Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8 Num. 46
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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FEMINISM: ON THE MARCH
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In Conspiracy Nation Volume 8 Number 35 was mentioned how the
Women's Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) and its offshoots
were not so much a populist women's movement as they were the
hired army of families such as the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the
Warburgs, and the Rockefellers. Purpose: to agitate and vote in
the 18th Amendment and consequent Prohibition during the "roaring
twenties". Prohibition, in turn, had as its purpose the
strengthening of gang structures and passive acceptance of
gangsters into the society.
Of course, the women's movement did not arise out of a vacuum,
as, for example, Andrea Pearson has argued. There has been
injustice against women -- though not to the hyperbolized extent
it is portrayed night after night in television docudramas. (See
CN 3.66, 3.69, 3.70, and 3.72 for Pearson's argument: "Feminism:
Mask for Marxism".)
An aftermath of the so-called "60s Rebellion" was the modern
womyn's movement, so overly familiar to attendees of university
literature classes. Yet we are beginning to see more and more
how much of what was perceived as "rebellion" during the 1960s
was not quite what it seemed. For example the introduction of
LSD into the popular culture of the time may well have been CIA
inspired. So too, Sherman Skolnick has pointed to so-called
"radicals" of the 1960s, such as Rennie Davis, as not being the
free agents they were supposed to be. Even "radical" Bill
Clinton, "anti-war protester", turns out to have been an agent of
the CIA.
Dave Emory, the west coast researcher into "deep politics", has
definitely linked portions of the modern (post 1960s) womyn's
movement to the CIA. For example, in his lecture series, "Gloria
in Excelsis", he explores just who *is* Gloria Steinem, guru-ess
to oppressed ivory tower females and such.
Kind-hearted Sherman Skolnick, however, apparently differs as to
a nefarious underground pushing a secret agenda with the help of
well-intentioned feminist dupes. When I met with him and Joseph
Andreuccetti in April of 1995, I broached the likelihood of a
feminist conspiracy operating within the womyn's movement.
Skolnick didn't think so. However Andreuccetti said, yes, it
seemed likely that the womyn's movement *would* be an obvious
place to look for the machinations of a secret society.
So why is it that the feminist movement is highly favored by the
mass media? It is almost a given that anything so supported and
propagandized by the establishment press *must* be in cahoots
with the dominant classes. Corporate America's public relations
shill, the mass media, makes it obvious who is who by negative
distortions of some groups (conspiratologists, for instance)
versus positive slants on others. In the case of feminists and
the constituent bloc they loudly claim to speak for, the slant is
so extreme it is grotesque: the evil male in one corner versus
"sugar and spice" in the other. Thank goodness there are plenty
of tough cops in television land to save these "damsels in
distress"!
According to an item in the July 8, 1996 issue of the New
Federalist newspaper, current earnings of U.S. workers buy half
of what they used to. Says New Federalist, "...workers now have
less than 50 percent of the buying power they had in the
mid-1960s." By a strange "coincidence", the two-income household
has become increasingly common since that time. As buying power
got cut in half, wives began to leave their homemaker jobs for
outside employment. This societal phenomena was sold as
"liberation of women from household drudgery." But what was
really going on was that women, *from* *dire* *necessity*, were
forced to seek extra income for their families.
Or, maybe it worked the other way around: women increasingly
decided to work outside the home, that in turn doubled the
available labor pool, and wages consequently declined. It's
supply and demand: if the available supply of workers is
doubled, the price of labor goes down -- in this case it has been
effectively cut in half.
But what to do with idle labor, now increasingly frustrated in
its search for fair wages and worthwhile employment? All those
idle workers hanging around could spell trouble for the ruling
class. Due to strong anti-war sentiment, the younger male
population can't just be thrown away as cannon fodder, for "noble
causes", like in the old days.
What can be done? Criminalize them: get "tough on crime"; lock
them away. Disarm them. Turn them into dopers. Give them AIDS.
Feed them cultural crapola via mass media that keeps them stupid.
Demoralize them with "Big Lie" techniques, such as telling them
"the economy is good."
Then, when the men are mostly ground down, the all-powerful State
can turn its attention to the now less-protected women. You
thought your old man was bad news? Find out why Nietzche called
the State, "the coldest of all cold monsters."
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[CN transcript of remarks by west coast researcher Dave Emory.]
Now. The first article I'm going to be reading here comes from "Counterspy" magazine, Volume IV, Number 1. And it was published in 1980.
This is a statement by a group of radical feminists who called themselves "The Red Stockings," who (despite the fact that neither Nip [co-host] nor myself would agree with nor identify with their ideological underpinnings), they did some excellent and readily verifiable research. And that research is "front and center" in the following letter which they mailed to "Counterspy." (By the way, "Counterspy" is one of the top publications covering the activities of the U.S. intelligence establishment. It's now been renamed, "The National Reporter.")
...the following statement from the Red Stockings Collective (this from September 6, 1979). It's headlined,
STATEMENT
We feel that we must respond to the latest in a series of attempts to suppress the inquiry into the details and nature of Gloria Steinem's association with the Central Intelligence Agency. We are alarmed that the most visible commentary on these events comes from several well-known figures in the feminist movement who not only condone but endorse this suppression.
Because feminism's appeal and impact spring from a fundamental intellectual honesty, it is particularly distressing that the suppression of dissent may be seen as some kind of official feminist position.
In 1975, after Red Stocking researched Gloria Steinem's affiliations and raised questions about her political past, Steinem published a "statement," in connection with her activities on behalf of the Independent Research Service, a CIA-funded group. Many feminists found this document neither entirely credible nor to the point, and they have insisted upon seeking more enlightening answers.
Because of the conscious counter-revolutionary role that the CIA has played at home and abroad over the years, it makes sense to expect a participant in the women's movement, especially one who has come to symbolize it, to fully discuss her past relationship to the CIA. We are still waiting to hear Steinem's opinion of the Agency. The last one she gave characterized the CIA as "liberal" and far-sighted. [New York Times, Feb. 21, 1967, according to Emory.]
The events that prompted us to send out this letter include:
Gloria Steinem, Clay Felker(sp?) (most recently publisher of Esquire), and Ford Foundation president Franklin Thomas, were among those who threatened to sue for libel if Random House allowed the CIA chapters to be published in the Random House edition of Red Stocking's *Feminist Revolution*. At the same time, Newsweek and Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham and Warner Communications (a major Ms. [magazine] stockholder) also complained. The offending chapters were deleted. Thus, Steinem and her powerful supporters successfully used the threat of litigation to exercise prior restraint over publication.
When Steinem learned that the Village Voice had assigned journalist Nancy Borman(sp?) to prepare an article on the censorship of Feminist Revolution, her attorneys, Greenbaum, Wolf & Ernst(sp?), threatened suit against the Voice if any mention of Steinem's CIA association appeared in this article.
After some delay, to allow the Voice's legal counsel to review the material, the Voice published the article on May 21st, 1979. And, in subsequent issues, several letter writers responded with attacks on Borman and the Voice.
In May of 1979, when Heights and Valley News, a New York City neighborhood paper published by the Columbia Tenant's Union [CTU], began a series on the material deleted from Feminist Revolution, Steinem's attorneys again threatened suit. But instead of threatening the Columbia Tenant's Union corporation, they sent a letter to each of CTU's 32 board members. Board members cannot be individually sued for a corporation's acts except in a few instances not relevant here. But Steinem's attorneys stated in their letter to the board members that publication of the material "could subject them to individual liability." Heights and Valley News stood up to this attempt at intimidation and is continuing the series.
All this legal harassment was in response not to any actual instance of false, malicious defamation, but to the potential raising of embarrassing questions about some feminist relations with the power elite. We think that Steinem and her associates have not made a convenient case for cutting off discussion.
And at the bottom they have a few questions they ask about the implications of this for the women's movement. And there's a series of signatories to this particular statement. And the only two names I recognize here are, a woman by name of Marge Piercy who's a well-known feminist poet, and also a woman named Louise Billotte, who is a KPFA [radio] staff member.
There are a number of points to be brought up concerning this particular statement, here in "Counterspy."
First of all, Steinem, as the article pointed out, has never denied her relationship to the Independent Research Service. However, people who have attempted to highlight the nature of the Independent Research Service relationship to the CIA and, in turn, Steinem's relationship to Independent Research Service, have been threatened with litigation and have had a lot of pressure put on them. The pressure in this instance not only coming from Steinem herself, but also from a man named Clay Felker (whose role in establishing Ms. magazine we're gonna take a look at), as well as Katherine Graham. We're gonna take a look at Katherine Graham, her relationship with CIA, and her involvement with Ms. [magazine], in just a couple of minutes.
Not only was the book Feminist Revolution "leaned on" (I guess you'd say) by the Ms. axis, but also the Village Voice, when writing an article about the censorship of Feminist Revolution, also had similar pressure put on them.
And the interesting thing is, the attorneys Greenbaum, Wolf & Ernst are a law firm that produced some of the people helping to defend, among others, Richard Nixon, in the Watergate case.
The fact that the Independent Research Service is, for all intents and purposes, a CIA front, is a matter of record.
If there was nothing to be covered up, why all of the pressure to cover it up? Even Steinem's own resume will maintain that she was related to the Independent Research Service.
