Columbia--Bob A. Feldman

Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge's February 24, 2020 Letter

The following letter from Australian anti-war and Latin American solidarity activist Joan Coxsedge--who is also a former member of the Victoria state parliament--originally appeared in an Australian-Cuban solidarity group's newsletter.

"February 24, 2020

“Dear Comrades,

“Peace in our time? Not bloody likely. A quick scan through the news makes one reach for a glass of wine or two or three. I still get the Age, mainly for the crosswords, because most of what passes for ‘news’ is syndicated right-wing crap from overseas. The other papers are even worse, especially the ones from the Murdoch stable.

“I spoke at a rally for Julian Assange last Friday outside the State Library, and did my best to be heard among the noisy crowds, Hare Krishnas and Swanston Street trams. There should have been a lot more taking part, but that’s about where we’re at in this country, a mixture of apathy, ignorance and stupidity.

“And where’s the leadership? With all his flaws, Gough Whitlam was a leader with a program who did his best to legislate for it. The one fly in the ointment was his support for State Aid and we’ve seen where that’s got us. And while I’m talking about Gough it’s worth raising the ‘Loans Affair’, part of the conspiracy to oust Labor and still widely misunderstood. We were told that the government was about to sell us to the Arabs in return for massive bribes.

"The facts? OPEC countries had accumulated vast sums following the 1973 leap in oil prices and had invested thousands of millions of dollars in the United States and made loans to the governments of Britain, France, Denmark, Italy and Japan, without raising any fuss. An Executive Council meeting in Canberra on 13 December 1974 authorized Minister for Minerals and Energy Rex Connor to seek loans of up to $400 million ‘… to strengthen our external financial position, to provide immediate protection for Australia in regard to supplies of minerals and energy…’ In other words, to buy back our mineral resources from the multinationals. To buy back the farm. The authority was not given to Treasury, because it wasn’t trusted.

“ ‘Offers’ came from everywhere. One came from Tirath Khemlani, a dodgy Pakistani ‘financier’. Connor authorized Khemlani to scout for funds among OPEC countries, but it turned out that Khemlani was sent by a Hong Kong arms firm, Commerce International, part of a powerful Brussels-based outfit linked to the CIA. A short time later, Federal Treasurer Dr Cairns was approached by George Harris, a dodgy Melbourne ‘businessman’ with a similar offer of money, whose principals were from the New York office of the same crooked firm, Commerce International. Both Connor and Cairns were dudded. Naive? Stupid? Certainly. Corrupt? No.

“Despite screams from the media, not one cent was paid to anyone by the government, nor did any member of the government profit from the affair. The anti-Labor forces, however, profited greatly. As we know from that date in infamy, 11 November 1975 when Whitlam was sacked, a watershed in labour history, which is why I raised it.

“On 24 February, fellow-Australian Julian Assange will front London’s Woolwich Crown Court which will decide whether or not he will be extradited to the United States for publishing the Iraqi and Afghani War Logs and State department cables that exposed massive war crimes and corruption by the US military and intelligence establishment, the first journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act. Especially damning was the video of the American helicopter crew laughing and joking as they machine-gunned and fired rockets at a group of civilians, including children and a Reuters journalist.

“If his last court appearance is anything to go by, he won’t get a fair hearing. A shonky magistrate was virtually told what to do by five US government agents sitting behind the prosecution team. And it has now been disclosed on prime time German TV that while Julian was in the Ecuadoran Embassy, a Spanish private security mob made audio and video recordings of his meetings with lawyers, photographed passports of his visitors and took their phones, all of which were passed on to the CIA.

“The program also showed how allegations against Julian were a pack of lies to keep him in gaol. The one that led many to believe he was a rapist was also shown to be fraudulent in the same way that George W. Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard lied that Saddam had ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ to justify the dreadful Iraq War that killed more a million people and destroyed a nation. And WikiLeaks exposed Hillary Clinton’s corruption and mendacity, getting millions from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major funders of the Islamic State, and being the main architect of the Libyan War.

“The publication of classified documents is not yet a crime in the US, but if Assange is convicted, it will be, even though he’s not an American citizen and WikiLeaks is not a US-based publication. It would mean the end of investigations into the inner workings of power and cement into place a terrifying, global, corporate tyranny under which borders, nationality and law mean nothing.

“Our federal cops have already raided the homes and offices of the ABC and a commercial paper, with a federal court judge ruling the raids were valid. Community outrage? Nothing.

“But many voices are now speaking out for Julian. Jeremy Corbyn urged Boris Johnson to back the Council of Europe demanding Julian’s release just after Julian was nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowdon. He's also won the 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press award. Did you hear about that in our media?

“Throughout his protracted ordeal, to our shame, not one word of support from the Australian Government or the Labor Party hierarchy. But he was visited by two MPs, Independent Andrew Wilkie and Liberal George Christensen, to their credit.

“While Daniel Ellsberg was treated as a hero for revealing the truth about Vietnam, Assange faces 175 years in prison for disclosing vastly more serious crimes than those in the Pentagon Papers.

"This is a critical moment for press freedom and our right to know. If there is any sense of justice left, this travesty of a case must be thrown out and Julian Assange must be brought home as a free man. If he isn’t, then we’re heading into darker times when the US Empire will continue on its destructive path unchecked and freedom of speech will be a thing of the past. As Julian said: ‘People don’t like wars. They have to be lied into them’.

“Joan Coxsedge”

Is Harvard University Still Collaborating With The CIA?

Most antiwar and anti-imperialist Movement activists who live in Cambridge, Massachusetts don't think that the Harvard University administration should be collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]. Yet as ProPublica website senior editor Daniel Golden observed in his 2017 book, Spy Schools:

"As intelligence agencies invade universities, they've penetrated not just conferences and laboratories but the very core of the academic endeavor--the classroom. [Kenneth] Moscow...enrolled uncercover at the Kennedy School...In a single year, 1991-92, at least three CIA clandestine officers attended the Kennedy School's mid-career program, all posing as State Department employees. For decades the CIA and Harvard have concealed this practice...

"...The CIA favors Harvard as a training ground for employees. It also wants to hire Kennedy School graduates, consults its professors, and cultivate its foreign students.

"...The Kennedy School now swarms with former intelligence brass...Michael Morell...former CIA deputy director is a...senior fellow at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, along with ex-CIA director David Petraeus...The CIA has long had an understanding with the Kennedy School that its intelligence officers can attend programs undercover.

