GD: Yes, it was Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller of the RSHA but it was also Doctor Heinrich Müller and he was not in the Gestapo. That’s why my Müller was called ‘Gestapo Müller.’ And that one had only a son and daughter. The wife and the two children are still alive. A different person with the same rank and similar posting, Colonel. I have a copy of his file as well. So much for that myth.
JHC: I think our problem here, Mr. Douglas, is that if certain people got it into their heads that, as you allege, the head of the Gestapo had even had contact with us, let alone worked for us, there would be quite a stink.
GD: I assume you’re talking about the Jewish community.
JHC: Well yes, of course that’s what I’m talking about. All they do is yammer about how important they are. They would raise cain about all of this if they ever believed it and you know how much trouble they can stir up. And you mentioned a Swiss interview with a so-called interrogator. Could you perhaps tell me who this person was? It could be very helpful in authenticating your book.
GD: Why, that’s no problem. The interrogator was James Speyer Kronthal who was the CIA station chief there in Switzerland. James was of the Speyer banking family. German Jews originally. Worked in Berlin before the war, selling stolen artwork for Hermann Göring. Did you know him?
JHC: I may have heard the name.
GD: The CIA did away with Kronthal eventually. He was a practicing homosexual and they believed, though never proved it, that he had been compromised by a Russian agent.
JHC: Did you, by any chance, hear this from Bill Corson?
GD: Corson? No. Müller told me.
JHC: Corson wrote a book on this….
GD: I know. ‘Widows.’
JHC: Right. Did you ever discuss this with Corson?
GD: Of course. Müller had told me that Kronthal’s favorite uncle had died of the influenza epidemic in ’18 and Corson said he knew this from the sister but had never published it. A small detail but I like the small details, Colonel. When Willi got in touch with his former boss, Heini was working for Swiss intelligence. Haussaman and Masson as I recall. Used the name Schwartzer and lived in an elegant villa on the Lake Geneva. Did you ever meet him?
JHC: No, of course not. I mean your book was a revelation to me and many of my friends.
GD: I can believe that. Bob said you raised horses. Do you?
JHC: Why, yes, Mr. Douglas, I do. Are you interested in horses?
GD: Oh yes. I learned to ride over at Possenhofen. You know where that is, I assume?
JHC: Oh yes, I do.
GD: I had an Arabian mare and always rode English. Actually, I used an old German army saddle and I still have it. Don’t ride anymore but I loved it. My instructor was a former Waffen-SS cavalry NCO. You wouldn’t know him, would you?
JHC: I..I really don’t recall.
GD: Good man. Taught me to take a jump with a coin under my ass. The idea was to have it there when you came down. You used to be in the cavalry, as Bob told me.
JHC: Yes, I was, and then we became an armored unit.
GD: I had a relative in the panzers. Got the Knight’s Cross.
JHC: I didn’t know that you were German.
GD: I wasn’t born there but I have family members there. Have you seen Mr. Livingston lately? He was at Pullach and I met him at Gehlen’s place once. In fact, I met you twice.
JHC: Did you? I don’t recall you, Mr. Douglas. You have a good memory.
GD: I’ve been told. I just take it for granted. Dulles bought Gehlen a villa on the east side of the lake. Will you put that in your book?
JHC: Did you get that from Bob?
GD: No, another source.
JHC: Mr. Douglas I have to ask you a serious question. Who are you working for now? Some people think you might have Russian connections.
GD: That’s giving me too much credit, Colonel. I have no secrets to sell to anyone. I just like to put puzzles together…to find out things.
JHC: Couldn’t that cause trouble?
GD: For others, Colonel, certainly not for me. I just write scenarios.
JHC: For our people?
GD: For anyone who will pay me and I have expensive tastes. American agencies like to threaten people to get information on the cheap and that doesn’t impress me. After all, Colonel, it isn’t love but money that makes the world go around. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but Müller used to sell looted art for the CIA. Auctioned some of the unknown pieces off. Lots of money involved. When he died in ’83, I got some of the pieces. A lovely Raphael for instance. Of course, I can’t even think of selling it because they’re still looking for it. Came from Hans Frank’s collection and before that, Poland. Worth millions if it had a clear title but it looks fine on my wall. And you might be interested in the knowledge that parts of the famous Amber Room were right there in Berg. You know Berg, of course. Bodeman-Soden people. It went to Thyssen down in Lugano eventually.
JHC: Well, that’s not in my field.
