The Orangemen and the Legacy of Secret Societies in the Strategy of Tension

The Orange Order is one of the most mysterious and little remarked upon secret societies around. There's a reason for that: it's also one of the most historically important of the last two-hundred and fifty years. And not for reasons Alex Jones will ever acknowledge. 

You see, modern history has produced a certain type of secret society. Think Germany's Thule Society, France's La Cagoule, Italy's Propaganda Due, or our very own Sovereign Order of Saint John. One thing all of these outfits have in common are their own secret armies. 

It is now grudgingly acknowledged, at least in Europe, that "stay-behind armies" were a common feature of the Cold War era. These clandestine militias were established across Western Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War by the intelligence services of the US and UK. In theory, these stay-behinds would be used, in conjunction with American and British special operations forces, to wage a guerrilla war against the Soviet Union in the event that Western Europe was invaded. 

That was the theory at least. In actuality, these stay-behinds often turned up in more nefarious and illicit activities. This is one aspect of the stay-behinds that has been covered up for decades. Another is the close relation these stay-behinds often had to secret societies, or that they were modeled on interwar arrangements used by groups like the Thulists or Cagoulards. 

But to find the origins of the modern use of militias by secret societies, one must turn to the Orangemen. Unlike most secret societies, this group always had militant intentions from it's very inception. For over two plus centuries years, it has been used as a cudgel to support British interests in Ireland and beyond.  

The strange and terrible history of the Orangemen and their legacy is the subject of The Farm's latest subscribers episode. Helping me unfold this history is the great Richard B. Spence. Richard is the author of such works as Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult and Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly. He is also the host of "The Real History of Secret Societies" of the History Channel's Great Courses series. 

This is an epic chat that covers both the modern history of Ireland and Freemasonry, the role of secret societies in the strategy of tension, and all kinds of high weirdness surrounding America's oh-so-mysterious Sovereign Order of Saint John, more commonly known as the "Shickshinny Knights of Malta." 

For those of you unaware, by joining The Farm's patron for $5 a month you receive two additional, full lengths episodes per month. That's between two and four hours of bonus material with exclusive guests and content. The likes of Christopher Knowles, J. Michael "Doc Future" Bennett, Neil Sanders, and David Metcalfe have already joined me for these exclusive shows and in the coming weeks Greg Bishop and Adam Gorightly will be dropping by. So please, consider it folks. 

Secret Armies and the Origins of the Cercle Complex Part VII

Welcome to the seventh installment in my long neglected examination into the origins of a mysterious outfit variously known as Le Cercle, the Pinay Group, the Pesenti Group and a host of other titles. Often described as simply a "foreign policy think tank," the Cercle complex was also a vast private intelligence network that wielded tremendous power throughout the Cold War. Much more information on these activities can be found in an earlier series I wrote on the Cercle complex.

The complex still appears to be a major power to this day, especially for British Tories, as was recently explored here. However, this series is about the origins of the complex, and those lie in mainland Europe. Founded in the period between 1952-53, the complex began as an offshoot of the infamous Bilderberg group and geared towards Franco-German rapprochement. However, Le Cercle always had a more reactionary and Catholic flavor than their counterparts in Bilderberg. Virtually all of the founding members belonged to either the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or Opus Dei. As the years went on, the differences Bilderberg and the Cercle became more pronounced and this led to a partial break between the two outfits by the 1970s.

But even prior to the official founding of Le Cercle, its genesis can be found in the "secret armies" or stay-behind networks that were founded by the US and UK throughout Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. In theory, these networks would be activated in the event of a Soviet invasion and wage "unconventional warfare" against the invaders. The inspiration for this project came from the stay-behind networks employed by the American Office of Strategic Services and British Special Operations Executive (SOE) on the one side, and Amt VI-S of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) on the other. These agencies were explored in the first installment of this series. Elsewhere, part two considered how assets of these agencies were transferred to the private sector in the aftermath of WWII. Part three principally dealt with the World Commerce Corporation (WCC), the shadowy, intelligence-riddled conglomerate that came to control many of these assets at the onset of the Cold War.

OSS founder and director William Donovan presenting an award to British Security Co-ordination (BSC) chief William Stephenson. After working closely together during WWII, both men would go on to become directors of the WCC in the postwar years.

The fourth and sixth installments dealt with the origins of several of the most notorious stay-behind networks in Western Europe and how virtually all of these networks were controlled by crucial figures within the Cercle. The fifth installment principally focused on the French Paix et Liberté and how psychological warfare was also a component of these stay-behind networks.

While all of the prior installments provide compelling details concerning the origins of the Cercle complex, to get to the heart of the matter the French stay-behind efforts must be further explored. Le Cercle was, after all, principally a French initiative in the early years and while parts four and five do spent a lot of time on French stay-behind efforts, these are accounts are from the Cold War era.

The true origins of the Cercle appear to reside in French interwar stay-behind efforts, especially those relating to the infamous Comité secret d'action révolutionnaire, more commonly referred to as simply "La Cagoule" (The Hood). The Cagoulards would be active in stay-behind efforts in the interwar years, WWII, and in the postwar efforts as well. What's more, they appear to have played a role in establishing Le Cercle and, in general, wielded tremendous power in France throughout the Cold War.

As such, numerous conspiracy theories concerning this group have emerged over the years. Thus, in order to understand the group, we most also determine what claims leveled against it are legitimate and which are not. With that in mind, this installment shall presently focus on the established facts of the interwar Cagoule. The next installment will deal with some of the more speculative accounts of the organization, while part nine will delve into the WWII and Cold War Cagoule and hopefully tie everything together. With that in mind, on to the Cagoule.

The Reality of the Prewar Cagoule

France, like much of Europe, experienced turbulent times throughout the 1930s. In early 1934, the French had elected a center-left coalition headed by Prime Minister Édouard Daladier. His government lasted just a little over a week. The government was riddled with scandal from the Stavisky Affair and this spurred the far right to take to the streets. Roughly twenty right wing leagues staged demonstrations on February 6 that soon escalated to bloody rioting. Daladier's government soon collapsed and a center-right coalition emerged in its ashes.

Daladier

Of these right wing leagues, the most prominent was Action Francaise. Founded in 1898, the movement was highly conservative and staunchly pro-royalist as well as Catholic and anti-democratic to the core. It was also viewed by a rising generation of far right activists as hopelessly timid. Spurred on by the successful rioting, they hoped for an even more militant approach. Instead, Action Francaise expelled many of these extremists by the 1935.

In 1936, French voters rallied behind the Popular Front, a left-wing political coalition comprised of Socialists, Communists, and "Radicals." This brought to power Leon Blum, who was both a socialist and a Jew. As should come as little surprise, the Right was absolutely beside itself. For many of the militant Action Francaise members who had been drummed out during the prior year, Blum's election was definitive proof of the failure of the more moderate line employed by the traditional conservatives during the 1930s. The time for action was now upon them.

At the forefront of this drive for action was the enigmatic figure of Eugene Deloncle, a successful naval engineer and World War I veteran. After briefly toying with a legitimate political organization in early 1936, he and several other disgruntled Action Francaise militants founded a secret organization known as Comité secret d'action révolutionnaire (CSAR) some time between the summer and fall of that fateful year.

Of course, France was awash with militant right wing organizations by 1936 despite government efforts to ban such leagues. What distinguished the Cagoulards were their high level contacts and excessive funding. Deloncle and many of his co-conspirators were solidly upper middle class professionals and as such, had easy access to wealthy capitalist and the French armed forces, both of whom showed an almost immediate interest in the Cagoulards.

