Back on THC

Greg Carlwood of The Higherside Chats (THC) was kind enough to have me back on the air recently. I had previously appeared on THC in 2017 to discuss The Nine, Roswell, and my "Fringe" series. This time around we tackled Jeffrey Epstein and a host of other related topics: NXIVM, Roger Stone (whose people had actually approached Greg about appearing on THC at one point!), Roy Cohn, Profumo and the extensive family connections between that decades old scandal and the names appearing in Epstein's black book, the World Commerce Corporation, the Anglo-American Establishment, and Robert Maxwell.

On that note, we also discussed new information not yet published on this blog further linking both Robert Maxwell and Epstein to Le Cercle. For those of you just joining the party, the Cercle is officially a foreign policy think tank, but in actuality has served as a vast private intelligence network since at least the late 1960s. It originally emerged in the 1952-1953 period as an auxiliary to the Bilderberg group. It always had a much more rightward drift, however. Much of its early membership was dominated by members of especially reactionary Catholic orders such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Opus Dei. In more recent years, it has become a kind of secret society behind the British Tories and driving force behind Euroscepticism and Brexit. Much more information on the Cercle can be found here.

Enjoy these new revelations. I'll be expanding upon them on a blog I'm currently working on that will also include source material.

Greg and I also fund time to address some of the bizarre aspects of the Epstein case, most notably the strange doings in New Mexico. If you want speculation on underground bases, black ops technology, and ancient astronauts, you will find it in this podcast. I also get around to ranting about the conspiratorial perspective of the Clintons and To the Stars Academy.

A portion of the podcast can be found here. The full two hours are only available in the members section.

For those of you looking for additional background material on my work on Epstein, check out these posts:

Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Epstein's Little Black Book
Epstein Dies: Long Live the New Mexico Connection?

For more information on Trump, Roy Cohn, and their criminal and deep connections, check here.

Oh, and I also announced that I've started working on book concerning Epstein and the network/cabal that spawned him. I'm tentatively calling it A Special Relationship. We'll see how that goes.

As always dear readers, I hope that you enjoy. Until next time, stay tuned.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

Yes, yes, yes, Jeffrey Epstein. In case on has been spending extended periods of time on the astral plane, I'm sure those of you who are reading this are well aware that the infamous financier and accused pedophile was arrested on July 6 for sex trafficking minors. These charges came over a decade after Epstein had received a slap on the wrist in Florida for similar allegations. Undeterred, Epstein's former victims had continued to hound the alleged pedophile in a series of lawsuits for much of the past twelve years. Finally, it seems, this dogged persistence may be paying off.

Predictably, Epstein's arrest has generated highly partisan reactions. The neoliberal mainstream is quick to point out that President Donald J. Trump once praised Epstein as a "terrific guy" and that the Orange One had had regular dealings with the accused child rapist during the 1990s and the 00s. Epstein was a frequent visitor to the Mar-a-Lago Club during this time frame and his personal address book included 14 phone numbers for Trump. What's more, at least one of the minor's allegedly abused by Epstein was recruited at Mar-a-Lago during the late 1990s. And then there's the fact that Trump's  now former Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta, is the one who gave Epstein a slap on the wrist in 2007 while he was serving as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2007.

Acosta

Unsurprisingly, Democrats have been doing a lot of crowing about these developments, proving that they have learned nothing in the wake of the disastrous Mueller Report. While there's no question that Trump knew Epstein socially, evidence of the Orange One engaging in the nefarious activities Epstein is known for is harder to come by. The same cannot be said of former President Bill Clinton. While the mainstream media has done all in their power to downplay Clinton's relationship with Epstein, there's no question that Clinton took over 20 flights on Epstein's private jet, dubbed the "Lolita Express." Nor do these activities appear to be the extent of the Clinton family's involvement with Mr. Epstein. Indeed, Epstein's own attorneys have alleged that Epstein played a crucial role in launching the Clinton Global Initiative.

Clinton (left) and Epstein (right)

Clinton is almost surely not the only prominent Democrat who will be linked to Epstein either. While party officials have tentatively acknowledged this, hope still springs eternal that the Orange One will also be laid low in the process. I for one would not count on it. Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in 2007, allegedly because he had sexually assaulted a minor there. Elsewhere Brad Edwards, an attorney representing several of Epstein's alleged victims, acknowledged that Trump was the only figure to offer him information on Epstein back in 2009. And as for Acosta, a curious explanation for the sweetheart deal he gave to Epstein in 2007 has emerged recently: he was told to go easy on Epstein because he was above his pay grade. Reportedly, this was due to Epstein's ties to intelligence.

And that brings us to what is easily the most interesting name to emerge in connection to the Epstein scandal: Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell has drawn shockingly little scrutiny in the Epstein scandal up to this point, and for good reason: A closer examination of her and her family lead to some truly disturbing rabbit holes that much of the power elite desperately want to remain buried.

Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?

The mysterious Ghislaine first appears to have entered Epstein's life some time around the mid-1990s. The British socialite had relocated to the United States in the early-to-middle part of that deacde, where she initially worked in real estate while living on a trust of $100,000 a year. Previously, she had attended Oxford University, a noted recruiting pool for the British secret services. This was hardly the first time that Maxwell was within the orbit of various intelligence services, as we shall see.

Reportedly, Maxwell began dating Epstein at some point during the late 1990s. This does not appear to have lasted long, but the two had developed a strong "platonic bond" in the process. By the early '00s, Maxwell had become a kind of high end assistant to Epstein, organizing much of his life for him. Apparently, this included his pedophilia. 

Maxwell has been named as a co-defendant  in multiple lawsuits involving Epstein. As far back the mid-1990s, she is accused of procuring underage girls for the disgraced financier. Reportedly, one of these women was recruited at Mar-a-Lago in 1999. This has led to accusations that Ghislaine Maxwell was effectively serving as Epstein's "madam" for his various exploits involving underage girls.

Maxwell

Maxwell appears to have had longstanding friendships with several of the men linked to Epstein. This includes President Trump himself, Bill Clinton (Ghislaine was a guest at Chelsea Clinton's 2010 wedding), and Prince Andrew. Many of these connections predated his relationship with Epstein and were almost surely derived from her father. 

Captain Bob

Ghislaine's father, Robert Maxwell, is one of the most curious figures in the annuals of parapolitics. Mainstream accounts of Maxwell often depict to him as little more than an eccentric and corrupt media baron, the Left's answer to Rupert Murdoch in a sense. At the height of his powers in the 1980s, Maxwell owned the British Printing Corporation (which he renamed the Maxwell Communication Corporation), Mirror Group Newspapers (publishers of the Labour-leaning tabloid the Daily Mirror), Pergamon Press, Nimbus Records (the first UK record company to issue compact disks), and the America wing of Macmillan Publishers. Maxwell even owned a stake in MTV in Europe at one point, making him one of the most influential media moguls in the Old World during this era. Previously, Maxwell had served as Labour MP in the House of Commons from 1964-1969.

