Nazis in the CIA [2013)

Let’s start with Paul Dickopf.

SS.

CIA asset from 1965-1971.

[But all of this goes back earlier.]

Most astonishingly, Dickopf was the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972.

So here is one Nazi (an SS member) that the CIA paid.

And INTERPOL was headed by a Nazi.

And that particular Nazi, Dickopf, was also on the CIA payroll while he was head of INTERPOL.

What if there were Ukrainian Nazis that shared this kind of cozy relationship with the CIA?

There were.

You may know Operation Paperclip.

You probably think scientists.

But there was more (and less) to it.

People avoided Nuremberg merely because the CIA found them useful.

And what this movie points out is important.

How did the CIA control former-Nazis?

By threatening to reveal their past Nazi actions.

Such was the case with Dickopf.

His Nazi activities only came to public attention after his death.

After his usefulness had been gleaned by the CIA.

Of course the Soviets had an analogous program.

Operation Osoaviakhim.

You probably know of Wernher von Braun.

SS.

1937-1945.

A Major in the SS.

Major von Braun.

I believe my father crossed paths with von Braun at Redstone Arsenal.

They did not meet.

But they were there at the same time.

Strange, isn’t it?

Nazi Wernher von Braun worked with Walt Disney (the man) on a series of films about space travel.

1955-1957.

Let me repeat, Disney worked with a Nazi.

For two years.

Von Braun took music composition as a boy from Paul Hindemith.

One of my texts as a music theory and composition undergraduate was by Hindemith.

There is solid testimony that Von Braun picked slave laborers from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp.

There is solid testimony that this Nazi SS Major did nothing to help those who were being tortured and worked to death.

But to Von Braun’s credit, he was (supposedly) arrested by the Gestapo for “not being Nazi enough”.

He was considered a defeatist who knew the war wasn’t going well.

He complained that he wasn’t working on a spaceship.

And POOF, a young female dentist reported him.

Himmler, who was trying to angle in on the production of V-2 rockets, had him charged as a communist sympathizer.

There was also fear that Von Braun, who piloted his own plane, might defect to England.

There were 14 tons of paper (!) documents on the V-2 rocket which Von Braun hid in the Harz mountains.

These were located by Army Counterintelligence (who blocked and have me blocked on Twitter).

Wernher von Braun and his brother Magnus turned over the V-2 rocket technology to the USA (and not the Soviet Union) because they ostensibly perceived the Americans to be “guided not by the laws of materialism but by Christianity”.

Hmmm.

SOUNDS good.

To flesh out the story, I should mention that Wernher von Braun conspired to be captured by the Americans (and not by the Soviets).

Von Braun and his team were housed at Fort Bliss (near El Paso, TX).

Von Braun and team then spent the next 20 years in Hunstville, Alabama.

Redstone Arsenal.

The war we are currently facing is a face-off between two nuclear powers (USA and Russia).

The USA owes its development of rocketry in a large part to a Nazi.

There are American satellites in space because of a Nazi (beginning in 1958 [Explorer 1]).

The idea and dream of traveling to Mars can largely be attributed to this same Nazi.

In 1946, this Nazi had become an Evangelical Christian after attending church in El Paso.

Pretty amazing, eh?

Makes for a good story, doesn’t it?

But is it true???

But let’s get another Nazi into the picture, shall we?

What about Kurt Debus?

The first director of Kennedy Space Center.

A NASA Nazi.

SS.

Debus joined the SA (Brownshirts) in 1933 and the SS in 1940.

By the way, Von Braun signed an affidavit where he erroneously said that he joined the SS in 1939.

He actually joined in 1937.

Hmmm.

Debus was with Von Braun at Fort Bliss.

He was also with him at Redstone.

This roving band of merry Nazis.

In the summer of 1966-67 (southern hemisphere), Von Braun went to Antarctica.

Hmmm.

And guess who came up with Space Camp for kids?

You guessed it.

A Nazi!

[Von Braun]

Jawohl!

So America (and the Soviet Union) took credit for “defeating” the Nazis.

But both countries pilfered important (and not-so-important) Nazis for various purposes.

And now Putin says he is fighting Naziism in Ukraine (which I believe).

Gerald Ford (a 33rd-degree Freemason) awarded the National Medal of Science in Engineering to Wernher von Braun in 1977.

The highest science honor that can be bestowed by the American government.

Good job, Nazi!

Von Braun is buried in Alexandria, Virginia.

Nazis like Von Braun were given American citizenship.

The U.S. Navy took Herbert Wagner.

The U.S. Army took 127 rocket scientists (including Von Braun).

The Bureau of Mines (pre- Department of Energy) took seven synthetic fuel specialists.

The USAF really liked the imported Nazis.

They took 260 of them.

Did Operation Paperclip continue until 1990?

If so, continue in what sense?

Paperclip wasn’t CIA per se.

It was run by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency.

So we could start by calling it an OSS (CIA’s predecessor agency) and Army CIC (counterintelligence corps) program.

Only problem is, the CIA came into existence in 1947.

So in what way was Paperclip NOT a CIA program?

Hmmm.

Paperclip appears to have been overseen by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So you would have:

Army Intelligence

Naval Intelligence

Air Force Intelligence

and

State Department?!?

For instance, Magnus von Braun (Wernher’s brother) had an INSCOM dossier.

Fascinating.

Wernher von Braun’s dossier has never been made public.

Hmmm.

The U.S. military helped Kurt Blome escape to Argentina to avoid trial for human experiments conducted at Ravensbruck.

Ravensbrück.

But the CIA wanted assets.

And access.

We’re not talking about the commonly-known scientists like Wernher von Braun.

We’re talking more about people such as Paul Dickopf.

Let me reiterate, the head of INTERPOL (Dickopf) from 1968-1972 was on the CIA payroll.

We’re not talking about Camp Ashcan and the 86 Nazi leaders in Luxembourg.

But it falls somewhere in the realm of Safehaven, doesn’t it?

Let’s talk about Klaus Barbie.

U.S. “intelligence services” (CIA?) employed Klaus Barbie and helped him escape to Bolivia.

Barbie was a master of torture (as disgusting as that sounds).

This was applied in Bolivia.

Why would the United States support such a thing?

In an effort to “fight communism”, of course.

I agree that communism is bad.

And should be fought.

Indeed, capitalism and communism ought to fight each other (as ideological concepts) on the “battlefield” of economics.

But torture is unacceptable.

It is evil.

To what extent did the “U.S. intelligence services” simply (and cynically) “look the other way” in regards to Barbie torturing people in Bolivia?

We are talking about 1980.

The “Cocaine Coup”.

But you gotta go back to 1973.

And Kissinger.

In Chile.

Pinochet.

To what extent were Italian Fascists allowed to set up camp in Chile by their “intelligence services” (DINA)?

