[…] because the Soviet state was afraid of the Pope’s influence in Poland. But there was another drama rumbling away parallel to the Solidarity story: the whole P2/Calvi/Ambrosiano/Gelli/ Vatican finances mess was just coming to the surface at the same time. Again, to her credit, Sterling doesn’t duck this entirely. On p. 142, for example, […]
[…] part of Yugoslavia. This opening in Mills’ legal career occurred in 1981 at about the time that the body of Roberto Calvi, a central figure in the Vatican Bank scandal, was found hanging under Blackfriers Bridge. (4) Mills quickly became a partner in the new law firm, and the London end was renamed Carnelutti-McKenzie-Mills […]
A man with Friends The Third Secret: the CIA, Solidarity and the KGB’s plot to kill the Pope Nigel West HarperCollins, London, 2000, £19.99 Let’s dispose of the ‘Third Secret’ nonsense. West claims that Pope John – the Polish Pope – was told the ‘third secret’ of the Fatima revelations; and that this ‘third secret’ […]
[…] launched his attempted 1923 putsch. (64) Nevertheless, discussions with the Generals and with the Goerdeler group were resumed at the end of 1939, and continued, sometimes with Vatican mediation, sometimes in neutral cities, into the early spring of 1940.(65) The peace terms broadly acceptable to the British did not alter significantly throughout this period. […]
A small section of this appeared in Lobster 12. Although this is incomplete and under researched, we thought it worth putting out now. The origins of IRD 1947 saw the creation of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). It is generally accepted that IRD was the brain-child of the then Labour M.P. Christopher Mayhew, […]
[…] repetition of Francoist propaganda regarding the Spanish Civil War; and it contains the following statement regarding the war in the former Yugoslavia, on p. 201 ‘Naturally, the Vatican feared Serbia as a predominantly Muslim nation, its threat was far greater than “Christian” Croatia’ (emphasis added). Now the author is here discussing a theory […]
[…] the head when the United States swung round to the Soviet view. The scheme, or a similar one, continued a ghostly, post-war existence for a while. The Vatican supported it. There was an active branch of Intermarium in Rome and senior Vatican priests and bishops became officers of the organisation. Intermarium was one of […]
[…] The Treasure Maps of Rennes, Stanley James (Seven Lights, US, £9.95) concentrate on the ‘buried treasure ‘ theory concerning Abbe Sauniere who was paid millions by the Vatican after he unearthed some ancient coded scrolls in his church which may have led him to Visigoth gold. Both books add little in the way of […]
[…] Democrats (some of which was provided by the CIA), and similar sums for the Mafia – in the main, profits from the heroin trade. As expected, the Vatican, the SID (Italian secret police), generals, judges and politicians also feature in this book (including some interesting Nixon connections). Another very interesting claim that Di Fonzo […]
[…] reporter’, either. Papa! Kevin Koogan e-mailed me about the new Pope, Ratzinger, quoting the New York Times to the effect that Ratzinger had been brought to the Vatican Council at the age of 35 by Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne. In Koogan’s book Dreamer of the Day (NY: Autonomedia, 1999), which was reviewed in […]
