Lobster 20

20 Calcutt Memorial Issue

Peter Dale Scott on the US and the Indonesian slaughter Filoxfax on the Grassy Knoll: Clay Shaut's address book Peace (plots) in our time: the economics of appeasement Dr Hugh Thomas replies to Timeutatch The

f2.00

I

The United States and the overthrow of Sukarno, 1965-67 Peter Dale Scott Introduction On May 20th this year the San Francisco Examiner ran a story by Kathy Kadane which began 'The U.S. government played a significant role in one of the worst massacres of the century by supplying the names of thousands of Communist Party leaders to the Indonesian army, which hunted down the leftists and killed them, former U.S. diplomats say'. Perhaps 5,000 names were given to the military during the massacres in 1965 which left perhaps 250,000 dead. Somehow Kadane had persuaded a senior CIA agent in Indonesia and his diplomatic boss at the time to talk, on the record.

The story was run, briefly, in the British serious press.

Britain and rang us. I mentioned the Kadane piece, how interesting it was A couple of months later Peter Dale Scott

in the light of his essa1, some years before on US invotrcmcur a :he 1965 coup and massacres, and suggested we print it- -{ mfl1er version of this essay appeared in the relatively obscom: -ra:ric Affairs some years ago and this year in a Dutch-languagr scrlir*nrn.

The United States and the Overthrow of Sukamo, which" :rs:eu$e of

Scott's essay, was banned

Eqiqâ‚Źi-nme:rx.

reconstituting reality from an extraordinary mass of detal

passed through

.&:rrm -Lr+ruc

The difficulties of this analysis, based chiefly on tle s;-iurler evidence presented ai the Mahmilub trials, will be ob'xlin u anyone who has lried to reconcile the conflicting accou::J rrGestapu in, e.g., the official Suharto account by Nugr*+ 5:mrsusanto and Ismail Saleh, and the somewhat less faDsfEi a:q

In this short paper on a huge and vexed subject, I discuss

Indonesia's President Sukarno, 1965-67. The whole story of that ill-understood period would transcend even the fullest possible written analysis.

Much of what happened can never be documented; and ofthe documentation that survives much is both controversial and unverifiable.

of

Indonesian

the surface account of politics; and ai a merhclrlrqr- -

the U.S. involvement in the bloody overthrow of

The slaughter

by the

Scott's essay is a classic demonstration of parapoliriux H, r itr e{t area - the presence of covert, intelligence agency acriul * rcffirrh

Study of 1968. I shall draw only on those parts of the $arrmlub evidence which limit or discredit their anti-PKI tlrcx F:r: interpretation of the Mahmilub data, cf. especialb Clcn Holtzappel, "The 30 September Movement," Jouraai ,:i Jntemporary Asia, lX, 2 (1979), p9. 21640. The case for lrsau skepticism is argued by Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Corrler--:r Under Sukarno (Ithaca: Cornell University Press. l9-a " !E. 421-23; and,, more forcefully, by Julie Southwood and Fsl* Flanagan, Indonesia: Law, Propaganda, and Tenot t-[.,way-

a product of conspiratorial policy; and

Sukarno's left-wing allies was

widespread paranoia as well as of represents a tragedy beyond the intentions of any single group or coalition. Nor do I wish to suggest that in 1965 the only provocations and violence came from the right-wing Indonesian military, their contacts in the United States, or (also important, but barely touched on here) their mutual contacts in British and Japanese intel-

Zed Press, 1983), pp. 126-34.

ligence.

long-delayed trial in 1978, Gestapu plonr i-r:r' confirmed earlier revelations that he had visired his olc ammander Suharto on the eve of the Gestapu kidnappogs I{r claimed that he raised with Suharto the existence ef a ai*gic right-wing Council of Generals plotting to seize pore. e:c informed him "of a movement which was intended ro *rt:-the plan of the generals' council for a coup d'6tat' (-Thc L.e.:,ctCase: Suharto's Involvement Revealed," Journal o-r Ccrc.-rporary Asia,lX,2 (1979), pp. 248-50). Suhano allcgr@ cacu borated the information about a conspiratorial Councii of Gcoerals, in marked contrast to his public broadcasr the ocr ,ia1'. when he dismissed it as groundless. ktiefs claims aft Frrocularly interesting because he was surprisingly not givea thc dâ‚Źath sentence, because of the anomalous delay in briagilg him 1q trial or even producing him as a witness, and becaue in 1990 he has reportedly been released. If his claims are mx. they show at a minimum that (l) Suharto had forekno*i@e of the plot, and yet failed to notiry his Commander Yaal tan involvement for which so many others were condeo-ned); (2) by encouraging, instead of refuting, Itliefs paranoia about a Council of Generals, Suharto helped induce &e plot to go forward. For a more comprehensive view of Suhano's involvement in Gestapu, cf. especially W.F. Wertheim, '*'hose Plot? New Light on the 1965 Events," Journal of Contemprury Asia,lX,2 (1979), pp. 197-2151' Holtzappel, in contrast, points more particularly to intelligence officers close to the banred Murba party of Chaerul Saleh and Adam Malik: cf. infra at footnote 107.

The three phases are: l) "Gestapu," the induced left-wing "coup"; 2) "KAP-Gestapu," or the anti-Gestapu 'response," massacring the PI(I; 3) the progressive erosion ofSukarno's remaining power. This paper will chiefly discuss Gestapu/KAPGestapu, the first two phases. To call the first phase by itself a "coup" is in my view an abuse of terminology: there is no real evidence that in this phase polilical power changed hands or

At his

And yet, after all this has been said, the complex and ambiguous story of the Indonesian bloodbath is also at its center simpler and easier to believe than the public version inspired by President Suharto and U.S. government sources. Their problematic claim is that in the so-called Gestapu coup attempt of September 30, 1965 (when six senior Army generals were murdered), the left attacked the right, leading to a restoration of power, and punitive purge of the left, by the center.ll shall argue instead that, by inducing, or at a minimum helping to induce, the Gestapu "coup," the right in the Indonesian Army eliminated its rivals at the army's center, thus paving the way to a long-planned elimination of the civilian left, and eventually to the establishment of a military dictatorship.2 Gestapu in other words was only the first phase of a three-phase right-wing coup, one which had been both publicly encouraged and secretly assisted by U.S. spokesmen and officials.3

Before turning to U.S. involvement in what the CIA itself has called "one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century,"4 1s1 us recall what actually led up to it. According to the Australian scholar Harold Crouch, by 1965 the Indonesian Army General Staffwas split into two camps. At the center were the General Statr ofrcers appointed with, and loyal to, the Army Commander General Yani, who in turn was reluctant to challenge President Sukarno's policy of national unity in alliance with the Indonesian Communists, or PKI. The second group, including the right-wing generals Nasution and Suharto, comprised those opposed to Yani and his Sukarnoist policies.s All of these generals were anti-PKI, but by 1965 the divisive issue was Sukarno.

The simple (yet untold) story ofSukarno's overthrow is that in the fall of 1965 Yani and his inner circle were murdered, paving the way for a seizure of power by right-wing anti-Yani forces allied to Suharto. The key to this was the so-called Gestapu coup attempt of September 30, 1965, which, in the name of supporting Sukarno, in fact targeted very precisely the leading members of the Army's most loyal faction, the Yani group.6 An Army unity meeting in January 1965, between "Yani's inner circle" and those (including Suharto) who "had grievances of one sort or another against Yani," lined up the victims of September 30 against those who came to power after

was intended to.

U.S., Central Intelligence Agency, Research Study: Indonesiathe Coup that Backfired, 1968 (cited hereafter as CIA Study), p.

7l n.

Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (lthac5 Cornell Universily Press, 1978), pp. 79-81.

In addition, one of the two Gestapu victims in Central Java (Colonel Katamso) was the only non-PKI official of rant to

their murder.T

attend the PKI's nineteenth anniversary celebration rn Jo&iakarta in May 1964: Mortimer, p. 432. Ironically, thc

Not one anti-Sukarno general was targeted by Gestapu, with the obvious exception of General Nasution.8 But by 1961 the CIA

belated "discovery" of his corpse was used to trigger the pu4e of his PKI contacts.

operatives had become disillusioned with Nasution as a reliable asset,

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20

2

of his "consistent record of yielding to sukarno on several major counts."e Relations between suharto and Nasution were also cool, since Nasution, after investigating suharto on comrption charges in 1959, had transferred him fromlis command.l0' The duplicitous distortions of reality, first by Lt. colonel untung's statements for Gestapu, and then'by Suh#oln "putting down" Gestapu, are mutualry supporting lies.ri untrng, on october l, announced ambiguously that sutarno was under Gistapu's ,'protection" (he was not); also, that a clA-backed council oi Generals had planned v sa vvur/ coup foi rvr before usruls \-rut.uuEl, october J, 5, anG and nao had Ior for tnrs thi purpose brought "troops from East, central, and west Java" to to Jikarta.tz Jakarta.l2 Indeed troops from these areas had been broughi to-Jakarta for an Armed Forces Day parade on october 5th. untung did not mention, however, that "he himself had been involved in ttie fLnning ror itre Armed Forces Day parade and in selecting the units io partilipate in iu"t: ,or that these units (which included'his own foder baitalion, the.454th) supplied mosr of the allies for his new battalion's Gestapu activities in Jakarta. because

7.

8.

while Nasution's daughter and aide were murdered, he was to escape without serious injury, and suppoft ttri enruini purge.

Memorandum

9.

10.

At this time ne [ne* well that the killings had in fact been carried out by the very army "ery elements untung referred to. elements under Suharto-,s o*n .oh*uno.ii - Thus whatever the motivation of individuals such as untung *ur oupri"iiour. Both its rhetoric and above all its acrions were not simpiy inept; they were carefully designed ro prepare for Suharto's .dii; 'duplicitous response. For example. Gestapu's decision to guaid ait sioe, of the downtown Merdeka Square il Jakarta. except tliat of Suharto,s KosTRAD [Army strategic Resen-e Command] treaoquarters, is consistent with Gestapu's decision ro targer the onl1. irilv i.r.rals who

t2.

Broadcast of 7:15 a.m. October l; Indonesja I (April 1966), p.

134; UIf Sundhaussen, The Road'to poweii Inainnir'iii{k|i P9lit13s' j,945'_1962 (Kuara Lumpur and oxford: oxford Univei-

13.

Sundhaussen, p. 201.

sity Press, 1982), p.

Again, Gestapu's announced transfer of power to a-totally fictitious "Revolu_

15.

lio.narv Council." from which Sukarno had been excluded, allowed suharto in turn to masquerade as sukarno's defender while in fact preventing him from resuming control. More importantly, Gestapu;s gratuitous murder of the geneials near the Air Force base where pKI

Ol-pv

16'

nese three events_Gestapu, Suharto,s response, and bloodbath-have

Study, p.

2: cf. p. 65: "At the height of the coup -to-have . . . the

troops of the rebels

l8'

[in central Java]-were estimaief

the strength of .only one- batalion; Auring these forces gradually melted a*ay.,

ttri-niit t*o iuv.,

$y$9[turazek, The united states and the Indonesian Mititary -i ! ? ! _l_%!.(Prague: Czechostovak Academy of S.ii*o, 6zt), ll, 172. These barrarions, comprising the bulk of ttre lio-iaratroop lrigade, also_ s,pplied tlie buft of ttre iroopr-ur"a to put

down Gestapu in Jakarta. The subordinatio"

oiin.r.

trro-

r".-

tions in this supposed civil war to.a singre ctose tommana -*as

structure under Suharto is cited'to explain' rro* surrarto able to restore order in the,city without gunfire. uean*triie out at the Hatim Air Force base in alegediun uattre uit,,riin tt" 454th (Green Beret) an-d RpI(AD (ieo Eerer) p"i"i.opr *.nt off "without the loss of a single man'. (cin St'ratL'p.-6ol' I" -

Central Java, aJso, powâ‚Źr "changed h."d" -,sil;tiy-''ano with "an astonishing rack- of violence"-(-IA'stuay,

peacefulry," p. 66).

19.

nearry arways_'been presented in this country as separatelv motivated: Gestapu being discribed as u prot ty lefiists, ?*lh. bloodbath as for th-e most ia.t un irrational'a.i oi poputui rrenzy.

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passed

Anderson and M-cvey concluded that Sukarno, Air Force Chief omar Dhani, pKI. chairman Aidir (the triee princip"i p"riti*i targets of suharto's anti-Gestapu "response") *ere iounded up r Gesrapu plotters in the middte bf the 'niot, iu[rn to -uy -tt Halim Air Force Base, about one mile rrom ttrir"ett-ut-tru"ng "no Buaja where the generars' corpses were discovered. In-tgoo they surmised that this was "to sear the conspiraiois'' conirot or the bases," and to persuade Sukarno "to go G" .on_ spirarors' plans: Benedict Anderson and i.uth "ion!,,niin;e'iretiminary Anallsis of t, 1965, coup in naoileiii irtiru.u, .the ocrober press, l97l), pp. ig-Zt. nn alternative Cornell University hypothesis of course is that Cesiapu, by bringing ifr"..--,n.n together against their will, created the semblanie 6r a pKI-Air Force-Sukarno conspiracy which wourd tatei ue uv Suharto. Sukarno's presence at Halim "rr", f"tri io-pioriae

17. CIA

the

and scholars, some of them with cIA connections, are perhafr p.ir.ipuuy responsi-

He] I

iipl.*o

then

- u.s. officials, journarists rather prominent

[Suharto's

sukarno's critics with some of their handieri-u.rr-nition," John Hughes, Tle End of Sukarno ([nndon, nngui iiolertson, 1968), p. 54. "nO

biggest part of this task was of course the erimination ., ^-Jh. of rne rl(r ancl lts supporters, r

He

rtvii,

has

in a bloodbath which, as some Suharto allies now concede, may have taken more than a half million rives.

way ro KOSTRAD

TRAD command but who did not silute me.

Goebbels-like

of supporr for first yani and

CIA. Study,_p. 2: O.G. Roeder, The Smiling General: president Soeharto_of Indonesia (Jakarta: Gunung A-gung, lgTO), D, quoting Suharto himself:

p-ldiqs in green berets who wire placed uni"r'fOS_

observed, Saherman's acceptanci for training ui Fo.t-r.avenworth "would mean that he had pissed review by CIi oUserve.s,;zo Thus there is continuity between the achievements of both Ge-stapu and the response to it by Suharto,;ii; tr';h; name of defending sukarno and attacking Gestapu continued its task of eliminating the pro-Yani members o? tn. a*y General Staff, along with

such other residual elements

I and 4, 1965; Indonesra I (April 1966),

;.

From pro-suharto sources-notably the cIA study of Gestapu - -. published in 1968-r+'e learn how few troops were invblved in the alleqed Gestapu rebellion; and more importantly thal in Jakarta as in central Java, the same battalions that rrppii"a tire "rebellious" companies were also used to "put the rebellion do*r." iwo thirds of one paratroop Brigade (which Suharto had inspected the previous day) plus one company and one platoon constituted the whole of Gestapu forces in Jakarta; all bui one of these units were com_ manded by present or former Diponegoro Division officers close to Suharto; and the last was under an offiJer who obeyed suharto's close political ally Basuki Rachmat. l7

Sukarno as remained.2l

196.

t4. Broadcasts of October pp. I 58-59.

might have challenged Suharto's issumption of p&er.

in mid-Aigust l965.ie"er-rlrtii'vrcvey

Crouch, p. 40; Brian May, The Indonesian Routledge and Kegan paul, l97g), pp.22l_22.

I shall assume for this condensed_ argument that Untung was the author, or at least approved, of thI statements issuea In his name. Scholars who see Untung as a dupe of Cestapu,;;;;: trollen note that Untung was nowhere niar the radib station broadcasting in his name, and that he appears to have had littre

SJam.

the. Gestapu putsch. Gestapu as such

the 454th Battalion

Richard M. Bissefl,

or no influence over the task force which occupied it iunoii captain suradi of the intelrigence service or cbtonei ratiers Brigade): Holtzappel, pp. 2tg,)31_32,236-37.I have no ,."ron to contradict those careful analysts of Gestapu_ru.f, Wertheim, p. 212, and Holtzappel, p. 231_who cbnclude "i thai -;;;;ir;; personally was sinceri, m"niilLt"d Y,llt1.lt such as aa@ngs "nd

where the corpses were fbund.l4

Two of these companies, from the 454th and 530th Battalions, were elite raiders; and from lg62 these units had been among the main Indonesian recipients of U.S. assistance.ltfrrir-a.t, which in itself proves nothing, increases our curiosity about-the ;;;y Gestapu leaders who had been u.s.-trained. ttre besta;, b.a;in cenrrar Java, Saherman, had returned from traini"gui F-o.t iru".r*orth and okinawa, shortly before meeting with unting uno rrru:or-sutirno of

af 22 March 196l from

Attachment B; Indonesia22 (1976), p. 165. By 1965 ttris aisilul sionment.was heightened by Nasuiion's deep opposition to th.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

the Great Leader;" and also the of the six generars on pKI youth und *o-.n, plus "elements of the Air Force"-on no other evidence than tt. 'rl[ of the well

in a

rnJ-oi",

able

deaths

youth had been trained allowed Suharto,

*.i"-p..io. Suir"no,

Basuki Rachmat, and sudirman of SESKoeo, ttre Army Staffand Command School): Crouch, p. fif n.

Suharto's first two broadcasts reaffirmed the Army's constant -blamed to "Bung Karno

manoeuvre, to transfer the blame for the killings from the troopi under his own command (whom he knew had caried out the kidna-ppings) to Air Force and pKI personnel who were rgro.uriof them.16

l.

tion of the yani-sutarno royalists (the tirr..

loyalty

in

Four of.the_six pro-yani representatives in January were killed along wirh yani on october of rhe five;aa-V;"i;;rir.ntatives in January, we sha[ see that at least iirrc. "putring.d3wn" inent in Gesrapu and compreting the iti;ina-

CIA Sludy, p. 60p; Arthur J. Dommen, "The Attempted

Coup in lndonesia," China euarterly, January-March ii(ie,- p.-iql. "get-acquainrea" me6ting of t-tre cJitapu-pioit"r. i, the !ryt rr*"ii." placed

in the Indonesian chronololy of .""nir]6* lefo.re ]!-ugust 17, 1965," (Nugroiho Notosusanto--ana--ismail Saleh, The Attemp,t of thZ "septembei-iO-Aiiiiii; -Coup Indonesia, Jakarra: leemUimUing Masal, n.A. iiq6gi, p.- ii); the CIA Study, this meering is dited SeftemUer O fiZi. iqei_ ther account allows more than a few weiks to ptoi tp. trr. world's fifth most populous country.

i, i,

' 203

r.."pi"

ble for the myth that the bloodbath was a spontaneous, popular revulsion to what u.s. Ambassador Jones' laiei caileo pKI "carnage."2Z although the pKI certainly contributed its share to the political hysteria ol1965, crouch has ihown trrat suusequent claim,s of a PKI terror campaign *.." g.orrit;-;gs;;;,.llir"'rn fact systematic killing ocgurred u1d9r arirv instigtitr; il;aggered stages, the worst occurring as coronel su.*o Edhie's RptAD [Army Paracommando Regimurtl moved from Jakarta to centrar and East Java' and fna.lry Bari"2a -civilians invorved in the massacre were elrner recrurted and trained by the army on the spot, or were drawn from groups (such as the ei*y- uno'cm-rponroi.a--soKSl trade unions [central organization of tndonesian so.laiist-pmployees],

20.

the acronym "Gestapu,, itself to think Gestapu was an American invention. you can'r say-Gerakan -S"pt"rnui, iilililh

-(Letter Benedict Anderson).

21. Of the six General

Smff officers appointed along with yani, three (Suprapto, D.I. pandjaitan, ana S. parm"ril *ri. ,u._ of the three survivois, rwo (Mursjid pi"noL) were -removed by Suharto in the nexi eight rnontrri. "nd rt e rast member of yani's..staff, Djamjn Gintinls, *".-ur"a'by Suharto during the establishmeni of the N"i,'oiOr.,-"r,j igoo.ro

It is cleai iio--dunohaussen,s

dered.

ans, through so-cailed "civic action" p-g.urn. -rponro..o by the United states, in operations directed agiirsi trri piir-ani'sometimes Sukarno. Thus one. can regitimately suspect conspiracy the fact that anti-PKr "civilian resfonses" 6egan on octobei l,inwhen the army began handing out arms to Mislim ,tuo.ntr- und unionists, before there was any publicry available ."i0.r..-rirtiig"c.rtupu to

thereafter.

22.

Howard palfrey Jones, Indonesia: the possible Dream (New 'e*ofO York: Harcollrt, Brace, Jovanovich, f gZf ),-;.-igi;'.f

Brackman, rle CorLyu1^ist Coltapie Norron, 1969), pp. I lg_19.

23.

24.

the PK[.25

Even sundha.ussen, who downplays the Army's rore in arming and incitin-g the civilian murder bands, toncludes ilrut, *irut.ver the strength of popular anti-pK[ hatred and fear, "*itrroirt

irre armys anti-PK[^propaganda the massac..

-ilrrt-noi rr""""' rr"ppened.,'26 J shall go further and argue.that Gestapr] SuhurtJ; ;6;:e, and the bloodbath were part ofa single coherint scenario for a military over, a scenario which was again followed closely i, -b-iiil. takein the vears l970-73 (and to some extint in cambo aiiiiigiolli

25.

in tiaineiii iriern vort:

Crouch, p. I50n.

crouch, pp- 140-53; for the disputed case of Bari, even Robert a journalist close to u.'s. om.i"ii*r.il.Jni'.d., .S,haolen, tr,"t "The_Armv b_e-gan it:" Time out of nini-t..t"*'i[iii-u"rp", and Row, t9!?1,* r:s.,.TE srauglter in eisi ja"a-;aiso ,ea[y got srarted when the R,KAD arriv=ed, not just ciruaila"a Bali" (Letter from prof. Benedict Andenon). "no Sundhaussen,..pp. .171, .l7g_7g, 2lO, 22g; Donald Hindley, "Alirans and the Fail of the old ord"i,tiiioirriiiprii rgzo,

pp.4G4l.

26. Sundhaussen, p. 219.

27. Ir may have been true from as early as 1964 (with

suharto of course would be a principal conspirator in this scenario: his duplicitous rore of posing as a defender of the constitu_ tional

the

U.S._

military coup in Brazil) thar-a rarge,oL ir-ru"t, "oup military. this paper I refer to a u.s. Navy plan td At the end of overthrow prince Sihanouk in t96g,'which "rorri*i ano assisred

status quo, while in facr moving"deribe;ai;ly ;o ir.rtt ro* it, i, analogous to that of General pinochit in chile.'gut-a--o.e.direct

managemenr was played by the U.S.

role in organizing the bloodbath was played uv .i"iliu* and officers cIA's failed of 195g, now working -dui;;d in so-called "civic action'' prog*riebellion funded ur; united states. Necessary ingredlents of the ,..nurio h;ei" by the be, and clearly were, supplied bi othir nationr in ruppo.t sr["no. Many

in

close to the cadres of the

its-eJsentiars

(assassinate the center and brame it fatsety-on G irn, in oro., to justify a coup bv the ri_ght) rooks remirkabry ,i.ii"i-to tt.

1965 Indonesia scenario. Ct. infra at footnote tii.._-_' '

28' ..In t965 it [the BND, or intefligence service of the Federar Repubric of Germanyr

"i

such countries app_ear to have played such a iirppo*irg ,of., Japan, Britain, Germany.28 possibly Ausiralia. But wish to focus on the encouragement and support for military putschism and mass murder -itaND, which came from the u.s., from the cm, tne the -ilii..y,

.ilit,u.y'r..r.,

assisted In?onesiais

Ford Foundation, and individuals.2e

29'

The United States and the Indonesian Army,s ,,Mission,,

,.rvice-to suppress areft-wing putsch in ojakarta, oeiiulring suuguns,..r3$i9 equipment una -oniv-i" ir,.-r"r.r. or Aa!!r_nâ‚Ź 300,000 marks:" Heinz H6-hne and Herm"r"'Ziffiri, -ii)''- Crn_ erat vlas a ^Spy (New york: Bantam, 1972j, We shourd not be misled by the cIA's support of the rg5g Rebeilion inro assuming thit ail u.s. c;.u.,.L;;t"p'totting agqinst sukarno and the pKI must have been cie-uui.o. cr. infra at footnote 126.

j.iiiTiil'

30' In 1953 John Foster Dules tord the newry appointed ambassa-

It

seems clear that from as early as 195330 the u.S. was interested in herping to foment the regionar c;isis in rnaonesia, which is.recognized as the "immediate .uuri" inoucin! s;k;;; on March 14, 19s7, to proclaim. martiar raw, and b.i", "tf;e-;ffi;;;io.p, regitimately into politic5."3t

,ibtor;i tie dor ro Indonesia, Ilugt ^S. Cumming, lr., vouneff irrevocably to a policy preserving iir. ,nity oi irO""rli". . . . .o-f the preservation of unificition of i country can have dangers, and I refer to China:" Leonard Mosley, Ouites lNew Vor*- fne Dial Press/James Wade, l97g),p. 437.

3l'

By 1953 (if not earlier) the u.s. National security council . had already adopted one of a'series or poricv oocu;;; caling for "appropriate action, in collaboration witfr ;th;.;i*;iy countries, to prevent permanent communist control" of Indonesia.3/Already tisc l7 I /l of that vear envisaged military training u *runr of increasing U.S. influence,.e.,reri thotgh ih. CIA,, u,primary efforts were directed towards right-wing potiiicai parties . . on the right," as NSC l7l calle-d.-ttrem;r notluUfv tfrir"*oo.iui.r-. nfrr:r,,iind the pSI Socialist Parries. The millio* oidoliars-wtri.t tn.

Cieioured into the Masjumi and pSI in the mid-1950s were a factor infl'uencing the events of 1965, when a former pSI member-s3am-*ur}r, aleged mastermind

32.

33'

of Gestapu,33 and pSlJeaning om.i,ir-nolliy su*urto and Sarwo Edhie-were prominent in plaining anti-PKI response to Gesiapu.3a "rd;;r.69 out the

Danier r*v' Thg Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Polirics, r9s7-r9s9 (Irhaca: corne[ uni.'rersity iiirr, lqi?r, p.

12. For John Foster Dulles, hostility to Indonesian ,oiiv in 1953, cf. Leonard (New Dal/es' Voii,--ffre-'Oiaf _Mosley, PresVJames Wade, l97g), p'.'437.

Declassified Docyryyu euarterly .

Qatalogae (Woodbridge, Conn.: Research publicarions,

lggi),

OOt

tgt]

As the head of the.pKI's secret speciar Bureau, responsible onry to Aidir, Sjam by hrj testimbny p.oviOeO'teaders-trii'io tt e "progressive ofrcers" of Gestapu. ttre issue or prr in"oiu"ir.n, in Gesrapu rhus rests on ttri question or *r,"trrer'bj;;"*", maniprr_tating the.Gesta.pu readeiship on beharf orini'Fifu, o. the PKI readenhip on beharf of the Army. rneie seems to ue no-disagreement,that-sjam was (accordinj to trr. bre 3'iudr, o. "doubre asent" ino profeisea-;inro.-.i'iJJ tr," 197) longtime

oII

" Milirary Command." wertheim Djakarta tp. zoij r"i., it"t in the 1950s sjam "was a cadre of the pSI," i'no-r,"a u.Jn in touch with Lt. cor. Suharto, today's president, *[o"rro o]i.n-.urn" to stay in his house.in Jogja." This might nefp eipfain in the 1970s, after having been sentenced-to a"uifr, S:"_-"nJ ni, co-conspirator supeno were reportedly 'allowid 'oui tor p*ort from time to time and wrote riports for the on'tt.'pltitical siruarion"-(May, p. I l4). I might add that "r-y tir.- S".r *fro actually testified and was convicte-cl, after being t .piu*o-'oo March 9, \967, was rhe third individuar to be io"nti-nia--u, trr. armv as the "Sjam" of whom untung had spoken: Dociments Retrospective coilection (w"srrl,rrgton, c"rroriion Press, 1976), 613C; Hughes, p. 25.

_It_1257-58, CIA infiltrated arms and personnel in support of PRRI-Permesta regional rebeilions against Sukarno.

These operatlons were nomrnally covert, even thougn an American plane and.pilot were-captured, and tt. cn.tr".tr iI+ offshore task force of itre u.s. seventn neei.* "..f-pu"ied by an il-ig.7J a senate select committee studying the cIA oiicorereo what it caled ,'some evidence of cIA involvJment in ptans to assassinate president Sukarno;". but, after an initiar invesiigation of the November 1957 assassinarion attempt at cikini, the iommittee oio niiiursue the

. the

*t,

oiiiiiiea

matter.36

the failure of the ClA-sponsored PRRI-Permesta regional rebellions against Sukarno, the U.S. began

34. t

Lobster

r-eason

in Indonesian; it wouid be like saying MtT;;il; Four, for May Fourteenth. Indonesian iord 6rd.;il;; to be Gerakan Tiga puluh September. On tfr. -otii", hand, Anglophones who don't know Indonesia, *eti don't care, o_ften give dates in tt. inglirh_id;;;;o. word order of August 22, r qgi f.o;--i-?

account that in most of the first areas of organized -ur*.r. (North Sumatra,,Aceh, cirebon, the whole or centiai;il i;iava), there were local army commanders with especiafly strong aiJproren antiPKr sentiments. Manv of these had ior vru^ iooi";;i;d with civili-

I

that

is another

and allied student organizations) that trao collaboraieo for years with

the Army on politital matteri.

Mortimer, p. 429. prof. Benedict Anderson has

suggested

20

4

Wert_heim, p. 20.3i Morrimer, p. 431 (Sjam); Sundhaussen, p.

228 (Suwarto and Sawo eaniil.

an upgraded military assistance program to Indonesia in the order of

35. A cIA

vereran recalls that the cIA's motives in supporting the to exert pressure on Sukirno thin to overthrow him: to hold Sukarno's "feet to the fire,'. as the CIA's Frank Wisner is quoted as having said, and more

$20 million a year.31 A u.s. loini chiefs of Staff memo of l95g makes it clear this aid was given to the Indonesian Army ("the only non-communisr force. . . with the capability of obstructing the . . .

PKr") as "encouragement''- to Nasution to "carry out his 'plin' for the

control of Communism.

1958 rebellion were rather

specifically to increase Sukarno's dependence on the anticommunist army under Nasution, as his defender against cIAsponsored subversion: Joseph B. Smith, portrait of i Cold War_ rior (New Y-ork_ Putnam, 1976), p. 205; cf. Thomas powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets (New york Knopf, 1979), p'.

