Establishment historians claim that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never wanted war and made every reasonable effort to prevent war. This article will show that contrary to what establishment historians claim, Franklin Roosevelt and his administration wanted war and made every effort to instigate World War II in Europe.
THE SECRET POLISH DOCUMENTS
The Germans seized a mass of documents from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they invaded Warsaw in late September 1939. The documents were seized when a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army. Von Kuensberg’s men took control of the Polish Foreign Ministry just as Ministry officials were in the process of burning incriminating documents. These documents clearly establish Roosevelt’s crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. They also reveal the forces behind President Roosevelt that pushed for war.[1]
Some of the secret Polish documents were first published in the United States as The German White Paper. Probably the most-revealing document in the collection is a secret report dated January 12, 1939 by Jerzy Potocki, the Polish ambassador to the United States. This report discusses the domestic situation in the United States. I quote (a translation of) Ambassador Potocki’s report in full:
There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the] radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe.
At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states.
It is interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain.
This propaganda, this war psychosis is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable. At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements.
Regarding the first point, it must be said that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other, have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights.
As to point two, I can only say that President Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand, to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend. He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace.
The prevalent hatred against everything which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives of “Americanism” and “defenders of democracy” in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry.
For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United States at this “ideal” post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism.[2]
On January 16, 1939, Potocki reported to the Warsaw Foreign Ministry a conversation he had with American Ambassador to France William Bullitt. Bullitt was in Washington on a leave of absence from Paris. Potocki reported that Bullitt stated the main objectives of the Roosevelt administration were:
1. The vitalizing foreign policy, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, severely and unambiguously condemns totalitarian countries.
2. The United States preparation for war on sea, land and air which will be carried out at an accelerated speed and will consume the colossal sum of $1,250 million.
3. It is the decided opinion of the President that France and Britain must put [an] end to any sort of compromise with the totalitarian countries. They must not let themselves in for any discussions aiming at any kind of territorial changes.
4. They have the moral assurance that the United States will leave the policy of isolation and be prepared to intervene actively on the side of Britain and France in case of war. America is ready to place its whole wealth of money and raw materials at their disposal.”[3]
Juliusz (Jules) Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, sent a top-secret report from Paris to the Polish Foreign Ministry at the beginning of February 1939. This report outlined the U.S. policy toward Europe as explained to him by William Bullitt:
A week ago, the Ambassador of the United States, W. Bullitt, returned to Paris after having spent three months holiday in America. Meanwhile, I had two conversations with him which enable me to inform Monsieur Minister on his views regarding the European situation and to give a survey of Washington’s policy….
The international situation is regarded by official quarters as extremely serious and being in danger of armed conflict. Competent quarters are of the opinion that if war should break out between Britain and France on the one hand and Germany and Italy on the other, and Britain and France should be defeated, the Germans would become dangerous to the realistic interests of the United States on the American continent. For this reason, one can foresee right from the beginning the participation of the United States in the war on the side of France and Britain, naturally after some time had elapsed after the beginning of the war. Ambassador Bullitt expressed this as follows: “Should war break out we shall certainly not take part in it at the beginning, but we shall end it.”[4]
On March 7, 1939, Ambassador Potocki sent another remarkably perceptive report on Roosevelt’s foreign policy to the Polish government. I quote Potocki’s report in full:
The foreign policy of the United States right now concerns not only the government, but the entire American public as well. The most important elements are the public statements of President Roosevelt. In almost every public speech he refers more or less explicitly to the necessity of activating foreign policy against the chaos of views and ideologies in Europe. These statements are picked up by the press and then cleverly filtered into the minds of average Americans in such a way as to strengthen their already formed opinions. The same theme is constantly repeated, namely, the danger of war in Europe and saving the democracies from inundation by enemy fascism. In all of these public statements there is normally only a single theme, that is, the danger from Nazism and Nazi Germany to world peace.
As a result of these speeches, the public is called upon to support rearmament and the spending of enormous sums for the navy and the air force. The unmistakable idea behind this is that in case of an armed conflict the United States cannot stay out but must take an active part in the maneuvers. As a result of the effective speeches of President Roosevelt, which are supported by the press, the American public is today being conscientiously manipulated to hate everything that smacks of totalitarianism and fascism. But it is interesting that the USSR is not included in all of this. The American public considers Russia more in the camp of the democratic states. This was also the case during the Spanish civil war when the so-called Loyalists were regarded as defenders of the democratic idea.
The State Department operates without attracting a great deal of attention, although it is known that Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and President Roosevelt swear allegiance to the same ideas. However, Hull shows more reserve than Roosevelt, and he loves to make a distinction between Nazism and Chancellor Hitler on the one hand, and the German people on the other. He considers this form of dictatorial government a temporary “necessary evil.” In contrast, the State Department is unbelievably interested in the USSR and its internal situation and openly worries itself over its weaknesses and decline. The main reason for the United States interest in the Russians is the situation in the Far East. The current government would be glad to see the Red Army emerge as the victor in a conflict with Japan. That’s why the sympathies of the government are clearly on the side of China, which recently received considerable financial aid amounting to 25 million dollars.
Eager attention is given to all information from the diplomatic posts as well as to the special emissaries of the President who serve as ambassadors of the United States. The President frequently calls his representatives from abroad to Washington for personal exchanges of views and to give them special information and instructions. The arrival of the envoys and ambassadors is always shrouded in secrecy and very little surfaces in the press about the results of their visits. The State Department also takes care to avoid giving out any kind of information about the course of these interviews. The practical way in which the President makes foreign policy is most effective. He gives personal instructions to his representatives abroad, most of whom are his personal friends. In this way the United States is led down a dangerous path in world politics with the explicit intention of abandoning the comfortable policy of isolation. The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition. He listens carefully and happily to his echo in the other capitals of the world. In domestic as well as foreign policy, the Congress of the United States is the only object that stands in the way of the President and his government in carrying out his decisions quickly and ambitiously. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution of the United States gave the highest prerogatives to the American parliament which may criticize or reject the law of the White House.
The foreign policy of President Roosevelt has recently been the subject of intense discussion in the lower house and in the Senate, and this has caused excitement. The so-called Isolationists, of whom there are many in both houses, have come out strongly against the President. The representatives and the senators were especially upset over the remarks of the President, which were published in the press, in which he said that the borders of the United States lie on the Rhine. But President Roosevelt is a superb political player and understands completely the power of the American parliament. He has his own people there, and he knows how to withdraw from an uncomfortable situation at the right moment.
Very intelligently and cleverly he ties together the question of foreign policy with the issues of American rearmament. He particularly stresses the necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a defensive peace. He says specifically that the United States is not arming in order to intervene or to go to the aid of England or France in case of war, but because of the need to show strength and military preparedness in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In his view this conflict is becoming ever more acute and is completely unavoidable.
Since the issue is presented this way, the houses of Congress have no cause to object. To the contrary, the houses accepted an armament program of more than 1 billion dollars. (The normal budget is 550 million, the emergency 552 million dollars). However, under the cloak of a rearmament policy, President Roosevelt continues to push forward his foreign policy, which unofficially shows the world that in case of war the United States will come out on the side of the democratic states with all military and financial power.
In conclusion it can be said that the technical and moral preparation of the American people for participation in a war–if one should break out in Europe–is proceeding rapidly. It appears that the United States will come to the aid of France and Great Britain with all its resources right from the beginning. However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That’s because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America.[5]
These secret Polish reports were written by top-level Polish ambassadors who were not necessarily friendly to Germany. However, they understood the realities of European politics far better than people who made foreign policy in the United States. The Polish ambassadors realized that behind all of their rhetoric about democracy and human rights, the Jewish leaders in the United States who agitated for war against Germany were deceptively advancing their own interests.
There is no question that the secret documents taken from the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw are authentic. Charles C. Tansill considered the documents genuine and stated, “Some months ago I had a long conversation with M. Lipsky, the Polish ambassador in Berlin in the prewar years, and he assured me that the documents in the German White Paper are authentic.”[6]
William H. Chamberlain wrote , “I have been privately informed by an extremely reliable source that Potocki, now residing in South America, confirmed the accuracy of the documents, so far as he was concerned.”[7] Historian Harry Elmer Barnes also stated, “Both Professor Tansill and myself have independently established the thorough authenticity of these documents.”[8]
Edward Raczyński, the Polish ambassador to London from 1934 to 1945, confirmed in his diary the authenticity of the Polish documents. He wrote in his entry on June 20, 1940: “The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, consisting of reports from Potocki from Washington, Łukasiewicz in Paris and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we were told that the archives had been destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine, and the facsimiles show that for the most part the Germans got hold of the originals and not merely copies.”[9]
The official papers and memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz published in 1970 in the book Diplomat in Paris 1936-1939 reconfirmed the authenticity of the Polish documents. Łukasiewicz was the Polish ambassador to Paris, who authored several of the secret Polish documents. The collection was edited by Wacław Jędrzejewicz, a former Polish diplomat and cabinet member. Jędrzejewicz considered the documents made public by the Germans absolutely genuine, and quoted from several of them.
Tyler G. Kent, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in London in 1939 and 1940, has also confirmed the authenticity of the secret Polish documents. Kent says that he saw copies of U.S. diplomatic messages in the files which corresponded to the Polish documents.[10]
The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940. The Reich Ministry of Propaganda released the documents to strengthen the case of the American isolationists and to prove the degree of America’s responsibility for the outbreak of war. In Berlin, journalists from around the world were permitted to examine the original documents themselves, along with a large number of other documents from the Polish Foreign Ministry. The release of the documents caused an international media sensation. American newspapers published lengthy excerpts from the documents and gave the story large front-page headline coverage.[11]
However, the impact of the released documents was far less than the German government had hoped for. Leading U.S. government officials emphatically denounced the documents as not being authentic. William Bullitt, who was especially incriminated by the documents, stated, “I have never made to anyone the statements attributed to me.” Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounced the documents: “I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest credence. The statements alleged have not represented in any way at any time the thought or the policy of the American government.”[12] American newspapers stressed these high-level denials in reporting the release of the Polish documents.
These categorical denials by high-level U.S. government officials almost completely eliminated the effect of the secret Polish documents. The vast majority of the American people in 1940 trusted their elected political leaders to tell the truth. If the Polish documents were in fact authentic and genuine, this would mean that President Roosevelt and his representatives had lied to the American public, while the German government told the truth. In 1940, this was far more than the trusting American public could accept.