To what extent were Italian Fascists (supported by the Kissinger State Department) responsible for the overthrow of democratically-elected socialist Salvador Allende?

Pinochet.

To what extent did this 1973 coup rely upon Italian Fascists?

Where were these fascists coming from?

Were there any Nazis involved in Chile?

Where had these people been since the end of WWII?

In Francisco Franco’s Spain, perhaps?

When did Franco die?

1980s?

What role did Italian Fascists (who fought on the same side as the Nazis in WWII) play in the Operation Gladio false-flag bombings in Italy?

When did this start?

If Gladio was a stay-behind network (and it was), when was it formed?

Immediately after WWII?

Yes.

But the communists lost the first elections in postwar Italy.

Gladio didn’t really get kicking with their false-flag bombings (blamed on communists) until the 1970s.

Who organized Operation Gladio?

It wouldn’t happen to have been NATO, would it?

I THINK IT FUCKING WAS…

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

But let’s back up to Barbie…because this is a tasty story of evil.

And how the intelligence business is a DIRTY FUCKING BUSINESS.

Barbie.

Gestapo.

SS.

“The Butcher of Lyon”.

Absolutely ruthless.

The Nazi crushing of the French resistance.

And Kissinger apparently said, “Fuck it!  Let’s hire him.”

I’m guessing.

Kissinger didn’t actually say that.

Or maybe he did.

But that is what I imagine he would have said in his thick fuck accent.

So Kissinger is good, right?

He fought communism.

By using torturers like Klaus Barbie.

To what extent did the State Department under Henry Kissinger use Klaus Barbie?

1983.

Extradited to France.

And France are such a bunch of pussies that they gave him life in prison.

No death penalty???

What the fuck?!?

Barbie worked under Adolf Eichmann in Amsterdam.

The Nazis were, by-the-way, anti-Freemason.

Hmmm.

From Amsterdam, Barbie went to Lyon.

And famously set up his headquarters (as head of the local Gestapo) in the Hôtel Terminus.

Here he personally tortured both adults and children alike.

But the pussies France didn’t execute him because dumbass, watery France abolished the death penalty in 1981.

Great job, wusses!

Barbie probably killed about 14,000 people.

That is the estimate.

But he was allowed to die in prison.

Of cancer.

Maybe that is more painful.

Barbie sent 44 Jewish children to Auschwitz.

But he was allowed to die of old age.

Albeit in prison.

Somehow doesn’t seem right.

The punishment doesn’t exactly seem to fit the crime.

For whom did Klaus Barbie work immediately after these 14,000 murders and deportations of children to Auschwitz?

These guys.

IMG_1221 2

It must suck trying to spin that one.

The U.S. government made sure that Klaus Barbie (who was wanted in France) remained free for the next 33 years.

Hmmm.

Who specifically refused to hand over Klaus Barbie?

John J. McCloy.

Who was John J. McCloy?

I think you will find that he was David Rockefeller’s mentor.

Who else helped Barbie escape?

One helper was a Croatian Catholic priest named Krunoslav Draganovic.

Now why on earth would a Catholic priest want to help a Nazi torturer escape???

By 1965, Barbie was working for West German Intelligence (BND).

A little later, you would have Putin working for the KGB in East Germany (where the Stasi [not really independent of the KGB] held sway).

Perspective: the “good guys” (West Germany) had Klaus Barbie, a child-torturing, child-murdering, mass murderer on their payroll starting in 1965.

All of Klaus Barbie’s BND payments passed through San Francisco.

You know, the place where Satanism started (around this same time [1966]).

But Satanism’s just a big joke, right?

It’s just about being “individual”, right?

Barbie was on the BND payroll by 1965, but he had been in Bolivia since 1951.

Barbie was even in the Bolivian Armed Forces!

Barbie literally TAUGHT torture in Bolivia.

He taught the Bolivian military.

So you had non-Nazis in Bolivia with names like Castro.

Associates of Klaus Barbie (who went under the alias Klaus Altmann).

Barbie armed Bolivian drug cartels.

Barbie made connections with Colombian drug traffickers.

Barbie even met with Pablo Escobar in the late-1970s.

Barbie did security for the Medellín cartel.

Making sure the raw coca was safe–from cultivation to processing.

Which made Pablo Escobar a funder of anti-communism.

Are you beginning to see how fucked up all these interlocking relationships are?

The Grooms of Death.

Wasn’t that in Chile?

Barbie armed the coup plotters in Bolivia who were successful in 1980.

Luis García Meza.

Cocaine Coup.

1971.

Barbie was spotted by Nazi hunters in Peru.

Let’s change gears.

Stefano Delle Chiaie.

He almost made it to the COVID years.

Only dying in 2019.

Italian Fascist.

Friend of Licio Gelli [important].

P2 masonic lodge.

Propaganda due.

And the Nazis were anti-Masonic…

Operation Gladio.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

Important.

NATO.

Now A Terrorist Organization.

“Now”.

Always?

Operation Condor.

1975.

Start.

Kissinger.

Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina).

50 years in prison.

Torture.

Murder.

Kidnapping of babies.

Number of victims?

30,000+.

Twice as prolific as Klaus Barbie.

And this is just one country’s (Argentina’s) commander for Operation Condor.

Same thing in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

Now you see why Uruguay called for Kissinger’s arrest.

Because Kissinger oversaw this program (apparently).

What time period are we talking about?

1968-1989.

We are talking about 60,000-80,000 deaths under Operation Condor.

Who was targeted?

The left-wing.

Communists.

Socialists.

But also right-wingers who “weren’t right-wing enough”.

It seems the CIA had a big role in this.

U.S. government operation.

Support often “routed” through CIA.

The U.S. military was concerned about “perceived threats” and “subversives” in Latin America.

Similar to Operation Gladio.

The end justifies the means.

A brute-force way of preventing communist takeovers.

Dirty.

Clumsy.

Evil.

Fighting one evil (communism) with another (murder/torture).

But what brought Operation Condor into being?

It was a series of coups.

Paraguay (1954).

Brazil (1964).

Bolivia (1971).

Uruguay (June 1973).

Chile (September 11, 1973).

Peru (1975).

Argentina (1976).

Wow.

That is SEVEN coups in 22 years.

And FIVE coups in FIVE years.

In five DIFFERENT Latin American countries.

How the fuck did that happen?

Did they all just spontaneously get infected with anti-communist fervor???

It seems our CIA was “watching” dissidents in Argentina and Uruguay.

And don’t forget about the Brazilian “death squads”.

With whom the CIA worked.

This communism thing must be really powerful.

Granted, it’s a fucked-up, inefficient system.

A perverted, perverse system.

But was it really necessary to “disappear” and murder all these people over???

Why not just let capitalism show its merits?

Capitalism is a value-creating juggernaut (it is!).

