Belgium: Into the Heart of Darkness Part II

Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the dark underbelly of Belgium, a nation that has been ravaged by deep political intrigues for much of the second half the twentieth century (and beyond). During the first installment I gave a broad overview of Operation Gladio, a NATO/Pentagon/CIA project that spanned Western Europe during the Cold War years. Gladio (which was actually only the name of the Italian branch) consisted of a series of "stay-behind-armies" that would wage a guerrilla war in the event Western Europe was overrun by the Soviets.

That was the official explanation, anyway. As I noted before in my examination of Italy's notorious Propaganda Due, there is ample evidence indicating that Gladio participants conspired to destabilize the Italian state through acts of terrorism during the so-called "Years of Lead" and frame the Communists for these acts. At the time the Italian Communist Party (PCI) had been gaining ground amongst the electorate and their was a belief within the nation's deep state and the US intelligence community that the Left had to be discredited by any means necessary so as to prevent a Communist party from being democratically elected in Western Europe.

the aftermath of the Bologna railway station bombing, one of the most heinous acts of terrorism committed in Italy's recent history and an event widely linked to Gladio

As was noted in part one of this series, Belgium was in a similar situation in the 70s and 80s with the Left and anti-NATIO activists gaining ground at the voting booths. And naturally Belgium also experienced an extensive wave of terrorism that was largely blamed on the Left despite growing evidence that virtually all of these acts were carried out by the Belgium's extensive fascist underground.

Two groups were specifically considered: Jean Thiriart's Parti Communautaire Européen (PCE), a political party geared towards forging a "Red-Brown" alliance (as well as splitting Belgian Communists) and the Vlaamse Militanten Orde, a Flemish paramilitary organization extensively linked to terrorism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With this installment I would like to consider one particular network involved in both political intrigues as well as street level terrorism.

If one was to search for a kind of lynch pin that held Belgium's deep state and fascist underground together and to serve as a kind of gateway to this network one could do far worse than one particular individual: Paul Latinus, a fascist militia leader who allegedly committed suicide on April 24, 1985 while in police custody. He apparently accomplished this feet by hanging himself with a phone cord while his feet were still on the ground. Despite having been dead for over thirty years now, Latinus' legacy continues to resonate to this current day. So let us begin with a little bit of background concerning Latinus:

"Paul Latinus was a high-ranking European right-wing terrorist. According to his own testimony he was, amongst other sources, paid by the military secret service of the Pentagon, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). A former nuclear science technician and informer for the Belgian Surete Latinus had been recruited in 1967, age 17, by the DIA. Later NATO trained him. Belgian journalist Haquin who had written a book on terrorist Latinus relates that 'during a juridical investigation in which he was involved, Latinus named this foreign organization: It was the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the military equivalent to the CIA.' In the 1970s Latinus became a member of the Brabant Reserve Officers Club (BROC), a conservative military organisation created in 1975 and obsessed with the 'red peril'. In 1978 Latinus joined the right-wing organization FJ and within that organization set up the WNP covert action department. With excellent contacts Latinus during the same period worked in the Belgian government as Assistant Advisor to the Labour Minister and counsellor to several committees. When in January 1981 the left-wing magazine Pour exposed the right-winger in the government, Latinus abandoned his public offices and fled to Pinochet's Chile. Yet after not even two months in exile Latinus due to his excellent contacts came back to Belgium exactly at the time when the  Brabant massacres began. He reassumed the command of the WNP and among other activities collaborated with the  Surete in the anti-Communist struggle by providing the Justice Ministry with the data on the left."