MORE EVIDENCE ROOSEVELT INSTIGATED WORLD WAR II
While the secret Polish documents alone indicate that Roosevelt was preparing the American public for war against Germany, a large amount of complementary evidence confirms the conspiracy reported by the Polish ambassadors. The diary of James V. Forrestal, the first U.S. secretary of defense, also reveals that Roosevelt and his administration helped start World War II. Forrestal’s entry on December 27, 1945 stated:
Played golf today with Joe Kennedy [Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Great Britain in the years immediately before the war]. I asked him about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain’s position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy’s view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt’s urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn’t fight; Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversations with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling him to put some iron up Chamberlain’s backside. Kennedy’s response always was that putting iron up his backside did no good unless the British had some iron with which to fight, and they did not….
What Kennedy told me in this conversation jibes substantially with the remarks Clarence Dillon had made to me already, to the general effect that Roosevelt had asked him in some manner to communicate privately with the British to the end that Chamberlain should have greater firmness in his dealings with Germany. Dillon told me that at Roosevelt’s request he had talked with Lord Lothian in the same general sense as Kennedy reported Roosevelt having urged him to do with Chamberlain. Lothian presumably was to communicate to Chamberlain the gist of his conversation with Dillon.
Looking backward there is undoubtedly foundation for Kennedy’s belief that Hitler’s attack could have been deflected to Russia….”[13]
Joseph Kennedy is known to have had a good memory, and it is highly likely that Kennedy’s statements to James Forrestal are accurate. Forrestal died on May 22, 1949 under suspicious circumstances when he fell from his hospital window.
Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British ambassador to Washington, confirmed Roosevelt’s secret policy to instigate war against Germany with the release of a confidential diplomatic report after the war. The report described a secret meeting on September 18, 1938 between Roosevelt and Ambassador Lindsay. Roosevelt said that if Britain and France were forced into a war against Germany, the United States would ultimately join the war. Roosevelt’s idea to start a war was for Britain and France to impose a blockade against Germany without actually declaring war. The important point was to call it a defensive war based on lofty humanitarian grounds and on the desire to wage hostilities with a minimum of suffering and the least possible loss of life and property. The blockade would provoke some kind of German military response, but would free Britain and France from having to declare war. Roosevelt believed he could then convince the American public to support war against Germany, including shipments of weapons to Britain and France, by insisting that the United States was still neutral in a non-declared conflict.[14]
President Roosevelt told Ambassador Lindsay that if news of their conversation was ever made public, it could mean Roosevelt’s impeachment. What Roosevelt proposed to Lindsay was in effect a scheme to violate the U.S. Constitution by illegally starting a war. For this and other reasons, Ambassador Lindsay stated that during his three years of service in Washington he developed little regard for America’s leaders.[15]
Ambassador Lindsay in a series of final reports also indicated that Roosevelt was delighted at the prospect of a new world war. Roosevelt promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships under false pretenses in a feigned search for arms. This would allow the German ships to be easily seized by the British under circumstances arranged with exactitude between the American and British authorities. Lindsay reported that Roosevelt “spoke in a tone of almost impish glee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impression of resembling a school-boy prank.”
Ambassador Lindsay was personally perturbed that the president of the United States could be gay and joyful about a pending tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes of all mankind. It was unfortunate at this important juncture that the United States had a president whose emotions and ideas were regarded by a friendly British ambassador as being childish.[16]
Roosevelt’s desire to support France and England in a war against Germany is discussed in a letter from Verne Marshall, former editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, to Charles C. Tansill. The letter stated:
President Roosevelt wrote a note to William Bullitt [in the summer of 1939], then Ambassador to France, directing him to advise the French Government that if, in the event of a Nazi attack upon Poland, France and England did not go to Poland’s aid, those countries could expect no help from America if a general war developed. On the other hand, if France and England immediately declared war on Germany, they could expect “all aid” from the United States.
F.D.R.’s instructions to Bullitt were to send this word along to “Joe” and “Tony,” meaning Ambassadors Kennedy, in London, and Biddle, in Warsaw, respectively. F.D.R. wanted Daladier, Chamberlain and Josef Beck to know of these instructions to Bullitt. Bullitt merely sent his note from F.D.R. to Kennedy in the diplomatic pouch from Paris. Kennedy followed Bullitt’s idea and forwarded it to Biddle. When the Nazis grabbed Warsaw and Beck disappeared, they must have come into possession of the F.D.R. note. The man who wrote the report I sent you saw it in Berlin in October, 1939.[17]
William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, also stated in his postwar memoirs that the Roosevelt administration in late 1938 was committed to going to war on the side of Britain and France. Phillips wrote: “On this and many other occasions, I would have liked to have told him [Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister] frankly that in the event of a European war, the United States would undoubtedly be involved on the side of the Allies. But in view of my official position, I could not properly make such a statement without instructions from Washington, and these I never received.”[18]
When Anthony Eden returned to England in December 1938, he carried with him an assurance from President Roosevelt that the United States would enter as soon as practicable a European war against Hitler if the occasion arose. This information was obtained by Senator William Borah of Idaho, who was contemplating how and when to give out this information, when he dropped dead in his bathroom. The story was confirmed to historian Harry Elmer Barnes by some of Senator Borah’s closest colleagues at the time.[19]
The American ambassador to Poland, Anthony Drexel Biddle, was an ideological colleague of President Roosevelt and a good friend of William Bullitt. Roosevelt used Biddle to influence the Polish government to refuse to enter into negotiations with Germany. Carl J. Burckhardt, the League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, reported in his postwar memoirs on a memorable conversation he had with Biddle. On December 2, 1938, Biddle told Burckhardt with remarkable satisfaction that the Poles were ready to wage war over Danzig. Biddle predicted that in April a new crisis would develop, and that moderate British and French leaders would be influenced by public opinion to support war. Biddle predicted a holy war against Germany would break out.[20]
Bernard Baruch, who was Roosevelt’s chief advisor, scoffed at a statement made on March 10, 1939 by Neville Chamberlain that “the outlook in international affairs is tranquil.” Baruch agreed passionately with Winston Churchill, who had told him: “War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States] will be in it.”[21]
Georges Bonnet, the French foreign minister in 1939, also confirmed the role of William Bullitt as Roosevelt’s agent in pushing France into war. In a letter to Hamilton Fish dated March 26, 1971, Bonnet wrote, “One thing is certain is that Bullitt in 1939 did everything he could to make France enter the war.”[22]
Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia, wrote in his memoirs that he had a lengthy secret conversation at Hyde Park with President Roosevelt on May 28, 1939. Roosevelt assured Beneš that the United States would actively intervene on the side of Great Britain and France against Germany in the anticipated European war.[23]
American newspaper columnist Karl von Wiegand, who was the chief European newspaper columnist of the International News Service, met with Ambassador William Bullitt at the U.S. embassy in Paris on April 25, 1939. More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: “War in Europe has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it.”[24] When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: “What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing.”[25]
On March 14, 1939, Slovakia dissolved the state of Czechoslovakia by declaring itself an independent republic. Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity. The British government initially accepted the new situation, reasoning that Britain’s guarantee of Czechoslovakia given after Munich was rendered void by the internal collapse of that state. It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it. Also, the danger of a war between the Czechs and the Slovaks had been averted.[26]
However, Bullitt’s response to the creation of the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia was highly unfavorable. Bullitt telephoned Roosevelt and, in an “almost hysterical” voice, Bullitt urged Roosevelt to make a dramatic denunciation of Germany and to immediately ask Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act.[27]
Washington journalists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reported in their nationally syndicated column that on March 16, 1939, President Roosevelt “sent a virtual ultimatum to Chamberlain” demanding that the British government strongly oppose Germany. Pearson and Allen reported that “the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy continued.”[28]
Responding to Roosevelt’s pressure, the next day Chamberlain ended Britain’s policy of cooperation with Germany when he made a speech at Birmingham bitterly denouncing Hitler. Chamberlain also announced the end of the British “appeasement” policy, stating that from now on Britain would oppose any further territorial moves by Hitler. Two weeks later the British government formally committed itself to war in case of German-Polish hostilities.
Roosevelt also attempted to arm Poland so that Poland would be more willing to go to war against Germany. Ambassador Bullitt reported from Paris in a confidential telegram to Washington on April 9, 1939, his conversation with Polish Ambassador Łukasiewicz. Bullitt told Łukasiewicz that although U.S. law prohibited direct financial aid to Poland, the Roosevelt administration might be able to supply warplanes to Poland indirectly through Britain. Bullitt stated: “The Polish ambassador asked me if it might not be possible for Poland to obtain financial help and airplanes from the United States. I replied that I believed the Johnson Act would forbid any loans from the United States to Poland, but added that it might be possible for England to purchase planes for cash in the United States and turn them over to Poland.”[29]
Bullitt also attempted to bypass the Neutrality Act and supply France with airplanes. A secret conference of Ambassador Bullitt with French Premier Daladier and the French minister of aviation, Guy La Chambre, discussed the procurement of airplanes from America for France. Bullitt, who was in frequent telephonic conversation with Roosevelt, suggested a means by which the Neutrality Act could be circumvented in the event of war. Bullitt’s suggestion was to set up assembly plants in Canada, apparently on the assumption that Canada would not be a formal belligerent in the war. Bullitt also arranged for a secret French mission to come to the United States and purchase airplanes in the winter of 1938-1939. The secret purchase of American airplanes by the French leaked out when a French aviator crashed on the West Coast.[30]
On August 23, 1939, Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain’s closest advisor, went to American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with an urgent appeal from Chamberlain to President Roosevelt. Regretting that Britain had unequivocally obligated itself to Poland in case of war, Chamberlain now turned to Roosevelt as a last hope for peace. Kennedy telephoned the State Department and stated: “The British want one thing from us and one thing only, namely that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they could not, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could.”
Presented with a possibility to save the peace in Europe, President Roosevelt rejected Chamberlain’s desperate plea out of hand. With Roosevelt’s rejection, Kennedy reported, British Prime Minister Chamberlain lost all hope. Chamberlain stated: “The futility of it all is the thing that is frightful. After all, we cannot save the Poles. We can merely carry on a war of revenge that will mean the destruction of all Europe.”[31]
Conclusion
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. This is proven by the secret Polish documents as well as numerous statements from highly positioned, well-known and authoritative Allied leaders who corroborate the contents of the Polish documents.
[2] Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.
[3] Ibid., pp. 32-33.
[4] Juliusz Lukasiewicz to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 43-44.
[5] Germany. Foreign Office Archive Commission. Roosevelts Weg in den Krieg: Geheimdokumente zur Kriegspolitik des Praesidenten der Vereinigten Staaten. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943. Translated into English by Weber, Mark, “President Roosevelt’s Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents,” The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , pp. 150-152.