So keep an eye on these events, and remember the names Clay Felker and Katherine Graham. We're going to come back to those a little bit later.
[...to be continued...]
[CN transcript of remarks by west coast researcher Dave Emory.]
[...continued...]
As far as the Independent Research Service itself, there's quite a few sources that document the connections of the Independent Research Service to the Central Intelligence Agency. I'm going to read one of them, very briefly, right now.
The book is called (and it's published in hardcover), it's called The Espionage Establishment, by David Wise and Thomas Ross. Published in hardcover by Random House and copyrighted 1974. In the [book] there's a footnote, in which a number of CIA domestic funding conduits and organizations funded by the CIA are listed. The organizations range from some which are obviously not CIA fronts but have simply received money from CIA (such as the National Council of Churches), to organizations like Radio Free Europe which were not only begun, basically, by the CIA but for all intents and purposes are CIA fronts and always have been. And in the list (which is in alphabetical order -- this, by the way, on page 155 of The Espionage Establishment), the Independent Research Service is listed right there.
Still more information about the Independent Research Service and just exactly what sorts of functions it performs on behalf of CIA is carried in an excellent article that appeared in the Berkeley Barb. (Now again, as I indicated, neither Nip [co-host] nor myself endorses the ideological underpinnings of a publication like the Berkeley Barb.)
The reportage here is excellent and essential, and it represents the deepest investigation into the background of Gloria Steinem we've been able to come up with.
The following article from the Berkeley Barb is from the issue of May 30th thru June 5th of 1975. The article is by Gabriel Schang and it's titled, "Radical Women Won't Be Ms.-led." And it concerns Steinem and her whole relation with Independent Research Service.
Gloria Steinem, founder and editor of Ms. magazine and president of the Ms. Corporation, has an association spanning ten years with the CIA which she has misrepresented and covered up. To some people, particularly feminists, the relationship seemed obvious, if nebulous and difficult to verify. Others will probably remain incredulous until Time magazine finally acknowledges it. And then, there will be people who don't perceive the implications of such a liaison, and still more who will simply shrug it off.
A group of women tied-in with the origins of the modern Women's Liberation Movement and concerned about its future, who call themselves "Red Stockings," have been able to piece together enough documentation to convincingly expose and describe the Ms./Steinem/CIA connection. Moreover, the Red Stockings have closely examined the financial backing and contents of Ms. magazine and have arrived at the conclusion that the ideology put forth by Ms. has been positively harmful to the Women's Movement.
The first revelations of Gloria Steinem's relationship to the CIA appeared in the New York Times in 1967, in an article that stated that Steinem had a part in launching a CIA front group which was called the "Independent Research Service." Just prior to this exposure, Ramparts magazine had disclosed that the organization was CIA-funded.
The purpose of the Independent Research Service seems to have been to subvert communist-minded youths on an international basis. The supposedly "Independent" Research Service was, in fact, totally dependent on the CIA. It is believed to have been formed in response to the Communist World Youth festivals occurring throughout the 1950s and 1960s. These festivals were held in communist countries until 1959, when the festival for that year was scheduled to take place in Vienna -- neutral territory during the Cold War. The State Department did its best to discourage American youths from attending. Some did go, though, and in the meantime the CIA covertly arranged for the Independent Research Service to organize an anti-communist delegation to attend and disrupt the festivals.
In 1967, Ramparts exposed the intricate laundering and funneling process by which the Independent Research Service obtained money from the CIA. The funds passed through five different foundations: the Borden Trust, the Price Fund, the Beacon Fund, the Edsel Fund, and the Kentfield Fund, on its way to the Independent Research Service as well as to the National Students Association and other groups.
The final channeling was accomplished through the well-known Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr(sp?). This same law firm produced Joseph Welch as attorney for the Army and in its confrontations with Joseph McCarthy and, more recently, James St. Claire as Nixon's chief counsel during the Watergate scandals.
(Excuse me. I was a little confused at first. The law firm representing Gloria Steinem in her media pressure efforts was not the same one which was involved... [i.e., Greenbaum, Wolf & Ernst are apparently not Nixon-related.] I was confusing that with the law firm involved with setting up the Independent Research Service in the first place.)
(Of course, it's still intriguing that this organization would be so very much involved with Gloria Steinem and connecting her to people like James St. Claire -- Nixon's counsel during the Watergate crisis. The Watergate crisis and its connections with Katherine Graham we're going to be looking at, as I had indicated, a little later.)
No one claims to know why Gloria Steinem was chosen to found and direct this group. But two early organizers of the Independent Research Service stated, in a New Republic article of May 11th, 1959, that "most of the sponsors have had considerable experience in domestic and international youth and student affairs."
What in Steinem's past prepared her for this sort of work? It is a matter of public record that Gloria M. Steinem graduated from Smith College and then received the Chester Bowles Asian Fellowship to the Universities of New Delhi and Calcutta, in India, in 1956 thru 1958. All the Red Stockings could glean of her activities in India is the alleged publication of a book in 1957 called, *The Thousand Indias*. Although the recent edition of *Who's Who in America* lists the title of the book, all attempts by Red Stocking to find it in past or current listings of the Cumulative Book Index listings of the New York Public Library Books in Print and the Library of Congress were unsuccessful. The very existence of Steinem's book cannot be determined, let alone its contents or the identity of the publisher.
According to the recent Red Stocking press release, and a February 21st, 1967 interview in the New York Times, Steinem was described as "a full-time Independent Research Service employee in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1959 until after the Helsinki Youth Festival in 1962." Under media pressure, Steinem could not disavow her CIA association. But she gave a distorted view of her activities at the festivals. Steinem claims all the group did at the two festivals was establish a newspaper, a news bureau, cultural exhibits, and jazz clubs. The groups most important work, she said, was convincing youths from Asia, Africa, and Latin America that there were some Americans who understood and cared about their situation. Steinem emphasized, "I was never asked to report on other Americans or assess foreign nationals I had met."
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
"I was never asked to report on other Americans or assess foreign nationals I had met." -- Gloria Steinem
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The Red Stockings charge that this statement is an alarming lie. In a "Report on the Vienna Youth Festival" printed with Steinem's name on it as director of the Independent Research Service, there are 13 pages devoted exclusively to biographies, political affiliations, and even some superficial analyses of persons from all countries participating in the festival. Youths were monitored in much the same way at the 1962 World Youth Festival in Helsinki. In addition to the news and cultural events put on by the Independent Research Service, the Helsinki festival was marked by four nights of "spontaneous" rioting against the festival during which 40 people were arrested. It was reported by Newsweek in August 1962 that "Pravda, of course, blamed the disturbances on well-financed CIA and FBI agents."
(Interrupting briefly. Of course remember that Newsweek is published by Katherine Graham. We're going to be coming to her role in setting up Ms. [magazine] in just a minute.)
This is Gloria Steinem's background from the late 1950s and early 1960s. She functioned as a secret representative of the American government abroad. At least, she was representing certain American interests, and her activities in the Independent Research Service involved her inextricably with the U.S. domestic political intelligence network.
Another fact exhumed by the Red Stockings is the group's [Independent Research Service's] publication of a pamphlet in 1959 called, "A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States." Steinem's name is listed on the inside cover, this time as co-director of the Independent Research Service. The pamphlet focusses on the supposed advances made by black people in the U.S. For example: "Beyond the noisy clamor of those who would obstruct justice and fair play, no alert observer can be unaware of the concerted effort to rule out segregation from every aspect of American life." The reason some discrimination does still occur, according to the research group, is because "it is also self-perpetuating, in that the rejected group, through continued deprivation, is hardened in the very shortcomings, real or imaginary, that are given as the reasons for the discrimination in the first place."
In other words, the oppression of blacks continues not because of white, ruling-class interests, but because black people actually have become inferior. [CN: Here Red Stocking is paraphrasing how they see the Independent Research Service pamphlet's argument.]
(I'd interrupt to say that that phrase ["...the rejected group, through continued deprivation, is hardened in the very shortcomings, real or imaginary, that are given as the reasons for the discrimination in the first place."] could be interpreted in different ways, but that could be one inference of that phrase. I don't necessarily think that that phrase would have to be interpreted in this way. That's one area where I disagree a little bit with the Red Stocking's analysis. However the reportage here on the Helsinki Youth Festival and so forth is bedrock, and I think it's worth noting again Steinem's role as co-founder and co-director of the Independent Research Service.)
The Red Stocking's analysis equates this denial of black oppression with Ms. magazine's rationalization to explain the prolonged subjugation of women: both blacks and women have supposedly become apathetic and deficient.
By 1967, the Independent Research Service was declared "largely inactive" by the New York Times. Steinem, however, was still a director in 1968 when Ramparts [magazine] broke another story. This time they disclosed that the CIA had plans of their own for another World Youth Festival to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria. A scandal involving some confidential letters implicating the CIA, which found their way into print before the festival, had the effect of curtailing the CIA's plans for youths in Sofia.
