The House of Mellon Part II

 

Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the infamous Pittsburgh-based Mellon family. In part one I largely stuck to the life and times Andrew Mellon, the US Secretary of Treasury who oversaw the onset of the Great Depression and probably the most well known member of the family. As we saw, the Mellons were easily one of the most important and influential families of that era. Though they've never gotten quite the same attention as other aristocratical American families such as the Morgan or Rockefeller clans their wealth and influence is on a similar level. Further, they have remained major power brokers in the American (and international) political scene up to the present day.

Before moving along to the lives and times of more modern Mellons there's one final aspect of the family's World War II era days I would like to consider: Their long-standing ties to the US Intelligence community. These ties go all the way back to the OSS, America's chief WWII era spy agency and the predecessor to the CIA (which would be dominated by old OSS men such Allen Dulles for decades afterwards).

"A number of Mellons served in the OSS, notably David Bruce, the OSS station chief in London (whose father-in-law, Andrew Mellon, was treasury secretary during the Depression). After the war certain influential members of the Mellon family maintained close ties with the CIA. Mellon family foundations have been used repeatedly as conduits for Agency funds. Furthermore, Richard Helms was a frequent weekend guest of the Mellon patriarchs in Pittsburgh during his tenure as CIA director (1966-1973)."
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, pg. 246)

Richard Helms, the former head of the CIA who was in frequent contact with the Mellon family during his directorship

The frequent meetings between the Mellons and Helms during that era (1966-1973) will factor heavily in this piece, so keep them in mind. For now, I would like to consider David Bruce and the involvement of other Mellons in the OSS in a bit more detail.

"...David Bruce --the US Ambassador to the Court of St. James during the Profumo affair... A former and important member of the OSS during World War II, Colonel Bruce landed in Normandy with the head of the OSS: General 'Wild Bill' Donovan... Bruce had married (and later divorced) a Mellon. During the War, David Bruce's OSS network operated behind enemy lines in France, disrupting the German Army; at one point, Bruce had hundreds of French agents under his command.

"Bruce would later go on to even greater glory, not only as US Ambassador to England, but also to France and Germany. He would also be involved, with Henry Kissinger, in the Paris Peace Talks during the Vietnam Era. Bruce's connections in Europe during the War included high-ranking Italian Masons who held influential posts within Mussolini's government...

"There were other Mellons on board at OSS: Paul Mellon (Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's son) served with the OSS Special Operations Branch in London, moving on to become commander of the morale Operations Branch, based in Luxembourg. According to Richard Harris Smith, "Other Mellons and Mellon in-laws held espionage posts in Madrid, Geneva and Paris... In addition to the Mellons, members of the Morgan, Vanderbilt, and DuPont families were very active in the OSS making it essentially a 'rich man's club.' David Bruce himself was the son of a US Senator and a millionaire even before his marriage to Alisa Mellon."
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pgs. 315-316)

David Bruce, a Mellon in-law and 'former' OSS man

Levenda's  description of the OSS as a "rich man's club" is most interesting in the context of what we learned about the American power establishment in the prior installment of this series. As was previously noted, the Great Depression was a slight blow to the financial stranglehold America's 'natural aristrocracy'  had over the nation. The post World War II era was marked by concessions that led to the highest standards of living for the American middle class that any human being in history had ever experienced. This came at a rather bothersome cost to America's elites. Don't misunderstand me, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Mellons and their ilk all remained obscenely wealthy, just not quite to the extent that they were in the pre-World War II era.

They also suffered a loss of prestige to the point that it became expedient to avoid public offices at all costs so as not to attract anymore blame for failed policies. Still, the wealthy wanted to remain close to the seats of power and the infantile US Intelligence community held much promise. Thus, the OSS was quickly taken over by a cabal of Wall Street lawyers like Dulles, William 'Wild Bill' Donovan and Frank Wisner along with old money families like the Morgans, DuPonts and Mellons. Thus, when the CIA emerged as one of the most powerful institutes in both the United States and abroad, with virtually no oversight whatsoever from the United States government, the old guard was well positioned to dictate its policies.

By all accounts CIA was more than happy to have them on board. When one considers how individuals such as Allen Dulles, with long standing ties to Wall Street, deliberately subverted official US foreign policy to achieve their own ends (such as importing Nazi war criminals, as I noted before here) one can't help but wonder if the rise of the US Intelligence community in the 1950s represented a kind of coup de tet in which America's monied interest took back control of US foreign policy. But I digress.

Having established the Mellon family's ties to the US Intelligence community, I'd like to move along to one of the most influential and mysterious figures in the 1960s drug scene: William Mellon Hitchcock. Hitchcock was the grandson of William Larimer Mellon and grand nephew of Andrew Mellon. Hitchcock crops up time again in some of the strangest places throughout the 1960s. His first significant appearance was in the midst of the notorious Profumo Affair, a scandal that toppled the government of British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan. Secretary of State for War John Profumo had been having an affair with high end escort Christine Keller who was also sleeping with Yevgeni Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache stationed at the Russian embassy in London, at the same time. There were even some theories that JFK himself was also sleeping with Keller.

William Mellon Hitchcock (right)

A key figure in the Profumo affair was Stephen Ward, an osteopath and artist, who had introduced Profumo to Keller. Ward seems to have been running an upscale escort service that catered to British VIPs and had ties to at least one major intelligence agency.

