Conspiracy Roundup (07-03-2016)

Drawing mostly upon Annie Jacobsen’s The Pentagon’s Brain, is a summary of some important details in the history of DARPA. The article, by Jake Anderson, purports to be a list of “15 historical facts.” But upon further investigation, some claims do not hold up.

“14. Four nuclear bombs were detonated during the Cuban Missile Crisis” It’s true there were four high-altitude tests during the Cuban Missile Crisis, however it was two from America and two from Russia. In November, after the crisis, the US exploded two more high-altitude bombs, dubbed Kingfish and Tightrope, as part of Operation Fishbowl. Russia was as crazy as America during these years. The summary mentions nothing about the former—a reflection of anti-American bias prevalent in conspiracy circles.

ARPA was not wholly responsible for these atmospheric tests. They did have a stake in it though.

I agree with Robert Schaefer’s statement in his review of Jacobsen’s book:

Perhaps because of the adverse consequences of Operation Argus, there was a treaty to halt to above ground nuclear testing soon after. But not too soon after, for during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there w[e]re four (four!) nuclear detonations in space, two by the U.S. and two by the Soviets. Exploding nuclear weapons in the middle of a nuclear crisis shows how insane the world was in the 1960s. For more information on these tests, do not look to The Pentagon’s Brain, instead Google “Operation Fishbowl,” “Checkmate,” and “Bluegill Triple Prime.”

“12. DARPA scientists drew up plans to nuke the Ho Chi Minh Trail…” The Jasons did, but they were not “at one time a dominant and prolific division within DARPA,” as Anderson contends. They advised ARPA and then DARPA, but were not at any time a “division” of it.

“9. DARPA’s anti-polio vaccination campaign exposed millions of Americans to the ‘cryptic human infection’ of monkey virus.” Not true. DARPA had nothing to do with the polio vaccine, nor does Jacobsen imply that they did. The only reason the polio vaccine was even mentioned in her book was because Stephen M. Block, a Jason scientist, drew attention to it as example of a possible stealth virus for biological warfare—the vaccine was prepared with Simian virus 40 (SV40). The Jasons had nothing to do with the polio vaccine, nor did ARPA. Further, when Anderson writes that DARPA carried out an “anti-polio vaccination campaign,” it doesn’t bode well for his reading comprehension. The “anti-polio vaccination campaign” was a well-warranted public outcry. Blame the National Institute of Health and Merck for SV40, not DARPA or the Jasons.

“7. DARPA’S Dark Winter war game simulated a biological terrorist attack…” False. Not a DARPA project. Why Jacobsen even mentions Dark Winter in a book about DARPA is unclear, other than being in a chapter about biological warfare. No connection to DARPA is made.

“5. Under the umbrella of a system known as Total Information Awareness, DARPA spearheaded” Actually it was the Information Awareness Program (IAO) that was the “umbrella of a system.” The uproar about the IAO was threefold: (1) conspirator John Poindexter was appointed its head, and when their website finally went online in mid-2002 visitors were confronted with (2) an ominous all-seeing eye pyramid logo casting its gaze upon the globe and an outline of a proposed surveillance program called (3) Total Information Awareness. Conspiracy Archive had a hand in drawing attention to the site with a story that was shared all over the net; the San Francisco Chronicle even acknowledged as much.

To Jacobsen’s credit, she managed to interview IAO’s Deputy Director Dr. Robert Popp, who admits that despite Congress cancelling the program, the plans and operations were secretly transitioned to other agencies:

“Some of the TIA programs had been canceled, some were transitioned to the intelligence community,” says Popp with an insider’s knowledge available to few, most notably because, he says, “the transitioning aspects were part of my job.”

On the overreach of NATO into a veritable global empire. Joan Roelofs writes with an obvious socialist slant but I appreciate the detail, and the inclusion into the discussion of both Gladio and the Bilderberg group.

The success of NATO during its formative years, in concert with European integration, could not have been achieved without the private discussions at Bilderberg. From the late-50s until the present, a representative of NATO participated at nearly all the Bilderberg Conferences.

Many a socialist partook at Bilderberg too, but a general agreement against Soviet communism was that in the West at least you had relative freedom to disagree with the government—that is without a bullet to the head or being starved/worked to death in a labor camp.

Thomas W. Gijswijt’s 2007 PhD thesis on the Bilderberg Group (Uniting the West: The Bilderberg Group, the Cold War and European Integration, 1952–1966), analyzed the speeches and viewpoints of the early Bilderberg participants. On the whole, the discussions about the communist problem were surprisingly measured. At the 18-20 March 1955 Bilderberg conference in Barbizon, France, for example, the European participants did not hesitate to criticize McCarthyism, while the American participants tried to assure their European counterparts that the worst was over and that the majority of the populace weren’t reactionaries. Three approaches to the challenge of communism were put forth:

The first approach was to deal with communism mainly as a security threat to the state. The second approach emphasized more effective and coordinated counter-propaganda measures. The third approach was to treat international communism mainly as a combined socio economic and political challenge to the western system of democratic capitalism. Of course, these three approaches overlapped to some extent; everyone understood that no approach could succeed in isolation. However, the Barbizon discussions showed a clear preference for the third approach (Gijswijt 73).

