Sandy Hook, Meth and the Knights of Malta

Increasingly the Vatican is starting to resemble a slow-motion car crash.

Of course, such a description could've been used to describe the Vatican for any number of years leading up to now but it is especially apt since Pope Benedict XVI tendered his resignation on  February 11, 2013. Benedict is only the fifth pope in the past thousand years to resign, and the first in almost 600. If this wasn't epic enough the infamous prophecy of Saint Malachy suggests that Benedict's successor will be the final pope and that the city of Rome itself will be destroyed during the reign of this pope.

Pope Benedict XVI

Incidentally (or not), the ongoing Catholic child abuse scandal has once again been in the news due to the pending disposition of the notorious Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles. It is also beginning to enter the debate surrounding the elections of the next pope. MSNBC notes:

"Los Angeles' retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was rebuked last month for his handling of the sex-abuse crisis, suggests he was 'scapegoated' in a blog post ahead of two important dates: his Saturday deposition in a lawsuit alleging that the church hierarchy protected a priest accused of molesting children and his trip to Rome to help pick the next pope.

"The high-profile 'prince of the church' is at the center of an outcry over several scandal-tainted cardinals being allowed to help choose who will succeed Pope Benedict XVI at next month's conclave at the Vatican.

"Ireland's Sean Brady, Belgium's Godfried Danneels and Philadelphia's Justin Rigali have all been pilloried in the Italian press over allegations they failed to protect children from pedophiles -- but it's Mahony who has drawn the most ire.

"A group called Catholics United started a petition against his attendance at the conclave. And an Italian consumer group requested Rome prosecutors open a criminal investigation into Mahony if he travels to the Vatican, the news agency ANSA reported Friday.

 

"Improbable as that is, it underscores the outrage in some quarters that cardinals whose reputations have been battered by cover-up allegations will have an equal say in who will next lead the world's 1.3 billion Catholics."

Roger Mahony

Then, just as it seems news out of the Vatican couldn't get anymore sensational, Italian dailies began to report that Benedict's resignation was being driven partly by the discovery of a so-called "gay faction" within the Vatican. Slate reports:

"Pope Benedict XVI is a little more than two weeks away from beginning his retirement at the Castel Gandolfo, but his final days as head of the Catholic church don't look like they're going to be quiet ones. Unsourced reports coming out of Italy suggest that the pope decided to call it quits not because of his old age but instead to avoid the fallout that could come from a secret 300-page dossier compiled by three cardinals he tapped to look into last year's leak of confidential papers stolen from his desk.

"Those papers, widely known as the 'VatiLeaks,' raised questions of financial impropriety and corruption at the Vatican. The investigation that followed, however, may prove even more uncomfortable for church officials.
 

"The secret dossier allegedly details a wide range of infighting among various factions in the Vatican's governing body, known as the Curia. But the headline-ready takeaway from today's report from La Repubblica concerns the existence of one faction in particular, a network of gay church officials. Just in case that weren't enough to pique international interest, the Italian newspaper also reports that some of said officials had been blackmailed by outsiders. According to the report, the pope got his first look at the dossier—'two folders hard-bound in red' with the header 'pontifical secret'—on Dec. 17, and decided that same day to retire."

(As an interesting side note, the date of December 17 has some interesting esoteric associations, which I've written on before here).

Strangely, all of the strands --the incredible corruption within the Catholic Church, the ongoing child abuse scandal, and the whispers of a "gay faction" inside the Vatican, are all seemingly playing out in the Diocese of Bridgeport. The diocese, based out of Fairfield County, Connecticut, has been at the center of numerous scandals for years. Of course there are the inevitable charges of child abuse. Connecticut Magazine report:

"Ten years ago this spring, the sexual abuse crisis involving hundreds of Roman Catholic priests and thousands of young victims broke nationally in the media, engulfing dioceses from Boston to Los Angeles but also the Diocese of Bridgeport, where 23 lawsuits against seven local priests were working their way through the courts.

"Three years earlier, however, this magazine had reported on long-standing and widespread abuses in the diocese (“Gods and Monsters,” May 1999; link opens a .pdf of the original story), then under the leadership of Bishop Edward Egan. In that article, Egan was portrayed as a wily, coldly-calculating defender of the Church and abusive priests, more corporate lawyer than spiritual guardian. The article revealed that he had let accused priests continue to work in local parishes, authorized payments to victims in exchange for silence agreements, and lied about those payments during a deposition."

Other members of the clergy have been convicted of embezzlement. MSNBC states:

"Last year, the Rev. Michael R. Moynihan, the former pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Greenwich, was sent to prison for obstructing justice after being accused of spending church money on himself. In 2007, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, from St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien, was convicted of stealing $1.3 million; he died in prison."
 

Moynihan (top) and Fay (bottom)

While all of this is certainly rotten it's hardly uncommon of a Catholic institution in this day and age. But in the last few months the Diocese of Bridgeport has cropped up in two high profile incidents. The first and most horrific is of course the Sandy Hook shooting. Both Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza and his mother, Nancy, had attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, a church under the authority of the Diocese of Bridgeport. Even more bizarrely, eight of the 20 children Adam Lanza murdered also attended this church reports the New York Post:

"The monster who massacred 20 first-graders in Connecticut belonged to the same Catholic church as eight of them — and it’s where the children’s funerals will be held this week.

"Gunman Adam Lanza, 20, and his mother, Nancy Lanza, had been parishioners at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Newtown. Adam also had gone to the church’s school as a child after his mother pulled him out of nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he conducted his murderous rampage Friday.

"Worshippers said they felt nauseous after realizing that the crazed gunman was a member of their community."

Adam (top) and Nancy (bottom) Lanza

A little less than a month after the Sandy Hook shooting Monsignor Kevin Wallin, a former priest who had been the pastor of the Cathedral of St. Augustine at Bridgeport (one of the choices positions in the Diocese of Bridgeport), was indicted as being a part of a crystal meth ring. Shortly thereafter it was also revealed that Wallin was also a homosexual and cross-dresser, a fact that has been of infinite fascination to the press. The Connecticut Post remarks:

"The Catholic priest busted for allegedly dealing crystal meth was suspended after church officials discovered he was a cross-dresser who was having sex in the rectory at Bridgeport's St. Augustine Cathedral...

"In his post-priesthood, Wallin, 61, bought an adult specialty and video store in North Haven called Land of Oz that sells sex toys and X-rated DVDs. Investigators believe the shop helped him launder thousands of dollars in weekly profits."

