil, again in response to a request from the Order of the Knights of Malta (SMOM) who serve as our consignees in Central and South America.

The "Fact Sheet" also discusses an ''offshoot" of Americares called "Doctors To All Peoples" said to be "dedicated to the eradication of leprosy in the Americas.'' Leprosy is the mos publicized international "charity project" of SMOM.



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footnotes

15. A. Belokon and V. Tolstikov, The Truth About Hungary (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957), pp. 58-61; Mary Bancroft in Autobiography of a Spy (New York: Wm. Morrow, 1983), p.260, reports that towards the end of WWII, "A contingent of White Russians, who had been fighting in the German Army, had recently crossed the Liechtenstein frontier and had been given asylum."

16. The President's father, Joseph Kennedy, who became a Knight of SMOM March 13, 1945, had been withdrawn as U.S. Ambassador to London when his sympathies for the Third Reich became known. See, e.g., Higham, op. cit., n. 7., at p. 181.

17. McCone, from a senior post at ITT, was later to play a key role in the overthrow of the Allende government in 1973. At the time of the coup J. Peter Grace was Chairman of the AIFLD, and a director of First National City Bank and Kennecott Copper Co., all of which played a role in the fascist coup. ('See', Fred Hirsch and Richard Fletcher, CIA and the Labor Movement (London: Spokesman Books, 1977), pp. 16, ff.; and NACLA Report Amazing Grace: The W. R. Grace Corporation vol.X, no.3, March 1976.) W. R. Grace Company senior vice-president Anthony Navarro, who had earlier been involved in armed fighting against the Castro govemment in Cuba, was recently nominated to the Advisory Committee of Radio Marti; the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Board on Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Jorge Mas Canosa, according to the New York Times of Aug.5, 1984, is a Cuban businessman in Miami, who took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and was a commentator on Radio Swan, an anti-Castro station that was operated by the CIA.

18. See, Laurent, op. cit., n. 9; and Christie, op. cit., n. 10.

19. See, Christie, op. cit., n. 10; and Laurent, op. cit., n. 9.

20. Journal de Geneve, November 11, 1981.

21. Larry Gurwin, The Calvi Affair (London: Pan Books, 1984), p.15.

22. Gelli had chartered the plane which brought Peron back to Argentina in 1972 and was an honored guest at his inauguration; shortly thereafter Lopez Rega, Peron's Minister of Social Welfare who ran the Argentine death squads and who was an astrologer and mystic, joined P-2.

23. Gurwin, op. cit., n. 21, pp. 11, 12. See also, David A. Yallop, In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I (New York: Bantam, 1984).

24. Yallop, op. cit., n. 23, p. 323; National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany, Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany (Berlin: Documentation Center of the State Archives Administration of the German Democratic Republic, n.d. [c. 1966]), p. 39.

25. See also, Washington Post, May 9, 1985, p. 34.

- END QUOTE -

[ continue to 4 of 4 ]

COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

P.O.BOX 50272 WASHINGTON, DC 20004

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/

Pages 27-38

[4 of 4 ....... 36-38 ]

KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

Page 36

The Washington Post of December 27, 1984 reported as follows:

A private humanitarian organization called the Americares Foundation, working with the Order of the Knights of Malta, has channeled more than $14 million in donated medical aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala over the last two years. ......

Part of $680,000 in aid to Honduras went to Miskito Indians linked to U.S. backed rebels fighting the leftist government in Nicaragua, according to a Knights of Malta official in Honduras.

Much of the $3.4 million in Americares' medical aid to Guatemala has been distributed through the armed forces as part of its resettlement program of "model villages" aimed at defeating leftist insurgents, said the official, Guatemalan businessman Roberto Alejos.

Alejos, co-chairman of the Knights of Malta in Honduras [said], ...... the Guatemalan army delivers Americares medicine to people in model villages, which are along the Mexican border.

Alejos, a major sugar and coffee grower, lent his Guatemalan estates to the Central Intelligence Agency in 1960 to train Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Asked why the Knights of Malta turned to Americares rather than to established aid groups, such as the Red Cross, Grace said,

"The Knights have been doing this for 900 years. They have their own cross [the Maltese cross]. ... They'd consider themselves way beyond the Red Cross." ....

At least one pro-government group, the Air Commando Association of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., claims to have used Knights of Malta warehouses in El Salvador. Retired general H. C. Aderholt, head of the 1,500-member group, said that the commandos delivered food and medicine to the Knights' facilities and that together they ''get good support from the Salvadoran air force commander."