It was during the following year, 1969-70, that Gloria Steinem first began publicly identifying herself with the Women's Movement. Around this same time, Red Stocking researchers noted there was a change in the biographical information listed about Steinem in *Who's Who*. Reportedly, *Who's Who* sends data sheets to their subjects requesting them to furnish the details. The 1968 and '69 edition was the first issue ever mentioning Steinem, and at the time she was listed as "Director, educational foundation, Independent Research Service, Cambridge, Massachusetts/New York City, 1959-62. Now member Board of Directors, Washington." By the 1970 edition of *Who's Who*, this entry was shortened to "Director, educational foundation, 1959-60." No mention of her position in Washington on the Board of Directors appears, and she abbreviated her term of employment with the Independent Research Service to one year. The censored version appears in each successive edition of *Who's Who*.
There does seem to be an attempt on Steinem's part to mislead Ms. readers and conceal parts of her past. For instance, her bio-blurb in June 1973 Ms. is even vaguer: "Gloria Steinem has been a free-lance writer all her professional life. Ms. magazine is her first full-time, salaried job."
(Obviously, that is not the case.)
Then there is Gloria Steinem's mysteriously swift rise to national prominence so soon after the 1967 exposures. It is a common complaint among ex-CIA agents that past involvement with the Agency often impedes their ability to find other forms of employment. This was not the case for Steinem. According to Red Stocking, "her career skyrocketed after the 1967 exposures. Much of the credit for this must go to Clay Felker, publisher of New York Magazine. Recently in the news for his acquisition of the Village Voice, Felker immediately fired its two remaining founders from their jobs as publisher and editor. Felker was Steinem's editor at Esquire [magazine] where her first free-lance pieces were published. He hired her as contributing editor to New York Magazine in 1968 and booked publicity spots for her on radio and tv talk shows. Felker put up the money for the preview issue of Ms. in January of 1972, a large part of which appeared as a supplement in the 1971 year-end issue of New York Magazine. In effect, it was Felker who made Steinem famous by giving her a platform from which to establish her Women's Liberation credentials.
These facts are all part of the public record. What has not been widely known up to this time are the earlier political roots of the Steinem/Felker collaboration. Felker was with Steinem at the Helsinki Youth Festival editing the English language newspaper put out by the CIA-financed delegation.
In addition to Steinem's initial boost from Clay Felker, the Red Stockings were able to determine two other major sources of funds for the then fledgling Ms. magazine. One resource was Katherine Graham, owner and publisher of the Washington Post and Newsweek. She bought $20,000 worth of stock before the first issue of Ms. was ever published. According to "perfect Ms. ideology," Graham was recently featured on the magazine's cover, depicted by the headline as "The Most Powerful Woman in America."
(That, by the way, from the Ms. issue of October 1974.)
It should be noted in conjunction to this fact that Newsweek became the most enthusiastic, mass-circulation magazine promoting the Independent Research Service and later, Gloria Steinem as an individual. (See early articles of 5/10/65 and cover story of 8/16/71.)
The second major money source for Ms. was Warner Communications, Inc. They purchased $1 million worth of Ms. stock after the preview issue appeared. Warners allegedly put up nearly all the money and only took 25 percent of the actual stock holdings. Even the Ms. editors admitted that this was a trifle odd: "We are especially impressed that they took the unusual position of becoming a major investor but minority stockholder, thus providing all the money without demanding the decision vote in return."
(That from the Ms. Reader, page 226.)
(Skipping down in the article.....)
The ad policies of Ms. are an equally important indicator of the magazine's financial and political backing, especially in view of the frequently stated Ms. claims of extreme selectivity regarding which ads they will accept. This stance makes any ad they choose tantamount to an endorsement. Blatantly sexist ads are most often rejected, along with ads for cosmetic and fashion products. However Ms. seems to have no moral problem accepting public relations and job recruitment ads for large corporations. IT&T is one of the most regular advertisers in Ms., along with non-product ads from Ortho Pharmaceuticals, Exxon Oil, Chemical Bank, Bell Telephone, Singer Aerospace, Shearson-Hammel stockbrokers, Gulf & Western, and Merrill-Lynch stockbrokers.
In their special "Human Developments" section each month, Ms. runs a series of advertisements for careers in companies like these.
A letter in September of 1973 from Amy Sverdlow(sp?) of Women's Strike for Peace questioned what the recruiting of women for IT&T had in common with human development: "Let's have a Ms. story on all IT&T activities around the world. Then, let the reader decide what talented women will find at IT&T headquarters," she submitted. Ms. editors replied that in light of all the unemployed women and women on welfare that they could not be too selective about their job ads. As if welfare mothers are all headed toward IT&T careers! There is much controversy over whether Ms. magazine is a commercial or a political enterprise. Elements of both seem to exist as ingredients of the Ms. ideological package.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
Recently, in a television appearance, Pat Carbine, now publisher of Ms. [magazine] and formerly editor of McCalls [magazine] in 1971 when that magazine named Gloria Steinem "Woman of the Year," declared that the Women's Movement was currently in "Phase II." What that means here (the Red Stockings go on to explain), "radicals were necessary for getting the thing started," she conceded, "but the moderates were now in control."
(And skipping down still further, the article closes here with an interesting little blurb.)
Do not forget that Gloria Steinem dated Henry Kissinger at one time. And think about this: "There is still the assumption that a woman is not a complete human being by herself. We have to consider the ways in which we are 'man junkies.'"
(That from Gloria Steinem in a New York Times interview of August 11, 1974.)
Well the Kissinger association is not necessarily very significant at all. However we are going to talk about a man that she's been with for a very long time who appears to be a very insidious individual indeed.
Perhaps none of the things in any of the material that we're gonna present here, taken by themselves, would be too conclusive. However the intersection of all of them is very intriguing indeed.
Now reviewing some of the key points of this Berkeley Barb article: The Independent Research Service, founded to a considerable extent by Gloria Steinem and co-directed by her for quite some time, was involved with basically breaking up socialist youth conferences and disrupting them abroad, as well as reporting on the affiliations of some of the people involved. That is obviously the kind of activity CIA does engage in. And one of the most interesting things is the role of Clay Felker in boosting Steinem's career and helping to get Ms. started, because Felker was an associate of Steinem's in the Independent Research Service. Katherine Graham here played a key role in launching Ms., and then a sort of symbiotic relationship between Ms. [magazine] and Steinem and Newsweek followed from that.
We're gonna take a look at Katherine Graham -- her and the Washington Post's long-standing affiliation with CIA as well as role in Watergate -- a little later in the broadcast.
It's also worth noting that (as the article here points out) some corporations which have sort of dubious policies, at least abroad, have been very prominent Ms. advertisers. I think people who would like to find out more about IT&T should take a look at IT&T's role in the Chilean coup of 1973. And then examine some of the Amnesty International reports on what happened to women political prisoners under Pinochet's regime. One of the most grotesque things that I recall reading in the Amnesty International reports about the political repression and torture under Pinochet immediately after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, was that female political prisoners were often subjected to torture by specially trained dogs who would first rape them, and then sexually mutilate them. Although Ms. [magazine] does not appear to have too much hesitation about running ads by an organization that would help precipitate that kind of activity, I suspect that if Gloria Steinem were tied down onto a Chilean torture table getting the "once over" from "Fido," I expect her attitude would be somewhat less circumspect than it was under the circumstances.
And last, but certainly not least, it's interesting to note that she dated Henry Kissinger. Of course Kissinger was very much involved in setting up that very same coup, as was Richard Helms (part of the Washington Post orbit.) We're going to take a look at another interesting fellow, though, that Gloria Steinem dated. Again: one doesn't want to damn people by association. But when you're examining intelligence connections, the people one associates with intimately and over a long period of time are one of the indicators of where one's real sympathies lie.
We're now going to play a short section of the "One Step Beyond" show from June 17th, 1984. You're going to hear some material here from Newsweek magazine, as well as some material from the New York Times. And it's going to be talking about Gloria Steinem's paramour for the past, what... It was nine years in '84. I don't know whether they're still together, but that's a long time to be with anybody in terms of a dating relationship. Gloria Steinem's relationship with a man named J. Stanley Pottinger, who J. Stanley Pottinger is, some of the things he has been involved in, is the next thing we're going to take up in relation to Gloria Steinem and the whole Ms. axis.
Playing now from "One Step Beyond," June 17th, 1984.
An interesting bit of information here concerning Gloria Steinem. And again: this on the occasion of her 50th birthday. This is from Newsweek, the issue of June 4th, 1984. There's an article on Gloria Steinem's 50th birthday. It's very short. It's entitled, "Steinem at 50: Gloria in Excelsis." (And I'm only going to read you one sentence of this article.)
"In previous incarnations, Steinem dated Mike Nichols, Rafer Johnson, and other notables. For the past nine years she has been romantically involved with Washington attorney Stanley Pottinger, a Republican and former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights."
But he was Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under the Nixon/Ford administration, from 1973 until 1977. You'll all recall what Nixon's Justice Department was like: both Mr. Kleindeist and John Mitchell were indicted -- Mitchell convicted and Kleindeist eventually... I don't know whether he was convicted and received a suspended sentence, or whether he eventually was acquitted. But half the Nixon Justice Department wound up being indicted on one charge or another, many of them acquitted, most in connection with the Watergate affair. They also presided over COINTELPRO and a number of other interesting things. Surely the Nixon administration has never been regarded as a great champion of civil rights. And a woman like Gloria Steinem, who is at least nominally aligned with a civil rights movement, the feminist movement... Well, her association, her 9-year romantic involvement with Mr. Pottinger, is really intriguing.