In between the cross-dressing and running an adult video store Wallin seems to found time to build a nationwide meth ring, stretching to California. The San Clemente Times remarks:

"According to a Wednesday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a federal grand jury in Bridgeport, Conn. returned the indictment on January 15 following a joint investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Connecticut State Police Department’s Narcotics Task Force.

"The five indicted were Chad McCluskey, 43, of San Clemente; Kristen Laschober, 47, of Laguna Niguel and three Connecticut residents, Kevin Wallin, 61; Kenneth “Lyme” Devries, 52 and Michael Nelson, 40.

"All were charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine and 50 grams of actual methamphetamine.

"The investigation included the use of court-authorized wiretaps, controlled purchases of methamphetamine, physical surveillance and an undercover officer, the release said.

"Wallin was also charged with six counts of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine having allegedly received shipments of methamphetamine from California and then selling the drugs to an undercover officer six times between September 2012 and January 2013."

If all of this wasn't suspicious enough a recent MSNBC article dropped another compelling detail about Wallin. The article stated:

"He was involved with many local charities and on the board of Sacred Heart University. He was an important pipeline to wealthy parishioners whose donations were crucial, especially as chaplain to the Order of Malta, an international Roman Catholic charity."

 In other words, Wallin was a member of the Knights of Malta. The Knights of Malta are a centuries-old order dating back to the Middle Ages, as I'm sure many of my regular readers are well aware. For those of you uninitiated, Foreign Policy has a solid overview of the order, which can be found here. I shall defer to it now in explaining the origins of the Knights of Malta:

"The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta is a Roman Catholic organization based in Rome with around 13,000 members worldwide. The group was founded in 1048 by Amalfian merchants in Jerusalem as a monastic order that ran a hospital to tend to Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. At the height of its power, the order was also tasked by Rome with the additional military function of defending Christians from the local Muslim population. The Knights of St. John were just one of a number of Christian military orders founded during this period -- including the fabled but now defunct Knights of Templar.

"When the Sultan of Egypt retook Jerusalem in 1291, the Knights of St. John went into exile, settling in Rhodes 20 years later. In 1523 they were forced from Rhodes by the Sultan's forces and settled in Malta, which they ruled until they were dislodged by Napoleon's army in 1798. The order settled in Rome in the mid-19th century, where it remains to this day.

"Despite its name, the Knights haven't had any military function since leaving Malta. Instead, the order has gone back to its charitable roots by sponsoring medical missions in more than 120 countries."

The order's ties to the Knights Templar have fascinated conspiracy theorists for years, though not remotely as much as the Templars themselves. It is widely believed in such circles that modern-day Freemasonry is descended from the Knights Templar. One of the most compelling accounts of this theory was presented by John J. Robinson in his 1990 work Born in Blood. Robinson did not begin this work in an attempt to prove the ties between the medieval order of the Knights Templar and modern-day Freemasonry. Rather, it was meant to be a study of the 1381 Peasant's Revolt but Robinson became convinced that this incident was the result of a secret society comprised of the descendents of the Knights Templar (who were ruthlessly suppressed by the Pope and King Philip of France in 1307 and officially disbanded and 1312) and other fellow travelers. Even though the Peasant's Revolt failed the secret society lived on and eventually became modern-day Freemasonry, in Robinson's hypothesis.

Robinson also believed that the Knights Templar had an ongoing rivalry with the Knights Hospitaler, who eventually became the Knights of Malta. He even went so far as to speculate that the Masonic myth of the murder of Hiram Abiff by three unworthy craftsman is an allegoryof the three "assassins" of the Knights Templar, one of which Robinson believed where the Knights Hospitaler.

"And if Clement V had been merely a timorous puppet pope with Philip pulling the strings, as church historians would have us believe, the kings of France would have been the new owners of the Templar properties in France, not the Hospitalers. The pope was much tougher, or at least much more obstinate, than we have been led to believe and it would appear that he had contrived a plan of his own in concert with the Hospitalers.

"That order has managed to escape any criticism in the matter of the Templar suppression, but apparently only because it had kept a low profile throughout, probably for the very good reason that it's role and its reward had been worked out in advance. It is well-known that the papacy he was in favor of a union of the Templars and the Hospitalers and had already determined that Foulques de Villaret, master of the Hospitalers, would be the Grand Master of the combined orders. The Templars, at their headquarters in Cyprus, had heard of the serious intent to combine the orders and had taken the time to prepare a written rebuttal. The Hospitalers, at their own headquarters on the same island, must have received the same information, yet they prepared no rebuttal, written or verbal. In fact, de Villaret managed to stay away from the meeting in France altogether, with no recorded papal criticism of his absence. That was undoubtedly because his presence wasn't needed and because there was no point in changing a confrontation between the two orders, especially since the pope was already dedicated to looking after the interests of the Hospitalers. Not only did the Hospitalers offer no objection to the concept of the merger, but they made no attempt whatsoever to speak up for their brother warrior-monks as they were arrested and tortured. They simply stayed out of it and bided their time, until Clement V, much to the anger of King Philip, declared that all of the confiscated Templar property would go to the Knights Hospitaler and that all released Templars would be taken into the Hospitaler order, thereby achieving de facto the union he had been planning all along, with full Hospitaler approval and cooperation. If one looks for motive, the Hospitaler order was the major beneficiary of the suppression of the Templars, as had probably been planned from the beginning. The pope and the Hospitalers together thwarted the aims of Philip of France, and there should be no doubt that the Hospitalers rank as one of three assassins of the order of the Temple."
(Born in Blood, John J. Robinson, pgs. 272-273)

Foulques de Villaret on Knights of Malta stamp

This is of course hardly the only conspiracy theory surrounding the Knights of Malta. Foreign Policy described some of the more notable modern accusations made against the order:

"Because of its secretive proceedings, unique political status, and association with the Crusades, the order has been a popular target for conspiracy theorists. Alleged members have included former CIA Directors William Casey and John McCone, Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, and GOP fixture Pat Buchanan, though none have ever acknowledged membership. Various theories have tied the Knights to crimes including the Kennedy assassination and spreading the AIDS virus through its clinics in Africa."

There are, however, far more tangible recent charges. One of the more well known at this point is the order's ties to the notorious private military firm Academi, previously known as Blackwater.