"38

The JCS had no need to spell out Nasution's 'rplan, to which other documenrs at this time make reference.3g It could only imply the tactics for which Nasution had distinguished himself (in-Amirican eyes) during the crushing of the pKI in the Madiun Affair of 1948: mass murders and mass arrests, at a minimum of the party's cadres, possibly after an Army provocation.40 Nasution conhrm-ed this in November 1965 when he called for the total extinction of the PKI, "down to its very roots so there will be no third Madiun.',4l

89.

36' U'S- congress, Senate,

37.

D99las1tfied Documents 1991,367A.

38.

decision was based on an estimate that: (l) The Indonesian Army is the only non-communist force in Indonesia

the anti-communist Indonesian politicians that the united States can be depended on for continued support in return for

39.

40.

or less provoked by anti-communist elements," yet Kahin has suggested that the events leading to ''may Madiun have been symptomatic of a geneiaf and widespread government drive aimed at cutting aoin i-tre milipKI."

rary srrengrh of the see w.F. werttieim, Indonesian Society in Transitio,n (fhe Hague: W. van Hoeve, igS6i, p. SZ; George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revotution in- iidonesia (Ithaca: cornelr university press, 1970), p. 2gg; cr. souitrwooa

and Flanagan, pp. 26-30. David Andirson ("The Military

Aspects of the Madiun Affair," Indonesia, April 1976, p. 6a) has concluded that the Madiun Affair was not an "unsuccissful lefl-

ist bid for all-out revolution in Indonesia," but part-of "struggle

the between the hinterland Javanese units deiermined to preserve a mass populist army, and a high command no less determined to bring the field units undei greater ..ntrul .ontrol. "

4l

.

42.

))13a)

44.

45.

brought Suwarto to RAND in 1962,.

John H. Johnson, The _Rore of the'Military in underdeveroped princeton University pr"rr, lg6il, bp. !9yn-tyies (princeton: 222-24. The foreword ro rhe book is bi KIa;;'Kn;, who worked for the CIA while teaching at princiton !!,1nt9n,

p. I l8;

Sourhwood and Flanagan, pp. 75-76; Scotr, p

231. william Kinrner, a

cIA (opc) i.rrioi-rtutr oin.ii'rroo, ui* *.ot. "liquidating" pKI

1950-52, and later Nixon's Ambassador to Thairand,

in favor of

the

while

*o.iini'ut-"

CfA_

subsidized think-tank, the Foreign policy Research-Institute, on the university of pennsylvania-campui: william Kintnir ano Joseph Kornfeder The New Frontier oywa, (London: Filaericr.

Muller, 1963), pp. 233,237-39.

If the PKI is able to maintain its legal existence and

the civilian administration, religious and cultural

organizations, youth groups, veteians, trade unions,

Soviet influence continues to grow, iI is possibl, tt Indonesia may be the first Southeast Asia country to be "t takin over by a popularly based, legally .6;i;f ;;;: munist government.

In thJ meantime, with Western help, free Asian political leaders_togett i, *iih the military-must not only hold on ana m-anage, bui reform and adv.ance while liquidating the pol_ itical and guerrilla armies. "n"rni,

peasant organizations, qolitical parties dnd groups at regional and local levels.5l These political liaisons with civilian groups provided the structure ruthless suppression of the prr-in igos, irr.iuoinglrr. blood-

Fr.tl: bath.)2

chomsky and Herman reporr that "Army-inspired anti-chinese ' in 1959 weie finarrced by u.s.

Lobster 20

Southwood and Franaga.r, p. 6g; cf. Nasution's statement to students on November 12, 1965, reprinted in Indonesia, i lAprit "We are-obliged and dutybound to wipe thim J966), p. 183: [the PKI] from rhe soil of Indonesia.'.

Examples in Dare Scott, "Exporting Military-Economic Development,"-peter in Malcorm cardwe[ (ed.), Ten yeirs' uititory Terror in Indonesia (Noltingham: Spokesman Booki, tq75), pp.

43. David Ransom, "Ford Country: Building an Elite for Indonesia," in Steve weissman Ga), rhe rrroiai niiie (san Francisco: Ramparts press, 1974), i. gl; cf. p. rbi iauker

But the most significant-focus of U.S. training and aid was the Territorial Organization's increasing liaison with

Soon these army and civilian cadres were together protting disruptive activities, such as the Bandung anti-chin.r-. .iots br rraai 1963' which embarrassed, not just the -pKI, but sukarno himsef.

further moves on their part to curb the Indonlsian Communist Party (PKI):" _Declassified Documents euarterly Cataligui, 1982, 002386 (JCS Memo for SecDef, 22 Siptemb6r 1958). " CIA Memorandum of 22 March 1961, Attachment A, p. 6; Indonesia 22, October 1976,p.164.

Scholars are divided over interpretations of Madiun as they are over Gestapu. Few Americans have endorsed the conclusion of Wertheim that "the so-called communist revolt of Madiun. . .

was probably more

Pauker's closest friend in the Indonesian army was the U.S.trained General Suwarto, who played an impo.tunt part in the conversion of the army from a revolutionary to a counterinsurgency funglion. In the;-ears afrer 195g, suwarto b;ilt the Indonesian frmy Staff and Command School in Bandung (SESKOAD) into a trainingground for the takeo.r'er of political power. SESKOAD in this perio? !.:U. a focal point of attention from the pentagon, the Cm,

SESKOAD also trained the Army officers in economics and administration, and thus virtually to operate as a para-state, indepen-. dent of Sukarno's government. ihus the Army bigan to collaboiate, and even sign contracts, with u.S. and ottrer ioreiln corporations in areas which were now under the Army's control. ltris training program was entrusted to officers and civilians close to the psl.4q u.s. officials have confirmed that the civilians, who themselves were in a program training funded by the Ford Foundation, became involved in what the then u.s. mih-tpry attache called ".oniing.n.y planning" to prevent a PKI takeover.5o

"The

some encouragement in the form of u.s. aid, Indonesian Army chief of Staff, Nasution, will carry out his 'plan' for the contror of Communism. . [We need] to maintiin this momentum with further acts designed to convince General Nasution and

terinsurgency and massacre. and as such were used frequently before

counterinsurgency as the army's role. Especially afterlgaz, when the Kennedy Administration aided the Indonesian Army in developing civic Mission or "ciyi9 acrion" programs, this meant ihe organizaiioi of its own political infrastructure, or Territorial organization, reachlng ln some cases down to the village level.aT As the result of an official u.s. state Department recommendation in 1962, which Pa,uker helped write, a special. u.s. MILTAG (Military 'iraining Advisory_G_ro_up) was set up in Jakarta, to assist in the implemental tion of SESKOAD's Civic Mission programs.4s

euarterly Catalogue, 19g2, 0023g6;

with the capability of obstructing the Indonesian communist Party (PKI) toward dominarion of the country; and (2) given

and during the coup. The first murder order, b.v militiry olhcers to Muslim students in early october, was the word, sikat, meaning "sweep," "clean out," "wipe out," or "massacre.,,45

RAND, and (indirectlt.) the Ford Foundation.a6 Under the guidance of Nasution and Suwarto, SESKOAD developed a new strategic doctrine, that of Territorial warfare (in a document translated into English by pauker), which gave prioriiy to

to study Governmen-

Assassination_Plots Involving Foreign kaders," 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 1975 (Senate Report No. 9ut-465), p. 4n; personal communications.

By 1958, however, the pKI had emerged as the largest mass movement in the country. It is in this period that a smaligroup of u.S. academic researchers in Air Force- and clA-subsidized'"thinkta$1" began pressuring their contacts in the Indonesian military publicly, often through U.S. scholarly journals and presses, to seizl power and liquidate the pKr opposition.a2 The most prominent example is Guy Pauker, rvho in l95g both taught at the university of California at Berkelel' and served as a consuliant at the RAND corporation. In the latter capacity he maintained frequent contact with what he himself called a very smail group" of psl intellectuals and their friends in the Armr'.{3

In a RAND corporation book published by the princeton University Press, Pauker urged his conticts in the indonesian military to assume "full .responsibilin"' for their nation,s leadership, "fulfill a mission," and hence "to sirike. sweep their house clean.,'\a Although I do not wish to impll that pauker lntended anything like the scale of bloodbath '*'hich e'entualrl' ensued. there is nb esciping the fact that "mission" and -su-eâ‚Źp clean" were buzz-words for counl

Serect committee

tal operations_with Respect to Intelligence Activities, "Alleged

46.

pogroms that took place in west Java

5

Ransom, pp- 95-103; Southwood and Flanagan, pp. 34_36; scott, pp' 227'3s-.A u.s: observer gathered trri"irnb.ilrio-n ttrat the Ford Foundation chief in Jakarta, a veteran of an earlier CIA anti-Communist funding operation in fr*ce, c*siOerea

contributions to the local army commander;" apparently

cIA

funds

himself superior to the pro-sukarno u.S. Ambassador, Howard Jones, and instead worked closely with the cie uno'trr. e.i" Foundation (personal communicaiion).

were used by the commander (colonel liosaiitr; pav local thugs in what Mozingo calls. "the army;s probabtyihe Iam_(and paign to rupture relations wiih china."sl rne 1963 riot, which took place in thg y..v shadow of SESKoAD, is linkeo uv iunotraussen to an army "civic action" organization; and shows conipiratoriat .ortu.i

ii

l-..i.unr')

47.

48.

between elements (an underground psl cell, psll anJ uaslumiaffiliated- st-udent groups, and General Ishak Djuarsa oi it , Siliwangi Division's "civic action-" organization) that *outa b; piominent in

?rly

49.

50.

51.

responsibilities).57

central t-o Jle public image of Gestapu and Suharto's response is the much-publicized fact that suharto, unlike his somJme teacher Suwarto, and his long-time chief of staff Achmao wi.u"utakusuma, irad never studied in the United States. But his involvement in civic Mission (or what Americans called "civic action") ro.ut.a him along with PSl-leaning officers at the focal point of u.5. truirirrg activitiel in Indonesia, in a program which was nakedly politicat-isThe refinement of Territorial warfare and civic Mission Doctrine into a new strategic doctrine for Army potiilcat- intervention became by 1965 the ideological process consolidating the Army for political takeover. After Geitapu, when Suwarto *ui un important political advisor to his former SEsroep pupil Suharto, t i, ,i.ut.!i. doctrine_was the_justification for Suharto'i anrourcement on August 15, 1966, in fulfilment of .pauker's pubric and private urgings, ihat the Army had to assume a leading roie in att fietdi.ss

52.

53.

Ransom, pp.

56.

By August 1964, moreover, Suharto had

initiated political contacts with Malaysia,- and hence eventualy with Japan, 'Britain,

In Nishihara's informed

Japanese account, former .personnel with inteligence .ornrtiio", in Japan were prominent in these negotiations, along with Japanesi officiati-6i PRRI/Permesta

Nishihara also heard that in intimate afi of ttres'e-personnel, Jan walandouw, who may have acted as a cIA contacf foi ttre tgsg

rebellior.r, later again "visited washington and advocated suharto as a leader."68 I am reliably informed that-walandouw's io washington on behalf of Suharto was made some months before "irit Gestapu.oe-"

l0l-02, quoting willis G. Ethel; cited in Scor,

p.

Sundhaussen, p. r4r. There was also the Army's "own securery controlled paramilitary organization of students-.oa.tt"o on the U.S. R.O.T.C. and commanded by an er-v -.oionef [Djuhartono] fresh from the u.s. Army intettigente touir. in Hawaii:" Mr6zek, II, 139, citing interview ofNasution with Prof. George Kahin, July 8, 1963.

Pauker, though mo-d::t_ln assessing his own poritical influence, does claim that a IAND paper hJ wrote on iounterinsurgency and social justice, by the u.S. military ro.ntiomli ,"as -ignored intended, was influentiar in rhe develop-int oi t ii- iriena Suwarto's Civic Mission doctrine.

Noam.ChoTtkI E.S. Herman, The Washington Connection -tgli, and Third World.31d Fascism (Boston: South End "ii"rr, p.

206; David Mozinso, Chiry9s_e poricv Toward inaoiiiii'(tiiaca:

or.

138, 212.

Indonesia.

army units" back to Java in summer, 1965.65 rheie mo"ements, together with earlier deployment of a politically insecuie -oipon.goro battalion in the other.direition, can aiso be r.L" ur prrparations for the seizure of powg1.66

ior

Cornell University press, 1976), p. i7g.

Sundhaussen, pp. I 78-79. The pSI of course was neither monolithic nor {mpr9 insrrumenr of u.s. policy. n"a ,J ,riclti.s -a agree with Sundhaussen's account orineii unaergrouna 'tt. ties; Daniel Lev considers that Sundhaussen, ?oiro*iru".iiuiofficers whom he- int-erviewed, has inflated rhe partt,;-iirpo.tance. But the role of the pSI per se is not the issue. The real point is rhat, in this 1963 incidint as in others, il;;;.onspir"torial activiry relevant to the military rakeovir, in"orrinl'psr and other individuars who were at t-he focus of u.5. iiu"ining programs, and who would play an important role in 1965.

55. Sundhaussen, pp.228-33: in January 1966 the "pSI acrivists- in -*", Bandung "knew exactly what they were aiming *t i.t nothing less than the overthrow of sukarno. -Moirouir, "t, tt.v had the protection of much of the Siliwangi officer corpr.:'<in.. again, I use Sundhaussen's term "pSl_lianing; to 'Airoi. milieu,-not to explain it. Sarwo Edhie was a lon-g-time cIA con-" tact, while Kemal Idris'rore in 1965 -uy oi. much to-his former PETA cgmm-a1$gr the Japanese' intethgenct om"..

Yanagawa. cf. Masashi Nishihara, 'ihe Japanese iiii"t"io, In_donesia (Honolulu: Universiry press of H"*"ii,-rgiol,

August. 15, 1966, Suharto, speaking to the nation, justified his increasing prominence in terms of tf,e "Revolutionary "tutission,, of t!.e Tri lJbaya cakti doctrine. Two weeks later at SESKOAD the Tri Ubaya cakti doctrine was revised, at Suharto,. ir"*igution but in a setting "carefully orchestrated by Brigadier suwarto,; io .-uody still more clearly Pauker's emphasis on the army's "iiri. Mission" or counter-revolutionary role.62 This "civic Miision," so important to Suharto, was also the principal goal and fruit or u.s.

-iiitary aid to

;;;;.;fadvances.6a the besr

t"temi

54.

Hence the army unity meeting of January 1965, arranged after Suharto.had urged NaJution to taice tu rnoi. accommodating line"60^duplicitously towards Sukarno, was in fact a n.".r.u.y-rtep in the projgls whereby Suharto effectively took over from hii rivils yani and Nasution. It led to the epril i965 seminar at SgskoeD for a comp.romise army strategic doctrine, the Tri ubaya cakti, which "reaffirmed the army's claim to an independent poriiiiar-iot..1 ol on

Mr6zek links rhe peace feelers to ttre withdrawal;i

2eclasstfied

Catalogue, 1982, 0017g6 (DOS

President of July 17, 1964); italics in original.

Southwood and Flanagan, p. 35; Scott, p.233.

23s.

buttressed in mid-196?

civic

Mission/',civic programs describe them as devoted to ,,civicaction" o-i..tr_ rehabilitaring

ing Indonesia militarily.It is, however, permitting us to maintain some conlact with key elements in Inionesia which are interested in gnd capable of resMinj iii_ munist takeover. We think this is of vitat imp"ortance to rhe entire Free World: oocum"it, giii

In the early 1960s Soeharto was involved in the formu_ lation of the Doctrine of Territoriai warfare and the Army's policy on Civic Mission (that is, penetration of army officers into ail fierds of government activities and

by a KosrRAD intelrigence repoft, about pI(I politGl

175.

torial Organization: Our aid to Indonesia. . . we are satisfied. . . is nor hely

But increasingly Suwarto cultivated a new student, colonel Suharto, who arrived at SESKoAD in october 195r. -According to Sundhaussen, a relatively pro-Suharto scholar,

and the United states.63 Although the initial pr.por.iithese contacts may have been to head off war with Malaysla, sunotraussen suggests that suharto's motive was his concern,

l4l,

ti."

l

I

pp.

canals, draining swampland to .r."t.'n"i, ,i.. paddies, building bridges and roads, and so on:;,-i.oler nitsman, To Move a Nation (Garden City, N.y.: lg6i,), p.377. Bur a memo ro president iohnson OouUfeaai, rro* si.iJtirv 6i State Rusk, on July 17, 1964, makes it clear tt"i ,iirrui tle chief impoftance of MILTAG was for its contaci *i-ttr anti communist erements in the Indonesian nr*v and iti-rerri-

t-le v-ery first phase of Suharto's so-called "..rporr.;'-t'o "[ cistaplr.s; The May 1963 student riots were repeated 6 october 1965 and (especially in Bandung) January 1966, at which time-tte liaison between students and the army was largely in the tranos of pSIleaning officers like sarwo Edhi; and Keiai Idris.ss rrre cIe plans Directorate _were sympathetic to the increasing oeflection of a nominally operation into one embarrassi-ng Sukarno. This turn -anti-PK[ would have come as no surprise: Suwarto, Kemal Idris and the pSI h1d t99n prominent in a near coup (the io-called "iruir affair") in g56.s6

/

Sundhaussen,

Published u.S. accounts of the

pp. 99-101. Lubis was also a leader in the November 1957 assassination auempt against Sukarno, ,"d ih; 1958 Rebellion.

S_undhaussen,

p. 188, cf. p. 159n.

57.

Sundhaussen,

s8.

Suharto's "studenl" status does not of course mean that he was a mere pawn in the hands of those with whom he established

contact at SESKOAD. example, Suharto's i.O"p"nOinci from the PSI and rhose lor crose to them uecame quite e-"ioeni-in January 1974, when he and Ali Murtopo cracked down on those responsible for army-tolerated student riots reminir..rt t] the one in May 1963. Cf. Crouch, pp. 309_17.

59.

Sundhaussen , pp" 228, 241-43.In the same period SESKOAD was used for the political re-education or lG$;_ josumpeno, who, although anti-Communist, lenerats iere guilty of loy_ alty to Sukarno (p. 238).

60. Crouch, p. 80; at this time Suharto was already unhappy with Sukarno's "rising pro-communist policy,. (Roedei, p. 9). ' 6t. Crouch, p. 8l; cf. Mrdzek,II, 149-51.

62. Sundhaussen, pp. 241 -43.

63.

The U.S. Moves Against Sukarno

Lobstcr 20

6

Through.his intelligence group OPSUS (headed by Ali Mur_ lopo) Suharro made contact with Malaysian leadirs; in two accounts former PSI and pRRl/permesta personner in Malaysia played a role in serting up this scnsiiive political t,ad;, Crouch, p. 74; Nishihara,-p. i49.

overthrow of Sukarno, Fortune wrote that "Sutowo's still small company played a key part in bankrolling those crucial operations,

and

the army has never forgotten it."82

U.S. Support

for

80.

81.

the Suharto Faction Before Gestapu

American officials commenting on the role of u.S. aid in this period have taken credit for assisting the anti-communist seizure of power, without ever hinting at any dLgree of conspiratorial responsibility_ _in th9 planning of the utooaualtr. The imiressio, created is that U.s. officials remained aloof from the actual ptunnirg of e,rents; and we can see from recently declassified cable tiaffic ho"ov carefully

the 1958 PRRI

Deliveries

in conjunction with CIA, cf. infra at footnote

$

tant to avoid yqA inferring that Army working against

sukarno. I nevertheress . . . particularry appieciate wal officials in. washingron have scrupulousry refrainio rrom mtre 1na,

85.

Civilian

13,900,000

U.S., Department of Defense, Mititary Assistance Facts, May l, 1966. The 32 military personner in-Fiscar 1965 repris"ri un increase over the projected figure in March 1964 of 29. t"tost

them were apparently Gieen Beret U.S. Special Forces,

whose forward base on okinawa was visited in August 1965 Gestapu plotter Saherman. Cf. infra at footnote 126I

we have seen that some months before Gestapu a Suharto with past cIA connections (colonel Jan walaidouw) made

contact with the U.s. Government. From as early as May 1965 u.s. military suppliers with cIA connections (principally Lockheed) were negotiating equipment sales with payoffi- to middiemen, in iuch a w_ay T to generate payoffs to backers neither of Nasution nor of yani (the titular leaders of the armed forces), but instead ol the hitherto little known leader of a third faction'in the army, Major-Generai Suharto. only in the last year has it been confirmed ihat iecret funds administergd by the. us Air.Force (possibly on behalf or tne Craj were laundered as "commissions" on sales of Lockheed equipmeni and services, in order to make political payoffs to the miliiary personnel of foreign countries.8T Senate- investigation

minimal public commentary . . . .Green."

New York Times, August 5, 1965, p. 3.

of

emissary

6

collection,60g4 (Embassy

Cable 1002 of October 14, 1965); 6t3A (Embassy Cabte t353

84.

whether or nor one doubts that aid deliveries fell off as sharply as this table would suggest, the MILTAG personnel figures indicate that their "civic action" program was being escalated, no-t decreas.atk -_:

197

D_eglasstfied Documents Retrospective

of November 7,_19-65): "Army source conveyed . . . suggestion we substitute 'Indo[nesian] a,rmed forces'- for 'Indojiesianl Army'in ourbroadcasts, and if possible, press.... lt ijimpor_

7,200,000 2,100,000

A

107.

ment," pp.239,258.

83.

MAP Personnel Strength

Military

the ceniral gor"-*.nt.

82. fgltlng, July 1973, p. 154; cf. Walt Street Journai, April lg, 1967; both in ScoJt, "Exporting Military-Economic Divelop

deliveries and personnel strengths in Indonesia were actually as follows: 85

Year

Rebellion and

Alamsjah, of whom more in a moment, was anolhei member of this group; he'joined Suharto's staff in 1960. For aflegedplotting by Murba Party members Adam Marik and cnaeiii satetr

the u.s. government fostered this image of detachmeni from whai was happening in Indonesia.83 In fact, however, the U.S. government was lying about its involvement. In Fiscal year 1965: a period when the \ew york Times claimed "all united states aid to Indonesia was stopped," the number of MAP (Military Assistance program) personnel in lat a.ta acrrrally increas^ed, beyond what had been projected, to an unprecedented high.a+ According to figures reieaied il 1966, Map

Fiscal

rngs (cited hereafter as church committee Hearings), 94th 9ong., 2nd Sess.,^ 1976, p. 941; Mrinek, ll, 22. tvtraiit'quotes Lt. col. Juono.of the corps as saying that-"we u.. .o-pi"t"ly dependent on the assistance of the United States."

Notosusanto and Saleh, pp. 43,46.

Nishihara (pp. l7l, r94, 202) shows rhe role in the 1965-66 anti-Sukarno conspiracy of the small faction (includine Ibnu Sutowo, Adam Malik, and the influential Japanese 6ikran Nishijima) who_ interposed themselves as negotiators between

into these paygffs revealed,

almost inadvertently,_that in May 1965, over ttre ligal objections of Lockheed's counsel, Lockheed commissions in Ind6nesia had been redirected to a new contract and co-mpany set up by Lockheed,s long-time local agent or middleman.88 Lockheed internal memos at the time show no reasons for the change, but a later memo reports from the Economic counselor of ttre u-.S. pmuassv ln iakarta that there were "some political considerations behind lt.':rrirlnis is true, it would_ suggest that in .May 1965, five months before the coup, Lockheed had redirected^its payoffs to a new political eminence, ii the- risk (as its Assistant chief iounsel pointed but) oi ueing sued for default on its former contractual obligations The Indonesian middleman, August Munir Dasaad, was "known to have assisted, sukarno financiilly since ttrelqlO'r.1r, i, 1965, however, Dasaad was building connections with the Suharto

86.

87.

The San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, lgg3,p. 22, describes one such USAF-Lockheed operation in Southea* niia, "codenamed 'operation Buttercup' that operated out of Norton Air Force Base in carifornia from 1965 to 1972." For cIA's close involvement in Lockheed payoffs, cf. Anthony Sampson, iie Arms Bazaar (New york: Viking, 1977), pp. 13i,227_2g, i3g.

88.

89.

90.

Church Committee Hearings, pp. 943-51.

Church Committee Hearings, p. 960.

Nishihara, p. 153.

91.

Lockheed Aircraft International, memo of Fred c. Meuser to Erle M. Constable, l9 July 196g, in Church Committee Hear_ ings, p. 962.

92.

Church Committee Hearings, p.954; cf. p. 957. In 196g. when Alamsjah suffered a decrine in power, Lockheed did awav with the middleman and gald its agents' fees directly to a group of military officers (pp. 3a2,977).

forces, via a family relative, Geneial Alamsja[ *rro t uo served under Suharto in 1960, after Suharto io.ryr.Ga ili, t..- ut SESKOAD. via the new contract, Lockheed, our-uud una ahmsjatr were apparently hitching theii wagons to Suharto's rising star: Suharto

replaced Sukarno, Alamsjah, who controlled certain considerable funds, at once made these available to Suharto, which obviously earned him the gratitude of the nerv President. In due course he was apfointed to a position of trust and confidence and toOay Alamsjah is, one might. say, the second important man aft6r the President.el

Thus in 1966 the U.S. Embassy advised Lockheed it should "continue to use" the Dasaad-Alams;itr-Suharto connection.gi

. _In July 1965, at the aleged nadir of U.s.-Indonesian aid relations, Rockwell-standard had i contractual agreement io deliver 200 light aircraft (Aero-commanders) to the Indlnesian Army (not the Lobster 20

9-g9rg. Benson, an associate of Guy pauker's who headed the (UffeC) in Jakarta, was later hired by Ibnu Sutowo to aci as a lobbyist for the oil comaany (renamed pertamina) in Washington. Nei"*y,, iort Times, December 6, 198 l, p. l.

Military Training Advisory Group

llefly

When the coup was made during which

bi

8

Air Force) in the next two months.93 Once again the

commission

agent on the deal, Bob Hasan, was a political associate (and eventual business partner) of Suharto.e4 More specifically Suharto and Bob Hasan established two shipping companies to be operated by the

Central Java arm;- division, Diponegoro. The Diponegoro Division, as has been long noticed, supplied the bulk of the personnel on both sides of the Gestapu coup drama-both those staging the coup attempt. and those putting it down. And one of the three leaders in the Cintral Java Gestapu- Movement was Lt. Col. Usriran Sastrodibroto, chief of the Diponegoro Division's "section dealing with extramilitary functions" 95 Thus of the two known U.S. military sales contracts from the eve of the Gestapu putsch, both involve political payoffs to persons who emerged after Gestapu as close Suharto allies. This traditional channel for CIA patronage suggests that the U.S. was not at arms length from the ugly political developments of 1965, despite the public indications, from both government spokesmen and the U.S. business press, that Indonesia was now virtually lost to Communisnn and nothing could be done about it.

The actions of U.S. business, moreover, make it clear that by early 1965 ther expected a significant boost to the U.S. standing in Indonesia. For example. a recently declassified cable reveals that Freeport Sulphur had br .A.pril 1965 reached a preliminary "arrangement" with Indonesian officials for what would become a $500 million investment in \\'est Papua copper. This gives the lie to the public claim that the compan\ drd not rnitiate negotiations with Indonesians (the inevitable It'nu Sutouo) until February 1966.e6 And in September 1965. shonir a1:er ll'c'r,'d Oil reported that "Indonesia's gas and oil industrl appeare,J. 'ir. :)e slrpping deeper into the political filorass,"97 the President o: a s:rali urrl compan]' (Asamera) in a joint venture with Ibnu Suto*o's Per:nlna purchased $50.000 worth of shares in his o\\.n ostenslb,i threatened companr.98 Ironicalll' this double purchase 1on September 9 and September 1i ) u'as reported in the Wall Street Journalof September 30. 1965. the da1 of Gestapu.

The CI.a's [One W'ord DeletedJ Operarion"

in

93.

94.

Church Committee Hearings, p.941; cf. p. 955.

Southwood and Flanagan, p. 59.

95.

Crouch, p. I 14.

96.

Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1982, 002507 (Cable of April 15, 1965, from U.S. Delegation to U.N.). Cf. Forbes Wilson, The Conquest of Copper Mountain (New York: Atheneum, l98l), pp. 153-55.

Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1982, 002507 (Cable of April 15, 1965, from U.S. Delegarion to U.N.). Cf. Forbes Wilson, The Conquest of Copper Mountain (New York: Atheneum, l98l), pp. 153-55; World Oi( August 15, 1965, p.

209. It may or may not be a coincidence that one of Freeport Sulphur's directors, R.A. Lovett, was an investment partner of W. Averell Harriman, who while inside the State Department

97.

played

an important role in winning U.S. support for

Indonesia's takeover of West Papua. Cf. Hilsman, pp. 377-78.

98.

World Oi( August 15, 1965, p.209. It may or may not be a coincidence that John J. McCloy, then a director of Allied Chemical which had the second largest interest in Asamera's Indonesia venture, was also one of the "wise men" summoned

by Lyndon Johnson in August 1965 to advise and support him

in his Vietnam War policies. By 1967 the nominally "Canadian" Asamera venture had spawned a major Allied Chemical subsidiary, Union Texas Indonesia, Inc.

99.

New York Times, June 19, 1966, IV, 4.

100. Ralph McGehee, "The C.I.A. and the White Paper on El Salva-

dor," Nation, April ll, 1981, p.423. The deleted word would appear from its context to be "deception." Cf. Roger Morris and Richard Mauzy, "Following the Scenario," in Robert L. Boro-

sage and John Marks (eds.), The CIA File (New York: Grossman/Viking, 1976), p. 39: Thus the fear of Communist subversion, which erupted to a frenzy of killing in 1965-1966, had been encouraged in the "penetration" propaganda of the Agency in Indonesia...."All I know," said one former intelligence officer of the Indonesia events, 'is that the Agency rolled in some of its top people and that things broke big and very favorable, as far as we were concerned.'

1965.

Less than a )'ear after Gestapu and the bloodbath, James Reston wrote appreciativell' about them as "A Gleam of Light in Asia:"

l0l.

Victor Marchetti and John Marx, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Knopt 1974), p.245. For a list of 25 U.S. operatives transferred from Vietnam to Guatemala in the 1964-73 period, cf. Susanne Jonas and David Tobis, Guatemala (Berkeley and New York: North American Congress on IJtin America, 1974), p. 201.