"In spy parlance, this is known as a 'honey trap,' and today many suspect that Ward was doing the same thing with Christine Keller, Mandy Rice-Davies, and the other women associated with Keller (including, it is said, Mary Anne de Grimston of the Process Church of Final Judgement)... but not for Soviet intelligence. Instead, it is believed that Ward was working for British intelligence in an attempt to entrap such Soviet targets as Yevgeny Ivanov, the GRU (Russian military intelligence) rezident whose name turned up in the Profumo affair as one of Keller's lovers, causing the scandal that rocked the British government. Thus, Keller was simultaneously sleeping with both John Profumo --the British Minister of War --and Ivanov, the Soviet military intelligence officer assigned to Great Britain. And this, during the time of the Cuban missile crisis!"
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pg. 319)

Dr. Stephen Ward

At the time the Profumo Affair was unfolding David Bruce, the after mentioned Mellon in-law and former OSS man, was the US Ambassador to England. By 1962 Bruce was becoming uneasy about allegations he was hearing in regards to Profumo and decided he needed to get to the bottom of it. Thus he dispatched Thomas Corbally, a mysterious and elusive businessman, and William Mellon Hitchcock, his nephew by marriage, to a meeting with Ward to get the straight dope. Reportedly Corbally (and presumably Hitchcock) left this meeting convinced that the allegations surrounding Profumo were true. They informed Bruce, who in turn informed British PM Macmillan... but not the US State Department.

"Why did Ambassador David Bruce not report the details of the Ward scenario to his putative masters in the United States? What was the role of his wealthy in-law, William Mellon Hitchcock, in the affair? Was Thomas Corbally actually working for Bruce (via Billy Hitchcock?) when he began spying on Dr. Ward? What was Corbally --at the time over fifty years old --doing hanging out in London with William Hitchcock, who was at the time only in his twenties? The suave, urbane international businessman Corbally with a hip, young stockbroker like Hitchcock? One imagines that money would be a passion they shared; another might be intrigue."
(ibid, pg. 320)

Hitchcock's role in the Profumo affair has never been subjected to an in depth analysis. The same cannot be said of the role he played in the rise of LSD in the United States during the 1960s. It all began shortly after Hitchcock's part in the Profumo Affair was over with. From there he would go on to become the chief financial patron of the legendary LSD guru Timothy Leary. Leary was in a bit of a bind at the time. He had recently been fired by Harvard and needed somewhere for himself and his psychedelic hanger-ons to continue their 'experiments.' Fortunately Hitchcock had just the place.

"He first turned on to LSD after his sister, Peggy... introduced him to Leary. They hit it off immediately, and Hitchcock made his family's four-thousand-acre estate in Dutchess County, New York, available to the psychedelic clan for a nominal five-hundred-dollar monthly rent. At the center of the estate sat a turreted sixty-four-room mansion known as Millbrook, surrounded by polo fields, stables, beautiful pine forests, tennis courts, a lake, a large gatehouse, and a picturesque fountain. Two hours from New York City by car, this idyllic spread served as the grand backdrop for the next phase of the chemical crusade."
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, pgs. 97-98)
 

Leary at Millbrook

Leary's time at Milbrook, from roughly 1963 till 1966, became the stuff of legends.

"In many ways the scene at Millbrook was like a fairy tale. The mansion itself was beautifully furnished with Persian carpets, crystal chandeliers, and a baronial fireplace, and all the rooms were full of elaborate psychedelic art. There were large aquariums with unusual fish, while other animals --dogs, cats, goats --wandered freely through the house. People stayed up all night tripping and prancing around the estate... Everyone was always either just coming down from a trip or planning to take one. Some dropped acid for ten days straight, increasing the dosage and mixing in other drugs. Even the children and dogs were said to have taken LSD."
(ibid, pg. 99)

The one person who seemed out of place at Millbrook was Hitchcock himself, who kept his distance from Leary's clan.

"Billy Hitchcock, the millionaire padrone, never really entered into the close camaraderie of the Millbrook circle. He lived a half-mile from the 'big-hose' in his own private bungalow, a four-bedroom gardener's cottage with a Japanese bath in the basement. There he carried on a social life befitting a scion of one of the country's wealthiest families. Hitchcock never totally broke with his old routines even though he had begun to turn on. He still kept in close contact with his friends in New York and with various brokers and investors who visited his bungalow for private parties... Hitchcock would usually be on the phone all morning talking with Swiss and Bahamian bankers, setting up business meetings and fast-money deals. By afternoon he had taken care of his monetary affairs and would occasionally join the scene at the mansion...

"Hitchcock got along well with Leary and often joined the acid fellowship in group trips. At times he became very emotional and vulnerable on LSD. One night he had to be reassured that he did indeed own the estate. But unlike the others, Mr. Billy tended not to verbalize his feelings. He never developed any metaphysical system about the LSD experience, which was rather peculiar since everyone at Millbrook was into some kind of half- or full-cocked philosophy. Hitchcock's interest in LSD did not appear to be a simple matter of spiritual enrichment. He was not one to wax poetic over the prospect of merging with the Oversoul. When asked at the outset of one group session what question he wanted answered by the acid trip, he replied, 'How can I make more money on the stock market?'"
(ibid, pgs. 99-100)

Leary (left) and Hitchcock

Unsurprisingly, Hitchcock's motives for backing Leary and his commune at Millbrook are rather hazy.

"Why Hitchcock decided to throw his weight behind the psychedelic cause is still something of a mystery. Was he simply a millionaire acid buff, a wayward son of the ruling class who dug Leary's trip? Or did he have something else up his sleeve? 'Mr. Billy,' as his servants affectionately called him, claimed he got involved with LSD because kicking the establishment in the teeth was exciting. Of course, since Hitchcock was the establishment, some questioned what he was really up to. Michael Hollingshead, for one, never fully trusted him."
(ibid, pg. 100)

Of course, there were some rather sinister overtones to Leary's experiments at Millbrook as well.