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 145)

Paul Latinus is one the right

Let us now pause in our consideration of Latinus to give an overview of the above-mentioned FJ (Front de la Jeunesse) and WNP (Westland New Post) organizations:

"... In 1974 the Belgian ultra right-wing organization Front de la Jeunesse had been founded. Five years later WNP was created within FJ as the armed and highly militant branch of the right-wing organisation. 'The Front de la Jeunesse was born in 1974 and existed until the 1980s. At times it was a political group, at times militant', Francis Dossogne, head of the FJ,  described his organisation in the Gladio documentary of Franovich. 'Extreme right wing', he confirmed it was, adding it 'was essentially a youth movement and a militant movement'. Dossogne confirmed that FJ had resorted to violence in numerous cases: 'The Front de la Jeunesse carried out actions which upset things. It put many things into question, things which were well established. The Front really upset things so much that they wanted to destroy it.' Carrying out their paramilitary training more and more openly the FJ started to face criticism. 'The Front was condemned for their camps. In fact, all we did was what scouts do. What certain companies do in incentive courses go much further.'

"Most sensitively Dossogne admitted in the Gladio documentary that within FJ they had set up a militant branch made up almost exclusively of members of the Belgian Gendarmerie. As SDRA6 the Gendarmerie was part of the Belgian military secret service SDR which under the label SDRA8 also directed the secret armies. The new branch within FJ was first labelled 'G' for Gendarmerie and later became WNP. 'Group G was a section of the front in the Gendarmerie. As Gendarmes they didn't want to be mixed up with the rest – and risk being involved during demonstrations and so on,' Dossogne relates..."

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 142)

In Rogue Agents, David Teacher's long-suppressed examination of European deep politics, it is noted (pg. 209) that the above-mentioned Francis Dossogne and Emile Lecref had collaborated together in the 1970s as well. Lecref was a curious figure mentioned extensively in the first part of this series.

Dossogne, the head of the FJ, circa 1980

Lecref was a co-founder of Jeune Europe with Jean Thiriart before the two allegedly split in 1965 over political differences. Despite the break, both men continued to collaborate with Aginter Press, a right wing terror network addressed in the first installment of this series. Lecref also had ties to a key associate of Vlaamse Militanten Organisatie as well as being a major figure in the Belgian branch of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The WACL's extensive ties to international drug trafficking, terrorism and the American deep state were chronicled at length before in this series.

I have not found direct ties between Paul Latinus, an asset of the DIA who headed Westland New Post (WNP), and Lecref though there is one possible link that will be noted in a future installment of this series. However Latinus and Lecref almost surely were aware of one another as they traveled in many of the same circles, as we shall see.

But back to the WNP, essentially a fascist militia largely comprised of members of the Belgium Gendarmerie. As should come as little surprise to regular readers of this blog, the WNP has been extensively linked to a series of terror attacks known as the Brabant massacres. The attacks unfolded between 1983 and 1985 in an area near Brussels known as Brabant. There were 16 total armed assaults in all. They left 28 people dead and scores wounded. Restaurants and supermarkets were the most common targets for these assaults, which authorities typically described as armed robberies (despite the fact that the shooters showed little interest in looting their targets).

Several former members of the WNP have dropped strong indications that the group was behind the shootings:

"One of the accused, right-winger Michel Libert, a WNP member from 1978 to the 1980s, thereafter confirmed in a Gladio documentary that higher officers had protected them during their operations. 'The fittest members', Libert proudly spoke of the WNP, 'can form an action branch'. Head of WNP Paul Latinus gave the orders for covert action operations. 'When an operation was to be carried out, Latinus was given the job. To get us to do it he had to have an aide in case of problems.' Protections by higher echelons was mandatory...

"Was right-wing extremist Libert willing to confirm that WNP and the Belgian security apparatus had been involved in the Brabant massacres, investigative journalist Allan Francovich wanted to know in his Gladio documentary? Was Brabant one of their missions? 'One received orders. We can go back to, say, 1982. From 1982 to 1985' Libert replied, referring to the period in which the Brabant massacres were carried out. 'There were projects.' Very sensitive projects  Libert admitted. According to his own testimony he had been told: 'You, Mr. Libert, know nothing about why we're doing this. Nothing at all. All we ask is that you group, with cover from the Gendarmerie, with cover from Security, carry out a job. Target: The supermarkets. Where are they? What kind of locks are there? What sort of protection do they have that could interfere with our operations? Does the store manager lockup? Or do they use an outside security company?' The operation was top-secret and right-wing extremist Libert followed the order : 'We  carried out the orders and sent in our reports: Hours of opening and closing. Everything you want to know about a supermarket. What was this for? This was one amongst hundred of missions. Something had to be done. But the use it was all put too, that is the big question.' "