"Joseph Schmidt, like Erik Prince and other executives of Blackwater, was a Catholic and a Christian fundamentalist. Some would go so far as to say he was a religious fanatic obsessed with implementing 'the rule of law under God.' In numerous speeches given during his time as Pentagon Inspector General, Schmidt articulated his vision and understanding of the global war on terror, employing the rhetoric of Christian supremacy... On his official biography, Schmidt proudly list his membership in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed in the eleventh century, before the first Crusades, with the mission of defending 'territories that the Crusaders had conquered from the Moslems.' The Order today boasts of being 'a sovereign subject of international law, with its own constitution, passports, stamps, and public institutions' and 'diplomatic relations with 94 countries.'"
(Blackwater, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 367)

Joseph Schmidt

Even more intriguing (for our purposes, at least) is the evidence that the order was involved in the notorious Iran-Contra scandal.

"The fact that the Christian Right raised millions of dollars in aid to the Contras has been 'backburned' in most histories of the affair. Indeed, Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network was only one source of aid and support to the Contras; in addition, we find the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon as well as the Knights of Malta fraternal society involved in fund-raising and other efforts on behalf of the rebels.

"The Knights of Malta participation is interesting because, at the time, it's head was J. Peter Grace, an old friend of Pat Robertson and the godfather to his children. It was Grace who famously hired a Nazi scientist, Otto Ambrose, to work for the W. R. Grace Corporation even though his past as a chemist and director of I.G. Farben during World War II was well-documented."
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pg. 309)

J. Peter Grace

It has long been alleged (and for good reason) that the US-backed Contras were involved in drug trafficking.

"In Columbia as in the Far East, the CIA's proprietary and contract airlines have been accused of more direct involvement in drug trafficking. The U.S. airline Southern Air Transport has been flying to Colombia and Venezuela since least 1960, when it became for while a CIA proprietary company. A series of reports, none of them proven, have linked the airline since then to cocaine. In January 1987, during the first phase of the Iran-Contra revelations, newspapers reported that the Justice Department had recently suppressed a DEA investigation of Southern Air Transport for drug trafficking...

"The New York Times reported at the time that the accusations 'will be studied again' as part of the Iran-Contra investigation. Predictably, they were not. Yet allegations continue. According to a recent report by the CIA inspector general,

a 1991 DEA cable to CIA reported that SAT was 'of record' in DEA's database from January 1985-September 1990 for alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking. An August 1990 entry in DEA's database reportedly alleged that $2 million was delivered to the firm's business sites, and several of the firm's pilots and executives were suspected of smuggling 'narcotics currency.'

"This claim corroborates one made in 1986 by an FBI informant, Wanda Palacio, who was the wife of a Colombian trafficker. Palacio told investigators for the Kerry Senate subcommittee investigating Contra drug trafficking that in 1983 she had seen Southern Air Transport planes in Brranquilla, Columbia, unloading guns and being loaded with cocaine."
(Drugs, Oil, and War, Peter Dale Scott, pgs. 89-90)

The "charitable" efforts of the Knights of Malta in raising money for the Contra network would have provided a convenient means of laundering drug money. Of course, there is no evidence that the Knights of Malta were involved in such acts, only that they would have been in a highly advantageous position to do so if they were so inclined.

And now, some 30 years later, we find a former priest who was also a chaplain for the Knights of Malta (and who was deeply involved in raising funds from "wealthy parishioners" nonetheless) involved in a nationwide meth ring. And all of this is unfolding in a diocese riddled with child abuse and embezzled funds and which catered to the spiritual needs of Adam and Nancy Lanza at one point.

And what are we to make of Wallin's peculiar sex life in light of the allegations of this "gay faction" within the Vatican? Is it possible that Wallin had some kind of ties to this faction? As outlandish as this may sound keep in mind that Wallin was described as a "towering figure in the Roman Catholic Church in southwestern Connecticut." He was a confidant to two bishops and was given a pastorship in one of the key churches under the Diocese of Bridgeport's authority. By all accounts he was a rising star being groomed for upper management, in other words. Wallin's association with the Knights of Malta is a strong indication of this.

Even more disturbing is the revelation of a "gay faction" within the Vatican in the midst of the ongoing child abuse scandal. If there is a "gay faction," could their also be a pedophile faction? Such a possibility makes the Diocese of Bridgeport, with its incidences of child abuse and embezzlement and now a gay, meth-dealing priest with ties to the Knights of Malta, especially interesting. Are there ties to the pedophilia, embezzlement and drug dealing? Are the Knights of Malta involved in some way?

Are all of these things mere coincidence? Or do they point to something far darker and more sinister within the Vatican than the public has yet imagined? If so, than the scale of corruption must be epic indeed.

Epic enough, at least, to make a pope resign for the first time in almost 600 years.

The Road to Elohim Part V

Welcome to the fifth installment in my series concerning Elohim City, the broader Christian Identity movement that spawned it, and the links both have to the American power elite. In the first installment I briefly considered the origins of Elohim and the Christian Identity faith as well as providing an overview of several notorious paramilitary groups and movements connected with both. In the second part I considered the political climate in Germany in the early 90s, a topic that will have much significance later on; as well as the life and times of notorious white supremacist attorney Kirk Lyons and one of his more notable clients, German national and former Elohim City chief of security Andreas Strassmeir. In the third installment I moved on to the militant transformation Strassmeir brought to Elohim in the early 90s and the role that he and the compound likely played in the Oklahoma City bombing. In the fourth part I began to consider the implications of the Oklahoma City bombing, noting that it came in the midst of a rightward shift in the country of which it either had no effect on or even added to. I also noted that Germany experienced a wave of right-wing terrorism largely from skinhead gangs in the wake of reunification which shadowed a rightward shift amongst mainstream political parties, a situation that is currently being repeated in modern-day Greece.

Greece's Golden Dawn, a far right political party, taking to the streets

Later on in the fourth installment I introduced former Students for a Democratic Society president Carl Oglesby's concept of a"Yankee/Cowboy" war amongst America's cryptocracy. The Yankee/Cowboy War is a very complex topic of which I was only able to broadly outlined in part four and I'll only briefly describe here: It is essentially a conflict between America's old moneyed Eastern Establishment (Carroll Quigley's Round Table Group and Rhodes Scholars; the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and many other longtime bogeymen of the conspiratorial right) and the "Cowboy" faction, a loose assortment of individuals and groups typically based out of the American South and West and unified by far right ideology. The chief concern of the Eastern Establishment has traditionally been international trade and banking. The Cowboy faction is not as financially unified, though their interests are frequently aligned with the so-called military-industrial complex.