Aderholt said the association has distributed to El Salvador $4.5 million in food and medicine provided by the Christian Broadcasting Network and World Medical Relief. He said liberals in Congress have tried to "tie to some sinister plan with the CIA" [sic], which he said is incorrect.

While the Post story does mention that CIA Director William Casey is a SMOM, it fails to point out that Aderholt is the "Unconventional Operations'' Contributing Editor of Soldier of Fortune and was a member of the ''Singlaub panel'' of the Pentagon, set up to devise new counterinsurgency strategies in the developing countries.

Russ Bellant, in the Detroit Metro Times of October 9, 1985, says Aderholt claimed that Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network had given the Knights of Malta $2 million for operations in Central America.

CONCLUSION

For many years progressive groups in the U.S. and else where have been engaged in extensive research into so-called "secular" state and private organizations such as the CIA, NSC, the military, private corporations, and foundations.

This article highlights the operative importance of members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which unlike traditional corporate, governmental, and foundation entities, has not yet adequately come under the scrutiny of progressive researchers. Curiously, European researchers have all but ignored the Orders of Chivalry in analyzing The structural role of their own aristocracy in organizing support for international reaction and fascist terror.

Research into the current role of SMOM and its individual members is just beginning. The most serious problem is the dearth of documents available, due to the extreme secrecy of the organization. Except for a few scattered references in various books, magazines, and newspapers, and a few romanticized stories about ancient glories of the Order, the necessary amount of materials has not yet surfaced. and this account represents only a starting point for further research.26

In the U.S., for example, although the 1980 membership list was published (National Catholic Reporter, October 14, 1983), since then the Order in the U.S. has grown and been divided into an Eastern, Southern (based in D.C.), and Western Association. The published 1980 list comprises primarily members in the Northeast. Although some others are known, complete and current lists of members in other regions is obviously crucial. Lists for other countries would also be helpful.

CAIB in its Winter 1983 issue, The CIA and Religion, and Spring 1985 issue, Disconnecting the Bulgarian Connection, began to explore the operational role of specific religious, or non-secular, organizations such as Opus Dei 27 and the fascist Masonic lodge P-2 in western intelligence operations and in furthering imperialism's plans.

Page 38

The recent P-2 scandal in Italy and new evidence on the importance of various ancient Orders of Chivalry (in particular SMOM) indicate that further research into these additional non-secular "parapolitical'' structures is necessary both to understand their role as independent organizations and to gain a better understanding of factional alignments within organizations which have already come under scrutiny.

As with "secular" organizations, rivalries among these "non-secular" organizations takes place within an environment of selective interlinking memberships which include secular structures as well. The way competing policies and loyalties of these non-secular structures influence members in their secular roles needs considerable further research.



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SMOM, GRACE, and OBANDO Y BRAVO

On August 1, 1985 the New York Times reported that during a visit to New York in May, Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of Nicaragua said that he is actively directing efforts by his diocese to prevent the government from imposing a communist system in Nicaragua. The Archbishop said efforts included ''dividing his diocese into old and new units, including parishes, districts and smaller groups, for leadership and religious training.'' He claimed the training he established in Managua was for ''pastoral cadres, not military cadres. .... '' Following a meeting with Archbishop Obando, executives at W. R. Grace arranged for the Sarita Kenedy East Foundation to contribute copies of the Bible, rosary beads and other supplies to aid the church effort, a company executive said. The foundation is headed by J. Peter Grace.

Whatever the real purpose of the "leadership training" and "pastoral cadres," it apparently seemed like such a splendid idea to the Knights that a June 21, 1985 press release from the Erlich-Manes & Associates News Service of Bethesda, Maryland stated that the Southern Association of SMOM had sent a $5.5 million shipment of "40 massive containers'' to be loaded on the ship "Freedom'' to be sent to Maputo, Mozambique. "Roughly half of the shipment will go to aid agricultural development in northern Mozambique; and half will be distributed directly to the poor through the Archbishop of Maputo's Catholic Charities.'' Eugene I. Kane, a Knight and head of the trucking company Intermodal, Inc. organized the project. Official documents of SMOM list such "charitable" projects in many countries throughout the world.