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 144) 

Libert

Also:

"Former WNP member and former Gendarme Martial Lekeu in Florida confirmed to Gladio researcher Francovich that the secret army in Belgium had been involved in the Brabant terror massacres in order to discredit the Belgium left. 'The guns they were using were coming from far away and that's exactly what we had planned, to organise gangs and groups like that and let them go by themselves, but make sure they will survive and make sure to supply them and you know just to create a climate of terror in the country', Lekeu explained. 'They'd have two plans. The first one was to organise gangs to do hold up of hostage, you know, killing; the second one was to organise the so called "Left movement" who will do a terrorist attempt just to make believe, make the populations believe that these terrorist attempts were done by the Left.' "

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 146)

Lekeu

In addition to sowing terror, several of the victims may have been specifically targeted. A few of them had certain political affiliations. Consider:

"As Hugo Gijsels points out closer examination of some of the people murdered by the Brabant killers during their attacks throws up a remarkable series of coincidences. Several people were coldly executed with bullets to the head, in contrast to the shooting in the supermarkets that claimed most victims. Amongst those executed in September-October 1983 were three CEPIC members: Elise Dewit and Jacques Fourez, a business contact of VdB's, and Jacques van Camp, innkeeper of the 'Auberge des Trois Canards', a favourite haunt for VdB, General Beaurir, Dewit and Fourez. In October 1985, the killers claimed an even more significant victim amongst the ranks of CEPIC: banker Leo Finné, Vernaillen's informant, the first person killed in the raid on the Delhaize supermarket in Overijse."

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 205-206) 

CEPIC stands for Centre Politique des Indépendants et des Cadres Chrétiens. According to Teacher, it was a far right wing clique with the Parti Social Chrétien (PSC), a highly conservative Belgian political party with ties to US intelligence and international fascism. Much more will be said of the PSC in a future installment but suffice to say, there have long been suspected links between the PSC and the WNP. Teacher suggests, however, that certain members of the CEPIC became increasingly concerned over the WNP's militancy and threatened to defect. It is likely these execution-style killings were meant as a message to possible dissidents who were not on board with the terror campaign.

In 2002 the PSC re-branded itself as the Centre deomcrate humaniste (cdH)

Before moving along, there is one other curious "coincidence" I would like to address. Easily the most spectacular of these attacks was the final one, which unfolded at a Delhaize supermarket in Aalst. Eight people in all were left dead. The date of this final attack, November 9, 1985, is most striking. It occurred two days before St. Martin's Day on November 11, which is some what akin to Belgium's Thanksgiving. Thus, shopping centers would have been especially crowded on this day.

But 11/9 is also a major date in neo-Nazi circles. The Italian National Fascist Party came into existence on 11/9/1921, the Beer Hall Putsch was crashed on 11/9/1923 and Thule Society founder Rudolf von Sebottendorf was born on 11/9/1875. More on the connections between the date of 11/9 and fascism can be found here. But moving along.

Thule Society founder Rudolf von Sebottendorf

In addition to Brabant, Latinus' network has been linked to other acts of terrorism, which shall be discussed in a moment. For now, it is worth noting another organization closely linked to US intelligence that WNP seems to have had ties too: The Wackenhut Corporation.

Wackenhut was founded in 1954 by George Wackenhut and three other former FBI Special Agents in Miami, Florida. Initially the company was strictly an investigation firm but in 1955 a second company was formed to provide physical security. In 1958 both companies emerged as the Wackenhut Corporation and in 1960 headquarters were relocated to Coral Gables, Florida. From there the company fast took off. By 1966 it had operations both spanning the US and branching out internationally. From the early days there have been whispers of the firm's ties to the US intelligence community.