"Leary's basic aim behind the psychedelic experiences was to erase previous conditioning --what he called 'imprints', borrowing from the ethologist Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz observed that soon after hatching, ducklings learn to follow real or foster parents. Lorenz proved his thesis by appearing before some newly hatched Mallards. Lorenz quacked, the new borns imprinted him and followed accordingly...

"Leary applied Lorenz's theory to human society. Human beings in mid-twentieth-century America had imprinted a whole mess of crippling behaviour patterns. His job was to undo these, and provide new ones."
(Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman, pgs. 180-181

At Millbrook Leary would attempt to 'de-condition' the residents while in the midst of tripping. This of course bares remarkable similarities to some of the experiments the CIA attempted in the 1950s with LSD such as Ewen Cameron's 'psychic driving' technique. According to Lachman Leary's attempts at de-conditioning were by and large a failure but this hasn't stopped some from speculating that Leary had some kind of ties to the CIA.

By 1967 the Millbrook scene was collapsing. The place was under 24 hour police surveillance making many of the residents, but most especially Billy Htichcock, most uneasy. Mr. Billy decided that it was time for a change of scenery. Hitchcock gave Leary a $14,000 parting check after evicting everyone from his house and  headed off for the Bay Area, then the capital of Hippiedom thanks to the nonstop media coverage the Summer of Love had received.

Hitchcock seemingly became involved in the LSD market there almost upon arrival. His timing was of course highly fortuitous. Owsley 'Bear' Stanley, the legendary LSD chemist who was the first private individual to manufacture the drug on a mass scale, was arrested late in 1967, leaving a rather gaping hole in the LSD supply line. Hitchcock just so happened to know two chemist from the Millbrook days who were ready to step in and fill the void left by Stanley. One of them was Tim Scully, Stanley's former assistant, and the other was Nick Sand.

"Hitchcock and Scully first became acquainted when the young chemist passed through the psychedelic menagerie at Millbrook in the spring of 1967. They hit it off immediately, and Hitchcock was pleased when Scully called on him in Sausalito a few months later. They agreed to form a business partnership. Hitchcock would lend money for supplies and equipment, and Scully would synthesize LSD and other psychedelics. At first Scully proposed that they give the acid away free of charge, but his financial mentor would hear nothing of it. People wouldn't appreciate what they didn't have to pay for, Hitchcock argued, and after all, he was the boss.

"Hitchcock also bankrolled another chemist named Nick Sand, who began his illicit career making DMT, a short-acting super-psychedelic, in his bathtub in Brooklyn... When the Millbrook scene unraveled, Sand followed Hitchcock out to the Bay Area and started making STP in an underground lab in San Francisco. He would have preferred to make acid, but he was hard-pressed, as was Scully, to find ergotamine tartrate (which they referred to as 'ET'), one of the key ingredients of LSD-25. Hitchcock saw a way past the bottleneck. He contacted a European source with legitimate access, and Sand and Scully were off and running. The demand for street acid had skyrocketed ever since the Summer of Love, and these young men intended to fill the void created by Owsley's sudden demise."
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, pg. 240)

Tim Scully (top) and Nick Sand (bottom)

It was at this point that Hitchcock also started having either indirect or direct associations with organized crime. As to the former, there was Sand's ties to the Hell's Angels.

"...Sand, the hard-nosed street tough eager for economic gain, who cultivated contacts among all manner of fringe types, including the Hell's Angels. Scully didn't want to have anything to do with the bikers, who had distributed STP for Sand..."
(ibid, pg. 241)

As to the latter, Hitchcock's group quickly developed ties with the legendary Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a quasi cult of LSD users that transformed into an international distribution ring from the late 1960s to the early 1970s.

"The saga of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love is a bizarre melange of evangelical, starry-eyed hippie dealers, mystic alchemists, and fast-money bankers. Federal investigators described them as a 'hippie Mafia' of approximately seven hundred fifty people that allegedly grossed $200,000,000. But the Brotherhood's secret network of smugglers lived by a code different from that associated with organized crime. They were fired with idealism, committed to changing the world by disseminating large quantities of psychedelics."
(ibid, pg. 236)

Wanted poster for members of the Brotherhood

The Brotherhood's association with Hitchcock would have disastrous results for many of the members but at the time it seemed like a match made in heaven.

"...a delegation of Brothers led by John Griggs first made contact with Sand and Scully. The powwow, which had been suggested by Leary, took place at Hitchcock's villa in Sausalito, with the ever-obliging Mr. Billy in attendance. The Brothers were looking for a good connection, and they couldn't have asked for a more righteous brew. A few weeks later Sand traveled south to Idylwild to finalize the arrangement.

"With the Brotherhood ready to serve as their distribution arm, Sand and Scully embarked upon a full-fledged manufacturing spree. Hitchcock bought some property in Windsor, a small town sixty miles north of San Francisco. He helped Scully move to the premises, hauling large metal drums and wooden crates full of glass beakers, Bunsen burners, flasks, rubber tubing, chromatography columns, vacuum evaporators, and bundles of semiprecious compounds --all the equipment necessary for a sophisticated drug lab."
(ibid, pg. 241)

'Farmer' John Griggs, the founder of the Brotherhood

Hitchcock was apparently so impressed with the Brotherhood's operation that he took over as their banker.