Now those of you who listen to Mae Brussell's "World Watcher" series will recall Mae referring very briefly to Mr. Pottinger's [alleged] involvement in an arms smuggling scam. (Research credit for the following article, again, goes to Mr. Ted Rubenstein.)
(By the way, that Newsweek article, if you'd like to look it up, is from June 4th, 1984.)
Now, concerning Mr. Pottinger and his alleged involvement in an arms smuggling scam, the following article (research credit goes to Ted Rubenstein)... This is from the New York Times of June 3rd, 1984. This is an article by Solwyn Rabb, headlined "Iranian is Sought in Inquiry on Arms." Subtitled: "Banker Wanted in Smuggling of Prohibited Equipment."
"An Iranian banker in New York City who offered to help seek the release of the American hostages in Iran in 1980 is under investigation for leading a group that purportedly smuggled banned military equipment into Iran, according to federal authorities. The investigation, which began four years ago, resulted in the arrests in New York last month of the brother of the banker and of a Huntington, Long Island businessman on smuggling charges. According to federal officials, a former United States Assistant Attorney General, W. Stanley Pottinger, is also under investigation. The 44-year-old Mr. Pottinger, who was in charge of the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department from 1973 to 1977, recently testified before the federal grand jury in Manhattan investigating the case. He did not return telephone calls left at his Manhattan office or his home."
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
So, again, he [Pottinger] is being investigated in connection with... That is to say, W. Stanley Pottinger, longtime paramour of Gloria Steinem (9 years, to be exact), is being investigated in connection with an arms smuggling case, which in turn is connected with a possible attempt to seek the release of the American hostages in Iran in 1980.
It certainly isn't conclusive, obviously, because, first of all, Pottinger's only being investigated in connection with the case. But that his name should turn up at all... And I understand from broadcast news reports on the subject (there haven't been many in print), apparently his voice was on wiretaps of the Hashemi's, the Iranians involved in this arms smuggling scam and also the attempt to obtain the release of the hostages from Iran.
Well, of course, arms smuggling is a major focus of intelligence activity. And Iran, of course, has also been a major focus of intelligence activity for many years. And among the many people who crop up in connection with attempts to obtain the release of the American hostages, Frank Turpel(sp?) and former congressman John Jenrette(sp?), who went out in the ABSCAM convictions, were among the many names that crop up in connection with various attempts to win the release of the hostages.
And of course that whole crisis, the Iranian hostage crisis, in many ways is viewed by many people as having brought President Reagan into power.
So, again, we have Gloria Steinem, associated with the Independent Research Service, a documented CIA domestic funding conduit. We have her making statements about the "fact" that the CIA is a liberal and far-sighted organization. And we have her attempts, through attorneys and major stockholders in Ms. [magazine], to attempt to suppress the information concerning her affiliation with Independent Research Service. In addition, she's 9-years-involved with one of the Nixon/Ford administration's Assistant Attorneys General, this one in charge of civil rights, whose name crops up in connection with a major arms smuggling scam. So, nothing conclusive, but very interesting indeed.
That concludes the tape segment.
Now one of the things that's intriguing about Steinem's association with Pottinger concerns the fact that Pottinger was not only possibly involved in an arms smuggling scheme to Iran. What is very intriguing is the fact that J. Stanley Pottinger was involved, while working for the Nixon/Ford Justice Department, not only in helping to block the investigation into the assassination of Martin Luther King, but also in operating in connection with former Director of Central Intelligence and current Vice-President of the United States [1981-89] George Bush in covering up the assassination of Orlando Letelier, a dissident Chilean diplomat who was blown up (as many of you, I'm sure, here know) in the middle of Washington, DC. Although U.S. intelligence has disclaimed any involvement in that, that claim has been destroyed by a number of different books. One of those is an excellent book we've used before on this program. It's called Death In Washington, co-authored by Donald Freed and Fred Landis. It was published in hardcover by Lawrence Hill & Co. and it was copyrighted 1980.
And of J. Stanley Pottinger's role in blocking the investigation of Martin Luther King [assassination], when it began to lead in the direction of the FBI, Freed and Landis write as follows in Death In Washington:
At the Department of Justice, J. Stanley Pottinger and Michael Shaheen(sp?) were working overtime to blunt the charge that the Federal Bureau of Investigation might have murdered Dr. King and certainly had not investigated the crime.
Pottinger was not only involved in blunting the investigation into the assassination of Martin Luther King, but he also was involved in a milieu that helped block the investigation, not only block the investigation into the assassination of Orlando Letelier, but to deflect it into the direction of the Chilean left.
Some of the people involved in not only setting up the [Letelier] assassination but covering it up are names that we've used here before. The two names here, Frank Turpel and Edwin Wilson, are going to be "front and center" here. Specifically, Frank Turpel supposedly met with (according to this account here) James Buckley, in New York City, shortly before the Letelier assassination. And according to Landis and Freed, some of the explosives used in the Letelier assassination were provided by Edwin Wilson and Frank Turpel. Of course, we've looked at the fact that Turpel and Wilson were by no means ex-CIA agents when they worked with Moammar Khaddafi in Libya. And certainly, since this took place before that, they were not ex-CIA agents at this time too.
So what we have is, Turpel and Wilson, George Bush, and J. Stanley Pottinger, as well as James Buckley (and later, William F. Buckley), working not only to assassinate Orlando Letelier, but to cover it up and deflect blame for the crime in the direction of the Chilean left.
Again, reading from Death In Washington by Landis and Freed. (The "Townley" referred to here was Michael Vernon Townley(sp?), the man actually convicted, along with a couple of anti-Castro Cubans, in performing the Letelier assassination.)
Townley met with Frank Turpel one week before the Letelier murder, on the same day that he met with Senator James Buckley and aides in New York City. The explosives, sent into the United States on Chilean airlines, were to replace explosives supplied by Edwin Wilson, according to a source close to the office of U.S. Attorney Lawrence Barchella(sp?), Jr. Barchella had worked with Eugene Propper(sp?) on the Letelier/Moffit(sp?) case.
Each increment of American involvement in the crime leads to the threshold question: What did George Bush and the CIA know, and when did they know it? On October 4th, 1976, Director of Central Intelligence Bush met with Eugene Propper and J. Stanley Pottinger, and promised cooperation in exchange for FBI caution in any national security matters. Then, on November 8th, Bush flew to Miami on the pretext of "a walking tour of Little Havana." Actually, he met with FBI Special Agent in Charge Julius Matson(sp?) and the chief of the Anti-Castro Terrorism Squad. According to a source close to the meeting, Bush warned the FBI against allowing the investigation to go any further than the lowest-level Cubans. This was a secret meeting, but publicly, Bush was selling headlines like, "Left Is Also Suspect In Slaying Of Letelier," to Jeremiah O'Leary and the Washington Star [newspaper].
And just the week before, on November 1st, the Washington Post had quoted both Bush and Kissinger to the effect that the [Chilean] Junta was not involved.
This is obstruction of justice, and misprision of a felony at the least. Why would the Director of the American Central Intelligence Agency violate the law in the interests of the Chilean Junta?
Well I think that the reasons are fairly obvious, because of the involvement of the CIA in installing and preserving that very Junta are a matter of public record.
So again, Michael Vernon Townley cooperating not only with Frank Turpel and Edwin Wilson on the actual assassination of Orlando Letelier, but interestingly enough, he meets with Senator James Buckley on the same day he meets with Frank Turpel. And both the Buckleys were involved in helping to circulate the myth that the Chilean left had been involved in killing Orlando Letelier.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
We're talking about Gloria Steinem, her association with the Central Intelligence Agency, with Ms. magazine (of course), with people like Katherine Graham, with men like J. Stanley Pottinger. We just took a look at Pottinger's possible role in an arms smuggling scam and his definite role in covering up the assassinations of Orlando Letelier and Martin Luther King.
Now we're going to take a look at the interesting "extra-curricular activities," I guess you could say, of the woman who was the first publisher of Ms. magazine. Sometime in the early '70s, a woman by the name of Pat Carbine ("Carbine," sort of ironic in light of Pottinger's role in these assassinations) was, she became the publisher of Ms. Before that, the publisher of Ms. magazine was a woman named Elizabeth Forsling Harris(sp?). And it appears that Elizabeth Forsling Harris played a primary role in the assassination of John Kennedy.
Reading from Volume IV of one of the best series of books on the Kennedy assassination... It's called, Forgive My Grief. It occurs in 4 volumes. It's authored by Penn Jones, Jr.
Now Penn is the editor of the Midlothian Mirror (Midlothian is a suburb of Dallas), and he's one of the foremost researchers, and a man who began investigating the Kennedy assassination on 11/22/63 and stuck with it for a long time. Far, far longer than most. And he published Forgive My Grief, Volume IV, in 1974. Copyright 1974, privately published by Penn Jones, Jr., in softcover.
By the way, the title comes from a poem: "In Memoriam," by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It says,
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in Thee,
And there I find him worthier to be loved.
(A lot of people have wondered where that reference comes from.)