Washington is being careful not to claim any credit for this change in the sixth most populous and one of the richest nations in the world, but this does not mean that Washington had nothing to do with it. There was a great deal more contact between the anti-Communist forces in that country and at least one very high official in Washington before and during the Indonesian massacre than is generally realized.99 As for the CIA in 1965. we have the testimony of former CIA officer Ralph McGehee. cunously' corroborated by the selective censorship of his former CI.\ emplol'ers: Where the necessan circumstances or proofs are lacking to support U.S. inten'ention, the C.I.A. creates the appropriate situations or else invents them and dissem-

inates its distortions u'orldwide via its media operations.

A prominent example would be Chile. . . . Disturbed at the Chilean military''s unwillingness to take action against Allende. the C.l.A. forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders. The discoverl of this "plot" was headlined in the media and Allende \\'as deposed and murdered.

There is a similarit.v betx'een e!.ents that precipitated the overthrow of Allende and what happened in Indonesia in 1965. Estimates of the number of deaths that occurred as a result of the latter C.I.A. [one word deletedl operation run from one-half million to more than one million people.loo

McGehee claims to have once seen, while reviewing CIA documents in Washington, a highly classified report on the Agency's role in provoking the destruction of the PKI after Gestapu. It seems appropriate to ask for Congressional review and publication of any such report. If as alleged it recommended such murderous techniques as a model for future operations, it would appear to docurnent a major turning point in the Agency's operational history: towards the systematic exploitation of the death squad operations which, absent during the Brazilian coup of 1964, made the Vietnam Phoenix counterinsurgency program notorious after 1967; and after 1968 spread from Guatemala to the rest of Latin America.l0l

Lobster 20

9

McGehee's claims

of a cIA

against Allende are corroborated by

psychological warfare operation

taA Szulc:

102. Tad Szulc, The-Illusion 724. The rop

cIA agents in Santiago assisted chilean military inteiligence in drafting bogus Z-plan documents alleging that Allende and his supporters were planning

tJ

ing). I 0r

This is a model destabilization plan-to persuade all

constatus

cerned that they no longer can hope to be proteited by the quo, and hence weaken the center, while inducing both right and left

towards more violent provocation

of

each other.

sultr a

But for months before the coup the paranoia of the

plo

105.

Sundhaussen,

106.

p. 374; Justus M. van der Kroef, ,,Origins of the 1965 coup in Indonesia: probabilities and Aliernaiiu.s,'t Jiurnat of Southeast Asian.Studies, III, 2, September 1972,i. iA). fnr.. generals were allegedly targeted in the first report (Suharto,

108.

Sundhaussen,.p. 183; Mortimer, pp. 376-77; Singapore Straits Times, December 24, 1964 quotedin Van der Xr6ei p. ZSg.

109. ll\n liryes, Scptemter-.14, 296.

.1965;quoted in Van der Kroef, p.

Mozingo (p- 242) dismisses charges such as ihise with a

contemptuous footnote.

I10.

Powe_rs, p-- 80;

cf. Senate Report No. 94-755, Foreign and Milip. r92. clA-sponsored channers itro oir..-inated the chinese arms story at this time inside the united 'Indonesia,s Civil War,;' Nii S-tates: ieader, 9.9. Brian Crozier, November 1965, p. 4. yary Intelligence,

lll.

Mortimer, p. 386. The Evans and Novak column coincided

with the surfacing of the so-called "Gilchrist letter," ln which

the British ambassador purportedly wrote about a U.S.-U.K.

anti-Sukarno prot to be executed "together with loiai army friends." All accounts agree that the lett-er *"r rorC.rl. However it distracted attention from a more incrimin-ating " letter from Ambassador Gilchrist, which Sukarno had discui-sEd with Lyndon Johnson's envoy Michael Forrestal in mid-February 1965, and whose authenticity Forrestal (who knew of ttrelettei) {io._1o1dgny: Declassified bocuments i?errospectivi Ciitictton, 594H (Embassy Cable l5g3 of February t3, li65).

ll2.

Cf. Denis Warn_e_r, Reporter, March 29, 1963, pp.62-63:.yet with General A.H. Nasution, the defense ministli, and General Jani,..the arm.v. cfrle! of staff, now out_Sukarnoing Sufarno in the dispute with Maraya over Malaysia. . . Mr. niac[rnan ana all other serious students of Indoneiia must be t.ouuiia uy trre

growing irresponsibility of the army leadership."

claimed to have information that ". . . the Army has quietly established an advisory commission of five gen_ eral ofrcers to report to General Jani . . . and General

I13.

Nasution . . on pKI activities."lll

The Australian scholar Mortimer has noted as "possibly significant" the coincidence that five generals besides yani were titteo by Ges-

tapu.

I

Jones,

Chaerul Saleh's Murba party, including the pro_U.S. Adam Malik, was also the anti-Corimunisi -goat to Support Sukarnoism",?r9T_oling (BpS), which was banned by Sui<arno on December 17, 1964. (subandrio "is reported to have supplied sukarno with information purporting to stro. ti.S. -blntrat Intelligence Aggncy infruence behindlhe BpS:" Mortimer, p. i, clearly did have support from the CIA_ and armv_Lactea ?7.1; labor organization soKsl.) Shortry after, Murbi it'r.ir *u, banned; and promptty ,'became aciire as a Oisseminator of rumours and unrest:" Holtzappel , p. 239.

mander of the.Siliwangi Division, had been quoted by two American journalists as saying of the Communists: "we knocked them out before 1af Madiun]. We check them and check them again. The same journalists

I

195.

107.

allegedly anti-clA Gestapu coup. But such rumors did no-t just originate from anti-American souries; on the contrary, the first authoritative published reference to such a council *ar in a column of the Washington journalists Evans and Novak:

r

p.

Mursjid, and Sukendro); all survived Gestapu.

had

com_

Hill, l9ti0), pp. 104-

104. Time,March t7, 1961.

also been played on, by recurring reports thit a clA-backed "council of Generals" was plotting to suppress the pKI. It was this mythical council, of course, that- Untung unnounced as the target of his

As far back as March, General Ibrahim Adjie,

york Viking, l97g), p.

W-ashington, (Westport, Conn.: Lawrence 05.

plan

market" which "in 1965. turned out the wildest stories."ros gn September 14, two weeks before the coup, the Army was warned that there was a plot to assassinate Army leaders four days later; a second -septem6sl such report was discussed at Army headquarters on 36 i06 Put a year earlier an alleged pKI document, *hich the pKr denounced as a .forgery, had purported to describe a plan to overthrow "Nasutionists" through infiltration of the Army. This "document," which was reported in a Malaysian newspaper after being publicized by the pro-u.S. politician ctraerul saleh'loi in mioDecember 1964, must have lent credence to suharto's call for an army unity meeting the next .on1[.108 The army's anxiety was increased by rumors, throughout 1965, that mainland china was smuggling arms to ttre pKI for an imminent revolt. Two weeks before Gestapu a story to this effect also appeared in a Mala_ysian :ewspaper, citing Bangkok sources relying in .turn on- Hong Kong.tor Such- internati'onal intraceability is'th6 stylistic hallmark of stories emanating in this period from what cIA insiders called their "mighty wurlitzer," the world-wide network of press "assets" through which the cIA, or sister agencies such as Britain's MI-6, could plant unattributa.ble stories.lrb pKI demands for a popular militia or "fifth forcel" and the training of pKr youth at Lubang Buaja, seemed much more sinister to the indonesian Army in the light of the Chinese arms stories.

(New

103. Donald Free{ and Dr. Fred Simon I-andis, Death in

appears to have been followed in Laos in 1959-61, where a -cn officer explained to a reporter that the aim "was to polarize Laos.;fua

I1 appears to have been followed again in Indonesia in 1965. observers like sundhaussen confirm that to understand the coup story of october 1965 we must look first of all at the "rumoui

pe.ace

operation, sam Halpern, had previously served as chief executive officer on the cIA's anti-sukarno operation oi igsz-sa, Seymour Hersh, The price of power (New irork: Summit Books, 1983), p.277; Powers, p. 91.

behead

Chilean military commanders. These were iisued by the junta to justify the coup.lo2 Indeed the cIA deception operations against Allende appear to have gone even farther, terrifying both the left and the right-with the fear of incipient slaughter by their enemies. Thus militan-t trade-unionists as well as conservative generals in chile received small cards printed with the ominous words Djakarta se acerca (Jakarta is approact -

o{

cIA operative in charge of the tqzo ;;ti-Attende

But we should also be struck by the revival in the United t]r_e image of yani and Nasutidn as anti-pKl planners, long after the CIA and u.s. press stories had in fact writte; them off ai States.of

unwilling to act against Sukarno.ll2 If the elimination by Gestapu of suharto's political competitors in the Army was to be blamed on the left, then the scenario required just such a revival of the generals, forgotten anti-communist imagL in opposition to Sukarno. An anomalous unsigned August 1965 profiie of Nasution in the New York rimes, based on an 1963 interview but only published after an attack by Nasution on British bases in singaporb, -does just this: it claims (quite incongruously, given the conteiti ttrai Nasuiion is "considered the strongest opponent of commurrism in Indonesia"; and

adds that Sukarno, backed by the pK[, "has been pursuing a campaign to neutralize the . . . army as an anti-ComDunist 15...-', t 13

In the same month of Augusr 1965, fear of an imminent showdown between "the PKI and the Nasution group" was fomented in Lobster 20

10

New York Times, August 12, 1965, p.2.

-

Indonesia by an underground pamphlet; this was distributed by the cIA's longtime asset, the pSI, whose cadres were by now deeply involved:

-.!t

The PKI is combat ready. The Nasution group hope the

PKI will be the first to draw the triggei, but ttrls ttre PKI will not do. The pKI will not allow itself to be pro_ voked as in the Madiun Incident. In the end, however, there will be only two forces left: the pKI and the Nasution group. The middle will have no alternative but to choose and get protection from the stronger

l14.

Brackman, p. 40.

I15.

McGehee, p. 423.

I16. l17.

force.l l4

one

could^ hardly hope to find necessary for the CIA's program

of engineering paranoia.

Anderson and McVey, p. 133.

I19.

The only exhortation of the editorial ("we call on all the people to intensify their vigilance and be prepared to confront ali evintualities") is remarkably consistent with the tone on october I of a non-leftist Christian journal, Sinar Harapan ("Keep calm, Tcreasg vigilance"), wirh the initial Gestapu staiement ("1-r. colonel Untung called on the entire Indoneiian people to continue to increase vigilance and fully assist the Siptember 30th Movement") and with the Suhafto group's first response to Gestapu ("The general pubric is urged to remain calm and continue their respective tasks as usual"): Anderson and McVey (1971), pp. 131, 145-46; Indonesia I (April 1966), pp. 13S, 156: Crouch (p. 108) argues cogently rhar the pfi Oid not wish ro mobilize its backers because these "did not have the physical resources to challenge the army leaders in a direct confiontation;" thus the party wished "to create the impression that the PKI was no1 involved." But the impression created by the Harian Rakjat editorial was of course quite the opposite.

to Gestapul and set out to destroy the p.K.I. . sentences deleted]. . .

Media fabrications played a ke-v role in stirring up popular resentment response

. . [eight

against the P.K.I. photographs

of t[e bodies of

the

dead generals-badly decomposed_were featured in all the neu'spapers and on television. Stories accompany_ ing the picrures falsely claimed that the generals had been castrated and their eyes gouged out by Commun_ ist women. This cr nically manufaitured campaign was designed to foment public anger against the boirmun_ ists and set the stage for a massacre-l l5 McGehee might ha'e added rhat the propaganda stories of torture by hysterical women u'ith razor blades. rihich ierious scholars dismiss ai groundless, were rer-ived rn a more sophisticated version by a U.S. journalist, John Hughâ&#x201A;ŹS. *'ls is no*' ihe chief spokesmar for the State Department. l l5 Suharto's forces. parricularll' Col. Sar*,o Edhie of the RPKAD commandos. were o'ertl]' inr.orved in rhe cynical exploitation of the victims' bodies. tlT.Bui some aspects of th. rnurrirr. ;'.*d#; campaign appear to have been orchestrated b.v non-Indonesians. A case in point is the disputed editorial in support of Gestapu which appeared in the october 2 issue of ttre pzu ne*spapei Harian Rakjat. Professor Benedict Anderson and Ruth Mcviy, who have questioned the aurhenticity of this issue, have also ruled'out the pos-

sibility that the ne\\spaper was "an Army falsification," on

grounds that the {rm1's "competence..-. ments has alwal's been abysmally loq,."ll8

it

120.

l2l.

the

raised by Anderson and Mcvey have not yet answ'ered. why did the pKI show no support for ihe Gestapu coup while it was in progress, then rashly editorialize in suppgrt of Gestapu after it had been crushed? why did the pKI, whoie edito_rial gave supporr ro Gestapu, fail to mobilize its followers to act

Thus defenders of the u.s. rore in this period might point out that where "civic action" had been most deeply i-mplanted, in west Java, the number of civilians murdered wai relativery (n.b.) small; and that the most indiscriminate slaughtei occurred where civic action programs had been only recintly

introduced. This does not, in my view, diminish the U.S. sharl of responsibility for the slaughter.

122.

on Gestapu's behallJlle why did Suharto, by then in control of Jakarta, close down all newspapers except thi; one, and one other left-leaning newspaper which also servei his propaganda endtsiiio why in other words did Suharro on october z ittow ihe publication of only two Jakart-a newspapers, two which were on the point of being closed down forever?

As I said at the ourser. it would be foolish to suggest that in 1965 the only violence came from the u.S. Government;;he Indone-

sian military, and their mutual contacts in British and Japanese intelligence. A longer paper could also discuss the provocative actions of the PKI, and of Sukarno himself, in this trig.oy of social breakdown. Assuredly, from one point of v^iew, ,o on."*i, securely in control of events in this troubled period.l2l . 4nd yet for two reasons such a fashionably objective summation of events seems inappropriate. In the first ;la;, u, trr. cIA,s

own Study concedes, we are talking about "one oi the ghastliest and most concentrated bloodlettings of current times," one *hose scale of violence seems out of all proportion to such weli-publicized left-wing acts as the murder .oj an ,aryv lieutenant at the Bindar Betsy plantal tion in_May 1965.122 416 in ihe second place, the scenario described

by McGehee for 1965 can be seen as not merely responding to th; pro.vocations, paranoia, and sheer noise of eventi in that yeai but as

actively encouraging and channeling them.

It should be noted that former cIA Director william colby has-repeatedly denied that there was cIA or other U.s. involvement in the massacre of 1965. (In the absence of a speciar-Cia-iast Force, Colby, as head of the cIA's Far Eastern Dlvision from l 962-6d, yo-uld normally have been responsible for the cIA's opirations in Indonesia.) denial is however linked to the oiscrioiteo story pzu _colby's

plot to seize poriticar power, a story which he revived in

Lobster 20

Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, -What Happened in

Indonesia?" New .york Review of Bool<s, June l, tef8, p. +t; personal communication from prof. Anderson. A second newspaper, Suluh Indonesia, told its pNI readers that the pNI did not support Gestapu, and thus served to neutralize potential opposition to Suharto's seizure of power.

falsifying party docu-

The questions ,been adequarely

1978:

Huqhgs, p. 150, also tells how Sarwo Edhie exploited the corpse of Colonel Katamso as a pretext for provoking a massacrc of the PKI in Central Java; cf. Crouch, p. 154n, also supra at foot_

I18.

The CIA seized upon this opportunity [Suharto's

g{:-

p. l40n: "No evidence suppons

note 6.

a better epitome of the propaganda

McGehee's article, after censorship by the CIA, focuses more narrowly on the CIA's role in anti-pKl propaganda alone:

i

Hughes, pp. 43-50; cf. Crouch, these stories."

11

CIA Study, p. 70; Sundhaussen, p. lg5.

Indonesia

exploded, with a bid for powâ&#x201A;Źr by the largest communist- qarty in the **ro outsidi-irrr'-rurtrir, which killed the ttadership of the armv wi,ii--sui.l_o,, tacit approvar and then wis oecimaieo-i"'..rirli] cra provided a steady flow of reports on the process in Indonesia, arthough it did no't have unv-.Jr." --trr. course of events 11r"-ra1rss.l23 It.is important to resolve the issue of U.s. involvement this systematic murder operation,partic"l"dff-r;i#.nor. inabout the cIA account of this ?,d ticGehee claims to have seen.

McGehee te[s us thrt "irri.r, ''Th. 4;;;y_';"s extremely proud of its successful [one word deleted] anoie.ol"..no.o it as a model for future operations [one-half sentence oeteteot.;ii.

Ail";il;;"d;., reports of an interview with Nixon in I g67 tilut

The Indonesian experience had been one

t23.

William

Colby; Honorable Men: lltl Ltfe in rhe CIA(New york: Simon and Schuster,.l97.8), i. ih. tr"ch (p. l0g) finds no suggestion in the Mahmilub -""ia"nt"1irr"t the pKI aimed ar taking over the sovernment," onty-ttrai -"-r iitropeo to protect itserf " 'r from the Counci-i of Generais.----J McGehee, p.424.

t25.

Szulc, p. 16.

t26.

Southwood and Flanagan pp. 3g-39 (Cambodia).

According to a former U.S. Naw int311igrr.. ,p*ilfiri,'it e initial U.S. mili_ tary plan to overrhiow sih;;;;i a requesr ror aurhorization to inserr a u.S.-train;J;r;;;;;;"iln disguised as vietcong ins^urgenls into phnom i"i,r,'iJ'"tiuream prince Sihanouk as a pretext for revolution:" Hersh, p:.

"fi;ffi;

particular

of interest.to_[Nixoni because trri"g, rr"J-fiI-# t, Indonesia- I think rre was very interested in that whore experience

iii.'

as pointing to the way we [sic] ,frouiO fran_ dle our rerationships dn a wider basis iii iiui-r,-.lri ariu generally, and maybe in the *o.16.12i Such -unchallenged

assessments help explain the Nixon-sponsored overthrow oisiiiiroukthe role of Indonesia in in CamLooiu in r qzo, the use of the Jakarta scenario ro. tt e or.rthrow of Alrende in chile in 1973, and the U.S' sponso;hi; lvss of the death squad ------r il;v '

ln Lobstu 19, I noted the incrementar addition of disinformation to the original Skeleton Kry to tniCiiinne File. ar it t"rr,"a out, the process was further down that road than l nrJ i*rsi";a. From owen wilkes, New Zealand's t""ar"g parapolitics researcher, comes the news that a version is in circuration there. Now described as'skeleton legn

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Late breaking news on Clay Shaw's United Kingdom contacts Anthony Edward Weeks Introduction: Le'e Haryey Oswald and New Orleans

Clay Shaw, ]im Garrison (and others)

Lee Harvey Oswald, like his mother Marguerite Oswald (nee Claverie), was born in New Orleans, on 1.8th October 1939, and spent his first five years in the Crescent City. In early l944iNlrs Oswald moved to Dallas with Lee and his half-brother, fohn Pic. She changed addresses frequently and, after periods in Fort Worth and New York, returned to New Orleans with her children in ]anuary 1.954. In late 1954, aged 15, Oswald became a member of a Civil Air Patrol unit that was run by one David Ferrie. Mrs Oswald left New Orleans again in ]uly i955 and returned to Fort Worth. On October?4thOswald enlisted in the Marines.

When Oswald returned from the Soviet Union in June 1952 with Marina, his Soviet wife, they went to stay with his halfbrother in Fort Worth. Oswald obtained a number of jobs that proved unsatisfactory and, unable to find further employment locally, Marina suggested he go to New Orleans to look for work.

He stayed with his aunt, I.illian Muret. At the beginning of May he secured employment with the William B. Reilly Co., coffee grinders and packaters, as a machinery greaser. Marina and their daughter joined him in a small apartment on Magazine Street. On july 19th Oswald was dimissed by the Reilly Co. for

In mid-February 1957, nearly three and a half years after the assassination of ]ohn F. Kennedy, news reports from New Orleans claimed that the local district attorney, Iim Garrison, was investigating the President's murder. Within a wdek Garrison was holdirg a press conference and claiming that he had 'positively solved the assassination of fohn F. Kennedy'. On the day the news of Garrison's investigation broke in thd local New Orleans States-ltetn newspaper, David Ferrie contacted the paper claiming he was targeted in Garrison's investigation as the getaway pilot for the Dealey Plaza assassins - an allegation Ferrie strongly denied.

Ferie was a bizarte, hairless individual who glued red false hair and eyebrows to himself. A homosexual,- he had been dismissed as a commercial pilot by Eastern Airlines in September 1953 for sodomizing a young boy. Ferrie was also a rabid anticommunist with good connections amongst the exiled anti-Castro Cubans who were then nearly as numerous in New Orleans as

they were in Florida. He had probably worked for the CIA in some covert capacity, and on 22nd November 1953 had been in a New Orleans courtroom with Carlos Marcello, the Louisiana mafia boss, for whom he was working as a lrrivate investigator.

(It was widely believed that Ferrie had flown Marcello back from Mexico after Bobby Kennedy had him kidnapped and illegally deported.) Ferrie had also worked for Guy Blnnister, and-had earlier run the Civil Air Patrol unit the teenage Lee Harvey

'poor working habits'. He then organized the New Orleans 'chapter' of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), getting 'Hands Off Cuba' leaflets printed. While engaged in this pro-

Castro activity he visited Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and prominent anti{astro activist, told him he was experienced in guerilla warfare and offered his services in the armed struggle

Oswald had ioined On 22nd February 1967 Ferne's body was discovered in his apartment. The coroner later ruled that death was from nafural causes, a brain haemorrhage. Garrison claimed he had committed suicide because of the tightening net of his investigation, pointing to two notes Ferrie had left, one to an exlover named Al, and one that read in its entirety: 'To leave this life is, for me, a sweet prospect. I find nothing in it that is desireable, and on the other hand everything that is loathsome.' Whether these unsigned notes had been hanging around the apartment for

against C-astro.

Oswald's one-man FPCC chapter was based at 5M Camp Street. The room he rented there was in a three-storey building that had entrances on two bordering streets, and thus had two addresses: 531 lafayette Street and 544 Camp Street. The building was part-rented by William Guy Bannister, a racist,

violent anti-communist, and member of the |ohn Birch Society.

Bannister had served in the FBI and had risen to be Special Agentin-Charge of the Bureau's Chicago office. After retiring from the Feds he had been appointed assistant superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, a position he lost after pulling a gun on a waiter in a local bar. He then formed Guy Bannister Associates, a private detective agency cum'political front that reflected his own extremist views. One of the first people he employed was David Ferie.

Bannister had earlier persuaded the owner of the building to let _space to the ClA-sponsored Cuban Revolutionary Council, headed by Sergio Aracha Smith. Bannister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, told the writer Henry Hurt that Oswald had-often come in to see Bannister, and this has been confirmed elsewhere. (For example, in Anthony Summers' Conspiracy.) Further, she said that Bannister was well aware of Oswald keeping the FPCC placards and leaflets in the room he rented, and [hai Bannister was only

a while, were suicide notes (o. 'suicide' notei),

International Order of

was the director of the New

one and the same.

_ pn 9th August Bringuier saw Oswald grving out'Hands Off

Shortly after the arrest Ramsey Clark surprised everyone by

Cuba'leaflets on Canal Street, a rumpus &veloped and Oswald (along with Bringuier and two other Cubans) was arrested, held in jail overnight and released after paying a $10 fine. A week later he was distributing the leaflets again - this time outside the New Orleans International Trade Mart.

announcing

in Washington that immediately after

the

assassination Shaw had been investigated by the FBI and come up clean as a whistle. This was news to the Feds - there had been n-o

investigation" A ]ustice Department official subsequently tried to clear up the confusion and limit the Acting Attorney General's damage by saying Clay Bertrand and Clay Shaw weie the same man, but this was what Garrison was saying anyway and it only succeeded in moving the confusion into fourth gear. (Later the ]ustice Department would declare that Clay Bertrand was not a real person and no evidence had ever been found suggesting that

Dallas on 23rd

September. Two days laterOswald left New Orleans for Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet Embassies. He re-entered the United States on 3rd October and headed for Dallas. On November24th he was shot dead byJack Ruby.

Lobstcr

He,

merits of the city around the world. Garrison would claim that Shaw was also intimate with Ferrie - politically, sexually and conspiratorially. The keystone of Girrison's case wai the contention that Clay Shaw used the alias of Clay or Clem Bertrand. The DA would prove that Betrand was involved in the assassination conspirary and then show that he and Shaw were

Bannister-Oswald connection, the fact that while Oswald claimed some a5 members for his FPCC chapter he only had one, and, moreover, his chapter had never been chartered by the national FPCC in New York, sugge.sts that Oswald was running a phoney ryCC chapter as part of the FBI's Cointelpro operations agains! the American left.

to

Merit.

Orleans Intematonal Trade Mart which promoted the commercial

upset when Oswald brought the stuff into hls office. The

Marina and their daughter returned

remains

unresolved 25 years later.

Meanwhile in Washington the Powers That Be were showing an abiding interest in Garrison's investigation. President |ohnson called Acting Attorney General Ramsay Clark and spoke to him about Ferrie's death, LBI was 'very concerned abouf this matte/ and wanted full details.

On March Lst Ferrie was buried and Garrison announced the 3ryest9f Clay L. Shaw for'participa,tion in a conspirary to murder lohn F. Kennedy'. Shaw was a prominent social and business figure in New Orleans, who, nearly two years earlier, had received New Orleans' highest civic honour, the medal of the

20

Clay Shaw had used the name.)

Garison had been led to Bertrand by the testimony given to the

Wamen Commissio-n by jive-talking New Orleani,hip pockef attorney, PUal Andrews, who had claimed that shortly after the assassinatiori Bertrand had_telephoned him requestingihat he go to Dallas and represent Oswlld. (On Andrews iee belovi.)

1\o ryT Clay Shaw?

|ames Kirkwood, for instance, spent a

considerable time with shaw throughout the trial and wrote a 500 page account of the action with a pronounced pro-Shaw bias. yet reading it is like watching Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

We see Shaw as Defendant and nothing else. Kirkwood fregugntly appears to be on the brink of saling something but

pulls back at the last moment.

Harold Weisberg discovered

a 1954 FBI report from a New orleans informant that said he had 'relations-of a homosexual nafure,with Clay Shaw', and that Shaw was 'given to sadism and

masochism in his homosexual activities'. Ferrie seems to have inhabited a similat gay milieu and it is not far-fetched to believe they may have known each other in the French Quarter's sexual underground - lhey certainly had friends in common. Was ,Clay Bertrand' Shaw's nom de guerre in gay New Orleans back in thi)

homophobic early

1960'sl When Garrison arrested Shaw in

March 1967 his office had discovered a chain, five whips, a black hood and cape, and a gown in Shaw's bedroom where-hooks had been screwed into the ceiling. The DA would later say that what

|ppeared !o be dried blood was found on the

whifs.

Shaw's

friends at the time said that this paraphemalia was pait of a Mardi Gras cosfume - an-explanation offered to James Kirkwood by Shaw's mother which he duly reported without comment.

I

have been told by a woman who knew Shaw very well

throughout the L950's and 60's that Shaw's homosexuality was no secret in his social circle. But while his friends might know he y?s gay, New Orleans did not. If I underscore his homosexuality it is to emphasize the compartmentalisation of his life, a trait that would be valuable for anyone with connection to intelligence operations.

ln 1977 a CIA memo surfaced dated 28th September 1967 and, headed 'Garrison Investigation: Queriet from |ustice Department'. This said that between

1949

and 1956 the Agency

had received 30 reports from shaw concerning internationatlraal

and political activities in countries ranging"from peru to

Gg1marly, Argentina and Nicaragua. while the contacts apparently celsed

H;".y Hurt

.East

has noted that

in 1956 shaw continued to glioy a gogq rehtionsip with Langley and it is possible that shaw's work became mole sensitive ind ceased to bi recorded in the general files. Futher evidence of shaw's involvement wth the

Dean Adams Andrews,

|r.

CIA came n 1975 from Victor Marchetti who had resigned from the Agenry in 1969. At the time of the Garrison inves[gation he was Executive Assistant to the CIA Deputy Director, and it was then, so Marchetti says, that helping Shavi was discussed at the highestlevels of the Agenry.

(left)

Andrews gave conflicting accounts and descriptions of Bertrand and eventually claimed he was a figment of his- imagination. He ryg"lq also say that Bertrand was difinitely not Shafu, though by this time so much pressure had been pui on him he was-only opening.his mouth to change feet. He would also say, under oath, in front of a grand iury , when asked whether Bertrand and Shaw were the same person, 'I can't say that he is and I can,t say that he ain't.' f !

(

I

I

Garrison marshalled a grgup of witnesses to support his case that ran the whole spectruir fro^m the completely be'lievable to the

completely incredible: from

the

credible'postman, James

Hardiman, who said he delivered mail to ',Clay Berirand, addressed to shaw's house and that it was r,errer returned, through to Charles I. spiesel who freely told how malevolent -and

shangers were forever hypnotizing him that whenever his daughter returned from coilege he iegularly finger-printed her to ensure that an imposter had n-ot been substituted'. fhere was also P"o), Raymond Russo who had attended a party at Ferrie,s apartment where he had met an older man named Bertrand and Ferie's room-mate, Leon (src) Oswald. Oswald and Bertrand were -discussing an assassination plot. Bertrand was shaw, Oswaldwas Oswald.

If Garrison was putting gn trial he was also putting the warren Commission on uialthury and the broadsides he fir'ed int6 the

Chief ]ustice's Report hastened its demise. This would be

Garrison's great contribution to the |FK mystery. The Zapruder film was shown ten times during the iours"e of the trial to

demonshate the 'triangulation of cr6ss-fire' that Garrison claimed killed Kennedy.

On Lst MarCh 1959, tv,o y-eTs to the day after his arrest, Clay shaw was found innocent 6f the charges liid against him. Fivb

ye.us later he was dead of cancer at theige of sixf-one.

Lobster 20

ln 1979 Richard Helms, who in 1953 had been the Agenry,s Deputy Director for Plans (i.e. covert operations), admitted'unde. oath in a trial that he knew of Shaw. He said, ,The only recollection I have of Clay shaw and the Agenry is that I believL that at one time as a businessman he waJone of the part-time contacts of the Domestic Contact Division, the people that talked to businessmen, professors and so forth, and who hivelled in and out of the country.' He1ms had earlier denied that there was any connection. was he now telling the tmth? Allen Dulles astonished fellow members of the Warren Commission by telling them in a secret session that members of the intdligencE community would lie, if need be, under oath, that the tmth in some regards would never be known. Helms may have been telling the truth :r:.1979 but the sin may be that of ornission rather than commission. In-the phrase much loved by English rawyers, we need 'further and better particulars'. Shaw waJprobabli not

involved in the assassinatioh of Kennedy, though he may'well

have known individuals who were. corita thisluiet American have been another 'cold war warrioy'? What we do we know about him? What could we find out?

