Santorum, Opus Dei, Freeh, Terrorism, and Organized Crime

[Ed Jewett]

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[TR]
[TD]February 21-22, 2012 -- Santorum, Opus Dei, Freeh, Terrorism, and Organized Crime

publication date: Feb 20, 2012


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February 21-22, 2012 -- Santorum, Opus Dei, Freeh, Terrorism, and Organized Crime

While legitimate questions have arisen over Mitt Romney's Mormon religious beliefs and his commitment to the separation of church and state, surging GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's links to the secretive and ultra right-wing Roman Catholic Opus Dei sect have also raised questions. Santorum's extreme Catholic beliefs are in contrast to then-Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's promise that his Catholicism did not mean he took orders from the Pope in Rome. While Kennedy was able to fend off attacks by his enemies that he was beholden to the Vatican, Santorum is in no such position.

In fact, in 2002, after Santorum attended the Vatican's 100th anniversary ceremony of the birth of Opus Dei founder St. Josemaria Escriva, who was the spiritual adviser to Spain's fascist dictator Francisco Franco, the junior senator from Pennsylvania told the National Catholic Reporter that Kennedy's separation of his personal religious beliefs from his public duties as president resulted in "great harm to America."

Santorum is a congregant of the Opus Dei-linked St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church in upscale Great Falls, Virginia, not far from the CIA headquarters in Langley. St. Catherine is noted for its Latin masses. The congregation counts other Catholic notables among its members, including Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and jailed-for-life FBI Russian spy Robert Hanssen.

However, it is the association of St. Catherine member, former FBI director Louis Freeh, to Santorum and their Opus Dei links that has many Americans who believe in the separation of church and state concerned about Santorum's views. WMR has learned from Catholic sources that Hanssen, who was arrested as a Soviet and Russian spy, was forced to accept a plea bargain deal with government prosecutors whereby his wife would continue to receive Hanssen's FBI pension while Hanssen pleaded guilty and remained in prison for the rest of his life. Otherwise, in a full-blown trial with discovery motions and cross-examination, Hanssen's ties to Freeh and Opus Dei could have been easily exposed. Opus Dei thrives in secrecy and the exposure of the fact that one of Freeh's sons and and Hanssen's three sons attended The Heights private males-only preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland would have brought unwanted attention to the Catholic organization deemed a cult by many of its critics.

In 2004, Santorum and his wife became Knight and Dame of Magistral Grace of the Knights of Malta at a ceremony at St. Patrick's Church in New York. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, headquartered in Rome, enjoys, as does Vatican City, independent diplomatic status and representation at the UN by an observer mission. Although the Catholic military order has diplomatic relations with 104 nations, it is not recognized by the United States. It appears clear that a Santorum administration would reverse that long-standing policy.

Santorum's Opus Dei conflicts-of-interest do not end with the Knights of Malta. In September 2002, the accused pedophile former assistant Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been charged with using his Second Mile Foundation charity to pimp out underage teen boys to wealthy donors to the fund, received the Congressional Angels in Adoption award. The sponsor for Sandusky's award was Santorum, an avid alumnus and supporter of Penn State. Santorum told The Philadelphia Inquirer last November that he does not personally know Sandusky. However, Sandusky's Second Mile Foundation counted a number of Pennsylvania politicos among its supporters.

Moreover, Penn State hired as its chief in-house investigator of the child sex abuse allegations surrounding Sandusky and their cover-up by senior Penn State officials Santorum's fellow St. Catherine's congregant Louis Freeh.

Freeh, who heads his own private investigative firm, Freeh Group International Solutions, LLC, is also the trustee for MF Global Holdings' Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Freeh is investigating the disposition of $1.6 billion in MF Global Holdings' assets that disappeared after MF chairman, Santorum's neighboring New Jersey Senate colleague Jon Corzine, invested $6.3 billion in a risky bet on European sovereign debt.

After leaving the FBI just weeks before the 9/11 attacks and after spending years investigating President Bill Clinton's sex life, Freeh became general counsel for MBNA America Bank in Delaware and negotiated its sale to the scandal-ridden Bank of America. Freeh was subsequently hired by Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was the Saudi ambassador to the United States on 9/11, to represent him in an arms scandal involving the payment to Bandar of $2 billion bribes by Britain's BAE Systems. Last year, Freeh was hired by the ethics committee of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to investigate the bribery scandal surrounding FIFA board member and Asia Football Confederation head Mohammad bin Hammam from Qatar who was banned for life from all football activities. Freeh's job had more to due with cleaning up Qatar's tarnished sports image before it hosts the 2022 World Cup.

Freeh also spoke in favor of de-listing the Iranian terrorist group, Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), as a State Department-designated foreign terrorist group. The MEK has been linked to the Israeli Mossad's assassinations of Iranian scientists in Iran by using magnetic car bombs that have now been traced to a bomb-making facility in Bangkok, Thailand.

Freeh is also at the center of a major schism in among casino tycoons. Freeh was hired by Las Vegas' Wynn Resorts, headed by Steve Wynn, to investigate charges that his erstwhile friend and business partner, Hong Kong resident and reputed Yakuza-linked Kazuo Okada, head of Universal Entertainment. Wynn, using Freeh as his mouthpiece, has uncovered "evidence" that Okada, who is reportedly of North Korean descent, gained the permission of the Philippines government to build a casino in that country by paying bribes in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a law that is now rarely enforced by the Justice Department except in politically-motivated cases. Okada, who launched his business by running Japanese pachinko parlors and is Wynn Resort's largest shareholder, charges that Wynn refused to account for a $135 million grant Wynn Resorts made to the University of Macau. Freeh said his investigation confirmed pay-offs in contravention of the FCPA by Okada to Philippines gaming regulators in return for a license to build the casino in the Philippines.

While Santorum quarters have pointed fingers at Newt Gingrich's donations from billionaire Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, Santorum's friend and fellow Opus Dei member Freeh has his own dubious deals with the casino industry, including the typical casino operations like those of Wynn or the international business "casino" like that of Corzine.

A Santorum administration may see a place for Freeh as Attorney General or, in a worst case scenario, on the U.S. Supreme Court, alongside other such "notables" as Opus Dei member Scalia, and Sammy "the Snake" Alito, Clarence "Slappy" Thomas, Elena Kagan, and Chief Justice John Roberts.



http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20120220_1


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[Jan Klimkowski]

Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, eh?

No Good ever came from that diabolic duo....

[Peter Lemkin]

A real non-'neo'-fascist for President! Oh, boy, can't wait! We, in the USA move further to the right...ain't much further to go!!!

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

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

WINTER 1986 Number 25

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.



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.


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.



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.


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/

[Peter Lemkin]

Opus Dei, Calvi and Gladio....[URL="http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_gladio.htm"]HERE

Boy are we lucky, when we don't get Skull and Bones, we get Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta.....[/URL]funny how so many candidates for President seem to have connections to the CIA in one way or another......surely, just COINCIDENCE!