"The Cagoule received significant funding from major France industrial leaders who appreciated its antisocialist agenda, especially from the group associate with Banque Worms. It never achieved the full support of the army that Deloncle craved; nonetheless, it did recruit a number of retired military officers into its leadership ranks and received the quiet approval of many active military leaders, probably even Marshall Philippe Petain. Petain seems to have known about the existence of the Cagoule and used it as a means of maintaining unofficial contact with members of the extreme right and keeping himself apprised of their activities, as did Marshall Louis Franchet d'Esperey, who also provided the organization with significant funding. Between May and November 1936 Franchet d'Esperey sent one of his staff, Colonel Georges Groussard, to investigate the CSAR; this led to at least fifteen meetings with the group's leading members, including Deloncle. Then, in December 1936, a member of Petain's staff, Commandant Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, founded a network known as the Corvignolles, which sought information on communist activity in the army. In March 1937, Franchet d'Esperey facilitated several meetings between Loustaunau-Lacau and Deloncle and probably Groussard as well. These contacts ultimately allowed the Cagoule to feed information to the army intelligence service inside the Deuxieme Bureau of the General Staff, one of two branches of the French army in charge of gathering intelligence, about real or imagined communist conspiracies. Deloncle seems to have left these meetings with the idea that in the event of an uprising, his Cagoulard street fighters would wage war alongside the regular French military."

(Murder in the Metro, Gayle K. Brunelle & Annette Finley-Croswhite, pgs. 102-103)

Deloncle

Do keep the Banque Worms, and the two Georges', Groussard and Loustaunau-Lacau, in mind as well shall return to all three again before this series is finished. For now, it is worth noting the similarity of the Cagoule and the latter, Cold War-era stay-behind networks. Deloncle and many of the senior Cagoulards were veterans while the organization received early support from the French military. Indeed, it would seem that Petain and company viewed the Cagoule as a potential auxiliary to the French military in the event of a communist uprising. This was very similar to the alleged purpose of the Cold War-era stay-behind networks, which would be used to wage a guerrilla war against Soviet invaders in conjunction with US and UK special operations forces. But like the Cold War-era stay-behinds, the Cagoule were ultimately more concerned with destabilizing the French state than putting down a communist uprising which, like the latter threats of a Soviet invasion, never materialized.

But before delving into the misdeeds of the Cagoualrds, I would like to consider their foreign intelligence contacts as well. They maintained excellent contacts with Franco's forces, whom they were major arms suppliers of (more on that in a moment), but had even closer ties to the Italians.

"For their part, the Italians were only too happy to cultivate Deloncle and his organization, as long as it didn't cost them too much; but they seem to have had doubts about the ability of the Cagoule to effect regime change in France. Filipppo Anfuso, a midlevel official in Mussolini's government, was charged with the task of maintaining the relationship between the Cagoule and the Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'antifascismo or Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA), Mussolini secret service... In late 1936, Anfuso received a visit from Lieutenant Colonel Santo Emanuele, the head of the Italian counter-espionage service, Emanuele informed Anfuso that he was in contact with an officer in the French deuxieme bureau who in turn was a liaison with a French political group comprised of wealthy individuals. These men were pro-Mussolini and anti-Popular Front in their political sentiments. Anfuso informed his superior, count Gian Galeazzo Ciano, of these developments. Ciano, after participating in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, became Mussolini's foreign minister in 1936. He was also Mussolini's son-in-law. Ciano, after consultation with Mussolini, instructed Anfuso to get as much further information about this French group as possible, which Anfuso proceeded to do, meeting an emissary of the Cagoule in Turin in the spring of 1937. The meeting was held in the office of the head of counter-espionage in Turin, Commandant Roberto Navale, a military intelligence officer. Emanuele, who was present at the meeting, later stated that the French representative was Francois Metenier. In his testimony to the juge d'instruction overseeing the case against the Cagoule, Metenier claim that he had been working secretly for the deuxieme bureau at the time, both carrying out missions in Spain, where he made contact with officers loyal to Franco, and working alongside the Spanish and Italian frontiers with France. He denied that his work was in any way related to the Cagoule. Anfuso subsequently reported verbally to Ciano and in writing to Mussolini about these discussions.

"A few months later, Anfuso had a second meeting with a member of the Cagoule, this time at San Remo. The intermediary again was Emanuele, but the Cagoulard was none other than Joseph Darnand, former colleague in Nice of Cagoule arms broker Juif and now head of the Cagoule there. Darnand turned over to Anfuso a letter of credit signed by Franchet d'Esperey. Anfuso had some doubts about the authenticity of the letter, although unnecessarily, as Franchet d'Esperey was a major supporter and financier of the Cagoule. Anfuso informed Mussolini about the results of the second meeting, and Mussolini showed a lively interest in the possibility of an alliance. Anfuso later claimed that his involvement in the affair ended at this point, although he subsequently learned that the Italian military did respond favorably to the Cagoule's request for weapons. The high-level support for the Cagoule among prominent French conservatives, along with ample funds they were willing to supply the Cagoule for weapons purchases, helped smooth the way for this rapprochement between Mussolini and the French fascists, an accord that reached its high point with Deloncle's trip to Rome in October 1936, when he met Il Duce himself and subsequently speculated on a Rome-Paris-Madrid alliance."

(Murder in the Metro, Gayle K. Brunelle & Annette Finley-Croswhite, pgs. 128-129)

The high level contacts the Cagoule enjoyed in both the French and Italian governments is a compelling indication that the secret network was being used as a back channel between the French far right and Mussolini. As Brunelle and Finley-Croswhite had indicated earlier in their work, many on the French far right at the time coveted an alliance between France, Fascist Italy, and the Spanish Nationalists. This would constitute a kind of Catholic/Fascist Latin League that would serve as a counterbalance between Anglo-American power on the one hand, and Nazi Germany on the other. Such a concept was appealing to Mussolini, who had become concerned about Italy becoming an outpost on Nazi Germany (which proved to be well founded). However, nothing was possible so long as Blum's Popular Front remained in power in France.

Il Duce

These events played out against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, which featured intrigues from virtually every major world power at the time. Indeed, the Spanish Civil War was arguably the opening salvo of what became the Second World War. Italy and Nazi Germany openly backed the Nationalists, even deploying "volunteer" legions to Spain to fight alongside Franco's forces. Elsewhere, the Soviet Union supported the Republicans. The US and UK officially supported non-intervention throughout the conflict, but many Americans and Britons volunteered to fight in the International Brigades on behalf of the Republicans.

It probably goes without saying, but the situation in France was quite complex in regards to the Spanish Civil War. Leon Blum was a staunch supporter of the Republican cause and had desperately wanted France to intervene on their behalf. However, he faced stiff opposition domestically from the French far right and internationally from the UK, where many British Tories quietly hoped the Nationalist would prevail. As such, Blum resorted to clandestine and technically illegal arms shipments to the Republicans.

Blum

Thus, while the official French government engaged in arms trafficking on behalf of the Republicans, the far right engaged in the same activity on behalf of the Nationalists. Naturally, the Cagoule were at the forefront of these efforts.