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WELL-KNOWN KNIGHTS

In addition to those listed in the article, the following are some other Knights of SMOM of interest:

- Francis Vincent Ortiz, Jr.: according to the 1982-83 'Who's Who in America', had been, among other posts, "dep. chief of mission Am. Embassy, Montevideo Uruguay, 1970-73,charg'e d'affairs,1973; country director for Argentina, Uruguay, and . Paraguay, Dept. of State 1973-75, dep. exec. sec., 1975-77; Amb. to Barbados and Grenada, spl. rep. to Antigua, Dominica, St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia and St. Vincent, from 1977; U.S Amb. Guatemala 1979-81, to Peru 1981-; spl. asst. for international affairs U.S. So. Command, Panama 1980-" since November 18, 1983 he has been the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.

- Patrick J. Frawley, Jr.: also a Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester of which William [ head of WWII OSS .... JP ] Donovan was a member. He is a longstanding funder of right-wing causes including Fred Schwarz's Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. His wife is a Dame of SMOM and is Publisher of the National Catholic Register of California, whose editor, Francis X. Maier was formerly with National Review. Maier was the first Chairman of the Catholic Center for Renewal, whose President, Philip F. Lawler, is the Director of Studies of the Heritage Foundation (which was chaired by Knight of SMOM Frank Shakespeare, newly appointed Ambassador to Portugal).

- Paul-Louis Weiller: Grand Cross of Merit SMOM, a close friend of Richard Nixon, member of the Board of Directors of Renault and several other French industrial corporations, former Administrateur of Air France, whose son married the cousin of Spanish King Juan-Carlos. (See also, Jim Hougan, Spooks (New York: William Morrow, 1978), pp. 209-225, which suggests that Weiller was "the French Connection. ")

- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn: Munich correspondent of William Buckley's National Review.

- Admiral James D. Watkins, Reagan's recently named Chief of Naval Operations.

- Thomas Bolan: law partner of Roy Cohn. Bolan is also Counsel to the Human Life Foundation of which former CIA officer and Managing Editor of National Review, Priscilla Buckley (William's sister) is a Director.

- Jeremiah Denton: U. S. Senator from Alabama, 1980-present; former rear admiral, captured by the Vietnamese while murdering people and held as a POW 1965-1973, consultant to Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network, 1978-80.

- Pete Domenici: U.S. Senator from New Mexico 1972 - present.

- Spiros S. Skouras: President Prudential Lines 1960-present, bought Grace Lines 1969.

- William A. Schreyer: President Merrill Lynch 1978-present; Chairman since 1981.

- Walter J. Hickel: former governor of Alaska 1966-69, Secretary of the Interior 1969-1970. [ Governor of Alaska again in early 90s .... JP ]

- Antoine Pinay: Grand Cross of Merit, head of Government in France in 1952. He led the right-wing party CNIP and was linked to the ''Sniffing-plane" scandal, as well as a project with Brian Crozier and American agents to make Franz Joseph Strauss head of the German government.

- Mme. Raymond Barre: Grand Cross of Merit, wife of the rightist French politician.

- Bernard Dorin: French attache to Ottawa 1957-1959, Ambassador to Haiti 1972-1974, and Ambassador to South Africa from 1978 until at least 1981.



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THE "OTHER" ORDERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA

Not only are there many existing orders of chivalry today, generally under the aegis of a reigning monarch or ruling house, but there are also rival organizations each claiming to be the rightful heirs to the same order. Nowhere is this more true than with the Knights of Malta.

According to the Catholic Herald of August 23, 1985, there are more than twenty organizations claiming to be the "real" Knights of Malta. On September 9, 1985, evidently in response to growing interest in the question, the 'Wall Street Journal' ran a cover story, "Looking for a Title or Hot Controversy? See Knights of Malta. The Problem Is Which Ones; Catholic Order Maintains Rival Groups are Bogus." (The New York Sunday News had described the rivalry as early as June 15, 1975.)

The legitimacy battle is often intense and steeped in the presentation of increasingly obscure documentation. Arnaud Chaffanjon and Bertrand Galimard Flavigny's Ordres et Contre-Ordres de Chevalerie (Paris: Mercure de France, 1982), is one of the more useful references.

Some of the rival "Orders of Malta,'' all with slightly different names, in fact claim important and extremely rightwing members. We believe that the Catholic, Rome-based Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) remains the most important, with the endorsement of the Vatican and most of the Catholic ruling houses of Europe, and members like those discussed in the text of this article. The British (and generally, though not exclusively Protestant) Venerable Order, discussed in the text, is affiliated with a number of European, Protestant Orders, such as the Johanniterorden, sometimes known as the Bailiwick of Brandenberg.