What is little addressed in mainstream accounts of Maxwell's life is his longstanding ties to various intelligence services the world over, including MI6, the CIA, the KGB, and the Mossad. Indeed, Maxwell's rise as a media baron appears to have been aided in no small part by said services. Specifically, Pergamon Press (Maxwell's first publishing house, which he acquired in 1951) has quite a deep background. The publisher had its origins in two earlier companies, Butterworth Scientific Publications and Springer Verlag (the leading publisher of scientific books and journals in Europe prior to WWII), which specialized in scientific periodicals. Initially, the company was known as Butterworth-Springer, with Maxwell signing on as a managing director in 1949. This outfit was seen as an ideal venue to keep tabs on what the Soviet scientific community was up to at the onset of the Cold War.

"At that time, the British needed agents in Russia and people the Russians might entertain in their scientific community. Maxwell might do the trick, and more money allowed him to merge the German Maxwell-Springer publishing company with Butterworth press which itself sometimes acted as an MI6 front. In 1954, Maxwell traveled to Russia and put forward the idea of publishing translated Russian scientific papers which meant he then had access to Russia and its secrets, something he ruthlessly exploited and which was exploited by the East too as Maxwell had to produce a number of propaganda works which, however, sold few copies, if any. Thus Maxwell started on his life as an international go-between, the classic Jewish 'fixer'..."

(Thatcher's Secret War, Clive Bloom, pg. 192)

Robert Maxwell

How Maxwell ended up in this position is quite noteworthy. Maxwell was a Czechoslovakian emigre who spoke eight languages. He had fled the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, initially ending up in France. There he joined the Czechoslovakian Army in exile. After the defeat of France in 1940, he joined the British Army and served with distinction. By 1945, he had achieved the rank of captain. During the occupation of Germany, Maxwell's language skills came to the attention of MI6. 

One particular MI6  manwho became enamored with Maxwell was Count Frederick "Fanny" Vanden Heuvel. A Dutchman by birth, Vanden Heuvel was a papal count, giving him direct access to the Vatican. During WWII, the Count had been the MI6 station chief in Bern. There, he was in regular contact with Office of Strategic Services (OSS) station chief and future CIA director Allen Dulles. 

It was likely Vanden Heuvel who arranged the initial loan to Maxwell that enabled him to purchase Butterworth-Springer in 1951. 

"...There followed protracted negotiations organized by Vanden Heuvel and, in May 1951, Butterworth agreed to sell its interest to Maxwell for £13,000. Agreeing also to a change of name to Pergamon Press, Butterworth set aside a considerable debt of £10,000. 

"As his official biographer, Joe Haines, acknowledge, this was 'more money than Maxwell possessed at that moment, so he borrowed. He first went to Sir Charles Hambro.' Who introduced Maxwell to Hambro varies with the different accounts. Haines says it was via the Board of Trade (BoT); Maxwell said it was Whitlock; Betty Maxwell claims it was Vanden Heuvel, Hambro's business 'fixer'. Whoever it was, the meeting gave rise to a City legend that Hambro had been so impressed by the forward-looking Maxwell and sufficiently persuaded of his business acumen that he ordered the chief cashier to give Maxwell a cheque book with authority to draw cheques up to a total of £25,000. In fact, the legend was no more than a cover story. The meeting certainly took place, but the matter of money had already been fixed by MI6."

(MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Stephen Dorril, pg. 141)

In other words, Maxwell's media empire was effectively launched by Vanden Heuvel and Sir Charles Hambro. The latter name should certainly raise the collective eyebrows of regular readers of this blog.

Sir Charles

For the uninitiated, Sir Charles and the Hambro family were among the most powerful fixtures of the British establishment for much of the twentieth century (and likely beyond). The family had made its fortune in merchant banking. Hambros Bank was one of the leading financial institutions in Europe and one of the select banking houses that dominated the Bank of England (noted before here). Sir Charles himself had joined the Bank of England's board of directors in 1928 at the age of 30. In other words, Sir Charles was born into the absolute pinnacle of power within the British establishment.

Like many prominent Anglo-American VIPs, Sir Charles became involved with intelligence work during the Second World War. He joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a highly elite and secretive organization that was tasked with espionage, sabotage, and other covert operations behind enemy lines. The SOE would be considered masters of what is referred to as "unconventional warfare" nowadays. The Office of Strategic Services was largely modeled upon the SOE and their use of "stay-behind" networks in occupied territory would serve as the basis of what is now often referred to "Operation Gladio." More information on the SOE and its ties to stay-behind networks can be found here.

the emblem of the SOE

Sir Charles began his SOE career directing operations in Scandinavia. By 1942, he had become the director of the entire organization, a post he held through much of 1943. After the end of WWII and the shuttering of the SOE, Sir Charles still remained deeply involved in British intelligence. As was noted before here, Sir Charles and his bank would continue to support MI6 operations throughout the Cold War. Nor were these "official" operations the extent of Hambros involvement in covert activities. In the immediate aftermath of WWII, he also became a crucial figure in a curious entity known as the World Commerce Corporation (WCC).

"Sir Charles Hambro was joint head with the former chiefs of the BSC, Sir William Stephenson, and the OSS, 'Bill' Donovan, of the World Commerce Corp (WCC). Set up in 1946, the Panama-based WCC was intended as a 'bridge over the breakdown in foreign exchange and to provide the tools, machinery and "know how" to develop untapped resources in different parts of the world,' particularly re-equipping German industrial plant. A director claimed that 'if there were several WCCs, there would be no need for a Marshall plan.' There was also an intelligence role. Stephenson's BSC deputy, John Pepper, succeeded him as chair, while on the board were OSS officers Richard Sicre and William Horrigan. Sister corporations included the Transamerica Corp. under James F. Cavagnaro and the British-American-Canadian Corp., chaired by Hambro with former MI6 officer Sir Rex Benson and former US Secretary of State Edward Stettinus. Under its vice-president, Satiris 'Sonny' Fasboulis, who was linked to a number of Mafia-related scandals, Commerce International (China) sponsored military assistance to Taiwan."

 (MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Stephen Dorril, pg. 814 n27)

OSS founder and director William "Wild Bill" Donovan

How exactly the WCC was so flush with cash is something of a mystery. To be sure, it possessed a impressive roster of donors from many of the leading British, Canadian, and American families of that era. In addition to Hambro himself, funds were also provided by members of the Sassoon, Rockefeller, and Mellon families, among many others. But this funding alone likely could not account for how the WCC was able to dispense largess on par with the Marshall Plan during the early Cold War years. As was noted before here, there is compelling evidence that looted Nazi gold also provided some of the funding to the WCC. Unsurprisingly, the company has also been implicated in drug trafficking as well (noted here).

As such, the WCC is often described as a private intelligence organization, an apt description. But beyond that, it appears to have wielded power on par with what the early CIA and MI6 possessed. Indeed, it is likely that MI6 was dependent on the WCC for funding during the early years of the Cold War. The great Stephen Dorril described Sir Charles as "acting as a benefactor to MI6 good causes" (MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, pg. 142) during this era. The great Peter Dale Scott, the leading authority on the American deep state for decades, described the WCC in his classic America War Machine as being an offshoot of the original metagroup that has dominated American foreign policy for decades. The same is almost surely true in the UK among the British partners of the WCC.