Why did the U.S. government feel so threatened by communism?

One reason was the USSR (which no longer exists).

All those Soviet Republics.

That giant monolithic block.

Let’s name ’em:

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Estonia

Georgia (Tbilisi, not Atlanta)

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan 

Latvia

Lithuania

Moldova (Moldavian SSR)

Russia

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Uzbekistan.

Wow.

How many is that?

15.

The U.S. has 50 states.

So we are more impressive, right?

The USSR covered about 8.6 million square miles.

The USA covers about 3.7 million square miles.

The Soviet Union was twice as big as America.

And it was (WAS!) communist.

And it had (and HAS!) nuclear weapons.

ICBMs.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Hell, they even have hypersonic missiles now.

And the USA doesn’t.

So Russia (the main successor) could definitely fuck us up (WIPE US OUT).

But that’s not what they wanna do.

They just want us to get the fuck off their doorstep.

Because if they wipe us out, they know we will also (simultaneously) wipe them out.

And we should understand this equation too.

But apparently we don’t.

Because we have led a NATO (Now A Terrorist Organization) that has continuously gobbled up former Soviet territories for the past 30 years (since the fall of the USSR in 1991).

But I understand why America was concerned.

I understand the concept of fighting communism in Vietnam.

I respect those soldiers who went.

Maybe that war needed to happen.

Maybe the United States was right for fighting.

But let’s be frank:  what’s the strategic significance of Vietnam?

There is none.

Unless you’re in the heroin business.

Which may be the main reason we were ACTUALLY there.

Same with Afghanistan.

Heroin.

Poppies.

Oil?

The pipeline across Afghanistan?

Sure, maybe.

But that never materialized.

And why were we in Bolivia?

And Peru?

Cocaine.

Perhaps.

The “Cocaine coup” in Bolivia.

1980.

When the mafia took over the country.

With the help of Klaus Barbie.

Who worked for American intelligence (CIA?).

By the way, Russia is still the biggest country on Earth.

6.6 million square miles.

But they didn’t come to Mexico.

They don’t have a mutual-defense treaty with Canada.

They don’t have troops and military bases on our border.

Hell, they don’t even have nukes in Cuba anymore (Havana being 230 miles from Miami).

Tallinn (Estonia [part of NATO]) is 230 miles from Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Are there nukes in Tallinn?

Probably not.

But there are NATO troops in Estonia.

Right on Russia’s fucking border.

And same with Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Norway.

NATO was not content to border Russia with merely Norway for 50 years (since 1949).

NATO saw fit to add Poland in 1999 and the Baltic countries in 2004.

FIVE NATO members border Russia.

That is unacceptable.

USAoutofNATO.

Now!

NoMoreNATO!

America first!

Who founded Operation Condor?

Pinochet?

Hmmm.

Don’t forget about Orlando Letelier.

Car bomb.

D.C.

Pinochet.

Operation Condor.

30,000 dead in Argentina alone.

Nuns.

Anyone even tangentially-Marxist.

I hate Marxism as much as the next capitalist (I am a proud capitalist!), BUT YOU DON’T FUCKING KILL MARXISTS JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE ADOPTED AN INEFFICIENT ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY!!!

Violent Marxists are another thing.

I have no tolerance for violent Marxists.

Whether they be BLM or Antifa.

But there should be a proportionate riposte.

If somebody commits and arson, YOU ARREST THEM.

You don’t just indiscriminately kill people.

Rule of law is the best way.

Rule of man is a pitfall.

There is, however, a problem.

The 2020 election was stolen.

And I believe Trump left office.

I believe he threw us to the wolves.

I believe our military leaders are pussies.

But Vladimir Putin, who was presented with an immediate threat on his doorstep (a creeping invasion by NATO that he personally oversaw and had patience for FOR 30 YEARS), actually did something.

So I respect Putin more than I respect Trump.

Putin, at this rate, is going to save Russia.

Trump, at this rate, will have no America left to save.

I respect Putin more than I respect the American military’s top leaders.

The American military, at this rate (if they ever decide to actually PROTECT the country), will have no America left to protect.

Death flights.

Taking dissidents out to sea by plane or helicopter and dropping them in the water.

Argentina.

Chile.

Disgusting.

Something the French also apparently did in Algeria.

Bodies washing up in Buenos Aires.

1977.

Kidnapped babies.

Illegal adoptions.

Babies taken to punish mothers who are in jail.

Don’t have a different economic philosophy.

Or we will kidnap your children.

Disgusting.

Latin America as one big network of torture and psychological warfare.

DINA in Chile (Pinochet) and SIDE in Argentina.

Propaganda.

Counter criticism.

Cultivate national pride.

I love America!

I really do.

But the best thing for America to do right now is to get the fuck out of NATO.

America first!

Operation Condor was going to murder a Uruguayan opposition politician.

And leaders of Amnesty International.

That’s pretty fucked-up!

Operation Condor really had a “if you see something, say something” mentality.

A big police state across the entirety of Latin America.

Number of dead as a result of Operation Condor:

Paraguay:  2,000

Chile:  3,196

Uruguay:  297

Brazil:  366

Argentina:  30,000

Archives of Terror.

Archivos del Terror (Spanish).

Arquivos do Terror (Portuguese).

Found in a police station in Paraguay.

4 tons of documents.

[14 tons for V-2]

Operation Condor:  50,000-90,000 people killed in South America

Condor ended in 1983 after Argentina’s defeat in the Falklands War.

The military dictatorship was ousted and democracy restored.

Desaparecidos.

The disappeared.

Perpetrators of Operation Condor who were executed:

General Carlos Prats (Chile)

Uruguayan MP Zelmar Michelini

Uruguayan MR Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz

former Bolivian President Juan José Torres

Argentina was involved with the Cocaine Coup of Klaus Barbie in Bolivia.

1980.

Italian fascists in South America.

December 1977.

Two French nuns and several founders of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo disappeared.

Put on death flights.

Dropped in the ocean.

Remains washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977.

Remains identified.

A commission.

COVID.

Forced disappearances.

Crimes against humanity.

Kudos to writer Ernesto Sabato.

Argentina.

Getting to the bottom of the 30,000 dead/missing/disappeared.

Life in prison:

Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina [d. 2013])

Emilio Eduardo Massera (Argentina [d. 2010]) P2 Masonic lodge member

Roberto Eduardo Viola (Argentina [d. 1994])

Armando Lambruschini (Argentina [d. 2004])

Orlando Ramón Agosti (Argentina [d. 1997])

Omar Graffigna (Argentina [d. 2019])

Leopoldo Galtieri (Argentina [d. 2003])

Jorge Anaya (Argentina [d. 2008])

Basilio Lami Dozo (Argentina [d. 2017])

In 1986 and 1987, amnesty laws were passed to protect military officers involved in human rights abuses.