Two of the "Orders of Malta'' which have received particular attention recently are what may be called the "Shickshinny" Order and the "von Brancovan" Order.

The Shickshinny Order, officially called "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem," has been headed by Col. Thourot Pichel in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, although a few years ago the Order was torn by serious internal rifts between Pichel and the late Frank Capell, Contributing Editor of the John Birch Society's Review of the News. (See, Rev. Anthony Cekada, Light on the OSJ, from the Oyster Bay, New York The Roman Catholic, December 1981, for an article critical of the Order and discussing some of its recent history.) It traces its legitimacy from a dispute during the time the Order spent in Russia under Czar Paul after it fled Malta. This Order achieved some notoriety a few years ago when it officially recognized the claims of controversial defector Michael Goleniewski to be Aleksei Romanoff, heir to the Russian Imperial House of Romanoff.

The case would be less interesting if James Angleton were not one of the principal supporters of Goleneiwski and some extremely rightwing members of the military intelligence community were not listed as members in a document issued by the Order in 1970. The Order listed as members of its Military Affairs Committee, under the Chairmanship of Gen. Lemuel C. Shepherd, Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, and Gen. Pedro A. del Valle (who according to Stuart Christie's Stefano delle Chiaie, Portrait of a Black Terrorist (London: Anarchy Magazine, 1984), p. 6, invited Italian neo-Nazi Guido Giannettini to the U.S. to conduct a seminar at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, where del Valle was Commander. Foster & Epstein's Danger on the Right (New York: Random House, 1964), p.79; and Janson & Eismann's The Far Right (New York: McGraw Hill, 1963), p. 154, both call del Valle an anti-Semite.)

The Honorary Grand Admiral of the Order is listed as Admiral Sir Barry Domvile who had been jailed by the British during WW II as a Nazi agent, and was listed as a Contributing Editor of Willis Carto's Western Destiny, November 1965, when Roger Pearson was the Editor. The Associate Chief of International Intelligence listed was Herman E. Kimsey, a high-ranking CIA operative, now deceased, who had worked with the Army CIC during the war.

The von Brancovan Order, led by someone who calls himself Prince Robert Bassaraba von Brancovan and several other names as well, including Prince Khimchiachvili, is officially titled "The Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta Ecumenical.'' It is the order which apparently claims Frank Sinatra as a member. It also claims to include Princes Arnaldo and Basilio Petrucci. It appears to have a connection to Umberto Stafanizzi who, with Francesco Pazienza, signed the incorporation papers for something else called the "Sovereign Order of Saint John, Knights of Malta, Inc.," which was incorporated in New York State, June 22, 1983.



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footnotes -

26. Interested readers should also refer to the articles by Martin Lee on the SMOM which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter of October 14, 1983 (the issue which included the complete 1980 U.S. membership list), and Mother Jones of July 1983. (These two articles formed the basis for the references to SMOM in Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts The Year of Armageddon (London: Granada Publishing Ltd, 1984).)

An interesting discussion of some post-WW II SMOM history based around an account of the 1949-53 attempts by Vatican-centered Rightists to restrict the sovereignty of the Order is Knights of Malta by the conservative French author Roger Peyrefitte originally published by Flammarion in 1957, and translated into English and published in New York by Criterion Books m 1959.

King and Luke's The Knights of St. John in the British Realm, op. cit., n. 6, is useful although it does try to elevate Queen Victoria's creation of the Venerable Order to a status equal to that of SMOM.

The Italian journal L'Espresso of June 28, 1981 carried an article by Alessandre de Feo on the SMOM-P-2 connection. The rightist French magazine Historia had a special issue in 1980 on various Orders of Chivalry including SMOM. Also in French is the remarkable Souvenirs et Reflections by Yves Marsaudon, former Minister of SMOM in France who was also one of the highest ranking members of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in the country, (Paris: Editions Vitiano, 20 Rue Chauchat, 75009 Paris, 1976).

27. Francis X. Stankard, Knight of SMOM and Chief Executive Officer of the International Division of Chase Manhattan Bank has led "Evenings of Conversation'' at the Opus Dei Headquarters at the Riverside Study Center, 330 Riverside Drive, New York City. Other SMOMs at these sessions included William Simon and Frank Shakespeare (now Ambassador to Portugal), both of whom are Trustees of the Heritage Foundation, of which Shakespeare was Chairman of the Board. Evenings of Conversation, a pamphlet distributed in 1984 by Riverside Study Center.