The address book when Clay shaw was arrested on 1st March 1957 his house in the French Quarter was searched and among the items taken away by the DA was a personal address book. A photocopy was

subsequently deposited. with the Committee^ to Inrreitigate Assassinations, in lFrhrygton D.C., and it was from a c6py of this that I worked. The photocopy shows the book to be a springbacked ring-binder, rathbr like a Filofax, with 175 mm by bv 98 9'g mm mfr pages. The index tabs are in pairs, A and B,, C and D. D, which frequently results in alphabeticil displacement. In an there are some 55 pages of names and addresses. Most of the entries are 14

typewritten but corrections and additions have been done in Shaw's hand. The book is almost wholly composed of home

- a couple of old ladies in Mayfair and so on.' This is a reference to Lady D'Arcy and Lady Hulse who are noted below.

Of much greater significance to Eddowes was a discovery he made in Toronto when he knocked on the door of an apartment interest

addresses and phone numbers and it is only very occasionally that a cornpany address or phone is given. It was obviously Shaw's social and private address book, as opposed to any'work' address

owned by one of Shaw's boyfriends: it was opened by a fellow named Robin Drury. Drury, a homosexual, had been the 'agenf of Christine Keeler during the time of the British sex scandal known as the Profumo Affair in 1963. Like Eddowes I had often wondered whether Shaw knew Stephen Ward, the osteopath at the centre of the affair. This discovery inches the contention forward.

Stephen Dorril is the other pioneer of UK Shaw studies (and coauthor, with Anthony Summers of the best book on the Profumo Affair Honeytrap: the Secret Worlds of Stephm Ward, London,

book.

There are some 2L5 names in the book, many with more than one address and with earlier addresses crossed out. It may well date back to the late 1950's. The vast majority of the addresses are in North America (that is the USA, Canada and Mexico), and aside from the United Kingdom entries dealt with here, the other overseas entries break down as follows: Belgium 3, Colombia 1., France 5, Germany L, Holland2,ltaly 4, Norway 1., and Spain4.

In his 1988 On the Trail of the Assassins Garrison describes the address book as 'probably the most interesting single item seized in the course of Shaw's arrest', and goes on to discuss it, pp"l,46-

Weidenfeld and Nicholson,

7. He says it 'offered some insights into his proclivity for developing casual relationships at lofty levels of European aristocrary', which is certainly true, and he Iists several titled individuals who appear in its pages. He then rather sours his point by daiming thit the CIA hls a 'romantic infatuation with the fading regimes', which seems to suggest he thinks Langley is preparing for the comeback of the ancienregime.

One very intriguing entry among the addresses that Garrison alighted uponbackin 1967 is: Lee Odom

Frith Banbury

PO Box 19105

4 St. |ames Terrace

Dallas, Tex

(On p145 of On tlv Trsil C,arrison transcribes it incorrectly

many years ago and even people I have never met or communicated with in any way, whose entries I would be hard put to explain. I've taken the names and address of people at parties.and never seen them again - and so on. Clay Shaw by all acounts was a witty, charming and courteous individual. He met

of people. He had many

Prince Albert Road,

-

which makes one wonder when he last looked at the address book himself.)

In Lee Flarvey Oswald's address book there appears the citation '* * 1.9105' (the asterisks here represent two Cyrillic characters not available on this keyboard). Garrison claims that they say P O, but either way there is an odd coincidence here.

Who and what was this? Shaw's attorney at the time of the trial produced a Lee Odom who said that he had a PO Box number in Irving, a Dallas suburb, and that PO Box 19106 in Dallas had been used for a while in some barbecue company he was associated with (though it had never been in his name), and that he had met Shaw once to discuss promoting bloodless bull-fights in New Orleans! At the very least this was a suspicious coincidence and one that has yet to be explained. Oswald had written the notation in his address book no later than 1963, and yet the Dallas Post Office in that year had not yet acquired a Box with such a high number. ln his book Garrison fails to mention that it was bloodless bullfights that Odom claimed to be promoting, and also neglects to say that the two characters preceding the number in Oswald's address book were in Cyrillic. Such omissions point to a highly selective (or sloppy) presentation of facts. What else is he not telling us?

The UK names are addresses are here presented in alphabetical order. The bracketed tTl and IH] mean typewritten or handwritten entries. Proper names rendered in caps in these notes indicate that an entry also exists for them.

Perhaps a few words on address book methodology (sic). On the table in front of me as I write this is my own address book, a fat red-leather bound Filofax which has been with me.for fifteen years or so and which, at a guess contains a thousand or so names with addresses and telephone numbers. It contains the names of quite a few people who know quite a bit about me, but the vast majority know little or nothing. There are people I have met once

hundreds

198n. He had spoken to Olwen

|anson (see below) several times in the mid-L970's after reading about the interview she gave to the LondonDaily Mail nloesten's book on Garrison. The interview is mentioned under Sir Michael DUFF and details of ]oesten's book will be found in the Further Reading section at the end.

The first thing that struck me when I looked through the addresses was that Shaw's London contacts all lived in the best and most expensive areas: Belgravia, Mayfair, Kensington, St. John's Wood and Whitehall. Whoever Shaw was he did not seem to know anyone in the low rent zones......

legitimate business

interests..... and naturally people would erid up in his address book. Their presence may mean nothing.

The United Kingdom contacts Before continuing let me tip -y cap to two fellow English |FK buffs who have each made a foray into this neck of the woods.

Michael Eddowes told me years ago that in the early 1970's he went through Shaw's UK contacts: 'there was nothing much of

Lobster

London NW 8

trI (Frederick Harold) Frith Banbury was born on 4th May 1912, the son of Rear-Admiral Frith Banbury. He was educated at Stowe School and Hertford College, Oxford, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Drariratic Art. Throughout the L930's and 1.940's

he was an actor and appeared in many West

End

productions and several films, including Michael Powell's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). Since 1947 he has been a successful theatrical producer and director - his two most recent productions in London were The Corn is Greener at the Old Vic in .1987 and The Admirable Crighton at the Haymarket in 1988.

4 St. ]ames Terrace was demolished quite recently along with a couple of its neighbours and on the site of these houses was built a very fine modern apartment block that goes under the name of Park St. |ames, commanding fine views across Regents Park.

Banbury now lives in the block.

Banbury told me that he had met Shaw while visiting New

Orleans in L952. He was introduced by a mutual friend, an actress. It was during Mardi Gras and Banbury was staying in a hotel running up a high bill. Shaw suggested he stay with him at his house for a few days and Banbury accepted. He said Shaw was a generous and atteritive host. In the late 1950's or early L960's Shaw telephoned Banbury w[ile in London and they had

lunch together. This was thb last tilne they

met. When Banbury

read about the Galrison investigation he sent Shaw a letter of support. Frith Banbury could-not believe that Shaw was in any way involved with the |FK assassination, yet, like Olwen IANSON below, he could well imagine him invoived with the CIA as an

agent.

Lady Margaret D'Arcy 1.09 Earls Court Road, London W8 IT]

Lady Margaret Florence Grace D'Arry was born on 2nd October L907, the youngest daughter of the (13th) Earl of Kinnoull (1855191,6). ln 1929 she married a Norman D'Arcy and had several children. While raising her family she wrote four novels, all published by Tohn Murray in London: Down the Sky (1935), Sir MoncktonRequests (1935), Malignant Star (1939) andRicket (1940).

She was divorced from D'Arcy n1942.

Lady Margaret's daughter, Philippa, who now lives in Monaco, tgld me that her mother was a greif traveller and also very active 6n, the lecture tour circuit in the United States throirgh an

organization she believed was called British American

Associates.

(See ]ohn William HUGHES.) Both Philippa and her mother knew Sir Steven RUNCMAN and Lord MONTAGU: 'but

20

15

then my mother was always very active and knew hundreds of

Sir Michael Duff Vaynol,

Lady Margaret was a devout Christian. Her last published work was A Book of Modern Prayers (Aldington, Kent; Hand and Flower Press, 1951). 109 Earl's Court Roid and its neighbour, 107, part of a terrace of modest Victorian sfucco villas, were demolished in the late 1960's and replaced by a pleasing block of !![.^_fady Margaret then went to live in Miyfair -on with Lady

Bangor.

Wales

people.'

HULSE who had sometimes accompanied her trips to th-e United States as unpaid secretary and companion. There was a rift between the two titled ladies around 1974 and Lady Margaret moved out. She died inl976 aged 68.

* Alan Davis 23 Ennismore Gardens

London SW7

trI Ennismore Gardens is one

of the most attractive squares in London, situated behind the Victoria and Albert Museum, qoughly mid-way between Kensington to the west and

Knightsbridge to the east. Clay Shaw mis-spelt Davis' Christian name - it is Allan Davis, under which the following entry appears in the 1973-74 British Film and Telwision Year Book (toridon, Cinema TV Today, 197 4), p1M:

DAVIS, ALLAN. Director (films, TV and p!ays). Born 30th August, 1913, London. Entered films in 1951lft6r several years as a director on the stage. Went to Hollywood under contract to MGM and directed Rogue's March(MGM) in L953 etc. Back in Britain he has directed many TV films in the following series: Rendezoous, Dick and the Duchess, O. S. S. etc. . 1960, directei[ feature ftlms Clue of the Twisted Candle, Clue of the Neut Pin. 196l-2, directed Square Mile Murder, Wings of Death, The Fourth Square, etc.. Since

1.964

Arecting on West End and Broadway stage.

Sex Please

-

1971,-72: No

We' re British. (stage)

Address:23 Ennismore Gardens, London SW7.

Davis told me that in 1950 he was touring the United States lecfuring on theatre and drama at various Universities through the Rockefeller Foundation. He spent a few days in New Orleans

while at Tulane University and met Shaw a couple of times

through people he knew on the faculty. He said Shaw was very interested in the theatre and very good company. Davis gave Shaw his address and said he must look him up if he ever came to London: they never met or communicated again. ln 1967 David was startled to read about Shaw's arrest in Time magazine and could not believe that Shaw was in any way involved. David moved out of Ennismore Gardens some years ago and now lives in Belgravia.

lunilwritten underneath' 82 Cadogan Place' ] Sir Charles Michael Robert Vivian Duff was born on 3rd May 1907. Apart from a brief spell in the RAF during the last war, h-e seems to have spent the greater part of his life in socializing and not much else. Sir Michael was a well-known bisexual who, according to one source, liked to dress in drag as the late Queen Mury. Cecil Beaton, the photographer, latched on to Sir Michael in the 1920's and it seems they had a long affair. Thuy certainly remained friends throughout their lives and Sir Michael features in Hugo Vickers' Cecil Beaton: The Authorized Biography (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985) He married the eldest daughter of the Marquess of Anglesey inl949. His death on 3rd March 1980 from cancer was what the Victorians would have called a merciful release: he had suffered greatly.

Sir Michael is chiefly remembered today as the god-father of Tony Armstrong-|ones, the photographer who married (and later divorced) the Queeri's sister, Princess Margaret, and who now sails under the title of the Earl of Snowden.

Olwen JANSON told me that Shaw always spoke fondly of Sir Michael. They had met during the war when Shaw was stationed in London. I also learned from another source that they had been lovers and, indeed, that Sir Michael may have been one of the two greatest loves of Shaw's life (the other being William Formyduval with whom he lived). Sir Michael introduced Shaw to London society, to Winston Churchill, and may even have introduced him to Peter MONTGOMERY, Anthony Blunt's lover.

As to Sir Michael's two addresses, Vaynol was his country estate near the town of Bangor on the north coast of Wales, some 250 miles north-east of London, while Cadogan Place was his London address in Belgravia, only a couple of doors away from G. R. SPENCER (and Mike Leach).

Bangor is on the Menai Straits which separate Wales from the Isle of Anglesey and there, no more than ten miles away, lived |ohn William HUGHES. A relative of Hughes told me that she IT :

thought it very unlikely he knew Sir Michael. However Sir Steven RUNCIMAN did know Sir Michael, though he was

unaware that Shaw did as well.

In the interview that Olwen IANSON gave with Charles Greville,

the society columnist of the London Daily Mail, on L7th March 1967, she said that one of Shaw's friends was a Member of Parliament. The MP was not identified in the piece but Mrs ]anson tells me she was referring to Sir Michael. In fact he was never an MP.

The who shotlohn?

Suddenly we've got Kennedy assassins all over the place. In August, the former Dallas policeman Roscoe White was identified as the shooter on the grassy knoll by his son, after an alleged death-bed confession n 1973. Reports from the buff community in the United States are mixed. Attracting less attention, on May llth the )FK researcher Gary Shaw held a press conference in Texas and announced that from an (unnamed) mafia source he had learned that a series of attempted assassinations had been

planned

in

November 1953, organised

by the mafia.

The

successful attempt allegedly involved Sam Giancana, Charles

Nicoletti, ]ohn Rosselli and ]ack Ruby, all now dead, with Nicoletti firing the fatal shot. The unnamed source originally contacted Anthony Summers. This was reported rn Conflict no 4. (Conflict has since ceased publication. A note in issue 5 reported a 'a lack of interest on the part of an overwhelming majority of those who have received many free issues and have elected not to subscribe.')

In the late l97Us Nicolleti featured heavily on Mae Brussel's radio prograrnme for a while, though I have now forgotten in which context. We recently received a note about the Mae Brussel Research Center announcing that it had closed, apparently through lack of financial support. Brussel's library and files are now in storage. Interested parties could try

A thfud allegation is included tnThe

Squad: the

llS Gooernment's

seret alliance with organizd crime, Michael Milan, (Prion/lvlultimedia, London 1989) 'Michael Milan' is the

pseudonym of someone who claims to have been a former OSS member and minor criminal recruited just after the war by ].

Edgar Hoover into a covert FBI assassination squad. Iust afteithe assassination 'Milan' claims he was sent by Hoover to Dallas to murder a taxi driver. Before dyi.g the taxi driver confessed that he had been part of a (failed) Iack Ruby-sponsored assassination q[t9mpt _auTed, not at Kennedy, but at governor fohn Connolly!

-be ,dlthough this section is rather garbled, 'Milan' appears to telling us that the taxi drive/s version of the shooting in Dallas was not a million miles from that described in the first volume of the SheaAMilson fantasy The llluminatus Trilogy, with teams of would-be assassins bumping into each other in the bushes behind the grassy knoll. If true, 'Milan's' book is a sensation. As nothing at all seems to have appeared in the UK media on it, I assume it to be deemed a fantasy. Information on Mr 'Milan' most welcome. As for the successful assassination in Dallas, 'Yill.' quotes Hoover as telling him 'I'll just say: |ohnson. No doubt. We stand away.' (pph0F.l2l})

contacting what is left of the organisation on 415 658 1855.

RobinRnm*y

Lobster 20

16

London

Andrew Gillan 5Bryce Avenue Edinburgh 7

The Boat House, Queens Rd. Cowes,Isle of Wight Cowes 3849

Scotland

U.K.

trl

tHl

CundyStreetisintheSWJ.postal.districtofLondonontheedge House is Jn"fgru"ia, not fuiu*uy frJm Victoria Station. Laxford dating and guadrant aroun{ one of four apartmeniuiocts built 3. sold the When ]ansons ** g";;;; I would from, 19Q0's'

- it should be Gillon' his early fifties and is a successful in now is Andrew Gillon in Edinburgh'

Shaw mis-spelt this name

businessman running his own computer cqmPlly whotrad flown At the time he met #aw he was working,for-IBM

Gillion

him to London f"i-t 'once and once

toi-cl me he

""tiy theirapartmentintnelatel.g,60,sitwasP]rrchasedbySirAlec ^Prime The

Minister' il" former Conservative bfttliil;;; and J\.eY now live in the Cowes in ho,rr" i;;ffi'";i;;;ilh"i; '*ltioiE"gfu"a. Olwen told me the following'

met Clay.Shaw

o,. u6"' going out from the Cromwell o.iy - "itri"g.

Road

either 1964 or airline terminal ti."J;"i to ti"utf,to*' It was wa,s flying to Shaw Edinburg!

1965. I was retu;i;;-to -an{ but he had Dublin. He told ."" fi" was a re*Ed businessman' to meet the were.g:i"g We u*ftiUitions' *ittt do to something

Janson

born in -r"in"Oranmore and Browne' she wasHarriess The niece of Lord wayne married she 1g50,s early 1g2g. in rng1u.,a the New York in New York. H" *ur tr," ro'" of an ex-President of wealth came from oil' real estate and Stock Exchange *n*" "utt close to the other business norai"gt.- The Harriess were also

but-I came down with ;;Iil;t"i*";t *t u" r was back in London a while' I never saw or fl, u^d Eid not return to London for of vears later, I was listening ,p"il;" hir" ugui".-Then, a couple ihat he had been arrested I heard and to the radio or". Li"r*ust not believe what I attomey. district bv the New orleans ^il*.;;-r, great.shockI could someone then meeting u ,,JJ;"';;g. on such a charge''

fr""ti"gin"[Un"y

Kennedys at this time.

her Olwen was travelling through New- Orleans with 513 Dumaine at sale for hous6 Jisco,u"r"f,u ttre, when husband

In

**i*f,n?i:lliti!:;,2\,i,:;;r3tu:ilii.1?:"1",:;lli by a Carol Lewis (not in the address

had been arr:ested

fine local u^tiq,r" ,ii;P;" sergeant in the book), a homosex;;i \i"i;;".r'*no had served as a him that US Army in france u"Jet Clay Shaw' It was through engagng and pen I charming most the of Olwen met Shaw,-io.,e almost have ever met.' ih.y b;;"me close friends ind confidants three years iil"di;l"iy and thdy remained so il',to"gt?"1the in 1955 died Harriess Wry"6 When ii.flu"i.

N"* Olwen lived in without that believes ihe and inu* gurr" Olwen "o"ria"r"Ule help survived. After she left New orleans t him she would

*

]ohn William Hughes Marianglas Isle of AngleseY Wales G.B.

Moelfre - 392

tHl

itrql

off the crrast of North wales that The Isle of Anglesey is the the Menai Straits. Marian-glas by *.ir,f""d fro*-ii" is separated

"""

"""". inlg55andreturnedtoLondon,theyremainedinregularcontact death int9,4. in"y corresponded regularly Snu*,, &i.,t;p;til ihe first person 5hu* looked up when he ui*uyr *u, and Olwen

coast. Moelfre is the a;1s.;;;il'ri1u!; ; theitsnbrth-east iul"p-h";texchange ihat takes name from a neqblr town' Ellen I eventuallX- Lu.t"a down a relative of Hughes"

arrived in London.

she is the sister of the actor was born on Anglesey Hughes that me toia St Griffiths.

Hueh " there' .He was a great up grew and war i";t%I";; th" ri.tt world

Roger_Jonei.

*t

1953

oii""s on the island.

There was

homosexuality _

secrecy in New Orleans about Shaw's h; .t""ry'[ved with a life-long lover, william

no

Formyduval.

He ';jiji;;-il-*iJav respected in"tris time as abutiournalist' not could she War Civil Spanish it ihe i;;hi;t " uot*t"i,.

oratorandhadoncestoodasaLiberalcandidaternageneral

ShawwasalwaystalkingaboutLondonandhesaidthatafter visited ii -i,"t-ni. ?avourite city.- He had first would he and Army tne in was he when war London during the was at this time he spend lengthy p"rioa, there-up until 1945' It

Associates o.e'anira[ion called something like American-English been the iame outfit Lady. Mirgaret D'ARCY

Shaw to Peter MONTGOMERY'

New Orleans

recallonwhoseside.Hewasaverypowerful-publicspeakerand

election. The name Clay Shaw meant nothing to her' and Hughes was very-active in the English-Sp:"S18.Union "the Uirited States for an f.eq,reitty went o., l"ct.,r" tours in

iir l,r?.#"i;uFF or-*n.i^ he always spoke fondly' They "["i becamelovers'SirMichaelintroducedShawtoLondonsociety -ihem frequently had dinner. with winston and the two of introduced Churchill. rt *uv-rru"" u".ir sir'Michael who had

i.ffi'ffiff"ril*" from was involv"a *itnl.--tn uuout 1970 he married a-woman

Du.ingtheinvasionofFrance,Shawwasshotintheleftleg was

with New York who had 'aristocratic' connections' a widow theatrical children, *r,orJ

;;

;;;

He and the resutting-wo""a caused a Perrnanent limp' does not Olwen but French the by awarded the Croir a" E""t" a colonel (Harold m"* *ny. Sil U"ti""ta he rode toasbeyet unsubstantiated are There w;;t"il'thinks-a-Gqq.

famous in New York

'eryhis wife to Anglesey' Hughes."to*"d with

The woman a year' with home returned and life Welsh aia r,ot like[rovincial diei of cancer in Bangor Hospital circ_a L970. Bangor was Hrrnt that ", Sir ruri.t u"r DUFF: Rogei-Jones does notbelieve ih:"ffi;;"f

ill"t

reports that he served in OSS'

Shawwaspassionatelyintere.stedinthetheatreandwrotea of pfu|,r f,-irns"tf.' Ot of them, about life in a submarine " (didher""r"*i."unaerwater?)wasmadeintoafilmbutOlwen

Hughes knew him.

nr*f",

+

cannotrememberthedetails.TennesseeWilliamswasavery from the close friena of Snaw's but, curioirsly' he is absent

Lady Hulse 7 Culross St.

address book.

LondonWl

was a sad Olwen still thinks very fondly.-of Shaw' His deathdo with the anythingto had n" sir;;;;";iu"ri""6 btow to her. she can betieveltrat -he played assassinatio" oi"fJi"Ld,,-y"t 13th July 1958 footsie witn tne Cie. Stt'tdu"ed me a coPy oj lhe Edward by piece ]ay Epstein yorker lengthy a thai .-o"Li""a Neu) to her at the time on the Garrison i"""rlig"ti"". ttuylug sent it and on the front cover, at the bottom he had wntten:

IT]

very fine Ladv Hulse still lives in Culross Street, Mayfair, in a sh: Embassv American the 6tit"d *""ti"g -iuy Shaw or hearing the name' and -f,o"t"-t&per'and could not recall companion-.who has been neither could t """. as an unpaid ;;iii hJ];r fifty"t i;;;;. o'-*oyfulse'worked lecture American her on iu.iy'rurargaret 1o ;;ut -D'ARCY through her met have Shawmay tnut tours it seems perhaps iust once, and would have no particular Lady Margaret,""ti."iy-flf"fy

'

;i"1i''iil;";fi;;;"i;iv

OtwYn (sic) darlinSSee Page 35 for the incredible tale of the Thanks forYour century. letter. I'11answer soon!

Much love to You and Hugh

never visited Culross ;;;;" to-rerrr"i.,beiit. '-ertainiy Shawmarried to sir westrow formerly was s;""t. Lady Dorti\y Hulse Hulse, the barrister.

t

ClaY

to (Hugh is Hugh janson who Olwen married after returning

Mr and Mrs Hughlanson 26LaxlordHouse Cundy Street,

London.) t a^--

tA

11

Coming to fakarta

lhl867, Terminal Annex, Los Angeles, CA

Directions,

8o

90086:-lg67, USA,

priced $9,95. (AMOK has an extraordinary catalogue now in its fourth edition, 350 pages, priced $8.95) Please note that if ordering from AMOK from outside the USA: 1. Add 15% to the price to cover shippingand handling; 3:j.""4 only International Money Order or a cheque drawn on a USbank.

3. Allow 8-L0 weeks for delivery.

Reproduced here are a few pages from peter Dare scott's poem/ Coming to Jaknrta, about the US involvement in the Indonesia slaughter in 1955. 150 pages long, complete with tootnotes, this has been published in American- by New Sth Avenue,New york, Ny10011. The hardback

is $15.95, the paperback $8.95.

Alternatively, the paperback is available from AMOK, pO Box

the Council on Foreign Relations for whom William Henderson of Mobil called Southeast Asia uitally signifcant an economic and strategic prize

Shoup zz7

in those dog-day fifties when I more suited than any bank clerk

felt honored to meet Dean Rusk

thought Sastroamidjojo boring and mimicked the trembling hands of Penn Nouth who sat beside me in the C's of the United Nations and whose friends are now all dead Henderson called for an interuentionist unlimited

P.D.

fnal commitment

Scott '74 tz7

or in the words of the cFR-commissioned study

by Russell H. Fifield sometime State Department official professor of political science at the University of Michigan and the National War College Secretary of the Association

of Asian

Studies

a challenge of major proportions

Fifeld

in which the cn's clients

j

who had just been defeated in the '58 Sumatra revolt could not be ouerlooked in Indonesia's future if only because of their rare qualities of leadership

P.D.

Scou 'ZS zrg

Fifield 3rz

II.xvii Training and education

for leadership can be an important indireet result

of the

Lobster 20

18

U.S. military progrum wrote Fifield who must have known what Ford and the University

Fifiekl rcz

of California were up to otficer corps disciplined eager to get things done anti-Communist in outlook attributes oJ leadership not widely found

in

Southeast Asia

Fifield joo

such was the academic language of Professor Fifield

not in any indictable sense a war criminal nor I suppose Guy Pauker another of those jet-lagged crn policy consultants a displaced Rumanian so deferential

about his quite adequate English when we debated Vietnam before the pitiless lrvine studenrs and while on the RAND payroll the founder

of an academic center at Berkeley where as professor of political

science

he developed the program

to train the cadres of SESKOAD

the Indonesian

army command school

for the Nazis

to suppress the Communist Party a few weeks after the elections

of which I knew nothing when confused by a sudden surge

in which the Communist Party won

fue million

uotes

of my old combativeness saying you

political are

pai

scientists

of the problem and the students all

starting to applaud I hushed them and turned to apologize of course not you personally

I did not know then you had publicly castigated old friends in the Indonesian military

for not carrying out a control function

for lacking the ruthlessness that made

it

possible

II.xviii I was always going along at firsr with whatever sounded most reasonable

and that is why in the late fifties

I would have agreed with John Fairbank attacked for his love of China that to have got $3o million through the Social Sciences Research Council

from John Brigham Howard international research and training

director of the Ford Foundation

for academic studies of China would be an important means bringing ir that is to say the for

P.D.

Scott'75 z3r Pauker'64 zzr-zj

-: Lutt), Lawrence

plan originated under strong united states advice to Britain to weed out homosexuals - as hopeless security risks from important_Government_ jobs. One of the'yard,s top_

Yewtree Cottage Benhams Lane Fawley Green Hensley-on-Thames (sic)

rankers, Commander E:A. Cole, recently spent thrie months in America consulting FBI officials in putting finishing touches to the.plan., . . . . the special Brancli begai compiling a 'Black Book' of known pe-rverts in influen"tial government jobs after the disappearince of the diplomats Donald Maclean and Guy Burgbss, who were known to 'Nowlomes have pervert associates. the difficult task of

Hensley should be Henley, some forty miles west of London and the home of the famous annual boating regatta, an important date in the social calendar 9f th9 English rufingirites. Fa#ley Green is an extended hamlet of a place, higtr in the hills above Henley, that still seems remote and aicadian. -The houses here are hidden in a well-wooded landscape that tumbles down to the Thames. The present occupan-ts of Yewtree Cottage only recently purchased the proq9lry, and told me that it had pissed ihrough-many hands in the 1970's and 80's. The cottage Seems originaily to hive been a rem_ote early nineteenth century laborer's house but additions and modifications have turned it into a picfuresque exercise in gentrification.

.

side-trackingthese men into less important jobs or putting -

them behind bars.

., A cursory examination of this case does seem to suggest that these three unfortunate defendants were victims of soire Cold Yu.l ng1u.king by the British Government intent on showing the United states that they could and would Do somethine Aboui It. I wondered if any any gay historian had examined thi way Cold war had impinged on homosexuality in Britain durine the'1950,s 3ld I was told the book to read wai;effrey Weeks, d.oming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Niieteenth Century"to th,

An informant who had lived in the village for many years told me: 'Larryr- Lawrence worked as a chef in He-nley and London. He was very handsome, and also sweet and polite. He lived in the cottage with his boyfriend who was an offi-cer in the United states Air Force at High wycombe. The boyfriend was quite senior he may have been a major. Lu.ry, moved out in the Lte 1960,s and I

!.rg:r"! (London, .Quartet, Wildeblood

. ..Lord Montagu's very busy schedule

don't know where you would hnd him now.,

talking to him so far.

A poyfriend in the usAF? I wondered if this was originally ^. shaw's friend and that through him shaw met Lawren-ce? "r through the address book and found only one entry with SlXL"d usAF connections, an individual shown at various bases - Lo*ry (Colorado) AFB, Amarillo (Texas) AFB, George (California) AFB, and one near Tuscon (Arizona), the narne"of which I cannot decipher. H9 is also shown at one time as being in Brussels. I don't know if this person is Lawrence's friend ind it would be improper to print his name.

From 1951 to 1965 High wycombe was the USAF's strategic Air Command nerve centreind Seventh Air Dvision,s He.

Blessingboume Phone Fivemiletown22l

trI Captain Peter stephen Montgomery of Blessingbourne, to use the 99ll"g favoured by the subject, wis born on i3th Auzust 1909.

He was educated at, weliington College school u""a r.i"ity College.,.Cambridgg..

--Montgoirery was tfre son of Major-G"r,".ul Maude de Fellenberg Moirtgomery. His uncre became of the Imperial Geneil staff and [ris second cousin was tsernard Montgomery, Marshall Montogmery of Alamein, the commander of the E:tg Eighth Army during-the Second world war. From 1931 to 1947 he was'emploled by the BBC in Northern Ireland in various capacitiei, "including Assistant Musical Director and Conductor 6r tne BBC North?m Ireland symphorry (1933-38). From 19s2-71he was a member -orchestra of the BBC Northern Ireland Advisory Council, and from Lg6g-71 on the BBC General Advisory Council. He was the Honourary ADC to the Governor of Northern Irerand, Lord wakehurst, frorir 1954-64, and later vice-Lieutenant of County Tyrone .in Ulster where the family estate, Blessingbourne, was situated. These

!.rsl Chief

trl This is Edward ]ohn Barrington Douglas-scott-Montagu, 3rd Bdrn 20th !aro1 of Beaulieu, popularly kf;own as LSrd Montagu. october 7926, edicafed af Eton and oxford, he "served in the

Grenadier Guards.