"Hitchcock served as banker for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, although later he insisted he was nothing more than a financial adviser. In truth he had a lot to say about how things were done. According to Scully, he was involved in numerous planning sessions at his house in Sausalito... But Hitchcock never expected to make big money from LSD. He was in it more for the adventure. He enjoyed his status as the behind-the-scenes facilitator who brought people together and made connections."
(ibid, pg. 244)

It was all fun and games until 1969 when one of Hitchcock's bag men ran afoul of Customs when re-entering the United States with $100,000 in cash. Customs alerted the IRS who began sniffing around Hitchcock. It was at this point that Mr. Billy felt it best to make a strategic withdraw from the drug trade, but not before hooking the Brotherhood up with another supplier and financial 'advisor.'

"It was at this point that a mysterious figure named Ronald Hadley Stark appeared on the scene. The first time anyone had heard of Stark was when one of his emissaries turned up in New York to see Hitchcock. The man claimed to represent a large French LSD operation. He was seeking to unload his product through covert channels. Hitchcock, who was then trying to distance himself from the drug trade, directed his visitor to the Brotherhood ranch. A few weeks later Stark and his assistant traveled to Idylwild."
(ibid, pg. 248)

Ronald Stark

Stark is a most curious figure whom I shall write more on in a moment. For now, let's wrap up with Hitchcock's saga. The last notable event associated with Hitchcock, before he seemingly disappears from history, occurred in 1973 when he turned state's evidence against Sand and Scully in order to secure immunity from tax evasion and stock market malpractice charges then pending.

"The case against the Brotherhood acid chemists came to trial in San Francisco in November 1973 and lasted thirty-nine days. The trial pitted Billy Hitchcock against his former colleagues, Sand and Scully, who were accused of being the largest suppliers of LSD in the US during the late 1960s. Since Hitchcock had already been granted immunity, the defense strategy was to pin all the blame on him, portraying him as the 'Mr. Big' who single-handedly directed the entire acid operation. Hitchcock, for his part, tried to walk a fine line, giving just enough information to satisfy the prosecutors, but not enough to convict the defendants... The publicity generated by the trial crystallized in a sensational Village Voice article by Mary Jo Worth, 'The Acid Profiteers.' The article depicted Leary as a Madison Avenue huckster who was a front for Hitchcock's money. The whole psychedelic movement, according to Worth, was nothing more than a scam perpetrated by a profit-hungry clique."
(ibid, pg. 277-278)

Scully got 20 years while Sand received 15. Hitchcock received a five-year suspended sentence and a $20,000 fine, the very definition of a slap on the wrist. Thus, despite serving as the banker for the largest LSD distribution network in the world at the time, there were no real consequences for William Mellon Hitchcock.

Of course, this would hardly be the first time a rich man escaped justice in this nation, but Hitchcock's ties (both direct and indirect) to so many pivotal individuals and institutions behind the US psychedelic movement is rather striking. Was Hitchcock simply a bored heir looking for a few thrills or maybe even getting back at his upper crust upbringings? This is the view typically taken concerning Hitchcock yet it just doesn't seem to jive with what is known about him. Other than getting high, Hitchcock seemingly wanted no part of the hippie lifestyle many of his associates were embracing at the time. In fact, Hitchcock seems to have gone out of his way to maintain his establishment lifestyle. Further, Hitchcock seems to have few interests beyond making money. He reportedly didn't expect tot make much out the LSD racket yet he seems to have turned a pretty handsome profit anyway. Still, there were surely any number of other things a man with Hitchcock's status could have done to make fast money.

Was Hitchcock then working for some branch of the US Intelligence community throughout the 1960s? Certainly the possibility has much merit. As noted above, the Mellon family has rather extensive ties to the US Intelligence community and Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA from 1966 till 1973, was in regular contact with the Mellon family in Pittsburgh during this time. Incidentally, this was also the same time frame that Mr. Billy became involved with the illegal drug trade.

What's more, Hitchcock had ties to several banks with known CIA connections, some of whom he potentially used to launder funds generated by the Brotherhood.

"While William Hitchcock's intelligence role is not known to any degree of certainty... he certainly surrounded himself with spooks, mobsters and... Republicans. His deep involvement in Castle Bank and Trust is just one such instance. A CIA front in the Bahamas run by former OSS China hand (and former boss of E. Howard Hunt) Paul Helliwell, it was used as a personal bank by Richard Nixon, George .H.W. Bush, and Robert Vesco, as well as by an assortment of Republican movers-and-shakers and the occasional drug runner and Mafia don. Those who enjoy wallowing in Watergate will recall Castle Bank, but perhaps not realize that Billy Hitchcock was an important supporter of the institution.

"His similar involvement with Resorts International, a spook-front and private Republican vault, is also well-known. The history of Resorts International has been brilliantly detailed in Jim Hougan's Spooks, and we will not go into any great detail here, but it is enough to say that Resorts is in the middle of not only the Watergate affair but also a vast array of intelligence operations that include anti-Castro Cubans, Mafia bagmen, illegal campaign contributions, and money laundering. The Nixon and Rebozo involvement with Resorts is only the tip of a very old and very dirty iceberg, and Hitchcock has managed to stay quietly in the shadows of these infamous politicos.
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pg. 321)

Castle Bank & Trust, a notorious CIA front William Mellon Hitchcock was heavily involved in

And all of this was apparently going on while Hitchcock was allegedly sticking it to the establishment via his drug operations. Or was it the establishment sticking it to the idealists behind the original hippie movement? Consider the man who took over Hitchcock's role in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Ronald Stark. While there is no conclusive evidence that Hitchcock was working for the US Intelligence community, the same cannot be said of Stark.

The fall of the Brotherhood would hardly effect Stark, who would continue as a major international drug dealer for the rest of the 1970s. He relocated to Europe and spent a decent amount of time in Italy hobnobbing with radical groups of both the left and right while continuing to cultivate drug connections spanning the globe. Stark was eventually arrested in Italy on a petty charge stemming from his involvement with various terror organizations. Just as it seemed as if Stark's luck had final run out an Italian judge made a rather startling revelation about him.