"The Harvard Intelligence and Policy Program signified a rapprochement between the CIA and Harvard...The Kennedy School's policy of enrolling mid-career CIA officers undercover continues to the present day..."

Is CIA Recruiting Foreign Students On U.S. University Campuses In 21st-Century?

Most U.S. antiwar and anti-imperialist Movement activists don't think that U.S. university administrations should allow the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] to recruit on their campus foreign students who attend U.S. universities in the 21st-century. Yet as ProPublic website senior editor Daniel Golden noted in his book, Spy Schools, that Henry Holt & Co. published in 2017:

"Two trends have converged to create the surge in academic spying. The first is the growing intimacy between U.S. intelligence and academia...Deterred by student protests and faculty hostility during the Vietnam era, the CIA, FBI and other security agencies have returned in force, forging tenuous alliance of spies and scholars.

"`September 11 led to a quiet re-engagement of a lot of the academy, with the national security community,' says Austin Long, who teaches security policy at Columbia University...

"...Foreign students and professors have been pouring into the United States...There were almost one million (974,926) international students at U.S. universities in 2014-15, more than six times the 1974-75 total (154,580) and more than double that in 1994-95 (452,635)...Although the CIA is noted for its feats and failures abroad, its National Resources Division operates clandestinely in the United States, primarily recruiting foreign nationals. Henry Crumpton, who headed the division from 2003 to 2005, said that it relied on a network of `campus cooperators' numbering in the `low hundreds' to identify prospects.

"`We have cooperative contacts at the universities,' Crumpton told me. `I would meet with them sometimes. These are American citizens, for the most part, or persons legally here, cooperating because they think it's the right thing to do.'

"...Working from `lists of foreign students studying at U.S. universities,' one former CIA official used `a plethora of commercial aliases' to `make appointments with them,' according to his memoir, written under the pseudonym Ishmael Jones...Some CIA officers on clandestine missions pretend to be professors..."

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Conclusion

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland: 

"...CIA assets also helped organize pro-Solidarity demonstrations during high-visibility events like soccer games, especially when they were broadcast on television. The CIA's...campaign helped draw Solidarity back into the global spotlight. Reagan was elated...

"...CIA began channelling funds to...Polonia companies...Together Kultura and Polonia received about $450,000 per year in CIA funds. In 1985, CIA assets infiltrated a total of roughly $900,000 into Poland...In Paris...QRGUIDE...made a video history of Solidarity and sent 2,500 cassettes to Poland in 1985.

"...In 1986...CIA assets sent more than $1 million to...Solidarity...A growing percentage of this aid was for video-related equipment...CIA operatives also arranged satellite telecasts into Poland from Western Europe...

"...Throughout 1985 and 1986, the CIA provided funds for demonstrations...On may 1, 1985...15,000 people in Warsaw and 2,000 in Gdansk spilled onto the street to support Solidarity..." (end of article)

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Part 6

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:

"The CIA promoted the Solidarity logo around the world and helped manufacture and distribute Solidarity buttons, T-shirts, key chains, and other items--much like a public relations firm...With Malzahn's oversight, CIA case officers and assets helped organize demonstrations in roughly 20 countries...

"The CIA stations in Mexico City and Paris were particularly active. CIA case officers and their networks helped place articles in over two dozen Mexican newspapers; provided financial assistance for pro-Solidarity demonstrations, organized a half dozen television and radio interviews with Miroslav Dominczyk, one of Solidarity's founders; helped arrange a dozen press conferences with Dominczyk; and distributed over 70,000 bulletins across the country...

"The overseas hub of QRHELPFUL remained Paris, where QRBERETTA--the covert action program that began in 1950 to support...Kultura--had been one of the CIA's first-ever political programs. The CIA asset...QRGUIDE, who worked closely with CIA case officer Celia Larkin, helped plaster Metro stations with 40,000 stickers urging Parisians to the Polish ambassador...Also arranged for French television to broadcast taped interviews with Solidarity leaders...One of the...demonstrations was organized by a CIA Paris station asset...in cooperation with the French labor confederation Force Ouvriere (Workers' Force)...Thanks to these and other efforts, Poland and...Solidarity continued to be covered in newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs..

"...Several additional CIA stations played roles in supporting QRHELPFUL. They included Rome, London, Brussels, and Bonn, as well as smaller CIA offices in West Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt. Other CIA hubs included Lisbon, Portugal and Bern, Switzerland--which had mostly supporting roles.

"Several wealthy Europeans provided cover for the large sums of money flowing into...Poland-related activities...The CIA recruited a Portuguese businessman...who mounted pro-Solidarity demonstrations and served as what the CIA called an `agent of influence.'..." (end of part 6).

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Part 5

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:

"...The 4-page weekly Tydognzk Mazoustoe...received...covert assistance from the CIA...Solidarity's...transmitters filled the airwaves with messages...On April 12, 1982...citizens in Warsaw heard the inaugural broadcast of Radio Solidarity...Supported by covert CIA funds, Radio Solidarity went on the air from multiple, roving locations...Two CIA-supported publications, Kultura and Aneks, opened their pages...

"...The CIA entrusted...a few Catholic officials to bring money into Poland as part of QRHELPFUL...By late 1984, QRHELPFUL's infrastructure was operating at full capacity. Within the International Activities Division at CIA headquarters, Dick Malzahn remained head...He would eventually be replaced by Boyd Bishop...The CIA ramped up its media campaign to aid Solidarity. The CIA's International Activities Division boasted a worldwide covert action infrastructure of media assets and outlets to distribute a pro-Solidarity message. Malzahn's group aimed to organize political demonstrations inside--and outside--Poland..."  (end of Part 5)

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Part 4

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:

"Dick Malzahn and other CIA operatives overseeing QRHELPFUL...had assets. But how would they infiltrate money and material into Poland?...Since a direct hand-off of aid from CIA to Solidarity would have risked discovery, case officers and their assets used `ratlines,' in CIA parlance...The operatives utilized smugglers, philanthropists, publishers, and others to move supplies into Poland...The use of assets maximized secrecy by hiding the hand of the CIA...

"Sweden was a primary point of origin for QRHELPFUL infiltration. Somewhere between one quarter and one half of all material entering Poland arrived from Sweden...In 1983 [U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director] Bill Casey flew to Sweden to ask Prime Minister Olof Palme for assistance. Casey wanted to establish a pipeline to funnel supplies to Solidarity on a regular basis...Palme agreed to help. The CIA now had top cover to use ports, ships, and smugglers to move material to...Solidarity...