"Arms smuggling was a primary activity of the Cagoule, both in order to stockpile weapons for themselves and their followers in France and to raise funds by exporting weapons to Spain. Thus it is unsurprising that one of the charges the police leveled against the members of the Cagoule they indicted and/or arrested was arms trafficking. The police also uncovered numerous direct connections between the Cagoule and the Spanish Nationalist. The leaders of the Cagoule, when not purchasing arms from Belgium and Germany for their own use, were active in smuggling them to the Nationalists in Spain. Most of the money to acquire these weapons came from industrialists in France, who secretly hoped that the largely civilian Cagoule would be able to rally French defenses against the socialist and communist threat within France's own borders. Mussolini's government was also a source of funds for Cagoule arms purchases. The weapons themselves were often transported via Switzerland. In this respect, the Cagoule was tapping into an extensive network of overland arms smuggling via Switzerland that already existed, in which many weapons were funneled into France and through France to Spain. Many German weapons reached Franco's Nationalists by this itinerary, or by a sea route that originated in Belgium, went from there to England, and then on to Spanish or Portuguese seaports. By the same token, the Cagoule was able to import weapons from Spain, including ammunition for Mauser guns that have been manufactured in Toledo and other munitions, including machine guns, from San Sebastian. The Parisian police found some of the Spanish weapons stored in a hidden depot on the boulevard de Picpus."

(Murder in the Metro, Gayle K. Brunelle & Annette Finley-Croswhite, pgs. 125-126)

The amount of weapons stockpiled by the Cagoule in France in the span of less than two years was absolutely staggering. Brunelle and Finley-Croswhite describe it as "one of the most spectacular weapons collections in France --or anywhere else in Europe --outside of national armies..." (pg. 136). Elaborate underground depots to house the arms in were also constructed. Some of these underground facilities even featured prison cells, where communists and collaborators would theoretically be held once the revolution began. This should again emphasize the fact that the Cagoulards did not want for funding.

a Cagoule weapons cache confiscated by the police

However, there has been longstanding debate as to just how serious a threat to the French state that the Cagoule represented. Over the years, the right has gone to great lengths to depict them as a collection of bumbling amateurs that were hyped up by Blum and the Popular Front to cover up for their own poor government. And to be sure, while many of the senior members of the Cagoule were military veterans, the bulk of the organization had never served. And certainly no one appears to have had any kind of intelligence training either. As such, this led to numerous lapses in security as members, some of them even in Deloncle's inner circle, struggled to keep their mouths shut concerning the activities of the group.

The Cagoule's Reign of Terror

On the other hand, the Cagoule managed to wage quite an effective terror campaign during their brief existence. The group has been linked to several high profile assassinations, some of them carried out on behalf of foreign intelligence services. The most noteworthy was the assassination of the Rosselli brothers, Italian socialists who had developed into fierce critics of Mussolini's regime in exile. The Cagoule liquidated both in France on behalf of the Italian security services.

There is also compelling speculation that the Cagoulards were behind the murder of Dimitri Navachine, a former Russian communists who had broken with the Soviets and was an adviser to Blum at the time of his death. They have also been linked to the death of Laetitia Toureaux, the mistress of a leading Cagoulard and Italian spy who betrayed the designs of the OVRA (the Italian secret police) and the Cagoule to French authorities. Nor is Toureaux the only traitor the Cagoulards liquidated either. A pair of arms traffickers, Maurice Juif and Leon Jean-Baptiste, whom the Cagoule believed were misappropriating funds, were murdered by the organization in February 1937 and October 1936, respectively.

French police gathered round the body of Dimitri Navachine. The former communist is a curious figure whom we shall return to in the next installment.

The Cagoulards also proved to be effective agent provocateurs. A mass demonstration was held at Clichy in March of 1937 by both the far right and left. Cagoulards infiltrated the socialists and communists with chaos inevitably ensuing. Shots were fired by either the police or the Cagoule and a massive riot broke out that left five dead and three hundred and sixty four injured. The violence was generally blamed on the left and weakened Blum's government. He eventually resigned as prime minister in June of that year.

The Cagoule were hardly satisfied by Blum's ouster and the decline in support for the Popular Front, however. On September 11, 1937 (yes, 9/11), a pair of bombs were set off in Paris that left two police officers dead. They came to be known as the "Etoile attacks." The targets were the headquarters of two separate business associations. The selection was quite deliberate.

"... Indeed, the bombs at l'Etoile were apparently set because the head of the Cagoule, Eugene Deloncle, grew tired of waiting for what he believed was the inevitable communist uprising that would bring his pro-right organization into the limelight. He therefore decided to create the impression that a communist takeover was in the offing by placing bombs in locations that would cause much of the public logically to connect the explosions with left-wing violence. Deloncle later called the bombings a 'warning shot across the bow' ('un coup de semonce'). This was not mindless violence, but rather purposeful action meant to focus public discourse on the fate of the Third Republic."

(Murder in the Metro, Gayle K. Brunelle & Annette Finley-Croswhite, pg. 100)

the aftermath of one of the Cagoule's 9/11 bombings

In other words, the Cagoulards attempted to stage a false flag attack that would be blamed on the left, and especially the communists. This was a tactic that would later be employed by the Cold War-era stay-behind networks repeatedly. This tactic was especially prevalent in Italy, as was noted in my examination of Propaganda Due (P2). Also noted there was the practice of stockpiling firearms and creating caches of them across the nation. The Cagoulards had done the same throughout France during the mid-1930s.

The Cagoulards were of course not the only interwar group to employ these methods. Another curious instance is that of the infamous Thule Society. As was noted in my series on the Thulists, the secret society helped give rise to the Freikorps movement, paramilitary organizations that also stockpiled arms and suppressed communism in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Later, many Freikorp veterans drifted into the SA.

The Cagoulards also featured aspects of a secret society, including an elaborate initiation ritual. The lower rungs of the Cagoule were largely paramilitary forces, though not as professional as the Friekorp raised by the Thulists. Still, there are some curious overlap. There is also the bizarre 9/11 connection. The Thulists, and later Nazi and fascist movements, would have strange links to the date of November 9, the birthday of Thule Society founder Rudolf von Sebottendorf. November 9 is 11/9, 9/11 in reverse. Both dates have curious ties to the far right. Most recently, Donald Trump was declared US President on 11/9.

von Sebottendorf

But back to the matter at hand. The downfall of the Cagoule occurred in November 1937. The Cagoulards had received "intelligence" that the communists were plotting an uprising some time between the days of November 15th and 16th. The led Deloncle and company to begin plotting a "counter-coup." No one seems to have taken these rumblings very seriously, however, and its is likely Deloncle intended this counter-coup to be another false flag. The Cagoulards would essentially starti attacking the communists on the 15th, eliciting a response. This in turn would then force the army to intervene, leading to a state of martial law. Here there are curious shades of the "strategy of tension" later developed by Italian neo-fascists linked to the stay-behinds. An instance is detailed here.

The army, however, was having none of it. They refused to support Deloncle, forcing him to call off the counter-coup after he had already activated his forces. What's more, after the 9/11 bombings and the near coup on November 15-16th, it seems that his backers had had enough. Support from the army and leading industrialists appears to have been primarily driven by fear of Blum and his Popular Front. But after Blum was driven from office, the usefulness of the Cagoule had begun to run its course. What's more, the actions of Deloncle and company since September had begun to threaten the gains made during much of that year. If the Cagoule were able to carry out another major attack and it was linked back to the outfit (and its backers), public support for Blum and the Popular Front would again emerge. For obvious reasons, this was not desirably to the traditional French conservative establishment. 