Lord Montagu's large.country estate, Beaulieu in Hampshire,

some seventy miles south-west of London, houses the Nitional Motor Museum which he founded in 1952. It is probably the

of

vintage cars

in

Montgomery

Fivemiletown, NI Ireland

Lord Edward Montagu 15 Mount St. London W1

largest collection

has prevented me from

* Peter

*

considerable number of visitors each

DZn. But Weeks merely repeats

and adds nothing new.

Information Wanted

in Britain u.,il attracts a year. His Lordship is active

I am trying to research Black (ie of AfricarvCaribbean decent) political organisations in the 1930's and 1940's. AII of their pup"r, have. disappeared and the pRo is withholding all the files it has not destroyed. Does anybo$y !av_e any advi"ce as to how to get the PRO to release wha-t- iiholasZ fl,ve tried the proper channels.) or how to find-any of ihe MI5 and si".Lt n.unch men who infiltrated and surveilledihem? (I,m guess'ing at the infiltration: the surveillance was obvious.) "The *u"ir, grotrps/men ye,re: N."_Srg Welfare League (Amold Waid/peter Bhcfman); Colonial Information[ur6au (Ben Bradley/Reginald Brid geman/Desmond Buckre) j International Airican service Bureau, later Pan African Federation (George patmore/Ras T. Makonnen/Chris f ones); west African NatiSnal secretariat (Kwame Nkrume/Bankole Akpata/Bankole Awoonor-ne.ne.;.

many committees and organisations relating to museums, hansport history, tourism etc. Lord Montagu hls been married

twice.

In 1954 occurred what has come to be known as the Montagu Case. with Peter wildeblood, the diplomatic correspondent"of the LondonD,'/y Mail andMichael pittlRivers, Lord Mintagu was

and charged with specific acts of indEcency involyt"g two serving members of the Royal Ai'r !lo-o1"T"ality) I'orce, Edward arrested

McNally and |ohn Re-ynolds, both in theii early twenties. The defendants were also iharged with conspirary t6

commit the acts - the double-whammy to 6nsure that ho-one-got

off. At this time in Britain homosexuality was a crimiial offence. Th" police.and prose,cution showed ri'ruch prejudice and malice at the trial, frightehing McNallyand Reynold's into turning Queen's Evidence. -They fot off, i,vlaeuto6d and pitt-Rivers

Reply to M.S. c/o Lobster.

Information sought on:

were gaoled for eighteen months, Montagu for a year.

wildeblood wrote goog first-hand account of the case, Against 1 the law (London, weici-enfield and Nicolson, 1955) which d"etails the unscmpulousne.ss and severity with *hi.h the prosecution purDueq the rne case. rle qursued He also otters offers some so-e explanation on 6n pp45_6. pp45-6.

On 25th October on october 1953 the sydney Svdnev Morning'Telegraph p.rblirh"d u Morning'Telecraph p.rtiirn"a cable from its London coo6spo"ndent, correspo-ndent, Donald'Ho..r".

Horne, aborrt about a police and Home pl{ to 'smash homosexuality in .office London'. The details presented to the Australian readers were rather fuller than those presented to the Briffsh f"uii. *no had merely heard from Home secretary sir David Maiwell-Fyffe, that a'new drive against male vice' whs needed. Horne wiote: The

C) fn1tt.tf44 a ship loaded with arms, ammunition and gold exploded in Bombay harbour, destroying 15 or 16 ships, iending out a shock-wave recorded in simla, 3000 miles away. Informati6n on the explosion, casualties, location of survivors, #itnesses etc. (b) the Progress Foundation (c) the Schumaker Foundation Does anybbdy have a copy of, or J?8?

Little A, England?

Reply to R.S. c/o Lobster.

Lobster 20

2A

information on the rocation of a

plrlphlet, NATO and the Third World War, published by

bare biographical facts on Montgomery do not betray the keen interest he has for students of 20th century intelligence and espionage. While a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, he became the lover of Anthony Blunt, the Soviet spy, aka 'The Fourth Man', In the words of Barrie Penrose and Simon

Intelligence Corps and rose to the rank of Captain. After 1945 he remained in the anny and later went to to become ADC to the Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell.

Blunt was insistent that Mongomery knew nothing of his espionage activities and he went to great lengths right up until the

end of his life to protect his friend. Until his death Blunt had a bedroom reserved for Montgomery in his London apartment. In 1980 the London Sunilay Times interviewed Montgomery in connection with the un-masking of Blunt and he said that 'I knew Anthony had been intenogated in 1954 by the Security Service and I feared that my name would come up. There were other occasions when I thought it would come out and I would.get the chop.'

Montgomery died in February L988.

Clay Shaw, in other words, had one-stop access to Blunt, Philby, Burgess and their milieu. Though there is no information that he met any of them, we know from Olwen |ANSON and others that he spent a considerable time in London during the war (According to her'he made all his major contacts during those years'.)

A final intriguing footnote. Sir Stephen RUNCIMAN told me that he was an old friend of Montgomer5/s. When I told him that Montgomery was in Shaw's address book he was startled and said he did not know that they knew each other. Shortly after this he abruptly ended the conversation.

* Robert Roper 208 Great

Portland St.

London [T;

following, handwritten, on a separate sheet]

Robert Roper Hamilton House TRoyal Tenace Southend Essex 4 Tilney Street Park Lane W-l GRO 623[?]8

Clay Shaw Freeman, 'Most of their mutual gay friends assumed that they had begun as iovers and then, in the parlance of the homosexual

world, become sisters.' (Conspiracy of Silence, London, Grafton, 1986 p48). At the end of 1940 the lease that Lord Rothschild had

t I

on a three-story maisonette in Bentinck Street in London expired: Blunt moved in with Tessa Mayor (then Lord Rothschild's secretary in MI5, later his wife), Patricia Rawdon-Smith (who later married a friend of Blunt's) and Guy Burgess. They were soon joined by Jack Hewitt, a sailor boyfriend of Burgess, who very quickly switched his allegiance to Blunt. Hewitt told John Costello that during the time at the flat Blunt had only one visitor come to stay with him: Peter Montgomery. (See Costella's Mask of Treachery New York, William Morrovr, 1988, p391) This was a kindness that was reciprocated in 1942 when, after exhausting intelligence duties in London and Germany, Blunt went to lgcuperate at Montgomery's estate at Blessingbourne. Robert Harbinson, who knew Montgomery and Blunt *ell after the war, has said that 'Anthony had an uncanny hold over Peter. They were in love, at least for a time.' (Penrose and Freeman, ap cit pa9) The secret of Montgomery's relationship with Blunt never came

out during their lifetime. Had

it

done so Montgomery would

have been ruined in Northern Ireland where many of his friends and relatives were in the Protestant Orange Order. Ulster would not have been as tolerant as Cambridge or London.

At the begmning of the war

Montgomery ioined the Lobster

Robert St. lohn Roper was a noted theatrical costume and dress designer who was born in 1913 in Southend-on-Sea where his father was a cobbler. (Southend can be regarded as London's Coney Island - brash, vulgar and very popular). Roper worked for the Markova-Dolin Ballet in the early L940's and later designed for many important West End stage productions. He was at the London Palladium for some seventeen yeard and also designed for shows like the'Black and White Minstrels. Amongst the films we worked on were Tony Richardson's Charge of the Light Brigade (1968). He was also a close friend of the late Sir Norman Hartnell, dressmaker by appointment to the Queen and the Queen Mother.

Roper lived in Great Po,rtland Street in the West End of London in the 1950's. Around 1960 he moved to Tilney Street in Mayfair, a house now demolished, and then bought Hamilton House in Southend in 19ffi, one of the houses in a very beautiful Royal Terrace which dates back to the 1790's. Roper lovingly restored the house to its period grandeur and the present owner, Mrs Powell, has preserved it exactly as he left it.

One Saturday evening in May 1977 Ropet told Mrs Powell, who was then liri.g next door, that he was going to buy cigarettes.

He never returned. The following day his body was discovered in the public toilets at the end of Royal Terrace. He had died of a heart attack, aged 64. One infqrmant told me that Roper was beaten up by an American sailor and this brought on the heart attack, but as the source was not present it is hard to guage the story's reliability. Certainly no suggestion of this appeaied in the local papers. Ropey's obituary appeared in the London Daily Telegraph in the following week.

Bill Barrell lived with Roper for the last thirteen years of his life and can only remember him mentioning Clay Shaw's name once, at the time of Garrison's investigation. Roper might have said something like 'I have met hirn', but that was all. There is no reason to doubt Barrell's word , but it is odd that from the evidence of the address book Shaw appeared to have known Roper for at least fifteen years. Another curious point is that Roper was always known as St. ]ohn Roper, never Robert as Shaw had it. Barrell did not recognize any of the other names in the address book.

20 27

SirStephen Runciman 18

sale. I could not trace either spencer of Leach and nongof shaw's friends know anything abouf them except for Olwen IANSON who just remembers that shaw invariablyitayed with them when

Elmtree Road

St. john's Wood London W8 Phone - Cunningham 00L0 [Following, after another name] Sir Steven Runciman

he was in London.

+ Peter

Elshieshields, Lockerbie,

Dumfriesshire Scotland Tel: Lochmaben 280

WhitehallCourt

66

Watling

Roland Gardens

London SWl Whitehall3160 Ext 68

trI Shaw, as can be seen, spells the first name two ways. The correct form is Steven. The Hbnourable Sir Steven Runiiman was born

on 7th fuly 1903, the second son of Viscount Runciman of Doxford. He was educated at Eton (at the same time as George

Orwell whom he knew) and Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1927-38 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, and from IglZ-qS he was Professor of Byzantine Art and Histbry at the University of Istanbul.

Sir Steven is a very distinguished academic specializing in the history of the Middle East and Byzantium and has been ailarded honorary doctorates by nearly every major university in England and America. The author of many books since 1929, he is chiefly known for his three volume A History of the Crusades (1951-54).His most recent book, Mistra, was published in 1980.

Here is a description of him at Trinity in the 1930's when Anthony Blunt was a student: 'The elegant Steven Runciman, however, remained as Trinity College's resident aesthete, cutting elegant poses with a parakeet perched on his heavily ringed fingers ind his hair croppbd in an Italianate fringe.'

This is |ohn Costello in his Mask of Treachery p121, quoting Cecil

Beaton's The Wandering Years (1961). Beaton, - it

wltt

be

remernbered, was very close to Sir Michael DUFF. The three addresses listed represent Sir Steven's homes over a period of fifteen years. The St. John's Wood house was leased from the MCC (Middlesex Cricket Club - Lord's is nearby) ![rgughg-ut the 1950's, then he moved for a couple of years io Whitehall Court, a block of service apartments neai the Houses of Parliament, finally going to Lockerbi-e in the early 1950's where he still lives.

The first time I spoke to sir steven he told me that he had met Clay shaw a couple of times in New orleans, the last occasion being 3bou! 1965, and knew little if nothing about him except that 'he enjoyed teasing the authorities.'I asked-him how often he met Shaw in Britain and sir steven said he was not aware that shaw had ever visited Britain. I pointed out to sir steven that there were three addresses for him covering some L5 years and asked if

he could be mistaken in his recollecEons? At-that point he cut short the conversation and I did not have the opportunity to ask him to. explain what he had meant by shaw liicing to tease the authorities.

The second time I spoke to him I asked whether he knew peter MONTGOMERY. At that stage this was a shot in the dark. sir steven said he knew him well. I then asked him if he knew that Montgomery was in Shaw's address book. Sir Steven seemed shocked by this this, there was a lengthy silence and he then said in a measured manner, 'I did not know he knew him., Sir Steven told me that he knew sir Michael DLIFF and was equally surprised that Duff too was in the address book. sir steven then abiuptry

ended the conversation. Lady D'Arry, above, knew both Sir Steven and Lord Montagu.

London SE7 FRE 0305 [T; a wavyline through this entry- Shaw's? A deletion?]

Off the Old Brompton Road, Roland House is a hideous pre-war brick apartment block. I could not trace Watling and non-e of the other English_friends of Shaw knew his name. -Curiously, in his book on the Lord MONTAGU case, Against the Law(1955), peter Wildeblood wrote (p37):'At this time I was living in small flat in Roland Gardens, South Kensington.'

* Marcus Wickam [-] Boynton 4 Green St

WI,

London GR 8451 (Vincent Arroyo)

trl

is in the heart of Mayfair near the American Embassy. No 4 is situated in an elegant Victorian apartment Green Street

block on the north side. Marcus is one of the two sons oI Captain Thomas Wickham-Boynton (1869-1942), a wealthy Yorkshire landowner. Wickham-Boynton inherited.much of-his father's wealth and lived a leisured existence, chiefly indulging his twin. interests of travel and horse racing. He died in his lhte-forties on 19

December 1989.

I spoke to Vincent Arroyo who had lived with him in Green Street. The two of them were travelling on an extended holiday through the United States in the early L950's and stayed for fiv-e days in New Orleans where they met CIay Shaw. Hd was a very hospitable host, inviting them to a number of parties and showing

them round New Orleans. He took them 1o the races in the company of a tobacco heriess who was a close friend. Arroyo

cannot recall her name. The only other time they met Shaw wai a couple 9{ years later when he was in London. Later, when they

read of his arrest by ]im Garrison, they sent him a telegram offering their support and sympathy - they could not believe he was guilty.

Wickham-Boynton and Arroyo were friends of Lord

MONTAGLi.

* Angus Wilson (Tony Garrett) Felsham Woodside Bradfield St. George Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Tel Rattlesden 200

trl This is Sir Angus Wilson, the distinguished novelist, who was born on llth August 1913. He was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and worked in the Foreign

Office from 1942 until 1946. He then worked in the Britilh

Museum library until 1955, after which he wrote and lectured fulltime. His principal works are The Wrong Set (1949), Hemlock and After (1952), Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956) andThe Old Men at the Zoo (1e61).

Bradfield St. George is a small village in Suffolk about sixty miles north-west of Ldndon. Sir Angus"went to live there in th'e mid-1.950's wth Tony Garrett, a schoolmaster who was sacked

when the nature

of his

relationship with Sir Angus was With Sir Angus, Garrett

discowered by the school's governors. co-edited East Anglia in Verse (1982).

+ G. R. Spencer

Mike Leach 86 Cadogan Pl

London SW1

tHl 85 Cadogan Place is a-yery fine double-fronted eighteenth-century hgqr-" 9n thg edge of Belgravia just to the northif Sloane Squar'e

Sometime in the 1970's the house at Bradfield St. George was sold and Sir Angus and Garrett moved to St. Remy Ce-dex in France. Alas, after some years Sir Angus developed Alzheimey's Diseas_e and Garret was forced to refurn him to England where he was placed in a nursing home thanks to the beneficience of the

novelist P.D. ]ames.

which has been recently converted into luxury apartmenti for Lobster 20

22

In conclusion

York, Sheridan Square Press, 1988) tell us more about the district

This enquiry had produced at least one significant name that merits further research and attention and which may help us to understand more fully the political and intelligence face of Clay Shaw: Peter Montgornery.

When I spoke to Harold Weisberg recently I thought he would be able to put me in touch with somebody playing Seth Kantor to Sharn/s |ack Ruby. Weisberg told me there is no-one he knew

of. I was disappinted

to find that I was the only person driving down this highway, and doubly disappointed because I was just about to hit the off-ramp. I hope this piece prompts some other researchers to hit the road.

said Joesten was an active Communist?)

Further reading Researching this article prompted my first major reading of the Warren Report in about 15 years, and it was quite startling to find

what is included, even if none of the parapolitically significant sfuff is ever followed up. It was even more startling to find what is excluded but that is another story. Appendix XIII, 'Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald', is very useful for dates and noncontroversial facts. The edition I used was that 'prepared' by

Doubleday and Company, New York, l9&. This is the gentleman's edition, in hardcover, with 'An Analysis and Commentary by Louis Nizer' and 'A Historical Afterword by Bruce Catton.' And with extra illustrations, yet! I do not know whether Nizer is still enriching the Republic with his sage reflections but this from his opening essay should make him wince:

The Commission has taken note of rumors in books, newspaper columns, radio or television prograrrrs, and lectures. It has set forth the facts and permitted the hobgoblins to vanish in their presence. Certain it is that those who have preened themselves on imaginative 'revelations', and even made a career of spreading them, will no longer be in business. A fact colliding with a theory, may produce tragedy. The report will be a tragedy for gossips and irresponsible experts.

I am not quoting this to ridicule, but......no, come to think of it I am quoting this to ridicule Nizer. We may all have been young and innocent in those days but not that naive. The first book .ingtng a warning bell about the official investigation was written before Warren's Report was published and was based on the

Washington

attorney,than they do about Shaw. The latter is the more relevant of the two.

Harold Weisberg admits that his Oswald in Neut Orleans: Case of Conspiracy with the"C./.A. (New York, Canyon Books, 1967) was hurriedly written and needs some surgery, but nonetheless it remains a valuable, comprehensive work that can still hold its head high. Garrison contributes a foreword. joachim ]oesten's The Garrison Enquiry: Truth and Consequencese (London, Peter Dawney in association with Tandem Books, D6n is a breathless scissors-and-paste job by the veteran German' journalist. (Was it the CIA who leaked a Gestapo lyes,Gestapol memo to the Warren Commission dated something like 1938 that

'line' that was being leached out of trusf

establishment-oriented newspapers. This was Thomas G. Buchanan's Who Killed Kennedy? (New York, Putnam, 19@), which is still worth reading and is the only jFK book I know that demonstrates in a discussion of earlier US presidential assassinations that the'lone mad assassin'was a tried and tnrsted formula for preventing light being shed on what was really happening.

In the opening section I rely heavily upon Henry Hurt's Rea*nable Doubt: An lnaestigation into the Assassination of lohn F.

Kennedy (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985) which on pp261,-89 contains one of the best and most balanced accounts of

the Garrison-Shaw episode. Hurt is also very good on Oswald and the New Orleans milieu generally. Highly recommended.

Also usefui was Edward Jay Epstein's lengthy'Garrison' that took up nearly the whole of the 13th July 1958 issue of. The Nent Yorker under the 'Reporter at Large' department. I understand this piece was the basis for Epstein's Counterplof (New York, Viking Press, 1959)but I have not seen this.

James Kirkwood's American Grotesque: An Account of the Clay Shaw-lim Garuison Affair in the City of Nats Orlearzs (New York, Simon and Schuster, l970;)'is the best day-to-day account of the

trial and events down in New Orleans. Kirkwood

is

unashamedly pro-Shaw but reports Garrison's case and the courtroom events with something approaching dispassion and presents his own views as that and nothing else. I have a few other reservations about Kirkwood but no student of Garrison can afford to be without this account. Kirkwood met Clay Shaw at a dinner parry given by the authorlames Leo Herlihy. Herlihy was an old friend of Kirkwood's, but where did the novelist meet Shaw? According to a recent issue of The Neus York Times Book Rasiats Kirkwood died in 1989.

Garrison's own two books A Heritage of Stone (New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1970) and On the Trail of the Assassins: My

For a full bibliography on Garrison-Shaw books and articles up to 1979 see pp188-97 of Deloyd J. Guth and David R. Wrone'sThe Assassination of lohn F. Kennedy: A Comprehensbe Historicnl anil Legal Biblio graphy 1.9 63-1979 (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1980) a volume worth its weight in gold and one that badly

-

needs updating. Guth and Wrone also detail every relevant article in The N ew Y orkTimes relattng to the Garrison inquiry.

For more up-to-date accounts of Oswald and New Orleans see

Anthony Summers' Conspiracy (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1981) and John F. Davis' Mafa Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the

Assassination of lohn F. Kennedy (New

1989).

Marcello but his argument relies too heavily on selective evidence and special pleading. Nevertheless a provocative and useful book.

Acknowledgements Aside from those people mentioned or alluded to in the foregoing,

I would also like to thank the following for their help: Timothy D'Arch-Smith, Allen Daviau, Stephen Dorril, Nick Frewin, Mysha Frost, Robert Harbinson, Jim Hougan, Marthe Kurtyanek, Angie Liegh, Michael Mordaunt-Smith, Charles Peltz, Robin Ramsay and Chris Rushman.

L'Envoi

After finishing this I was fanning through the pages of

Kirkwood's American Grotesque when a name caught my eye, an intriguing name. It occurs on p282 when Shaw's attorney, Irvin Dymond, is cross-examining P"o), Russo in an attempt to find out whether he, Russo, had ever discussed the case with a Layton Martens who was then under indictment for perjury for refusing to cooperate with Garrison's investigation. Layton Martens - the name rang a bell. I checked through Shaw's address book and found the following: Layton Martens Box 544

U.S.L. Lafayette, La. Then I remembered a cross-examination much later in the ]ames Alcock, an Assistant District Attorney, has Clay Shaw on the witness stand: Alcock: Did you know a Mr Layton Martens?

Shaw: Yes, sir,I did.

Alcock: Did you know he was [David] Ferrie's roommate?

Shaw: No sir,I did not.

Alcock: Do you know alames Lewallen?

Shaw: Yes. Alcock: Did you know he knew David Ferrie?

Shaw: I did not.

book. It comes on p407 when

Lewallen is not in the address book. But then who else is not who should be...... ?

lrutestigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy (New

Lobster 20

York, McGraw-HilI,

Davis makes a valiant attempt to stick the assassination on

The Lobster logo was destgned by Cliae Gringras.

23

l--r--

Dean Andrews' testimony to the Warren Commission fhe slrangest thing about )im Garrison's recent book on his of the assassination is the fact that he never

you say so,

for the number of gay men in and aiound the - Shaw,- Da,vid Ferrie,-]. Fggu, Hoover _ is rarely commented on. To this list I would add iack Ruby, who ,,"rr*

dialogue crackles into life. . Replod-uced below are some extracts

sir. Then Andrews appears, bringine with him New Orleans' ethnic, culfural and sexual subcriltu"res, talking of ,cloud nine, etc., and' the lifeless ?lg*i"g weed', 'freaky',

investigatigl

mentions-Clay- shaw's homosexuality. This is about par for the

course,

assassination

perhaps 10% in a[ from Andrews' testimony- from, vol. -li of 'the - published-

married, lived with young. men, owned a strip .l'rb y"t never apparently showed any- interest in the yoirrrg women he employed, ryd app-eared to be smitter, #ith rien in police uniforms. on the-basis of this anecdotal evidence alone the rumours that Ruby. was gay, that he hung out at the gym in the !,ICA in Dallas, inat ni met oswald wXen oswald?as hving

Commission hearings. Andrews doesn't state that osiiarald was gay, butcertainly it is (just) suggested by oswald's connections to the'g_ay kids' and 'Clem Bertrand,. As Andrer+,Weeks reminded

me, Priscilla Johnson McMillan's dreadfur book Marina anil

there, are of some interest.

rythqg in that which would contradict the hypottresis ttrai a,gay man.struggli"g to resist his seitial idenriry in 9:.yld,*as button-down, homophobic, white

It is in this context that the testimony to the warren of New orreans rawyer Deari Andrews is so

Commission

America.

interesting. when I skimmed through the warren Commission,s

Yulty

All of which means? Nothing, perhaps: at best we have more layers to the onion, central figqd; i.t thei.ama with ti"es atreaay draped in concealment, to ivhom we might properly attribute glgfher layer of deception. Gay.gangslu.,"gqy'brrri.uJr* an, gay FBI boss^, gjy anti-Cistro activitilt aid, p"".(upr, fiuy

plus volumes of evide.rce a.rd testimony twelve years ago

Andrew's contributio|. p.rac{cally leapt off tlre

Lee

contains considerable prurient detail on oswald's violent and incompetent sexual relitionship with Marina. Certain-lv there is

iugi,'not because of what he said, but becius" ,ir tn" *uy n'u iuil"a. The of the other witnesses is extraordinariiy duil and dry for Iit$:ly the. most part, hundreds of pages of (mostry #nite; Ameriians, ju"st

pats-y. As Dean Andrews might have said, 'How d'you "*"rgi"g llke"th"edr

their best to- politely ansiler the ques'tio.,, Iyi"q big-wigs

of this team of from washingtori D.C.: yes sir, no sir, three bags full if

apples?'

Robin Ramsay

Mr. Lrnsrrnn. r am advised by the FBr that you told them that r,ee Elarveo oswald eame lnto your ofree gome fime durlng the summer of rg6s. S;;l you tell us ln your own words Just what happeled as far as that ts *o."-ti Mr. ANrBEwg. r don't recall the dates, but brlefly, lt ls this: oswald the otrce aeeompanied by some gay klds. They.were Mexlcanos. ffe wanteO ""." in io fnd out what eould be done ln eonneeflon wtth a dlscharge, a yellow paper ateeharge, ao r erplained to blm he would have to advance tte tunos to irausertbe whatever reeords they had up ln the AdJutant Gleueral's offee. Tfhen le urouglt the money, r would do the work, and we saw him three or four ttmes sgbsequini to that, not ln the eompany of the gay kids. Ee had thls Mexleano wtth hln. r assume he le a Mex beeause the Latins do not wear a butch halrcut.

Mr. r,lrsrrrB,. The flrst time he came in he was wlth these Mexieans, and there were also some gay kids. By that, of eourse, you mean people that appeared to you to be homoseruals?

Mr. Anoarws. \ilell, they awlsh. what they are, r don't know. \tre eail ttrem

Mr. Anonsws. No; nothtng at ail wtth oswald. r was ln Eotel Dieu, and the vore_e I reeognlzed as clay Bertrand asked ms if r would go to r)allas and flouston-r thtnk-Dallas, r guess, wherever lt was being heltl-and defend bim. r told h-rm r was siek rn that this boy nas tbe hospital. rf r eouldn't go, phone rang and a

I would ffnd somebody that eould go.

Mr. Lrpssr,EB: You told him you were slek tn the hospltal and wbat?

1\lr. Arnnpws. That's where r was when the eail eame through, rt eame through the hosprtal swrtehboard. r said that r wasn't rn snape enough to go to Dallas and tlefend him and I woukl see what I eould do.

Ifr. LrraE'LEB. Now what eaD you tell us about thrs clay Bertrand? you met him prior to that ttme?

Mr' ANoesrve' r had seen cray Bertrand onee some ilme ago, probably a eouple of years. He's the one who eails tn beharf of gay ria, ni".auy, erther to-obtaln bond or parole for them. r would assume that he was the one that orlginally sent oswald and the gay klds, these Mexleanos, to ttre offce beeause I had never seâ&#x201A;Źn those people before at all. They were rustw;ik-rns.

gay ktds.

Mr. Lrnnpr.ea. EIow maly times did he eome lnto your ofree?

l\Ir. LrusrrEB. Is thls fellow a homosexual, do you

Mr. Anonnwe. Minlmum of three, mflatrnqpn of flve, eounting tDitial vhlt.

Mr. LrEtsE'EB" And dtd you talk about difierent ui.r As I understand it. the ffrst Hme he eame tbere, he "obJ*t" "forr"ort.oo*Ii.j was prlmarily

l[r.

I baven't eeen blm slnee.

Now have you hait your ofEce searched for any records rerating to Clay.Bertrand?

1lIr. Arvonnwe. yes.

Mr. Anonsreg.

about his discharge, le that correct?

Mr. anonuwe. 'well,

lfr' Lrrsr*s.

r

rnny have the subJeet matter of the vislts reversed be eause vlth the eompany he kept and the eonversatiou-be eould tark fcr-r. well-I flgured that thts was another one of what we eall ln ;iff1;;# alley euents, so we didn't malntain fire normaley wlth tbe f,le tlat-might ^, seratehed a few notes on a pleee of pad, and 2 days later threw the wh;le have thiu; away. Dldn't pay too mueh attentron to hrm. only time r really pata atteni tion to this boy, he'was in the front of the Maison Blanehe Buildinggtvlog oot these kooky Castro things.

Mr. Lrpsrr,EB. 'When was thls, approximately?

Mr. Annnswg. f don't remember. I was eoming from NBC bullding, anal I walked past him. _you know how you see somebody,the reeognlze hlm, I turned around, eame baek, and asked him what he ,.as dorngiiving ttat So out. Ee sald it was a Job. I reminded him of tre g2E ue orii-tne omee.junt Es said he would eome over there, but he never did.

Mr. Lrnnnr,pn. Did he tell you that he was getHng patd to hand out thrs literature ?

Mr. AnoRrws. r wrsh r eourd be more speerfle, that's alt. Tbis ts my rmpresslon, for wbatever lt is worth, of CIay Bertrand: flls conneetions Oswald r don't know at alr. r !n!k be is a lawyer wrthout a brlef ease.wlth That's my

oplnlon. EIe sends the klrts different plaees. rvhether thls boy le assoelated wtth Lee oswald or not, r don't know, but r wourd say, when I met hlm about

6 weeks ago when

r ran up on him and he ran away trom me, he eould be runnlng beeause he owes me money, or be eould be runnlng beeause they have been quarter-pretty good looking for him while I was ln ihe bospttal, antl somebody might have passed the word he was hot and r was Iooklng for hlm, but r bave never.been able to fgure out tbe reason why he would call me, and the only other pa.rt of thrs thing that r understand, uut appareniry r haven,t been able to eommunieate, rs r caled Monk Zelden oo sondiy tu" and asked Mook lf be woultl go over-be rnterested tn "a retalner "t goN.o.A.c. and over to Dallas aud see about t-hat boy. r thought I caled Monk onee.

Monk eays we talked twlee. r don't remember the second. rt's all oo" wlth thtng r do remember about rt, while r was tarkrng wtth "oor"r."ilon P:'' -ooly Mont, be sard, "Don't worry about rt. your e[ent Just got shot.,, That was the enct of tbe ease. Even If he was. bo^nq 6de elient, I never dtd get to htm; somebody else 1 got to hlm before r dId. other than that, that's the;hoie thtns, urt tnt. uoy Bertra_nd has beeq bugg{ng me ever sinee. f will flnd hlm sooner-or Iater.

Mr. Lrrrnrnr. Does Bertrand owe you money?

BqueeziDg the

Mr, Awonpwe. yes.

Mr. LrpseLEB. Did he tell you how mueh ? lVIr, Anosews. No. 1\Ir. Lrsnerun. Do you remeruber te[ing the FBI that he tord you -being paid 925 a day for handing out thesJleaflets?

ilrat he was

lllr'

Axonervs. I could have tokl thenr that. r know I reminded him of the $25. I may have it eonfused, the g2i. \\'hat I do reeall, said it was a Job, r guess I asked him how m'eh be rvas making, They rverehelittre square chits a

little bit snraller than the pieture you have of him over there

Yes; r .heMr'-Anonpwe. ealled

[iudieattng]. ll{r. Lrnner-nn. He rvas handing out these leaflets?