GD: I think we have a mutual friend, Colonel. Jimmy Atwood? Worked for the CIA in Berlin? Guns? INTERARMCO? Sam Cummings? That one.
JHC: Yes, I had some dealings with him.
GD: I had a run in with him in Austria in 1990. He tried to rip me off on a deal and he got the very dirty end of the stick.
JHC: I don’t…
GD: Does the name Globocnik mean anything to you?
JHC: In what context?
GD: Just curious. I always wondered what Langley did with a box full of gold painted paving stones. But enough of that. Poor Jimmy. You know, when he’s on the sauce, Jimmy talks far too much. He mentioned you once or twice. Now he lives on that lake near Berlin right next to Marcus Wolf. Not surprising considering Jimmy worked for him too.
JHC: I think right now you are way out of line.
GD: He did tell me about the Russian atomic artillery shells but you were a cavalry man and probably wouldn’t be interested. But Jimmy talks far too much and Jimmy is not a gentleman. Abandoned his wife and daughters after she had stuck by him when Angolia got him arrested in ’62. Walked off and left her.
JHC: I know about that. Left her for a tart he met in a club. You knew Angolia?
GD: I’m sitting in his office as we speak. He runs a security company now.
JHC: Is he the one who answered the phone?
GD: As a matter of fact, he did.
JHC: I’m going to have to get off now. It’s been an interesting time talking to you. You will hear from me later on some of these things.
GD: I am certain of that, Colonel. In my next book, I’m going to cover all the Nazi SS and Gestapo people who worked for Gehlen. And Bob Wolfe got me a U.S. Army General Staff listing from 1948 with the names of all the people we brought in then. Of course it was marked not to be released by order of the President of the United States but maybe Wolfe got a promotion and we don’t know it.
JHC: I really have to get off now. It’s been interesting talking with you.
GD: Well, the same, Colonel, and I hope I’ve cleared up some of your questions.
GD: I missed about thirty seconds at the beginning while I was turning on the recorder. The call came in to Jack and he took it on the speaker phone. When Critchfield announced himself and said he wanted to talk to me, Jack acted like he was going to leave but I waved him back into his seat. That’s when I turned on the recorder. Does it match with what he said?
RTC: In essence, but the way Jim tells it, he had complete control over the conversation. It’s obvious the reverse was true. Jim has a very high opinion of himself and he expects people to fall down and worship him. Actually, Gregory, I loved that tape. Listening to it and comparing it with Jim’s rantings, you have made me very happy.
GD: Don’t think I didn’t enjoy myself, too, Robert. What a stuffed shirt he is. Does he really think he can bluff me? With what? Some CIA-inspired court order? He can take one of those, roll it into a tube, insert it into his flabby ass and set it on fire.
RTC: You see, Grego
ry, if you had been connected with some official intelligence agency and signed the usual confidentiality agreement, he could get such an order. But, of course, if you never did, he’s shit out of luck.
GD: Isn’t that wonderful? I did warn him that Atwood had a huge mouth and gave him a few examples.
RTC: I heard. I have a feeling that Atwood won’t be long for this world given that Paki deal. If he has a sudden heart attack….
GD: Or goes out on the river in a little boat….
RTC: Then I’ll know that you were dead on. We can see.
GD: We could have a pool. Six months?
RTC: Probably. Or less.
GD: Will he come after me?
RTC: You’re not a Company man, Gregory. They’ll do everything they can to keep you out of print. Threaten any prospective publisher with dire financial problems and believe me, not one article about you or your book will ever appear in any American newspaper or on any American television talk show. And I mean ever. They’ll put a blackout on you. And I can assure you that even as I speak, Jim is gathering in all kinds of government informers to write terrible things about you…
GD: You mean like Wolfe…
RTC: Yes, and Naftali and the rest of the third grade Hebrew character assassination brigade.
GD: Yes, but most of them, if not all of them, are little pismires that no one knows anything about. Librarians, minor academics and so on. Pathetic little weasels with the brains of cockroaches. I know because I’ve had to listen to their whinings about the book. Oh mercy, Percy, I just can’t believe this! That’s what they go on about.
RTC: What’s your response?
GD: I tell them something my late grandfather used to say to the idiots he had to deal with. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but are you anybody in particular?’
RTC: Oh that’s just the thing to say to them. Funny.