What?!?

No more prosecutions of the Dirty War.

In 1989-90, the leaders of the junta were pardoned.

An attempt at “healing”…

FUCK THAT!!!

Massera was pardoned in 1990 and lived to be 85 (d. 2010).

Massera imprisoned again in 1998.

Viola was pardoned in 1990 and died four years later.

Viola served a mere seven years in prison.

Lambruschini pardoned in 1990.

Later came under house arrest (2003).

Died 2004.

But here’s an interesting fact.

Lambruschini’s 15-year-old daughter was murdered in 1978 when a bomb was placed under her bed by an Argentine left-wing guerrilla organization.

Equally disgusting.

All because one side loves communism and the other side hates communism.

Fucking idiots!

But Operation Condor started in 1975.

So was this payback?

Either way, it’s disgusting.

Murdering children is the lowest of the low.

Total insanity.

Total EVIL!

Agosti.

Convicted of eight counts of torture.

Served a mere three years and nine months.

Was accused of 88 murders.

11 abductions of minors.

Was pardoned in 1990.

Graffigna was initially acquitted.

2003 arrested again.

Was not sentenced until 2016.

Was found responsible for the abduction, torture, and murder of a married couple in 1978.

The woman was eight-months-pregnant.

The child was born and given to an Air Force Intelligence operative.

Galtieri was sentenced in 1986 to 12 years in prison for human rights violations during the Dirty War.

He was pardoned in 1989.

Still received an Army pension for the rest of his life.

Invited to military parade in 2002.

New charges of kidnapping of children and disappearance of 18 people brought against him in 2002.

Because of his poor health, he was allowed to remain at home.

Bullshit!

Anaya was acquitted in 1985.

Spain intervened in 1997 because some of their citizens had disappeared during the Dirty War.

Extradition requested.

Request denied.

Criteria amended.

Proceedings proceed.

Extradition ceased.

Overturned.

Extraditions continue.

Heart attack.

House arrest.

Dozo was acquitted in 1985.

1989 sentenced to eight years.

Pardoned in 1990.

Didn’t even lose his rank.

Came under same extradition request from Spain.

What happened?

Lived until 2017.

Brazil’s military dictatorship lasted 21 years.

1964-1985.

Brazil also had a bullshit amnesty law that protected the human rights abuses of the military leaders.

In 1978, the Uruguayan Army crossed into Brazil and kidnapped two activists and their children:  ages five and three.

The Uruguayan Army made the mistake of capturing two Brazilian journalists during this operation.

This probably saved the lives of the couple and their children.

Otherwise they would have been tortured and dropped in the ocean on a death flight.

But the couple was tortured and imprisoned for five years.

The children were sent to live with grandparents in Montevideo because the whole operation had been fucked up by the presence and arrest of the Brazilian journalists (and the ensuing international attention of this particular case).

In the case of the Brazilian reporters, they were actually kidnapped by the Brazilian military regime.

Uruguay also passed a bullshit amnesty law.

No one ever got in trouble for torturing the couple.

It is likely that two ex-Presidents of Brazil were assassinated as part of Operation Condor.

João Goulart (“heart attack” )and Juscelino Kubitschek (“car accident”).

Goulart was likely poisoned.

Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998.

The “big wedding” was Franco’s funeral in Spain.

That’s when Pinochet met Italian fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie.

It is quite possible that Pablo Neruda was murdered by the Pinochet regime.

Reagan finally withdrew support for Pinochet after the Chilean Army set two protestors on fire.

We’ll end with this.

Colonia Dignidad.

Chile.

Germans.

Nazis.

Internment, torture, and murder of dissidents in the underground tunnels of a farm known as the Dignity Colony (Colonia Dignidad).

1970s.

During Pinochet regime.

Leader of Colonia Dignidad:  Paul Schäfer.

German fugitive.

Colonia Dignidad later changed its name to Villa Baviera.

This facility existed about 200 miles south of Santiago from 1961-2005.

Sexual abuse and torture of young children were committed there.

Torture and execution of political dissidents (under Pinochet) were committed there.

Schäfer spent a mere five years in prison at the end of his life.

He had been a rumored child molester (in Germany) since 1945.

He lost his job as an Evangelical preacher on account of this.

In 1959, he was charged with sexually abusing two boys.

He fled.

The Chilean ambassador to Germany invited him to Chile.

He set up a cult near Parral, Chile (the Colonia Dignidad).

Schäfer had a bit of David Koresh about him.

A coup against Salvador Allende was organized at Colonia Dignidad by Germans including Roberto Thieme.

Schäfer began punishing children in his cult by electric shocks to their genitalia.

After the coup, Colonia Dignidad became a secret detention, torture, and execution center for DINA (the National Intelligence Directorate under Pinochet’s military government).

Then the biological weapons production began.

#biolabs

Nazis in Ukraine.

CIA Nazis.

CIA protecting Ukrainian Nazis after WWII who should have been subject to Nuremberg.

Schäfer used sedatives on children and then raped them.

The farm contained “subterranean living containers”.

Tunnels.

Schäfer was charged with all matter of crimes.

He fled.

He was found in 2005 in Buenos Aires.

There was a plethora of military weaponry buried at Colonia Dignidad.

2006:  Schäfer sentenced to 20 years for abusing 25 children.

He was found guilty on five counts of child rape.

The compound was surrounded by barbed wire and had searchlights and a watchtower.

There were underground prisons.

There may have been cooperation between the BND (Klaus Barbie’s employer from 1965 onwards) and Colonia Dignidad.

Only German was spoken inside the colony.

Children were “imported” from German.

Schäfer first arrived in the early-1960s with kidnapped children.

Illegal adoptions.

Torture in the tunnels.

Torture specifically tailored to their personality.

At least 100 murders at Colonia Dignidad.

A Soviet-born math professor from Penn State disappeared while hiking near Colonia Dignidad in 1985.

Escapees of the colony claim that the facility housed former Nazis.

But who did Chilean secret police operative Michael Townley report to about the DINA/Colonia Dignidad links?

Fucking INTERPOL!!!

Was the head of INTERPOL in 2005 also on the CIA payroll (as the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972 had been)???

What Townley seems to have done right is expose Colonia Dignidad as a LABORATORY ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE!!!

Biological experiments were done on political prisoners at Colonia Dignidad.

Now here is the fucking kicker.

The CIA and Simon Wiesenthal have both proven that Josef Mengele was at Colonia Dignidad.

This South American network for escaped Nazis was partially supported by Juan Perón in Argentina.

Was Klaus Barbie at Colonia Dignidad?

I would not doubt it.

Former SS and Gestapo TAUGHT torture methods at Colonia Dignidad to the Chilean secret police.

Just as Barbie would later do in Bolivia–teaching the Bolivian military.