And here is Robert Maxwell being set up by Sir Charles for his future media empire. Nor is Sir Charles the only connection Maxwell had to this WCC network. Dorril notes that Maxwell was being run as an agent by George Kennedy Young at the time Hambro approved his loan.

George Kennedy Young

Young was an especially right wing MI6 officer who achieved the rank of deputy director in 1959. He resigned in 1961 over dissatisfaction with the foreign policies of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. He would go on to join far right groups such as the Monday Club and even launched a militia during the 1970s. In Rogue Agents, the great David Teacher notes that while still with MI6, Young was part of a hardline covert action faction dubbed the "Robber Barons." This faction also included the infamous Lord Julian Amery, himself a veteran of the SOE.

In Deny and Disrupt, Rory Cormac notes that Amery possessed contacts the world over that surpassed those of MI6. As such, he appears in virtually every major British covert operations throughout the Cold War in some capacity. Amery also became involved with Le Cercle, the far right's answer to Bilderberg, during the 1970s. He would eventually become a chairman of this outfit during the following decade.

Amery was clearly in the orbit of the WCC-Hambro clique. During the 1970s, he was active in Le Cercle with Harry Sporborg, another SOE veteran who worked closely with Sir Charles during the war. In the postwar years Sporborg went to work for Hambros Bank and would aide Sir Charles and the bank in MI6-sponsored activities (briefly noted here) during the Cold War. Sporborg was active in other private intelligence activities as well (noted here).

Lord Julian Amery

Young frequently collaborated with Amery while working for MI6, and would later travel in many of the same far right political circles Amery was the patron saint of during this era. As such, Young was likely also a member of this network Sir Charles had established in the aftermath of WWII, a network specializing in private intelligence operations and possessing resources equal to if not surpassing MI6.

And this was the network that set up Captain Bob, as the great Private Eye often referred to Maxwell as. This is quite curious, given that Maxwell maintained close relations with the Soviets throughout his life and was a life long backer of the Labour Party (it probably goes without saying, but all the other gentleman mentioned in this section were Tories). Clearly, many of these aristocrats, imperialists, and merchant bankers were not especially concerned by Maxwell's alleged far left sympathies.

Eighties

Now that I've established the origins of Maxwell's media empire, it is time to focus our attention on the apex of Maxwell's empire. Naturally, the peak was reached during the 1980s. By this point in time, Maxwell was involved in a host of legendary conspiracies ranging from Iran-Contra to the Inslaw Affair. 

As to the latter, Inslaw was an IT company that developed a program known as PROMIS during the early 1980s. PROMIS had been developed for the Justice Department so as to turn the files of the federal court system into a searchable database. The CIA was so impressed with PROMIS that they pirated the software and inserted a "trapdoor" into it. The agency then created a host of front companies to sell the pirated version of PROMIS to banks and other leading financial institutions. The trapdoor enabled the CIA to covertly monitor international business transactions in this fashion. Reportedly, Maxwell played a crucial role in these intrigues. 

"... the US developed its own version of the back-door and the US and Israel began looking for a neutral company through which it could sell the program to foreign intelligence services. The company chosen for the task was Degem, a computer firm with offices in Israel, Guatemala and the South African Bantustan homeland. It had been taken over for the purpose by Robert Maxwell, the publishing mogul who drowned under mysterious circumstances in 1991. Through Maxwell's Degem... the software found a home with the military regime in Guatemala, where it tracked leftist insurgents. 'Even if they traveled under a false name, various characteristics, such as height, hair color, age, were fed into roadside terminals and PROMIS searched through its database looking for a common denominator. It would be able to tell an army commander that a certain dissident who was in the north three days before had caught a train, then a bus, stayed at a friend's house, and was now on the road under a different name. That's how frightening the system was.'... PROMIS was used in South Africa to track and squelch the organizers of a strike among the black coal miners via the mandatory identity cards. Degem also sold PROMIS to the Soviet Union and the system was utilized by its GRU intelligence service at least until the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev."

(The Octopus, Kenn Thomas & Jim Keith, pgs. 25-26)

And that brings us to one of the most curious aspects of Maxwell's deep background, most notably his dealings with the Soviet Union. Officially, Maxwell was part of a group of select Jewish financier the Soviet Union had begun to work with during the 1980s to reinvigorate its economy. Curiously, another one of these financiers was the Canadian Edgar Bronfman Sr., whose family owned Seagram. Bronfman's daughters would infamously become involved with the NXIVM cult, head by now-convicted pedophile Keith Raniere. The name of Bronfman's son, Edgar Jr., allegedly appeared in Epstein's black book, though this researcher has not been able to reliably confirm this claim yet. Keep the Bronfman connection in mind dear reader, as we shall return to it again.

Bronfman Sr.

Unofficially, Maxwell appears to have been a key point man in assisting the Soviet Union in privatizing its economy. During the 1980s, Maxwell was deeply involved with the government of Bulgaria, As was noted before here, during the same decade Bulgaria was a major mecca for both arms and drug trafficking. It was a highly lucrative market, which attracted spooks from both the East and West. Unsurprisingly, Maxwell found ample business opportunities there.

"... the cavalier tycoon certainly found the thriving atmosphere of anything goes attractive to his unorthodox business methods, not to mention the pressing needs of his various espionage clients. Dillon explained how Maxwell grabbed control of the Foreign Trade Bank, thanks to highly-placed stooges among the nomenklatura with political backing at the highest levels. The bank was then open to business as the centerpiece of a vast centrifugal, money-laundering operation, spraying the proceeds in all directions. Dillon's most explosive charge was not centered on Maxwell; it was his insistence that among the bank's customers were front organization sheltering the CIA, ever on the lookout for invisible ink to mask its global contraband chains."

(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pg. 205)

This is only scratching the surface of Maxwell's involvement in the Soviet bloc, however. In 1985, Maxwell brokered a rather lucrative deal between the Mossad and the KGB that allowed the Israelis to stash the money they had made off of arm sells to Iran (related to Iran-Contra) in the Soviet bloc.

"... the sheer simplicity of the deal was an added attraction. There would be no galaxy of middlemen chipping away their pieces of commission. There would be just 'Maxwell and his connections and Chebrikov, because of the power he wielded. His involvement was a guarantee the Soviets would not steal the funds. It was agreed the initial $450 million would be transferred from Credit Suisse to the Bank of Budapest in Hungary. That bank would disburse the money to other banks in the Soviet bloc.' "

(Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, Gordon Thomas, pg. 176) 

The above-mentioned Chebrikov was Viktor Chebrikov, the head of the KGB. The Mossad was represented at the meeting by Nahum Admoni, then the Director-General. In other words, Maxwell was able to bring together the heads of the KGB and the Mossad together in Thatcher's England to broker a deal concerning funds generated by Iran-Contra. Maxwell pocketed a cool $8 million for his assistance.