As such the police, who had been aware of the Cagoule since February 1937, began to roll up the operation by the end of November. By early 1938, virtually all of the leading Cagoulards, including Deloncle, were incarcerated.

This was hardly the end of the Cagoule, however. Indeed, the remnants of the organization would re-emerge during the Second World War and beyond and this version was far more powerful and deadly than the interwar incarnation. But before getting to that, we must first consider the legends surrounding the Cagoule, which will dealt with in the next installment. Until then dear reader, stay tuned.

Fringe: The Strange and Terrible History of the Far Right and High Weirdness Part IV

Welcome to the fourth installment in my examination of the bizarre overlap between the far right and high weirdness. Both topics are murky netherworlds and I have found it useful to outline either at the onset of each installment. To wit, here I am using "high weirdness" as a catchall for a host of fringe topics, including UFOs, psi, psychedelics and human potential. As for the far right, in this series I am chiefly concerned with a series of right wing think tanks and other such organizations closely associated with the military-industrial complex that served as the black heart of the far right from the Cold War up until present.

With the first installment of this series I recounted the bizarre shooting spree of Sikh temple shooter Wade Michael Page and the possible deep political implications of his rampage. I also briefly outlined the differences between the "traditional conservative" establishment, based around organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission, and the far right establishment.

With the second installment the origins of the military-industrial complex were considered as well as the first lobby group for said complex, the Committee on Present Danger Mach I. Here it was noted that the origins of the military-industrial complex nominally lay with the traditional conservative establishment, but more precisely with a group of middle managers and technocrats revolving around two-time Secretary of War (and Bonesman) Henry Stimson and revered scientist Vannevar Bush.

Bonesman Henry Stimson

Bush has of course long been linked to UFOs, but what is much less well known (but arguably far more relevant) are the individuals who worked under Bush in the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) who became deeply involved with Project ARTICHOKE by 1950.

With the third and most recent installment I considered how imperialism was enshrined in the far right (who were nominally "isolationists" at the onset of the Cold War) thanks in no small part to the efforts of General Douglas MacArthur and the military officers that had served under/with him in the Pacific Theater of WWII and/or Korea. In attempting to explain how these officers acquired so much power in the deep state, I began to consider the extensive connections individuals linked to Roswell (especially the cover up) had to Douglas MacArthur.

Just before wrapping up I had outlined the suspected involvement of reputed MJ12 member General Nathan Twining in Roswell. Twining had also served with MacArthur in WWII and would become deeply involved with the far right wing think tank (and vast private intelligence network) the American Security Council (ASC, which was addressed at length before here) after retiring from the military. For many years the ASC was dominated by former MacArthur men among its ranks.

The Colonel

At this point it is interesting to note than another former MacArthur officer with close ties to the ASC would allege, in the 1990s, that Twining was in fact the military officer who had overseen the Roswell incident and who played a key role in the aftermath of said incident.

The 1997 work The Day After Roswell is a curious publication indeed. Its principal author, Colonel Philip J. Corso, alleged that during the early 1960s he was part of a covert military project to "seed" pieces of the technology recovered at Roswell into the private sector where it could be quietly reverse-engineered. All of this was done with the greatest secrecy, not just to deceive the American public, but to prevent agents of the KGB and CIA (who were/are of course in league with the evil extraterrestrial biological entities bent on enslaving humanity) from acquiring the technology for their own nefarious purposes.

Needless to say, its quite a mixture of Bircher-style paranoia combined with apocalyptic visions of the Greys that began to emerge during the 1980s. Corso does not claim to have been present at the Roswell incident, but that he had managed to piece together much of the story during his time in the national security state. In particular, he claims to have been told by Hermann Oberth, one of the Nazi scientists brought into the space program courtesy of Paperclip, that Twining was the one responsible for initially seeding extraterrestrial technology into American society via the private sector.

"In the summer of 1947, the scientist at Alamogordo were only aware of the solid-state circuit research under way at Bell Labs and Motorola. So they pointed Nathan Twining to research scientists at both companies and agreed to help him conduct the very early briefings into the nature of the Roswell find. The army, very covertly, turned some of the components over to research engineers for an inspection, and by the early 1950s the transistor had been invented and and transistorized circuits were now turning up in consumer products as well as the military electronic systems. The era of the vacuum tube, the single piece of eighty--year-old technology upon which an entire generation of communication devices including television and digital computers was built, was now coming to a close with the discovery in the desert of an entirely new technology."

(The Day After Roswell, Philip J. Corso & William J. Birnes, pg. 176)

A few pages latter, Corso explains the full significance of these allegations:

"In 1948 the first junction transistor --a microscopically thin silicon sandwich of n-type silicon, in which some of the atoms have an extra electron, and P-type silicon, in which some of the atoms have one less electron – was devised by physicist William Shockley. The invention was credited to Bell Telephone Laboratories, and, as if by magic, the dead end that had stopped the development of the dinosaur-like ENIAC generation of computers melted away and an entirely new generation of miniaturized circuitry began. Where the radio-tube circuit required an enormous power supply to heat it up because heat generated the electricity, the transistor required very low levels of power and no heating-up time because the transistor amplified the stream of electrons that flowed into its base. Because it required only a low level of current, it can be powered by batteries. Because it didn't rely on a heat source to generate current and it was so small, many transistors could be packed into a very small space, allowing for the miniaturization of circuitry components. Finally, because it didn't burn out like the radio tube, it was much more reliable. Thus, within months after the Roswell crash and the first exposure of the silicon-wafer technology to companies already involved in the research and development of computers, the limitations of the size and power of the computer suddenly dropped like the removal of a roadblock on a highway and the next generation of computers went into development. This set up for Army R&D, especially during the years I was there, the opportunity for us to encourage the development with defense contracts calling for the implementation of integrated circuit devices in the subsequent generations of weapons systems.

"More than one historian of the microcomputer age has written that no one before 1947 foresaw the invention of the transistor or had even dreamed about an entirely new technology that relied upon semiconductors, which were silicon-based and not carbon based like the Edison incandescent tube. Bigger than the idea of a calculating machine or an analytical engine or any combination of the components that made up the first computers of the 1930s and 1940s, the invention of the transistor and its natural evolution to the silicon chip of integrated circuitry was beyond what anyone could call a quantum leap in technology. The entire development arc of the radio tube, from Edison's first experiments with filament for his incandescent lightbulb to the vacuum tubes that form the switching mechanisms of ENIAC, lasted about fifty years. The development of the silicon transistor seemed to come upon us in a matter of months. And, had I not seen the silicon wafers from the Roswell crash with my own eyes, held them in my own hands, talked about them with Hermann Oberth, Wernher von Braun, or Hans Kohler, and heard the reports from these now dead scientists of the meetings between Nathan Twining, Vannevar Bush, and researchers at Bell Labs, I would have thought the invention of the transistor was a miracle. I know now how it came about."

(The Day After Roswell, Philip J. Corso & William J. Birnes, pgs. 182-183)

Hermann Oberth

There's a lot to take in here. As to the credibility of Corso's claims concerning the transistor originating from "foreign" technology, this shall be considered in a moment. For now, let's focus on several of the details surrounding Corso's story.

Let us start with those German scientists, of whom Corso names three: the famed Oberth and von Braun, and the highly enigmatic Hans Kohler. In Corso's account, it was these scientists, among other Germans, who were first consulted regarding the Roswell "debris." Oberth and von Braun are of course both Paperclip scientists, with von Braun famously serving as the director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center during the height of the space race. Oberth, another famed rocket scientists, is alleged to have proclaimed the following concerning Nazi scientific advances: "We cannot take all the credit for our record advancements in certain scientific fields alone; we have been helped."