As part four wound down I outlined the various shifts in the American power structure between the Yankee and Cowboy factions since the Kennedy administration. It can briefly be summed up as thus: The Kennedy assassination was a coup de tete by the Cowboys and led to almost a decade of Cowboy rule; at this point the Yankee staged their own counter coup, which came in the form of Nixon's resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal; the Yankees would continue to dominate the American political system throughout the 1970s but the Cowboys laid the framework for an eventual return to power which briefly happen in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan; but Bush I, very much a creature of the Eastern Establishment, soon began to dominate Reagan's administration and would officially become the president in 1988; when Bush I was defeated in 1992 it was by another Yankee creation, on William Jefferson Clinton, who was a former Rhodes Scholar and considered Carroll Quigley himself a major inspiration.

With the end of the Cold War, which had long been a rallying point for the fanatically anti-Communist Cowboy faction as well as a significant moneymaker, it seemed as though the war had finally been settled in favor of the Yankee faction once and for all. But then came Ruby Ridge and Waco and the emerging specter of global terrorism (the first major terror attack on the World Trade Center, a bombing attempt, occurred in 1993) and suddenly both the grassroots right and the defense industry found new life.

In terms of "Overworld" ratifications the so-called "Republican Revolution" of 1994 served to counter the Yankee presidency of Clinton and ultimately lay the framework for the 2000 election which brought George W. Bush to power. Bush II, despite being the scion of an old monied Eastern family, was very much under the dominion of the Cowboy faction and allowed them more influence in his administration than any president since Nixon.

In many ways Bush II's presidency completed a Cowboy comeback that have been in the works since the 1970s. This comeback had many fronts, but two of the most significant were the emergence of a vast network of right-wing think tanks (i.e. the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, etc) to counter their Eastern Establishment counterparts (the notorious Council on Foreign Relations and such) and the development of a massive grassroots base built around Christian fundamentalist and evangelical church groups. Beyond these Overworld developments there is also growing evidence that various paramilitary outfits were also employed as shock troops in this counter-counterrevolution. These Cowboy shock troops frequently came from the ranks of the Christian Identity movement as the 1970s gave way to the 1980s. With this in mind let us now more closely consider the origins and history of Christian Identity theology.

The Christian Identity movement had its origins in 19th century British Israelism, emerging as its own distinct ideology in early 20th century America. A Massachusetts lawyer named Howard Rand is generally credited as the first Christian Identity philosopher though the notorious Father Charles Coughlin and William Dudley Pelley's fascist Silver Shirt movement likely had an enormous influence on the theology.

"... William Dudley Pelly and his group, the Silver Shirts, warrant a closer look. Pelly founded the Silver Shirts on Jan. 31, 1933 in Asheville, N.C., the date Hitler took power in Germany. He described it as a Christian militia. Throughout the 30s and until Pelly's indictment for sedition, the Silver Shirts were one the largest and most violent pro-Nazi groups. Pelly was the son of a Methodist minister who believed that Jews were the children of Satan. He acquired his intense hatred for Jews from White Russians during his missionary work with the American Expeditionary Force in Russia at the end of WWI. This hatred was later reinforced when Pelly was fired as a Hollywood screenwriter.

"Due to their extreme racism and Judeophobia, the Silver Shirts became popular in areas of the country were the Klan was strong during the 1920s, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where they fill the void left after the Klan split apart in Oregon and Washington. The Silver Shirts were openly pro-Hitler, and formed an alliance with the American Bund and the Klan.

"If not for their lingering influence on fascist groups in America, they would be as forgettable as any of the more than 700 fascist groups from the 1930s. However, many of today's far-right groups can trace their ancestry to the Silver Shirts.  Posse Comitatus founder Henry Lamont Beach was a leader of the Silver Shirts in Oregon. Richard Butler, founder of the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho, was a Silver Shirter and Klansman. Butler still used the Nazi salute at Hayden Lake years after the end of the war.

"Gerald L. K. Smith, one of the founders of today's Christian Identity, was perhaps the most influential former Silver Shirt. Identity religion, the belief that the Aryans are the real descendents of the Hebrew tribes, is a common bond among many right-wing extremist groups today, such as Posse, the Aryan Nations, and many militia and Klan groups...

"Three other ministers of hate from this period deserve special mention -- Gerald Smith, Gerald Winrod and Wesley Swift. Swift, who had direct connections to the Nazis, is credited with leading the Identity movement. He also was a member of the Klan...

"Both Winrod and Smith were Coughlin disciples. Winrod came close to winning election as a senator from Kansas and, at the time, was often called the Jayhawk Nazi. Smith closely associated with Huey Long and, after his death, tried to take over the governor's political machine. Smith also was a member of Pelly's Silver Shirts.

"Although Coughlin was the most widely recognized religious figure from the Nazi movement during the 30s, Gerald K. Smith may have been the most influential in the long term. Smith was well known in the 1930s, and though he did not have as large a following as Coughlan, his influence is seen in many right-wing groups today.

"Smith was an assistant in Coughlin's Christian Front and an associate of Henry Ford. He was an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ Church and a virulent Judeophobe who gained notoriety by staging a Passion Play in Louisiana. While Coughlin disappeared from the national scene by the end of the war, Smith went on to found the Christian Defense League (CDF), a survivalist offshoot of the Klan. The CDF pamphlet, The Cross and the Flag, was among the first to present the Identity religion.

"One of Smith's assistants in his Christian Anti-Communist Crusade was Wesley Swift, widely regarded as an icon of the Identity religion today. Swift was one of the first to assert a need for paramilitary groups, and he formed the racist California Rangers, a core group of the Minutemen. He also founded the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian in 1946. Later, after a disagreement with Butler, he moved his hate ministry to Hayden Lake, Idaho, where it formed the basis of varied racist groups, such as the Aryan Nations and the former order.

"Swift associate Col. William Gale ran for governor of California in 1958 on a pro-segregation ticket, and was a former aide to Douglas MacArthur. He also founded a church based on the Identity religion, the Ministry of Christ. Gale was a founder of the Posse comitatus. Both Swift and Gale recruited Richard Butler, the head of the Aryan Nations."
(The Nazi Hydra in America, Glen Yeadon & John Hawkins, pgs. 218-220)

There's a lot to take in here. Let us begin with the Silver Shirts and their founder William Dudley Pelley, both of whom have carved out a curious niche for themselves in 20th century America. As noted above, Pelley's Silver Shirts were one of the most violent and notorious pro-fascist groups in the 1930s, their founder ultimately being imprisoned for treason during World War II and for good reason: there is compelling evidence that Pelley was on the payroll of the Nazis.