Hartmut Hopp was Schäfer’s “right hand man” at Colonia Dignidad.

He went with Schäfer at age 17 to Chile in 1961.

Michael Townley, an American-born former agent of Chile’s DINA (wait…what?!?  how the fuck did he get that job???) pled guilty to the 1976 car-bombing murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt.

There was a plea bargain.

He was not extradited to Argentina (where he was wanted for the 1974 murders of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife).

He was convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1975 murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.

What was Townley’s specialty (apart from being a prolific assassin)?

Chemical and biological weapons.

And who did he develop these for?

For his employer DINA.

With the help of Colonel Gerardo Huber and DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.

Townley moved to Chile in 1957 at the age of 15.

His dad worked for Ford.

In Chile.

Townley came back to Miami.

Hooked up with anti-Castro Cubans.

Prats and his wife were killed with a radio controlled car bomb.

Enter Italian fascists again.

Townley was the go-between for DINA and Avanguardia Nazionale.

Enter Stefano Delle Chiaie again.

Connection to DINA.

Townley got a mere five years and two months in jail for the murders of Letelier and Moffitt.

Whether truthful or not, DINA’s now-deceased chief Manuel Contreras claims that Townley was partially working for the CIA when he murdered Letelier and Moffitt.

This was around the time that Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters was Deputy Directory of Central Intelligence (CIA).

Walters proposed an American military intervention in Italy in 1961 if the Socialist Party had won.

Townley give us the goods on the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica de Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory of the Army) that was located at Colonia Dignidad.

Carmelo Soria (a Spanish diplomat) was assassinated in 1992 with sarin gas produced at Colonia Dignidad.

It is thought that Pablo Neruda was assassinated with an injection of Staphylococcus aureus.

The sarin gas was produced with the expertise of biochemist Eugenio Berríos.  

Other bioweapons Berríos produced were anthrax and botulism.

Berríos also produced cocaine for Pinochet.

There is a suspicion that he worked for both drug traffickers and the DEA.

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was likely killed with a poison devoloped by Berríos.

Did Operation Condor continue as La Cofradia?

Don’t underestimate Chile’s role in Haiti.

MINUSTAH.

Eduardo Aldunate Hermann.

Berríos producing “black cocaine”.

Gerardo Huber also worked on the DINA biochem program.

Stepan Bandera.

2010.

Awarded title Hero of Ukraine.

By Viktor Yushchenko.

Banderites.

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

And here’s the magic bullet, you fuckers:

Mykola Lebed.

Leader of OUN-B.

Responsible for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

Died in 1998 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (aged 89).

Why?

Because he had “a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War”.

His Prolog (or Prologue) Research Organization in New York (where he emigrated) was funded by the CIA.

Lebed gathered intel on the Soviet Union.

The CIA paid him for this.

The CIA shielded Lebed (as late as 1991) from prosecution for war crimes (aka “his wartime connections to the Nazis”).

How many people did Lebed massacre?

50,000-100,000.

And the CIA hired him.

Yes.

Putin is right.

Ukrainian Nazis exist.

And they have for a long time.

And we’re not just talking about the Azov Battalion.

Lebed was the chief of a Nazi Abwehr school for espionage and sabotage in 1939-1940.

Lebed took over Stepan Bandera’s faction in western Ukraine.

During AND AFTER the Cold War, the CIA supported the OUN.

What groups are we talking about?

Svoboda.

Right Sector.

Ukrainian National Assembly — Ukrainian National Self Defense.

Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Babi Yar/Babyn Yar.

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.

Made up of people from Ukrainian People’s Militia.

Svoboda. 2014. Euromaidan. Major role.

Yatsenyuk (installed by U.S./Soros coup) had three Svoboda ministers.

Sich Battalion formed by Svoboda for war in Donbass.

Why is billionaire Ukrainian Jew Ihor Kolomoyskyi an apologist for Svoboda?

He’s the second or third richest person in Ukraine.

Kolomoysky has triple citizenship: Ukraine, Israel, and Cyprus.

Why would a Jew fund the Azov Battalion?

https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604

IMG_7897

THE

AZOV

BATTALION

ARE 

NAZIS.

WHY 

WOULD 

JEW

FINANCIALLY

SUPPORT

A

NEO-NAZI,

ANTI-SEMITIC

BATTALION???

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS60927080220150505

Why is it that Zelensky’s Jewishness seems to automatically remove him from the list of possible Nazis?

If there’s one Nazi-supporting Jew in Ukraine (and there is…Kolomoyskyi…the second or third richest person in the country), why can’t there be two???

IMG_7898

-PD

41020 [2021)

A silver mt. zion.

Montreal.

Hotel tango.

Sighing synths.

Leonard Cohen.

Getting cold.

Lee Hazlewood.

Arizona into the Rockies.

Wyoming.

Road music.

Music of wide open spaces.

Charles Mingus checks in.

Bob Dylan.

Tumbleweeds.

Was QAnon bullshit?

WFMU seems to think so.

And all their hipster listeners.

Missing the Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Chris Isaak.

My Bloody Valentine.

R.E.M.

Automatic for the people.

Rightly asking if this guy, Pauly Deathwish, is Borat.

Elvis working at the truck stop.

Nevada.

New Mexico.

Into French philosophy at a Barnes & Noble.

Film criticism.

Cinematic music.

The great philosophers.

Taking on Philip Glass.

Rachmaninoff.

Swedish version.

Poor girl with grey teeth.

Dirty bra.

Addicted to Kardashians.

And meth.

Smoking candy cigarettes.

Brutal, cold world.

No fall back.

Withdrawal back.

Wanna lock me for blood pressure.

It ain’t no cakewalk.

Ripoff.

Tech moves fast.

Write anything.

Better than nothing.

Bad press.

No press.

You have a printing press.

The Innocence Mission.

Miles.

Porgy and Bess.

A thousand planes.

Two ambient instrumentals to start this album.

Setting an amber tone.

Pensive.

Ex-pensive.

Time is a luxury.

And Miles comes in.

Bending notes.

Sighing again.

Like music from Big Pink.

John Simon.

Leonard Cohen.

Very much of the Deserter’s Songs type.

Song cycle.

Van Dyke.

And Coltrane leaps in.

No bends.

Solid sax.

Honky.

Low mids.

Leaping up.

Transposition.

A little noodling.

And WHAT THE FUCK.

Now we are in Blue Hawaii.

On a jukebox in Nashville.

Sawdust on the floor.

Just spit that tabaccy anywheres.

It really is Elvis.

Loaded.

Lou Reed.

Doo-wop.

We’re in east Texas with George Jones.

Straight country.

Classic country.

Bona fide redneck interpolation.

“Daisies on Your Doorstep”.

Troubled relationship.

Robert Altman.

Nashville.

Hitchcock.

Traut.

Birds.

Grandaddy invades!