"...The CIA obligated nearly $1.5 million to Solidarity in fiscal year 1983...In Bonn, a German CIA asset...codenamed QACARROTTOP, passed CIA money from his foundation to a Catholic clergyman...QACARROTTOP also gave funds to the Solidarity offices in Paris and Brussels using CIA money masked as foundation donations...Moscow and Warsaw were accurate in assuming the CIA was involved in aid to opposition groups..." (end of Part 4)

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Part 3

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:

"In January 1983, John Stein, the CIA's deputy director for operations, sent a memorandum to the CIA comptroller asking for...$1 million...to jump-start covert aid to Solidarity...Overall, Stein asked for several types of support to help Solidarity, which totaled roughly $2 million: $600,000 for communications equipment, $300,000 for printing material, $100,000 to assist the families of Solidarity prisoners, over $500,000 for Solidarity members living outside of Poland and more than $400,000 for propaganda...

"On March 1, 1983, the CIA assigned the Polish program a cryptonym, QRHELPFUL, along with its own file and financial authorization numbers. CIA headquarters, back in the United States, ran QRHELPFUL. But the CIA's Paris station, based out of the U.S. embassy, was a key hub. Other CIA stations in Western Europe and Latin America were also involved in Solidarity support activities, especially London and Bonn...

"Assets...were essential to the success of the CIA's covert action program in Poland. Celia Larkin and other CIA case officers began a sustained effort to recruit individuals...including human rights activists, underground smugglers, and philanthropists. The CIA gave them codenames like QACARROTTOP and QTOCCUR...By mid-1983, QRHELPFUL had increased to roughly 20 assets. Over the next year, the number of assets rose to around 30. These assets were divided into 3 categories. The first were covert action assets, who conducted a broad set of activities...The next were media assets...These individuals were involved in influencing day-to-day media coverage by publishing articles or talking to reporters, as well as organizing political demonstrations in Europe...The final category included the surrogate funders, who helped raise money and moved it through clandestine human networks to Solidarity officers and individuals in Poland, Belgium, and other countries throughout Europe...

"...The CIA now began devoting funds to...purposes like buying communications equipment for...Solidarity...The CIA's covert aid to Solidarity was secret...The program had to be secret, Reagan concluded, because public awareness of CIA support could severely undermine Solidarity's legitimacy..." (end of Part 3)

How CIA's `QRHELPFUL' Covert Action Program Helped Polish `Solidarity' Group In 1980s: Part 2

During the 1980s a group in Poland that Lech Walesa led, called "Solidarity," was apparently secretly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the Republican Reagan administration. As the Chair and Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]'s Transnational Threats Project, Seth G. Jones, recalled in his 2018 book, A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and The Cold War Struggle in Poland:

"`CIA officials had been discussing covert assistance to Solidarity since the beginning of the Reagan administration...Overt assistance, [CIA Director William] Casey feared, might undermine the legitimacy of Solidarity by tying it too closely to the United States...On September 29, 1982, the White House convened a working group in the Situation Room...to discuss supporting moderate elements within Solidarity...

"`On November 4 [1982], President Reagan held a National Security Planning Group meeting to discuss covert action in Poland...After a short discussion, Reagan agreed to a presidential finding to provide money and nonlethal equipment through surrogate third parties, hiding the U.S. government hand. The finding also authorized the CIA to conduct clandestine radio broadcasting into Poland. The goals were limited: to aid the organizational activities of Solidarity and other Polish opposition groups...

"`...The CIA ensured that the Polish finding remained classified...The CIA then went to Capitol Hill to brief staff members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. QRHELPFUL was born...Solidarity was cash and material-starved. CIA help was critical...Dick Malzahan and other CIA officers worked to get the covert program off the ground...'" (end of part 2)

In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 8

Gave Pacifica $23,000 To Help Fund Democracy Now! in 1990s

In The Pay of Foundations—Part 8

How U.S. power elite and liberal establishment foundations fund a “parallel left” media network of left media journalists and gatekeepers.

After the then-NY Daily News owner who employed one of the Democracy Now! show’s co-hosts for over two decades expressed his support, in a late 2008 television interview, for using public funds to bail out the Wall Street banks, whose involvement in unethical subprime mortgage lending helped trigger the Great Recession of 2008, Wayne Barrett noted, in a Nov. 25, 2008 Village Voice article, that “when Zuckerman isn’t running his media properties…he’s the chairman of Boston Properties, the largest office real estate company in the country;” and “that Citigroup rents more than a million square feet from Zuckerman’s company — trailing only the federal government and Lockheed Martin on its list of top 20 tenants.” So one reason Mort Zuckerman argued on television that “we cannot allow a major institution like” Citigroup “to collapse,” and his NY Daily News newspaper argued in an a November 2008 editorial that the U.S. government should “prevent major banking houses like Citigroup from collapsing,” was apparently because the commercial rental income that Zuckerman’s real estate dealmaking firm gained from its Citigroup tenant would be lost if Citigroup, despite having made $300 billion in unethical “toxic” subprime mortgage-related loans, was allowed to collapse, according to Barrett’s Voice article.

When Zuckerman had purchased his NY Daily News newspaper in 1993 for $36.3 million [equal to over $64 million in 2018], his personal worth was then $265 million [equal to over $468 million in 2018]. And during the 20 years that the weekly salary of the part-time co-host of the “parallel left” Democracy Now! show was being provided by Zuckeman’s tabloid corporate newspaper, Zuckerman’s personal wealth increased to around $2.8 billion by early 2018. But, not surprisingly, not many news segments examining how Zuckerman, who also sat on the board of trustees of both NYU and New York City’s WNET-TV affiliate of PBS during these two decades, was accumulating more personal wealth through his commercial real estate dealmaking firm while the gentrification of the Big Apple intensified, were apparently aired or broadcast on a sustained, regular basis by the Democracy Now! producers during these two decades. Yet in just the one year alone of 1999, the gross profits of the NY Daily News owner’s Boston Properties’ firm jumped by 50 percent.