"By 1934, the Nazis had only been in power for less than a year, but already were active in placing their agents or pro-Nazis in positions of power. On Feb. 22, 1934, Sen. Daniel Hastings of Delaware and Rep. Chester Bolton announced the Republican Party had merged their Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees into a single organization, independent of the Republican National Committee. Just before the merger, the two campaign committees hired Sidney Brooks, longtime head of research at International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). ITT was one of many American corporations that went to extraordinary means to continue trading with the Nazis after war broke out.

"Brooks soon made a frantic visit to New York. On March 4, 1934, he went to Room 830 of the Hotel Edison, rented to Mr. William Goodales of Los Angeles, who was actually William Dudley Pelley. The meeting ended with an apparent agreement to merge Brooks' Order of 76 with the Silver Shirts. Then Brooks stopped at 17 Battery Place, the address of the German Consulate General.

"The Order of 76 was a pro-fascist group. Its application form required the fingerprints and certain biological details of applicants. Brooks' application revealed that he was the son of Nazi agent Col. Edwin Emerson, and that he chose to use his mother's maiden name to hide his father's identity."
(ibid, pg. 184)

Pelley with his Silver Shirts

Strangely, there was much overlap between Pelley and his group and Guy Ballard's I AM movement, an early New Age group, in the 1930s as well. In the postwar years Pelley would also become involved with UFO movement on some level.

"According to my information, contactee George Adamski had prewar connections with American fascist leader William Dudley Pelley, who was interned during the war.  Another seminal contactee, George Hunt Williamson (whose real name was Michel d'Obrenovic), was associated with Pelley's organization in the early 50s. In fact, Pelley may have put Williamson in touch with Adamski. Other associates of Williamson during the great era of the flying saucers were such contactees as John McCoy and the two Stanford brothers, Ray and Rex.

"The connections among all these men, who have been very influential in shaping the UFO myth in the United States, are quite intricate. William Dudley Pelley, who died in 1965, was the leader of the Silver Shirts, an American Nazi group that began its activities about 1932. Its membership overlapped strongly with Guy Ballard's I Am movement. Pelley declined to join the other fascist groups in their support of Congressman Lemke in 1936, standing on his own in Indiana as a Christian Party candidate. His opposition to Roosevelt increased until his eight-year interment for sedition in 1942. After the war, he started an occult group, Soulcraft, and published a racist magazine called Valor. He also wrote the book Star Guests in 1950, a compilation of automatic writings reminiscent of the Seth Material.

"It was about 1950 that Williamson is said to have begun working for Pelley at the offices of Soulcraft Publications in Noblesville, Indiana, before moving to California, where he witnessed Adamski's desert contact on November 20, 1952, with a Venusian that had long blond hair. Williamson, however, has assured me that he never embraced any of the racist theories that the pro-Nazi movement promoted. Perhaps Adamski and Pelley knew one another as a result of their common interest in the I am cult? Dr. Laughead, who inspired the contacts of Mrs. Keech in the Midwest and later launched Dr. Audrija Puharich on the tracks of the mythic 'Specta,' is also said to of associated with this group."
(Dimensions, Jacques Vallee, pgs. 250-251)

Guy Ballard, founder of the "I am" movement 

There are some incredible connections, indeed. Peter Levenda (in the first book in his Sinster Forces trilogy) has speculated that this Dr. Laughead was the equally mysterious Dr. Vinod, who originally channeled The Nine (also known as 'Specta') for Andrija Puharich and a group of American bluebloods in 1953. The topic of Puharich and The Nine is another incredible story, which I chronicled before here, and thus will not delve into. Incidentally (or not), the notorious cult leader Jim Jones moved to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1951. Noblesville, the location of Pelley's Soulcraft Publications and the place where he was ultimately buried, is just north of Indianapolis. Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955 and would maintain a strong presence there until the mid-60s. There is of course much speculation about Jones and his Peoples Temple, some of which I've chronicled before here and here.

So much for Pelley and the Silver Shirts. Another crucial figure in the Christian Idenity movement and the paramilitary right in general is William Potter Gale, a former colonel in the United States military who served under Douglas MacArthur during World War II. In the postwar years Gale is said to have had close associations with at least one other former member of MacArthur's staff.

"The Canadian businessman Geisbrecht also heard reference to a Kansas City hotel later learned to be the meeting place for members of the right-wing Minuteman group, a group whose California branch was headed by another Willoughby associate, a man named William Gale."
(Nasa, Nazis & JFK, "Furtive Winks, Flying DISCs and the Torbitt Document," Kenn Thomas, pg. 16)

Here are a few more details on this paramilitary outfit (which does not seem to be a branch of the 1960s Minutemen) Gale, who would go onto co-found the Posse Comitatus in the late 1960s (which in turn would serve as the basis of the modern 'Sovereign Citizen' and militia movements, as discussed in part one), was involved in:

"... Colonel William P. Gale, yet another ex-McArthur man. In 1962, as California state chairman of the Constitution Party, Colonel Gale announced his candidacy for the governorship on a platform calling for the abolition of all income taxes. He also organized... a paramilitary outfit.

"Willoughby... and a number of other military officers put together Gale's tactical guide, or manual of arms for the future. It suggested that 'patriotic underground armies should be established, named the "Rangers" who should train to assassinate, sabotage, and overthrow the "People's Democracy."'

"A Long Beach Press-Telegram expose called Gale's Rangers 'a secret guerrilla group composed of persons devoted to extremist racial and religious beliefs.' Not long after their spring 1962 formation, the Rangers would begin attracting a wide range of wanderers along the L.A.-to-Miami route. Those people's dedicated aim was the overthrow of Fidel Castro."
(The Man Who Knew To Much, Dick Russell, pgs. 111-112)

William Potter Gale

The Willoughby mentioned above is none other than Charles Willoughby, a Major General in the U.S. Army who served as Douglas MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence for much of World War II and Korea.

"MacArthur's intelligence branch was under the formal command of Gen. Charles Willoughby. MacArthur referred to Willoughby as his 'little fascist.' born in Germany, Willoughby was a love child of Baron T. Scheppe-Weindenbach and Emma Willoughby of Baltimore, Md. After MacArthur's promotion to the U.S. Far Eastern Command, Willoughby chose to follow his idol. The Army previously assigned both men to the Philippine command. Impressed by Willoughby's loyalty, MacArthur appointed him as his Assistant Chief of Intelligence.