Of course, there were hardliners as well. Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, former head of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during WWII, according to Gijswijt, “was strongly in favor of curtailing Soviet activities in Western Europe,” arguing that “there was a state of emergency comparable to the late-1930s which necessitated tough action”:

There is in Moscow, as we in this room know, a central organisation built up of many country sections, where the head of each section is a man charged with the disruption of a particular country – the disruption of Great Britain, of the Netherlands, of France, and so on. He may have many subordinates. He is aware of movements in those countries. He gets reports from those countries; he sends instructions; he sends men; he sends money; he recruits new men. There is a man working quietly to destroy us. […] We are choosing to go, as Mr. Pinay said at our last meeting, to a nice gentle death; and it is certain to come unless we take vigorous, definite and effective action […] Barbizon Transcript. English IV. p. 25 (ibid).

Gubbins was privy to the initial talks in 1952 that led to the formation of the Bilderberg group and was on the organization’s Steering Committee throughout the 50s and into the 60s. Bilderberg founder, Dr. Jozef Retinger, was a good friend of Gubbins. The latter, as head of the SOE, in 1944, had “arranged for [Retinger] to be parachuted into Poland with several million dollars for the Polish Resistance.” After the war they were heavily involved with the European Movement and the British Section of Retinger’s European League for Economic Co-operation (ELEC) was chaired by Gubbins.

Gubbins also has the distinction of organizing the British Gladio/stay-behind networks (see Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, 2005, pp. 41-42).

Besides Gubbins, other former members of the British Secret Services who partook at Bilderberg during its formative years were Victor Cavendish-Bentinck (Steering Committee), Christopher Foster, Hugh Gaitskell (Steering Committee) and H. Montgomery Hyde.

It seems Justice Scalia was a member of the International Order of St. Hubertus (Internationale St. Hubertus-Orden) after all, according to the Austrian Magazine Kurier. Maternus Lackner, the Grand Prior of the Austrian Bailiwick, confirmed that Justice Scalia was a member of the elite hunting order.

Scalia was found dead at Cibolo Creek Ranch, owned by John Poindexter who is the head of St. Hubertus Southwest Priory “which includes Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico.” When interviewed by The Washington Post, Poindexter denied that Scalia was a member.

The Houston Chronicle article in 2011 pegged their membership in the US at 250, with some 600 members worldwide. Internationally, they have Bailiwick’s in Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, America, Canada and Hungary.

To get up to speed on the story, the following is recommended:

• WaPo: Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters
• Salon: Scalia’s elite hunting pals: Meet St. Hubertus, patron saint of rich guys with guns
• Two posts from the Laws of Silence: Night of the hunter and The Order of St. Hubertus (and other assorted Bavarians and Bohemians)

The Order was founded by Imperial Count Franz Anton von Sporck (1662-1738). In 1684 Sporck had inherited a palace in Prague, large tracks of land and estates at “Lysa nad Labem, Malesov, Konojedy, and Choustnikovo Hradiste.” When mineral springs were discovered on the last-named estate Sporck built his own residence there at Kuks. Previously, during a grand tour of Europe (1680-81), a tradition among nobleman, Sporck became enthralled with the look and sound of the French cor de chasse [hunting horn] at Versailles, and “sent two of his huntsmen to Paris for training on the horn. Hornists were then utilized by Count von Sporck in his hunts and his own personal orchestra in Bohemia.” Hunting hounds from France were introduced as well and Sporck created the St. Hubertus Order in 1695 in a bid for prestige.

The Order consisted of an aristocratic society of Par Force hunters (hunting with hounds). Daily prayers were offered to St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters. The main celebration of the Order occurred on the feast day of the saint, November 3rd, followed by a solemn Grand Mass.

Members initiated by Sporck include Emperor Charles VI; Infante Manuel, Count of Ourém; Anton Ulrich, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen; the King of Poland, Augustus II the Strong and his wife Maria; three Saxon princes; Moritz Adolf, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz-Neustadt and later Bishop of Hradec Kralove; Dames Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria, the brother of Emperor Charles VI, and Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Savoy; Prince Eugene of Savoy and his nephew Prince Emanuel; Karl Albrecht, Elector of Bavaria who later became Emperor Charles VII; Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, later to become Emperor Francis I; among others.

Friends in high places, indeed.