Modesto!!

And back to EXPANSIVE verb.

Cathedral.

Serious shit.

Country gothic.

Phil Spector would have loved this.

The plandemic that killed Phil Spector.

Biggest celebrity to buy the farm.

Buy the farm?

Or sell the farm?

During this whole plandemic.

Write copy.

Boilerplate.

You have no publicity.

I block all reposts.

I wanna EARN it.

Organic.

Diminished 7th.

Dissolve into what?

More Mercury Rev homage.

Drums from “Desperado”.

Another lonely bloke ended by “Holes”.

Favorite song ever.

Happy end.

Drunk room.

Tom Waits.

The chord.

Spring.

Le Sacre.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Knife in the Water.

Austin.

R.E.M. again.

Big Star.

John Cale droning away on the viola.

No tremolo.

Swing it.

Ragged time.

Texarkana.

Arkansas.

And Texas.

Definite Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci nod.

Nick Drake.

Again The Innocence Mission.

Birds.

Pink Floyd.

Fairport Convention.

Psych barn.

The Byrds.

Gram Parsons.

Neil Young big time.

Stooges meet Beach Boys meet Messiaen.

But the Bowie knife is orange.

Made in Germany.

Kanye West and Wayne Coyne drop in.

An anti-hit.

When you can sing, but you get raped by auto-tune.

Loosen that shit up.

Going all Arabic on me.

Raga.

Spinal Tap.

Clouds of sound on almost every track.

A very ambient album.

Mood set.

Mood retained.

Mature.

Duran Duran.

Peaches DJ Berlin.

Where’s Warhol?

Nigel Godrich.

Jonny Greenwood.

Thom Yorke.

Grinderman.

Roger Waters again.

Microtonal blues.

Straight into Bjork.

Does she umlaut?

Sounds of a Mac.

Swan.

Alarm clock.

Gentle waking.

Paganini.

Rachmaninoff.

Elton John.

Stevie Wonder.

Sly Stone.

James Bond in Rio.

Drax.

Os Mutantes.

Jobim.

Korean frogs.

Shinto.

Spy guitar for reprise.

Tom Verlaine.

Richard Lloyd.

Paul Simon.

Rhythm of the saints.

Graceland.

Beethoven emperor concerto.

Slow.

Beloved.

Tokyo.

Press roll.

Sushi.

Kill bounce.

Phil Selway.

Colin Greenwood?

A masterful track.

“Icelandic Pastiche”.

NOW WE’RE TALKING.

Papa Trump back in the house.

For the apocalypse.

Rocky Balboa.

L.L. Cool J.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Second coming.

To save.

Vengeance is his.

Everyone given a chance.

A fair chance.

NASA.

I hear a single.

“Landslide”.

Wisconsin decertified.

Ramthun came through.

About fucking time.

There’s a riot goin’ on.

Paperclip Nazis.

Eric Carmen.

Smokey Robinson.

Tears of a motherfucking clown.

Oboe.

Michael Stipe.

Gil Evans.

Having the French horns get groovy.

Amelie.

Sketches of Spain.

Sunday morning.

Loveless.

Kevin Shields.

Belinda.

The Soft Bulletin.

Christ coming down from the clouds.

Like a ton of bricks.

Anvil.

Don’t call it a comeback.

Not all the way.

Staple Singers.

Rick Danko.

Rocket pans across stereo field.

Jesus talkin’.

Crucified.

Died.

Buried.

AND ROSE AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Jesus more space than NASA.

Really a masterpiece of sample placement.

Crystal-clear mix.

Clouseau.

Peter Sellers.

Bass solo.

Absolute Mingus.

Bloody jaw-dropping.

This is like a fucking lost Roland Kirk album.

This track!

Concerto for Booty and Orchestra.

Montreux.

Can never spell.

System hacked.

No more spelling.

Adieu au langage.

Flute loops.

Cocteau Twins.

Ties together album.

Last track coming on like Faust.

Built to Spill.

Silver Apples.

In memory of a bloke who bit it.

End of Night on Earth.

Real recorder.

Charity.

You will live forever, my friend.

I never knew you.

You aren’t forgotten.

Thought of you put in this track.

Catharsis.

Yerself is steam.

Smashing Pumpkins.

Siamese.

Great album by Pauly Deathwish.

Spotify.

iTunes.

Solid.

-PD


A View to a Kill [1985)

The opening disclaimer is odd.  Zorin…  One wonders whether the apologetics were in deference to Valerian Zorin.  In the West, the Soviet diplomat/statesman was best known for a stand-off with Adlai Stevenson at a UN Security Council meeting during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Surely the legal clarification wasn’t at the behest of a high Soviet official?  The question is important because it colors my reading of this film.  Something unique was afoot for this production.  At what point in the life of this film was the disclaimer created?  Valerian Zorin died the year after this film was released.

Is it significant that an MI6 agent dies in the carwash at a BP gas station?  Is it significant that a Chevron sign comes tumbling down to destruction in the San Francisco car chase?

One thing is certain:  the fact that villain Max Zorin is interested in horse breeding and horse racing is no accident.  Dr. Carl Mortner (played by Willoughby Gray) is a former Nazi scientist whom the Soviets picked up (à la Operation Paperclip).  His steroid experiments on pregnant women in concentration camps spawned our highly-intelligent, psychopathic antagonist in question.  One could draw many parallels…

But we must also remember that this is a movie.  In my estimation, it is the best Bond film up till this point with the possible exception of The Man with the Golden Gun.  What makes this film so special is indeed exactly what I have been skirting around:  its villain (Christopher Walken).

Yes, the theme by Duran Duran is great.  Yes, Grace Jones is fantastic.  But it is Walken who really provides the drama.  That the greatest of all Bond villains would have a particularly nasty scheme up his sleeve is only natural.  Eliminate the competition.  It is simple.  Cold, calculating, mechanical…and creative in its destruction.

Fiona Fullerton really filled out since her role as the title character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972).  She would have made an excellent Bond girl, but the honor goes to perhaps an even more worthy candidate:  Tanya Roberts.  The blue-eyed Roberts and the blue-eyed Roger Moore are almost like the thoroughbreds which play a minor role in this film.  Credit both actors with remaining human while still being among the beautiful people.  Both do an excellent job of giving depth to their characters.  This would, sadly, be the last Roger Moore production in the Eon series of Bond movies (barring a late comeback).

It may or may not be significant that Roberts’ character has the last name Sutton.  Considering the geopolitical intrigue at stake, one might consider the reference as to Anthony Sutton.  Dr. Sutton was a historian, economist, and writer on politics who researched and published on such fascinating topics as the Skull & Bones fraternity of Yale University, The Trilateral Commission, and the U.S. Federal Reserve System.  Of particular note are Sutton’s books on the relation of Wall Street to both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis.