George Wackenhut circa 1997

Here's a bit more about Wackenhut and its mysterious founder, former FBI Special Agent George Wackenhut:

"George Wackenhut's political leanings were once described in a book entitled, The Age of Surveillance, The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System, by Frank J. Donner (Knopf, 1980), pp. 424 – 425 as such:

" 'The agency's [Wackenhut] professional concerns reflect the political values of its director George Wackenhut. A rightist of the old blood, he selected as his directors an assortment of ultras prominent in the John Birch Society, the ASC, and other right-wing groups. The agency's monthly house organ, the "Wackenhut Security Review," systematically decried the subversive inspiration in virtually all the protest movements of the 60s, from civil rights to peace. The vigilance earned the publication the accolade of right-wing organizations, including (in 1962) the George Washington Honor Medal and the Freedom Foundation Award at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; and (in 1965 and 1966) the Vigilant Patriots Award from the All-American Conference to Combat Communism.'

"Of all the articles written about Wackenhut Corporation, probably the most provocative was written by John Connolly for SPY magazine, published in September 1992, pp. 46 – 54. Connolly, a former New York police officer turned writer, began his story with the following introduction: 'What? A big private company – one with a board of former CIA, FBI and Pentagon official; one in charge of protecting nuclear-weapon facilities, nuclear reactors, the Alaskan oil pipeline and more than a dozen American embassies abroad; one with long-standing ties to a radical right-wing organization; one with 30,000 men and women underarms – secretly helped Iraq in its effort to obtain sophisticated weapons? And fueled unrest in Venezuela? This is all the plot of a new best-selling thriller, right? Or the ravings of some overheated conspiracy buff, right? Right? Wrong.'

"Connolly highlighted George Wackenhut as a 'hard-line right-winger' who was able to profit from his beliefs by building dossiers on Americans suspected of being Communists or left-leaning 'subversives and sympathizers' and selling the information to interested parties. By 1965, Wackenhut was boasting to potential investors that the company maintained files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents – one in 46 American adults then living.

"In 1966, after acquiring the private files of Karl Barslaag, a former staff member of the House Committee on un-American Activities, Wackenhut could confidently maintain that with more than 4 million names, it had the largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America.

"Connolly wrote that it was not possible to overstate the special relationship that Wackenhut enjoys with the federal government. Richard Babayan, claiming to be a CIA contract employee, told SPY that 'Wackenhut has been used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for years. When they [the CIA] needed cover, Wackenhut is there to provide it for them.' 

"Another CIA agent, Bruce Berckmans, who was assigned to the CIA station in Mexico City, but left the agency in January 1975 (putatively) to become a Wackenhut international-operations vice president, told SPY that he had seen a formal proposal submitted by George Wackenhut to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices throughout the world as fronts for CIA activities. In 1981, Berckmans joined was other senior Wackenhut executives to form the company's Special Projects Division... 

 "SPY also printed testimony from William Corbett, a terrorism expert who spent 18 years as a CIA analyst and is now an ABC News consultant in Europe. Said Corbett, 'For years Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the DEA. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations. Additionally, Corbett said that Wackenhut supplied intelligence agencies with information, and it was compensated for this – 'in a quid pro quo arrangement' – with government contracts worth billions of dollars over the years.

"On page 51, in a box entitled, 'Current and Former Wackenhut Directors,' SPY published the following names: 'John Ammarell, former FBI agent; Robert Chasen, former FBI agent; Clarence Kelley, former FBI director; Willis Hawkins, former assistant secretary of the Army; Paul X. Kelley, four-star general (ret.), U.S. Marine Corps; Seth McKee, former commander in chief, North American Air Defense Command; Bernard Schriever, former member, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; Frank Carlucci, former Defense Secretary and former deputy CIA director; Joseph Carroll, former director, Defense Intelligence Agency; James Rawley, former director, U.S. Secret Service; Bobby Ray Inman, former deputy CIA director.' "

(The Last Circle, Cheri Seymour, pgs. 45-47)

Wackenhut also appears extensively in the PROMIS scandal that resulted in the 'suicide' of journalist Danny Casolaro and which has vexed authorities for several decades now. Wackenhut was also the security company charges with guarding the mysterious Area 51 for many years.