But anyway, far more important than that reference, is the association of Gloria Steinem and Ms.'s first publisher, Elizabeth Forsling Harris. And it appears that Elizabeth Forsling Harris was involved in planning the assassination of John Kennedy. (Interesting, in light of Steinem's paramour, J. Stanley Pottinger, and his connections not only to the assassination of Martin Luther King, but also his association with people like Michael Vernon Townley, Frank Turpel, Edwin Wilson -- and not to mention George Bush -- in the assassination of Orlando Letelier.)
Reading now from Forgive My Grief, Volume IV.
(And by the way, most of the articles in Penn's book are actually editorials or investigative columns done by Penn in the Midlothian Mirror. And this is one of them.)
Infiltrating Again
The Women's Liberation Movement, as well as the Youth Movement, must constantly be aware of the problem of infiltration by enemies. In fact, the [Women's] Liberation group may very well have been taken over already by the Ms. publisher, Elizabeth Forsling Harris. According to the Dallas papers, Mrs. Harris accompanied Liberation leader Gloria Steinem during the Steinem appearances in Dallas.
Since reading *Coup d'Etat* by Edward Lipvak(sp?), it is easier to understand the enormous planning, and checking and double-checking, necessary before the killing of President John Kennedy could be successfully accomplished. Taking over the most powerful country in the world is not a small task. Having constant surveillance on the opinion makers in Dallas was only one of the necessary requisites in the planning stages. Betty Forsling Harris appears to have been one of the high-level observers moved here from Washington. She left Dallas shortly after the assassination.
Elizabeth Forsling came to Dallas a few years before the assassination. She was a great and good friend of Stanley Marcus of Nieman-Marcus [department store]. She married and divorced Leon Harris of the A. Harris firm. Elizabeth Forsling Harris worked for the Saul Bloom Advertising Agency and was referred to by Washington planners as "our Dallas contact." She attended the important planning sessions for the coming visit of the President. The Bloom Agency handled the public relations for the visit, then also handled public relations for the Jack Ruby trial. This was a first for any court, to have a public relations firm employed in a court case.
Elizabeth Forsling Harris was a very close co-worker, with Jack Pewterbaugh(sp?), on the Dallas trip which cost the life of President John Kennedy. Pewterbaugh came to Washington from Minnesota, with Orville Freeman(sp?). In the Agriculture Department, Pewterbaugh was working closely with Billy Sol Estes, later convicted and sent to prison. It was Pewterbaugh who made the decision to hold the lunch in the Trade Mart, "because of the proximity to Love Field." And it was Pewterbaugh who made the decision to take the unauthorized and unnecessary detour in Dealey Plaza.
The two decisions make Pewterbaugh up to his hips in the assassination. Neither he, nor Betty Harris, were ever questioned by the Warren Commission.
And again, the Bloom Agency handled the P.R. not only for President Kennedy's visit to Dallas, but also handled the public relations for Jack Ruby's trial. This was the first time any court had had a public relations firm employed in such a capacity. (Although my understanding is that now that is sort of standard operating procedure, where anyone can afford it. So this was sort of a ground-breaking event.)
One thing that is not included in that particular article about the Bloom Agency (and recall that's with whom Elizabeth Forsling Harris was working) is that Oswald had visited the Bloom Agency a number of times before his alleged (and obviously non-existent) role in the assassination of Kennedy.
The important thing in examining Oswald, by the way (as we looked at not only in "The Guns of November," but in a number of Radio Free America shows -- the "Aryan Nation" series and "World Anti-Communist" series in particular [CN: Tapes of past broadcasts may still be available; phone 415-346-1840, or contact Conspiracy Nation for more info]), but the important thing about examining Oswald is to find out who manipulated him in such a way as to take the fall for the Kennedy assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill anyone.
The point here is that Elizabeth Forsling Harris appears to have been a primary planner in the Kennedy assassination. She was never questioned by the Warren Commission, she worked for the Bloom Agency, which had some curious roles throughout the [Ruby] trial. And beyond that, she was heavily involved, along with Jack Pewterbaugh, in planning the motorcade route for John Kennedy. (That, of necessity -- for those who've studied the details of the assassination -- has to have placed her, as Penn Jones indicated, in the very center of the conspiracy itself. And as we've looked at in our "Aryan Nation" series as well as "The Guns of November," the Kennedy assassination was, for all intents and purposes, a military coup.)
Now again, perhaps the Steinem association with Elizabeth Forsling Harris in and of itself wouldn't be too damning. But in light of all the other information -- the Independent Research Service connections, in light of her association with J. Stanley Pottinger and some of the things Pottinger's been involved in -- it's one more very interesting detail concerning Steinem and her involvement in a very deep intelligence mileau.
And again, Elizabeth Forsling Harris replaced (ironically enough) by Pat Carbine, as publisher of Ms. magazine.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
It's worth noting here because, upon leave from Chestnut Lodge, Phil Graham blew his own brains out, in August of 1963.
Reading again from Katherine the Great:
Death preoccupied Phil all that Spring. Three times, with permission to leave Chestnut Lodge, he visited Edward Bennett Williams to re-write his will, each time reducing Katherine's share of his estate. On the second visit, he demanded that Williams burn the first will. On the third, he had him burn the second. These wills rescinded and superseded the carefully thought out document of longstanding, one that provided trust funds for his children and gave the bulk of his estate to his wife. After he died, during probate, Katherine's lawyer challenged the legality of the last will. The probate proceeding enabled Katherine to take control of the [Washington] Post with no significant legal problem. Although with the discredited will not on the public record, it is not known who Phil might have designated in her place.
Manic-depressives frequently plan their deaths on the anniversary of a significant event. Saturday, August 3rd, 1963, was the 15th anniversary of the formation of the Washington Post Company, the umbrella corporation for the Post and other property in which Katherine and Phil Graham were sole partners. On the morning of August 3rd, Phil telephoned Katherine from Chestnut Lodge and said that he was feeling much better. He asked if he could spend the weekend with her on their farm. Katherine called Joe Rowe(sp?) and told him happily, "Phil is better! He's coming home. Why don't you come over and see him on Tuesday?"
On Monday he would spend the day with the children. She picked him up at Chestnut Lodge that morning. They drove to a small Virginia town called Warrenton, in Fochier(sp?) County, 42 miles southwest of Washington, in the Virginia Hunt country. The farm, Glen Welby(sp?), was that of a gentleman and weekend hunter, equipped with television and telephones, books and paintings, shotguns for hunting deer and rifles for quail hunting parties, horses, servants, a large, well-stocked kitchen and bar. Katherine and Phil spent some time together, and then Katherine took a nap. Phil went downstairs, sat on the edge of the bathtub, and shot himself in the head.
Again, he may very well have been disturbed here. However one of the x-factors that's missing here from Debra Davis's ruminations on the death of Phil Graham is his long standing with intelligence and, in turn, the longstanding, ongoing, and highly successful attempts by the CIA to institute mind control, including training mind-control assassins and consequently (as we looked at in our Radio Free America series on mind control) to get some of those assassins (or apparent assassins: they're often used as decoys) to commit suicide. So whether or not the death of Phillip Graham here, who had become disenchanted with the pattern of CIA co-operation with the media, had anything at all to do with CIA mind control, remains to be seen. As we like to say here, "Food for thought, and grounds for further research." It is worth noting, though, that this happened just about 3 months before the assassination of President Kennedy. It's also worth noting that Phillip Graham's discredited wills might have invested the Washington Post (at least to a certain extent) away from the CIA which had been so inextricably involved with it from the very beginning.
And of course, one of the main names to take note of here -- again, by way of noting how the Washington Post really is part of a sort of old intelligence, old boy network here -- is the name of Edward Bennett Williams, the owner of the Washington Redskins for awhile, and now the Baltimore Orioles. Edward Bennett Williams is one of the prime, intelligence-related attorneys in the United States. His clients not only include Richard Helms, whose association with Ben Bradlee we looked at awhile ago (Helms, of course, CIA Director; CIA Director at the time of the overthrow of the Allende government, worked with Henry Kissinger, [Gloria] Steinem's old [boyfriend], among others.) But Edward Bennett Williams has represented John Connally, Jimmy Hoffa, Robert Vesco. And interestingly enough, it was while working as an investigator for Edward Bennett Williams's law firm, that Robert Maheu, formerly of the [Howard] Hughes organization, helped set up the organized crime assassination teams which were allegedly to be used against Castro, but there's some indication that they were used against John Kennedy instead. [CN: See, for example, "Alpha-66," CN 8.43] Again, documentation on that, on "Guns of November," program #1, the first of our 4 programs on the assassination of John Kennedy.
It's worth noting here now too, that surrounding the death of John Kennedy, we have an interesting situation that, not only does Phillip Graham "bow out" in sort of a grisly fashion, but also after John Kennedy was killed, in October of 1964, Mary Meyer, the ex-wife of Cord Meyer, the brother-in-law of Ben Bradlee (who himself had intelligence connections) -- Cord Meyer, a key CIA counter-intelligence official -- Mary Meyer was murdered, her diary then appropriated by CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton.