Shedule, not skedjule.  With a simple pronunciation nuance, Walken exits the mine after killing his own workers with an Uzi (while laughing).  Surely such demented individuals don’t reach such important positions of power, do they?

Walken even laughs at his own death.  By attacking Moore with an axe, we are brought back to the archetypal depiction of insanity which Jack Nicholson so hideously characterized in Kubrick’s The Shining.

I won’t forgive myself without mentioning the significant contribution over the years of Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny (this being her last film in the role).  And as a reward for having read this far, the secret to the disclaimer is Zoran Corporation (which strangely, strangely actually did specialize in making microchips…and! was located in Silicon Valley).  As a side-note, the aforementioned company derived its name from the Hebrew word for silicon (being strongly connected to the government of Israel, though incorporated in Delaware).

And I didn’t even get to snowboarding…or the game for Commodore 64 🙂

-PD

Rope [1948)

For many years this was my favorite Hitchcock movie.  Sure…I secretly thought Psycho was better, but I didn’t want to be ordinary.  It was long before I understood the metaphorical reading of Rear Window; long before my mind was mature enough to wrap itself around the slippery plot of Vertigo; long before I realized that North By Northwest was truly sui generis. 

What was it about this film?  I had first run across the title in a quote attributed (I believe) to Peter Bogdanovich.  Rope was a film to be studied.  Rope was a feat of trickery.  The Rope trick.  Long, unedited shots…  It was only later that I discovered how they reloaded the film.  Once you know, it seems obvious, but upon first viewing it does seem like the master and slave reels had unlimited 1000s of feet to spool out and take in.

But that’s not it.

What was it about this film?  It was Jimmy Stewart.  Good, old Jimmy Stewart of It’s A Wonderful Life.  Jimmy Stewart as Louis-Ferdinand Celine.  Jimmy Stewart the misanthrope.  The novelty of it!  But the “kicker” was bloodlust.  Jimmy Stewart redeemed with Emersonian integrity.  His words thrown back in his face.  Even at an old age.  Stewart’s character realizes he has been wrong all these years.  Would Nietzsche have had the same reaction to Hitler?  Would Wagner?

There is no way to accurately “read” this film without placing it in history:  three years after the end of WWII.

Inferior.  Superior.  Intellect.  Beyond good and around again to evil.

It is Hitchcock commenting on himself.  The character of Rupert is the dark, sardonic, macabre humor of Alfred the auteur and joker.  But what of that ending?

There is no more blood-curdling pronouncement of justice in the history of cinema that when Jimmy Stewart proclaims, “You’re both going to die.”

The character names don’t matter.  The tricks of filming even less.

This is the inquisitive Stewart of Rear Window already suspecting.  This isn’t the Hitchcockean trope of “the wrong man:”  this is the right man.

Stewart can’t believe it.  We can’t believe it.  And we saw the whole thing.

We don’t trust our instincts when the conclusions go (as Dick Cheney said) “beyond the pale.”  Look up that phrase.  Look up Arnold Rothstein.  The “pale of settlement.”

In King of the Jews the author Nick Tosches touches on this phrase.  My contention is that Tosches knew in 2005.

Rope is the story of two young men who strangle an “inferior” being (who just so happens to be a Harvard man).  Hmmm…from where then would that make our killers?  Yale, perhaps?  Is this an quasi-establishment jab at the Skull & Bones fraternity?

And Rupert…dear old Rupert…the house master from our murderers’ prep school days…  Could the reference be Phillips Academy?

I will leave these remarks as a thumbnail sketch to inspire discussion.  But it was certainly the novelty of Stewart as a villain…and his redemption as the voice of reason.  Yes.  The message is clear.  All who have killed in this eugenic manner will die.  You’re all going to die for what you’ve done.  It is what society is going to do to you.  The public doesn’t want to hear your advanced theories and your avant-garde morals.

Hollywood failed the Jews.  Cinema failed those in the death camps of WWII.  This is Godard’s grand theme in Histoire(s) du cinéma.  Film has the ability to preserve the “honor of the real,” to quote Jean-Luc.  No country was more technologically advanced (arguably) in terms of motion pictures during WWII than Germany.  Why were their scientists so sought after by Operation Paperclip (and the Soviet equivalent) following the war?  Why were they so successful?  Because they were brilliant.  It doesn’t make sense then that there is no available footage from the pre-liberated Nazi camps.  Cinema failed to prevent the holocaust and this cinematic gap in history likewise has rendered the medium irreparably hollow.  That was Spielberg’s failure with Schindler’s List:  one cannot portray what has never been seen.  The camps no doubt existed.  There is no disputing that.  But there is a hole in the heart of cinema’s history.

The 21st century has offered cinema another chance.  And contrary to Dick Cheney’s quote and its context, there is nothing beyond the pale.

 

-PD

Dr. Strangelove [1964)

…and you will know us by the title which follows the colon.  Yes, Dr. Strangelove is indeed a mouthful when its title is cited in full.  Some years ago I proffered that this film summed my personality up better than any other single motion picture.  Whether or not that remains true, I still hold it to be one of the two perfect or near-perfect films which Kubrick made (the other being Lolita).

I won’t labor over the plot details too much.  Indeed, some may not yet have seen this masterpiece.  I suppose it would behoove me as a critic “of the people” to not always give away the ending.  But when I last viewed this piece of cinema, some things struck me which had previously slipped unnoticed under my nose in the fray.  Perhaps I am most ashamed to admit that I never realized one of the principal characters was named Jack D. Ripper.  He is, indeed, the problem child of this movie.

Played by Sterling Hayden (Johnny Guitar, anyone?), Ripper sets in motion a string of events which define the drama over the course of 94 minutes.  Neither had I recognized the humor in his operating base:  Burpelson AFB.  Perhaps there’s not as much meaning in the place, but the character is indeed aptly monikered.

The film really gets going as we see Peter Sellers (the true star(s) of this film) for the first time in one of his three roles.  As Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, he is the proper Brit whose tact makes him unable to quite fix the snafu in progress (a rogue launch against the U.S.S.R.), but whose diplomacy nearly staves off a most dreadful outcome.

There is an interesting element of this film which is approached tongue-in-cheek, but which nevertheless perhaps deserves further investigation at length.  That element is fluorine…in the form of fluoride…as in fluoridated water.  It just so happens that our resident kook (who has singlehandedly endangered all of civilization by ordering his bomber wing to attack) is very much against water fluoridation.  The year, we must remember, is 1964.  Ripper explains to Mandrake that fluoridation began in the U.S. in 1946.  He takes this (along with his rabid anti-communism) to indicate that water fluoridation is a grand Soviet plot.