[6] Tansill, Charles C., “The United States and the Road to War in Europe,” in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 184 (footnote 292).
[7] Chamberlain, William Henry, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, p. 60 (footnote 14).
[8] Barnes, Harry Elmer, The Court Historians versus Revisionism, N.p.: privately printed, 1952, p. 10.
[9] Raczynski, Edward, In Allied London, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963, p. 51.
[10] Weber, Mark, “President Roosevelt’s Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents,” The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142.
[11] Ibid., pp. 137-139.
[12] New York Times, March 30, 1940, p. 1.
[13] Forrestal, James V., The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, New York: Vanguard Press, 1951, pp. 121-122.
[14] Dispatch No. 349 of Sept. 30, 1938, by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Documents on British Foreign Policy, (ed.). Ernest L. Woodard, Third Series, Vol. VII, London, 1954, pp. 627-629. See also Lash, Joseph P., Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941, New York: Norton, 1976, pp. 25-27.
[15] Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932-1945, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 31, 164-165.
[16] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, pp. 518-519.
[17] Tansill, Charles C., “The United States and the Road to War in Europe,” in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 168.
[18] Phillips, William, Ventures in Diplomacy, North Beverly, Mass.: privately published, 1952, pp. 220-221.
[19] Barnes, Harry Elmer, Barnes against the Blackout, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1991, p. 208.
[25] Chicago-Herald American, April 23, 1944, p. 18.
[26] Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed, Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989, p. 250.
[27] Moffat, Jay P., The Moffat Papers 1919-1943, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956, p. 232.
[28] Pearson, Drew and Allen, Robert S., “Washington Daily Merry-Go-Round,” Washington Times-Herald, April 14, 1939, p. 16.
[29] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Diplomatic Papers), 1939, General, Vol. I, Washington: 1956, p. 122.
[30] Chamberlain, William Henry, America’s Second Crusade, Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 101-102.
[31] Koskoff, David E., Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, p. 207; see also Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005, p. 272.
I discuss how *G.Soros* is pivotal to the Globalist takeover of countries by using the example of Ukraine.
This seems to involve the CIA in its capacity as part of an underground international Intelligence Apparatus which I believe was set up during & after WW2 in Project RUSTY.
I also focus on the major role Canadians have played in Ukraine.
There’s a lot going on here, so grab a pen. :)
NOTE: the photo I say is of Oleh Havrylyshyn is not him. I put in the wrong file.
If you would like to send a financial contribution so that I can keep doing this work, please click the following link or go to my website, amazingpolly.net and check the contact page for a P.O Box address.
472 page collection of CIA declassified documents re Project RUSTY & the Gehlen group, which eventually became the CIA and the BND in Germany. Astonishing info: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingro…
Washington D.C. – An unidentified flash on 22 September 1979 in the far South Atlantic had a “90% plus” probability of being a nuclear test, according to a CIA finding from later that year. The document, among others uncovered recently through archival research, adds significant weight to the argument that the flash, detected by a U.S. VELA satellite, was not a natural event, as White House science advisers later insisted.
On the fortieth anniversary of the Vela incident, the National Security Archive supplements its earlier postings with documents recently obtained from the Jimmy Carter Library.
The collection includes new information on scientific intelligence provided by the Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico) concerning an ionospheric disturbance on 22 September that corresponded to similar evidence from Soviet nuclear tests in the early 1960s.
The documents also put an unflattering cast on the methods of White House science experts who discounted the views of the intelligence agencies, eventually agreeing to hear them out only so “we can more safely ignore them later.” While chief White House scientist Frank Press argued that the intelligence community had no convincing case, recent scientific studies suggest that the case for a nuclear event interpretation is formidable.
Forty years ago, on 22 September 1979, the bhangmeters on a U.S. VELA satellite picked up signals that were initially interpreted as most likely originating from a nuclear test in the far South Atlantic but which a high-level White House panel chaired by MIT professor Jack Ruina later interpreted as more probably the result of a non-nuclear event (e.g., a striking meteoroid) on or around the satellite. That view became the semiofficial public interpretation but it was contested and controversial. By contrast, according to a White House report published today by the National Security Archive, the Central Intelligence Agency had “assessed the probability of a nuclear test as 90% plus.” [See Document 5]
The CIA and White House science advisers raised their views almost entirely within the walls of government secrecy. In the intervening decade bits and pieces on the Vela incident—and the controversy over it—started to get declassified. Besides the CIA estimate of high probability, another release, a November 1979 memorandum from the Department of Energy included data from the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory in Puerto Rico on an ionospheric disturbance that some interpreted as corroborating evidence of a nuclear explosion [See document 2].
Today’s posting introduces for the first time previously declassified but obscure and previously unpublished documents from the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. Collectively shedding light on the controversy over the Vela flash, the new documents supplement the two major collections published by the National Security Archive in 2006 and 2016.
These documents confirm that a number of senior government officials at the Energy Department, the Defense Department, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA, among others, held the view that a nuclear explosion had taken place on 22 September 1979. Nevertheless, White House scientific advisers and officials were so strongly committed to the Ruina panel’s non-nuclear interpretation that they dismissed alternative explanations. They only agreed to hear out the views of dissenting officials “so that we can more safely ignore them.” [See Document 5]
In recent years, the Ruina panel’s arguments have come under critical scrutiny with scientists in the security studies field systematically reinterpreting the Vela data to make the case for a nuclear event. In recent publications, Lars-Erik De Geer (Swedish Defence Force Institute) and Christopher M. Wright (Australian Defence Force Academy) reviewed the publicly available evidence and concluded that the argument for a nuclear explosion is “founded upon three pillars, which include the original optical signal, the iodine-131 evidence, and the hydroacoustic signal.” According to De Geer and Wright, each of the pillars “by itself, is a strong indicator of a nuclear explosion.” For example, they found that the Vela signals provided stronger evidence of a test than the Ruina panel would credit. They further argued that the hydroacoustic data indicated that the test took place on or around the barren Prince Edward Island, some 955 nautical miles off the southern coast of South Africa.[1]
If the Vela sensors did detect a nuclear explosion, who set it off has also been a matter of speculation and controversy. A leading theory, advanced by former Senate staffer Leonard Weiss and others, is that it was an Israeli test conducted with South African logistical assistance.[2] In a major report the CIA also looked at scenarios involving both Israel and South Africa, among other countries, but its conclusions remain classified. President Jimmy Carter shared the view that Israel most likely played a lead role. On 27 February 1980, he wrote in his diary that “We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of South Africa.” [3]
By now, forty years later, it is clear enough that South Africa could not be a suspect. South Africa was not in a position to conduct such a test, as former South African scientists openly acknowledged years later. Israel, although presumably assisted by the South Africans, remained the sole suspect.[4]
It would be worth knowing which scientists President Carter had in mind, because the Ruina panel would have strongly disagreed with his assessment. He may have become acquainted with scientific intelligence reports as part of his daily briefing, but what they were is unknown. With major studies still classified, such as a critically important report by the Naval Research Laboratory (which the NRL cannot locate) and CIA studies as well as White House files still under declassification review or under appeal, much remains to be learned about U.S. government intelligence collection and analysis as well as the role that politics and diplomacy played in internal discussions of the Vela incident.
White House Situation Room, Situation Room Log, “Reflections of South African Nuclear Event,” 25 October 1979, Secret
1979-10-25
Source: Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files [NSA 6] Box 72, South Atlantic Nuclear Event, 9/79-6/80
Since its creation during the Kennedy administration, the White House Situation Room has functioned as a communications center and a site for holding sensitive meetings. This record of situation room interactions with various agencies concerning the 22 September event provides an overview of the delayed and unsuccessful efforts to detect the radioactive debris that a nuclear test could have produced. The excised portions are probably a reference to the Air Force Technical Applications Center [AFTAC], which under various names has been monitoring overseas nuclear developments since the late 1940s and which played a role in the search for radioactive samples in the South Pacific after the Vela Incident..
Even though AFTAC found no traces of fallout, analysis of thyroid glands of sheep slaughtered in Australia in October 1979 showed “abnormally high levels” of Iodine 131, a “short-lived isotope that occurs as the result of a nuclear event.”
John Deutch, Deputy Secretary of Energy, to Ambassador Henry Owen, enclosing “21-22-September Acoustic Gravity Wave Detection, Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory, Puerto Rico Facility,” 8 November 1979
1979-11-08
Source: Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files [NSA 6] Box 72, South Atlantic Nuclear Event, 9/79-6/80
Writing to Ambassador-at-Large Henry Owen, who had overlapping roles at the White House and the State Department, John Deutch sent a report of a “traveling ionospheric disturbance”—a wave in the upper atmosphere—detected by the Arecibo Observatory, a giant radio telescope nestled into the mountains of Puerto Rico. According to Deutch, the data on the ionospheric disturbance “possibly may confirm the signal from the VELA system.”
The Arecibo Observatory (now a National Science Foundation facility) can detect signals in the upper atmosphere that originate in violent events at Earth’s surface—including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, nuclear explosions, and even rocket launches. Such events can produce strong sound waves of very low frequency (pitch), far below what the human ear can detect (the periods of these waves are measured in minutes or longer, as opposed to thousandths of seconds for humanly audible sound). These waves propagate upward through the atmosphere. When they reach the ionosphere, a layer of electrically charged particles beginning about 80 kilometers (50 miles) above Earth, they may induce so-called traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs).
The Arecibo Observatory is one of the best instruments in the world for observing TIDs. It does conventional radio astronomy for studying the cosmos, but it also sends powerful radar beams into the upper atmosphere to probe Earth’s ionosphere. Several hours after the VELA flash detection, Arecibo observed a TID. Initially downplayed in part because of Aricebo’s location thousands of miles from the VELA event, the observation produced a different perspective from DOE, which suggested that the TID was consistent with “an earthquake or explosion source” and that the wave speed was consistent with an event having come from the VELA source—although ambiguities in the exact type (mode) of the wave made a shorter distance also possible. The available declassified information notes that similar observations (although pre-Arecibo) have been associated with nuclear tests in the Soviet arctic in 1961.
The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos Laboratory developed its thinking on the Arecibo signal, treating it as a possible indicator of a nuclear event. Nevertheless, the Ruina panel would discount the Arecibo data on grounds of “mathematical errors,” although the defense and energy departments strongly disagreed. Pending declassification requests may shed more light on the debate over the Arecibo data.