After moving into his NY Daily News office in early 1993, Zuckerman immediately “fired 180 out of 540 members of the Newspaper Guild” at the NY Daily News, “axed two-thirds of the African-American reporters, including all Black males,” and “dismissed [the now-deceased] veteran reporter Dave Hardy, who was one of the Black journalists who won a racial discrimination suit against the newspaper in 1987” when it was still owned by the Tribune media conglomerate, according to the Daily News Workers Campaign for Justice. So, not surprisingly, the Daily News Workers Campaign for Justice then urged people in New York City to boycott Zuckerman’s NY Daily News in 1993. Yet one of the “parallel left” Democracy Now! show’s co-hosts continued to work as a columnist for Zuckerman’s newspaper until 2016; in the year before Zuckerman, a Canadian immigrant, who didn’t become a U.S. citizen until he reached the age of 40 in 1977, finally sold the NY Daily News in September 2017, while still continuing to own his U.S. News & World Report corporate media outlet.

A year after the Carnegie Corporation of New York gave Pacifica the $25,000 grant in 1996 to launch the Democracy Now! show, the J.M. Kaplan Fund foundation, in 1997, gave Pacifica a $13,000 [equal to over $20,000 in 2018] to “support Democracy Now! show;” and in 1998 an additional $10,000 [equal to over $15,000 in 2018] grant to help fund Democracy Now! was given to Pacifica by the J.M. Kaplan Fund foundation. And, not surprisingly, few radio or cable tv segments examining either how the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s founder obtained the money he needed to establish his foundation or how the J.M. Kaplan Fund historically acted as a conduit for the Central Intelligence Agency [C.I.A.] during the Cold War era were aired by Democracy Now! during the last two decades.

Yet as U. of California-Santa Cruz Professor G. William Domhoff noted in his 1970 book The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America:

“The CIA did not exhaust its labor organizing efforts with its involvement in unions and training organizations related to the AFL-CIO. It also speculated in the activities of the `democratic left.; Through the J.M. Kaplan Foundation, which was founded originally through the beneficence of the president of Welch Grape Juice Company, the CIA gave $1,048,940 between 1961 and 1963 to socialist Norman Thomas’ Institute of International Labor Research…”

In a Sept. 3, 1964 article, titled “Kaplan Fund, Cited as C.I.A. `Conduit,’ Lists Unexplained $395,000 Grant,” the New York Times also observed:

“Charges that the J.M. Kaplan Fund Inc. of 55 Fifth Avenue has acted as a `secret conduit’ for transmission of funds abroad for the Central Intelligence Agency has met a wall of silence at the fund.

“A copy of the report made by the Kaplan Fund…for 1963, however, shows an unexplained grant of $395,000 [equal to over $3.1 million  in 2018] for that year to an Institute operated by a man who has long been identified with anti-communist causes in Europe and Latin America. The grant was by far the largest made by the Kaplan Fund last year in a total of $1,645,390 [equal to over $13.2 million in 2018].

“The recipient of the $395,000 was the Institute of International Labor Research Inc….Its secretary-treasurer is Sacha Volman…For years in Paris he headed a group called Free Trade Unions in Exile that worked with underground anti-communist forces in Eastern Europe…Norman Thomas is listed as chairman of its board of directors…Mr. Volman denied by telephone from Washington last night that he knew of any C.I.A. connection…It was his recollection that the fund had also made grants in 1960, 1961 and 1962…

“The charge that the New York…organization was being used as a `secret conduit’ for C.I.A. funds was made…by Representative Wright Patman…The Kaplan Fund has been under investigation both by the House and by the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Patman had charged the fund with using some of its monies in business operations…”

In his 2012 book, Philanthropy In America: A History, University of Virginia Commonwealth Professor of History Olivier Zunz (who was “grateful also for the support” he “received from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation”—while writing a book about foundations like the ones supporting him) indicated why Rep. Patman initiated his Congressional investigation of foundations like the J.M. Kaplan Fund in the 1960s:

“Patman pursued his investigation of foundations throughout the 1960s. He argued that the proliferation of foundations was evidence not of increased…generosity but rather of growing fiscal abuse, which removed `over $11.5 billion [equal to over $91.9 billion in 2018]’ from taxation. He was determined to expose philanthropy as yet another pretext the wealthy used to avoid inheritance taxes, keep control of companies from one generation to the next, and receive handsome tax deductions when dumping unwanted assets. He also believed philanthropy was a means to avoid antitrust legislation, hide dubious financial transactions from scrutiny and influence the public through the funding of media…Patman was…the first person to reveal that the CIA had been using private foundations as fronts to channel money to anti-communist activities in Europe…Embarrassed, the White House quickly pressured the congressman to abandon that part of his investigation…”

The J.M. Kaplan Fund that gave Pacifica $23,000 in grant money in 1997 and 1998 to help fund Democracy Now! was established in 1945 by a former New School for Social Research/New School University board of trustees chair and former Freedom House trustee named Jacob “Jack” Kaplan, who lived between 1893 and 1987; and “much of its asset base came from the sale in the 1950s of the Welch Grape Juice Company, long headed by Mr. Kaplan, to a grape growers’ cooperative in New York State and Pennsylvania,” according to the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s website. From the sale of his Welch Grape Juice Company corporate stock in 1956, for example, Kaplan received $28.5 million [equal to over $259 million in 2018].

A historical profile of Kaplan’s company posted on the fundinguniverse.com website recalled how the Kaplan Fund’s founder increased the Welch Grape Juice Company’s profits during World War II and first gained control of the Welch Grape Juice Company:

“…Jacob `Jack’ Kaplan…had garnered…a multi-million dollar fortune in commodities trading and retailing in the early 20^th century. In 1933, Kaplan and his brother Maurice [purchased]…the grape processing operation of the Chautauqua and Erie Grape Growers Cooperative (CLE) in Brockton, New York…He changed the company name to National Grapes Corporation [in 1939]…In order to circumvent wartime restrictions on corporate profits and price controls, Jack Kaplan spearheaded the creation of a large grape growers cooperative in 1945. The new organization would not only be immune from federal corporation taxes and pricing dictates, but would also guarantee his processing company a reliable supply of grapes…Kaplan and his team convinced 900 growers to join the newly formed National Grape Co-Operative…Jack Kaplan purchased a controlling interest in [Welch’s parent] company [American National]…By the mid-1950s, National Grape farmers—whose numbers had swollen to over 6,000 in the meantime—were supplying 90 percent of the grapes processed by Welch…”

According to Frances Stoner Saunders’ 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters book, the same year that Kaplan sold his Welch Grape Juice Company stock for the $28.5 million, from which much of the J.M. Kaplan fund’s asset base was derived, he secretly offered his services to the Central Intelligence Agency. As The Cultural Cold War recalled:

"In 1956...J.M. Kaplan, president of the Welch Grape Juice Company, and president and treasurer of the Kaplan Foundation (assets: $14 million), wrote to Allen Dulles offering his services...Dulles subsequently arranged for a CIA `representative' to make an appointment with Kaplan. The Kaplan Foundation could soon be counted as an asset, a reliable `pass-through' for secret funds earmarked for CIA projects, amongst them the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and an institute headed by veteran socialist and chairman of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, Norman Thomas.”