Recognition of the importance of Opus Dei at the highest levels of SMOM had already been established in the summer of 1976 when King Juan-Carlos, himself a Knight of Malta, chose Adolfo Suarez, a member of Opus Dei, as new chief of government following the death of Franco. (Point de Vue, January 14, 1983; Paris.) On Opus Dei see also, New Statesman, 1 March 1985, pp.20,21; London Times, January 12, 1981; Le Morule, August 25, and September 28, 29 1982; National Catholic Reporter, September 10, and November 12, 1982; Financial Times, November 11, 1983; New York Times Magazine, January 8, 1984; Time magazine, June 11, 1984, p.74; New Times (Moscow), No.13, 1982, p.27; Wall Street Journal, December 30, 1982.

[Picture caption] - Paul-Louis Weiller, the French Connection?

- END QUOTE - [ 4 of 4 ]

COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

P.O.BOX 50272 WASHINGTON, DC 20004

http://mediafilter.org/MFF/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Some of the numerous links between SMOM, Opus Dei, intelligence agencies and the financial elites can be seen in Joel van der Reijden's excellent article on Le Cercle here:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=76

[Ed Jewett]

Seymour Hersh's new book to detail "how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government."

Submitted by Orangutan. on Fri, 01/21/2011 - 1:13pm

• Gen. Stanley McChrystal
  
• Knights of Malta
  
• Opus Dei
  
• Seymour Hersh
  

By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has broken some massive stories in his day, but uncovering secret societies within the highest echelons of America's military would probably be the biggest of his career.
Well, get ready for the media storm: That's essentially what Hersh told an audience in Doha, Qatar recently, according to a report published earlier this week by Foreign Policy.
Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government.
It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced," he continued, according to the published quotes.
Hersh also lamented President Obama's continuance of the Bush administration's worst abuses.

"Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one," he reportedly said.
The Foreign Policy report added that in 2003, those "in the Cheney shop" were not concerned about the havoc the invasion of Iraq was destined to cause.
"[The] attitude was, 'What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting?" Hersh was quoted as saying. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change moseques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.' That's the attitude. We're gonna chance mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC]."
He further claimed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the JSOC were members of the "Knights of Malta" and "Opus Dei," two little known Catholic orders.
"They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally," Hersh reportedly continued. "They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function."
He added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent "the whole notion that this is a culture war" between religions.
It was President George W. Bush who first invoked images of a holy war in the Middle East, when he suggested soon after Sept. 11, 2001 that the US was on a "crusade" in the region.
The "Knights of Malta" were a Catholic order founded in 1085 as a group of monks who cared for the wounded. It evolved into a military order that safeguarded Christian pilgrims from Muslims during the nine "Crusades," where Europe's Christian states laid siege to Muslims for control of Jerusalem.
"Opus Dei," popularly depicted in the Hollywood film "The DaVinci Code," was founded in 1928 and officially accepted as part of the Catholic church in 1947. The group's website claimed their principle calling was to bring about a "Christian renewal" around the world.
Doubts, denials and a distinctive trend
Raw Story reached out to Hersh and The New Yorker to confirm the accuracy of his quotes, placing this report on hold until they responded. Both declined to make any further statement, neither confirming nor denying the quotes.
However, one source close to Hersh who spoke to Raw Story off the record, suggested that Foreign Policy's report was indeed correct.
Raw Story followed-up on the quotes due to a widely-reported false claim attributed to Hersh in May 2009, where he'd allegedly said former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The report, which appeared to have originated in Pakistan, was picked up by The Wall Street Journal and the conservative-leaning American Spectator, but both removed the links after Raw Story published a denial from Hersh. A link to Raw Story's original report was unavailable due to a database malfunction.
Hersh, a Pulitzer-winning author and reporter, has previously reported that the JSOC was set up by former Vice President Cheney as something of an "executive assassination squad" that operated outside of congressional authority.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who resigned after Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings quoted him mocking the US civilian command, led JSOC before taking command of America's war effort in Afghanistan.
In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
"The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal's involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact," he reportedly wrote. "General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization."
The religious indoctrination of US soldiers has been in headlines in recent weeks as soldiers who "failed" the "spiritual fitness" portion of the "comprehensive soldier fitness" test claimed they were forced to attend Christian ceremonies and become "born again" by professing love for the Christian deity.
Similarly, GQ magazine uncovered last year a series of top-secret military briefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that included passages from the Bible.
Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was also discovered last Janurary to have been for years placing scriptural references on gun sights used by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their actions revealed, Trijicon was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits to remove the codes.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/highranking-members-military-part-kni...