Chebrikov

It has been alleged by those such as Richard Cottrell that Maxwell on the whole played a crucial role assisting former Communist Party officials, especially those connected to the intelligence community, in transferring state assets to the private sector, ensuring that they were set for the post Soviet era. While this is all quite speculative, there's no question that Maxwell had also forged ties with the emerging Russian mafias during this era. In particular, Maxwell had set up Semoin Mogilevich with an Israeli passport that enabled the man who would eventually be dubbed the "boss of bosses" among the Russians mafias to travel international and set up over 50 business fronts. Maxwell also set up Mogilevich with a Swiss banker who had regular dealings with the Vatican Bank, among other prestigious clients. As I noted before here, Trump has been linked to Mogilevich's organization since at least the mid-1980s. Additional information on the links between the Trump and Mogilevich organizations can be found here.

Family Matters

All of this adds special significance to a party held on Robert Maxwell's yacht in 1989. But before getting to this party, a prudent question must be asked: Is there any evidence of Captain Bob being involved in elite pedophile entrapment networks?

As far as direct involvement is concerned, the answer is "no." But Maxwell's prior involvement with Hambro and his merry band of reactionary SOE and MI6 men raises another possibility. As was noted before here, many of the men linked to this network would end up joining Le Cercle by the 1970s. The Cercle complex was a powerful international body based in Europe that initially grew out of the infamous Bilderberg group. While staunchly pro-EU, Le Cercle was also fanatically anti-Communist and would gradually break with Bilderberg at some pint in the 1970s. The group's right wing drift was almost surely due to the fact that it was dominated for many years by reactionary Catholic orders such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Opus Dei. It was quite aristocratic as well --lots of knights, lords, and barrons among the membership list. For more information of Le Cercle, check out a prior series I did on it that can be found here.

The Cercle also had ample contacts among numerous intelligence services the world over. As such, it had effectively became a private intelligence network in its own right by the 1970s. Easily the most unsettling aspect of this development was the extensive links the Cercle complex forged with elite pedophile networks. Cercle members can be linked to some of the most infamous in Europe, such as in the UK and Belgium ones (noted before here), as well as to the Franklin ring in the US and the dreaded Colonia Dignidad in Chile (noted before here).

Colonia Dignidad

In other words, if there was some type of international pedophile entrapment ring as conspiracy theorists have long alleged, it seems likely that the Cercle complex was at the forefront of this network by the 1970s when many of Sir Charles Hambro's former SOE men began signing up with the organization.

As for Maxwell, many of his contacts with this network like Sir Charles and Count Fanny Vanden Heuvel were long dead by the 1980s. However George Kennedy Young, a frequent collaborator of future Cercle chairman Julian Amery, was still around and active. This researcher can not confirm if Maxwell was still in contact with his former handler, but there was at least one figure closely linked to the Cercle Maxwell maintained ties with during the 1980s:

The Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

As was noted before here, the Cercle had gone to great lengths to make Thatcher the prime minister. Additional information on these intrigues can be found in David Teacher's long suppressed Rogue Agents, which can be found here. That the Cercle would be interested in Thatcher is hardly surprising, but the same can not be said of Thatcher's relationship with Maxwell. After all, Captain Bob's media empire regularly attacked the Iron Lady while her MI5 and MI6 kept a close watch on the Captain. Despite this, the two seem to have had a surprisingly warm relationship and Thatcher had even considered using one of Maxwell's publishing houses to print her autobiography at one point.

"The crooked press baron had a close and curiously friendly relationship with Margaret Thatcher. 'Maxwell talked constantly about his respect and admiration for her,' said a source involved in the negotiations. 'He had done an important favor for her years ago and she was very grateful to him. He never said what it was but it was obviously quite significant.' Another source said, 'Maxwell was keen to but he thought it unlikely that Mrs. Thatcher would want him as the publisher. He liked her and said how helpful she was to big business in the 1980s.'

"As for Mrs. Thatcher, 'She told me she had no problems in being published by Maxwell,' said a Macmillan source. 'She said she admired Maxwell as a businessman and was not concerned about the attacks on her by the Mirror newspapers.' Her only public comment was after the publisher's death in late 1991: 'Mr. Maxwell kept me informed about what was happening in Eastern European countries and what their leaders were thinking.'

"It was not difficult to see why Maxwell and Margaret Thatcher admired each other. They saw each other as self-make people, outside the class-ridden British establishment. She respected wealthy, flamboyant and powerful business tycoons who fought their way up. Maxwell dealt with her as the head of government rather than as leader of the Tory Party. He was also commercially grateful for her for two key policies. The first was a reform of the trade-union laws, which he applied ruthlessly to his own employees. The second was the privatization of British Airways, which enabled him to buy British Helicopters International from the government for £30 million."

(Thatcher's Fortunes, Mark Hollingsworth & Paul Halloran, pgs. 295-296)

the Iron Lady

Indeed, it sounds like Thatcher even used Maxwell as a source of intelligence in Eastern Europe. Superficially, this is quite curious considering Maxwell's extensive KGB ties and long time support for the Labour party. This researcher suspects that the only way Maxwell would have been let into her confidence is if someone vouched for him --someone like the Cercle affiliates who had helped elect Thatcher and may have had dealings with Maxwell for decades.

It is also interesting that Maxwell did some type of significant favor for Thatcher. Of course, ample evidence has come out in recent years that Thatcher's administration was riddled with pedophiles (noted here). It is possible this favor involved keeping a prominent newspaper closely aligned with Labour from reporting on these developments?

Nor was Thatcher the only potential link Maxwell had to the Cercle complex in the 1980s. A close associate of his during this time was Edmond Safra. Safra was yet another Jewish businessman with reputed links to the Mossad, the KGB, and the Russia mafia. It would appear that Safra had some type of involvement with at least one Belgium Cercle partner linked to pedophilia during the 1980s. In addition to being close to Maxwell, Safra was also on good terms with Edgar Bronfman Sr., whom he served on the Board of Overseers of B'nai B'rith with. As was noted above, Bronfman's daughters would later be linked to the NXIVM cult.

Safra

And that finally brings us to the 1989 party noted above. Present on Maxwell's yacht were his daughter Ghislaine and a host of other VIPs. The two most noteworthy for our purposes here were Donald Trump himself and attorney Tom Bolan, the former law partner of Roy Cohn.

Cohn was of course Trump's former attorney and political mentor until his death in 1986. As I noted throughout my "Goodfellas" series, there is compelling evidence that Cohn himself was a central figure in sexual entrapment operations for decades. One of the most compelling instances involved the Profumo Affair, which brought down the government of Harold Macmillan in the UK (noted here and here).

Cohn

Julian Amery was Harold Macmillan's son-in-law and a member of his administration. As such, the fall of the Tory Macmillan would seemingly be a blow to the old Hambro network. But Amery and other far right, pro-Colonial Tories had become increasingly disillusioned with Macmillan's foreign policy (remember that George Young had resigned from MI6 in protest of these policies, as was noted above). What's more, none of these Tories (who then centered around the Monday Club) were implicated in Profumo. I've argued before here that these elements may have collaborated with Cohn's people in an effort to "purify" the Tories.