Hans Kohler is an interesting name for Corso to toss about along with such well known scientists as Oberth and von Braun. Not much is known about Kohler (in some accounts his last name is spelled as "Coler"), though many sketchy online sources claim that he was also a Paperclip scientist.

Corso's mention of Motorola as being one of the two corporations (along with AT&T, which owned Bell Labs for decades) to be approached by shadowy officials about reverse-engineering Roswell wreckage is most interesting. This is not the only instance in which Motorola has been linked to such endeavors.

Longtime Motorola CEO Robert Galvin, who was the son of Motorola founder Paul Galvin, had longstanding ties to the ASC as well. He was the chairman of the ASC's National Strategy Committee for years. He was joined on this committee by military men such as General Nathan Twining and General Curtis LeMay that have long been linked to Roswell (noted in part three).

That Bell Lab would have been tapped to be the lead in such a project is hardly surprising. Increasingly AT&T (which at this point had an almost total monopoly in telecommunications in these United States) was becoming a defacto arm of the emerging national security state during this era. In 1949 it would be tapped by President Truman to take over the Sandia National Laboratory, which is deeply involved in overseeing technology for nuclear weapons. AT&T would oversee Sandia until 1993.

The Deep Private

It is interesting to note that Vannevar Bush was on the board of directors of AT&T from 1947 until 1962. These were apparently the peak years of the reverse engineering project. Was Bush then running an elaborate and highly classified scientific project through AT&T in much the same way he had overseen the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development during WWII? Certainly running such a project through AT&T would be in keeping with the policy of the national security state to outsource many of its darkest secrets to the Deep Private in the post-WWII years.

What's more, it appears that some equally sinister projects were being carried out by another corporation Bush sat on the board of by the late 1940s. This corporation in question was the notorious Merck & Co. By 1950 its president, George W. Merck, was an old hand at black ops.

"The decision to locate the nation's biological warfare center at Detrick Field was made in the early years of World War II. President Franklin D Roosevelt had become increasingly disturbed over mounting intelligence reports that Germany and Japan were stockpiling poison gas. There were also reports that Russia, Britain, and Canada were far ahead of the United States in biological weapons research. In early 1942, following the intense work of a number of high-level and blue-ribbon study groups, Roosevelt ordered the War Department – precursor to the Department of Defense – to take whatever measures were necessary to bring United States up to speed with Axis and Allied powers.

"In response, the War Department created the War Research Service (WRS), and installed George Wilhelm Merck as its director. Merck was a natural for the job, as he was already a high-ranking consultant to the War Department on biological warfare. He was also head of Merck & Co., one of the oldest and largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The firm had its beginnings in the late 1600s in Darmstadt, Germany as the E. Merck chemical factory. In 1891, George Merck, George Wilhelm's father, left Germany to establish Merck & Co, in New York City. His son, George Wilhelm Merck, born in West Orange, New Jersey and a Harvard graduate, had assumed control of the company in 1925. The younger Merck dynamically guided the company to become the largest full-line producer and distributor of pharmaceuticals in the world. Merck & Co. has since been responsible for countless innovations in the drug industry, including many in the controversial areas of enthnogenic products and shamanic inebriants."

(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, pg. 42)

George W Merck

As to these "enthnogenic products and shamanic inebriants," easily the most well-known is MDMA, more commonly known as "Ecstasy" or "molly." Merck synthesized it in 1914. During the 1950s, it was tested at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal as part of the various Pentagon/CIA behavior modification experiments being conducted there. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Merck appears to have been close to Secretary of War (and Bonesman) Henry Stimson, who as noted in part two was one of the key figures in establishing the military-industrial complex. Stimson was who originally brought Merck on as a civilian consultant and who later put him in charge of the War Research Service (WRS).

Merck played a key role in helping the military set up Fort Detrick, for years the chief facility for the US biological warfare program. It also played a key role in the early years of the Pentagon/CIA behavior modification programs. The great H.P. Albarelli turned up a document pertaining to Project ARTICHOKE that indicates that Merck was involved in this operation. The author of this document was H. Marshall Chadwell, Vannevar Bush's former subordinate in the Office of Scientific Research and Development who headed the mysterious Division 19 (noted in part two). At the time Chadwell was in charge of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), which was deeply involved with Project ARTICHOKE and even briefly oversaw the project in 1952 during Chadwell's tenure.

H. Marshall Chadwell

ARTICHOKE had its origins with Project BLUEBIRD. BLUEBIRD was officially initiated on April 20, 1950 (Hitler's birthday), but work on it had already begun in 1949. And it just so happened that Vannevar Bush became a director of Merck in 1949. In 1957 he would become chairman of the board of directors after Merck died and would hold the post until 1962.

Given that Merck & Co appears to have been involved in Project ARTICHOKE in some capacity or another, it seems highly probable that Bush would have at a minimum been aware of these activities. He had overseen countless highly classified projects during World War II and the fact that he joined Merck in the same year that what would become ARTICHOKE was getting off the ground is most eyebrow rising. All of these ties --Merck, Chadwell, Boris Pash --strongly indicate that Bush was playing a role in Project ARTICHOKE (his links to Stanley Lovell, the OSS's liaison with the OSRD, indicate he may have been involved in the more well-known MKULTRA as well), one of which he managed in the private sector.

Is it then so improbable that he could have been involved in another highly classified project via AT&T and Bell Labs? As the man appears to have been involved in highly classified research from at least 1940 onwards, what seems improbable that a heavy like Bush would end up working at AT&T/Bell fore purely commercial reasons. Almost everything Bush did during the latter part of his life appears to have some type of deep state angle to it.

Who Was Corso?

Let us now return to the legitimacy of Corso's claims. In weighing such things, it is useful to consider the man's background so as to determine if he would have even been in position to know such things. So, here it is:

"...  Colonel Philip J Corso, a twenty-year Army Intelligence career man until his retirement in August 1963. He had been the military Operations Coordinating Board's delegate to the CIA group planning the 1954 Guatemalan coup. In 1956 Corso had sought to reactivate fifty surviving garrisons of East European paramilitary unit still hanging out in West Germany and tied to the Gehlen spy network. When his Volunteer Freedom Corps, dedicated to rolling back communism, was scuttled as too radical by the Eisenhower administration, Corso attributed the defeat to 'lies by our liberal darlings.' A staunch foe what he considered a laissz-faire CIA, Corso testified before Congress on military muzzling after General Walker was kicked out of West Germany in 1961. Upon leaving Army Intelligence, Corso went to work in 1963 as a 'research assistant' for segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. And, after the Kennedy assassination, Corso was among the first to spread rumors hinting that Oswald was tied to a Communist ring inside the CIA – and doubling as an informant for the FBI."

(The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell, pg. 529) 

Colonel Philip J. Corso

Corso's presence on Eisenhower's Operations Coordinating Board (where, according to Peter Dale Scott in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Corso frequently clashed with C.D. Jackson, a regular Bilderberg attendee) and his involvement with the "Volunteer Freedom Corps" strongly indicate that Corso was close to the black heart of the deep state. The latter assignment has led some researchers such as Kevin Coogan to speculate that Corso was involved in Operation Gladio, which was certainly a possibility given Corso's background in the Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC, which initially oversaw Paperclip, among other black ops).