1|Ir. Axon'rvs. They were brack-anrl-rvhite pamphlets extolliug _ the virtues of castro, n'hich around here doesn't do too goo.. They hare a lot of guys, Mexicanos and Cubanos, that will tear your head ofr if tnly see you fooling witb

looktng for hrm for that, r want to f,nd out wby me on bebar-f of-arg't thts boy af-ter tbe Frestoent wag assassruated.

Mr. Lrpsnlpn. Eow eome Bertrand owes you money ?

Mr. Anonrws. r have done hrm some lejal work that he bas fafled to pay the offee for.

Mr. Lmrsr,ra. 'Iyhen rvae tlat? l{r. Anonpws. That's In a perrod years that r trave-lrke you are Bertrand.

- eall up and ask me to godown of g.ini..

You x out. rr !rr. f doesn,t pay o,, those klnds o! ealrs, Bertrand has a "oo guirantee for tbe payment of appearanee. one or two of these ktds had sktppedl i nra to so ;"y?""*;;;iti, wureu was a lot ol trouble.

Mr. Lrsasr,ss. you were gotug to hokl Bertrand for that?

Mr. Anonpwe. yes.

Mr. Lrraprrn. Dtd Oswalal appear to you to be gay?

Mr. Anpnrwe. You ean't tell. r coutan'i-say. Ee swang wlth the krds. Ee dldn't ewlsh, but btritg_of a feathei foct iogetler. r donit rnow -sv. Ieuy square' that run wtth them. They may so Ao; to lLf.

these things.

.1

llrr. Lrerer,en, IrIy understandlng is, of eourse, that you are here under subpena and subpena duees teeunr, asking you to brlng with you aDy reeords that you mlght have ln your offiee lndreating or refleeting oswatd'e vislt, a,d my underetanding te that you lndieated that you were urable to flnd any sueh records.

Annnrws. Rtght. My ofree was rrfled shorfly,after r got out of the hos-Mr. qnd pltal' r talked with tbe x'BI people. \tre eouldn't ana aiytnui prr"it ri.

Tfhoever was klnd enough to mess my oftce up, gorng through rt] we haven't

found anytbing elnee.

Lobster

say?

ANons\re. Blsexual. Tybat they eall a swinging eat. lur. Lrsse*e. And you haven't seen him at any time srnee that tlay?

20

24

The economic background to appeasement and the Anglo-German detente befoii and durinjw*rJivr. z

,""ffi

Scott Newton thing about the rise of the new Anglo_ l*g:,T1.fr*"ount bemurn w.u was.that Germany demanded an equar prace

Britain as

prepqed

a worrd power u.,a tnui *tri"-'*il

to concede. But,

#th

i,'t principre

At the same time the pursuit of 'sound money,

whereas Germany demanded

and a fixed exchange r-ate benefitted ari wearth was based on personal ,ufirrg-". "frr "*pu"ai"g-*idi" "rrrr'.*r,ose igbl_ii ,_uff _ savings '13.2 amounted to onry per-cent o"f but by

r?n". demand, ffi:$,*,- although she unequivocaii,tirfr.t "" her Eastern was ready to renounce commitments.....as well as to allorv Germany , pi"ao*inant position in East and southeast Europe and td air&i* genuine y:t rytitical partnership with Germany - wanted this to be g,gmplete and

35 they had risln

in

vorume

u.**"tr,id t, "ut ;k;;;;^iuii',r,u

Dfi

total net investment.s The figures reflect the increase in numbers of the lower middle class ind white c,

oone ontv bv wav of negotiation and a gradual revisiop of British firii cnairge cor"rd be effected in a period of months, but not of days or *e"ks.

poliql.-

vitaritv-oi'thJservicesector,o*#lT,U:1[Tlori:iT:""t,llHi

From Helmut von Dirksen's survey of his Ambassadorship M3f 1938 August tissiOir"ments and Materiats in lol1o", Ke*tmg to the eae of the secondworldwar, volume II: The Dirksen Papers: Moscow, is+a, prcs.1

Home Counties. .Employm'e.rt ir, ..i""p;;;;-Iucrr as retail distribution, entertainmeirts and local io"l**""t grew by 873,000 between rg2r" and rgg1.. o"?i employment in. primary. and secondary th;";","e period industries felr bv 957,000'6 eu trrii made'for a large constituen.v, tuJ"a;i ,ha

-

popular and the political level on ; f"ri;;;;*;a Liberal and Conservative parties, in favoui

The Interwar political Economy.

A vast and varied literature has been devoted to Britain,s aPPeasement of Germany.- Historians have, ho*evl., generally viewed the subject as a dipromatic initiati"" *ni.t, in maintaining

u dominated British politics up to ie+O .

This dominant a[iance was so well that it was abre to survive the financial crisis of r93rentrenched pt ;;lil8 only tacticar adjustments to the Iiberal traiectorv ofpofiiy. "6"pir,i"g from the gold standard and adopted J floating er,crr#ge rrie per*itted the pursuit of a 'cheap money' poricy based on a row bank rate. This th esro wth of priva te'h ou s,ebuir d ili p"rl." ra rry in*r e :lfiTfj";}

'*-t'rui' pies"*e h;;"y tt British " encourage the revival of .'Empire, international trade, and avoid pracing i*piriiui" ,t uir,, on the nation's finances.r It is hard to nrra Ir, ,i.orr.ioiupp"ur"ment which relates it to the domestic-'poritico-econo.r,i. from which it was developed. i"iit ir urgruuiuinrt uu.tground poliry reflects the interest of the natioil-state in u.,y foreign shaping an ^p.eserration. international environment t" G-r*" This paper "or,g"r.,iur world peace, would Commonwealth, and

$l#n*,::"$'t,,i:'H+llx[r.fltii*nfiffi

Between 1921 and 1940 the formuration of poliry was dominated by the Treisury, the BankBritish economic E;gH;"r"; the C.1tf of London. ' This a;;" institutional"f nexus,2 was

remained anathema. They berieved thJit;;,fi;auire a self-defeating i" taxation; a programme ofeither deficit tinancing which-increase would crowd out private 6.#.;;; lnd force up interest rates; or an-inflafionary fi'scal stim"l", ;il; would, in the absence of devaruation ih-e

committed to the defence of free enterprise and the limited state lSlinst the internal threat of socialism and the external menace of

th"i'

administrations

eschewed experimentation with unorthodox finance, associated in particurar with I-loyd George, osward Mosrey and rvr revnls.' piece*ear. social reforms, sich as the extensi6;;i J. insurance and modest welfare benefits *"r" i.rt od.rced,'bui tnu trag"t was to be. kept in balance, and administrations took the view that the of surplus industriar .upr"ity u" ,or.,"a by the lr:!l"*s encouragement

"'"u.c"ptuute, 6ren

::fd:#illn;,i:il[;"],"'tr;;.:l

l;;ili;'fi;;t

*o.ld, u"J-in.orrgh the internationui.*"r"y, was

rapidly re-established after the vicissitudes

of rglg-zs and underlined by the return to the gold standard in 1925.

This 'normarcv' wourd not have herd the field for so rong had its appeal been limited to wrtit"r,ru und ttre sG;Mil".

At the this period tt

_"."ffirr"a

only an

,top the ?;. ii;ly_'rtJ' h-aemorrhage.- These consfrairrts-p.ecruded il pJi"y options save one: the 'Treasury viieut' . As a iesurt rtri"utiot", ameriorated gnly b.y state-encouiSgga rationaiipation, remained the norm throughout much of "the above ;ii li the coar, shipbuilding and textile industriesi. ""ono*y, The Nationar Governments-nefei questioned the varue to the country and to the world economy pi*;i"t as an internationally convertible '.,.rrr"r,ry, il"g iterling,s role and fhey sought to

"o"tJu"ri

pegrnning

worldwide

*i}; trt#tr

would be shaken, capital would t".r,";1i; increase in interesf rates *orrld'

of rationalisation.3 Britain,s historic external economic orientation, mediated through the arty;il;ndon,s rore as a provider of shipping, banki.,g ,ria irrsurarice-d"*i.", and a source of investmenf to-tne rest 5f the

preservation of sterring's stafus as an

*

move was as much a desire to reduce tn" ["ra"" Jr *,u nationar debt on the government's _budget as an earry flirtation with demand.management. Reflatioil uur"a or, prluri"-'investment

is the beginning of su"ch an account.

Bolshevism. This meant

the pre-1914

inflationary and anti-hb6ur economic ;i;'hberal, antipori"y, Establishment used to .o"rt.r1t a hegemonic which the broc which

Eq,*ll;s,1"J":t',1",1*"*ff :t'"rumul:nHr;r_t"r

was taken with tnt i.ipr.tite'Monetary i 9"d exchange'rate Agreement with France and the united stat";:-l;1, true that tariffs and a system.of imperial were introduced in the fr"r"ru.rc" early.1930s, but while pr,it".iiofiir*-aia afford British manufacturers, notaury oi rt"el, via benefits to certain the tariff, it also safeguarded the b:,t:l:9f paylents, and hence ttre exchange rate. Preferences arso guaranteed marlets i" illri" i; countries,

p."o.cupations

of the core instifutional -of " nexus matched those -the o? industriarists. The demands of economic mobilisation for war had resurted in a dramatic extension of both of state intervention and of trade

union rights. Acceptilg that r""r,-a"*ropments followed rro,i u ti*" ,orn"'emproye.s had even backed the cals "or t[t" labour movement for the maintenance of wartime industrial arrangements into the period ecllective bareaining

"rtiffi;t*r;."d'foi

of reconstruction- But as ir,"-

rg:tly in the Commonivealth and Empire (r".h;A;straria and ,.'p;;L;i;1il" City of :terl+t;ria London from a damaging series of f,efaultse.

employers becam"e concerned that the balance

r., Throughout the 1930's. British governments worked for the rl r"*mational ecof;omic system .rruruIt".ir".d py fff;:|;"ff ".fll

India) which *".u_:lgrt of

of the Borshevik revolution and full gmp-lo-yment "o-uination generated unprecedented confidence in organis"h iubor.rr,'rt il.*"il";#ilHr.,or, self_ r.,a

of social forces towarJih" .r.io., *orr"*ur,t . ny OO ff-Shlt^yg_feve;1ibly tne more oowerful employers, organisations ,""t as the l1ql*llg' Employers Fed6ration- sought the restoration of j,i*lllt"lilj [Hx'"ffi tiiH!xf;"T...:H:t,]:L:f Pre-war order.a

countries"o,*,o.*'JJffi i:,9'9:?#i.*1il:1,,*rrT:[,H the-srump.il rn" hberar-capitarist British ed recoi,e,y ;hi.h-;;ilT; ill 1l _:1po.t-r s",,an teed uy*::::1 arr rncreaslngly open world economy: only this path to prosperity could be. squared with the interests both of its gxchange as a resurt of

i,tr

governments'supporters in the electorate and I.nhotot

,n

"iiililg

erite.

,-'-

The Anglo-German Connection.

Py^$,: time Neville Chamberlain became prime Minister in early 1937 it was clear that the future of the orthodox strategy fo'r recovery turned on relations between London and Berlinl'rne interests of both the financial and industrial communities - key members of the dominant alliance dictated close Anglo-Ger-ui-, co-operation. The City's interest stemmed from iIs financial commitments there whigh had grown considerably after 7919.

London banks had raised moneylor the reconstructibn of German cities and had provided a considerable volume of finance, often in the form of short-term credits, for German foreign transactions.

The acceptln5e business -had proved lucrativE, especially for large, prestigious firms like Kl6inworts and schrodiers, in the prosperous years of the middle and late 1920s, helping Germany

to maintain extensive trading connections not just witn-irre unitei Kingdom but with the Dominions and the rest of the worldll. . This process was encouraged_by the Bank of England through

once again the threat of a clearing loomed. yet the payments Agreement was renewed and the standstill arrangements were only terminated on the outbreak of war.

\ The City clung to its links with Germany, despite these

provocations, for negative and for positive reasons. For a start it

was hoped that the maintenance of the credit lines and the

provisions of the Payments Agreement would provide the Nazis with the foreign exchange to purchase not only from Britain but primary. producers overseas. Many of these were {o* Commonwealth and Empire counlries which were in serious debt to London, and the opportunit' of exporting to Germany provid_ed 9ne insurance against the danger 5r defaults.rz.' secondly, the City needed the business whicfi would follow from gxpa-n:ion of German trade. Thirdly, in the words of Sir $ Frederick Leith-Ross, the senior Treasury official given the task of working with the banks to preserve the standstiii and payments arrangements:

If we were to abrogate the agreement some f40 million of short-term bills could no longer be carried by the London market and at least a proportion of these would have to be supported by the Government, while a

it! Governor,

M_ontague Norman, and bf successiie administrations. Normin viewed the penetration of British

finance into central and eastern Europe (the Bank had assisted in

the Austrian and Hungaria-n_ cu.rency siabilisations of the early 1920-'s) as a means of re-establishing Britain's prewar internationil

banking p:eeminence.12 He was a-iso keen to develop an AngloGerman financial partnershipl3 to thwart French unh A^".iiu., aspirations to continental hEgemony and contruct a European economy whose prosperity would be guaranteed by commercial and industrial collaboiation between itI two leading members.ra At the same time, of course, the rebuilding of 6".-ur,y u, u flourishing capitalist state would provide" a guarantee that Bolshevism would fail to spread beyond the borde"rs of the soviet Union.

The level of Britai4'.g financial commitment was such that the outflow oJ capital from Germany during the crisis oI 1937 caused great anxiety in thâ&#x201A;Ź Qftyr A rush to call the loans in was averted pf-1" Governor of tfie-Bank of England, Montagu Norman, who believed that a flood of panic withdrawals woulj simply result in moratoria all over central Europe, with disastrous co.r"qre.r.", -t\e

i.

for London, New York and whole internationar b'anking slstem.ts A $100 rnillion central bank credit to Germanv was renewed, keepin! the German banks afloat. The next siep in managing the crisis came with the International standstill Agreement of 19 september 1931, whereby it was accepted that existing credits would be frozen, whiie interest payments

continued.

l I

I

, .

r li I

The standstill Agreemgnt was meant to be temporary but was renewed in early 7932 andevly year thereafter until 193"9, despite

the.unhappiness of many of ihose invorved in the provision of creditto Germany. For Nazi German economic pohcj, flew in the face of the liberal,principles held by the City. under ihe direction of Hjalmar Schacht at the Reichsbank the'Ge...rans introduced a complex sytem of controls over imports and the use of foreign exchange. Trade policy was founded more and more on barter agr_eements with neighbouring countries which provided food and raw materials in exchan[-e for manufactured goods, any difference in value being ma-de up in non-convertlble -urk, useable only in Germany. mide possible a cheap money policy and conservation of-This the hard iurrency without whicir neither the recovef programme nor the incieasingly obvious rearmament could have been financed. London baifu became uncomfortable and in 1934 negotiations for the renewal of the Standstill Agreement came dos6 to the point of breakdown. The British considered the possibilty of a unilateral clearing as the

Germans made trouble ibout in[erest rates on the debts. But the ]oint Committee of British short-Term Creditors, influenced by

F.C.Tiarks, a partner in schroder's and a director of the Bank of !ng!nd, drew back, fearing a German moratorium and the implications of this for the aiceptance houses in the City. The Agreement was saved and finincial relations were formalised through the signature of a payments Agreement allowing the Germans to use 55 per cent of ihe sterlin[ earned through Irade with Britain to be rpllt on purchases therifrom and L0 per cent to go to the servicing of the de-bts. to The last period of peace, l93}-gg, saw renewed crisis. First of -all Germany threatened not to take over Austria's international debts after the Anschluss. Then it became clear that in line with the autarkic trajectory of Nazi economic policy, the credits were betng used not to finance trade so much as iniernar investment.

Lobster 20

further

â&#x201A;Ź80 or â&#x201A;Ź90

million of long-term debts would come into

default. The net effect would

be seriously to disorganise the London market and to weaken our balance

of payments, without any advantage to us.ls This was said in ]anuary 1939 and similar arguments were

leing repeated right into the spring, aftJr the invasion of Czechoslovakia.le

It was not, however, simply a Hobson's choice for the City.

The financial ties between th-e two countries provided a rationale for economic detente which was not simply motivated by fear.

Britain and Germany were the two largesf capitalist economies in Europe. Their banking institutions had colla^borated for decades, to considerable mutua] advantage. Germany was Britain,s leading customer outside the Empire and over the years had brought a good deal of business the City's way. The" Standstill negotiations had been fraught with difficulties but they had nevertheless gen_erated an unusually close working relationship between the banking representatives of each natioi, symbolised in- th9 co-operation of Norman with his opposite number Schacht. In Norman's words an 'Anglo-German connection,2o

had been created. The Nazis, after all, had only been tn power for a few years. Behind them were sensible figures like sihacht who, it was hoped, would be able to steer Hitlerln the direction of a more open and orthodox economic poliry so that, as Tiarks said in March 7939,'free and active relatiOns between German banks and- _ industry.....and their London counterparts are reestablished....This development is not so far a*ry as it seemed a short time ago'.21 It was important that there be no confrontation with Berlin, either over the debts or over Nazi foreign policy. A tough approach might lead to the downfall of schaclt, the l.razis would probably denounce the Payments Agreement, and City

of pounds ana 'the traditionil of the Anglo-German connection'z would break

banks would lose millions machinery down.

The Anglo-German Fellowship There was more riding on 'the Anglo-German connection, than the fate of the standstill credits. Iis collapse would undermine ewerything Nolman had been working foi in since 1919. Only domestic socialists and their friends in the USSR, the avowei enemy of capitalism, would benefit from a worsening of relations between London and Berlin. In these circumstancJs it was not surprising_ that important banks and their directors figured prominently on the membership list of the Anglo-German Fellowship, formed in 1935 to foster good relations between Britain and Germany. Schroder, Lazart and the Midland, for example, were corporate members. At the same time Tiarks,

notwithstanding his work for Schroder and for the Bank of !1Slu1a, jog"4 i. -u. individual capacity, -ofas did Lord Stamp and Sir Robert Kindersley; both Governors the Bank of England, and Lord Magowan, Chairman of the Midland Bank.- The Fellowship was a powerful lobby for harmony between the two countries additional to the one created by its historic, but more informal ties with the Treasury. 23 The deleriorating international 26

".' ". i, '

dimate of summer 1939 does not appear to have caused many second thoughts, and negotiations io settle ,the internationil debts quptio-n' w:re.lmoigst the proposals for Anglo_G;;; c-mpâ&#x201A;Ź-ration launched in gre-at se".ecy 6y the n.itisn government that;ulv.zr

adopted

Fe[owship was not just banking interests Corporate members inclu?ed large

--I:1}1{^:i1T*. xa -TT.*lST"l3Fy"r. ilms, such as I'irth-vickers

^ stainless steels, Unilever and Dunlo6.

whilst the directors of leading

industriri;;;;;;; ;;;;";;i; oit iate and Lirre irriiriau*.ru For indyty as a wholg 9b-op9*tion witir C..*u"y'*r, u logical hperirl

Chemical Industries,"Angro-Ira"i; and the Dstillers Company, joinei * pri"utl

given the internitional economic circumstances of the ?Fj"sy, 1930s.

America; or, even worse, that the Nazi experiment wouldlrB colrap.se sr.oysh a q\or-!se oiiiuia .".r"".y ,o acute that imoorts into ihe Reich"would effe?u""r*urr.. , Brifish industrv *or'td toru in primary producing economie.s^wher'e purchasing.,d;;'hra iu.uiii. revived as a resurt of. German expansionr t.ade siatistics were already reflecting --this developrirelt (a balance ;i p;t;;t; su.rplus of 832 millions in 1935 haa swunt

states, France and Germany enjoying rerativery high

revers of growth and employment, siimutXtea by 'the] European reconstruction boom. The British economy, ho*"r6i, had not fully shared in this prosperity., return to gord at ttre ,;"-*;; Jh" parity had created severe piobrems for an in"clustrial ,o[i"ty ,o heavily dependent on the eiRort u a rimiied;;G;;goods such as sh1py, coal and textiles. Bgt although"uneilploy*"r,t exceeded one million in Lg2g the .orrur,l.r, i*ia" British

o,rt,Jffi; 9";*ilffiilil il-;

millions in 1935) and talks became a mattei o,f i"n.it of fs2 urgenry so that gxports to a buoyant German economy could be"sustained.3s

Fd.rrary, arti_culated by its representative organisation, the Federation of British Industries 61U;, .u*ri""a-fulrourable to the

il:ffi""1':*r'*,i,:1f::,iiF,6.1!,#'m?trt;tlffi

continuation of free trade. The position changed, us it did elsewhere, with the srump. As bani.ruptcies iliil;.y closures proliferated gore_.nmenis throughoui the *o.ii embraced economic nationalism. In nritain the depression intensified

Industrie (RI) lo

th"

should have beenirppy

Mother countryr.2z

stability.ss

.

libe.ri

.o}9l spinning

larges[ 100 firms in 1930 nua

.ercf,eJ; ;; by a unilev"i niru,urs ind

T9 cent2e, and Britain's iridustrial structure was dominated

+illiffi#H,#mpanies, 'r"h i, rCr, . Th,g repudiation of unfettered free enterprise followed

nafurally from the creation of these- monopolies and q"rrimonopolies because the risks inherent' i., - unrestricted competition, now significantly dubbed ,wasteful,, were vast. surftus. capicity and stagnu"ia"."r"d, price

L1|1ij[rTqing Sutuns rn order to clear the market flew in-the face of economic

would be unable to infruence the course of events. _..^T:_q"ucemongering of the industrialists, like that of bankers,

logic when overheads were so rrign. At the same time protoKeynesian schemes designed to "stimulrt" ttL"gh

yut

plblis investment.were rlgardea *ith ;;pi;t5;^i";e "*pu"rio" Kilgdom: it was believed"that their fi,."ii;;h*tions United ultimately- damage recovery.31 circumstances would

,t-" government. The FBI pu.g

in f orme

d abou t the Au gu s r

*i*i"" ir *

priva te interest of finance andlarge-sc-ale industry ";r-c;";;;:^ " grain worked"with .ievel the -*."rr'"ry"y"a

;;.i;3

poliry.. The

-'t'n

of politilri

{ rybh.: such as the Anglo-ierman by organisations Fellowship. and the

p.i."r, which in tum would g*".ui" :::Hg and ^rl: .f.ofitabilifz. conroence hence capital spending.az The large corforation

f .nhstot

gn:oSaged

which ?{ wai tord departed for Dusseldorf that'tn" p"u." or E,Iiop", rested in its hands4r, and Lord Halifax, ttre pore#li;;;;; was fully

a neraiapproach, international econo-i. therefore ;i;;;;i;

by governments and industry working,"g"ih[, :"l.d"q"q boundaries.. national tg.-.protect market sharts "and

"t""tri""il.Jar,lo"o_oUr", "it"-'ru*"

-";d;;;'products, with the ultimate objective ari ordered system-oi *orra trade 6e tween Britisil and iermar, inaustry.

Th e kr-russeldort :"""1,11f,rf:$tf neeotiations reached a satisfactory .or,.rrrior, though the invxsion of Czechoriorrutiu t".t "rrun prr'.""iii'Jinuy *"ru in progres s, and prominent industrialis;; ;;id# easement -tbilg. ffi .August throughout the Iri a ?dry. ?ld ,"-*", of delegation of leadfng ti'riusr, u"rin"*-en secretly met Goering, ,91C"r*un who was in overall"-..1.1rg" economic planning, to sound out the oossibilitier of British *"diJ;;^il .fi'German_ Polish dispute.' Th; p;;#;;i'in endo-German division of world markets was^^disc^ussed4; but the polish refusal to compromise with German demands grrru"t""a -inat the industrialists

had become common in.Germany and tne i-lnitea staies by 191a.

Even in Britain, r1he1e they weie ress common, the share of net

demanded

and

machinery.se et 11q time representatives from the FBI and-the RI had yust-ageed, in Dusseldorf, on the principres of a far-reaching programme to cooperate not simoly in price-fixing but atso Yn' .Toi.t effort to stimulate internaiionar ionsumpuSn of their

Throughout the ad^vanced induskial ;";il"til'rl""a waq [o economies of scale ald firms abre to controtau tne processes Frgg of production and disfrbution. such industrial corporations and combinations for exampre"t";;;f"l AEG or US steer -

-'

if the ground had been

were members of cartels production od i.o., and steel, t-.rr"r, wire rods, covering th; nitrates, salts, acids, lead, cement, silk, coal,' coke,

iircraft, oit, .n"-i"ufr,-a"i6rg"r,t, and f,*f8^^19hicies, etectncal eqypme,nt, meant expensive outlays on investment, research and development, and trainea rr"ui".iai personnet.ra

b,

By the-end of March 7g3g it seemed as

for Anglo-German i"a"rt iut detente. British ;llared uerrnan companies

iystems were reff_"orre"tirrg.' S""o"Jry, ::i"g-qj}t_:.o1oTic tne growing complexity. of modern scientific indust[z since 190,0,

output taken

*ia-th;

benefitiof rearmament. But mernories of iriu."""rrion economic caused by demobilisation after 1919 were rtil .t"u, and the FBI,s chosen strategy was generaily welcomed because it imprieJ to.rg-1s.rn

profits,

classicui

uponprices. Subsidiary

The hope was that discussions wourd produce terms operation in mutual trade and in third ma'rk;;;p;;;"g for coway for 'much closer rerations beiween German andtheBritish industries', founded on comprehensive carter arr"ngements.

Given the contemporary internationar crimate and the government's mounting defence budget, it could be argued that British producers

., Br !h9 mid 1930's British industrialists had lost confidence in of an Imperial economic strategy. Equally, however, l*-:rl{,y Pey nad not recaptured their faith in free tiade. The

of unused .rpr.iiy; ro* :.:T:P.11 unemptoyment,nersist^ence and low prices made a nonsdnse of

1.S.""9

to this, it may be possible (in some trades) to keep of} certain markets; and it may be possible to prepare the way for reduction of UK dutibs on certain German goods.37

";;;;;; and co_mmo.r*"uith, leaving Britain as the industriallmpir-e pioducer and the Dominions and colonies T3io. as suppliers of food and raw materiars. The highhopes placed in the ottawa agreements of r9z2 werc soon disappointed when g-overnments in Australia, Canada and New Zealairit made it that they were seeking to diversify out of primary products clear to be ress vulnerable to intemational market -forcesand were not grepge( to contemplate industrial rationalisation for the sake of the of thg

a

discussions betr,r

swuntio""a to i frtitut ao*uru"

positign in ign-x At fust it was hope? profits .and ioE. could .be prytected th;";'gh reorganisation

within

the Empire and

The mid to late 1920's had seen an expansion of the interRational, ::onoml, with ad-vanced capitalist powers such as the U;il;J

:fr.r.Fg deflationary _p-ressure and the FBI tarif{

a

stratggy dependent upon cartelisation and the encouragement of bilateral negotiations between governments to reduce tariffs. with German industry became centrar to this . Co-operation German firms were major rivils irrternationatty r.a,-us lqatlgr. _ Britain's fourth largest customer in 1929,8 G;;;; itserf was a lucrative market foi exports.- ICI r"t tn1 as 1930 when it concluded a se^ries of agreements "*ulipi"l?"u.ty with its maiorrival, I. G. Farben, to share patents and #orrd *urt"tr.uo;h'", companies a.o do.*-uut the yâ&#x201A;Źars after 1936 r;; determined lo-o_l-19"g".. onve tor industrial detente, the catalyst being British anxiety precarious nature of G"rr,ur, ,"Corr"ryl the fBI feared *::l ln: that having safiated demand in eastern Europe Germrr., producers y.rld begin to dump exports in traditionrr 6.itirr, *"rkets

ilTI1T:?l;Xffi ili""*:il.1:'tr;'j:i3#1fl ,O

)1

,:ilI.:*'_n:rx

f-F

and the foreign policy of powerful economic pressure groups. .T" 3ssymgfjon o{ power by the Nazis Germany had provided

saw a downfurn in world economic activity, with serious resurr not only for Britain's barance of payments but for unemproyr""o which j"Tp"9 fro110.1 per cen't o? th" i"r".ua **kro.." to 13.

-Britain both with,a chilrenge was. rooted

partly

in_ the-

and-an opportunity.' The .'hrlil;; unorthodoi' policy of tfie

per cent.sl But

National socialists. The deve_lopment of "corro*i. an increasingty'autarkic lygtem in central Europe conflicted with the liberalisifrg til;t;i British government poficy and more directly threatened"to reduce the contribution of ixpoits to the balance 6r t.uJ".-- But Britain,s strategy fo-r national and international economic recovery was also threatened by Nazi foreign poricy. British gor"rr,rrr.nts were mainly sympathetic to German demands for"a revision of the Tl"rty of versailles.... They gave the stamp of app.oval to Berrin,s disregard for its military"piovisions with the'c'onclusion of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935. rnlg36Britain took no punitive action *h:l G:T"1"y reoccupied the Rhinel;4. in"y

G-ermans took more British froducts th

world.

Yet there was more to German liberalisation than the direc benefits it would afford Britain and the world at 1*ge. Britisl politicians and civil servants believed that attractio[ cu.*ur,1 ary?I from autarky was essential to the creation of internationa political and economic stability. Nazi expansionism in centra

worried however that Nazi lerritoriai ambitions went beyoni recapturing GSITaT. territory removed at the lglg p"u.u

, settlement, and, might threaten the European balance if.":hi"y:4, of powet upon which British secirrity rested.a2 r

and eastern Europe was widery attributea t6 th" German need for food and raw malerials and the curre-ncy with which to purchase

London did. however, wish to respond to Nazi -not, agg{essive expansionism with diplomacy *ii.h aimed to .a-n encircle Germany with hoslile powers and erigag" it i" an arms

race. It is true that rearriament was

if the

trade gap would narrow and jobressness would be reduced.