Reading again from Katherine the Great:
Ben Bradlee was considered by some members of the Washington press to be insensitive and ruthless, professionally and socially. He was indiscrete about having been on intimate terms with Kennedy, one aspect of which was that his sister-in-law, Mary Pinchot Meyer, who had lived in Bradlee's renovated garage, had been Kennedy's lover. Mary Meyer had been murdered in October of 1964. She was killed near her house, or by the C&O Canal in Georgetown, shot or stabbed. The location, even the manner of her death, varies with each account. Immediately after she died, James Angleton, the CIA's Chief of Counter-Intelligence, searched her apartment for a diary she had kept about Kennedy and took it to CIA headquarters. Supposedly to burn it, although because of his training he never destroyed any document. A year later, when Bradlee went to the [Washington] Post, the slaying was still unsolved. (It has never been solved. Bradlee was uncharacteristically silent about it.)
So the point here again is, right around the time John Kennedy was leaving this world, a lot of the people within the whole Washington Post axis (and again, I use that term ["axis"] advisedly) were also "bowing out" in grisly fashion: Phil Graham, and the late, unfortunate, Mary Pinchot Meyer, being a couple of them here.
Now the last two details that we're gonna look at here are, in a sense, a sort of an abbreviated look at the Washington Post involvement with CIA in the Watergate case. Now one of the aspects of Watergate that has not received enough publicity is the fact that it appears almost probable that the CIA, as well as other elements of the National Security establishment, wanted Richard Nixon out for a reason or reasons which are debatable. Debra Davis here gives some reasons; we're gonna entertain those. I'm gonna suggest a couple of others here in a couple of minutes.
Now we could go into the indications of CIA involvement in Watergate all day. Unfortunately, due to time limitations here, we're not gonna be able to do it. Suffice it to say that James McCord, who was a very high-ranking intelligence official, head of the security organization for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, led the Watergate burglars into the Watergate Hotel. Now one of the things that McCord did is, after placing a piece of tape on the door to alert him as to whether or not the "Plumbers'" presence had been discovered in the Watergate -- when he discovered that tape missing, he then replaced the tape without notifying the other Plumbers. For a man of McCord's very longstanding and sophisticated involvement with the intelligence community, that is frankly incredible, if one is to accept that James McCord was not a double agent placed within the Plumbers organization to get rid of Richard Nixon on behalf of CIA and others. That is the general view of most researchers, simply because as soon as McCord saw that tape missing he has to have known that their presence in the Watergate Hotel was discovered. There's no other conclusion. He placed the tape to alert him to a discovery. When he saw it was missing -- not just knocked off, but missing -- he has to have known that their presence was discovered. Despite that, he replaced the tape again; didn't alert the other Plumbers. And when the security guard at the Watergate Hotel saw that the tape was replaced again, he notified authorities. Because obviously he knew someone was in there. So again, that's just one of the many indicators that, in fact, Nixon's Plumbers unit was deep-sixed by CIA from the inside. The motives for doing so remain a matter of debate.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
Now obviously, people are aware of the role of the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein in particular, in breaking the Watergate case. It appears that Woodward and Bernstein, through Katherine Graham the publisher and Ben Bradlee, were manipulated by CIA -- and specifically, Richard Ober, an associate of Bradlee's and himself a key CIA counter-intelligence official, along with Cord Meyer, Bradlee's brother-in-law. Richard Ober was indeed the "Deep Throat" who alerted Woodward and Bernstein. Interestingly enough, Richard Ober was also head of "Operation Chaos," a CIA domestic counter-intelligence operation which involved setting up provocations as well as infiltrating radical groups.
Of the Washington Post's role in removing Richard Nixon and in the Watergate case, Debra Davis writes as follows. (You'll see some references here to the book, *All The President's Men*, by Woodward and Bernstein.)
Watergate was, according to this scenario, a counter-intelligence operation of the highest order, carried out for patriotic as well as bureaucratic reasons which were, in the minds of the intelligence directors, one and the same. It is clear what their motives must have been. Kissinger was pursuing a disastrous policy in Cambodia, disregarding the CIA's advice and blaming the CIA when he failed -- all the time adding fuel to the anti-war movement. Nixon's harsh and stupid attempts to "get political control over the CIA," as Watergate burglar James McCord later told the Senate Watergate Committee, his intention to have the Agency's judgements conform to rather than inform his policies, "smacked of the situation which Hitler's intelligence chiefs found themselves in" before the fall of Germany. But primarily because Nixon seemed at times to be insane, a terrible and a dangerous head of state, double-agent Ober, by this logic, arranged for double-agent McCord to be arrested during the Watergate break-in. And then Richard Ober, the head of Operation Chaos, the only man in the nation with access to classified information at the White House, the FBI, the CIA, and CRP [Committee to Re-Elect the President], became Deep Throat, a favor to Ben Bradlee, an old Harvard chum. Ober's boss, James Angleton, finally had achieved the ultimate dirty trick. Bradlee would take all the risks, and either Bradlee would succeed in getting rid of Nixon, or Katherine Graham would have to salvage her newspaper by getting rid of Bradlee.
That, basically, is the view of Richard Ober, the counter-intelligence official of CIA. The further information that Richard Ober was, in fact, Deep Throat, and that the CIA and Washington Post were involved in removing Nixon, is added here by Debra Davis. (It doesn't really matter the order here, but I read that a little out of order.)
But again, reading more about the use of Washington Post by CIA and CIA counter-intelligence to remove Nixon, Debra Davis writes as follows.
The minor deception in the book is that only Woodward knew who Deep Throat was.
(That book, of course: *All The President's Men*.)
Bradlee knew him; had known him for longer than Woodward. There is a possibility that Woodward had met him while working as an intelligence liaison between the Pentagon and the White House, where Deep Throat spent a lot of time, and that he considered Woodward trustworthy or useful and began talking to him when the time was right. It is equally likely, though, that Bradlee, who had given Woodward other sources on other stories, put them in touch after Woodward's first day on the story, when Watergate burglar James McCord said at his arraignment hearing that he had once worked for the CIA. Whether or not Bradlee provided the source, he recognized McCord's statement to the court as highly unusual. CIA employees, when caught in an illegal act, do not admit that they work for the CIA unless that is part of the plan. McCord had no good reasons to mention the CIA at all, except apparently to direct wide attention to the burglary, because he had been asked to state only his present occupation and he had not worked for the CIA for several years.
(I think that last statement is open to question. That last statement of Debra Davis is open to question.)
What matters is not how the connection with Deep Throat was made, but why. Why did Bradlee allow Woodward to rely so heavily upon it? And ultimately, why did the leaders of the intelligence community, for whom Deep Throat spoke, want the President of the United States to fall?
All of that, really, highlights the ongoing association of not only the Washington Post, but Katherine Graham, a key partner in the Ms. [magazine] axis, in working with CIA.
Now one scenario that is not discussed by Debra Davis concerns the possibility that Richard Nixon was not only removed because he was a dangerous leader, but there are a lot of indications that he was removed, basically, because the military and the "far right" were upset with his policies of detente towards the Soviet Union and China. The China lobby in particular (and we've looked at that in great detail in Radio Free America shows #11, #14, and #15, the second of our "Aryan Nations" programs and our two "Anti-Communist League" programs), the China lobby is a dominant and extremely reactionary force in American politics. Nixon was very close to them and many researchers feel (and there's indications that they felt betrayed by Richard Nixon) that they wanted a harder "Cold Warrior" than Nixon turned out to be -- even though he was a lifelong anti-Communist -- and that as a result they had him removed. That's another interpretation that many researchers have.
I also think... (I think that is correct.) I also think, to a certain extent, Debra Davis's analysis is correct. In a sense, Nixon wanted to become larger than the system. As of 11/22/63, the intelligence services and military were giving orders to the President, not the other way around. Nixon (although he was involved in the Kennedy assassination himself, as we looked at in the "Guns of November," program #3, about Watergate connections to the assassination), Nixon wanted to basically gain control of the whole show. He didn't want to be a servant; he wished to be a master. I think Davis's analysis in that respect is correct, and that that was one of the reasons why he was ousted.
Many people feel that the Kennedy assassination and Nixon's involvement in it was the lever used to oust Richard Nixon. The fact that Kennedy's assassination and discussion of it appears to have been involved with the Watergate tapes themselves we went into in great length in "Guns of November" #3. Also, there's some interesting information in an interview that I had with Gordon Novel(sp?), one of the principal figures in Jim Garrison's investigation in New Orleans. The full tape is available from Dav-Cor(sp?), and a little blurb of that is something that you hear on our little promotional part that I'm going to play in just a couple minutes.
Again, this discussion of Katherine Graham and the Washington Post, and their mutual association with CIA, is being included here not only for the information about Watergate, the fact that CIA official Richard Ober, in charge of Operation Chaos, appears to have been Deep Throat, but primarily because, in connection with all the other associations -- Clay Felker and Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Forsling Harris -- it paints a rather damning picture not only of Gloria Steinem herself, and her association with people like Pottinger and so forth, but that it shows a larger pattern of CIA co-operation with and manipulation of the media.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
One last item here that I'm gonna talk about (actually, review; we read this last week) concerns the curious associations of Geraldine Ferraro. Again, by way of taking a look at reactionary and intelligence infiltration of the women's movement and perhaps, at this point, control of the same. Research credit for this article goes to Ted Rubinstein, and it's from a Betty Beale(sp?) column. She's a society columnist. And it was carried in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on October 14th, 1984. It's featured by the News America Syndicate.