While this may seem a stretch, there is a precedent in latter intrigues. Colin Wallace, a former MI5 who was one of the first to blow the whistle on the Kincora Boy's Home pedophile scandal, had become involved with this reactionary network of Tories by the 1970s. In David Teacher's Rogue Agents, it is noted that Wallace was part of psyops operations being waged by right wing elements in MI5 to discredit Labour, Liberal, and Tory leaders alike. Specifically, this network sought to replace Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath (who attended Oxford with Amery and who is deeply implicated in pedophilia) with someone of a "more resolute approach." Someone like, say, Cercle favorite Margaret Thatcher. "Incidentally," it was around this time that rumors began to circulate that Heath was a homosexual.

Heath

As such, the possibility that the Hambro-Amery and Cohn networks had forged ties as far back as Profumo can not be discounted. By the 1980s, however, there was a more direct link: CIA director William Casey. Casey had been in the orbit of this Le Cecle/Tory network since at least the 1960s (noted here) and was actively involved with the Cercle by the 1970s. Here he would have surely encountered Amery and his merry band. This relationship appears to have continued up until Casey's death in 1987. Elsewhere, Casey worked closely with Cohn during the 1980s (noted here).

Casey

 As such, it seems quite likely that these networks were connected by that decade. What's more, this gives Maxwell's 1989 party an air of a meeting of the Five Families of the Pedophocracy, with Captain Bob representing the Tory wing (and likely KGB and Mossad as well) and Trump and Bolan representing the Cohn wing. What I seem to be describing here is a network of what the great David Teacher dubbed "rogue agents," intelligence assets from the US, UK, Israel, and the Soviet Union, among others, who came to a realization during the waning years of the Cold War that their continued power and influence in the new era would depend on pulling their resources. Access to damning evidence on an international VIP pedophile ring would certainly go a long way towards comprising their respective governments to be sure. And perhaps a new stage of this plot was launched around the time of that 1989 party. 

Ghislaine Maxwell attended this party and would continue to have dealings with Trump even after her father's death in 1991. By 1993, she appears to have made contact with Epstein. By the end of the decade, she is alleged to have recruited girls for him at Mar-a-Lago.

Certainly, this seems to stretch coincidence, especially considering that the NXIVM cult was also being tracked by another Cohn acolyte, Roger Stone, as I noted before here. Isn't it rather curious that two pedophile networks presently threatening to bring down the Democratic party (along with the Republicans and effectively the entire government of these United States) both appear to have been infiltrated by Cohn's minions?

And with that, I shall sign off for now dear readers. Keep the popcorn ready, as the fallout from this train wreck will likely make the Mueller report seem like a walk in the part. As always, stay tuned.

Secret Armies and the Origins of the Cercle Complex Part IV

Welcome to the long overdue forth installment in my examination of the origins of what is variously known as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle, the Pesenti Group, and a host of other names. This mysterious network has its origins in the 1952-52 period, beginning as an auxiliary of the infamous Bilderberg group. Officially, it was created to seek Franco-German rapprochement as necessary first step towards a United Europe. However, the founding members were all linked two especially reactionary Catholic orders, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM, more commonly known as the Knights of Malta) and Opus Dei. What's more, Le Cercle has long enjoyed close relations with the old European aristocracy, a relationship that appears to continue to this day.

As such, Le Cercle would gradually drift from the more capitalistic, technocratic, and American-centric Bilderberg group, especially over the issue of detente, in the 1970s. By the 1980s, it had effectively become the international right's counterbalance to Bilderberg. Much more information can be found on Le Cercle in my series on the complex.

As was noted there, Le Cercle appears to have long enjoyed a close relationship with the various "stay-behind" networks spread across Europe and Turkey. These networks were established by the intelligence services of the US and UK in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. In the event of a Soviet invasion, these networks would be used to wage a guerrilla war against conventional Soviet forces with the aid of US and UK special operations forces.

It is the purpose of this series to illustrate how the Cercle complex may have grown out of these stay-behind networks as a kind of coordinating body. Part one of this series considered the origins of these stay-behind networks in the World War II-era organizations known as the UK's Special Operations Executive (SOE). the US's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Nazi Germany's Amt VI-S of the Reich Main Security Office  (RHSA). The second installment considered how the Amt VI-S assets were transferred to a conglomerate known as SOFINDUS as the war was winding down while the third and most recent installment considered the mysterious World Commerce Corporation (WCC).

The WCC had been set up by OSS founder and director William "Wild Bill" Donovan in the wake of the OSS's dissolution and appears to have been used to stash away assets of that intelligence service. In the UK, famed spy William Stephenson established the British American Canadian Corporation (BACC) to do the same for SOE assets after that agency was was also shuttered. The WCC would ultimately acquire both the BACC and SOFINDUS by the end of the 1940s, giving the corporation assess to various special operators from the finest covert operations services the West produced during the Second World War.

While the SOE, or more precisely Operation Jedburgh, served as the model for the various Cold War era stay-behind networks, inspiration was also drawn from the OSS (which was the SOE's partner in Jedburgh) and especially Amt VI- S, which was overseen by the legendary Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny. As such, the WCC was likely at the forefront of establishing the stay-behind networks during the early Cold War. It did, after all, have ample expertise for such things to draw upon from.

Stay-behind Networks --Official and Unofficial

However, the waters of these stay-behind networks are quite murky. Much compelling evidence has emerged in recent decades indicating that not only were these networks designed to resist a potential Communist invasion, but also to suppress strong Communist parties and other left wing/anti-Atlanticist movements domestically. Both the stay-behind networks in Italy and Belgium in particular have been linked to extensive amounts of domestic terrorism during the "Years of Lead" and the "Bloody Eighties," respectively. More information on the Italian outrages can be found here, while Belgian atrocities were addressed here.

the aftermath of the Bologna railway station bombing

Furthering clouding the issue is compelling evidence indicating that there may have been multiple stay-behind networks in many of the nations ravaged by terrorism. In Italy, for instance, there was the "official" stay-behind network, which is often referred to as Gladio. It consisted of three main levels. The highest level, sometimes referred to as "parallel SID" or "Super SISMI," was a shadow intelligence service drawn from the ranks of "patriotic" elements of the Italian secret services. It was centered around Ufficio R of the various Italian military intelligence agencies, beginning with SIFAR and continuing through its successors, SID, and SISMI. It was controlled by NATO and the US intelligence community and nominally under the authority of reliable Italian statesmen. In fact, only select pro-Atlantic politicians and officials were even aware that it existed.

Below this level was another composed of regular units of the military and Carabinieri that would form either "stay-behind" or rapid response units in the event of invasion or an internal civil disturbance. Finally, the third level consisted of civilian stay-behind paramilitary groups. It was this level that was actually designated "Gladio." These civilian "Gladiators" were trained by special operations personnel and funded by the higher levels of this parallel apparatus. While many were law abiding anti-Communist, some were hard line fascists.