A the same time the accessibility of the German *urtutlo producer in the Dominions would helpsterling debtors to u"oia default anr provide an expansionary twist to iriternational trJe. This wa recognised in the rgvised payments Agreement of 193g unde yli.l40 per cent of the sterling earned b:y Germanyln trade witl Britain could be used to purc-has" good, rro- uiy part of th,

them. For a time London hoped thai it mighi re possibre tc provide Germany with some oithese, such as"veeeta6le oils and fats, by returning colonies which had been ;;;;?orr"ed intc League of Nationi,mandates.by the Versailles f.eaty.rz Hitler was not interested in coloniai concessions and by 1939 the consensus in the British government was that financl and trade were the keys to-depriving Germany of an economic rationare for adventurism. Thus Fran[ Roberts, in the Centrai Department of the Foreign office, argued against a British J"""..iltion of the Payments agreement after thJseizure of Czechoslo,rukiu in March

a"cc"elerated under

Chamberlain and..to this end the government was even prepared to c^om^promise with the baranced 6udget, taking out in t$gr iban of f,400 millions, repayable over 5 yeiis at 3 cent. But this represented the modification rather than theier abandonment of financial orthodoxy. with the backing of the rri."-ruri"irter, the Treasury insisted that borrowing "be_ io a figure -rimit"J commensurate with.the savings of tle public out of anxiety lSst a

7939.

more ambitious scheme corimit the'-government to piinting money. TEr, it. was. argued, woull intensify innitionar|

In the present international situation the abrogation of th.e agreement and the adoption of a definite policy forthe economic strarigulation gj Ge-ry3ny......would I think certainly df;ve Herr Hitler to the desperate policy of provoking war now.s3

pressures/ damaging -the treditworthiness of [rr" city ur,i inflicting injustice on the owners of fixed incomes.i Thus the cretence programme was essentially limited to the construction of

deterrent force of fighters and bombers, the *o.Lirr"nsive of investment in sribstantial ground io..", 6li.,g'tert to task the French.a a

By the same toke.n the. govemqent- granted an increasing . lolume of export credits to fiims involved i'" t ua" *iin c"r*u.,i

g"yS.nment Tigl",t have been able to square a ^^_I"_.r-:li:\ policy towards controntationalGermany with its domestic and objectives had it.be.en prepared to ally against Sl:liittola] Nazism with the ussR and the usA. ^But chambeilaii and Foreign Secretary after-Anthg1y fJe.,;, ."rig"ution in I1*fry, 1938, feared the westward spread of Bobfievism and did not wish to encourage this by integrahng the ussR into the mainstream of European diplomaiy.as l,ngrorsoviet talks did take prace in the *]e. :plng and summer of 1939 but the half-hearted manner in which London pursued.these negotiations has been a subject for

right up to late August 1939.s4 , .JlJ"ty and August 1939 Chamberlain authorised the offer of a

tull-btown economic p3.t.,...r!ip, incorporating the joint f*pi.", -fii.,u, and the by-British and German industry; the';oi"t exproitation of Y9?R African food and raw material resources; settlement of the international debt question; a loan for the neichsbank; and recognition of German hegemony in eastern and south-east Europe-ss The thinking *as clear: constructive schemes of Anglo-German economic. co-_operation struck brows ro, plu." beca,ule they proved to the Nazi leadershif tnut in"r" was no need. tor -aggression. The path to lasting German prosperity .

9-:I"-lop*gnt of markets in the nritisn

comment beforea6 and,it is argulbie that for Chamberlain they

were mergly u way of presslng the Germans to come to an accommodation with the British.-+z At the same time the prime Minister distrusted American economic expansionism. He recognised the importance of friendly relations with the united

could be cleared by commerce.

It was-appreciated in London that if Hitrer were to have no aggressive behavior any economic accommodation would have to be. matched_ by teiritorial adjustments which

states, but was aware that

in tnu event of war Britain,s ltoJ, *ight well exceed its ability .to pay for them, ,psetU.rgi the balance of

g'ol"d: for

dependence on American munitions and.upitut

recognised the legrtimary of Nazi aspirations to tinite the Germanspeaking people-s. h iqga Britain'accepted tne enschluss and

putting downward pressuie on ttie exchange rate. reserves fell in value from â&#x201A;Źg36 millionJ to f,460 millrons between the end of March 193g and the end of August 1939 as rearrnamnent sucked in an increasing volume of ilp"o;is from the usA, there was some justificatio" For tnir But there was more: the tarks *hi.h had eventuailv"iew.a8 iea to the conclusion of the 1938 Anglo-American com-er.1ir agr""ment -preference had revealed the deep un[opularity th" ilp;;r

agreement which would provide the foundation"for Jo-operation

us government . Thus thE price of assistarice rroo. *re use +iS\! well involve the demise of sterling as r;;;iJ;;;rency and alsyltling of Imperial preference uio,g *ith ;h" ;;duction of $5 bntaln to the status 4-

public information research

E?::1l11nd Drnce bntrch gold

s-ystem

the

participated in the.dismantling of the new Czechoslovak state.

On the very eve of war the nitish suggested an Anglo_German non-aggression treaty and showed willi-rigness to usr""" to Hitler,s -ih3;;p;rsement demands for Danzigand the porish .o..i8o..ii of Germany was an ambitious scheme to defuse international

tension once and for all via an all_embraci"e a"si"_German

which discriminated igainsf American "f producers within

of a satellite economy.

mailin g address: P-fl;

poliry of accommodating Nazi Germ any, bycontrast, offered governmentg-.a Pl{qh ryajgiopportunity.'S.tiu.nf und Helmut wohltat, a senior official cir trru G"r*u. Economics Ministry and p o nsi bl e to g o".rrl8, glised this an d encoura ge d ,t|= l.:: :e-sappeasâ&#x201A;Źment" giving ryc9 economrc British civil servants the ciear unpressron that the Nazis would be prepared to modify their autarkic. lystem of trade and payments in refurn for a roan of The oper,ir,g up tlre Germar, lonvertifle.sterling.s0.. yas,. a highly attractive prospect" to 9f ""or,o-y London because of its rmp[catrons tor domestic and international recovery. lggT-gg

^ .A

Micro Asgociates is now public rnformation Regearch P.O. Box 53,G9 is now p.O Box 5199 Arlington I VA 222-05 er.Iingrton, ie, ZZZOS

.

Lobster

*r"" v A 22ao:"

"""liii-l?ffi

and

SPyBASE

(But we didn,t 20

28

is now

NameBASE

change the data in our database.)

betu-een

E"ryp"'t leading, capitarist.powers.sT stability would

The approach to Goering failed because the British did not receive the commitment they wanted to the removal of Hitler.

Talks with the Generals suffered a hiatus, ur *"it, when two sIS

generate confidence, global tradg andlnvestment would'"*purd, prosperit"- would ensure the political survival of Td S* I*qTtGo'ernment the -\au.crul at the approaching General Election (due rr l94o at the latest) along wi[n tne hbe;l capitalist status quo lt- was deterrdned to preserve at home and abioad. There would be no need to make compromising economic agreements with the Lnited states, and the consolidati"on of Germaripower in

officers who had been negotiating on the government,s behalf

were seized at venlo in the Netherlands. Hifler put out the story that the sIS had been behind a bomb explosion utir," Munich beer

hall where he had launched his atiempted 19i3 putsch.o+ with the Gerierals ur,a '*itn the

Nevertheless, discussions

central and eastern Europe would mean the establishment of a

Goerdeler group were resumed at the end of 1%g, ;;dcontinued, sometimes with vatican mediation, sometimes in neutral cities, into fh.e. early s1rTilg of- 1940.6s Jhg-peace terms broadly acceptable to the British did not alter significantly throughout

strong counterweight to the Soviet Union.

thi's

War and Peace, September L939 - May

1rg4-/-,

Having failed to prevent a German invasion of poland the British were forced to declare war on Germany on 3 september 1939 as a re_sult of the guarantee they had given to wirsaw in March.

Chamberlain was exceedingly reluctant to do this and it required a goo-d deal of pressure from ihe cabinet to make him act.3a The outbreak of hostilities against Germany did not spell the end of 2 sir Samuel Hoare, llop"r for appeasementl on september Home Secretary and one of ^the leading proponents . of appeasement, told a German journalist that 'Although we cannot in the circumstances avoid declaring war, we can al#ays fulfill the letter of a declaration of war wlthout immediatelj, going all glt':ul D.u.ri1g Chamberlain's remaining eight montlrs is piime Minister this formed the.basis of governiren"t poliry, dignified by the term 'limited wa{ , a 'ltrat_egrc-irvnthesis' n in wirich I partially mobilised Britain committed itself not to the total- abfeat dr Germany but merely to the destruction of Hitlerism. The brunt of th.:.fiahling on the ground would be undertaken by the French, with Britain contrib" -tr,g air and naval support.' It was the conventional r,t'isdom that any German offensive would fail at the Maginot Line, German military failure in western Europe would be accompanied- by social disintegration as a result of the economic blockade maintained by Bri-tain, and Hitler would either be forced to surrender or he wouid be overthrown as a result of an

internal revolution.5l Through this 'strategic synthesis, Chamberlain hoped to squarE national r""riity .iritn the preservation of the inter-war status quo within Britain. since

there was to be no large-scale investm6nt in the army, a rerun of the interventionism i-nd budgetary unorthodoxy'which had characterised state policy in ihe First world War would be unecessarv. The war could be fought according to Treasury rules' tn'line with this uppro*n ihetabinet, anxious about an

unbalanced budget, call^ei for a review of the armaments programme in February 1940 In external economic policy, concem about low foreign exchange reserves led t" tfie organisation of an export drive in the-winter of l9z9-40; and in lp.u the Chancellor, sir ]ohn simon, resisted calls for the intensification of exchange controls- on the grounds that they would undermine the iiternational attractiv"en"r, Lf ste.t-i"-j, sentiments with which the Bank of England wholeheart"dfi

concured.52

The govemment, however, did not sit back and wait for either' a German mistake or the overthrow of Hitler. Almost from the very start of the war it was in clandestine contact with those it felt to be members of the resistance to Hitler - ufpu."rrtly an

assortment of Generals backed by a grouping'of po#erful industrialists such as !h9 steel.magnatetriti Tf;y;" and by conservative and centrist. political figures headed by rait Goerdeler, the Mayor of Leipzig. The g?usn took the view that be-an acceptiblE transirional leader for Germany S^:yq;vould Decause he was not associated with the extremism and bad faith which had characterised the actions of Hitler and his Foreign Minister, Ribbentro^p, after Munich. Throughoutthe autumn and

winter of 1939-40- Goering encouraged" these apfroaches.

Through his friend M; von Eohenlohe-LJrigenberg,s negotiations in Switzerland with London,s aqent "Mul.oi*

Christie, he led the British to believe that Germ;;;id not have the food and raw materiar resources for a long;;;. with;"i qoit g so far as to say thathe would be preparedTo replace Hitler, Grrir,s- did venfure that he wourd ue iute to 'secure'a new code

and order in Germany and even a new consut"tio"; and he received'a Royal invitation to parley,.6a

Lobster 20

centred in.principle ori the creition of"a strong Jl"y acting B1ll1_ uerman state, as a buffer against the soviet Union, undei conservative leadership. Generllly it was envisaged that lerTany w-as to restore non-German speaking pol"and and Czechoslovakia or at ieast t6 grant them .to independence, autonomy; to retain hegemony over eastern and cenf,al Europe;

and to adopt a liberal economic policy based on production for Peace/ a convertible currency, and participation in international trade.6 The continuity wilh prewar diicussions is obvious. with Hitler out of the- way a lasting angto-Ge.*in detente, with everything which that impried," would be possibre. The oecraratlon of war therefore cloaked the cbntinuation of

appeasement.

Although

tf"

documentary evidence

is predictably thin,

1To"g-h exists for us to identify some of those who backed Chamberlain's approach to the war. Given that an earry peace would render unnecessary the extension of state and ,iro'rti"g g.l.ass oryer which had characterised the British in the First -p. world war, it is to be expected that 'a r"* uig ".o.,orrry i"dusirialists,

were inclined to

compromise peace.6z "Chamberrain,s

? correspondence reveals Lord hberconwiy to be one of tnem, ot and in view of of _the ,na".gror.,d pro_Nazi lp.*qflership grganisation the Right Club, Alexander walker,"chairman of the have been another.6e German Foreign P;*1,::: Company, willsentiments inside the City, motivated Ey f]il:Y Brp:r:,refer.to '3.t"ty_ about the value of the British currency, fivourable to air

Anglo-German accommodation.

one bariker *n" .h;t

subscribed to this opinion was Lord Holden of the Midland Ban( with had gone to meet Goering in the [Tl1.,lg 1A.ber99nyay, aDorhve attempt at mediation made in August 7ggg.7o

within the Cabinet Halifax and Hoare identified themselves p,articularly-strongly with Chamberlain's line, as did Rab Butler, at the Foreign office. Tory grandees such as :|1 the l"B"tylVlinister lJuke of westminster and Lord Londonderry,"and the Duke of Buccleugh, brother-in-law of the King, were inxious about the

tuture

.security of the British Empiie should Britain become enta.ngled in a continental war, emerging either defeated or vastly

diminished in wealth,.and they .oritir,ilufly

conclusion to the war.zl

p."*"a

?o. u

q"i"i

But Hitler was not a riberal imperiarist interested in a gentlemanly redistribution of the world's markets and raw material resources olsanis.e{ by Europe's two leading capitalist -Mein states. True, he had said

in

Ro*pf that he ,irirh"d fo.

friendship with the British Empire but it #as clear that in return for this he wanted a free hand rtot just in eastern and central Europe but throughout the entire continent. In short Britain had to abstain from any- interest whatsoever in European affairs.

Not even the Chamberlain government had been prepared to grant this, and until it, or a riore pliable administrahori *ur, the"war had to continue. In pursuit or nrc objectives Hiti;; iaunched the offensive of spring^ 1940, before nir internal had summoned the courage. to strike, and inflicted shattering """*i"rdefeats on the Anglo-French allies. His successes left him unasslilable in Germany: _the conquests left the Generals without grounds for action and guaranteed that there would be no foJd and raw material shortag.e to provide a motive for a coup. Chamberlain,s entire policy.collapsed with the triumph of the blitzkreig. It was appropriate that the Prime Minister should resign: in lraay 1940 a limited war was no option. In order to avoid tStal defeat Britain

had to begin mobilising for total war.

war brought with it all the consequences feared by the , -. Jo,ul interwar ruling bloc. The government was reconstructed and party (Clememt Attlee, the fpe,ned.tg key members of the Labour his deputy Arthur Greenwood, A: V. Alexander, Fiugh *19"., Dalton and Herbert Morrison) and to the country's most powerfirl trade unionist Ernest Bevin, General secretary'of the t'ransport and General workers' Union. There is no nded here'to go into 29

detail about the British wartime political economy.T2 Suffice it to say that the gove-rnment introduced planning, the conscription of

the invasion of the ussR looming senior members of the Nazi hierarchy wis-\gd for a neutral Britain and believed they courd achieve this if Hitler w-as_lo longer in power. The quid pro quo

labour, intensified rationing and exchange controli, and in favour -of the Keynesian technique of national income accounting. Desperite for American munitions, capital goods and food, the Churchill abandoned the balanced budget

was the deposition of Churchill and the reconstruction of his govern_ment. Given that Churchill was committed to the war (in December 1940 he said that 'I would only have to lift my finger and I could have peace but I do not want it') this wad logiial enough and presented no problems for the British sid6.za Nevertheless the second development created difficulties for the p93!e party. I-n December 7940, finallv exasperated by Halifax,s willingness to deal with the Germans, Churchill moved-him out of

Coalition made a highly unequalexchange of strategic bases in the -

Caribbean

for a handful of

old

US Navy

destroyers,

foreshadowing Lend-Lease and the dependence bn the United states which Chamberlain and his supporters has been so keen to avoid.

the way by appointing him Ambassador in Washington.Te

Although appeasement ceased to be official government policy

from the moment Churchill became Prime Minister, H;hfai,

. Churchill's opponents did not give up hope. Given the invulnerability of the United Kingdom tb inr-.asion and the

Hoare, Butler, the Tory grandees and senior figures in the City, were still prepared to deal with Germany. Inde-ed after the fal bf France they were willing to go beyond what Chamberlain had offered, and were reconciled to acknowledging complete German domination of the continent in return for i griarantLe of security for the united Kingdom and the Empire and for control over th"e Royal Navy. So urgent did they bblieve the situation to have become that they did not even attempt to argue for the replacement of Hitler.73 Although Halifax failed to persuade the Cabinet to adopt this view, at the pnd of May both 6e and Butler continued to work behind the back of the Prime Minister for such a solution. In June they sent messages to Berlin through the Swedes that'no chance would be missed to reach a compiomise peace if opportunity were offered for reasonable terms and.....no die-hards would be allowed to stand in the way'. prytz, the Swedish Minister in London, reported to Siockho[m that stpporters of Halifax in Parliament believed in the real possibility that he might replace Churchill at the end of the month ani initiate negotiations with Germany. This news was however leaked to the press in Stockholm and Churchill was able to forestall any progress by making belligerent speeches which committed Britain to fighting on.7a A similar episode occurred in July, when Halifax's desire to explore Hitler's latest offer seriously was frustrated when Churchill ordered him to give a public rejection on behalf of the government.

Churchill knew that he could not trust either Halifax or a large part of the Conservative Party. Londonderry, Buccleugh and westminster, for example, were all placed under surveillince at various times.Ts Hoare was appointed British Ambassador to Spain. Although the approacheslo Germany continued they had to become increasingly indirect and conspiratorial if they were to be secure. Thus at the end of Novemb6r the former s-enior SIS officer in the United States, a banker named sir william wiseman, discussed terms with Fitz Wiedemann, once Hitler's adjutant, and Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg, a Nazi agent. Wiseman announced himself the spokesman lor 'a British political group headed by Lord Halifax, which hopes to bring about a lasting pegcg'.

- He

added that Halifax represented

a 'very

impossibility of defeating Nazism in the absence of American and ,Soy"a belligerenge, w!i9h they did not want anvlvav, they believed that the Prime Minister's strategy was futile it best ;ao u1 worst, he was presiding over the socialisation of the country.81 At the start of 1941 sentiment in the City of London'was

unfavourable to C-hurchill and positively inclined to peace.82 Halifax may have been removed from the centre of things but there were other contenders for the leadership of the peace party well placed to take advantage of discontent in the toids ana tn'e Commons. In early March 1941 Hoare met Max Hohenlohe, who

was in fact a Nazi agent.83 He said that the position of the British government cannot remain secure. Despite recent American legislation providing for aid to Great Britain Churchill can no longer count on a majority..... sooner or later he will be called back to London to take over the government with the precise task of concluding a compromise peace.....ne will only take this mission on condition that he has full powers.

Hoare went on to-say that he would have to remove Anthony Eden (a supporter of Churchill and Halifax's replacement at the

1orlgl.Olfice) to another Cabinet post, and r^eplace him with Butler.& On-May 10th Rudolf Hess linded in Scofland. Right up

to that time there were powerful and well placed individua6 whb were in touch with the Germans in the service of a poliry which was total"ry at variance with that of the government itself. It appears that both in June 1940 and in the eaily spring of 1941, they were fairly confident of their ultimate success in achieving an

Anglo-German peace. Their failure in 1940 is not difficult to explain. But the absence of any obvious follow-up to Hoare,s prediction of March 1941. is. It cannot be said that Churchill was saved by th9 course of the war at this time. Certainly it is interesting that by early June 1941 the last significant pie-war appeaser in the government, Butler, knew that he would be

moving from the Foreign Office to the Board of Education.ss There is some evidence that Hoare for one continued to dally with the Germans.86 It appears also that other clandestine talki continued in neutral capitals. rn 1942 and 7942, for example, discussions centred on the possibility of an end to the war in the west, leaving Germany free to concentrate resources on the conflict with the ussR. But the feasibility of this project declined sharply after the commitment of the usA, the US'ss( and Britain to the unconditional surrender of Germany. The failure of the negotiations ensured that the scenario Chamberlain and his supporters- in industry, the Bank of England and the City had feared did indeed _ come to pass. -The poritico-economic consequences of total war pushed British society to the Left and

strongr

political party in the Houses of Parliament which believed in cooperation between the British Empire, Germany and the United States.

In January 1941 Tancred Borenius, a Finnish art historian with good contacts inside the British government, floated some

proposals through Carl Burkhardt, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Both initiatives were fundamentally the same: restoration of Holland and Belgium; Denmark to remain in the German sphere of influence; pola-nd to be resurrected shorn of the German provinces; France to be reestablished on the same model as Poland; Germany to have a free hand in eastern Europe; and the colonies removed under the Versailles Treaty to be returned to Germany. The only major

plgpureg.the way for the election of a Labour government in 1945. Britain ended lhe war a junior partner In the 'special relationship' with the United States, and-by 1945 the USSR was

concession for which the British peacemongers looked was the

replacement of Hitler, something they believed attainable-now -the that the defeat of the Luftwaffe in Battle of Britain had strengthened their bargaining power by destroying the prospect of a German invasion.T6

At this stage two developments occurred. First, the possibility of- removing Hitler became acceptable to the German negotiatori once more. Weidemann and Hohenlohe-Waldenburg, for

entrenched in the heart of Europe. By 1990)however, the soviets

I-1{ So"". Deeply unpleasanl though the domination of the ussR over eastern Europe was for thi people who lived there, was it not preferable to Nazi hegemony? And for many British citizens the destruction of Nazi and Fascist power ind the

movement of their own country towards social d-emocracy was a welcome improvement on whaf had gone before.

example, suggested his replacement by the Crown Prince O-tto, or

by Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer SS. In March

1941

Himmler himself asked Burkhardt whether he thought that the British would be prepared to negotiate with him iather than Hitler.z The reasons ior this are o6scr.e, but it may be that with Lobster 20

30

Postscriph Hess, the historian, and conspiracy.

In

1973 Hugh Thomas, a British Army surgeon working at Spandau prison in Berlin, examined prisoner number 7, otherwise known as RudoU Hess. He was startled to find that the prisoner did not have any scars or marks or traces of any kind of injury on his torso, even though it was well known that Hess had been shot

in 1917. Mystified, Thomls began to research into the history of his patient. He through the chest and seriously wounded

continued with this work after leaving Spandau and wrote a book, the second edition of which, Hess: A Tale of Two Murders, was published in 1988.

Thomas concluded that the man who flew to Britain in May 1947 was not Hess but a double. Why? Thomas argued that for several months at least Hitler had been making Peace overtures to a right wing cabal in Britain. Hitler's agent for contacting the British was his loyal deputy Hess, who before the war had shared

Hitler's views regarding the desirabilty of Anglo-German cooperation. But the British peace parq,a powerful group of

crankery to McCarthyism.8e Nazism was based on the belief that good honest Germans were being swindled by a vast ]ewishBolshevik-iapitalist conspiracy. Stalin and Mao sought to justify repression by claiming that domestic dissidents were plotting with the intelligence services of the bourgeois states to bring about the collapse of socialism. Substituting paranoia for dispassionate analysis and persuasion, conspirary theories have frequently been the handmaiden of the authoritarian.

Nevertheless, the assumptions made by the Timeutatch programme about conspiracy theories were deeply flawed.

When historians test a theory they should concern themselves not only with the forensic details but with its fundamental plausibilty; and this can only be gauged by placing the events the hypothesis seeks to explain in a wider historical context. Remarkably, for example, Andrew suggested that the international obsession with the assassination of |ohn F. Kennedy was a good example of

in conspiracies. Now while the actual circumstances of the murder may be difficult to determine we can unhealthy interest

ascertain that the President had enemies in the CIA and in the mean that the CIA and the Mafia killed Kennedy: but it does mean that the hypothesis that they did is not ridiculous. Equally, with the Hess affair, while the fact that the search for an Anglo-German rapprochement was still going on on 10 May 1941 does not mean Thomas is right, it does suggest that he might be. Timswatch completely failed to deal with this aspect

Conservative M.P.s, peers and members of the Royal family, were unhappy about deals with Hitler: their trust in him had been shaken when he reneged on the Munich Agreement and invaded Czechoslovakia. Within the Third Reich two'men who knew that

Mafia.{ This does not

the Battle of Britain but Himmler's had grown. In charge of the SS and the machinery of state security, Himmler was, in fact if not in name, the second most important man in Germany. He knew that Hitler planned to invade the Soviet Union and believed that it

of the subject.

Hitler was an obstacle to an Anglo-German agreement were Goering and Himmler. Goering's real influence had waned since

might end disastrously without an Anglo-German agreement, cloiing down the western front, which Hitler would probably be unable to achieve.

Himmler reckoned, however, that he might be able to effect the Such an idea had been put to the wife of Ulrich von Hassell, a leading member of the German resistance, in March 1941.87 Von Hassell had been in touch with the British since the outbreak of war and it is reasonable to assume that he would have passed on Himmler's suggestion. On May 10 Himmler seized his chance. Hess had taken off from Augsbourg, possibly to fly to meet a British delegation in Stockholm. Between them Himmler and Goering organised the interception and shooting down of Hess and his ME 1L0. Meanwhile Himmler sent into the air a man who had in the past acted as Hess's double. His mission was to fly to Britain with an offer of peace between a Germany without Hitler and a Britain without Churchill. But the British govemment, tipped off by Admiral Canaris, chief of German iecret intelligence, was waiting. Churchill had the double locked up for the duration of the war. At the Nuremberg trials the man who called himself Hess suffered from an extraordinary failure of memory, said nothing of interest or relevance, and was sent to prison for life.

In August 1987 the unforfunate man was murdered, probably at the behest of the British. The British had been able to conceal their determination to keep the prisoner in Spandau behind the Soviet veto on his freedom. But when the Soviets dropped their objections to his release they could not publicly object. But what would the man say once he was out? In order to avoid deep international embarrassment London contrived a convenient 'suicide' and the British were spared having to explain to the world just how close they came to a peace agreement with

deal.

Germanyin

1941.

a detente with Germany. The political and

economic

development of Britain in the 1920's and 30's had led to the creation of an 'Anglo-German connection' whose maintenance was a vital interest for the constituent parts of the dominant aliance. Though this alliance was displaced as a result of military failure in May 1940, and discredited thereafter, it still attempted to complete in secrery what Chamberlain had tried to achieve as a

of official poliry. What is this but an unsuccessful

matter

conspiracy for peace? Conspiracies do occur and historians do their profession no credit if they ridicule those who draw attention to them simply because something extraordinary and not in line with the conventional wisdom is being said.

Notes.

1. Representative works, drawing on published and unpublished papers, mostly from the Cabinet and Foreign Office archives, are Colvin, Chamberlain Cabinef; Middlemas, Diplomacy of illusion. See for example Gallagher, Decline rise andfall of the British empire; MacDonald, 'Economic appeasemenf ; Shay , British reanfiarnent in the 1930s; W endt, Economic appeasement. Forbes ('London banks') has related pressure for appeasement on the govemment to the impact of the financial crisis of the early 1930's on City institutions involved in the acceptance business.

2. See Ingham, Capitalism diaided

?

3. Newton and Porter, Modernizatibn frustrated, p51,.

4. Newton and Porter, Modernizationftr.lstratef, Vl6.

5.

Pollard, Danelopment of the Bitish economy, 191,4-1.980,p149.

5. Pollard, Dnelopment of the British economy, pL85.

7. See Middleton, Tmoards the manageil ecorumy, ppk93; Newton and Porter, Modemization frustrated, ch. 3; Pollard, Datelopment of the British economy, pp65-75.

8. Redmond, 'An indicator of the effective exchange rate'.

9. Eichengreen, 'Sterling and the

tariff'; Cain and Hopkins, 'Gentlemenly capitalism,

II'.

10. MacDonald,'Economic appeasement'.

11. Forbes,'London banks'.

12. Teichova, 'Versailles and the expansion of.the Bank of England'.

Thomas's theory was examined in a highly critical film by Dr Christopher Andrew of Corpus Christie College, Cambridge, for the BBC 2 history programme Timeutatch in January. Andrew maintained that Hess was Hess after all and that he had probably committed suicide. The Thomas story was, Andrew suggested, the stuff of good conspirary theory rather than of diligent and painstaking historical research.s8 There is-no space here to discuss Andrew's treatment of the medical evidence relating to the Hess affair, but it is appropriate to draw attention to the philosophy behind Andrew's argument. It said that conspirary

theories are disreputable from the viewpoint of the serious historian. This is a fair point. During the last century political movements of the extreme right and left have often used conspirary theory to frighten people into compliance with their

outlook. Richard Hofstadter

Historians should not be dismissive of all conspirary theories.

The course of Anglo-Gennan relations in peace and war reveals that up to 1940 the British establishment was anxious to conclude

has chronicled their influence on the

history of the United States, from nineteenth century currency Lobster

13. P.R.O. FO3711M890, C5008/588/18,'interrogation L945.

1.4.

of Schacht by Major E.Tilley, 9 ful

Costigliola, 'Anglo-American financial rivalry'; Teichova, 'Versailles and the

expansion of the Bank of England'.

15. Forbes, 'London banks' , p574..

16. Forbes,'London banks', pp581-2.

17. Drummond,, lmperial economic policy;MacDonald, 'Economic appeasement', pp1189.

18. P.R.O. FO3711229il, C2581/8/18,

minuteby Leith-Ross, 241an1939.

19. See P.R.O. F037ll2295l, passim.

I lz3[[f, C469 I 3A $, note of conversation with Norman by Ashtonfan 1939.

21. Quoted in Roberts, 'Frank Cyril Tiarks'.

22. P..R.O. FO371/23000, C4r,9132118, note of conversation with Norman, 15 Jan 1939.

23. Haxey, Tory M.P., pp230-32.

24. Docainents anil materials relating to the ate of tle SecondWorldWar, vol. II, p70, report

by Drksen, 21)ul 1939.

20. P. R. O.

Gwatkin,

20 31

F

15

O37

25. Haxey, Tory

M.P., pp230-32.

S9e the de Courry papers, Box 2 Folder 2, correspondence between de Courry and ]6.

Londonderry, 2 Nov 1940-17 May 1941, passim; Federal Bureau of Investigation (hereafter us F.B.I.) report 741.6211112-24, 2 December,lg4a. Another diclassified US F.B.I. document (dated 28 October, 1941) reveals Hohenlohe-Waldenberg to have been along-termNazi agent with good connections in Britain. Interestinlly, she arrived in the United States on 22 December,1939'from London, England,on a nonimmigrant visa to visit her son and indicated that she wou-ld remain for five months and intended to return to England'.

77.USF.B.l.report74l.A11112-24,2December,1940;vonHassell, Diaries,ppl76-7.

26. Holland, 'The Federation of British Industries', p290.

27. Holland, 'The Federation of British Industries', p294.

28. Hannah, Rise of the corporate economy , pp22-6.

29. Ingham, Capitalism diaided, p196.

30. Hannah, Rise of the corporate ecomony, p62.

31. Booth, 'Reply to Peden and

Middleton'.