In the 21^st-century, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, that helped fund Pacifica’s Democracy Now! in late 1990s, was still controlled by members of Jack Kaplan’s family (whose last names were now more frequently “Davidson” or “Fonesca” rather than “Kaplan,” as a result of marriage by Kaplan’s daughters, including the oldest one, Joan Davidson, who still owned an 85-acre estate in Germantown, New York in 2013). In 2010, for example, eleven grandchildren, children or other relatives of Kaplan were each being paid between $4,000 and $9,000 for only 3 to 5 hours of “weekly work” sitting on the J.M. Kaplan Fund board of trustees, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2010. And in 2016, Kaplan’s surviving children and grandchildren were now being paid between $5,000 and $10,000 for only 3 to 5 hours of “weekly work” sitting on the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s board, according to the Form 990 financial filing for 2016.

The market value of the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s assets in 2010 still exceeded $139 million, including its investments of over $72 million in limited partnership shares, over $56 million in corporate stock and over $800,000 in corporate bonds. Over $16 million of the foundation’s inherited wealth was now invested in Westgate Associates, over $13 million in Brookside Capital and over $8 million in Emerging Markets Growth Fund, for example, by the J.M. Kaplan Fund; and the dividends and interest obtained from the corporate securities owned by the “non-profit” foundation produced a net investment income of over $2.1 million in 2010.

In 2010, the J.M. Kaplan Fund apparently used some of the money it obtained from investments in corporations that exploit working-class people and middle-class consumers around the globe to provide “charitable grants” to U.S. university book publishing firms like Princeton University Press, University of North Carolina Press and Penn State University Press, as well as to “parallel left” publishers like The New Press (which was given a $5,000 grant “for `The World According To Monsanto’), according to its 2010 Form 990 financial filing.  And during that same year, the “non-profit” J.M. Kaplan Fund paid $459,000 to Brandywine Management Services “for investment services” (of apparently speculating with the foundation’s money on stock markets around the globe) and paid a total annual compensation of over $291,000 to the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s executive director, according to the same 2010 financial filing.

In 2016 the market value of J.M. Kaplan Fund’s assets still exceeded $130 million, including the over $97 million it invested in hedge funds, according to its 2016 Form 990 financial filing. From its investments in the stocks and bonds of corporation and governments that still exploit working-class people and middle-class consumers around the globe, the J.M. Kaplan Fund received over $1.8 million in dividends and interests in 2016. According to the same 2016 financial filing, the market value of J.M. Kaplan Fund’s investment in the Brandywine Mutual Strategy hedge fund exceeded $54 million and the market value of its investment in the Brandywine Global hedge fund was over $35 million in 2016; and, in that same year, J.M. Kaplan Fund paid the Brandywine Management Company stock and bonds speculation firm $563,934 for its “investment services” on behalf of the “non-profit” foundation. 

Since the J.M. Kaplan Fund gave a $10,000 grant to Pacifica in 1998, Brandywine Management Company/Brandywine Global Inc. has been a subsidiary of Legg Mason Inc., that, with its 9 subsidiary investment affiliates managed over $779 billion worth of assets in early 2018, including over $216 billion worth of stock in corporations that exploit workers and middle-class consumers around the world. As the Brandywine Global website notes:

“Brandywine Global incorporated in 1986 as Brandywine Asset Management, LLC….In January 1998, Legg Mason, Inc., a New York Stock Exchange-listed company which has been providing investment services to institutions and individuals since 1899, acquired Brandywine Asset Management…. “

In late 2017, over $74 billion in corporate stocks, corporate bonds, corporate senior notes and government bonds were being managed by Brandywine Global; and in late December 2017, $7.4 million worth of Apple stock, $7.4 million worth of JP Morgan Chase stock, $7.2 million worth of Citigroup stock, $6.3 million worth of Disney/ABC corporate media conglomerate stock, $6.3 million worth of Comcast corporate media conglomerate stock, $4.4 million worth of United Technologies stock, $3.9 million worth of Goldman Sachs stock, $3.9 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, $2.7 million worth of General Dynamics stock, $2.4 million worth of Exxon Mobil stock, $2 million worth of Chevron stock and $2.1 million worth of CBS corporate media conglomerate stock were contained in the stock portfolio that provides “investment services” for the J.M. Kaplan Fund which helped fund Democracy Now! in 1997 and 1998. (end of part 8)

Did Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama Wage Drone War Illegally As U.S. President?

In 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committed awarded a "Nobel Peace Prize" worth over $900,000 to a  Democratic Party politician named Barack Obama. Yet during the 8 years that Obama occupied the U.S. power elite's White House oval office in Washington, D.C. he apparently ordered or sanctioned drone war attacks on people in foreign countries that sometimes killed civilians. As a New York Times national security correspondent named Mark Mazzetti recalled in his 2013 book The Way Of The Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth:

"...America has pursued its enemies using killer robots and special-operation troops...The foundations of the secret wars were laid by a conservative Republican president and embraced by a liberal Democratic one who became enamored of what he had inherited. President Barack Obama came to see it as an alternative to the messy, costly wars...It has...turned the American president into the final arbiter of whether specific people in far-off lands live or die...It is now easier for the United States to carry out killing operations at the ends of the earth than at any other time in its history...

"...Obama's desire to manage aspects of the targeted-killing program directly from the White House gave [former CIA official John] Brennan a role unique in the history of American government: one part executioner, one part chief confessor to the president, one part public spokesman sent out to justify the Obama doctrine of killing off...enemies in remote parts of the world...Obama, Brennan, and other senior members of the new administration would come to rely on targeted killing...No prominent member of President Obama's own party had criticized drone strikes...The meetings over two days at Langley were the first sign that President Obama planned to rely on the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command in ways that not even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had...