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that there was overlap between Wackenhut and the notorious American Security Council (ASC). The ASC was for many years the chief "think tank" and lobby group for the military industrial-complex, bringing together a rogue's gallery of "former" far right wing military and intelligence officers with the ample resources provided by many of the United States' largest defense contractors and other assorted interests.

In some ways the ASC can be seen as a rival to the long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). But unlike the CFR, which was exclusively a lobby group/think tank. the ASC was also effectively a full blown private intelligence network as well. With the assistance of large investigative firms such as Wackenhut and the Burns and Pinkerton detective agencies as well as the private security divisions of various multinational clients and even a few "grassroots" networks (i.e Western Goals), the ASC kept enormous amounts of files on "subversive" Americans that it made available to its corporate clients. It is likely that this network constituted an officially sanctioned continuation of blacklisting in countless industries deemed vital to the national defense that continued in one form or another well into the 1980s. Much more information on the ASC and its deep intrigues can be found here.

Keep the ASC in mind dear reader as we shall return to them again. But for now let us return to the WNP and the organization's ties to Wackenhut:

"... The Wackenhut outfit followed... to Belgium, where it was soon working for the local military and NATO. Wackenhut also drew for some of its employees on the Westland New Post paramilitaries. One of these was a known bomber and hit man, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Calmette, a notorious veteran of the OAS rebellion against de Gaulle and a close conspirator of Yves Guerin-Serac. He was director of the Belgian division of Wackenhut up until 1981, while doubling as senior Westland New Post commander. These were curious relationships for such a prominent businessman in the security business. Among his more exotic activities was looking after security for a lavish tinselled Christmas gala, the ultimate fantasy of a Gladio Ball staged in a swank Brussels hotel. The guests at what was officially a Vanden Boeynants party read like a VIP Who's Who of the Belgian secret state. Beneath the sparkling chandeliers, a Belgian industrialist consort was likely to take the floor with a member of a NATO-sponsored street gang as a high-flying army officer.

"In 1982, [Marcel] Barbier was assigned as a Wackenhut security guard to the synagogue on the Rue de la Regence in Brussels. During his watch, it mysteriously blew up. The plans of the building were later found in Barbier's home. This same Marcel Barbier was later discovered to be a close personal associate Paul Latinus, effectively his deputy. The plot thickens. Security duties agreed with the Belgian army involved the strange melting away of Wackenhut security patrols during a number of incidents in which these bases were supposedly 'attacked' by revolutionary forces. In every case, the Strategy of Tension assaults were mounted by paramilitary units, with Westland New Post to the fore. On occasion they were directly supported by US army units, as when a troop from US special forces flew in from Fort Bragg and parachuted into the Ardennes. They hid up for a few days, and then with the aid of local SDRA-8 people, shot up a gendamerie post in the small town of Vielsalm, killing one officer. On another occasion, a similar US-led raid on an army barracks was supposedly pulled on 'higher orders' from Brussels. The Americans (DIA paramilitaries or perhaps members of some other ultra-secret Pentagon unit) continued to cruise the neighborhood camouflaged in civilian clothes, and then went in on their own to attack the barracks, leaving two fatalities and a dozen injured.

"In the mid-1980s, Wackenhut closed down in Belgium, amid reports of marching orders from the Minister of Defense. It may have been that things got too hot for comfort, and the chief clients wanted the show out of town. Judged in the light of later events, Wackenhut's activities in Belgium anticipated mercenary activities by trigger-happy private security contractors of several decades later, notably the infamous Blackwater outfit."

(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 306-307)

Barbier

The above-mentioned Jean-Francois Calmette was an associate of Yves Guerin-Serac and thus an asset of Aginter Press, an organization that has appeared time and again amongst many of the figures already considered in the first part of this series as well as likely Gladio operations in Italy previously covered before here. And while Wackenhut may have pulled up stakes in the mid-1980s, the ruthless guard Marcel Barbier would find work with an even for mysterious private security firm. It was known as the European Institute of Management (EIM).