In addition to these three levels, there were also "mixed" civilian-military groups such as the Nuclei di Difesa dello Stato and the "presidentialist" Rosa dei Venti groups. While external of the "official" stay-behind network, these groups certainly collaborated at various times with each of the three levels. What's more, all these organizations were involved in infiltrating extremist elements of both the right and left while also recruiting from various criminal organizations to carry out illegal actions or "dirty tricks."

And yet there appears to have been another stay-behind network, more secretive than any of these, that actually carried out many of the outrages attributed to Gladio. This network predated US/UK efforts in Italy, and was variously known as "Anello" ("Ring" or "Link") or Il Noto Servizio ("the Known Service").

"... This civilian organization, composed of ex-military personnel, ex-RSI operatives, entrepreneurs, journalist, and right-wing activists, had originally been created – with a different name – by General Mario Roatta... in 1944. Later, apparently in exchange for assistance and taking refuge inside the Vatican and thence fleeing Franco's Spain in March 1945 so as to escape prosecution for war crimes, Roatta transferred control of the secret organization to the new postwar Italian state (or perhaps, according to some observers, to its American backers), and was thence headed for time by a Polish officer in General Wladyslaw Ander's Army named Solomon Hotimsky. The organization, which was headquartered in a palace in central Milan very near to the Carabinieri barracks on Via Moscova, thereafter intersected with many of the other secret structures... and it continued to operate until the mid-1980s. According to a member of the group... the name "Anello" was chosen for the organization by Andreotti himself after the SIFAR scandal erupted in the late 1960s.

"Throughout much of its history, 'Anello' was informally dependent upon the prime minister, most often Andreotti during the 1970s, but its 'dirty' operations to impede the left (perhaps including kidnappings and/or murders of 'troublemakers' made to look like 'accidents') were also reportedly 'aided' by personnel from the Defense and Interior Ministries, especially by Carabinieri seconded to SID and SISMI.... the 'Anello' entity was involved in a number of important covert activities, including both 'Plan Solo' and the Borghese Coup. In connection with the latter operation, 'Anello' operatives reportedly arranged for Borghese's flight to escape judicial punishment... The same organization was also implicated in facilitating the August 1977 flight and exfiltration from Italy of wanted Nazi war criminal Herbert Kappler; identifying (perhaps with the help of Brigate Rosse informants) the location of Aldo Moro's secret BR prison, which certain higher government officials intentionally did not act upon; and negotiating (with the help of mafiosi) the release of DC politician Ciro Cirillo (who had been kidnapped by the BR on 27 April 1981). Some have speculated that the apparent Mafia-sponsored assassinations of well-informed OP journalist Mino Pecorelli and General Carlo Dalla Chiesa may have been linked, at least in part, to the worrisome discovery of the existence of 'Anello.' "

(The Darkest Sides of Politics, I, Jeffrey Bale, pgs. 290-292) 

Mario Roatta, the alleged founder of "Anello"

It appears that Belgium also featured "official" and "unofficial" stay-behind networks as well. According to the great Daniele Ganser in the classic NATO's Secret Armies, Belgium in fact had two separate "official" stay-behind networks. One was dubbed STC/Mob, and was housed in the Surete (somewhat akin to the Belgian FBI, or a civilian MI5). It was considered a civilian network and fell under the purview of the Justice Ministry. The other, SDRA8, was housed in the SGR, a military intelligence service. As such, SDRA8 was under the control of the Defense Ministry and largely comprised of military personnel.

In addition to these "official" stay-behind networks, there appears to have been an unofficial network that had been organized by Paul Vanden Boeynants (VdB) and Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin. VdB was a political institution in Belgium, having served as prime minister twice ('66-'68 and '78-'79) in addition to having been the defense minister for much of the 1970s. De Bonvoisin was an extremely well-connected aristocrat whose father had helped set up the Bilderberg group.

de Bonvoisin

The origins of this shadow stay-behind network appear to trace back to the Belgian NEM Clubs of the 1970s. In 1971, VdB and Bonvoisin had helped establish the far right Nouvel Europe Magazine (NEM). Fascist militants soon established clubs amongst the magazine's readership so as to meet one another. By 1973, an especially militant organization had grown out of these clubs known as the Front de la Jeunesse.

Formal coordination was applied to this fascist underground in 1974 with the establishment of the Public Information Office (PIO). The PIO was headed by Major Jean Marie Bougerol, a member of SDRA8. The PIO was not a full blown government agency, however, but a public-private partnership sponsored by VdB and Baron de Bonvoisin. As such, the PIO was used from early on to carry out controversial actions against the left.

"... PIO had two official missions, the first of which was to expose Soviet disinformation in the media, largely through the publication of a press review called Inforep. PIO's second task was to act as a clearing-house for information on subversion, distributing information to the Army, the Gendarmerie, the Sûreté de l'Etat - Belgium's internal security agency, and the Foreign Ministry Security Division. Unofficially, Bougerol used PIO to mount the same kind of aggressive counterintelligence programmes that the FBI had been conducting in America under COINTELPRO against the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement from 1969 until at least 1976 (254)."

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 124)

The PIO appears to have become the meta group behind militant right wing organizations such as the above-mentioned Front de la Jeunesse and the NEW Clubs, both of which had been created with the assistance of VdB and de Bonvoisin. By the mid-1970s, the PIO appears to have laid the foundation for an even more militant group.

"To return to PIO, from the outset, Bougerol used his earlier contacts with the extreme Right for PIO operations. As part of his counter-subversion work, Bougerol gave lectures to reserve officers, many of whom were recruited as PIO agents. One of the reserve officers' clubs at which Bougerol lectured was the Brabant Reserve Officers' Club (BROC), which in 1975 was given the task of bolstering the patriotism of other reserve officers' clubs. BROC's members included not only AESP member Baron Bernard de Marcken de Merken and Colonel Paul Detrembleur, who helped set up the DSD and would later head the SDRA from 1981 to 1984 at the height of the strategy of tension in Belgium, but also Paul Latinus, the Belgian Delle Chiaie, protégé of de Bonvoisin. A former leader of the Front de la Jeunesse financed by de Bonvoisin, Latinus would later emerge as commander of the fascist parallel intelligence service Westland New Post (WNP), a key component in Belgian parapolitics in the 1980s covered in detail in a later chapter. According to Sûreté sources, Latinus was recruited into PIO by Bougerol in 1977; in his limited testimony to the Belgian Parliament's Gladio Inquiry, Bougerol at least admitted having met Latinus (266). "

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 127)

As was noted before here, the Westland New Post (WNP) would be a the forefront of right wing terrorism in Belgium during the so-called "Bloody Eighties." The founder and director of the WNP, the above-mentioned Paul Latinus, had been recruited into the American DIA while still seventeen. As such, it is highly probable the actions of the WNP were being sanctioned and even directed from a very senior level in the Belgian state.