Corso does seem quite adapt at spreading disinformation, however. Indeed he, along with other members of a secret society officially known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ, commonly referred to as the Shickshinny Knights of Malta) appear to have taken the lead in the propaganda campaign to link the Kennedy assassination to a Communist conspiracy. Peter Dale Scott outlines these developments:

"Corso built on this anti-CIA paranoia by telling his friend and fellow Senate staffer Julien Sourwine, who made sure it was relayed to the FBI, that Oswald was tied to a Communist ring inside the CIA, and was doubling as an informant for the FBI. Shickshinny Knight Herman Kimsey... also spun an elaborate story about how his CIA duties had put him in touch with Kennedy's assassin --the mystery man in Mexico. Finally, the chief press contact of the Shickshinny Knights, Guy Richardson of the New York Journal American, published the claim (soon taken up by Frank Capell, by the John Birch Society, and by Willoughby's American Security Council) that Oswald, like another alleged KGB assassin (Bogdan Stashynsky), had been trained at a KGB assassination school in Minsk. A toned-down version of the story subsequently published by Julien Sourwine's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, with help supplied via Senator Thomas Dodd from within the CIA."

(Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott, pg. 215)

the SOSJ claims to be the "true" successor organization to the Knights Hospitallers rather than the much more well-known Sovereign Military Order of Malta

The SOSJ, which Corso was a member of shortly after retiring from the Army, has been extensively linked to numerous intrigues, ranging from the Kennedy assassination (noted before here) to the Oklahoma City bombing. Much of the modern American militia movement can be traced to the SOSJ (noted before here), including more militant groups such as The Order. This researcher firmly believes that the SOSJ was a key hub in the American wing of Gladio. Curiously, a website purporting to be the official history of the SOSJ made the following statement concerning Gladio:

"The Order was engaged worldwide in anti-Communist activities. Former SS Major General Boris Holmston-Smyslovsky, alias Colonel von Reganau, and U.S. Marine Lieutenant General Pedro Del Valle spurred renewed SOSJ activity in opposition to the Communists in Europe after 1948. Holmston-Smyslovsky was an old associate of Prince Awaloff. These men were involved with the Gladio program which prompted the founding of the U.S. Army Special Forces. The secret army of Czar Kirill I formed a nucleus for Gladio 'stay behind' operations which were designed to wage perpetual war on the Communists. As successor to SOSJ Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations operations, Allen W. Dulles, Colonel William J. Donovan, Gen. Reinhard Gehlen and Lt. General Pedro Del Valle initiated NATO’s Operation Gladio during the era of the founding of the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency and German BND. The U. S. Counter-Intelligence Corps, the Gehlen Organization and the Knights of Malta started the Volunteer Freedom Corps otherwise known as Operation Gladio. Ten thousand men were descendants of the secret army of Czar Kirill I and the fifty garrisons of East European Freikorps mentioned by Cherep Spiridovich in the 1920’s and by Phillip Corso, OSJ in the 1950’s. Even in the United States, some knights started anti-Communist domestic militias and supported conservative publications to increase public awareness of the agenda of International Socialism."

While it is generally not wise to believe the things one reads on websites claiming to be the official history of a truly bizarre secret society, it is not often that one encounters a group that not only acknowledges its role in Gladio, but seems to take pride in it. That Gehlen and his Org played a key role in establishing Gladio along with the Army CIC and later the CIA is a fact. And there can be little doubt that Eastern European anti-Communist groups affiliated with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, as indicated by Coogan's Dreamer of the Day, were recruited into Gladio. Given the SOSJ's links to numerous acts of terrorism (a longtime modus operandi of Gladio) in these United States over the past fifty years, the involvement of Corso and the Shickshinny Knights in Gladio cannot be discounted.

Reinhard Gehlen

If all of this is not curious enough, there's also the distinct possibility (as outlined before here, here and here) that SOSJ has it origins with the infamous Thule Society. Nor does it appear to have faded away with time. As was noted before here, General William Boykin, a veteran of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD) who helped oversee the ARTICHOKE-like Copper Green during the second Iraq War, is a member of some version of SOSJ, though it is unknown if it is a direct descendant of Shickshinny outfit or one of the numerous offshoots. Naturally Boykin has come out as a Trump supporter like many military intelligence and JSOC veterans in recent months. But moving along.

Disinformation or Something More?

Should Corso's claims then be discounted? Certainly there are compelling reasons to do so, as indicated above. And of course, his book itself is highly controversial for a number of reasons. The great Christopher Knowles of The Secret Sun outlined a few of them in his groundbreaking Lucifer's Technologies series. In part five he noted:

"The timing seemed suspicious to some. Here was a Lt. Colonel from the Foreign Technology Office telling UFOlogists everything they wanted to hear exactly when they wanted to hear it. And critics noted the book was rife with basic errors of fact.

"Many of errors were curious- some had nothing directly to do with Corso's Roswell claims and were the kind of mistakes that could have very easily been corrected by his co-author Bill Birnes when the book was in the editing process.

"A further controversy erupted when Senator Strom Thurmond --under whom Corso worked as an aide after he left the service- demanded his (rather glowing) foreword be removed from the book, claiming he wasn't aware of the book's subject matter (though a memo reprinted in UFO Magazine later showed that the foreword was for a "Roswell" book). 

"So what do we have here? A hoax? A delusional old man cashing in on the UFO craze of the time? A deliberate disinfo campaign meant to splash water on Roswell fever (which in many ways the backlash to the book did)? 

"Michael Salla- whose resume is strangely more fitting to a Undersecretary of State than a UFO researcher- dug into the controversy over Corso's book and found than many of the claims made against his reputation and his credibility were either false or trivial. And Thurmond's introduction made it clear that Corso had been a highly partisan Cold Warrior in the 50s and 60s, which Salla claims had made him a lot of enemies."

Case closed then, right? Well, not exactly as nothing is simple when it comes to Roswell, thus it should come as little surprise that the same year The Day After Roswell was published (1997) another source came forward to confirm many of Corso's claims concerning the transistor and other technologies allegedly recovered from the debris.

"According to Jack A. Shulman, president of American Computer; the invention of the transistor may have been inspired by the study of the remains of a crashed alien spacecraft, basically reverse engineered technology...

"Alien Technology and humans reverse engineering it was first mentioned in 1997 when, American Computer Company (ACC) suggested the possibility that the study of the remains of a crashed alien spaceship in Roswell in 1947, or another crashed Alien spaceship might have been definitive for the development of the transistor, made in 1948 by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain doctors in the Research Center of Electronic Circuits at Bell Laboratories.

"The basis for such claims are a series of documents and testimonies that supposedly were in possession of ACC. This theory matches the stories of many others, among them, former Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Corso, who in his book; The Day After Roswell, claims being part of the team that handed the remains of the crashed object and delivered parts to different departments of Bell Laboratories...

"According to ACC, among the remains of the alien craft crashed, researchers found several other technologies; nuclear Energy, robotics, computer systems and communication devices. Many of the pieces of Alien technologies are still being studied and tested today.

"Interestingly, according to ACC, one of the allegedly found parts was composed of silicon and arsenic, and showed, under a microscope, a series of extremely complicated circuits. This “device” could act as high-speed electronic switch and as an amplifier, which inspired the invention of the semiconductors.