EIM seems to have had an international scope though its operations were largely based out of Europe. There was apparently much overlap with Wackenhut personnel, as we shall see. Beyond that, EIM also did business with another major American private intelligence service in the 1970s: Intertel.

Intertel itself has a most curious background:

"... a mysterious entity called Intertel, known especially and remarkably for its composition of former organized crime strike force attorneys from Robert Kennedy's Justice Department. Even more interestingly, Intertel was a fully-owned subsidiary of Resorts International – a company with a 'predilection for funny-money often connected to organized crime associates,' as one scholar described it. Formerly the Mary Carter Paint Company, which was widely considered to be a CIA front that laundered payments to the Cuban exile Army in the sixties, Resorts International now owned several Bahamian casinos and was thought to be dominated by Meyer Lansky. The IRS considered Intertel, originally incorporated in 1962 by Lansky associates, 'an organized crime enterprise of some type aimed at the Bahamas,' as one account summed up the agency's view. Robert Peloquin and William Hundley, Kennedy's top crime fighters, had joined the firm and recruited operatives from the CIA, FBI, IRS, Secret Service, and other intelligence agencies. Staffed exclusively by what one author called 'Get Hoffa agents,' it was likened to a corporate CIA..."

(The Money and the Power, Sally Denton & Roger Morris, pg. 284) 

Robert Peloquin, a long time fixture in Intetel

Intertel was actually incorporated in 1970, Resorts International in 1962. The latter was dominated by the notorious Castle Bank and Trust:

"The bank was established by Paul Helliwell, a former OSS China hand with a background in drug-trade intelligence. After the war, Helliwell had run CIA front companies in Florida. Through his Bahamian bank, and the companion institution in Florida, millions of dollars were funneled for covert military operations staged off Andros Island in the Bahamas. Castle also facilitated tax evasion, and, in its trust-company capacity, voted the shares of certain nonresident owners of Resorts International, the top Lansky-era casino operation on Nassau. When one of their shareholder so strongly objected to the way Castle was voting his shares that he sued the bank, the scheme began to unravel."

(Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, R.T. Naylor, pg. 315)

Resorts International was addressed briefly before here in relation to the above-mentioned shareholder who sued Castle: William Mellon Hitchcock, a scion of the notorious Mellon family who would fund Timothy Leary and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in the 1960s. As for Helliwell, much of the seed capital for his operations came from Kuomintang drug money --the same source of funding that was so instrumental to the American Security Council and the World Anti-Communist League (as noted before here).

Helliwell

But back to the matter at hand. EIM had close links to an organization believed to have been controlling Front de la Jeunesse (Francis Dossogne and Latinus had of course both been key figures in FJ with the former as its head and the latter as a chief deputy, as noted above). The organization that linked EIM to the FJ (and later Westland New Post) was an outfit known as the Public Information Office (PIO). Here's a bit of information on this network:

"... In this domain we find the Public Information Office (PIO) which cropped up in 1974. In a sense, the name was an appropriate pun on its actual task, to act as a sponsor private army headed by one Major Jean-Marie Bougerol. He was a member of SDRA-8 – heart of the Belgian state-behind network. He was also one of the chief suspects... behind a projected Right-wing coup – the 'April Crisis' of 1973...

"Bougerol seemed ideal for the task of masterminding the coup. He enjoyed high patronage, and he specialised in all kinds of sabotage and secret operations. From this scarcely veiled front for NATO, Bougerol gave orders to the head of the Front de la Jeunesse, one Francis Dossogne. Bougerol busied himself in other ways, turning up as an instructor at training camps deep in the Ardennes forest run by the French and Flemish neo-Nazi militias. He was assisted by commandos from regular Belgian Army units. The major traveled around extensively with other members of the Gladio network, and was noted at various times conferring with his opposite numbers and Italy, Greece and Portugal, and especially in the Netherlands and France. He had the air of a senior staff officer or even an ambassador enjoying important responsibilities."