"After Japan attacked the Philippines,Willoughby moved to Corregidor with MacArthur, then evacuated with him to Australia. Will be was generally inept and not even remotely prepared for many of the assignments. However, MacArthur demanded absolute control over intelligence and special operations, and  Willoughby was ready and able to deliver MacArthur total control and loyalty. Willoughby was also clever at hiding his blunders and promoting his successes. Years after the war, Willoughby became a member of just about every fringe far right wing group that came into existence."
(The Nazi Hydra in America, Glen Yeadonn & John Hawkins, pg. 483)

MacArthur and officers closely associated with him such as Willoughby have long been linked to what is alternatively known as the Golden Lily or the Black Eagle Trust, a stash of gold bullion and another precious metals accumulated by Imperial Japan during the second World War. This rather massive treasure was hidden on the Philippines where MacArthur and his staff eventually discovered it. They would use it to set up several slush funds that were used to fund right-wing groups in postwar Japan.

"... American forces uses funds recovered from the Golden Lily. three secret funds existed during the military occupation: the M-Fund, the Yoshida Fund and the Kennan Fund. MacArthur was instrumental in setting up the M-Fund, initially believed to be as large as $2 billion. Money for it came from the sale of confiscated gold, silver, gems and other strategic materials...

"MacArthur and his staff created the M-Fund to buy elections. Its first big application came in the late 1940s when the socialist won. The M-Fund immediately began dispensing great sums to discredit the socialist cabinet. Later, Washington used the fund to discredit Tokyo's move to open relations with the People's Republic of China.

"MacArthur and his staff set up the Yoshida Fund with a different objective. It was used to finance the Japanese underworld for 'wet work,' kidnapping and murder. Gen. Willoughby controlled the Yoshida Fund, where money was used to silence union leaders and organizers. Willoughby also had the job of falsifying Japanese military history to conform to the needs of the American Cold War Warriors..."
(ibid, pg. 486)

It's interesting to note that Lockheed, the defense contractor who employed future Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler as a senior manufacturing engineer, was later involved in the Golden Lily/Black Eagle Trust operation.

"...Adnan Khashoggi... was a Lockheed agent and partner of Yoshio Kodama. Kodama was a Japanese rear admiral during the war and a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime clan. During the war, Kodama was in charge of shipping loot to the Philippines... The CIA used Lockheed to funnel money worldwide. Moreover, Lockheed European Sales Director, Dutchman Fred Meuser, was a member of Prince Bernhard's wartime air force squadron. Another member of the Lockheed bride team was CIA officer Nicholas Deak. Deak founded a money-brokering firm to funnel money to Kodama."
(ibid, pg. 474)

While the Golden Lily/Black Eagle Trust funds were theoretically only for black ops in foreign nations there are indications thatsome of this money eventually ended up in the coffers of domestic far right groups. The John Birch Society (which was cofounded by Col. Lawrence Bunker, a member of MacArthur's staff in Tokyo) attempted to procure Golden Lily gold via Nevada mining engineer Robert Curtis in the mid-1970s. Former general John Singlaub, a longtime fixture of various American far right groups such as the World Anti-Communist League, led an expedition to recover some the gold in 1994.

"One of the latest recoveries, which raised scandalous headlines in 1994, involved former UN Secretary Gen. Kurt Waldheim, who took part in an operation involving the CIA and former Gen. John Singlaub. The operation, dubbed Nippon Star, recovered more than 500 metric tons of gold from the Philippines. Singlaub, who was active in right-wing extremist groups and political intrigue in Central and South America, headed the team. Singlaub was part of the military intelligence complex before retiring."
(ibid, pg. 473)

John Singlaub

I've found nothing that conclusively links funds from the Golden Lily/Black Eagle Trust to right-wing extremist groups in the United States, but it is interesting to note that the Philippines has long been suspected as a source of financing for the Oklahoma City bombing. There is compelling evidence that Terry Nichols, Timothy McVeigh's only official co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing, met with members of various Islamic terror networks in the Philippines (which has been a hub for various terror organizations such as the Huk and Abu Sayyaf for years) around 1994.

"... Terry Nichols have met Iraq he agents Abdul Murad, Ramzi Yousef, and Khalid Mohammed. Yousef had been imprisoned for the 1993 World Trade Center attack, but in February 1995 he was living with his uncle Khalid Mohammed, the mastermind of the 1993 WTC and Oklahoma City bombings, in an apartment in the Philippines. Later the plans for the Oklahoma bombing and a number of 9/11-style attacks on US skyscrapers with airliners were found on Ramzi Yousef's computer. This intelligence was fully translated by the FBI and CIA in late January and early February 1995. Nichols also met with eight Iraqi members of an al-Qaeda cell in the Philippines who, in addition to the bombings, planned assassination attempts on President Clinton and on the pope."
(Conspiracies and Secret Societies, Brad Steiger & Sherry Steiger, pg. 352)

Terry Nichols

While its highly debatable as to whether or not Islamic groups masterminded the Oklahoma City bombing enough evidence has emerged indicating that they played some kind of a role. This topic will be discussed a bit further in a future installment. For now, I would like to consider what Nichols allegedly brought back with him from the Philippines after that fateful trip in 1994.

"Terry Nichols hid a dagger under his compost-smeared cloak. Lana Padilla, his first wife, called a news conference on July 13 after visiting him in prison. She said that Nichols made frequent trips to the Philippines -- so many, in fact, that the farmer from Kansas had charged $40,000 in air fares to his credit cards. Ms. Padilla also claimed that Tim McVeigh footed the bill for a 1989 trip. After his arrest, federal agents discovered that Terry Nichols had a locker full of gold and silver bullion on stored in Las Vegas. Nichols, she told reporters, was given the precious metals in November, 1994, while on a junket to the Philippines, by a party unknown."
(Virtual Government, Alex Constantine, pg. 271)

At this point it behoves me to stop in our narrative and consider the implications of some of the things discussed above. I shall begin with how MacArthur and the officers that served under him fit into the whole Yankees/Cowboys War premise that I've been working off of throughout this series. It seems evident to me that MacArthur was aligned to some extent with the Cowboy faction. Semi-official Yankee historian Carroll Quigley seems to confirm this.