White House Science and Technology [Staff] Report to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Evening Report,” 9 November 1979, Secret
1979-11-08
Source: Staff Material Science and Technology Files [NSA 30], Box 5, [Marcum Chron file]: 1-12/79
According to national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s aides, a panel organized by White House science adviser Dr. Frank Press and chaired by MIT professor Jack Ruina was already reviewing data and heading toward a “preliminary finding” that the Vela flash was not a nuclear event. According to the early findings, “it is entirely possible that the September 22 signal could have been caused by a meteroid of somewhat different velocity, size and rotational motion.” Moreover, the Vela signal “itself differs in some important ways from previous nuclear signals.” Without corroborating data, “these facts tended to make the panel somewhat skeptical that a nuclear explosion actually occurred.”
The report also mentioned Deutch’s report on the newly interpreted data from the Arecibo Observatory. While noting that the Arecibo data “has a very different timescale” and that the “relationship between nuclear explosions and ionospheric disturbances is much less well understood than for optical signals recorded by bhangmeters [on VELA satellites],” it “represents the best lead yet in the search for corroborative data.”
Henry Owen/Jerry Oplinger, White House Staff, to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, “South Atlantic Event,”9 January 1980, Secret
1980-01-09
Source: Staff Material Global Issues Files [NSA 28], Box 55, Proliferation – South Atlantic Nuclear Event, 1/80
On 9 January 1980, a “mini-SCC [Special Coordinating Committee]” meeting discussed the 22 September event. According to participants, “The consensus was that we don’t know what happened, and must proceed in policy terms accordingly.” The effort to politicize science is implicit. In a way, that conclusion matched the findings of the Ruina panel. Agnostic semi-official conclusions notwithstanding, important elements of the intelligence community continued to hold that a nuclear event had been detected, as evidenced in a report included in the National Security Archive’s 2016 posting.
Jerry Oplinger, National Security Council/Science and Technology Staff, to Ambassador Henry Owen, “South Atlantic Event,” 25 January 1980, Secret, Excised copy
1980-01-25
Source: Staff Material Global Issues Files [NSA 28], Box 55, Proliferation – South Atlantic Nuclear Event, 1/80
This report conveys the approach that senior White House staff took toward dissenting views on the 22 September event. A scheduled presentation by representatives of the Departments of Energy and Defense would provide an opportunity for them to express arguments that a nuclear event had occurred; they would be heard out, according to this memo, “so that we can more safely ignore them.” This can arguably be seen as another possible demonstration of a “whitewash” effort to politicize scientific evidence.
According to Oplinger’s memorandum, the CIA’s “Safeguards-D” report had “assessed the probability of a nuclear test as 90% plus.” The Safeguards-D report was one required by the U.S. Senate when it ratified the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Consistent with proposals by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the treaty be ratified on the basis of specific conditions, the Senate required the Kennedy administration to take specific implementing actions, such as recommendation D: “The improvement of our capability, within feasible and practical limits, to monitor the terms of the treaty, to detect violations, and to maintain our knowledge of Sino-Soviet nuclear activity, capabilities, and achievements.”
Having heard rumors that the CIA wanted to rewrite its safeguards report so that it corresponded to the findings of the Ruina panel, Oplinger wanted to make sure that CIA did no such thing because “nothing would suggest a whitewash more effectively.” If the CIA later decided that it wanted to update the earlier report that would be another matter as long as it could “provide solid and objective reasons.”
Frank Press to Stan Turner, “Possible South Atlantic Nuclear Explosion,” 6 June 1980, Secret
1980-06-06
Source: Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files [NSA 6] Box 72, South Atlantic Nuclear Event, 9/79-6/80
In this memorandum to Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner, Frank Press, White House science adviser, explained the reasoning behind the Ruina panel’s conclusion that the Vela flash was “probably not from a nuclear explosion” and “more likely … caused by a natural event.” He could not have written to Turner, however, without acknowledging the dissents expressed by “key officials” at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA’s Nuclear Intelligence Panel (NIP), and the DOE weapons laboratories, who believed that the Vela signal detected a nuclear event. According to Press, “this is due primarily to the fact that the signal so closely resembles those from previous nuclear explosions, but the weapons laboratories have been unable to come up with a physical explanation that could explain the discrepancies observed in the signal.”
Press also noted that some of the agencies point to the “few pieces of geophysical data from September 22 that might have been related to a nuclear explosion.” He most likely referred to Arecibo data, and quite possibly also to the acoustic signals as analyzed by the naval Research Laboratory. Nevertheless, Press discounted it all: the data had “been thoroughly analyzed and none can be clearly correlated with the VELA signal.” We do not know if CIA Director Turner responded in writing to this memorandum. In the late 1990s, Turner told one of us (Avner Cohen) that he (and the Agency) had no doubt that it was a test and almost certainly an Israeli test.
Believing that White House scientists were not acting in good faith, by the spring of 1980, DIA experts saw the nuclear interpretation as settled in light of Naval Research Laboratory acoustic data that had not been available to the CIA or the Ruina panel. According to a senior DIA official, the acoustic signals were “unique to nuclear shots in a maritime environment.’”
Notes
[1]. Lars-Erik De Geer and Christopher M. Wright, “The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: The Detected Double-Flash,” Science and Global Security 25 (2017): 95-124, and “The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident: Radionuclide and Hydroacoustic Evidence for a Nuclear Explosion,” Ibid, 26 (2018): 20-54.
[2]. Weiss has written extensively on this issue. See “Israel’s 1979 Nuclear Test and the U.S. Cover-up,” Middle East Policy,” Vol. 18 No.4 (2011); “The 1979 South Atlantic Flash: The Case for an Israeli Nuclear Test,” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Moving Beyond Pretense: Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation (Harrisburg, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2014), 345-371; and “Flash from the Past: Why an Apparent Israeli Nuclear Test in 1979 Matters Today,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, (8 September 2015). “Flash from the Past: Why an Apparent Israeli Nuclear Test in 1979 Matters Today.” See also Timothy McDonnell, “International Conference: The Historical Dimensions of South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Program,”4 January 2013, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
[3]. Jimmy Carter, White House Diary, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), p. 405.
[4]. See Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), at 136 and 141, and Nic von Wielligh and Lydai von Wielligh-Steyn, The Bomb: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Programme (Pretoria: Litera Publications, 2015), at 157.
Most of the world remembers the controversy in recent years about Russian athletes allegedly failing to comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) policies, but that scandal still continues to this day after the international organization recently threatened that country’s sportspeople with being banned from next year’s Tokyo Olympics on the same basis. The narrative is that there are supposedly “inconsistencies” with the lab data that Russia submitted to prove its adherence to WADA’s regulations, though that storyline is extremely suspect and also reeks of selective enforcement for political reasons.
To explain, it’s illogical that Russian athletes would continue to use banned substances after the agency globally humiliated them and the country that they represented several years ago on that basis, nor would their coaches and those responsible for them allow “inconsistent” lab results to be given to that international sports body if that was still the case (though it was always questionable to begin with the first time around whether there were actually any violations or not). Every stakeholder therefore has a self-interested reason in ensuring that the testing process proceeds smoothly and without incident, not to cheat the rules while under scrutiny.
Another valid point to make is that other countries’ athletes use questionable medication to treat certain health symptoms that might have actually given them an unfair advantage during competitions. For instance, RT reported last year on how Swedish media alleged that “70 percent of Norwegian medals in Olympic skiing events were won by athletes diagnosed with asthma”, yet those athletes aren’t under WADA’s microscope like Russia’s are. Quite clearly, the agency is only selectively enforcing its standards for what can only be presumed to be political reasons related to the New Cold War.
Russia is one of the US’ chief geopolitical adversaries across the world, and Washington is weaponizing all means at its disposal to wage a HybridWar against Moscow, one that transcends the traditional definition of war to include intangible and unquantifiable aspects such as the degrading of national dignity. Understanding this, it makes sense why WADA is threatening Russian athletes, since that’s intended to damage their country’s dignity on the world stage as punishment for their government refusing to submit to the US’ foreign policy diktats. As a result, all Russians might be made to suffer.
This strategy isn’t just being carried out for the sake of schadenfreude, but as part of a far-fetched plan to decrease the population’s support of their government. The theory goes that average Russians might eventually be misguided by a forthcoming US-backed infowar campaign to somehow blame their government for this humiliation, which could contribute to increasing anti-government sentiment and then indirectly influence their political preferences in 2024 after President Putin’s final term ends. That idea might sound attractive in Washington think tanks and the halls of Langley, but it’s completely unrealistic in practice.
A supposedly apolitical international organization punishing a population for the disagreements that their government has with another violates all morality and exposes that said body for what it truly would be in that scenario, which is an American proxy organization being weaponized for Hybrid War ends. It doesn’t matter that the consequences of such a decision wouldn’t have any effect on political stability in Russia, but just that it would be very cruel to do to ordinary people who more often than not could care less about international politics and are more interested in patriotically rooting for their country’s team as they compete in Tokyo.
The Olympics are supposed to bring the world together for a few weeks by allowing everyone’s athletes to bask in glory that they deserve for being the best of the best selected to compete in this prestigious event, provided that they earned their place fairly. Singling out Russians for alleged “inconsistencies” while ignoring the much more credible case of Norwegians gaming the system — to say nothing of transsexuals now being allowed to participate, even without undergoing gender reassignment surgery — is a travesty of everything that the Olympics are supposed to stand for and actually degrades the international community’s dignity most of all.
The “newspaper of record” New York Times arguably holds the record for peddling anti-Russia scare stories. This week the NY Times delivered yet another classic spook tale dressed as serious news.
Among its splash articles, under the headline ‘Top Secret Russian Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say’, readers were told of an elite Russian spy team which has, allegedly, only recently been discovered.
It’s called “Unit 29155” and purportedly directed by the Kremlin to “destabilize Europe” with “subversion, sabotage and assassination.”
According to the NY Times, this crack squad of Russia’s most ruthless military intelligence agents were involved in an attempted assassination of an arms dealer in Bulgaria in 2015; the destabilization of Moldova; a failed coup against the Montenegrin government; and the alleged poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in England last year.
The article states: “Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.”
The NY Times adds: “The purpose of Unit 29155, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively fighting the West with his brand of so-called hybrid warfare — a blend of propaganda, hacking attacks and disinformation — as well as open military confrontation.”
This is all because, the readers are told, “The Kremlin sees Russia as being at war with a Western liberal order that it views as an existential threat.”
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed it as more of the “pulp fiction category” which Western news media have manufactured with seeming increasing intensity over recent years. Peskov pointed out that Moscow has repeatedly stated its desire to normalize relations with Western states and the European Union in particular, contradicting the theme of the NY Times’ piece.