"ACC presented many pieces of “evidence” in a meeting held in October 1997 at the University of Princeton where members from ACC highlighted a number of books dated from 1947 and, according to ACC, even from Bell Laboratories, which contain executive orders for the analysis of the secret technology found in 'an unknown object.' "

allegedly the first transistor developed by Bell

Of course these claims are also shrouded in controversy, with American Computer Company founder Jack A. Shulman later recanting them and alleging that the elaborate claims posted on his company's official web page were simply "satire." This disclaimer naturally came several years after the initial postings and what was reputed to be none stop harassment of Shulman and his company. As Christopher Knowles noted, these denials ring rather hollow.

Clearly, there is a lot of disinformation, lies and out right bullshit hovering around this whole ordeal. And yet, as Mr. Knowles brilliantly outlined here and here, the history of the transistor, the basis of the modern computer revolution, is extremely murky and represents a quantum leap in technology over the vacuum tubes the transistor replaced. As such, this researcher believes this there is some merit, broadly speaking, to Colonel Corso's claims concerning the transistor and other technologies reputedly recovered at Roswell.

Roswell

The question then becomes: what exactly happened at Roswell that would warrant a decades spanning cover up that would pull in a deep state heavy like Corso at the end of his life to run an elaborate disinformation campaign?  Conspiracy circles are of course rife with theories, with the two most popular being that Roswell was A) a massive PSYOP or B) the actual recovery of a physical flying saucer piloted by extraterrestrial biological entities.

This researcher does subscribe to either.

The failings of point B) our to my mind rather obvious, least of all because it was the initial cover story put out by the military, and I will not dwell on it. As to point A, this is some what compelling. But the question then becomes, to what purpose? To cover up a weather balloon or some other topic secret aircraft? I don't know that decades-spanning secrecy would be needed to cover up a weather balloon or any other type of known technology at this point. I don't discount some type of Nazi UFO entirely, but evidence of this is sketchy.

Another theory put forth is that it was some type of War of the Worlds-style PSYOP. Unfortunately, the legendary War of the Worlds of the broadcast did not spark anywhere near the type of panic that is commonly believed and I'm not sure that a few sensation headlines in a local newspaper would have anywhere the same effect as Orson Welles' broadcast.

fake news

So if it is not a PSYOP or an actual UFO, what then?

I think Christopher Knowles has come up with the most compelling explanation: that it was a kind of ritual that he has dubbed the "Roswell working." On one of his Lucifer's Technologies chapters, he notes many of the peculiar events leading up to Roswell after WWII came to a close:

"The US Army Signal Corps (inventors of the modern printed circuit board) would kick off the Space Age on January 10, 1946 with Project Diana, in which they bounced radar signals off the Moon from Fort Monmouth, NJ.

"Perhaps knowing Diana was going down, Jack Parsons and L.Ron Hubbard began the Babalon Working in Pasadena, CA, which lasted from January to March of 1946. Some accounts would claim that Hubbard and Parsons encountered an alien in the Mojave Desert on January 18, the same day Marjorie Cameron appeared at the Parsonage. 

"In the midst of the Working, the so-called Ghost Rockets began appearing over Scandinavia February 26, 1946. Thousands would be seen through that year. At least one would be reported as having crashed, significantly in the month of July.

"Two days after the first Ghost Rocket was sighted, Parsons went alone to the Mojave, where he claimed he encountered the goddess Babalon whom he said dictated the Liber 49 to him. 

"On July 1, 1946 the US began Operation Crossroads, the testing of powerful nuclear weapons. This would allegedly attract the attention of UFOs, who were reported to have deactivated nuclear weapons on many occasions in the US and Soviet Union.

"In folk magic, crossroads were places you went to make deals with demons and other dark spirits...

"The Corporal Missile, using Jack Parson’s solid state fuel, was launched on May 22 at White Sands, NM. (At least one would be destroyed in the upper atmosphere by a UFO) 

"On June 21, Harold Dahl claimed to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island in Puget Sound, WA, which would earn him the first modern 'Men in Black' encounter.  Not too far away, businessman Kenneth Arnold would have his famous UFO sighting on June 24th, a very powerful day in a number of ritual calendars."

Operation Crossroads

The thing is, virtually all of these incidents feature the involvement of the US military. In the case of Project Diana and Operation Crossroads (the names of which are ripe with esoteric significance), this much is obvious. But as far as the Babalon Working is concerned, remember that future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard as a Navy man who was briefly detailed to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Hubbard claimed to have investigated Parsons on behalf of the ONI, a claim that has long been disputed.

As to the Maury Island incident and Kenneth Arnold's legendary sighting, both of these events came to feature the involvement of the mysterious Fred Lee Crisman. Crisman was a former military man long linked to the US intelligence community and the far right. Jim Garrison had once considered subpoenaing Crisman to appear in his trial of Clay Shaw. Crisman was also a so-called "wandering bishop," the network of which has long been linked to strange and occultic practices (addressed before here and here).

On the whole then, it would seem that the military was up to some very, very strange things in the wake of World War II. And they were largely acting unilaterally.

The CIC

The OSS, the WWII-era precursor to the CIA, was disbanded in September of 1945 and had largely begun winding down its activities after the European Theater was won. The CIA wouldn't exist until the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 and the NSA not until 1952. There was the FBI, but it was largely concerned with domestic affairs while occasionally dabbling in Latin America.

The military intelligence services were then largely the only game in town and they do appear to have had ambitious plans unfolding in this era. Possibly the most powerful of the military intelligence services during this time was the Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). During and after WWII it was deeply involved in two of the emerging deep state's most ambitious programs: Operation Paperclip and Operation Alsos (the latter in conjunction with the ONI and Bush's Office of Scientific Research and Development).

interestingly, one of the early symbols of the CIC was the so-called "Golden Sphinx" seen at the top of this insignia

Paperclip of course (in)famously recruited numerous "former" Nazi scientists (and later, intelligence assets) to assist the United States in the emerging Cold War. The Alsos mission, organized by Vannevar Bush, was closely related. Here the United States sought to undercover whatever scientific advances the Nazis had made in relation to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. It has also been long rumored that Alsos mission contributed data to the behavior modification experiments conducted by the CIA and the Pentagon. Boris Pash, at the time detailed to the CIC, headed Alsos and (as noted before here) appears to have gone to work on BLUEBIRD shortly thereafter.

And that brings us to another intrigue involving the Army CIC. They appear to have been one of the earliest branches of the emerging national security state to dabble in "enhanced interrogations" and "behavior modification." This is hardly surprising, considering that the WWII-era CIC was headed by Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) agent Garland Williams.

Garland Williams

Williams, who was addressed before here briefly, is an especially murky figure. Williams was the mentor to the infamous George Hunter White in the FBN, as well as special contract agent Pierre Lafitte (who also got his intelligence start in the CIC via its WWI-era counterpart, the Corps of Intelligence Police). White himself is well known for his involvement in MKULTRA, helping Sidney Gottlieb set up the safehouses in New York and San Francisco. What is less well known is that both White and Lafitte were also had involvement in ARTICHOKE, and Lafitte may even have contributed to Frank Olson's as part of his "work" on ARTICHOKE (noted before here).

It has long been suspected that Williams was also involved in ARTICHOKE and/or MKULTRA, but this has yet to be definitively confirmed. It is interesting to note, however, that Williams was brought back into military intelligence during Korea where he served with the Army's 525th Military Intelligence Service Group. This unit specialized in POW interrogation. As this assignment unfolded well after BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE was up and running, there is a strong possibility that Williams oversaw "enhanced" interrogation methods.