"The United States was as eager as the Chinese to avoid a direct clash between the two countries, because such a clash could easily build up into a major war in the Far East, leaving Russia free to do its will in Europe. Washington was fearful that Chiang Kai-shek, since he could rot reconquer China himself and hoped America would do it for them, might seek to precipitate such a war by making an attack from Formosa on mainland China. There was also a strong chance that MacArthur might encourage or allow Chang to do so because that haughty general agreed with Chiang that Europe was of no importance and that the Far East should be the primary, almost the only, area of operations for American foreign policy. He had bitterly opposed the 'Germany First' strategy throughout World War II and had begrudged men or supplies sent there on the grounds that these divisions delayed his triumphant return to the Philippines. As the war drew to its close, he had said: 'Europe is a dying system. It is worn out and run down and will become an economic and industrial hegemony of Soviet Russia... The lands touching the Pacific with their billions of inhabitants will determine the course of history for the next ten thousand years.'

"These views were shared by the Right-wing isolationist groups of the Republican Party with whom MacArthur have been in close touch for much of his life and to whom he owed some of his success. In American politics these groups had power to do considerable damage because of their influence on the Republican congressional party and the fact that the bipartisan foreign-policy under Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, which operated elsewhere in the world, did not exist in regard to the Far East. The danger of any Chiang-MacArthur cooperation to build the Korean action up into major war was intensified by the fact that this would be opposed by the United Nations and by our allies, neither of whom was considered important by the neo-isolationist or by MacArthur, but whom the Truman administration refused to alienate unnecessarily because they were essential, as bases, in the containment of Russia."
(Tragedy and Hope, Caroll Quigley, pgs. 973-974)

The views MacArthur expressed regarding Europe and Asia were very much in line with those of the Cowboy faction, as discussed in part four of this series. While Europe has been a long-standing preoccupation of the Yankee faction the Pacific was seen as a continuation of the American West to some within the Cowboy faction. Indeed, some of the genesis of the Yankee/Cowboy war can be traced back to the conflict between Yankee Harry Truman and Cowboy MacArthur during the Korean War. On the other hand MacArthur advised both Kennedy and LBJ against escalating the Vietnam War, a major objective of the Cowboy faction, shortly before his death and was specifically sought out by Kennedy for advice on at least two occasions. Thus, it would seem that MacArthur was not a hard-line Cowboy.

The same cannot be said of several of his former officers, men such as Charles Willoughby (who collaborated with such far right luminaries as Rev. Billy James Hargis and Edwin Walker after leaving the Army), Laurence Bunker (a co-founding member of the John Birch Society), and William Potter Gale, who became deeply involved with various fringe right groups beginning in the 1950s. By all accounts Gale, who had coordinated guerrilla resistance in the Philippines during World War II, was a major figure in the Christian Identity movement by the 1970s. He was also a cofounder of the modern California Ranger and the Posse Comitatus movement, both of which had an enormous influence on the militia movement and other paramilitary fringe right groups. This seems to indicate that the Christian Identity movement, and the broader 'Patriot movement' with which it has frequent overlap, were very much creatures of the Cowboy faction.

The Cowboy/Christian Identity tie is further reinforced by the figure of Richard Butler, the Aryan Nations founder who was recruited into the Christian Identity movement by Gale. As noted above, Butler was previously employed by Lockheed Martin at roughly the same time that he began to embrace Christian Identity theology. Lockheed, a major defense contractor based out of California, is a natural ally of the Cowboy faction. As noted above, there is even evidence that Lockheed was involved in laundering some of the gold from the Golden Lily/Black Eagle Trust that was originally established by MacArthur and his officers.

Richard Butler

Beyond this, numerous major figures in the Christian Identity movement such as Tom Metzger, William Pierce and Gordon 'Jack' Mohr all cut their teeth in the John Birch Society before embracing Christian Identity. The JBS, which was cofounded by Fred C. Koch (founder of the Koch dynasty), is totally a creature of the Cowboy faction. What's more, many other significant figures in the Christian Identity movement such as Louis Beam, Bo Gritz, and Gordon Kahl were all military veterans, a group that is long rallied around the Cowboy faction of the American cryptocracy.

Metzger (top), Beam (middle), and Kahl (bottom), all major Christian Identity figures

The rise of the modern Christian Identity movement at some point in the 1960s fits in nicely with the counter-counterrevolution the Cowboy faction embarked upon around this time. As noted above, there were two major features of this counter-counterrevolution in the 'Overworld': the rise of Cowboy think tanks, and thus a Cowboy intelligentsia, such as the Heritage Foundation to counter the long-standing dominance in public discourse held by Yankee counterparts such as the Council on Foreign Relations; and the emergence of a politicalized fundamentalist/evangelical Christian grassroots that could counter the trade unions and other such organizations that have formed the basis of the modern Yankee grassroots.

The Christian Identity movement played a subtle role in this transformation. Most notably it made it easier for the Overworld to move further to the right while still appearing to be moderate. After all, even some of the hardcore Christian fundamentalist/evangelical ministers did not seem overly radical in comparison to Christian Identity theologians such as Robert Millar and Richard Butler. And Cowboy policy objectives devised by their think tank network such as renewed American militarism and Chicago School economics seemed downright moderate in comparison to either.

Beyond this, the Christian Identity movement and the broader Patriot movement which it has been closely associated beamed a steady stream of the American paranoid style into the public discourse. What's more, the more militant factions within the Identity and Patriot movements could operate in the criminal underworld (and did frequently become involved in bank robberies and arms trafficking as well as occasionally delving into drugs and black-market gold), which was highly useful to the Cowboy factions for reasons that we shall soon discuss. Finally, the Identity movement provided the Cowboys with a potential terror network, though it was rarely used as such until the 1990s.

The figures of William Potter Gale and Richard Butler provide a direct link between the Cowboy faction and the Identity movement until the late 1980s. Up until that time Butler had arguably been the most powerful figure within the Identity movement and his Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho was the base of operations for many of the most militant groups and individuals within the movement. But by the late 1980s Gale was dead and Hayden Lake had drawn the attention of both law enforcement and the media, making it an unsuitable base for the various criminal enterprises militant Identity adherents were involved in. By the early 1990s Elohim City had become the new banner for the militant Identity adherents to rally around but now they had no direct links to the Cowboy faction.

All of this makes reports of Terry Nichols acquiring gold and silver bullion from the Philippines all the more intriguing. Some researchers have alleged that the Golden Lily/Black Eagle Trust funds that MacArthur and his staff set up still exist and that they have been used to create what can best be described as a kind of "shadow" CIA. This entity sprang up around the figure of Edward Lansdale, the former OSS man who later served as an intelligence officer under MacArthur in the Pacific theater. Later Lansdale, while working with the CIA (an institution dominated by a Yankee hierarchy, but which featured a vibrant Cowboy faction active in operations), would become involved in the Bay of Pigs disaster.