"The Italian government subsequently charged Stark with 'armed banditry' for his role in aiding and abetting terrorist activities. But he never stood trial on these charges. True to form, Stark dropped out of sight shortly after he was released from prison in April 1979 on orders from Judge Giorgio Floridia in Bologna. The judge's decision was extraordinary: he released Stark because of 'an impressive series of scrupulously enumerated proofs' that Stark was actually a CIA agent. 'Many circumstances suggest that from 1960 onwards Stark belonged to the American secret services,' Floridia stated."
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, pg. 281)

This is just one of many mysteries surrounding Stark. Another is his alleged association with legendary cult leader Charles Manson. I've written more on Stark's association with Manson here so I shall be brief. Manson's potential links to Starks were first proposed by Maury Terry in the highly controversial The Ultimate Evil. In this work Terry alleges that Manson, as well as David 'Son of Sam' Berkowitz (among others), was a member of a nation wide cult connected to drug and (child) sex trafficking, snuff films, and contract killings. This cult, sometimes referred to as the 'Four-P Movement' or simply 'the Children,' was said to have begun as an offshoot of the Process Church of Final Judgement, a British-based outfit founded by ex-Scientologists and active throughout the United States from the mid-1960s till the early 1970s. Supposedly this cult had ties both to organized crime (specifically various 'one-percenter' MCs) as well as the US Intelligence community.

Charles Manson (top) & David Berkowitz (bottom), two of the more notorious figures linked to an underground cult network Ronald Stark may have also had dealings with

According to Terry (via Berkowitz, allegedly) Manson was either a member of, or working for, this cult when the Tate/LaBianca killings occurred.

"Berkowitz informed a fellow inmate that Manson, who belonged to the Los Angeles chapter of the cult, was working 'on orders' when he directed his Family to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders. In The Ultimate Evil, Terry places Manson --two days after the Tate murders --driving a Mercedes-Benz belonging to a big-time LSD dealer, who, in Terry's description, was 'said to have been a former Israeli who had strong links with the intelligence community.' Terry took this to be one of the truly fascinating players in LSD history: Ronald Hadley Stark. In The Ultimate Evil, Stark is identified under the alias of Chris Jetz.

"Although not an Israeli, Stark posed as one upon occasion, as he was fluent in several languages, and fond of assuming multiple identities."
(The Shadow Over Santa Susana, Adam Gorightly, pg. 163)

What I find most fascinating about William Mellon Hitchcock is how he seems to have indirect ties to the whole Process/Manson circle. As noted above, Hitchcock had some kind of link with Dr. Stephen Ward, the man who most likely ran the sex ring involved in the Profumo Affair. Reportedly one of the women involved in this sex ring (also noted above) was Mary Anne DeGrimston, who would go on to co-found the Process Church of Final Judgement with her husband, Robert. Hitchcock also had indirect ties with the Hell's Angels, who were supplied with STP by Nick Sand, a chemist he was bankrolling at the time. Outlaw MCs have long been associated with conspiracy theories surrounding the Process. Both Manson and the Process actively sought alliances with one percenters as has been well documented.

Mary Anne DeGrimston, co-founder of the Process Church of Final Judgement and a possible member of Dr. Stephen Ward's sing ring

And finally there's Hitchcock's association with Stark, a man an Italian judge ruled was a US intelligence agent and who seemingly had some kind of connection to Charles Manson. I shall wrap up this installment with a little bit of speculation: If Hitchcock was in fact a US intelligence agent, then was he serving as a handler for various 1960s fringe individuals and movements --i.e. Leary, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the Hell's Angels, etc? Is this why then-CIA director Richard Helms was regularly meeting with the Mellon family in Pittsburgh throughout his directorship? Was he keeping tabs on Mr. Billy's operation? If so, was Stark a kind of replacement once Hitchcock became bogged down in legal entanglements? Or was it felt to be expedient to withdraw Hitchcock before things turned violent on the West Coast (i.e. the Manson killings, Altamont, etc) so as not to draw suspicion? After all, a dubious character like Stark being linked to Manson is one thing, but a member of one of America's oldest and richest families? That would certainly raise some interesting questions, such as why the wealthy were seemingly infiltrating left-leaning/populist movements on behalf of US intelligence.

Such questions will be further examined in the next installment. Stay tuned.

How the Music Died Part III

Welcome to part three of my rock 'n' roll series How the Music Died. This series has been a rough attempt at chronicling the profound transformation rock would go through between the years 1959 (when Buddy Holly died) and 1969, the year of Helter Skelter and the infamous Altamont Free Concert. The first two parts of this series, which can be found here and here, examined this transformation through the prism of the great Don McLean's "American Pie," quite possibly the most subversive song to ever become a hit single in this nation's history.

In part one I focused in on Buddy Holly's death, and the rich twilight language surrounding it. In part two I breakdown the lyrics of "American Pie" and explained their meaning with a special emphasis on the world of rock 'n' roll before Buddy Holly's death and after the Beatles rise in 1964. In this installment we're going to move away from McLean and his epic in favor of the 1970s heavy metal act Blue Oyster Cult and an especially curious song they released in 1974 known as "Dominance and Submission." However, before we can get to the song I need to do a rundown of BoC themselves, which will take up the rest of this post.