Indeed, the Russian Embassy in Britain recently published a compilation of false articles peddled by Western media over the past four years. The NY Times features prominently as one of the main purveyors of scare stories about alleged malign Russian activities, from hacking into presidential elections, to targeting American power grids, to covert collusion with President Donald Trump.
For students of Propaganda 101, this week’s tale makes a case study of how disinformation is disseminated in the guise of “news reporting.”
First of all, the NY Times reporter, Michael Schwirtz, gives a meandering account of lurid dirty deeds performed in various international locations allegedly carried out by the supposed “elite” Kremlin hybrid warriors. But tellingly, there are no details evidencing Russian involvement. It’s all lurid speculation spiced with fear-mongering, which reads like a pallid John le Carré spy novel.
Then, the usual giveaway that the NY Times is engaging in disinformation, it quotes anonymous security officials for apparent verification of its claims about “Unit 29155”. This is tacit admission of who the real authors are: Western spooks.
Next, a neat effort to give the lame story some legs is to quote named public figures. But these sources don’t confirm the existence of the alleged Kremlin unit; they are merely invited to speculate on its existence and presumed malign purpose. One of those named sources is MI6 chief Alex Younger. Yes, that’s right, the paper of record is quoting British military intelligence as a reliable source for public information. Another named source is Peter Zwack, who is described as a former US military intelligence officer who worked at the American Embassy in Moscow. Zwack is quoted as describing Russians as “organically ruthless” (whatever that means), while the paper actually admits that “he was not aware of the unit’s existence.”
The purpose of throwing a few names into the reporting mix is to lend a veneer of credibility to the nebulous, unverifiable, scary stuff that the anonymous spooks feed the reporter.
A special mention must be given to a third named source quoted by the NY Times. He is Eerik-Niiles Kross, an Estonian lawmaker and former military intelligence chief in Tallinn. He styles himself as “Estonia’s James Bond,” and is known for his salacious Russophobic warnings of “imminent invasion of the Baltic states” – over the past three decades. Kross is quoted to speculate on the existence of the alleged Kremlin hybrid warfare unit. Of course, he dutifully serves up his notorious anti-Russian fear-mongering. But he is not confirming. His speculation is pseudo-validation of information that is essentially fictional.
All in all, the latest installment of anti-Russia propaganda from the NY Times this week is a damp squib among many previous baseless reports of alleged Kremlin malign activity. If it serves any purpose, it is perhaps a choice illustration of how disinformation is sneakily, insidiously presented as ‘news’. The fact that this should appear in a Pulitzer Prize-winning, supposedly premier, American newspaper is the disturbing part.
But it is no surprise to those who have long studied how the US corporate media has been under the control of state intelligence agencies for many decades, especially after the Second World War and during the subsequent Cold War against the Soviet Union.
In a seminal essay in 1977 for Rolling Stone magazine, award-winning journalist Carl Bernstein documented how the CIA systematically cultivated hundreds of reporters, columnists, editors, publishing executives and broadcast networks to function as conduits for disinformation – much of it directed at demonizing the Soviet Union.
“From the outset, the use of journalists was among the CIA’s most sensitive undertakings,” writes Bernstein.
He added: “By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.”
How the CIA goes about planting false stories in the American and European media is outlined in this candid interview by John Stockwell, who was former National Security Council coordinator for the agency during the 1970s. Stockwell also added: “Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the US military machine to turn.”
You may wonder, if the Cold War ended nearly 30 years ago when the Soviet Union dissolved, why then do the NY Times and other Western media outlets continue to pump out anti-Russian propaganda? But that assumes the Cold War was primarily about the US opposing the ideology of communism. It wasn’t. It was, and still is, all about imposing control over the masses so they don’t ever challenge the power structure that deprives them of full democratic rights and decent livelihoods.
In a recent interview, philosopher André Vitchek makes the point that Western politicians and media like the NY Times keep harping on Cold War scare stories about evil foreigners in order “to distract their citizens from thinking about their increasingly limited freedoms and diminishing standards of living.”
The Cold War continues, and anti-Russia hysteria is but a distraction, as was the anti-Soviet hysteria. The aim is to distract the public from the real Cold War which is a war by the elites against democracy ever being actually realized among the masses.
I doubt that any event in human history has been as thoroughly discussed and documented as the Second World War, the gigantic global struggle that ended three generations ago and shaped our modern world. Elements of that conflict have probably been the subject of hundreds of thousands of books over the decades along with countless articles in newspapers and magazines, and they still pervade our electronic media on a daily basis. Moreover, the story told by nearly all of these authors seems generally consistent, thereby appearing to constitute a very solid fabric of historical reality.
Yet there exists strong evidence that this factual consistency is more apparent than real, with those writers who substantially deviate from the accepted framework having long been denied distribution via mainstream channels of information. The growth of the Internet over the last two decades began bringing disturbing anomalies to my attention, and I gradually recognized this broader problem, which became the basis of my American Pravda articles published over the last few years.
As I described in one of my articles, as early as 1940 some of America’s most prominent and highly-regarded journalists and academics were purged from public life because they maintained their intellectual integrity while most of their peer-group bent to the prevailing ideological winds. When those who dispute a particular view of events quickly disappear from all public discussions, this may naturally intimidate the remainder, while any subsequent consistency becomes a synthetic artifact of selection-bias. And since the vast majority of later writers learn their histories within this sharply-restricted framework, the false reality they absorb gradually becomes self-perpetuating over time.
Many of the individuals cast out by the media for their discordant views had once stood at the pinnacle of public influence, and their thoughtful writings often continued long after their national audiences had been eliminated. Taken together, their works provide a perspective radically different from that of our official histories.
Over the last two years, many of my articles have used these sources to reconstruct what may be a more accurate history of the Second World War, and I recently drew upon my findings to publish American Pravda: Understanding World War II. This article is intended to provide a reasonably compact but comprehensive counter-narrative to our official histories of the central event of the twentieth century. Even 20,000 words of text hardly seems excessive when it seeks to challenge and rebut so many tens of millions of pages written on the other side.
The early response to this very long piece has certainly been quite heartening. In just over two weeks it has attracted more readership than almost any of our other website articles have accumulated over the last six months, while also provoking well over 200,000 words of commentary, much of it quite detailed and thoughtful.
Historical analysis is not entirely an intellectual exercise since it may often shed an important light on present-day events of great importance. Once we begin to accept that there is considerable evidence that the history of the twentieth century believed by nearly all Americans may be in serious error and perhaps actually inverted, we naturally become far more willing to question our ongoing official narratives on important foreign and domestic policy matters. Moreover, the past media purges of dissenting academics and journalists allows us to more easily recognize the exact same developments taking place today, sometimes with very grave consequences.
Consider the case of Stephen F. Cohen. With an academic career at Princeton and New York University that stretches back for more than a half-century, Prof. Cohen certainly ranks as one of our most eminent Russia scholars, and his presence had loomed very large throughout the Reagan Era and afterward, with his Sovieticus column being a regular mid-1980s feature of The Nation magazine, America’s left-liberal flagship publication.
Yet with the Cold War against Russia now recently revived in perhaps an even more dangerous and destructive form by his former liberal Democratic Party allies, his views seem almost nowhere to be found in the mainstream media organs that shape the reality of our ruling policy-elites. Instead, the ignorant journalists who function as our unofficial gatekeepers have crudely castigated him as one of Putin’s “American Dupes.”
In recent years, his regular appearances on the John Batchelor Show of WABC radio have represented one of his few remaining public platforms, and I’m very pleased to have recently made arrangements to republish all of these hundreds of broadcasts on our website, together with their brief descriptive summaries and several of Prof. Cohen’s other articles from this same period, thereby making this important material conveniently available to an additional audience at a very dangerous time. With Russiagate having finally collapsed only to be succeeded by Ukrainegate, I would particularly recommend his February interview entitled “How the Russiagate Investigation Is Sovietizing American Politics.”
Along with providing a helpful new distribution channel for such an eminent academic scholar, we have begun doing the same for Whitney Webb of MintPress News, whose remarkable investigative work has begun attracting a great deal of attention over the last year, breaking important new ground in the Jeffrey Epstein case and other controversial matters. Her long, copiously-reported articles have revealed important facts regularly excluded from the mainstream media, setting a new standard of courageous journalism.
The Swedish Navy’s fruitless hunt for a Russian sub was reportedly based on an inconclusive analysis of intelligence which was overstated under pressure from the government. MPs only learned of it after boosting defense spending.
In October 2014, Sweden was gripped by spy fever. People were watching relentlessly as its military was hunting for an elusive Russian mini-sub off Stockholm. The hunters returned empty-handed, but top brass assured the public that it was not for lack of a foreign intrusion. It took months for Swedish officials to acknowledge that the intercepted “Russian submarine distress signal” that triggered the hunt actually came from a local civilian boat. Though some of the failed hunters insisted otherwise.
Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD)says some details of how Sweden got into this embarrassment is yet to be revealed and offered information provided by a military insider. According to its source, the analysis of a sound signature, which was touted as definitive evidence of a submarine presence in Swedish waters, was actually preliminary.
“The criteria for a confirmed submarine are rock hard, and they were not fulfilled,” the insider said, explaining that under regular circumstances the military would not go public with such intelligence at all.
SvD’s source suggests that the Swedish military command had been pressured by both the national government and some of its fellow generals to go along with the narrative. Interestingly, when the evidence was properly reviewed and a classified final report into the hunt was compiled in May 2015, nobody rushed to share the conclusions with the Swedish lawmakers.
Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist allegedly waited until September 2015 before reporting to the Swedish Parliament, SvD noted, which conveniently happened after it approved a hefty $700 million hike in defense spending over five years.
If it looks like a ruse to secure extra funding and stir anti-Russian sentiment in a non-NATO nation and swims like a ruse to secure extra funding and stir anti-Russian sentiment in a non-NATO nation, then it’s probably just an honest mistake. No hard feelings.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s final report on ‘Russian interference’ in the 2016 US presidential election is short on evidence and long on reheated assertions and innuendo from ‘experts’ exposed as actual election meddlers.
There is little new in the 85-page, partially redacted document released on Tuesday, that has not been made public by the committee previously – including the accusations that “Russia” focused on stoking anger and resentment among African-Americans, for example.
There is a reason for that. By the committee’s own admission, “much of this Volume’s analysis is derived from” the work of two Technical Advisory Groups (TAG), which produced two public reports back in December 2018, to the same kind of fawning press coverage the report is receiving now.