"When President Kennedy sacked Lansdale over his operations against Cuba, Lansdale did not give up his covert activities. He merely went private. He still had enough contacts in the military and the CIA, and accounts of gold in his name to remain a player in covert operations. In practice this left Lansdale as a private individual with the power to overthrow foreign governments and even the ability to plunge a country accidentally or deliberately into an unwanted war...

"By 1980, there were plenty of individuals like Lansdale who were terminated from government services to staff private military or intelligence firms. Starting in 1972... hundreds of agents who had been engaged in the dirty tricks click... were forcibly retired... More than 1000 agents were terminated...

"Further investigations in the 1970s led to more dismissals, not only at the CIA, but also the Pentagon. The Carter administration dismissed additional CIA and military personnel...

"By 1980, private military and intelligence firms proliferated to such an extent that they became known during the Iran-Contra scandal as 'The Enterprise.'"
(The Nazi Hydra in America, Glen Yeadon & John Hawkins, pgs. 488-489)

Edward Lansdale

Is the gold and silver bullion that Terry Nichols received in the Philippines evidence that Elohim City was a part of this 'Enterprise?' Curiously, Timothy McVeigh wrote his sister Jennifer a confidential letter in which he described himself as being recruited into a top-secret branch of military special forces that was engaged in illegal activity.

"... McVeigh wrote his sister Jennifer that he was picked by the Army for a highly specialized Special Forces Covert Tactical Unit (CTU) involved in illegal activities. The letter was introduced to the Federal Grand Jury. According to [a] former grand juror... these illegal activities included 'protecting drug shipments, eliminating the competition, and population control.' While all the details of the letter aren't clear... there were five to six duties in all, and that the group was comprised of 10 men."
(The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, David Hoffman, pg. 62)

Timothy McVeigh

Strangely, the strongest link between the Cowboy faction and Elohim City are the attorneys for both McVeigh and Nichols. McVeigh was represented by human being known as Stephen Jones, an attorney born in Lafayette, Louisiana who has been described as a "Republican activist."

"... After the Oklahoma City bombing, 'country' lawyer Stephen Jones was handed McVeigh's case...

"... He took the case after both of his legal predecessors were run off by death threats. Jones stepped forward to represent John Doe One. He said he had no qualms about lynch-mob reprisals. He also claimed to have no conflicts of interest in the case. But Jones is not the simple backwoods lawyer he affects to be.

"In 1964, he was a legal assistant to Richard Nixon. Jones 'stayed in touch.' he was among the 'honored,' he boasts, to be graced with an invitation to Nixon's funeral in 1994."
(Viual Governmet, Alex Constantine, pg. 257)

Jones

Nichols' attorney had even more direct ties to the Cowboy faction, as well as being on friendly terms with Jones after after having collaborated together before in defending a controversial Oklahoma City psychotherapist.

"... Michael Tigar, the attorney representing Terry Nichols. In the 60s and 70s, Tigar was employed by the law firm of Williams, Wadden & Stein. He reported to Edward Bennett Williams, the head of the firm, a Beltway attorney long on intimate terms with the CIA. Williams often referred to Tigar as his 'most brilliant protégé.'

"The law firm sprang into existence to cater to the same interagency intelligence underground implicated in drug distribution, mind control and by all appearances a U-Haul of exploding compost in Oklahoma City. A senior partner of the firm was Brendan Sullivan, the high strung legal phenomenon who represented Oliver North during the Congressional Iran-Contra hearings. Williams, a Jesuit, was twice offered the post of CIA director. He refused... Robert Maheu, the CIA hitman, attended Holy Cross with Williams and was a close friend. In 1958, the famed attorney paired Robert Maheu with a Los Angeles mobster Johnny Rosselli to plot against Cuban premier Fidel Castro...

"Michael Tigar came to the firm after resigning his position as a Supreme Court clerk. He represented some extremely high-power clients for a journeyman attorney. It was Tigar who coached Bobby Baker, the LBJ aid in prison for tax fraud and influence peddling in 1967, before Senate appearances. Tigar defended John Connally when the former Texas governor was accused of pocketing a bride. Connally was acquitted. He rewarded Tigar with a prize bull. The beast was packed off to Fidel Castro."
(ibid, pg. 270)

Michael Tigar

It would seem that both Jones and Tigar became involved with the Cowboy faction relatively early in the respective legal careers. Years later each man "incidentally" end up representing a defendant in the Oklahoma City bombing. If McVeigh or Nichols were in fact working for the Cowboy faction, or were aware that it was pulling the strings at some level, than having either man represented by a trusted attorney would be an effective way of controlling either defendant.

The mysterious gold and silver bullion that Terry Nichols acquired shortly before the Oklahoma City bombing and the presence of Jones and Tigar as the attorneys for McVeigh and Nichols respectively strongly indicate that the Cowboy faction was still pulling the strings of the Christian Identity movement at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing. As noted in the prior installment, the bombing occurred in the midst of a rightward shift within the United States, a shift that was not hindered in the slightest by a major right-wing terror attack. This would not be inconsistent with how the Christian Identity movement has operated in relation to the objectives of the Cowboy 'Overworld,' as noted above. Still, the Christian Identity movement had never even attempted something on this scale before, let alone pulled it off.

Of course Clinton, a highly popular Yankee president, was sitting in the Oval Office at the time. But then again, Clinton had already been largely neutered by the so-called 'Republican Revolution' of the 1994 congressional elections and had already begun taking his administration in a more rightward direction. In this context, Oklahoma City seems like overkill on the part of the Cowboy faction. It also enabled Clinton to largely dismantle the paramilitary right wing groups, a project the Cowboy faction seems to have spent some time cultivating. Perhaps the destruction of these groups was inevitable --Bush I seems to have gone on the warpath against them both during Reagan's presidency and his own, resulting in raids on the compounds of the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord and of the Aryan Nations in the 1980s in addition to high profile shootouts with the likes of Gordon Kahl, Robert Matthews, and ultimately Randy Weaver. This was a crusade that Clinton seems to have taken up in earnest with Waco, possibly spurring the Cowboy faction to get some use out of the paramilitary wing of the Christian Identity movement before it was destroyed.

Or not. Frankly, I have not devised a truly compelling Cowboy motive for the Oklahoma City bombing. The same cannot be said for Andreas Strassmeir, a German national from a politically connected family, and the faction that he likely represented. In the next, and hopefully last, installment I shall finally address the implications of Strassmeir's role in the Oklahoma City bombing and offer up a candidate and motive for said terror attack. Stay tuned.