Political Opponents Make Strange Playmates
You'd never guess it, but ultra-liberal Geraldine Ferraro and super-conservative Roy Cohn are friends. In fact, Cohn, the brash young investigator of the Joe McCarthy days, may have been the first to plug Ferraro for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination.
It happened at Cohn's birthday party last February at Regine's in the "Big Apple" [New York City]. It was "quite a do," says Victor Laskey(sp?), author of *It Didn't Start With Watergate*. "Our Ambassador to Austria, Helena von Dame(sp?) was there, as was prominent New Yorker hostess C.Z. Guest(sp?), Barbara Walters, the Rupert Murdochs, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, the Charles Wickes(sp?), Baron and Baroness Ricky DePortnova(sp?), and Heaven knows who else, and the John Zacaros(sp?)." In fact, the Zacaros had been at previous Cohn birthday celebrations. [CN: As I recollect, Zacaro was/is Ferraro's husband.]
It was at the last one, however, that the lawyer/host [Cohn] introduced Ferraro as the possible next vice-presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Playmates make strange politics.
Now a couple of the interesting points about the Roy Cohn/Geraldine Ferraro association and the fact that Roy Cohn appears to have been the first person to promote Geraldine Ferraro as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate: Roy Cohn, although a luminary in New York society until his death, he was nominally a Democrat. But he was a loyal supporter of Ronald Reagan and obviously one of the guiding figures of the "far right" for a long time. Also, as we've looked at from the book Farewell, America, he himself was a participant in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Now the fact that the Geraldine Ferraro financial scandals, as well as her husband's questionable deals with mafiosi possibly, and real estate manipulations, were a couple of the things that really damaged the Democratic campaign in 1984. It's questionable whether Walter Mondale would have been able to win at all. But when the Democratic campaign got off on such a low note, it was basically dead almost from the word go. Mondale never really had a chance, and Geraldine Ferraro is one of the reasons why.
Now the reason, again, that I bring up the Roy Cohn association with Ferraro... And note, also, that Helena von Dame is a close friend of Roy Cohn's -- of course, her association not only with Ronald Reagan, but Nazi war criminal Otto von Bolsing(sp?) we've dealt with in Radio Free America show #3. Helena von Dame was Reagan's appointments secretary, drew up the lists of people from whom his gubernatorial appointments were made when he was Governor of California, and moved into the White House and became Special White House Executive Director for Personnel. She chose also, basically, the lists of people to be selected as cabinet appointees in this [Reagan's] administration.
The question, I think, that has to be asked here is whether or not, perhaps, Geraldine Ferraro's alleged shady dealings and those of her husband were known to Roy Cohn. And again, the possibility of a Watergate-type counter-intelligence operation has to be thought of here.
Now a couple of other interesting associations of Geraldine Ferraro, both of which can be gleaned from the major news media (I don't have them with me at this time, because we're sort of running out of time)... But Geraldine Ferraro first got her biggest boost as a congresswoman from a fellow named Joseph Califano. Joseph Califano was a former Pentagon official, a good friend of Alexander Haig, participant in the Bay of Pigs. And Califano was dismissed, basically, as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Jimmy Carter, because of his sort of reactionary stands on abortion and other aspects of women's rights. The fact that when Geraldine Ferraro's badly under-financed congressional campaign took off, the fact that it took off with money secured for her by Joseph Califano from the Carter campaign is intriguing. (By the way, you can read about that in wire service accounts of the Ferraro rise in politics right about the time of her nomination as [candidate for] Vice-President.)
Beyond that, Geraldine Ferraro's first press secretary was the widow of Santo Barrio. Santo Barrio was a DEA agent who, like so many of the DEA agents, appears to have worked both sides of the narcotics question. Barrio, by the way, died, and appears to have been poisoned, in investigation of a case (or perhaps co-operation of a case) called, "The Company," that we're gonna be dealing with when we discuss the inter-relationship of organized crime, intelligence and narcotics.
So again, none of those associations are conclusive in and of themselves. Together, it's an intriguing picture of some of the background of Geraldine Ferraro. And in light of Roy Cohn's devotion to Ronald Reagan, one has to ask whether perhaps the Reagan camp, and Cohn in particular, were aware of just what Geraldine Ferraro and John Zacaro had to hide. Perhaps that was the reason they manipulated them into that position in the first place. Again, bear in mind the whole Watergate scenario where dirty tricks were used to help deep-six the McGovern candidacy.
That more or less winds things up for the prepared portion of the broadcast. I'm gonna review very briefly what we've looked at, because it's been a long section here.
We began by taking a look at Gloria Steinem, her association with a CIA front called "The Independent Research Service," and efforts on the part of Steinem and associates to block publication of that information -- first of all by Random House in a book called Feminist Revolution, then by the Village Voice, and finally by the Heights and Valley News, a New York community newspaper.
Then we took a look at further information confirming CIA association with the Independent Research Service, that from *The Espionage Establishment* by Wise and Ross.
Then we next took a look at a more detailed account of the Independent Research Service's work in breaking up Socialist youth conferences abroad. And in particular, we took a look at the fact that Clay Felker, who played a key role in setting up Steinem at Ms. [magazine], was an associate of Steinem's with the Independent Research Service.
We also looked at the fact that Katherine Graham was a principal figure in helping to get Ms. [magazine] started and also a major stockholder.
We then looked at the fact that Gloria Steinem's paramour for the last 9 years, at least as of 1984, was a man named J. Stanley Pottinger, implicated in an arms smuggling scam and, more importantly, J. Stanley Pottinger helped block the investigations into the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Orlando Letelier.
After that we took a look at the fact that Ms. [magazine's] first publisher, Elizabeth Forsling Harris, appears to have been a key figure involved in setting up the assassination of President Kennedy.
After that, we took a look at the background of Katherine Graham, a principal figure in the whole Ms. axis. Katherine Graham, first of all, was part of an "old boy" intelligence network inextricably involved with the Washington Post. Her husband, Phillip Graham, had worked with CIA official Frank Wisner in setting up one of the first CIA/media operations, called "Operation Mockingbird."
We then looked at how the Washington Post grew, largely as a result of assistance from the CIA.
We took a look at the intelligence background of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and in turn his associations with old chums Richard Helms, CIA Director at the time of Watergate, and also a guy named Cord Meyer, his brother-in-law and a key CIA counter-intelligence official himself.
We then looked at the fact that Phillip Graham, just before his untimely death, became very disenchanted with the CIA's relationship to the news media -- perhaps more importantly, began vocalizing this disenchantment. We then took a look at the fact that this vocalizing didn't last too long because he blew his brains out in August of '63, three months before John Kennedy had his brains blown out.
We also took a look at how [Phillip Graham's] attorney was key intelligence-related attorney Edward Bennett Williams, who himself has possible connections to the assassination of Kennedy.
Following that, we took a look at the fact that Mary Meyer, the former wife of Bradlee brother-in-law Cord Meyer, who [Mary Pinchot Meyer] was Kennedy's lover, was murdered in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, and her diary was appropriated by James Angleton, CIA Chief of Counter-Intelligence.
We then looked at the proposed scenario by Debra Davis that the CIA manipulated the Washington Post and used it as a vehicle for removing Richard Nixon because, basically, Nixon wanted to be too big for the system.
And we then also took a look at the fact that "Deep Throat" appears to have been CIA counter-intelligence official Richard Ober, again, a long-standing friend of Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post.
Finally, we took a look at the close political association between reactionary attorney Roy Cohn and unsuccessful Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
That concludes the prepared portion of the broadcast for this evening.
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Good evening. Welcome once again to "One Step Beyond."
It's time now to formally begin the prepared portion of tonight's broadcast. And we're going to begin by taking a look at a column that appeared... (By the way, today is Sunday, July 14th, of 1991.) We're gonna begin by taking a look at a column that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News this past Wednesday -- this past Wednesday was July 10th of 1991. This is a column by Diane Mason, a correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times. The San Jose Mercury News entitled this particular column, "Like 'Thelma,' NOW's Ready To Kick Some." (And you know what 'some' is.) This particular column reads, in part,
There's a scene in the movie "Thelma and Louise" where Louise (Susan Sarandon) tells Thelma (Gina Davis) that she has really changed. "You used to be so sedate," Louise says. "No more," answers the now armed and dangerous Thelma. "I've had it up to my (expletive deleted) with 'sedate.'"
At the annual convention of the National Organization for Women [NOW] held in New York this past weekend, "Thelma and Louise" kept popping up -- not in person, nor as an official theme, but from the heart. It's not that NOW has ever been all that sedate, but this convention unharnessed more "we've had it up to here; let's kick butt" spirit than I've seen in a long time, maybe ever.
Hot items on sale are buttons that say, "Thelma and Louise Live," and t-shirts that read "Graduate of the Thelma and Louise Finishing School." Keynote speakers Gloria Steinem and activist lawyer Flo Kennedy talked about their travels and speeches together in the early days of the modern women's movement, calling themselves "the Thelma and Louise of the 1970s."
"Raising Hell and kicking (expletive deleted) is such fun," said Kennedy, 75. In a wheelchair, Kennedy jokes that what she does "besides being on my deathbed" is to be outrageous. She is the person who coined the oft-quoted proverb, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." Claiming all the privileges of growing older and unashamed to be outspoken, Kennedy said that "Women have been reasonable too long."