The PIO network then appears to have served the same function as "Anello" in Italy, namely to perform "duties" that were too controversial for the official stay-behind networks. Frequently, these duties involved blatantly criminal actions. As such, these networks frequently leaned on right wing extremists and organized crime elements to accomplish its tasks.

At this point, it is also interesting to note the close links these "unofficial" stay-behind networks have to Le Cercle. While this researcher is unclear as to when famed Italian statesman Giulio Andreotti became involved with "Anello," it appears to have been under his control by at least the 1970s, if not sooner. This is most interesting, for Andreotti was a founding Cercle member in the 1952-1953 period.

Andreotti

As for the PIO network, its patrons were VdB and de Bonvoisin. The career trajectory of VdB was quite similar to that of Andreotti. Both men were long serving politicians who were major powers within the the Christian Democratic parties they belonged too (Christian Democrats were the political parties the US intelligence community frequently sought to collaborate with in Europe). Both men had served as prime ministers, and both had spent an extended period of time heading their respective defense ministries. As such, this would have left either man well placed to monitor the activities of these stay-behind armies, both official and unofficial, for many years. It is thus unlikely that they would have been allowed to hold such posts for so long without approval from the US and NATO.

VdB

Naturally, both VdB and de Bonvoisin were members of the Cercle complex. VdB appears to have signed up by at least the early 1970s, and de Bonvoisin was not far behind. As such, the Cercle complex appears to have been firmly in control of the unofficial stay-behind networks in Italy and Belgium by at least the 1970s, just as these networks were being put towards especially militant uses.

But this series is about the origins of the Cercle complex, which dates back to the 1950s. What's more, the French partners appear to have been at the forefront of establishing and sustaining the Cercle during the early years. As such, it behooves us to briefly consider the stay-behind networks that existed in France at the onset of the Cold War.

French Secret Armies

France was one of the earliest recipients of a stay-behind network, with only Italy's predating it. This is hardly surprising, given the strength of the French Communist Party (PCF) during this time. As with their counterparts in Italy, the French Communists were very popular among the public at large in the aftermath of WWII due to their efforts in the Resistance and general opposition to Fascism. Indeed, the PCF was easily the strongest Communist party outside of Italy, boasting nearly a million members by 1946.

As such, the PCF was able to achieve major victories at the polls during municipal elections during the spring of 1945 and at the national level during elections in October of that year. The latter contributed to the dramatic resignation of Charles de Gaulle in January of 1946. This paved the way for the Socialist party to assume power, but the PCF again dominated elections in November of 1946. 

All the while, the US and UK had become increasingly concerned as there was a real possibility a Communist regime would come to power in France, and likely through democratic means. This led to the first official stay-behind network in France to counter these developments. 

"On the initiative of the US and the British Special Forces SAS a secret army was set up in France under the codename 'Plan Bleu' (Blue Plan) whose task was to secretly prevent the powerful PCF from coming to power. The Blue Plan, in other words, aimed to prevent France from turning red. Victor Vergnes, one of the French secret soldiers who were recruited for the Plan Bleu army, recalled that in the immediate post-war years the stimulus had come from the British. 'At the time I lived in Sete in the house of commander Benet, a DGER officer formally active in missions in India. Numerous meetings took place during that time in his house.' The SAS, specialised in secret warfare, contacted the newly created French secret service Direction Generale des Etudes et Recherches (DGER) and agreed with them to set up a secret army in northern France across the Channel in the Bretagne. 'One day,' Vergnes recalled, 'after he had been visited by lieutenant Earl Jellicoe of the SAS, he said to me: "We are setting up a secret Army, especially in the Bretagne area".'

"The cells of the secret army soon spread across all of France. Involved were numerous agents and officers of the DGER. It was noteworthy that the DGER under Director Andre Devawrin included also members of the Communist resistance. Conservative agents and above all the United States considered the presence of Communists in the DGER to represent a security risk. This applied above all to top-secret operations targeting the French Communist such as Plan Bleu. Therefore the DGER was closed down in 1946 and replaced by a staunch anti-Communists new military secret service SDECE under Henri Alexis Ribiere. With the replacement of the DGER by the SDECE, the Communist lost an important battle in the secret war in France as the SDECE became its most dangerous opponent. Trained anti-Communists from the civil war in Greece were recruited as the SDECE shifted to the right..."

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 87)

the above-mentioned Earl Jellicoe, a British aristocrat and military officer who traveled in many of the same circles as the future British Cercle members

These developments put the French Socialists in a precarious position. On the one hand, they knew collaboration with the PCF was out of the question. France desperately needed access to US funding in order to rebuild, and there was no way the United States would make these funds available for a Communist government. On the other hand, Plan Bleu and the presence of so many right wing extremists among the secret soldiers greatly unnerved the Socialist government

As such, the Socialists tried to counter both factions. In May of 1947, Socialist Prime Minister Paul Ramadier ousted the Communist ministers from his cabinet, denying the PCF access to any crucial post in the national government. While this move no doubt pleased the Americans, a month later Edouard Depreux, the Socialist Minister of the Interior, outed Plan Bleu and alleged that it was being used for the purpose of a coup that would take place later that year.

Paul Ramadier (top) and Edouard Depreux (bottom), both of whom played a key role in preventing a stealth take over of France by either the Soviet Union or the Anglo-Americans

Ganser goes on to dispute just how series the alleged coup really was. Certainly the Socialist didn't seem to have been especially concerned, as they took numerous steps to counter the Communist in the aftermath of the exposure of Plan Bleu. This included creating a paramilitary anti-Communist police unit operating under the Interior Minister, a psychological warfare campaign, and creating a new stay-behind network. The former two will be addressed in a future installment, but for now a few words shall be said concerning Stay-Behind Network Mach II.

This one was dubbed Rose des Vents (Rose of the Winds, i.e. Compass Rose). Curiously, Italy also had a Compass Rose, the above-mentioned Rosa dei Venti.

"While Rome magistrates were investigating the Borghese coup a parallel investigation in northern Italy was uncovering the activities of the Rosa dei Venti (Compass Rose) conspiracy. According to some accounts, the organization took its name from the compass rose, the star-like shape which marks the four points of the compass and which has been adopted as the symbol of NATO. Others suggested that it was a loosely knit association linking twenty, and later more, right-wing subversive organizations. What is certain is that the Rosa dei Venti was involved in coup-plotting in the early Seventies and was financed by a number of wealthy northern industrialists. It also appears to have enjoyed the usual support of the NATO security establishment..."

(Puppetmasters, Philip Willan, pg. 99)

NATO's banner

Or maybe not so curious. As was noted above, the Rosa dei Venti also appears to have been linked to the Italian stay-behind network. In France, it was the principal stay-behind network until the early 1960s. And its mission was ambitious, if nothing else.