At this point I'm sure some are asking "How the fuck can you lob the great Don McLean and 'American Pie' in with the epitome of bloated 1970s arena rock" or something along those lines. And to be fair, there's no getting around the overwhelming suckiness of many of the Cult's big 70s singles, to say nothing of the albums they released in that era. After all, there's a reason why this band is most well known in this day and age for an SNL skit revolving around "Don't Fear the Reaper"'s use of the cowbell. If this wasn't embarrassing enough, there's "Godzilla" *shudders*.

By all accounts, BoC should have been awful throughout their entire career. After all, they were essentially nothing more than a biker bar band that was scooped up by a music critic-turned-manager/producer (Sandy Pearlman) who would guide their songwriting and image throughout BoC's heyday. Accounts of the early days I've read note that frontman/rhythm guitarist Eric Bloom could barely even play his instrument. I suspect this was true of most of the group outside of lead guitarist Donald 'Buck Dharma' Roeser (who allegedly played about all the guitars on the early albums), drummer Al Bouchard and maybe keyboardist/guitarist Allen Lainer, all of whom spent half a decade playing biker bars before the self titled debut.

Pearlman

While the band as a whole would grow as musicians over the years, it would always remain dependent upon outside songwriters, especially Pearlman. What's more, there was a dramatic decline in the quality of the BoC's albums once the group began to finally take the reigns from Pearlman after Agents of Fortune, their commercial breakthrough. Thus, BoC committed a lot of rock 'n' roll cardinal sins: they couldn't write their own songs without outside help, several members didn't play their own instruments on the early albums, and they were essentially a creation of their manager-producer. So yes, it would be quite easy to dismiss BoC as another bloated 1970s heavy rock group along the lines of Kiss, AC/DC, Uriah Heep, et al, and if not for the Black and White albums, this is all BoC would have ever amounted too. But shockingly, those albums were really, really good. BoC had a few things going for them that would make them far more interesting than their counterparts, even at the height of their suckiness.

the classic Black and White albums; mote the hints of sacred geometry in the first two (top)

For one, they were rather honest. Many rock bands over the years, including the Beatles, have been accused of being talent-less hacks propped up by their producers. BoC openly acknowledge, even celebrated, this state of affairs. Pearlman took songwriting credits on the bulk of their early songs and frequently dominated interviews sessions with the band. This kind of honesty has been one of the more amusing aspects of BoC over the years. When they finally became a full on arena rock band, for instance, they didn't pull any punches: Their sellout album was named Agents of Fortune. If this wasn't blatant enough, just look at the album cover:

What's more, BoC (or at least Pearlman) were rather clever, especially in the early days. This is first evident to many listeners in the sound of the Black and White era. Pearlman is on record as envisioning BoC's sound as the American answer to Black Sabbath. To be sure, BoC could lay down a fuzzy riff with the best of them and could churn out rockers like "Teen Archer" and "Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll" that were as guilty of 1970s hard rock excesses as any band of that age. But their overall sound was far more complex than the bludgeoning sludge of the legendary Birmingham group or even the bluesy stomp of Led Zeppelin.

In the 1990s music geeks would begin to refer to a certain type of music that was released roughly between 1968 and 1974 as 'heavy psych,' a label that may best describe BoC's Black and White sound. Heavy psych derived from the garage rock and psychedelia that rose to prominence in America from about 1965 to 1968. Several well known rock subgernes would emerge from this movement --heavy metal and prog almost immediately, and later punk rock (there was a vibrant 'proto-punk' scene in the intertwining years, especially around Detroit, which yielded acts like the Stooges). However, there were a lot of bands in the early 1970s --groups like Hawkwind, the Groundhogs, Captain Beyond, Atomic Rooster, Sir Lord Baltimore, Leaf Hound, Flower Travellin' Band, etc --that just didn't fit in to any of the after mentioned categories. On the one hand, these groups were just to raw and fond of feedback-laden guitars to pass for being prog. On the other hand, their music was just to trippy and retro to fit in with mainstream heavy metal or even proto-punk.

Hawkwind (top) and Sir Lord Baltimore (bottom), two great heavy psych outfits from this era

And arguably the great ambassador of this sound was early BoC. When the Cult went for an uptempo track, they played it fast and raw enough to almost capture the intensity of the earlier garage or later punk sound. Some will probably scoff at the notion of aligning BoC with the coming punk scene, but keep in mind Sandy Pearlman was a good friend of Lenny Kaye, the future guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. Kaye, a major American garage rock buff, was also one of the main visionaries behind the original Nuggets double album. Nuggets, which was originally released in 1972, would serve as many folks' introduction to garage rock as well as having a major influence on the punk rock scene that would emerge in a few years.

Pearlman himself would also be involved in the early punk scene: He was also a friend of Patti Smith and briefly considered the punk-poetess for BoC's then-vacant lead singer spot in the very early 1970s. None of the band were too hip on having a chick front the group, but they did ultimately set several of Smith's poems to music beginning with "Baby Ice Dog" on 1973's Tyranny and Mutations album. Smith co-write the hit single "Career of Evil" on the final Black and White album, Secret Treaties. All of this would of course go along way toward launching Smith's legendary solo career. Pearlman also managed and produced the influential proto-punk the Dictators and produced the Clash's second album, Give 'Em Enough Rope. If you're still not feeling BoC's lineage in garage rock and heavy psych and their vastly underrated influence on punk, and subgernes such as New Wave and goth, then dig former The Teardrop Explodes frontman Julian Cope's brilliant take on early BoC.

Patti Smith, regular BoC collaborator

So while BoC certainly had enough meaty riffs to satisfy early 1970s metalheads, they arguably rocked harder and rawer than virtually anything else from that era (at least on the Red side of Tyranny, anyway). Conversely, when BoC tackled mid to down tempo songs (which was pretty regularly), they managed to be as trippy and atmospheric as anything their prog counterparts were putting out at the time. What's more, there was a certain creepiness to be BoC's early sound that few, if any, bands were able to match then or now.