Not Surprisingly, the report’s “findings” are being cited as conclusive proof that Democrats were right and President Donald Trump was wrong about 2016, Russia, Ukraine and the US presidential election.
The only trouble with that is that the committee provides no actual evidence for any of its claims – only assertions. For example, their description of the Internet Research Agency – the “Russian troll farm” – is basically copied over from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of a dozen of its alleged members. Yet a federal judge presiding over the case ruled back in May that allegations cannot be treated as established evidence or conclusion, coming close to finding Mueller’s prosecutors in contempt.
Another document presented as evidence is the January 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment,” the disingenuously named work of a small group of people, hand-picked by the Obama administration’s DNI and chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA – all of whom, except for the NSA, have since been implicated in what seems to be a campaign to spy on Trump, delegitimize his presidency, and have him impeached.
The Senate report also quotes testimonies from Obama aides such as Ben Rhodes – helpfully redacted of course – Gen. Philip Breedlove, the NATO commander who tried to set off a war with Russia; professional “Russian bot” hunters like Clint Watts and Thomas Rid; and NATO’s “Strategic Communications Center of Excellence.”
The best part, however, has to be the reliance on New Knowledge, presented as “a cybersecurity company dedicated to protecting the public sphere from disinformation attacks.” In reality, New Knowledge was exposed by the New York Times as the outfit that actually ran bots and disinformation operations during the 2017 Alabama special election for the US Senate, targeting Republican candidate Roy Moore on behalf of Democrats – while blaming Russia!
In an internal memo, New Knowledge executives boasted how they “orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.”
The other TAG, led by British academics and researchers, found that the activity of ‘Russian trolls’ increased after the election – by 238 percent on Instagram, 59 percent on Facebook, 52 percent on Twitter, and 84 percent on YouTube. So it was influencing elections… retroactively?
Left unsaid was that the absolute quantity of “Russian” posts was minuscule, a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to the billions of social media posts generated and consumed by the US electorate during the campaign.
These are the people who “significantly informed the Committee’s understanding of Russia’s social media-predicated attack against our democracy,” as this week’s report puts it.
Ever since Hillary Clinton blamed “Russian hackers” for the revelations of corruption within the DNC in July 2016, the Washington establishment has been eager to blame Moscow for all the ills of the US political system, real or imagined. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report seems to be nothing more than an attempt to reheat the long-cold corpse of a conspiracy that should have been buried with the Mueller Report and allowed to rest in peace.
No one like to be on the losing side of a political battle. Until recently the emotional reaction of a loser was expressed through frustration or anger. Now we’re told that the experience of political defeat can make you ill!
According to sections of the medical profession, people do not simply get angry at political outcomes they don’t like. They claim that events like the Brexit referendum can make you anxious and ill.
Last week the British Medical Journal reported that anxiety about Brexit may have triggered a patient’s psychotic episode. The author of the report, “Acute transient psychotic disorder precipitated by Brexit vote,” claims that “political events can be a source of significant psychological stress.” According to this report, the mental health of a 40-year old man deteriorated rapidly following the announcement of the result of Brexit.
A closer inspection of this report raises questions about the legitimacy of the claim of a Brexit induced psychosis. Apparently, the man has previous history of a similar episode, related to stress at work. So it is likely that the main connection between the man’s psychotic disorder and the Brexit vote is that they occurred at the same time.
What’s important about the BMJ report is that it legitimizes the pre-existing campaign to blame Brexit for people’s mental health problems. It has been evident for some time that sections of the hard-core Remain community have decided to play the illness card.
During the past two years I have encountered numerous acquaintances who reported that their mental health has been severely compromised by the outcome of the Referendum. This sentiment is continually communicated through the media. “Brexit has triggered my anxiety and depressions – and I am not the only one” – declared a journalist in the pro-Remain Metro.
And the numbers of Brexit sufferers never ceases to grow. In case you did not known it: one in three of us is now suffering from Brexit anxiety, according to a recent study by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Predictably, numerous so-called experts and therapists have jumped on the ‘Brexit makes-me-sick’ bandwagon. It is difficult not to feel ill after reading Elle’s “9 Ways to Beat Brexit Anxiety: According To two Psychologists.” With headlines like, “Brexit Anxiety: How To Look After Your Mental Health During Political Chaos,” it is not surprising that some of their readers will reinterpret their political disappointment as a mental health condition.
Advice directed at mentally disturbed millennials is far from neutral. It communicates the idea that if you have not been made ill by Brexit then there is something really wrong with you. So what we have here is a case of political messaging masquerading as helpful advice. Elle’s “9 Ways to Beat Brexit Anxiety” assumes that if you are a millennial then you are likely to have been messed up by Brexit. Either wittingly or unwittingly, publications raising concern about Brexit induced mental illness are actually inciting people to become ill.
Confusing political problems with medical ones has a corrosive impact on public life. It assumes that people lack the intellectual and psychological resources to deal with setbacks and defeats.
A mature democracy should help its citizens to deal with the difficult challenges that they will encounter in the course of their political life. Unfortunately, sections of British society have opted to medicalize it instead, turning citizens into potential patients.
Professor Frank Furedi is a sociologist and author. His ‘How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear In the 21st Century’ is published by Bloomsbury.
Climate alarmists Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe have been caught using dubious, revisionist temperature data in their attempt, as one Climategate email author put it, to “deal a mortal blow” to the extensively documented Medieval Warm Period.
Before climate change became a political issue, it was scientifically well-established that a significant global warming event occurred between approximately 900 AD and 1200 AD. For example, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) First Assessment Report presented a temperature history and visual graph documenting that the Medieval Warm Period existed and that it brought temperatures at least as warm as today (at pg. 7). Multiple peer-reviewed studies provided additional confirmation of the Medieval Warm Period.
The warming climate of the Medieval Warm Period spurred abundant crop production, fewer extreme droughts and floods, growing human population, and improving living standards. The Little Ice Age terminated the Medieval Warm Period and brought devastating weather extremes, widespread crop failures, famines, plagues like the Black Death, and a contracting human population. (For a good summary of the extensive benefits of the Medieval Warm Period and the devastating harms of the Little Ice Age, see the excellent book, “In the Wake of the Plage: The Black Death and the World It Created.”)
The existence of large historical temperature fluctuations, warmer temperatures than today, and many documented benefits of those warmer temperatures presented a powerful obstacle in alarmists’ attempts to brand our current modest warming an unprecedented climate crisis. One of the many embarrassing emails leaked in the Climategate scandal showed how alarmists deliberately set a goal of eliminating the historical existence of the Medieval Warm Period. Alarmist climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck wrote in an email to fellow alarmist Keith Briffa, “I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.”
Also, scientist David Deming testified to Congress that a prominent figure working in the field of climate change asserted to him, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
We have often been told that the science is settled. Apparently, that doesn’t apply to scientific data and evidence invalidating climate alarmism. Mann last month favorably retweeted an assertion that present temperatures are the warmest they have been for at least the past 5,000 years. Hayhoe earlier this year gave a presentation in which she presented a graph (without any scientific citation) asserting temperatures steadily and consistently declined for 4,000 years – without any significant variation – prior to the warming of the past 120 years that finally and mercifully brought an end to the Little Ice Age (at 7:41).
As documented above, the existence of substantial historical climate variations such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were scientifically well-documented and not in dispute before climate activism politicized the issue. Alarmist scientists were on record searching for justifications to eliminate these inconvenient climate variations that blew gaping holes in their alarmist theories. Now, conveniently, alarmists like Mann and Hayhoe claim the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and other well-documented warm and cold periods simply did not exist.
An old sarcastic saying goes, “When the facts doesn’t fit the theory, change the facts.” Mann and Hayhoe provide perfect real-world examples of such perniciousness. Powerful scientific evidence supported near-universal agreement about the existence of the Medieval Warm Period. Then Mann and Hayhoe, supported by little or no compelling evidence, waved a magic wand and made the Medieval Warm Period conveniently disappear.
Climate realists, however, will stick with the powerful scientific evidence, the long-established scientific “consensus,” the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the findings of the IPCC. Sorry, Mann and Hayhoe, but you have been caught red-handed.
Joseph Mifsud, born in 1960, is a bit of a mystery, in the sense that he has numerous connections to organisations such as the European Union, you can find him in multiple locations, but the moment he was connected to the Spygate scenario, everybody just knew him as the Russian who tried to hire George Papadopoulos for nefarious reasons. Even though he is Maltese.
“I am a member of the European Council On Foreign Relations. And you know which is the only Foundation I am a member of? The Clinton Foundation. Between you and me, my thinking is left-leaning. But I predicted Trump’s victory as well as Brexit. Everyone of us wants peace. If the Governments don’t talk to each other, we citizens must keep talking.” — Joseph Mifsud
At unknown points,
Mifsud studied at the University of Malta, which he graduated from in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in education. Mifsud also graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in pedagogy in 1989, and then in 1995, Mifsud also graduated from Queens University with a master’s degree in philosophy.
Mifsud later studied at the University of Reading, where he earned his doctorate. Mifsud also became fluent in Maltese, French, Italian, Arabic and English, and has knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Slovenian.
From 1996 to 1998, Mifsud served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malta, and also served as Malta’s representative to the Council of Europe in Education and at Unesco.
In 1997, Mifsud was appointed as the Head of the Department of Education at the University of Malta.
Mifsud has also served as an adviser to the European Union, the European Union Parliament, the Parliament of Malta, organisations in Italy, Spain, Africa, and the Commonwealth Law Bulletin.
On May 1, 2004, Malta officially joined the European Union. Around this time, Mifsud was placed in charge of establishing the European Programmes Unit, and also helped during the negotiations of Malta’s entry into the organisation.
In 2006, Mifsud taught a summer class with Katerina Galanaki, which was attended by Matthew Caruana Galizia, the son of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
From October 1, 2006 to August 30, 2007, Mifsud served as the Head of the Private Secretariat for Dr. Michael Frendo.
On November 15, 2007, Mifsud received a letter from the University of Malta, as an audit done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggested that he had mismanaged funds during his time teaching.
On April 9, 2008, the Bank of Valetta won an order and garnished Mifsud’s wages.
On June 9, 2008, the Paris Summit establishedEMUNI and Euro-Mediterranean higher education.
In November 2008, Mifsud was elected as the first President of the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in Slovenia by European and Mediterranean, Rectors and Presidents of Universities. During this time, Mifsud also helped pioneer the Euro-Mediterranean Professional School.