(Skipping down......)
Steinem, with her matchless zing and clarity, nearly brought down the house when she speculated on why the military doesn't want women in combat. "Can you imagine what would happen if every welfare mother, every underpaid waitress, every sexually harassed secretary, had two years of military training?" she asked.
Well it would be, indeed, interesting to speculate about what might happen, under the circumstances. However I think there are other things to ruminate about in connection with this particular development of this attitude on the part of elements of the women's movement.
Always a firm believer in women's rights myself, I am at the same time very critical of many of the directions that the women's movement has taken. And it is my belief and fear that considerable elements of the women's movement are allowing themselves to be manipulated by elements of the "far right," and specifically, are allowing themselves to be manipulated in the direction of one of the oldest techniques for subduing a given enemy population, namely, "divide and conquer."
There would be no more profound division that one could effect in American society or in any other society than to divide up men and women. You split up the male and female halves of the species, and you have effected as fundamental a division as you can possibly effect. For one thing, that will have a profound effect on the family unit, the basic element of socialization. And the more you weaken the family, the more you strengthen fascism. Because once the family itself is weakened, the main element of socialization is gonna be the television set. And children who have basically had their ideas concerning conflict resolution shaped by Saturday morning cartoon shows, Nintendo games, and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, well that is a society which when faced with a bind is going to resort to violence in order to resolve the conflict.
I do not think that dividing men and women is a good idea at all. Certainly no one should have to sacrifice basic human liberties for the sake of fitting any particular stereotype concerning sexual activity or sex-typing. However, it should be noted in this context that most people's feelings concerning the opposite sex are among the most conflicted emotional feelings and emotional complexes that they have. People's feelings concerning the parent of the opposite sex, siblings of the opposite sex, lovers and/or spouses of the opposite sex -- these are things which often have a very profound effect on people's personalities. And many people carry the scars and wounds of some of the things they have suffered during the socialization process forward, into life.
It is my fear that an over-emphasis by anyone -- be it the women's movement or some of the forces ranged in reaction to the women's movement -- an over-emphasis on male/female conflicts and differences is very likely to wind up exacerbating the differences and divisions between men and women. Also, [it is] likely to further mobilize some of the deep psychological conflicts many people of both sexes feel towards members of the opposite sex. And my fear, once again, is that not only elements ranged opposite the women's movement, but also elements of the women's movement itself, have, knowingly or otherwise, allowed themselves to be manipulated in such a direction that they are actively promoting an unnecessary and counterproductive division between the sexes.
Ultimately (obviously), men and women are dependent upon one another for the continued survival of the species. And as I've said before, there could be no more effective way of dividing and conquering than splitting up men and women.
So at a psycho-social level, I think the extent of identification of elements of the women's movement with what looks to me to be a contemporary feminist adaptation of the old Rambo, shoot-'em-up and crack their skull theme -- namely, this movie "Thelma and Louise" -- this does not look to me to be a particularly constructive attitude for elements of the women's movement to take. And I'm afraid it is likely to sow unnecessary division and further weaken progressive forces as we head into 1992, a very important election year.
I would also note that there is a searing irony here, to have Gloria Steinem ruminating as she has here:
Steinem, with her matchless zing and clarity, nearly brought down the house when she speculated on why the military doesn't want women in combat. "Can you imagine what would happen if every welfare mother, every underpaid waitress, every sexually harassed secretary, had two years of military training?" she asked.
Well I would ask in connection with that, Can you imagine what would happen if the most visible and (at least so far) effective feminist spokesperson in the United States, namely Gloria Steinem (regarded by many as the doyen of American feminism), can you imagine what would happen if she had a background in the Central Intelligence Agency?
Well you don't have to imagine what would happen. Because, in fact, Gloria Steinem has an extensive background in the intelligence agencies -- namely, the CIA -- and a number of the people in her mileau have very obvious intersections with the National Security establishment, going up to the present time. Who knows? Perhaps Gloria Steinem's CIA past is not quite as far behind her as she might like to have some of us think.
[...to be continued...]
[...continued...]
In a miscellaneous archive show entitled "Gloria in Excelsis" (subtitled "The CIA, the Women's Movement, and the News Media"), Gloria Steinem's many intelligence contacts were described in considerable depth. The main intersection between Steinem and the CIA is Steinem's role as co-founder, and at one point director, of an organization called the Independent Research Service: this is a CIA-financed student organization which has been used in a number of different capacities. We also noted that Ms. magazine itself, which had Steinem as editor, has as a principal stockholder Katherine Graham of the Washington Post. The Graham publishing empire, and the Washington Post in particular, [are] inextricably linked with the Central Intelligence Agency, as we looked at in the book *Katherine the Great* by Debra Davis. It should also be noted that the first publisher of Ms. magazine was a woman named Elizabeth Forsling Harris, who arranged many of the key Dallas details for President Kennedy's motorcade route.
By way of further exploring Gloria Steinem's CIA background -- specifically, her role with the Independent Research Service -- we're gonna take a look at some information now which comes from a book entitled The Pied Piper (subtitled "Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream.") This was authored by Richard Cummings. The book was published in hardcover by Grove Press, Inc., in New York. And it's copyright 1985.
Of Gloria Steinem and her involvement with the Independent Research Service, and in turn the Independent Research Service's involvement with disrupting the Vienna Youth Festival (which had very strong Socialist and Communist participation), author Cummings writes as follows:
The Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival, which was technically founded by Gloria Steinem and Paul Sigmund, and which came to be known as the Independent Research Service, was funded by the Independence Foundation, one of the conduits of CIA funds into the National Students Association [NSA]. In 1965, it was the Independence Foundation which leased its posh offices in Washington to the NSA [National Students Association], signing a 15-year rent-free agreement.
The Independent Service diligently recruited hundreds of American students to attend the 1959 Vienna festival and later, the 1962 Communist-backed Helsinki festival, to oppose the Communists as vigorously as possible. According to Eugene Theroux, who served as chairman of the metropolitan New York region chapter of NSA in 1958, the Americans went "to cause trouble."
I would note here also, more about the activities of the Independent Research Service, the CIA-financed student organization, co-founded by Gloria Steinem. And we're gonna look at, in addition to the glance we just took at the Independent Research Service's work in disrupting not only the 1959 Vienna festival but also the 1962 Helsinki festival, we're gonna look at plans of some of these same elements and individuals to disrupt a conference that had been scheduled for Algeria in 1965. This conference was cancelled. But had it not been cancelled it might very well have been disrupted by the aforementioned Eugene Theroux. And one of the people who is aiding Theroux was the aforementioned Allard Lowenstein, a former Dean of Students for Stanford University, and Gloria Steinem presiding over the same mileau once again.
Turning again to Richard Cummings, The Pied Piper (Allard Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream), we find,
Another Communist-backed youth festival was planned by the IUS for the summer of 1965 in Algiers, and Lowenstein made preparations to go there in order to disrupt it. Planning to join him this time was Paul Theroux's brother, Eugene, who as a NSA leader in 1958 had met Lowenstein and been inspired by him to work on behalf of southwest Africa and black students in the south. Eugene Theroux had been recruited in 1965 by Gloria Steinem to work for the CIA front, Independent Research Service. They were to be part of a delegation to "cause trouble," as Theroux puts it, or to "engage people in debate," as he corrects himself.
And again, as noted, the 1965 conference never came off. But we find some of the same elements: Lowenstein, Steinem, Theroux, et al., planning to disrupt this conference as they had the 1962 Helsinki conference and the 1959 conference in Vienna as well.
It should be noted that a number of other prominent liberals have intersected with this same mileau, this CIA mileau which involves Gloria Steinem. Among those are William Sloan Coffin(sp?), one of the leaders of the anti-war movement, himself a chaplain from Yale University, himself also, for several years, a CIA agent. We took a look at William Sloan Coffin and his intersection with the CIA in discussions from the book, *The Man Who Kept the Secrets* (about Richard Helms.) That's authored by Thomas Powers. William Sloan Coffin's CIA background described there. As we shall see, William Sloan Coffin intersecting with the mileau involving people like Allard Lowenstein and Gloria Steinem and, as we shall see, current Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, who also worked with Gloria Steinem and the CIA-sponsored Independent Research Service.
Returning once again to The Pied Piper, by Richard Cummings.
It is known that the CIA had established centers on the campuses of many American universities. In his recruiting efforts at some of these universities, Lowenstein was working with people who had been affiliated with the CIA or had participaated in CIA-sponsored projects. William Sloan Coffin at Yale, whom Lowenstein wanted to head the summer project, had worked for the CIA. Barney Frank at Harvard had been with the Independent Research Service delegation to Helsinki, an operation which, by Frank's own admission, he clearly understood was CIA-backed. Frank jokes about the role of fellow delegate Gloria Steinem, whom he describes as running around at nightclubs set up by the CIA in Helsinki, helping to win over Africans from the Communists.
And again, this little section here is going to go into the aforementioned miscellaneous archive show, "Gloria in Excelsis: CIA, the Women's Movement, and the News Media." That is already on file with Archives on Audio [PO Box 170023, San Francisco, CA 94117-0023; phone: 415-346-1840]. And this particular section of the program is going to go in as an addendum to that particular broadcast.