"... According to the overall CIA and NATO planning for anti-Communist secret warfare in Western Europe the Rose des Vents army within the SDECE had the task to locate and fight subversive communist elements within the French Fourth Republic. Furthermore it had to undertake evacuation preparations and provide for a suitable exile based abroad. The Rose des Vents secret army was trained to undertake sabotage, guerrilla and intelligence-gathering operations under enemy occupation. France was divided into numerous geographical stay-behind zones, to which secret cells were allocated, with each zone being supervised by an SDECE officer. An exile base for the French government was installed in Morocco in northern Africa, and the SDECE sent some of its microfilm archives to Dakar in Senegal."

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 90) 

As with Plan Bleu, Rose des Vents nominally fell under the purview of the SDECE (though it has been alleged that a secretive Gaullist group working through the SDECE is whom actually set up Rose des Vents). However, it appears that much of the training and support was provided by the infamous 11th bataillon parachutiste de choc (11th Shock Parachute Battalion), more commonly known as the 11th Choc (11th Shock). This was the paramilitary arm of the SDECE, often compared to the British Special Air Services (SAS), though it drew as much inspiration from the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Indeed, two 11th Shock commanders, Paul Aussaresses and Jean Sassi, were veterans of the SOE's Operation Jedburgh.

The 11th Shock was at the forefront of French efforts to maintain their colonial holdings in the aftermath of the Second World War. The unit saw heavy fighting in the French-Indochina War and Africa, most notably during the Suez Crisis and the Algerian War. After the disastrous defeats in Indochina and Suez, elements of the 11th Shock became increasingly radicalized. In 1958, as public support for the Algerian War began to waver, elements of the unit began to plan a coup to restore de Gaulle to power while other members remained loyal to the government. When word of the coup got out, the SDECE headquarters in Paris was surrounded by elements of the 11th Shock loyal to the Fourth Republic.

the insignia of the 11th Shock

A full blown civil war between the 11th Shock would wait until 1961, when another coup was planned. This one was in response to de Gaulle's decision to grant Algerian independence. After years of bloodshed and humiliation in the colonies, this was unacceptable to elements of the French military. Members of the Army's 5th (Psychological Action) Bureau, the French Foreign Legion, and especially the elite paratroopers, staged the infamous "general's putsch" of April 1961. After the putsch was defeated, remnants of the coup plotters used the Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS: Secret Army Organization) to carry on the fight. Terrorism was a favorite tactic of the OAS.

Several noteworthy members of the 11th Shock would join the OAS, including Yves Godard (a former commander of the unit), and Yves-Felix Marie Guillou, more commonly know as Yves Guerin-Serac. Guillou would go on to found Aginter Press, which was linked to right wing terrorism in three separate continents. More information Aginter can be found here. Guillou would alter forge ties with Le Cercle's Belgian partners as well (noted here).

Aginter Press has long been linked to the stay-behind networks of Italy and Portugal as well. As such, there has been much speculation as to the role the stay-behind network played the general's putsch.

"The OAS coup came on April 22, 1961 when four French Generals under the leadership of General Challe seized power in Algeria in an attempt to maintain the country's union with France. Allegedly, secret soldiers of the CIA-supported NATO stay-behind army who had joined the OAS were directly involved. The secret soldiers 'supported a group of generals who were resisting, sometimes violently, de Gaulle's attempts to negotiate Algerian independence and end the war'..."

(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Gander, pg. 95)

But the OAS wasn't the only faction in the 11th Shock or the stay-behind network. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a curious organization was founded known as the Service d'Order du RPF. This outfit was essentially meant to be the dirty trick and paramilitary arm of de Gaulle's Rassemblement du Peuple Francais (RPF) party, but would soon turn into the general's personal Praetorian guard and an unofficial French intelligence service. Unsurprisingly, it had ample supporters in both the SDECE and the 11th Shock. Jacques Foccart, the director and "spiritual father" of the successor organization to Service d'Order, Service d'Action Civique (SAC), was a reserve officer in the 11th Shock. He was not alone.

"... After the war Foccart entered de Gaulle's inner circle and set up the SAC. The secret warfare school that he established at Cercottes near Orleans 'became a place of pilgrimage for SAC members in the 1950s.' SAC in the post-war years had a membership of nearly 8,000 'reservists', including active members of the SDECE covert action department Service Action, and the SDECE elite combat unit the 11th du Choc. Together they all trained in Cercottes, and in the wake of the 1990 Gladio discoveries the secret warfare centre was revealed as one of the places where the French Gladiators had received their training."

 (NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 100)

Foccart

According to Major Ralph P. Ganis in The Skorzeny Papers, it was actually the Service d'Order, working through the SDECE and 11th Shock, that had set up the Rose des Vents as Communist penetration of the SDECE was still a concern. The Service d'Order was briefly disbanded in 1954, but was again reactivated in 1958 as the SAC for the coup that brought de Gaulle back to power. As such, it would have worked directly with future OAS members in restoring de Gaulle to power. It probably goes without saying, but Rose des Vents network likely played a role in this coup as well.

After the defeat of the 1961 putsch, it was the SAC that took the lead role in combating the OAS.

"... SAC... executed ruthless counterterror operations against the OAS. Recruited into the ranks of the SAC where the barbouzes, or 'bearded ones,' including criminal elements and Vietnamese experts in torture. This description appears to match the French news reporting on the 'Yatagan Commando,' composed of French veterans and Vietnamese targeting the OAS..."

(The Skorzeny Papers, Ralph P. Ganis, pg. 243)

Ganser alleges that after the 1961 general's putsch, de Gaulle crippled the Rose des Vents network and then effectively transformed the SAC into France's stay-behind network. Of course, the SAC may well have been the organization directing the Rose des Vents network in the early years, so this transfer probably consisted of locating the Gaullist loyalists while drumming out the pro-NATO faction. The SAC would become a powerful body within the French deep state --future President Jacques Chirac had directed the SAC during the mid-1970s while serving as prime minister, for instance.

As for the OAS, it had been fairly soundly defeated by the SAC and other Gaullist allies by 1962, but the organization was not formally dissolved until 1965. Remnants would continue to soldier on in Aginter Press and like organizations until 1968. The May of '68 student revolt forced de Gaulle into declaring an amnesty for the OAS. For here on out, elements of SAC and what was left of the OAS would begin collaborating again. As such, it is possible the Rose des Vents network was revived in some form at this point, though the details of French stay-behind networks are hazy beyond the 1960s.

The Service d'Order appears then to have played a role in similar to the "Anello" network in Italy during the early years of the French stay-behind network. However unlike "Anello", which was controlled by a reliably Atlanticist politician, de Gaulle had always been weary of his US and UK partners. As such, when the Service d'Order was reactivated as the SAC, it appears to have been used to form an anti-NATO stay-behind network. It is of course quite possible that the Rose des Vents network served the foundation for the new SAC, but by the early 1960s there appear to have been two parallel stay-behind networks, one loyal to de Gaulle and the other to NATO (the OAS). As such, the waters were quite murky indeed in France by this time.

At this point I will sign off for now. With the next installment we'll consider one particular anti-Communist organization the Socialists set up in the early days of the Cold War and its overlap with the Cercle complex. Until then, stay tuned dear readers.