• Orangutan.'s blog
  

[Magda Hassan]

In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
"The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal's involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact," he reportedly wrote. "General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization."

Well, he would say that wouldn't he? :curtain:

[David Guyatt]

Extracted from an article of mine:

FENCING THE ROSE

The Lippe family appears to have any number of connections to enterprises with intelligence connections. Take for example, the Order of the Rose of Lippe, a chivalric Order awarded to German House of Lippe. An offshoot of this order is the Noble Company of the Rose, founded by Ernst August Prinz zur Lippe the first cousin of Prince Bernhard - and Sir Rodney Hartwell. Today, the Noble Order of the Rose is awarded exclusively and by invitation only to members of a curious research institute with a focus on genealogy, royalty, nobility, chivalry, heraldry, and related topics called The Augustan Society that is housed in a mansion located in the Mojave Desert near Dagget, USA, and which was founded in 1957.

The curiosity here is that many of the early, and some of the founding members, were formerly with wartime intelligence services, mostly the OSS. These included Crolian Edelen, Robert Formhals, Robert Gayre, John Driscoll, George Balling and Forest Barber all of whom had also earlier been Shickshinny knights, a so called "fake" Order that claimed descent from the Russian Grand Priory of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Shickshinny knights boasted some really heavy weight English and American pro nazi military and intelligence officers. [30]

It is alleged that the number one activity of the Augustan Society is intelligence gathering and that several members of the Society began working together three of four years before officially incorporating it as a legal entity (thus dating it back to circa 1954 of which more later). It is also said that it is an intelligence front for SMOM, the official Vatican Order of the Knights of Malta.

The Augustan Society was originally located in Torrance, California, a location that gave rise to an insider adage "when you hear a sneeze in Torrance, you hear a God Bless you' on the Via Condotti." The Via Condotti is the location of the Palazzo di Malta in Rome, the HQ of SMOM. The SMOM connection to this story is not without considerable interest. Members of this order have included such nazi notables as Dr. Herman Abs, a director of I G Farben and Deutsche Bank and who was known as "Hitler's paymaster." Robert Gayre, one of the founders of the Augustan Society was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of SMOM. Another to be honoured by SMOM was nazi spymaster, Reinhard Gehlen discussed above who received the prestigious Grand Cross of Merito Melitense in 1948. Another honoured by SMOM was James Jesus Angleton, to whom we shall return shortly. Neither of the Dulles brothers were honoured by this August body simply because they were Protestants rather than Catholics.

Curiously however, Martin Bormann's eldest son, Adolf Martin chose to take holy orders in 1946 following a preliminary course at Federaun Monastery, located close to Villach in Austria. This monastery was under the patronage of Bishop Hudal one of the most senior Vatican insiders who was responsible for running the nazi underground escape railway known as the Ratlines. More alarming is the fact that Hudal was the "guardian" of Aldolf Martin Bormann, as he was also the guardian of another monk, Brother Avery Dulles, son of John Foster Dulles, elder brother of Allen Dulles. It's a small world isn't it.

The Knights of Malta were also responsible for helping thousands of the worst Nazis and members of the SS escape to freedom down these Ratlines, thus evading justice and avoiding the hangman's noose at Nuremberg. Originally conceived as an underground railroad for wanted war criminals, it was quickly co-opted, I understand, to smuggle nazi gold, currency and other plunder to replenish the enormous sums lost by the Rockefeller family in pre-war German investments. Assisting Rockefeller in this sleazy endeavour were, Allen Dulles, Herbert Walker and James Jesus Angleton, the OSS Italian bureau chief and later CIA Rome Bureau chief. As such Angleton was in charge of the Vatican "account" and I understand that he learned about the homosexual proclivities of Pope Pius XII (formerly the Papal Nuncio in Bavaria) and was able to use this information for blackmail purposes. Meanwhile, Allen Dulles, Herbert Walker and James Jesus Angleton are said to have benefited most handsomely from "commissions" earned for their assistance in shifting plunder on behalf of the Rockefeller's. Angleton benefited even more since he was able to co-opt SMOM, the intelligence arm of the Vatican, to work on behalf of US intelligence interests.

