Gemstone
In Lobster 19, I noted the incremental addition of disinformation to the original Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File. As it turned out, the process was further down that road than I had imagined. From Owen Wilkes, New Zealand’s leading parapolitics researcher, comes the news that a version is in circulation there. Now described as ‘Skeleton Key to the Gemstone file, 1932-86’, this has been circulating for 3 years, expanded considerably to include, for example, the Nugan Hand bank revelations. With it comes a 24 page ‘New Zealand section’. Almost none of this is intelligible to me, but Wilkes comments that this section is ‘amazingly detailed and represents an enormous amount of well-informed research. It tends to be factually correct within paragraphs while the conspiratorial connections between paragraphs are mostly pure paranoid fantasy. ….Overall it is extremely right-wing, in the international- Jewish-conspiracy mould.’
Oct., 1983: Brierley takes over NZFP through Watties helped by newly appointed chairman Papps.Papps also chairman NZ Railways and presided over transport deregulation whose major beneficiaries include Watties and Freightways — managing director Pettigrew and director Lang also both on the NZFP board with Papps.
Papps also responsible for the railway electrification program with big contracts for Cory Wright Salmon whose directors include I.L. McKay — also on the board of NZFP.
Late 1983: AMEX (SOCAL) gives Gulf Oil a share in the Martha Hill gold ripoff bonanza by selling 15% of its holdings to Brierley through Goodman. Oil Co’s say that only $870 million worth of minerals in Martha Hill while true figure closer to $3 billion.
Jan., 1984: Brierley and Elliot begin moves to monopolise the food industry in A’asia by merging Goodman and the Elders group, while Brierley sells 10% of Watties to the NZ Dairy Board — stage set for land takeover and establishment of the Corporate Farm.
Bunting and Brierley merge with Brierley taking direct control of Ariadne (Aust).
New company floated — Equiticorp. Registered in Hong Kong by chairman Hawkins to extend ‘laundry’ operations with Security Pacific National Bank. Hawkins previously associated with Khassoggi when Corporate Secretary of Marac, and linked with Renouf through their stockholdings in CBA Finance which also a partner in Commercial Pacific Trust with United California Bank. Hawkins forms umbrella company with Chase Corp — Jedi Investments and Teltherm and begins settings up a maze of crossholding companies, dummy corporations etc to disguise operations. Brierley retains his connections through his Charter Corp’s holding in Teltherm.
Keston College
In Lobster 19 we referred to Keston College as a probable MI6 operation. One of our readers had the wit to send our reference to Keston to the BBC, asking for comments. The editor of the Radio 4 programme ‘Sunday’ replied that ‘It is not the first time we have encountered such suggestions, and we are doing what we can to look into them.’
The Workers’ Revolutionary Party, MI5 and Libya
In The Bulletin, the US weekly paper of the Workers’ League, July 20 edition, there is an exchange of letters between Ken Livingstone MP and the leaders of two of the fragments (there are now apparently 9, in all) from the WRP’s split of 85/86. Livingstone had claimed at a meeting on March 4 1990 that MI5 had caused the WRP disintegration, using one of their agents who was ‘a high-ranking member of the leadership’. In a letter to David Hyland, leader of one of the fragments, he stated that ‘copies of some Special Branch reports on [WRP] meetings had been made available to one of my advisors’. Livingstone comments in a letter to Cliff Slaughter, leader of another of the fragments, that ‘democratic centralist organisations are particularly vulnerable to internal disruption by MI5/Special Branch because of their traditions of expulsions and their secretive style of operations.’ If any of our readers follow the WRP fragments and has further information on this, please let us know.