On November 26, 2008, the University’s General Assembly meeting was held in Barcelona, Spain, where 115 members from 32 states adopted the Universidy statute and elected the institutional bodies.
In February 2009, EMUNI University officially became a legal entity in Slovenia.
By April 2009, Mifsud was the representative of Malta on the board of the Bologna Follow-up Group, the Erasmus Mundus Committee and the Tempus Committee, Malta’s Socrates Sub-Committee For Higher- Education and the “Joint Research Center” of the European Commission.
On April 22, 2009, Ian Mundell published the article “Bridging the Mediterranean” in Politico, which featured an interview with Mifsud.
Between June 21–22, 2009, Mifusd and Strobe Talbott attended “G8 and Beyond”, which was convened by the Brookings Institution, Aspen, Club de Madrid and Link Campus.
On June 14, 2010, Mifsud gave the opening address at the 2nd EMUNI Research Souk — the Euro-Mediterranean Student Research Multi-Conference — hosted by the EMUNI University.
On June 29, 2010, Mifsud met with Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean Ahmad Masa’deh at the Headquarters of the Secretairat in the Palacio Real de Pedralbes in Barcelona, Spain.
Between October 20–23, 2010, Mifsud attended the EUA Annual Conference in Palermo, Italy, where he held talks with representatives of EMUNI partner institutions.
On October 24, 2010, Mifsud participated as part of the round table session on Teaching and Learning Diplomacy as part of the Rome Diplomatic Festival, which was attended by others including Nabil Ayad.
Between December 11–13, 2011, Mifsud attended the 4th Global UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Doha.
In 2012, Mifsud became the Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, which is affiliated with Scotland’s University of Stirling, as he left the Euro-Mediterranean University. The same year, the London Academy of Diplomacy received the award “Diplomat of the Year” from Diplomat Magazine. At some point during this, Mifsud also joined the Leading Board for the Albanian Diplomatic Academy.
Simona Mangiante was also introduced to Mifsud during this time by Gianni Pittella while she worked in Brussels as an attorney specialised in child abduction cases.
At the same, Simona worked for Mairead McGuinness and Roberta Angelilli, and she worked as an administrator to the Home Affairs Committee under Martin Schulz.
The London Academy of Diplomacy has a total of 36 faculty members, which includes former diplomats. In September and January each year, students are accepted, with the total usually amounting to 150 new students. The London Academy of Diplomacy is also open to organising visits to the Houses of Parliament, the Commonwealth Secretariat, numerous organisations in London, the Hague, the European Parliament, NATO, the European Union Headquarters and the United Nations.
In the summer of 2012, the London Academy of Diplomacy established cooperation with the Faculty of Global Processes of Moscow State University.
In October 2012, Mifsud met with Enzo Scotti — the President of Link University — Professor Nabil Ayad, Professor Claire Smith and numerous Italian Generals for a training programme on international security, which was arranged by Link Campus University and the London Academy of Diplomacy in Rome, Italy.
In 2012, Mifsud attended Globalistics 2013 at Moscow University, where he suggested that Moscow University join a project to reform Link Campus University in Rome.
In March 2013, Mifsud owed roughly EUR 39,000.00 to the EMUNI University in Slovenia for expenses claimed during his tenure.
On April 3, 2013, Mifsud and Thomas Childs attended the Global Economic Forum: Best Practices in Trade and Investment Promotion in London, which was hosted by the International Business & Diplomatic Exchange (IBDE).
On May 15, 2013, Inverhold Ltd. was founded by Dr. Stephan Roh in London, England.
Between June 11–13, 2013, Mifsud and Nabil Ayad attended the “Global, Regional and National Actors in the Governace of the Atom: A Focus on Europe and the Middle East” international conference at the Academy of Global Governance in Florence, Italy. They presided over a simulation exercise, which was assisted by visiting professor of the London Academy of Diplomacy, Sameh Aoul Enein.
On July 2, 2013, His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber visited the London Academy of Diplomacy to discuss cooperation between the organisation and the United Arab Emirates, which was attended by Mifsud, Nabil Ayad and Riad Nourallah.
In August 2013, Mifsud received an honorary professorship from the University of East Anglia.
In 2014, the Rome Academy of Diplomacy was founded, and Mifsud played a vital role to its development. Dr. Stephan Roh also became a visiting lecturer at the London Academy of Diplomacy, and bought Link Campus University. In return, Mifsud became a consultant at Roh’s legal firm.
Also in 2014, a Russian intern named Natalia Kutepova-Jamrom visited his office after having worked in the Russian Government as a legislative aide, and she later introduced Mifsud to numerous Russian diplomats and scholars, and secured an invitation to the Valdai Discussion Club.
In January 2014, the University of East Anglia ended their arrangement to validate London Academy of Diplomacy degree courses, with the arrangement then transferred to the University of Stirling.
Between April 24–2015, 2014, Mifsud attended the Global University Summit in Moscow, Russia.
On May 29, 2014, Mifsud met with Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko at the Residence, where Mifsud presented his views on the aftermath of the Global University Summit, and discussed UK-Russia relations.
In mid-November 2014, Mifsud visited Washington, DC, where he attended a lecture at the American University on “Diplomacy and Development in a Global Environment”, which was sponsored by Australia’s Program On International Organizations, Law and Diplomacy. During this time, Mifsud spoke with The Washington Diplomat’s Larry Luxner.
On February 23, 2015, Mifsud and Falah Mustafa gave a lecture at the London Academy of Diplomacy about the Islamic State and the future of Kurdistan and Iraq.
On March 12, 2015, the London Academy of Diplomacy hosted the panel “Diplomacy and Social Media”, which was attended by Mifsud, Christian Sys, Sir George Reid and Dr. Martyn Bond.
On April 30, 2015, Euripides Evriviades hosted the conversation “Cyprus, the EU and the Eastern Mediterranean” at the London Academy of Diplomacy, which was introduced by Mifsud.
Between September 8–10, 2015, the XXV Economic Forum was hosted in Krynica-Zdrój, Poland, which was attended by Mifsud on the third day.
On September 11, 2015, Mifsud attended the Senate of the Republic in Piazza della Minerva, Rome, with others including Vincenzo Scotti and Gianni Pittella.
In late October 2015, Mifsud proposed to Anna at a restaurant which overlooked the Kremlin in Moscow during Anna’s sister’s birthday.
On December 8, 2015, Ben Carson announced his foreign policy adviser team, which included both George Birnbaum and George Papadopoulos.
In 2016, Simona’s contract came to an end. As such, Pissetti suggested employment with Mifsud in London, which led to Mifsud offering her a job at the London Centre of International Law Practice, located at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Simona was promised £2,500.00 per month from a colleague of Mifsud.
On January 29, 2016, Mifsud sent an e-mail to Anna, where he requested the engagement ring and assorted items to be returned to his Rome or United Kingdom address due to Anna cheating on him.
On March 6, 2016, George Papadopoulos learned that he would become a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.
Between March 8–9, 2016, Mifsud attended the World Summit On Uncontrolled Migration at the Adelaide Convention Centre in South Australia.
On March 10, 2016, Mifsud hosted a breakfast on behalf of Access European Universities in Adelaide, Australia.
On March 14, 2016, in Italy, Mifsud met with George Papadopoulos, and although initially distant in the conversation, Mifsud became more interested when he learned that Papadopoulos had joined the Trump campaign.
On March 21, 2016, Donald Trump visited the The Washington Post’s headquarters, where he introduced his foreign policy team — including Papadopoulos — to the editorial board.
A few days later, on March 24, 2016, Olga Polonskaya (neé Vinogradova) met and discussed with Mifsud the possibility of an internship. Shortly after this, Papadopoulos met with both Mifsud and Polonskaya, who Mifsud introduced as President Vladimir Putin’s niece, at a café in London. Mifsud also offered to introduce Papadopoulos to the Russian Ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko.
“Mifsud underlines that he and Papadopoulos met three or four times overall. ‘He came here in Italy, in Rome, with seven other experts of international relations working for the London Centre of International Law Practice. We were dining and, if I remember well, he announced that we would join Trump’s electoral campaign team. After that, we kept in touch via email or when we subsequently met in person. But, let’s be clear: the Russians didn’t ask me to meet Papadopoulos. Mr. Papadopoulos asked me for contacts in several areas: I proposed someone in the Arabian Gulf, then in Latin America, a hot issue for Trump after his remarks on the wall at the border with Mexico, then in Russia and the European Council. They chose Russia as they were interested in sanctions against Moscow, NATO, Ukraine and a more stable relationship with Russia. A topic very sensitive also for the Russians.’” — Repubblica
After the meeting, Polonskaya texted her brother, Sergei Vinogradov, about the meeting, as she had understood half of the conversation. The text message read: “Because my English was bad”.
Elsewhere, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to seven members of the Trump campaign in an attempt to arrange a meeting between the campaign and the Russians, with the title of the e-mail being “Meeting with Russian Leadership — Including Putin”, which also discussed his meeting with Mifsud. The proposal was dismissed by the campaign, with concerns raised by Sam Clovis and Charles Kubic.
On March 31, 2016, Papadopoulos attended a national security meeting in Washington, DC with the foreign policy advisers of the Trump campaign and Trump himself. As he introduced himself, he mentioned connections which may assist in arranging a meeting between Trump and President Putin.
On April 10, 2016, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to Polonskaya.
The next day, on April 11, 2016, Polonskaya responded to Papadopoulos’s e-mail, where she suggested she would help build relations between the United States and Russia, which led to a discussion between Papadopoulos, Polonskaya and Mifsud about arranging a foreign policy trip to Russia.
JOSEPH MIFSUD: “This is already been agreed. I am flying to Moscow on the 18th for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma.”
OLGA POLONSKAYA: “I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request… As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced.” — The Indictment of George Papadopoulos
On April 13, 2016, Mifsud and Sir George Reid hosted a public talk titled “Controlled or uncontrolled migration — a fortress EU or a global response?” at the University of Stirling.
On April 18, 2016, Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos via e-mail to Ivan Timofeev. Timofeev then said he had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This led to numerous Skype conversations between both Papadopoulos and Timofeev.
“At some point, he started asking whether it would be possible to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin ‘or some other high-ranking Russian politicians.’ Our conversations made it clear that George was not well acquainted with the Russian foreign political landscape. You obviously can’t just go and set up a meeting with the president, for instance. Things just aren’t done that way.” — Ivan Timofeev, August 21, 2017
On April 19, 2016, Mifsud attended a discussion at the Valdai Club, moderated by Ivan Timofeev, with other attendees including Stephan Roh and Igor Tomberg.