(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 305-306)

More will be said on the so-called "April Crisis" in a future installment. For now, it is worth noting the PIO had extensive ties to both the PSC (the above-mentioned right wing political party several victims of the Brabant massacres were affiliated with) as well as EIM. The links to the PSC will be addressed in a future installment so that I can focus on EIM here. For the links to EIM I turn to the invaluable Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP), which is a real treasure trove for non-English sources. ISGP notes:

"Like Front de la Jeunesse, PIO was officially disbanded in 1981. However, Bougerol and his group did not disappear. PIO was absorbed into a completely private entity named the European Institute of Management (EIM). Bougerol was followed up by none other than long-time ambassador Douglas MacArthur II [240], a nephew of the famous general and by this time a very close friend and business associate of Sun Myung Moon. [241] Like PIO had controlled Front de la Jeunesse, so EIM remained in control of Latinus' Westland New Post and likely several other aspects of the fascist underground. Marcel Barbier, head of security of WNP, joined EIM. [242] Just as interesting, gendarme colonel Rene Mayerus became administrative-director of EIM. [243] Mayerus had been a co-founder of the Special Intervention Squadron (Diana Group), and was a close acquaintance of Jean Bougerol, not to mention WNP members Bouhouche and Wackenhut director Calmette. [244] He referred people looking for a security expert to WNP head Paul Latinus. [245] After his retirement Mayerus was suspected of having spied on the BOB in Brussels for EIM and to have recruited Bougerol into EIM. [246]."

The presence of Douglas MacArthur II, the nephew of the legendary general, is most eyebrow raising. MacArthur II was a long time US Ambassador widely suspected of being an intelligence asset. ISGP provides what is easily the best biography of this little remarked upon figure:

"Biography of Douglas MacArthur II, complied from the Who's Who, old newspaper archives and the internet:

"Born in 1909; Episcopalian; nephew of the famous general; member Yale Wolf's head society; ambassador to Paris 1938-1940; ambassador to the Fascist Vichy government 1940-1942; held in Nazi internment for 16 months after Petain broke off relations with the US in 1942; member General Eisenhower's SHAEF staff in 1944; ambassador to Italy 1944-1948; became chief of the State Department's Division of European Affairs in 1949; political advisor to SHAPE headquarters in France 1951-1952; counselor US Department State in Washington 1953-1957; member CFR from the 1950s to the late 1980s; ambassador to Japan in Tokyo 1957-1961; ambassador to Brussels 1961-1965; assistant secretary of state and head of the State Department's Bureau of Congressional Relations 1965-1967; ambassador to Austria 1967-1969; ambassador to Iran during the Shah's reign 1969-1972 (retired after evading a kidnapping attempt); independent international affairs consultant in Washington 1972-1997; director Banque Bruxelles Lambert (only source: 1998, Stef Janssens,'The names from the cover up', p. 95): "; since 1981, chair of the European Institute of Management (EIM), a privatized fascist army intelligence group which tried to undermine the Belgian democratic process and appears to have been at the center of a child abuse, torture and murder ring; member of the editorial advisory board of The Washington Times since Sun Myung Moon founded it in 1982; chaired Moon's World Media Conference in Tokyo in the mid-1980s; openly supported the Women's Federation for World Peace when Moon founded it in 1987; founding chair of Sun Myung Moon-funded Panda Motor Corp in China since 1988, a company that went bankrupt within a few years (October 16, 1989, Daily Herald, 'Moon-backed Panda car drives into skepticism of auto industry'); his uncle Douglas MacArthur saved Moon during the invasion of Korea; big supporter of the UN's Temple of Understanding; died in 1997." 

MacArthur II

Three of MacArthur's postings as an ambassador or an assistant to are especially noteworthy: Vichy France, Italy and Belgium during those respective time periods.

In the case of the Vichy regime, MacArthur II seems to have been at the forefront of American intrigues during the early 1940s. There is evidence that he attempted to recruit key Vichy military officers to the side of the United States:

"A short time afterward Admiral Leahy received further instructions to convey a special message from the President to either Petain or Weygand or both. This message recalled that the President was about the best friend the French had, and that one of his most cherished wishes was to see France restored to the splendid position she had enjoyed throughout history. This meant also the French Empire. But any concessions that France might make to the Axis would hurt the United States...