The WRP’s great sin in the eyes of the British secret state was, I presume, its financial support by Libya. It seems clear that contact with Libya is taken very seriously by our spooks. Ron Brown MP had visited Libya and he has now been discredited as a result of his affair with Nona Longden. Brown claimed some months ago in the House of Commons that Ms Longden was employed by Defence Systems Ltd, one of the Ministry of Defence’s semi-detached companies, and suggested that he had been set up. The National Union of Mineworkers contacted Libya during the miners’ strike. As this is being written (mid September), it remains unclear what, if anything, messers Scargill and Heathfield will be found guilty of. If it turns out that they are cleared of all charges, then the campaign against them will have to be reinvestigated as an intelligence operation. (It is worth noting here that Steve Dorril suspects it is probably an operation run against the IMO rather than the NUM.) If this campaign is being run by the spooks, then Roger Windsor, the former NUM official who laid the (now forgotten) original allegations of Libyan money, must be a spook. Evidence as yet there is none. However there is a hint. Before joining the NUM Windsor had been employed by the transnational union organisation, Public Services International (PSI). William Blum’s The CIA: a forgotten history (Zed Press, London, 1986) includes a chapter on the joint CIA/MI5 coup run in the sixties against Chedi Jagan, the Prime Minister of British Guyana. In that coup the vehicle used by the Anglo-American spooks was Public Services International. (See Blum pp.118– 121).
Information Wanted
I am trying to research Black (ie of African/Caribbean decent) political organisations in the 1930s and 1940s. All of their papers have disappeared and the PRO is withholding all the files it has not destroyed. Does anybody have any advice as to how to get the PRO to release what it holds? (I’ve tried the proper channels.) Or how to find any of the MI5 and Special Branch men who infiltrated and surveilled them? (I’m guessing at the infiltration: the surveillance was obvious.) The main groups/men were: Negro Welfare League (Arnold Ward/Peter Blackman); Colonial Information Bureau (Ben Bradley/Reginald Bridgeman/Desmond Buckle); International African Service Bureau, later Pan African Federation (George Patmore/Ras T. Makonnen/Chris Jones); West African National Secretariat (Kwame Nkrume/Bankole Akpata/Bankole Awoonor- Renner).
Reply to M.S. c/o Lobster.
Information sought on:
- April 1944 a ship loaded with arms, ammunition and gold exploded in Bombay harbour, destroying 15 or 16 ships, sending out a shock-wave recorded in Simla, 300 miles away. Information on the explosion, casualties, location of survivors, witnesses etc.
- the Progress Foundation
- the Schumaker Foundation
Does anybody have a copy of, or information on the location of a 1982 pamphlet, NATO and the Third World War, published by Little A, England?
Reply to R.S. c/o Lobster.
Addendum to Kincora/Wallace/Tara bibliography published in Lobster 19
Kincora
- The answers McGrath should give us — John Carey, Sunday World 10 October 1982 pp.16-17.
- McGrath men in election bid. New MP’s to hush up Kincora? — Sunday World 17 October 1982 pp1 and 3.
- Bradford’s VIP ‘Sex list’ at Kincora revealed — Martin O’Hagan, Sunday World, 17 January 1988 pp. 1-2.
- Paisley cleared of gay smear — Liam Clarke, Sunday World, 17 January 1988 pp.1-2.
- Four Stormont men probed over Kincora — Liam Clarke, Sunday World 7 February 1988 p.20
- MP may name Kincora probe men in Commons — Liam Clarke, Sunday World 28 February 1988 p.8.
- Kincora beast wants back in Orange Order — Martin O’Hagan, Sunday World 11 February 1990 p.19.
TARA
- Tara: there is not the basis for peaceful co- existence — Sunday News, 24th March 1974 p7.
Colin Wallace
- Murder suspect Army spy? Sunday World, 28 September 1980 pp.1 and 3
Harry Irwin
NOW!
Gregory Voysey writes:
In Lobster 17 (pp14-16) you note that Now!, a magazine owned by Sir James Goldsmith, was used to further the propaganda aims of the Pinay Circle. Now! was also involved in a scheme to discredit President Carter during the 1980 presidential campaign. This involved luring his brother, Billy Carter, into a political embarrassing relationship with Colonel Gafaffi. An Italian investigation revealed that this had been organised by members of P2 holding official positions in SISMI (Italy’s military intelligence agency) and Michael Ledeen, later the ‘Italian expert’ in Reagan’s transition team of 1980-81. Two of Ledeen’s articles on the ‘Billygate’ affair were published in NOW! and L’Express of France, which was also owned by Goldsmith. On this see Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection, (Sheridan Square Publishing, New York 1986) pp. 92-7; Jane Hunter, Jonathan Marshall and Peter Dale Scott, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era, (South End Press, Boston, 1987) pp. 72-5; Larry Gurwin, The Calvi Affair: Death of a Banker, (Pan, London 1984) pp.190-195.