And this brings me to BoC's image and lyrical content. Anyone remotely familiar with the band is well aware of their widespread use of the occult in both. This was also largely due to producer/manger Sandy Pearlman, who by all accounts was quite interested in the occult. In 1966 Pearlman allegedly wrote a series of poems he dubbed The Secret Doctrines of Imaginos which were based upon his studies in anthropology and sociology, as well as his interests in science fiction and conspiracy theories. Wikipedia describes the story line thus:

"Although often referred to as a dream,^[1][49] the concept behind Imaginos is what Pearlman described as 'an interpretation of history – an explanation for the onset of World War I, or a revelation of the occult origins of it',^[37] which he crafted on elements of mythology, sociology, alchemy, science and occultism. This "combination of horror story and fairy tale"^[3] cites historical facts and characters, and is filled with literate references to ancient civilizations in a conspiracy theory of epic proportions, the subject of which is the manipulation of the course of human history. 

"Central to this story are Les Invisibles (The Invisible Ones), a group of seven beings worshipped by the natives of Mexico and Haiti prior to the arrival of Spanish colonists in the 16th century, identified by some fans as the Loa of the Voodoo religion.^[50] The nature of Les Invisibles is left unclear, though it is hinted that they may be extraterrestrials,^[37] or beings akin to the Great Old Ones in the works of H. P. Lovecraft.^[50] An interpretation of the lyrics of the song "Astronomy"^[51] by some fans suggests that the star Sirius is of particular astrological significance to Les Invisibles, with clues identifying it as their place of origin;^[14] it is during the so-called Dog Days of August, when Sirius is in conjunction with the Sun that their influence over mankind is at its apex.^[14] By subtly influencing the minds of men, the beings are said to be "playing with our history as if it's a game",^[37] affecting events in world history over the course of centuries. For the three centuries after European discovery of the New World, this game plays out as the desire for gold is used to transform Spain into the dominant power in Europe, only to be usurped by England in the 17th century and later, through technology,^[1] by other nations ('Les Invisibles')." 

Veteran conspiracy buffs will note that Pearlman's Secret Doctrines bear a remarkable resemblance to various occult and metaphysical classics released in the 1970s such as Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery, Kenneth Grant's The Magical Revival, and Robert Anton Wilson's The Cosmic Trigger Volume I (to say nothing of Wilson and co-writer Robert Shea's conspiracy satire The Illuminatus! Trilogy). All three works revolve around the concept of an extraterrestrial intelligence from or near the star Sirius that has been guiding humanity's development for thousands of years via various secret societies and occult orders. For more information on the so-called Sirius Tradition, check here and here.

Several major works of 1970s conspiracy culture Sandy Pearlman's vision predated

As noted above, Pearlman supposedly wrote these poems in the mid-1970s before any of the after mentioned works had been released. This would not be the first time that Pearlman's lyrics would prove to be eerily prophet of the zeitgeist of conspiracy culture, as we shall soon see. Over the years Pearlman would incorporate various aspects of the Secret Doctrine poems into BoC's albums, especially Secret Treaties (Eventually BoC would record a rock opera called Imanginos in 1988 entirely using these poems, but it was after Pearlman's influence was all but gone).

The name Blue Oyster Cult itself came from Secret Doctrines. In the Imaginos story line the Blue Oyster Cult were the servants of the 'Les Invisibles' (the extraterrestrials), a cult bent on helping their overlords achieve world domination throughout the ages. With such a pedigree, Blue Oyster Cult the band was given a rather apt logo (but not by Pearlman): a variation on Saturn's celestial symbol. The Roman god Saturn and his Greek counterpart Cronos have been linked to the Sirius Tradition that came to prominence in the 1970s.

"The Star of Horus is also the Star of Babalon --the seven-rayed star of the palnet Saturn (or Set) which rules Aquarius, the eleventh house of the Zodiac. Aquarius is the constellation through which the influence of Horus (the Sun) reaches man during thep resent Aeon. Saturn, therefore, is the power behind Venus, as Sirius is the power behind the Sun. These two great Stars (Set and Horus) are therefore symbolically identical, and in this way also is Venus transcended in Sirius, in a celestrial sense."
(The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, pgs. 51-52)

BoC's logo (top) and Saturn's celestial symbol (bottom)

Of course, the occult was hardly unknown to rock 'n' roll bands by the early 1970s, especially in heavy metal. But it was BoC's approach to the occult that set them apart from their peers. Black Sabbath's occult allusions were largely derived from comic books and Hammer horror films (at this point anyway) while Led Zeppelin (which did feature a very serious occultist in guitarist Jimmy Page) was far more likely to invoke Tolkien rather than Crowley. In Sandy Pearlman, BoC had an individual with both a serious interest in the occult, and a novel approach to incorporating it.

Blue Oyster Cult's self-titled debut took the occult out of the fantasy realms it had generally occupied in 1960s rock and placed it in a modern New York awash with amphetamines, motorcycle gangs and kinky sex. In point of fact, BoC's early image and lyrics would hint at several strands of modern conspiracy culture that would rise to prominence as the 1970s wore on. This of course begs the question of whether Pearlman's lyrics were purely coincidental, and if not, how informed he was by scenes happening around him in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Pearlman, along with the rest of BoC, famously hailed from Long Island. Long Island was actually the birthplace of the modern Wicca movement in America, at least officially. It occurred in 1969 when two followers of the legendary warlock Gerald Gardner would establish a coven there.