Nowhere is it made clear how the Order continued up to the present. At the very least, given the widespread web presence, one should be able to view a succession of Grand Priors. No such luck. They merely recount the founding in 1695, mention nothing at all about the fate of the Order after Sporck’s death in 1738, jump exactly 200 years (coincidentally?) to 1938 when their (unnamed) Grand Master was murdered by the Nazis for refusal to initiate Hermann Goering, and end it with the restitution of the Order in 1950 after the Nazis presumably banned them and/or destroyed most of their archives.

It’s a nice touch that the American chapter was founded at the Bohemian Club, though. Justice Scalia was mentioned in numerous places over the years as attending the Bohemian Grove summer encampment. I haven’t seen a bona fide list with his name on it yet, but surely someone like Peter Martin Phillips could confirm or deny.

Count von Sporck was no doubt influenced by a more illustrious Hubertusorden, founded in 1444 by Gerhard VII, Duke of Jülich-Berg—int-st-hubertus-orden.de presumes as much. It was a strictly knightly/military order rather than a hunting fraternity—St. Hubert was the patron of knights and hunters—whose lineage can be traced through successive Grand Masters up to the present.

Bavarian Elector Karl Theodor, the suppressor of the Illuminati, was the Grand Master of Hubertusorden during the Enlightenment. At least two members of the Illuminati are known to have been knights of the Order: Count Friedrich Lothar Ferdinand von Pappenheim (1727-1792) and Georg Friedrich, Baron von Zentner (1752-1835).

Another contemporary knight of the Order of St. Hubert is Prince Jerzy Marcin Lubomirski (1738-1811), who had the distinction of being the only non-Jewish adherent of Jacob Frank (1726-1791), the Sabbatean/antinomian self-proclaimed messiah.

“Officially appointed General of the Army of the Kingdom of Poland,” writes Jan IJ. van der Meer, Lubomirski’s “contemporaries knew him better as a plunderer, a bandit, a man who had even been condemned for murder, and a sexual pervert. In short, he was a man who did not abide by any law or social convention, and could afford to live in such a manner only because he belonged to the nation’s most wealthy nobility.” [Literary Activities and Attitudes in the Stanislavian Age in Poland (1764-1795): A Social System?, Brill, 2002, p. 147]

Such a man would naturally be attracted to the Frankist movement. After having escaped a death sentence for desertion and banditry and squandering away a vast fortune, “the ruined prince approached Frank about becoming commander of his militia.” Frank replied that he would be delighted to offer “Your Highness the command of his personal guard.” Frankist historian Pawel Maciejko describes the subsequent encounter in his Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755-1816:

A meeting between the parties was a contest of fancy and fashion: Frank appeared in a red silk żupan set with ermine and a tall fur hat adorned with heron feather and a brilliant-studded clasp, with a large diamond star shining on his chest. Lubomirski wore a white, gold, and red parade uniform of a general, with numerous decorations, including the Order of Saint Hubertus on a sash. Both gentlemen displayed “the most exquisite politeness and chivalry” (p. 214-15).

He again wore the “large star of the order of Saint Hubertus on his chest” during the pompous three-day funeral procession for Jacob Frank, December 1791 in Offenbach (ibid. p. 235).

Lubomirski was a member of the “Bon Pasteur” masonic lodge in Warsaw, according to the Polish historian Ludwik Hass who saw his name on a certificate. Christopher McIntosh spends four pages discussing the lodge in The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and Its Relationship to the Enlightenment (2011). Instituted in 1750, the rites they practiced were an “idiosyncratic mystic-kabbalistic system of 12 degrees, which in many respects is close to that of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz” (p. 149). “Bon Pasteur” (Good Shepherd) members were also preoccupied with alchemy, as were the Frankists and Jacob Frank in particular.

Mark Hackard translates from Russian an intriguing presentation called “Scientology and the CIA.” I agree that the author doesn’t prove that “Scientology is an integral element of the US Intelligence Community,” but Dvorkin provides ample evidence that the CIA had in fact cooperated with the cult, and that the infiltration might have been mutual.

Cult or not, Scientology maintains a premiere intelligence apparatus. In such circumstances one can never be sure who is controlling whom. At the very least they no doubt prey upon other cults.

While in Toronto in the late 1990s, I observed a Raelian preacher hawking various pamphlets and books about the “prophet.” The charlatan was stationed directly across the street from the Scientology headquarters on Yonge Street. The ruse was that he would engage passerby’s in conversation about the meaning of life and if you were satisfied with your current situation. Those who disclosed that they were in fact well-off financially, but not entirely happy, were given a piece of paper and sent on their way across the street to be interrogated/audited by the Scientologists. At the time I had no idea what Scientology was, nor the Raelians for that matter. I stood there and watched this take place for a least a half-hour. I don’t recall how many of them were persuaded to submit to Scientology, but it was more than a handful for sure.