"...During his first year in office, President Obama ordered a review of the roughly one dozen cover-action programs that CIA was carrying out at the time, from the drone strikes to a campaign to sabotage Iran's nuclear work...The summer 2009 meetings effectively rubber-stamped all of the CIA's secret ventures...By the time a `principals committee' meeting was scheduled for the fall, when President Obama's top national security advisers would make final decisions on the covert-action programs, not one of them was under consideration for cancellation...The Obama administration approved every one of the covert-action programs that had been handed down by President Bush...

"Even as the Obama administration discussed the future of the CIA's covert-action programs, there was no thought about ending the targeted-killing efforts. In the early months of the administration, National Security Adviser James Jones led a project to compile a centralized `kill list'...The American strikes in Yemen would claim more civilian casualties than...operatives affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.

"The first American strike came on December 17, 2009...Obama approved the operation. The next day...several Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the desert camp in Abyan...Wideos taken by locals at the camp revealed missile fragments with American markings and also proved that the Tomahawk missiles had been topped with cluster bombs...Most of the dead were civilians, and bloody images of dead women and children went viral on YouTube...

"The CIA had approval from the White House to carry out missile strikes in Pakistan even when CIA targeters weren't certain about exactly who it was they were killing...In an area of known militant activity, all military-aged males were considered to be enemy fighters. Therefore, anyone who was killed in a drone strike there was categorized as a `combatant.'...On March 17, 2011...CIA drones attacked a tribal council meeting in the village of Datta Khey, in North Waziristan, killing dozens of men...Just as lawyers for President Bush had redefined torture to permit extreme interrogations by the CIA and the military, so had lawyers for President Obama given...secret agencies latitude to carry out extensive killing operations...

"Throughout the...presidential election season of 2012, President Obama frequently alluded to targeted killings as a sign of his toughness...Targeted killings have made the CIA the indispensable agency for the Obama administration..."

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited--Part 2

“…I would like to refer specifically to the painful case of the Congo, unique in the history of the modern world, which shows how, with absolute impunity, with the most insolent cynicism, the rights of peoples can be flouted. The direct reason for all this is the enormous wealth of the Congo, which the imperialist countries want to keep under their control…How can we forget the betrayal of the hope that Patrice Lumumba placed in the United Nations? How can we forget the machinations and maneuvers that followed in the wake of the occupation of that country by UN troops, under whose auspices the assassins of this great African patriot acted with impunity?...”

--Che Guevara in his Dec. 11, 1964 speech to the UN General Assembly

“…Cordier was part of the Congo Club, a group of senior UN officials intent on making sure that the international organization safeguarded Western interests in the Congo…. “

--Ludo De Witte in his 2001 book, The Assassination of Lumumba

“Lumumba’s fall and assassination were the result of a vast conspiracy involving U.S., Belgian and UN officials…My own research in the United Nations Archives in New York has yielded data on…the anti-Lumumba activities of Andrew Cordier…”

--Howard University Professor Emeritus of African Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja in his 2003 book, The Congo From Leopold to Kabula: A People’s History

“Students for a Democratic Society will hold a rally today to protest the University's expansion policies and the alleged involvement of Acting [Columbia University] President Andrew W. Cordier in the assassination of former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba….The radical student organization has…accused President Cordier, who was formerly dean of the School of International Affairs…of helping to plot…the downfall of his government…A leader of the Brooklyn Black Panther Party, known as Captain Ford, is scheduled to speak at this evening's rally…”

--from a Sept. 26, 1968 Columbia Daily Spectator article

“…Mr. Lumumba, the Prime Minister….is completely irresponsible—if not a mad man…He is wildly ambitious, lusting for power and strikes fear into anyone who crosses his path. There is really no such thing as a Congolese Government…There is a cabinet, but Lumumba uses it as his tool. Some members of the Cabinet share his vision and lust for power…The only real solution of the problem is a change of leadership. It will not be easy, however, to remove Lumumba from his position…"

--Former Columbia University President and School of International Affairs [SIPA] Dean and United Nations Under-Secretary General Andrew Cordier in an Aug. 18, 1960 letter to Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professor V.F. Schwalm

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited—Part 2

In his 2009 book Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the late 1960s, Professor of History and African American Studies Stefan Bradley noted that on Aug. 23, 1968--three months after they had requested on May 22, 1968 that New York City police be used to clear Columbia University’s campus of protesting students for a second time--“Grayson Kirk and David Truman stepped down as the president and vice president” of Columbia University; and “Andrew Cordier, from the School of International Affairs [SIPA]” of Columbia University “took over the reins of the university as acting president.” Cordier then spent two years as Columbia University’s fifteenth president until September 1970, before spending an additional two years as Dean of Columbia’s School of International Affairs [SIPA] prior to his 1975 death--from cirrhosis of the liver--at the age of 74.

Before being appointed as Columbia’s School of International Affairs Dean in 1962 (by a Columbia University board of trustees that included the former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium between 1959 and 1961, Columbia Life Trustee William A.M. Burden), Cordier had worked since 1946 at the United Nations as advisor to the President of the General Assembly and executive assistant to the Secretary General. And, as UN Under-Secretary General, Cordier, coincidentally, “had a large role in the Congo” in the summer of 1960, 57 years ago, according to Professor Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Professor of History Emmanuel Gerard and University of Pennsylvania Professor of History Bruce Kuklick’s 2015 book, Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba.

As Carole Collins observed in an article, titled “The Cold War Comes to Africa: Cordier and the 1960 Congo Crisis,” that appeared in the June 22, 1993 issue of the Journal of International Affairs:

“…In early September 1960, while filling in as the Secretary-General's interim special representative to the Congo... Cordier's decisions effectively…reinforced U.S. and Belgian efforts to oust Lumumba… Some scholars argue that Cordier's actions ultimately served to help abort the Congo's transition to democracy, set in motion a series of events culminating in the murder of Lumumba -- the Congo's first democratically elected prime minister -- and facilitated the rise to power of a young Congolese army officer, Joseph Desire Mobutu...The Zairian [Congolese] people are still grappling to this day with the tragic legacy of these decisions…

“…Several sources, including Madeleine Kalb's study based on declassified diplomatic cable traffic, document the extent to which Cordier continually briefed and was briefed by U.S. diplomats and collaborated with them on Congo policy….