On April 22, 2016, Timofeev e-mailed Papadopoulos and thanked him for their talk, and suggested that they meet in either London or Moscow — Papadopoulos suggested a meeting in London between the two of them and Mifsud.
On April 25, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailedStephen Miller, where he again pushed for the idea of a meeting between Trump and President Putin.
On April 26, 2016, Mifsud and Papadopoulos met with each other again at a hotel in London, where Mifsud mentioned that he had returned from Moscow and a meeting with Russian Government officials, during which he learned of the existence of dirt on Hillary Clinton held by the Russians.
“Roh claims that Mifsud has done nothing wrong and was set up — and denies having ever told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Clinton.” — BuzzFeed News
“Ok. But what about the emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton? ‘The dirty job’ offered to Papadopoulos? ‘I don’t know. I strongly deny any discussion of mine about secrets concerning Hillary Clinton. I swear it on my daughter. I don’t know anyone belonging to the Russian government: the only Russian I know is Ivan Timofeev, director of the think tank ‘Russian International Affairs Council’. Which is based at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. ‘But this is meaningless’, Mifsud says.” — Repubblica
On April 27, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed both Miller and a high-ranking official separately at the Trump campaign, where he again pushed for a trip to Moscow.
On April 30, 2016, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to Mifsud and thanked him for his assistance in potentially arranging a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian Government.
On May 4, 2016, Timofeev sent an e-mail to both Papadopoulos and Mifsud, where he said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were open to cooperation, and that Papadopoulos should meet with the North America Desk when he is next in Moscow. Papadopoulos then forwarded the e-mail chain to the high-ranking campaign official for guidance.
On May 5, 2016, Papadopoulos had a phone call with Clovis, and then forwarded the same e-mail chain to him.
On May 13, 2016, Mifsud e-mailed Papadopoulos with an update on their recent conversations.
“We will continue to liaise through you with the Russian counterparts in terms of what is needed for a high level meeting of Mr. Trump with the Russian Federation.” — Joseph Mifsud
The next day, on May 14, 2016, Papadopolous e-mailed the high-ranking campaign official and said that the Russian Government was open to hosting Trump in Russia.
On May 21, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed another high-ranking Trump campaign official, which had the subject line “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump”, which included the May 4, 2016 e-mail chain.
Between May 21–23, 2016, Mifsud attended the 16th Doha Forum in Qatar, where he represented the London Academy of Diplomacy. The event was also attended by Tobias Ellwood, MP.
On June 1, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed the high-ranking Trump campaign official, who then redirected him to the campaign supervisor. Papadopoulos then e-mailed the campaign supervisor about the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking a meeting with Trump, and whether or not he should ignore it.
On June 19, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed the high-ranking Trump campaign official again, as Timofeev had suggested to him that a campaign representative could go to Moscow instead to attend the meetings instead of Trump himself.
In July 2016, Mifsud lost his honorary professorship from the University of East Anglia.
On July 21, 2016, Mifsud attended the graduation of students from the London Academy of Diplomacy.
On August 15, 2016, the campaign supervisor sent an e-mail to Papadopoulos and said that he and another foreign policy adviser should visit Moscow and accept the trip offer from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In September 2016, Simona started to work at the London Centre of International Law Practice, where she received a LinkedIn message from George Papadopoulos, who liked her photograph and noted that they have connections to the same place of employment, followed by an attempt to arrange a meeting with her, which fell through.
In late October 2016, Simona sent an e-mail to Mifsud, where she complained about her employment and how she had been ‘working for nothing’ as she was paying rent on her flat in South Kensington using savings.
On October 27, 2016, Mifsud attended the “International Law and the Territorial Gains and Losses of Non-State Armed Groups in Africa and the Middle East” discussion at Gray’s Inn, which was hosted by the London Centre of International Law Practice.
On October 29, 2016, at 01:30 A.M., Mifsud responded to Simona from his Stirling University e-mail address in Italian from London, having returned from Moscow.
“Dear Simona,
I hope you are fine… I was in Moscow… Now I’m in London. Can we meet in person? I’m here until Tuesday night.
A hug.
J” — The Guardian
In November 2016, Simona quit her position at the London Centre of International Law Practice, having received zero pay. Her work iPhone stopped working afterwards.
At the start of February 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found Mifsud in Washington, DC.
Between February 8–11, 2017, Mifsud attended Global Ties’ Unity In Community national meeting at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, a non-profit organisation with a working relationship with the United States Department of State.
On February 11, 2017, Mifsud sent an e-mail about his conversations with Papadopoulos to agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then left Washington, DC.
On February 16, 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Papadopoulos again, this time with Papadopoulos’s counsel present. Papadopoulos offered to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In March 2017, George and Simona met each other in New York, where they started to date each other.
On March 20, 2017, Mifsud sent a text to Anna to inform her that he would chair a meeting in Saudi Arabia on international security.
The next day, on March 21, 2017, Mifsud sent a photograph to Anna of buildings in Saudi Arabia which showed the flags of the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“Today, there is no sign of the London Academy of Diplomacy on Middlesex Street in London. Phone numbers for the organisation that can be found online do not work and websites lead to error messages. A receptionist at the address said the organisation left the premises six months ago.” — Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian, October 31, 2017
In early April 2017, Mifsud and Anna met with each other in Kiev, Ukraine, where Mifsud informed Anna that he had been questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In May 2017, Mifsud started to work as a full-time professional teaching fellow in the politics department at the University of Stirling.
Between May 8–9, 2017, Mifsud attended the G7 International Forum about “Globalization, Inclusion and Sustainability In a Global Century” in Rome, Italy, hosted by Link University Campus and Fondazione Economia Tor Vergata.
On May 12, 2017, Mifsud, Dr. Roh, Vladimir Likhachev and Timofeev held a presentation on the international report “GLOBAL ENERGY 2015–2016”, which was hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council.
The day after, on May 13, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other, where Mifsud accused her of cheating on him after Anna discovered that she was pregnant.
On May 14, 2017, Mifsud and Anna continued to text each other, where Mifsud had moved to celebrate Anna’s pregnancy.
After May 18, 2017, Timofeev was stopped at an airport in the United States by Team Mueller, where he was questioned about his interactions with Papadopoulos.
On May 21, 2017, Mifsud and Secretary Ashton Carter attended the Riyadh Forum On Countering Extremism and Fighting Terrorism in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Between June 26–27, 2017, Mifsud and George Soros attended the annual council meeting for the European Council On Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Germany.
On July 10, 2017, Mifsud met with Ernest Chernukhin, a representative of the Russian Embassy in London.
On July 27, 2017, Papadopoulos was arrested at Dulles International Airport upon his arrival.
In August 2017, Mifsud e-mailedThe Washington Post and stated that he had no contact or history with the Russian Government.
On August 21, 2017, Timofeev was interviewed by Gazeta about his involvement with the 2016 presidential election.
Around the start of September 2017, Polonskaya contacted Prasenjit Kumar Singh after they had met at Link Campus University, where she requested for the two of them to meet. Singh and Polonskaya then met to discuss the translation of Singh’s website for the London Executive School from English into Russian, which Polonskaya then proceeded to do.
On September 29, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other about Anna’s pregnancy and Mifsud’s failing health and triple bypass.
In October 2017, BuzzFeed Newscontacted Anna in Kiev, Ukraine, but she refused to discuss her relationship with Mifsud.
On October 5, 2017, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the same time, Simona Mangiante received a visit from an agent of Team Mueller while at George’s family home in Chicago, where he served a subpoena signed by Aaron Zelinsky. Later, she visited the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago Field Office, which led to a 2-and-a-half hour interrogation by the agent that served the subpoena and a female agent.
“Among other things she would not discuss with the Guardian, the FBI was interested in her relationship with Papadopoulos. Was it genuine? ‘They asked: ‘Do you love him?’ I replied: ‘yes’. They replied: ‘He [Papadopoulos] is lucky’.’” — The Guardian
On October 19, 2017, Mifsud attended a fundraising dinner in Reading West, which was also attended by Alok Sharma and Boris Johnson, who was a guest speaker at the event. During this time, Mifsud met with both Sharma and Johnson, as Mifsud had planned to speak with Johnson about Brexit. Mifsud when then photographed with Johnson and Prasenjit Kumar Singh.
On October 27, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other about Mifsud’s failing health.
ANNA: “Hello” 14:25
ANNA: “Someone from London journalist asks about you.” 14:26
JOSEPH MIFSUD: “Do not reply please” 15:23
ANNA: “so you do not get sick? and you were in Rome 2 days ago?” 16:58 — BuzzFeed News
On November 9, 2017, Ali Watkins — with contributions from Josh Meyer and Naomi O’Leary — published the article “Mysterious Putin ‘niece’ has a name” in Politico.
In October 2018, Dr. Roh sent a photograph of Mifsud, taken on May 21, 2018, to BuzzFeed News and The Associated Press, among many other organisations.
On November 12, 2018, Dr. Roh sent an e-mail to BuzzFeed News, where he informed the organisation that they were attempting to arrange a testimonial in front of the United States Senate for Mifsud.
In early 2018, Timofeev met with reporters from CNN in his Moscow office, where they discussed Papadopoulos and Mifsud’s meetings, and his own communications with Papadopoulos.
In January 2018, Simona met with Luke Harding and Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian, where they interviewed her about her visit from Team Mueller in October 2017.
In August 2018, a reporter from The Associated Pressvisited Malta in an attempt to track down information about Mifsud and his whereabouts.
On August 13, 2018, a reporter from The Associated Pressvisited the home of Mifsud’s wife, Janet, who retreated into her home upon realising that the reporter was from the media.
On August 14, 2018, Janet sent an e-mail to the reporter from The Associated Press, where she stated that she had nothing to comment about.
Experts say don’t believe news headlines that start with “Experts say.” And, in this case, the expert is me. Find out more in this week’s edition of #PropagandaWatch with James Corbett.
A new documentary, based on an interview with a self-confessed member of the Glennane Gang, gives some insights into allegations that British military intelligence was behind a shocking murder plot to cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
In a documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glennane Gang, John Weir, a former officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), alleges that British intelligence tried to persuade paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to attack a Catholic primary school at Belleeks in County Armagh.
Weir claimed that the UVF was urged to kill children and teachers in retaliation for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, in which gunmen stopped a minibus carrying twelve workmen and shot them; only one person survived despite having been shot 18 times.
“The plan that was decided on was to shoot up a school in Belleeks”, he said, adding that the British intelligence plot was to make the situation in Northern Ireland “spiral out of control”. … continue
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