Patrons of the Augustan Society are listed as Ernst August Prinz zur Lippe, Dr. Otto von Habsburg the old Austro-Hungarian Imperial House and Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy son of King Umberto II, the last Italian king who was forced to relinquish his throne after the war for being pro-Mussolini. [31] Prince Victor Emmanuel is the Grand Master of the authorised Vatican chivalric Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus.

Another of those beguiling coincidences is that Robert Gayre, who is mentioned above, was the head of the US branch of the racist organisation, the International Association for the Advancement of Eugenics and Ethnology, which is headquartered in Scotland. Eugenics formed a very powerful undercurrent in nazi ideology and thinking.

The IAAEE was founded by Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton who was a Wing Commander in the RAF during WWII. Lord Malcolm was, moreover, a member of the "Cliveden Set" - which is another name for the Rhodes-Milner Oxford "Group" that was sympathetic to Hitler's war aims. Not least, Lord Malcolm had the honour of being the brother of the Duke of Hamilton who, as we know, was the host of Rudolf Hess after his flight to Scotland in 1941.

Colonel Gayre also founded the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in Edinburgh, with the US branch of this Order being established by Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton. Lord Malcolm is a relative of the late Queen Mother via his mother, Pamela Bowes-Lyon. Robert Gayre was also the vice president of the International Commission for Orders of Chivalry (ICC). The VI International Congress of the ICC was held in Edinburgh in 1962, under the Honorary Presidency of the Duke of Edinburgh and was presided over by the Duke of Hamilton.

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/princes_of_plunder.htm

Since I first came across the Augustan Society has quite considerably changed the nature of its website (http://www.augustansociety.org/groups) excising the names of European royals who are influential members.

It is an intelligence organization, imo, and acts to bring together various factions together under one roof. I am told that occult rituals are held at its headquarters.

[Jan Klimkowski]

In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
"The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal's involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact," he reportedly wrote. "General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization."

Well, he would say that wouldn't he? :curtain:

That is a classic non-denial denial.

There are many variant names for SMOM, including the Shickshinny chapter, as David reminds us.

Some of these variants will be red herrings, perhaps deliberately planted.

McChrystal's spokesman has simply denied his boss' membership of "The Knights of Malta".

[Magda Hassan]

Today, the Noble Order of the Rose is awarded exclusively and by invitation only to members of a curious research institute with a focus on genealogy, royalty, nobility, chivalry, heraldry, and related topics called The Augustan Society that is housed in a mansion located in the Mojave Desert near Dagget, USA, and which was founded in 1957.

When ever I see this sort of thing I also read that as a focus on blood lines, pure blood lines, breeding and eugenics. And it opposite.:gossip::nurse::pope::darthvader:

[David Guyatt]

In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
"The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal's involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact," he reportedly wrote. "General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization."

Well, he would say that wouldn't he? :curtain:

That is a classic non-denial denial.

There are many variant names for SMOM, including the Shickshinny chapter, as David reminds us.

Some of these variants will be red herrings, perhaps deliberately planted.

McChrystal's spokesman has simply denied his boss' membership of "The Knights of Malta".

My reading of McChrystal's statement is that it is an attempt to deny his association by force of wordplay. What he is implying is that he is not associated with with SMOM Rome --- which I actually suspect is true. I feel sure McChrystal is SMOM America. They are not entirely the same organization and have a separate chain of command, staff etc. Roman SMOM publishes a roll of members that can be obtained by visiting the Vatican and paying a small fee. American SMOM avoids publishing membership lists at all costs, and always has done.

It is a very useful subterfuge and a classic intelligence ploy of having the same entity separated by two different jurisdictions and command structures.

Ergo: they are the same and not the same.

I once had a series of email correspondence with Guy Stair Sainty, one of the acknowledged experts of world Chivalric Orders (he is KstJ btw). Our exchanges focused on SMOM Rome, and SMOM America, and the various controversial names (like Gehlen) who were members. He went on endlessly seeking to try to deny various associations, but in the end conceded virtually everything stated in the Covert Action Quarterly feature article as being factual. But he wasn't a happy bunny having to do so.

He possessed a membership roll of American SMOM too, and was able to deny membership of of one individual I was then interested in, but confirmed that his brother was SMOM America.

I also understood from him that every DCI of the CIA is offered an honourary knighthood in SMOM.