"...Raymond and Rowen Buckland, an English couple who emigrated to the suburbia of Long Island, New York, and brought the craft with them... To celebrate the move, the couple invited journalists from the Long Island Press and Newsday to witness a genuine Halloween Witches Sabbath. Dressed in black robes trimmed with gold, the couple led the reporters to their basement, fitted out with velvet drapes, candles and the inevitable pentagram. Then, stripping out of their robes, the Bucklands invoked the spirit of the autumnal equinox sky-clad."
(Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman, pgs. 243-244)

Raymond Buckland, a major player in them odern Wicca movement and former Long Island resident

As the 1970s made the scene Long Island, specifically Brooklyn, would become one of the major hubs of New York City's budding occult scene. Much of this would initially be based around Herman Slater's Warlock Shoppe, a place that has gained some notoriety over the years. Rogue historian Peter Levenda (who has been accused of being the author of the notorious Simon Necronomicon; this accusation has also been made at Pearlman) actually knew Slater and the Warlock Shoppe from the early days:

"...I was friendly with Herman Slater, the proprietor of the store, and had known him since the days when he ran the Warlock Shoppe in Brooklyn Heights where I lived. As the fame and notoriety of his establishment grew --being covered extensively in the overseas press as well as by local newspapers and television shows --he began to attract an equally notorious clientele. The Process would hang out at the Warlock Shop, as well as the odd Satanist and witches of various denominations. The Shop is alluded to several times in Maury Terry's The Ultimate Evil as a hangout for people who knew more about the Son of Sam murders than they were telling."
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pg. 253)

Herman Slater (right)

Veteran conspiracy buffs may be arching a few eyebrows right now. For those of you unaware, Levenda is referring to the Process Church of Final Judgement in the latter part of the above quote. The Process has been the subject of much controversy and speculation ever since Ed Sanders published his highly controversial 1972 Charles Manson expose' entitled The Family. More fuel was added to the fire when Maury Terry published The Ultimate Evil in the 1980s, a book revolving around the Son of Sam murders that also found links to the Process.

"Much ink has been spilled on the subject of the Process; Ed Sanders in the first edition of The Family links the Process with an amoebic network of death cults in California and from there Charles Manson; investigative journalist Maury Terry has linked them to Charles Manson as well as to the Son of Sam killings. The problem is that the linkages are there, but not enough to put a smoking gun in the hands of the Process itself."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pg. 298)

a Process altar

Ah, but that hasn't prevented many from trying. As the theory goes, the Son of Sam killer, David Berkowitz, was actually a member of the New York branch of a splinter group of the Process. Serial killer Stanley Dean Baker, the notorious Arlis Perry murder and the murder of film producer Roy Radin (who was himself a resident of Long Island) have all been linked to this splinter group of the Process, sometimes referred to as the 'Four-P Movement.' Incidentally, the bulk of the shootings attributed to David Berkowitz happened in Long Island, especially Queens.

Another strange overlap between the Process and BoC is the fixation both had with motorcycle gangs. In the case of the Process, this fixation extended to individuals associated with them. The after mentioned film producer, Roy Radin, was said to regularly entertain outlaw motorcycle clubs at his Southampton, Long Island residency, dubbed the 'Ocean Castle.' The Process apparently saw them as storm troopers of a coming apocalypse.

"In California, through the 1960s, leaders of the Process Church of Final Judgement actively recruited from the ranks of Hell's Angels and Gypsy Jokers, calling the bikers 'agents of Satan.' One Processean, known to the faithful as 'Brother Ely,' actively rode with the Jokers for two years, before a rumble with Angels drove him out of San Francisco during 1969."
(Raising Hell, Michael Newton, pg. 261)

Charles Manson also recruited from the ranks of various LA-based motorcycle clubs. BoC was famously the house band for a biker bar named Conry's, located along the Hempstead Turnpike, a road that stretches all the way from Queens Village to the Suffolk County town of Babylon. Historically, the major motorcycle club along the East Coast was an outfit known as the Pagans (though they've apparently lost some territory to the Hell's Angels in the North East in recent years). The Pagans were long considered one of the 'Big 4' among motorcycle clubs, along with the Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws. The Pagans have apparently always had a heavy presence in Long Island. According to this website, the Pagans have generally kept their headquarters in Long Island, alternating between Suffolk and Nassau counties.

Pearlman would perfectly capture the world Sanders would present to the public a few months later and which Terry would take to new levels in the 1980s: a world teetering on the edge, being driven mad by strange drugs, Satanic cults and bikers of the apocalypse. The opening track off of BoC's self-titled debut, "Transmaniacon MC," with its allusions to the highly ritualistic Altamont Free Concert, the Hell's Angels, and it's proclamation of "Those who did resign their souls/Transmaniacon MC," captured this world as well as anything ever released, including the works of Sanders and Terry. Of course, Sanders was also a resident of New York and a member of the rock group the Fugs, so perhaps he and Pearlman had a meeting of the minds before BoC released their debut... though I've found nothing online indicating that Sanders or Pearlman knew each other.

And so that was the state of affairs BoC found themselves in 1972 at the onset of the Black and White albums. They hailed from Long Island, an area with any number of strange individuals and groups about --Gardnerian witch covens, outlaw motorcycles clubs, the Warlock Shoppe clique, even the Process. They had a manager with a unique vision --one that fused 1960s garage rock and heavy psych with commercial heavy metal sonically; and serious occult imagery with the decadent side of Long Island lyrically. It would all come together over the course of the Black and White albums, climaxing with 1974's Secret Treaties, long considered by fans to be BoC's definitive work. It was this album that contained the great "Dominance and Submission," of which we shall finally examine in the next installment.