Certainly the CIC was well versed in these arts by 1950. After WWII the CIC had developed their own detachment specializing in such things. They were alternatively known as the "Kraut Gauntlet" or simply "the Rough Boys." The great H.P. Albarreli has provided invaluable information concerning this unit:

"Here it should be noted that, during the cold war years, CIA and Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) interrogators, working as part of projects Bluebird and Artichoke, sometimes injected large amounts of Metrazol into selected enemy or Communist agents for the purposes of severely frightening other suspected agents, by forcing them to observe the procedure. The almost immediate effects of Metrazol are shocking for many to witness: subjects will shake violently, twisting and turning. They typically arch, jerk and contort their bodies and grimace in pain. With Metrazol, as with electroshock, bone fractures - including broken necks and backs - and joint dislocations are not uncommon, unless strong sedatives are administered beforehand. 

"Army CIC interrogators working with the CIA at prisoner of war camps and safe house locations in post-war Germany on occasion used Metrazol, morphine, heroin and LSD on incarcerated subjects. According to former CIC officer Miles Hunt, several 'safe houses and holding areas outside of Frankfurt near Oberursel' - a former Nazi interrogation center taken over by the US - were operated by a 'special unit run by Capt. Malcolm S. Hilty, Maj. Mose Hart and Capt. Herbert Sensenig. The unit was especially notorious in its applications of interrogation methods [including the use of electroshock and Metrazol, mescaline, amphetamines and other drugs].' Said Hunt: 'The unit took great pride in their nicknames, the "Rough Boys" and the "Kraut Gauntlet," and didn't hold back with any drug or technique ... you name it, they used it.' Added Hunt, 'Sensenig was really disappointed when it was found that nothing had to be used on [former Reichsmarschall] Herman Goering, who was processed through the camp. Goering needed no inducement to talk.'

"Eventually, CIC interrogators working in Germany would be assisted in their use of interrogation drugs by several 'former' Nazi scientists recruited by the CIA and US State Department as part of Project Paperclip. By early 1952, the CIC's Rough Boys would routinely use Metrazol during interrogations, as well as LSD, mescaline and conventional electroshock units."

Again, the OSS was disbanded in 1945 and the CIA, which was initially known as the Central Intelligence Group, was not launched until 1947. Thus, it is likely that many of these interrogations on Nazi POWs initially came without much input from either the OSS or the CIA. Thus some of the input provided by "former Nazi" scientists was extracted by the CIC itself, as it was the lead agency in the early years of Paperclip. And of course, it had just finished overseeing Alsos as well. Naturally, the CIC would later be the primary wing of Army intelligence active in ARTICHOKE (which was very much a joint Pentagon/CIA project).

And would you be surprised to learn, dear reader, that the CIC is also the intelligence agency most closely linked to the Roswell incident? At a minimum the CIC was involved in the cover up, but may well have been the lead agency behind the incident. After all, they provided the security for the highly classified Manhattan project which appears to have been closely related to Roswell.

Now, let us consider the implications of all of this. World War II comes to a close just as the OSS is being disbanded. The military is thus free to seek out the spoils of the war in both Europe and Japan without a lot of oversight from the traditional conservative establishment outside of the technocrats of the Manhattan Project.

Shortly there after the Army initiated a series of curious projects, Diana and Crossroads, with highly suggestive names. Jack Parsons also begins that Babalon working with the assistance of ONI man L. Ron Hubbard. Roughly a year later the modern UFO era is ushered in by the Kenneth Arnold sighting. Soon the Maury Island incident also gains press attention and former military man and wandering bishop Fred Lee Crisman arrives on the scene.

Jack Parsons

Roswell then unfolds. Shortly there after the National Security Act of 1947, which creates the CIA, is passed. This bill essentially laid the foundation for the national security state while also trying retain traditional conservative control over it via the CIA (briefly noted in the prior installment). At roughly the same time the Navy's Project CHATTER is launched, the first formal behavior modification program. At the end of 1947 or early 1948 the Navy initiates the even more secretive Project Pelican (noted before here). It is likely the famed parapsychologist Andrija Puharich participated in Pelican (noted before here).

The CIA then launches BLUEBIRD unofficially in 1949, but in close cooperation with the military. In fact, much of the CIA personnel involved in BLUEBIRD and its successor program, ARTICHOKE, came from military backgrounds. Andrija Puharich joins ARTICHOKE in the early 1950s and is involved in the infamous channeling of The Nine in 1953 (noted before here), when he is in the midst of his work on ARTICHOKE. The Nine, reputed to be an extraterrestrial (or at least some type of nonhuman) intelligence, were contacted via divination and possibly psychedelics. As was noted before here, this researcher strongly believes that experiments concerning The Nine were a part of ARTICHOKE.

In 1953 MKULTRA is also launched, around the time of the seances with The Nine. But MKULTRA, unlike ARTICHOKE, is purely a CIA project with ample backing from the traditional conservative establishment (especially the Rockefellers), as noted before here. Was some one feeling left out of the (military) loop by this point?

Super Soldiers?

Roswell appears to have been surrounded by two incidents, the Babalon Working of Parsons (and Hubbard) and Puharich's Nine seance, in which occultic methods appear to have been used to contact nonhuman intelligences. In this context then the possibility that Roswell may been some type of ritual or summoning becomes all the more compelling. Had the military learned something from the Nazis and/or Parsons that was put to the test at Roswell and later refined by Puharich?

Outlandish perhaps, but I find this explanation more compelling than Roswell as a PSYOP, or a cover up for a weather balloon. Certainly Roswell is ripe with symbolism, as Christopher Knowles has brilliantly chronicled before here. In particular Mr. Knowles was struck by the parallels between the myths of Cadmus and the Roswell incident, especially the tales revolving around the Wells of Mars. Knowles writes:

"What's more, Cadmus has a powerful connection to wells, in this case, the Well belonging to the god Mars. And strangely enough, the myth of Cadmus and the Martian Well has strong undertones of genetic engineering (men arising from the 'teeth' of Mars' dragon) and those pesky Reptilians bubbling just beneath the surface:

 'While seeking water he [Kadmos] came to the fountain of Castalia, which a Draco, the offspring of Mars [Ares], was guarding. It killed the comrades of Cadmus, but was killed by Cadmus with a stone. Under Minerva’s instructions he sowed the teeth and plowed them under. From them sprang the Spartoe. These fought among themselves, but from them five survived, namely, Chthonius, Udaeus, Hyperenor, Pelorus, and Echion. 

 "In modern fringe UFOlogy, Reptilians are said to originate in the Draco system. Which is convenient, I guess.

"The Well of Mars is interesting for another reason, one I should mention. That being that Mars is the Red Planet, of course. So it's also the Well of the Red Planet or even, if you like, the Red Well.

"And know what else is red? I'll give you a hint, violets are blue."

Cadmus slaying the dragon

When considering the Spartoi who emerged from the Martian well (or red well or...) I was not reminded of reptiles. Rather, I was struck by how much they resembled "enhanced" or "super" soldiers.

And it just so happens, dear reader, that one of the primary objectives of BLUEBIRD (and later ARTICHOKE) was the creation of "super soldiers" (noted before here). I suppose this is just a coincidence...

With that I shall wrap things up for now. With the next installment I shall begin considering the ASC in earnest. Until then dear reader stay tuned.