32. Booth, 'Brithin in the 1930s'; Holland,'The Federation of British 8.

33. Economist, pp113-4,

21,

Industries', pp294-

78. DGFP, Series D, vol. XI, p792, Consti-General in Geneva to Berlin,5 Dec 1940.

79. Gilbert, Churchill, vol VI, p953.

Jan 1939.

80. MacDonald, Britain,the United States and appeasement.

34. Reader, lmperial Chemical lndustries, p1,31.

,Foreign 3q Trade I q ] papgls, University of Warwick (hereafter F.B .t.), FlglB1.ll3l11, of the United Kingdom', 28 june 1938.

8-1..

Iandon journal of Geneial Raymond

E

. ke , pp16?6.

36. Holland, 'The Federation of British Industries', p298.

82. Newton and Porter, Modernization frustrated, pp101-2. It has to be said that Churchill himself was not especially enthusiastic about the pla-ns for reconstruction.

37. P.R.o. Fo371122950,cr71918178, notebyAshton-Gwatkinof atalkwithRamsden of the F.B.L, 4 Feb 39.

M.

83. Avon papers, University of Birmingham , Spl43l27, Hoare to Eden 5 Jut 1943.

Documenti Diplomatici ltalani, 1939-43,9th series, vol. V, Lequio, Ambassador in Madrid, to Ministry of Foreign Relations, 14 March 1941.

38. The Engineer,24 March 1939, quoted in the F.B.I. file of press cuttings.

39. See F.B.I. Fl3l03l2l1, undated memorandum of early 1939.

40. P. R. O. FO37 1 122997, Cfi BA rct B, report of 9 August 1939.

41. Holland, 'The Federation of British Industries', p298.

42. See rN ark, The ultimate enemy.

88. 'Hess: an edge of conspiracy', Timewatch (BBC2 TV), 17Jan1,990.

43. Shay, British rearmament in the thirties, pp160-1.

89. Hofstadter, The paranoid style in American politics.

44. T aylor, English history, pp 501-6.

90. See for example Scott, Hoch and Stetler, The assassinations.

85. Howard, Rab,p107.

86. Avon papers, Spl42/22, Hoare to Eden, 11 May 7942.

87. Von Hassell, Diaries, pp176-7.

45. Cowling, lmpact of Hitler, p766.

46.Taylor, Englishhistory, pp544-6;Lamb, Drift to war,

p321,.

References

47. See Teichova, 'Great Britain in European Affairs,.

48. Parker, 'The pound sterling'.

49. Reynolds, The ueation of the Anglo-American alliance.

50. P.R.O. T188/288, memorandum by Leith-Ross ,2Feb 7937; MacDonald, ,Economic

Official Publications

Appeasement', ppl79-20.

. Statistical abstract for the United Kingdom

57

, table

727

vl-v[

Documents on German Forlqn Policy, series D volumes (washington, 1954).

Documents and Materials Rilating t6 the Eoe of the second world fuar, two "volumes (Moscow, 1948). t-Oggu1ney|i.Diplomatici ltaliani, 19iS-39, Ottava Serie, Volume XII (Rome, 1952).

, p743.

52. Crozier, Germany's last bid for colonies; P.R. O. T160185611454513,1936-9.

53. P.R.O. FO371122951, C410218118,6 Apr 1,939.

54. P.R.O. ECGI/19, October 1939.

statistical Abstract For the tlnited Kingdom 1913 and 1924 to 1937

55. Documents on German Foreign Policy (hereafter DGFp), series D vol.

VI, pp977-g3,

Secondary Sources.

wohltat's minute of conversations with sir Horace wilson, sirJoseph ga[]'nd Robert

Hudson, 24Jul1939; Documents and Materials Relating to the Outbreai of the SecondWorld W ar, v o1.2, pp67 -72, Dirksen's report of 24 |ul 1 939, ind pp 112 -124, i)irksen,s minute of a converation with Sir Horace Wilson, 3 Aug 1939; andbocumenti Diplomatici ltaliani, 7935-39,8th series, vol. XII, p557, Attolico to Ciano, 1 Aug 1939. The oifer of a loan was leaked to the press, where it received such a rough reieption that the govemment shelved the idea (see Dirksen's report of 3 Aug 1939). The reit of the ug".rd"u, however, continued to lie on the table.

P. Addison, The road to Lg45 (London, 1975).

A. Booth, 'Britain in the 1930s: A managed economy?, Econ. Hist. Reo.,2nd,ser. XL

(1e87), ppa9e-522.

A. Booth, 'Britain in the 1930s: A managed economy? A Reply to peden and Middleton,' Econ. Hist. Rets.,2ndser. XLil, E eg}9|,, ppilB-:5i6.

P. cain and A. Hopkins,'Gentlemanly capitalism a.,d s.itist, expansion overseas II: new imperialism, 1850-1945', Econ. Hist. dn.,2nd ser. XL,1 (1987), ppl_26.

Cave 'C': Brown, the secret life of Sir Stewart Menzles (New Vort, ieS4. {. o. Chadwick , Britain and the vatican during the second world war (Camwid ge , 19g6).

I. Colvin, The Chamberlain Cabinet (London, lSZf ;.

F..costigliola, 'Anglo-American financial rivalry in the 1920s', lournal oi Economic History, 37 09m, ppgt 1 -33.

M. Cowling, The impact of Hitler; British politics and British policy 19 j j-1940 (London,

56. P.R.O. PREM1/333, memoranda by Butler, 2 Augl939, and by Wilson, 3 Aug 1939.

57. Reynolds, Creationof the Anglo-American alliance,

p.5l-2.

58. Taylor, Englishhistory, p552.

59

. DGFP , Series D vol. VII, p401, report of Mitarbeiter correspondent to Berlin.

Milward. War, econorny and society.

60.

61. Newton and Porter, Modernizationfrustrated,

1e75).

p9l.

A. Crozier, Appeasement and Germany's last bid for colontes (London, 19gg).

P. Dale scott, P. Hoch and R. stetlei, The assassinations: Dallas an,l. bevond (New york,

62. Einz\g papers, Churchill College, Cambridge, 1/18, 8 Mar 1940; Newton and porter, Mod ernizat ion frustr ated, p92.

Dn\.

63. Christie papers, Churchill College, Cambridge (hereafter Christie), 180/1/24, record of telephone conversation with Hohenlohe, 8 Nov 1939. 'Christie worked for sir

tDnllqronda Imperial econamic policy, 1917-39. studies in expansion and protection (Cambridge 1974).

B.J. Eichengreen, 'sterling and the tariff, l 9zg-32' , princeton studies in lnternational f

Robert Vansittart's "private detective agency" and for the slightly more official sIS undergroundnetwork known as the "2" organisation. This was run by Claude Dansey, who became Assistant Chief of the secret service in 1939. For further information see Anthony Reed and David Fisher Colonel Z: the Seuet Life of atwstet of sples (London, l9U), pp168-9.

F inance, 48 (1981 ), ppt-46.

N. Forbes, 'London banks, the German standstill agreements, and ,,economic appeasement" in the 7930s', Econ. Hist. Rro.,2nd ser. XL,4(199n, pp17l-Sg7.

J. Gallagher, The decline, rise and t'all of the British empire (Oxlora, OAZ!. ! _Hannah, The rise of the corrytate economy (London, 19g3).

S. Haxey, Tory M.P. (London, 1939).

R. F. Holland, 'The Federation of British Industries and the international economy,, Econ. Hist. Rez,. 2nd ser. XXfV (1981), pp287-300.

I tl fstad_tel , The paranoid style in American politbs (New york, 1970).

A. Howard, Rab: thc ltfe of R.A. Butler (London, 19g7).

64. see Knightley, second oldest profession, ppt29-34. Knightley quotes the memoirs of Best, one of the sIS officers, as stating 'Hitler was to remiin in pbwer'. I can find no evidence of this remark, and it does not square with the tenor of the Christie talks which were continuing at the same time, ind which, interestingly, referred on g November to 'extinction (being) still difficult but might presently be achieved at a

price'.

65. P.R.O. FO377124405-7,passim;YonHassell,

Vatican, pp86-100.

(Londontbe4.

I"$.T, Capitalism 9: (Cambridge,

Diaries;Chadwick, Britainandthe

diuided ? The

cig

and industry

in British

social deaeropment

19&1).

P.

66. Christie, 18011124,10 Nov 1939.

example, chairman of Firth Brown steel and of westland, and a director of the National Provincial Bank.

69. Information from Professor R.M. Griffiths (University of London). professor Griffiths possesses the membership book of the Right Club.

!

P_".1":.,'The l.A.c. for war,

71. Kenneth de Courry papers, Hoover Institution, stanford, Califomia, box2 roldet 2, correspondence with Lord and Lady Londonderry, L93741, passim.

function was that of a senior Special Operations Execritive officer. f5. See Anthony Cave Brown,'C,' p27L; de Courry papers, box 2folder 2, letter of de Courcy to Londonderry of 9 Oct 4i.

Lobster

patriot bureaucrat, fantasist and whore

R. Middleton, Toward the-manageil economy: Keynes, the treasury and the fscal policy debate of the 1930s. (London, 1985).

S. Newton and D. Porter, Modernization frustrated: the politics of industrial decline in Britain since 1900 (London, 1988).

70. R.o PREM 1/443, letter from Noel Buxton, 7 Mar 1940. For the views of the Cify see DGFP, series D, vol.v[, pp363-7 , undated report from Baron de Ropp made latein 1939.

74. The incident is described in a unpublished memoir by sir peter Tennant, who was officially the British Press Attache instockholm through-out the war. Tennant's real

The second oldest profession: the spy as

R. Lamb, The drift towar,1922-1939 (London, 1989) ]. Leube (ed.l The London journal of Rnymond E. Lee, lg40-41 (Boston 1971) C.A. MacDonald, 'Economic appeasement and the German moderates 1937-1939. An in troductory e ssay .' P ast and Pr esent, 56. 197 2, pp 105-35. c.A. MacDonald, Britain, the llnited states and appeasement, 1g3g-41, (London, 19g1).

A.S. Milward,War, economy anil society,1939-45 (London, 1977).

R.5. Middlemas,The diplomacy of iltusion (London, 1972).

68. P.R.o. PREM 1/443, letter from Noel Buxton, 7 Mar 1940. Aberconway held many directorships in the iron, steel and shipbuilding industries. In 1939 he had been, for'

72. see Addison, Road to 1945; Newton and Porter, Moilernizationfrustrated ch.4.

73. some interesting material was revealed on 'Divided we stand', Thames Ty,22May 1990.

Knightley,

(London,1986).

67. DGFP, series D, vol.x, p791, Consul General at Geneva to Foreign Ministry, 5 Dec 1940.

pound_sterling, the American treasury and British preparatidns

1938-9' , Eng. Hist. Reu. XCII e9B3), pp26Z.Z9.

The deoelopment of the British economy, L914-1980

(London, 1982).

Imperial Chemical lndustries: a histbry , volume II the fust quarier century, 1926-1952, (Oxf ord, 1 975)

!.-!oflar{, wJ Reader,

]. Redmond, 'An indicator cif the effective exchange rate of the pound in the nineteen thirties', Econ. Hist. Rrlo.,2ndser., XXXII (1980) pp83-91.

D. Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-Ameriun a[liance, 1937-41: a stuCy in competitioe cooperation (London, 1981).

R. Roberts, 'Frank Cyril Tiarks', entry in D.]. Jeremy and C. Shaw. eds., Dictionary of businessbiography, volume 5, S-Z (London, 1986).

R.P. shay |r., British rearmament in the thirties: politics and profifs (princeton, l9z).

20

32

A.J.P. Taylor, Englishhistory, L9L4'L945 (London, 1975).

A. Teichova, 'Great Britain in European affairs (March 15 to August 2L 1939), Historiu III, (Prague, 1961) A. Teichova, 'Versailles and the expansion of the Bank of England into central Europe',in N. Hom and J. Kocka, eds.,Iaut and the F ormation of thc big enterprises in the L9th and early 20th centuries.

H. Thomas, Hess:ataleof twomurders (London, 1988).

U. Von flassell, The V on Hassell diaries (London, 1948).

W.K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligenct andNazi Germany 1933-39 (London, 1985).

B.f . Wendt, Economic Appmsenent. Handel unil Finanz in der Britischen Deutshland Politik 1.933-7939 (Dusseldorf, 1971).

Hessr'Hess', Timewatch Extract from Hugh Thomas' response to Timewatch, 1711190.

The main thrust of Timewatch's programme [was] that

I

was

unaware of new evidence from Munich Archives which was the hospital record of the real Rudolf Hess. The evidence had been in Timewatch's possession for a long time, as the first interview with Dr Lappenkrupper - the researcher suggested long ago by Christopher Andrew - was by the sacked Producer Alan Patient.

This wis in German. The second interview was much later in

English. The documents had been totally translated for

Timewatch, who therefore were fully aware of the contents of the whole document.

Christopher Andrew and (producer) Roy Davies.as\ed me to specify the maximal damage that a high velocity rifle bullet would create on the torso, explaining the core destruction, the kinetic

energy and the vacuum effect that they had heard about. I explained that a gun shot wound is comprised of:(a) the entry wound (the bullet hole, the sulTounding observable tissue trauma, such as discolouration, damage to the underlying

bone, ribcage, or muscle)

(b) the track lung

-

through various tissues, solid organs, musde or

(c) the exit wound

-

usually bigger than the entry wound,

depending upon the distance, the tumbling of the bullet and the deflection by bone, all resulting in the bullet hole and surrounding clinically observable defect.

I then explained the long-term healing of the entry wound, the track andexit wound, and how they could be discerned clinically and on X ray. I specified all the changes associated with the chest, due to the collapse of the lung. These were all clearly outlined in *y book.

In particular I was asked the question: Christopher Andrew: What evidence was there that Hess ever had an operation ?

Thomas: None. No documentary evidence. There are, however, two references made to it by Dicks and by Haushofer, acting on supposed knowledge from the family.

Andrew: But if he had been operated on by Professor Sauerbruch whatwould you expect to find?

Thomas: Had he received an operation I would expect to find an operative scar....etc

I went on to describe Sauerbruch's methods and why it was of medical historical interest to myself. I stressed the fact that I was looking for any wounds of any size, not necessarily operative and that I knew where to look, the only places where he could have been shot in those days and survived with or without an operation. Timewatch chose to indude only my remarks relating to the maxirnal effects of gun shot wounds. Th"y misrepresented my description of an entrance and exit wound as the scar in the skin. I4lhereas a scar will depend on whether the bullet hole had been left, as in those days, or excised as nowadays. They have thus played a word game with medical terminology to mislead the public into believing that I expected large scars including an operative scar.

time having the corect translation. They asked me to try and translate the photostat documents and comment on their findings and authenticity, in ten minutes. The whole conversation was recorded and witnessed, as was the TV interview.

Andrew: We want to be fair to you, we shall fully understand if you don't wish to comment.

Thomas: You had an hour before we started interviewing when you could have shown me these documents. How long have you had them?

Andrew: O.ly, I have only seen them them for the first time on the drive coming down here.

Thomas: Why didn't you show them to me earlier, these are

difficult.

Andrew: Roy and I decided it wouldn't be right for you to see them beforehand, we wanted your fresh reaction.

Roy Davies: It's good drama.

Thomas: We're not producing a drama.

Andrew: We'll quite understand if you wish to say no commentit's probably not fair on you.

Thomas: Oh but I will.

Viwers will have noted that there was a complete absence of any such interview with myself to gain my all-important reaction to the new medical evidence. The following information should have been televised in a balanced, not biased programme.

Thomas: Yes they seem to be genuine as far as I can tell from photostats, but I would like to point out that they are incomplete.

There would seem to be no sheet for the casualty entrance examination on the 9th priorto his ward admission. That would - there again the sheets are missing for the whole of his month-long hrlspitalisation for the shrapnel wound to his left upper arrn - you don't spend a month in all in hospital for a minor flesh wound. It would seem that he spent two weeks in an acute hospital and two weeks convalescing- presumably getting his arm wound cleaned and dressed, before being fit, before returning to his unit. That{s all I can make of the arm wound, but as you know that proves there was such a wound, as we - what I mean is - as described in the other arcnival material. I think you'll agree that there was no mention of any wound in the post mortem.

Andrew Rosthorne writes: Kenneth de Courry, 80 year old former personal agent for Churchill's wartime MI5 chief, SirStewart Menzies, says that two

files have been stolen from his personal archive, which is preserved at the Hoover Institution in the University of California, Stanford. In a letter of 19th ]anuary to Dr Scott Newton, Mr de Courry wrote: 'I regret to say that the Cabinet Office, anxious to conceal certain facts, ordered agents from SIS to steal files 10 and 1.1. from Box 3 at the Hoover Institution. The Hoover Institution

In the last 10 minutes of the interview they produced the wrote to inform me of the disappearance. They instructed the Munich documents, only three paragraphs of which had been FBI.' De Courcy claims that the FBI investigating officers refused translated, relating to the scars in the skin and their site. The him a list of their suspects because 'they have been so instructed actual limited translation was misleadingly inaccurate in that it by the Cabinet Office'. denoted the wrong exit site. Timewatch possibly knew the significance of this mistranslation as, when corrected, they The Hoover Institution did confirm to Dr Newton that box 10 World War 193945, Diplomatic History, Possibility of Negotiated challenged the correction - on flre grounds that fhe supposed Peace 39-q' and box ll'194G63 Subversive activities of Soviet correct site would put it too low down the back to be seen! They Sympathisers in Great Britain' are indeed missing from the contined to mislead the forensic pathologist Bernard Iftight (a archive, presumed stolen. non German speaker) in exactly similar fashion- - despite by that Lobster 20 33

r

. Earlier in fanuary a former MI5 agent, Charles Fraser-smith, the original for Ian Fleming's chiracter ,e,, told Guarilian ,ggTalrp! Richard Norton-Taylor that 'In 1975 Sir Maurice oldfield held a meeting to discuss releasing the whole story about Hess, about whether it was Hess or not.' Fiaser-smith said'that he after the

considered that the man held in captiviry I:d Hess "lylys flight was a'phoney Hess'.

In September 1989 I learned that a file marked ,Most Secret,, lppgently stglgl from the Foreign Office by the former MI5 chief

sir Maurice oldfield, has been smuggled out of Britain in

an

attempt tgjoil the official secrets Act. -The 1941 personar file on Hess had been declared a state secret until the year 2017. Sir Maurice wanted\ to prevent civil servants tamp6ring with the documents in the file before it could be examinea uy"nistorians, and handed the file to a small group of researchers before he died in 1981. The buff-coloured, loose-leafed foolscap file has been examined and filmed by the Dutch documentry froducer, Karer )ille, whose second film on the Hess Affair *as dub to be screened iir Holland in September L990.

Dr Hugh Thomas said 'I offered both Dr Andrew and the producer of the BBC programme sight of the old 1941. hlebut they refused to look at iti Thomas sals he first met oldfield wheir serving.as an army gurge-on in Beliast: nve kept in touch. After Ty b^o_* was published, both Sir Maurice and james Angleton of the CIA called me. sir Maurice told me he had alwiys been baffled by the Hess Affair. when he handed this fild to the historians, he said to me: 'see what you can make of it. I cannot find out what lies behind it., Thomas has twice been refused permission under the ^"Iyg\secrets Act'to official reveal the contents of the letters from Lord wiling_{on-to the-Prime Minister .f Canada Mackenzie King. one of the letters fro.m L.ord willingdon, who was apparently o"ne

of those involved i". t!,: ,peace"plots,, and *,fid tipped off

Churchill via Mackenzie King, refersio'the problem we have with the double'. Lord Wigram, t-he King,s eque^rry, was told by L;;e willingdon that the King was mosf conie.ned about a situation developing which could i-ead to civil war if Churchill refused to be removed from power at the price of a peace deal with

Previous Lobsters NB Copies of issues 1-8 are not available.

Issues 17 onwards are type-set; previous issues have been produced on a variety of electronic keyboards. Issue 14 has been rather poorly reprinted.

9 who's who of British spooks, part 1; KAL 007; watergate revisited Jim Hougan's secret Agenia; tryingto kill Nasser; FalklanJ's conspir4cy theories; Jonathan Bloch on the overseas repression business. lgbs 24

-

pages.

10 Spooks Who's W!ro, part 2; Kitson, Kincora and Counter-insurgency; Anthony summers and'Maurice Bishop'; Jim Hougan on Frank rerfiit ario 'Deep Throat'; statement from Fred Holroyd on N6rthern Ireland, 'dirty tricks' and colin wallace. Early 1986 z4pages. NB This issue is now out of print and available only as a photocopy 1l wilson, MIS and the rise of rhatcher - the start of the wilson plots story; the first attempt to understand and explain what colin wallace was peter wright appeared on the scene.

11vins. Published April 1986, before 56 pages.

12 Peter Dale scott on Transnational Repression - the major previously unpublished essay by this American master; Notes on the British Right. ' 1986 42pages.

13 The Rhodes-Milner Group (Round rable); Two Sides of Ireland; colin wallace's 1974 notes ol gritish politicians; more jottings YI5'! plots to smear on the British Right. l9g7 24 pages.

14 U.S. involvement in the Fiji coup; colin wallace update - and the Ulster citizens Army smear decoded; Irangite - the 'october iurprise'; Martin Walker on Policing the Future. lgBT 46pages.

15 Inside lwide Intelligence - steve Dorril on Anthony cavendish; the Independentsmearing of wallace and Horroyd; christicinstitute on zzfill63; the Tory Right between the wars review esiay; Fiji coup update; review essay on Geheim. 1987 34 pages

Rothschild, lq Murrel;

the right, the far-right and the,Fifth Man; death of Hilda French vendetta - from Ralnbow warrior to the iranian hostages;

IAL.mli

philby names 5en Living-s-tone's questions ;

GoughWhitlam. 1988 40pages.

names ;

overthroiing

17

Five at Eye: Private Eye and the wilson smears; colin wallace and .terrorist threat'; !_oficy in fiction; disinformation and the new the London cIA station; crozier, Goldsmith and the pinay circle; more antiLabour forgeries; the death of Zia. tgBB z4pages.

Information

special

Dorril;

rssue A who\ who

of the British secret state, compiled by Steve

110 pages, 2000 (approximatery) names and

brief biographies.

Right-wing Terrorists and the Extraparliamentary Left in ltPost-world J_".tr ."y P-ale's war 2 Europe: collusion of Manipulation?l Covert propaganda and the Right - more on the Pinay circle; a S-hort Historv of the SAS In

Northern Ireland; Inside Boss and after

-

Gordon

winter.

19g9 36pages

19

The final testimony of George Kennedy young; Common Cause: the CIA and the British Unions; Supplement toipooksiWho.s Who; Hugh Thomas on Fred Holroyd; Jeffrey Bale on Shooting the pope; Pisinformation; ELF; Obituaries of Michael Stewart, Staniey Mayne, Greville Wynne; Conspiracy theories reconsidered . 42 pagis. 19 {10

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19,

An appeal by Mrlohn Colin Wallace to the Civil Service Appeal Board Advice and Recommendation

1. The Secretary of State for Defence has asked me to advise him-'Whether an iniustice was done to Mr Colin Wallace as a result of the manner in which his case was presented to the Civil Service Appeal Board when on 12 bctober 1975 it

the decision of the Ministry of Defence

considered

Mr Wallace's work was not made plain to the CSAB. In mv view the CSAB needed to know thi futt r""s"of hi, ;";-k ili

was to adjudicate justly on his appeal

7;, F" .Ministry of Defence had decided to terminate Mr ,wailace's employment. The CSAB recommended that if Mr

to

terminate his employment on disciplinary giounds; and, if so, to recommend whether compensatibn shorild be paid to iiim.,' 2. My, terms of reference are precise, and, strictly construed,

wallace wished to offer- his resignation, the Departmeni should accept this as an altemative"to iiimissat. In mv view nerther dismissal nor resignation (as an altemative to 9ismissal) was within the ranfe of p""u'tti", *iich would have been reasonable for the isohtEd inc'ident *ni"n gu"" rise to the disciplinary proceedings. In attempting to-puss a restricted

would require me to limit myself to a consideiation of the manner

in *'hich Mr

Wallace,s case was presented at the toot place before the Civii S"*i.u App;;l l:gq^ylu*h board (CSAts) on 17 October t97S (and whether that resulted in an iljustice). Having, however, considered the relevant material, I take the r.ien' that a slightly wider approach is called for, and that I should also takE inio account what took

oocument

place shortly before and in anticipalion of the hearing.

3. The Secretary of State has specifically asked me not to prepare a Report, but simplr- to express my conclusions. I nevertheless take the rieir.-that a'bare eipression of my conclusions, without more, rr.ould possibiy b" op;; i; misinterpretation, and that some ,eusoning, horvever bri"f, is

Wallace; and I so advi'se.

8. In these circumstances

needed.

ffiId:"0*,%?:ff1""ffl,i:L:i;:m*'trjl.X,T$"?i

private communication with the chairman of the hearing *lih regard to Mr Wallace's appeal. Such communication should lpt l"y".,hrppened; and i beheve that what occured p.oUuUiy

to Mr Wallace.

attected the outcome of the appeal.

6.,Secondly, Mr Wallace,s work, as an information officer, {,as wrde-ranging in its nature. I am satisfied that the full range of

10

and Heathfield will be found guilty of. If it tums out that they the"n th'e campaign against them wiil ll: -.9r,1"d of all charges, as an intelligence operation. (lt is worth 11I!.,b"."Tv91tigated noflng here that Steve Dorril suspects it is p-robably an operation run against the IMO rather than the NUM.)'

the US weekly paper of the Workers, League,

July 20 edition, there is a., e*cha.,ge of letters b"il"1;'k;; Livingstone MP and the leaders of tivo of the fragments (there are ,Pp"r.,ntly 9, in_all) from the WRp,s"sptit oi SSIAO.

If. this campaign ls being run by the spooks, then Roser ,.,. vvmdsor, the former NUM official who laid the (now forgottEn)

l?Y Llvrngstone

had claimed at a meeting on March 41990 that MIs had caused the WRp disintegration, one of their agu"6;h; was.'a trigh-r:*hg member of the"iir,g leaiership,. In a letter to

'

orign{ allegations of Libyan money, must be a spbot. fv'iaenc6 yet there is none. Hofuever theie is a hint. B'efore r.irrt"giil; NUM Windsor had been employed bt th"-;r;;_"ational union organisation, Public Services International (pSI).

William Blumt y^_C.ro, a fyrggtt.en y:tory _LZed r,r"rr, ioriaori, 1986; includes a as

Lravlo nyland, leader of one of the fragments, he stated that Special Bianch re-ports o"" 1Wnn1 meetings had macte avarlable to one of mv advisors,. Livin"gstone comments in a letter to Cliff Slaughter, leader of another"of the ,c^o^n_re1,oI,some Deen

fragments, that'democratic ientralist organisations

the joint.CIA.rMIs p run in the sixties against Chedi f::l_r"i:i the I,rime Minister of:9.British Guinea. In th'at couD the ,agan, vehicle used by the Anglo-Ame.icu., .poot, *"1 r '--'- "-- fr"ilfi.'I"da.",

are

vulrylabJe to- internal disruption" by UrSrSpeciui BTltl:ny branch because of their traditions of expulsibns andiheir

style of operations.'

August 1990

o"3"?,v$tl,'llii

The lVorkers'RevolutionaryJ party, MIS and J Libya The Bulletin,

International.

secietive

If any of our^ readers follow the WRp fragments and has further information on this, please let us know.

The WRP's great sin in the eyes of the British secret state was, I

('See

Blurn"ppllg-121)

ELF update

presume, its financial support by Libya. It seems clear that contact,with Libya is taken very ieriouily by our spooks. Ron

S*9 *y

sketch of this area in issue 19 I have been made aware of UK network of people interested in and cor,.ur.,Ld ubout electro_ magnetism in its various forms. The easiest way to access that

Brown MP had rrisited Libya and he has now been discredited as a result of his affair with Nona Longden. Brown claimed some T:lI :ry inJhe House of Commons that Ms Longden was

a

Fr"iliidT'"1'i,:"1w,, jf:":,#{,:;{xr,:;;y"m,,ul

by Defence Systems Ltd, one of the Mlnistrv of uetence's semi-detached companies, and suggested that he'had

emPloyed

have leamed since iisud 19 confirms my i"i-tirf'opi"ion that this is

up. The National'Union Mr"??".iters contacted miners' skike. as "i this is betng written (mid l1!:jgg.the Deptember), it remains unclear what, if been set

which almost.every'interest

1_1assiv9.story commercialhas an interest in shutting down.

anything, riessers Scirgil Lobster

I am asked to recommend whether

compensation should be paid to Mr Wallace, and, bv implication, the amount of .'u-ch .o-p".r"Uo.r. - I; ;ft"r; compensation should be paid. precise calculations ire not possible; but I have had rigard principally to tt u oi compensation which Mr Walac'e might irave received "-o.r"ihad compensation been paid to him about*1975, to the fall in the varue.ot mo-ney since 1975, and to the difficulty Mr Wallace has experienced in obtaining altemative empldyment.

In my

4- After wide reading and consultation, I have reached the clear conclusion that the hearing which took place before the Civil Senice Appeal Board -on 17 Octo'ber 1925 was unsatisfactory irr two material aspects.

5. First, I was satisfied that shortly before the hearing took place representatives of the Ministry of Defence wE.e in

ln

to a journalist, at a time wh'en

and in the qrcumstances in which he did, Mr Wallace erred; but if this incident had been considered ln the overall context of Mr Wallace's work, neither dismissal ,ro. ,"rig""tion (as an alternative to dismissal). was- a .easo.ritt"ffiatty. i;tht. extent, I am of the opinion that an injusticd was done to Mr

I

state, military, Robin Ramsay

20

Lobsteris Robin Ramsay (0482 447558) and Stephen Dorril (0484 681388)

Hull, HU5 3JB, UK All written correspondence should be sent to Lobster, 21-4 Westbourne Avenue, Irbster rcceives no subsidy other than the wcasional generosity ofits readers'

Lobster 20, November 1.990

Notes on contributors

He has just finished Peter Dale Scott teaches English at the University of California at Berkeley' Politics. a new book, Cocaine ol Modernization Scott Newton teaches history at the University of Wales. He is the co-author a book on the on working currently and-is 1988) iondon Hyman, Frustrated(Unwin appeasement era.

Anthony Weeks works in computers in London' Andrew Rosthorne is

a

free-lance journalist'

is reproduced here with the The cartoon on the front cover first appeared inthelrishNears and

permission of the artist.