“…Cordier's 15 September [1960] letter to[Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professor V.F.] Schwalm reveals that he had advance notice of Kasavubu's intent to dismiss Lumumba, and that he welcomed the move…Cordier notes he met four times with Kasavubu…to discuss the firing of Lumumba… When Kasavubu announced his dismissal of Lumumba from office on the radio on Monday, 5 September, Cordier…made his `two most important decisions:’ to send U.N. troops to close the airport and to seize the radio station.

“These…actions…primarily hurt Lumumba because only Kasavubu enjoyed access to radio facilities in the neighboring state of Congo Brazzaville. Similarly, Kasavubu's allies were allowed to use the ostensibly closed airport to travel into the Congolese interior to mobilize support for the president while Lumumba's supporters were grounded….Near the end of his three-week stay in early September, Cordier …authorized the United Nations to offer food and pay to the Congolese Army… This action…allowed Mobutu -- a one-time Lumumba aide who had been appointed chief-of-staff of the army by Kasavubu just days earlier -- to win credit for paying the soldiers their past-due salaries…and to pave the way for his coup attempt a few days later…. The combination of U.N. and U.S. support was pivotal for Mobutu's subsequent seizure of power.

“…On 14 September [1960], Mobutu seized power… In the end, Cordier's actions served to fuel the Congolese civil war…. After his dismissal by Kasavubu, Lumumba was placed under virtual house arrest, but even this failed to dampen his popular or legislative support….In January 1961, he was killed through the coordinated efforts of Mobutu, Kasavubu, Tshombe and the CIA…[Connor Cruise] O'Brien – the…Irish diplomat…who had represented the United Nations in Katanga in 1961…believes that Cordier deliberately helped Washington plot Lumumba's ouster…”

Howard University Professor Emeritus of African Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja’s 2003 book,The Congo From Leopold to Kabula: A People’s History, also contains a reference to the role that former Columbia University President Cordier played in Congolese history:

“…The dismissal [of Lumumba] was…clearly a civilian coup and therefore illegal. Both houses of[the Congolese] parliament, where Lumumba still had a working majority, gave him a vote of confidence and rejected Kasa-Vubu’s decisions as null and void…Cordier and U.S. Ambassador [to the Congo] Timberlake worked hand in hand to implement U.S. policy objectives. Acting as a viceroy, Cordier helped engineer and execute the illegal overthrow of Lumumba from power, beginning with his active support of the Kasa-Vubu coup of 5 September [1960]…”

Conor Cruise O’Brien’s 1962 book To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History, also indicated how former Columbia University President Cordier contributed to the illegal overthrow of Patrice Lumumba’s democratically-elected Congolese government in September 1960:

“…Andrew Cordier…had taken a decision which, politically, had broken the back of Lumumba—the Prime Minister who had called in the United Nations [to end Belgian military intervention in support of the illegal Belgium-backed secessionist Tshombe regime in the Congo’s Katanga province]…Had it not been for Mr. Cordier’s…action, there is little doubt that the support Lumumba could have rallied at this crucial moment would have been most formidable…Mr. Cordier’s actions…had played a decisive part in this crucial series of events, as a result of which the Congo no longer possessed a universally recognized Government…”

But as Kwame Nkrumah [the democratically-elected Ghanaian president who was overthrown in a CIA-backed military coup in 1966] argued in his 1967 book Challenge Of The Congo, “how could such action of the United Nations be justified when Lumumba was the lawful Prime Minister?” Nkrumah also noted in the same book that “the executive assistant to the Secretary-General, Andrew Cordier, knew in advance of Kasavubu’s plan to dismiss Lumumba;” and during the period in early September 1960 when former “acting” Columbia University President Cordier was the “acting” head of the UN Congo Mission in Kinshasa[Leopoldville], “press correspondents in Leopoldville at the time were convinced that the UN were helping to oust Lumumba…”

Coincidentally, a now de-classified “Telegram From the Station in the Congo to the Central Intelligence Agency” that was sent from Leopoldville[Kinshasa] on Sept. 5, 1960 also stated:

“…An unimpeachable source…advised [Embassy] that Kasavubu plans to oust Lumumba…As soon as this step taken, he plans to broadcast a message to Congolese people from Radio Congo requesting them to remain calm and accept the new government….Kasavubu plan includes following steps: A. For the UN Operation Congo (UNOC) to guarantee his personal safety with UN troops. B. Request UNOC to guard the radio station, thus guaranteeing his personal safety when he speaks and insuring that Lumumba forces will not be able take control of the radio and mount a propaganda campaign in support of Lumumba. C. Airports Congo would be closed to all departures. 4. Kasavubu’s plan has been coordinated with UNOC at highest levels here. He already has taken the first step, to demand protection by UN troops. The rest of the plan was to be implemented 5 September but timing may well be changed.”

According to Ludo De Witte’s 2001 book The Assassination of Lumumba, as Acting Head of the UN Operation Congo [UNOC] in Kinshasa/Leopoldville during early September 1960, Cordier “did exactly what was expected of him.”

In discussing, at a September 2004 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Cold War Studies conference at Princeton University, what happened in the Congo between July 1960 and the Jan. 17, 1961 murder of the democratically elected, but illegally ousted, Congolese Premier Lumumba and two of Lumumba’s colleagues, CUNY Emeritus Professor of Political Science Herbert Weiss characterized former Columbia President Cordier’s historical role in the following way:

“There is a very important event…that is the closing of the airport and the closing of the radio, without which the dismissal of Lumumba would have had a very different end…The key person there is Andrew Cordier…Cordier was, at the very minimum, a profoundly non-neutral person whose writings suggest that he was a racist…It’s Cordier’s actions that cut the feet from under Lumumba…”

And at the same September 2004 conference, another conference participant, Thomas Kanza, the Congo’s first permanent representative to the UN, said: 

“If I may, I would like to support what Herbert said….Your…points are really correct. When Cordier came to Kinshasa…and Cordier stepped in, as special representative of the Secretary General. Number one, the dismissal of Lumumba…Cordier stepped in and said that he must be dismissed… Cordier was really acting as the number one UN [man] in the Congo...Cordier, as far as I’m concerned, was responsible for many things, including what would happen later….”