"On January 20 Douglas MacArthur 2nd, of the American Embassy at Vichy, conferred secretly with Weygand in a hotel near Nice. He delivered the President's oral and written messages, but elicited nothing but a discouraging reply..." 

(Our Vichy Gamble, William L. Langer, pg. 210)

Admiral William Leahy, who served as the US Ambassador to Vichy France; MacArthur II was charged by Leahy to make overtures to members of the Vichy regime 

MacArthur II's overtures occurred in early 1941 and may have resulted in his ultimate incarceration that seemingly did not end until France had been liberated. Curiously, MacArthur II's imprisonment has received strikingly little commentary despite the fact that his uncle was the supreme commander of US forces in the Far East by 1942. The individual MacArthur II approached is also quite interesting.

General Maxime Weygand was a highly dedicated French officer who had been born in Brussels. It was long rumored that he was the illegitimate son of either Empress Carlota of Mexico (a Belgian princess who married Maximilian I of Mexico, an Austria noble who briefly ruled mexico as a puppet of the French Empire during the 1860s) or Leopold II of Belgium (one of the most brutal European kings in the continent's history; Leopold II's involvement in the Belgium Congo was briefly addressed in pat one of this series). Thus, it would seem that Weygand was likely part Belgian, which is interesting considering MacArthur II's extensive involvement with the country in later years.

There have also long been allegations that Weygand was involved in the bizarre French secret society known as La Cagoule and may have had some involvement in the synarchist movement due to his reputed marriage to the grand-niece of Frenchman Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves, the father of modern synarchy. These claims are hard to substantiate, but I have included them due to the links La Cagoule and synarchy had to another organization that shall be considered in a future installment of this series. Synarchy also appeared in the first installment of this series in relation to the Order of the Solar Temple. But moving along.

Weygang

Italy's politics were especially turbulent in the late 1940s, with the possibility of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) achieving a deceive victory in the 1948 elections. The CIA and other US and allied intelligence services poured enormous amounts of money into Italy during the '47-'48 period in order to hold off the Communists. It worked and MacArthur II was apparently working with the US ambassadorial staff during this time frame. Given that there is typically close collaboration between CIA and the State Department (with many CIA station chiefs either holding posts as ambassadors or high ranking members in the ambassadorial staff in the host nation) in these types of matters, it seems all but certain MacArthur played a role in these intrigues.

His time in Belgium in the 1960s coincided with the height of the so-called Congo Crisis, in which the US intelligence community and their allied counterparts were deeply immersed in the Congo so as to prevent the resource rich African nation from falling into the Communist sphere. Belgium, due to its long colonial rule over the Congo, was the primary European ally of the United States in these events. Thus, MacArthur II would have been well placed to act as a liaisons to Belgium and US secret services during this period.

MacArthur II was also in Iran during the time frame when the Shah's regime was becoming increasingly unstable. He seems to have been replaced by the "former" CIA director Richard Helms. MacArthur also spent time in Japan where his legendary uncle had built up a considerable power base.

The Pipe

General Douglas MacArthur was one of the most powerful figures in the history of the American deep state and numerous military men who served under The Pipe in the Pacific Theater and during Korea would continue to wield enormous power within the American deep state for decades afterwards. MacArthur and his associates were major power brokers behind two organizations we have already encountered in this series: the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and the American Security Council (ASC). More information on MacArthur ties to and influence over these organizations can be found here.

It seems that Douglas MacArthur II became a fixture in many of these same circles by the 1960s, though his base of operations seemed to be geared more towards Europe whereas The Pipe always drew his strength from the Far East (though there was one enormously influential MacArthur man highly active in Europe during this period, as we shall see). More will be said on this curious figure in a future installment. For now I shall bring this to a conclusion. In the next installment we shall begin to explore the darkest allegations facing Belgium's fascist underground. Stay tuned.