Indeed, water fluoridation in the U.S. is said to have begun in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1945.  By 1951, the U.S. Public Health Service had made water fluoridation public policy.  In 1960, it is estimated that 50 million Americans were the recipients of fluoridated water.  In 2006, the percentage of the U.S. population receiving fluoride in their water was at just over 60%.  Any thought outside this narrow swath of inquiry is said spuriously to be the conjecture of conspiracy theorists.  Funny how the villain of Dr. Strangelove is one such fellow–a real doozy at that…inept at expressing himself…always talking about “bodily fluids.”  Indeed, something strange is going on with this subplot.  I will leave it to the reader to investigate the merits of pro-fluoridation and anti-fluoridation.  I myself avoid fluoride at all costs.

Back to cinema (and Peter Sellers), we next encounter another funny name:  President (of the U.S.) Merkin Muffley.  Merkin, of course, is the name given to “public wigs.”  And the muff in Muffley, well…  Again, I urge the reader to let their imagination guide their inquiry.

It would be germane to introduce my own bit of conspiratorial evidence at this juncture.  There is, of course, the oration of Gen. Turgidson (George C. Scott) where he urges the President to (thank you Rahm Emmanuel) not let this tragedy go to waste.  Yes, it is that age-old stain on humanity which Webster Tarpley so eloquently sums up as “cynical.”  Gen. Turgidson (another apt name) asserts with bombastic cynicism a plan so heinous (while holding his megadeath statistics) that it could only be concocted by Hollywood, right?  Wrong.

Case in point:  Operation Northwoods.  With apparent thanks to author James Bamford (and those who have railed against the Kennedy assassination as being something far different than it was characterized), documents from 1962 show the very real psychosis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (of which, no doubt, Gen. Turgidson would seem to be part…if not the head).  No, Kubrick was not simply out to discredit conspiracy theorists.  Perhaps the fluoridation subplot is a smokescreen, but Gen. Turgidson shows verily that he shares a certain simpatico with our rogue Gen. Ripper (who launched the insubordinate attack).  Oh…what would Kubrick make of our post-9/11 world had he lived to see it?  Indeed, the timing of Dr. Strangelove couldn’t have been better (or worse, depending on how one looks at it), considering that just two months before its release J.F.K. was murdered in Dallas.

Ah, but President Muffley’s voice of reason prevails (just as J.F.K.’s voice of reason categorically refused the Operation Northwoods plan which was agreed upon and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff…including their head, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer).  I won’t deviate too far from the plan, but suffice it to intrigue the reader that Northwoods was a false-flag terror attack which would have used remote control planes, fake passengers (with “carefully prepared aliases”) and other such stratagems (including the death of American citizens) which certainly could have no bearing upon events in say, I don’t know, the past 15 years or so, could they?  Or course not.  How silly of me.

And while some ideas such as cobalt bombs seem preposterous today, in 1964 they must have seemed quite nerve-wracking indeed.  The Soviet doomsday device which figures in the movie is, of course, humorously inserted, but the technology was (at the very least) tested by the British in Australia in 1957.  Nevil Shute’s novel On The Beach (also 1957) leans heavily on this technology being quite real and not in the least silly.  Even the Eon series of Bond movies takes up the idea somewhat (in 1964, no less…same year as our film) in that Auric Goldfinger intends to use a device which incorporates cobalt to render the gold of Fort Knox uselessly radioactive for 58 years.  All experiments aside, the theory seems to indicate that radioactive cobalt would be a hazard for far longer than 58 years (as Dr. Strangelove himself points out in the odd segment just before the end of our film).  Indeed, 100 years is more like it (for all practical purposes).  Perhaps even 142 or so…

But I dare say the only name one needs remember in this piece of cinema is Col. “Bat” Guano.  The writers (including Terry Southern) were really having a larf by that point.  Our team aboard the one aircraft which didn’t get the recall “memo” head to what seems to be a made up locale in Soviet Russia:  Kodlosk.  By the end of this romp we are not only questioning the mental capacity of L.B.J. (newly sworn-in President when this came out), but also that of dear old George W. Bush.  One can’t help interpreting the role of Slim Pickens as symbolic of the cavalier disrespect for human life wrapped up in all of America’s nuclear ambitions.  And he just so happens to be a rural gent–a cowboy, if you will.  No matter that the real life Pickens was not only born in California, but died there (in Modesto, to be exact).

“Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?,” sing Pink Floyd in the song “Vera” from 1979’s The Wall.  Going on to reference the very song which ends Dr. Strangelove (“We’ll Meet Again”), it’s an appropriate way to broach how Kubrick’s masterpiece will go down in history.  I personally find only the ending to be a bit clumsy and, thus, the film as a whole (at least) near-perfect.

Sellers’ third role in the film is that of Dr. Strangelove himself.  An obvious remnant of Operation Paperclip, Strangelove is the former (?) Nazi who is wheelchair-bound (with a gimp arm to boot).  This really is Sellers at his surreal best, no doubt doing a good bit of visual improvising (as his bum arm seems to have a mind of its own–at one point choking the neck to which it is attached).

There is one (and only one) female character:  and she is a tightly-wound symbol of power.  Played by Tracy Reed in a bikini, she mainly figures into just one scene (that in which Gen. Turgidson is indisposed in the “powder room”).

Speaking of (and to) power, one would be remiss not to mention the RAND Corporation.  It has been ventured that Herman Kahn, John von Neumann and/or Henry Kissinger might have been templates for the character of Strangelove.  To that I would add Albert Wohlstetter.  All four were part of the aforementioned “think tank.”  Another possibility is Wernher von Braun.  Indeed, it is worth some study to learn how this former Nazi SS member became head of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Likewise, it is interesting how the International Institute for Strategic Studies played a role in the genesis of Dr. Strangelove.  It was, in fact, the director (Alastair Buchan) of this organization (ostensibly formed in 1958) who suggested to Kubrick the book upon which the film would be based.  That book was Red Alert by Peter George.  Silly me, all of these think tanks have me in a quandary.  I was quite sure Mr. Buchan was of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (a.k.a. Chatham House, formed 1920), but I see that I was mistaken.  I do, however, congratulate myself upon noticing that Kubrick’s chum Buchan was son of Hitchcock’s Buchan (author of The Thirty-Nine Steps).  Interesting also that the aforementioned Herman Kahn was a consultant on Dr. Strangelove.

As was noted in my article concerning Dr. No (1962) [see “Bond” section], Ken Adam went from that Eon Production’s set designer to being Kubrick’s man concerned with the same on Dr. Strangelove.  Indeed, that iconic table in “the war room” is covered in green baize.  One need not look further than Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale for the previous symbolic nature of this fabric (consider M’s door, for instance).

Back to Herman Kahn…  He coined the term “megadeath.”  But it took Kubrick and Peter Sellers and God knows who else to concoct the only line ending with which I can feel assured (the feeling is mutual, I’m sure) a sense of finality:  “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

 

-PD