According to the Death in the Congo book, in the month before the former Columbia president used his UN power in the Congo to coordinate with Kasa-Vubu’s plan to illegally dismiss Lumumba in early September 1960, Cordier had personally interviewed Lumumba in New York City on Aug. 1, 1960, when “Lumumba made a last visit to the UN;” and the following personal interaction happened during this interview:

“Cordier began his interview with Lumumba with a lengthy and condescending exposition…Ignoring the white man’s speech, Lumumba made his own long reply. He admonished Cordier and expressed disappointment…that the UN had not evicted the Belgians…”

During the same month that Cordier was coordinating with Kasa-Vubu to illegally remove Lumumba from power in a “civilian coup,” the CIA’s Chief of Station in the Congo, Larry Devlin (using illegally the diplomatic cover of “consul” at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa/Leopoldville), was also covertly working to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Patrice Lumumba. In his 2007 book Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir of 1960-67, Devlin (who died in 2008) describes what happened when he visited the Congolese presidential palace shortly after the “civilian coup” of Kasavubu that Cordier backed:

“…[Congolese National Army/ANC] Colonel Mobutu stood in the doorway flanked by two soldiers…`Wait for me outside,’ he said softly to the soldiers. He closed the door and shook hands with me…Finally, he said, `Here is the situation: the army is prepared to overthrow Lumumba. But only on the condition that the United States will recognize the government that would replace Lumumba’s…’

“[CIA Director] Allen Dulles had made it absolutely clear to me that the United States wanted Lumumba removed from power, but I had always thought in terms of a legal or parliamentary change, not an army coup…Yet the more I considered Mobutu’s plan, the better it sounded…

“`I’ve got to get back to my commanders,’ Mobutu said, turning to leave. `I have to give them a `go’ or a `no go’ order. Lumumba doesn’t know they’re here, so they must get back to their bases before he finds out.’…

“…I held out my hand to Mobutu and said with as much conviction as I could muster: `I can assure you the United States government will recognize a temporary government composed of civilian technocrats.’

“…`The coup will take place within a week,’ he said. `But I will need five thousand dollars [equivalent o around $41,000 in 2017 U.S. dollars] to provide for my senior officers…’

“…I assured Mobutu that the money would be available and arranged to meet him in his office…I left the presidential palace without further incident…I arrived at army headquarters at the early hour agreed upon with Mobutu…Mobutu said he had met his area commanders and told them that the coup was on. `I’ll be setting a date and time shortly but it will be within the next week,’ he said. `I’ll take control of the radio station, announce the formation of new government.’…On the evening of Sept. 14 [1960]…at a party…at the home of Alison `Tally’ Palmer, the American vice-consul…I…had a call with the news that Mobutu was on the radio announcing that the army was installing a government of technocrats…Our efforts to remove Lumumba…were at last bearing fruit…”

In a statement at a Dec. 10, 1960 UN Security Council meeting, the Moroccan representative to the UN, Mhamet Boucetta, indicated how the CIA-supported Mobutu used some of the Congolese National Army [ANC] troops (that Cordier had paid with U.S. government-provided UN money)  to “install a government of technocrats” between Sept. 13 (when a joint meeting of the Congolese Chamber of Representatives and Senate restored full power to the illegally “dismissed” Lumumba by 88 votes to 5 with 3 abstentions) and Sept. 14, 1960:

“I should like to tell you something I saw with my own eyes. I was present at the last two meetings held by this [Congolese] Parliament…By an overwhelming majority, the Parliament gave the legitimate Government a vote of confidence and renewed its mandate…

“The next morning, a hundred soldiers with helmets and submachine guns at the ready and an old tank with a rusty gun were stationed in front of the Parliament building. The elected representatives of the people were not allowed to enter…The members of Parliament were rounded up and hustled away, payment of their allowances was stopped…That is what…we saw…”

And less than five months after Mobutu’s first CIA-backed coup in September 1960, the 35- year-old Lumumba was murdered in the Katanga region of the Congo. As The Congo From Leopold To Kabila: A People’s History book observed:

“As it turned out, Mobutu played a critical role in every step leading to Lumumba’s assassination…He did so by the coup of 14 September [1960], Lumumba’s arrest on 1 December [1960], and his incarceration at the elite military garrison of Mbano-Ngungu[Thysville]. And Mobutu was among the…Congolese involved in the…plan of sending Lumumba to his death in Katanga…”

And, according to Death in the Congo:

“CIA turncoats, among others, have testified that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination Devlin boasted to people in the Agency about his role in the murder…In 1960 he persisted in trying to finish off Lumumba and immediately took credit when the African was killed; he later persisted in denying that he tried…Justin O’Donnell, a senior officer from CIA headquarters got to Leopoldville[Kinshasa] on November 3[1960]. O’Donnell would oversee the murder and report to Devlin. In asking for O’Donnell after Washington’s encouragement, Devlin let headquarters know that he still had…poisons, but also wanted a `high-powered foreign make rifle with telescopic and silencer.’…Devlin asked for the rifle in writing a week after an unusual appearance by Lumumba on the balcony of his residents where he spoke to a crowd below…Devlin and those around him in the Congo would not rest until someone finished the job…The Belgians and the American fixated on murder…”

 In a 2010 AllAfrica website column, a former Staff Director of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Africa, Stephen R. Weissman,  also asserted that “Devlin gave a green light to delivering Lumumba to men who had publicly vowed to kill him” and “shortly before” Lumumba’s “transfer” to where he was murdered, “Mobutu indicated to Devlin that Lumumba `might be executed,’ according to a Church Committee [of the U.S. Senate] interview,” but “Devlin did not suggest that he offered any objection or caution.”

In an Aug. 18, 1960 letter to Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professsor V.F. Schwalm, former Columbia University President Cordier wrote the following about the democratically-elected Congolese prime minister that he would help oust from power less than a month later:

“…Mr. Lumumba, the Prime Minister….is completely irresponsible—if not a mad man…He is wildly ambitious, lusting for power and strikes fear into anyone who crosses his path. There is really no such thing as a Congolese Government…There is a cabinet, but Lumumba uses it as his tool. Some members of the Cabinet share his vision and lust for power….The only real solution of the problem is a change of leadership. It will not be easy, however to remove Lumumba from his position…In various ways the Secretary-General has given encouragement to the moderates and they are also receiving encouragement from other powerful political sources…”

Patrice Lumumba, however, presented an alternative historical point of view in the last letter he wrote from the Camp Hardy military prison in Mbano-Ngungu[Thysville]--a letter to his wife--before being assassinated on January 17, 1961:

“My dear wife,

“I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them…What we wished for our country, its right to an honorable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and the Western allies, who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organization in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance. Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me to beg for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets…   Love live the Congo! Long live Africa!

“Patrice”

(end of article)