GD: They may be big men at home where they terrify small children and pets but in the real world, they remind me of furious squirrels chattering in a park when you stop throwing them soggy peanuts. They think that because they read a paper on some arcane subject at a meeting of other rodents that somehow they have reached the pinnacle of earthly grandeur.
RTC: And then the New York Times gives them some space in their Sunday edition and they cut out the article, frame it and stick it up on the wall of their cubicle.
GD: Failures but unaware of it. Their betters give them fake steering wheels, like little kids in strollers and let them spin them around, thinking they are running the boat. Well, do you want to bet on Atwood? Five will get you ten he’ll be dead meat within…let’s say within a year. Are you game?
RTC: No, I never bet on a sure thing.
GD: I’ve got a thick file on Atwood. Eventually, I’ll publish it. When Jack got him indicted, he threatened to snitch on the CIA so they got the indictment quashed. Jimmy has been involved in all kinds of gun deals where the CIA gives weapons to various groups in foreign countries then proceed to shoot all the leaders the CIA wants to get rid of. Like Guatemala for instance.
RTC: Best wait until he’s dead to do that.
GD: I’d much rather do it while he’s alive. I do so enjoy the shrieks of rage, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing.
RTC: Gregory, I just knew you'd do a good job. I knew it in my heart. I'll have to tell Bill about this.
GD: What about Kimmel?
RTC: I'd rather not. He keeps warning me not to listen to you because you're crazy as a loon and that no one must listen to you, ever.
GD: And he's so friendly with me, too.
RTC: Don't turn your back on him, Gregory.
GD: Should I send you the tape?
RTC: No, put it in a safe place.
GD: I will. Sure you don't want to bet on Atwood's remaining time on earth?
RTC: No. I told you I never bet on a sure thing.
(Concluded at 9:51 AM CST)
Conversation No. 41
Date: Sunday, October 6, 1996
Commenced: 8:45 AM CST
Concluded: 9:38 AM CST
GD: Hello to you this morning, Robert. Up and around?
RTC: Well, the sun did come up and animal instincts get us going. And then there is coffee. Are you a coffee drinker, Gregory?
GD: I never used to be, but I am now. I hate the taste of the stuff which is funny because my grandfather was a big-time coffee broker. We had coffee all over the kitchen in little bags. My uncle was an expert and when my father got out of the business, he continued long after my grandfather died. Coffee gets you going but if I drink too much of it, my wiring gets fried.
RTC: The world runs on coffee.
GD: They buy a lot of it. My grandfather wasn’t exactly poor. That’s how I know about your people and the Guatemala business. My uncle was involved in it and it was well-known around the house. Grandfather was tied up with Levi and Zentner…the United Fruit people…. and the Grace Steamship company. Uncle was born in Petropolis in Brazil and was fluent in a number of languages, including Portuguese. Yes, there seemed to have been quite a connection between American business and the CIA. And of course, the White House and Congress.
RTC: Well, you’ve seen the tip of the big iceberg, haven’t you, Gregory?
GD: How big is it?
RTC: It’s not so much the size but the power of it. This country isn’t run by little local political action groups or small town newspapers. Democracy is only a word that sounds good. The public hates to vote although I understand that in Switzerland it is mandatory. They don’t care as long as they make money. Do you know how much money it costs to run for Congress? Many millions. And where does the money come from? Aunt Anna’s cookie and mad money jar? No, it comes from corporate interests who want to keep things balanced on their side of the books.
GD: That’s not a great revelation, Robert. No one really cares, as you say, as long as they have television and a car. Back in the Depression days when people didn’t have television sets and no cars, a lot of the underpaid and overworked workers were Communists. Once Roosevelt got the war started for us, business boomed and the workers ceased to be Communists.
RTC: Oh, that’s absolutely true, Gregory, but don’t underestimate the power of the Communist bugaboo to terrify the public into letting us do what we wanted.
GD: Gehlen told me that in ’48 when he was asked by the Army brass to prepare an intelligence paper proving the Russians were about to launch a huge attack on the West, there were two forces behind all of this bullshit. The first was the Army who didn’t like to be reduced in size. Generals had to retire you know and they didn’t like that. And, business had been booming during the war and they, like the generals, didn’t much like shutting down plants and making less money. This from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Oh, and it worked. Leaked to Congress and Harry Truman, it started the Cold War.
RTC: Nicely put and remember this for Critchfield. Yes, that’s basically the long and short of it. At this moment, the United States is run by four major power sources. They are all interconnected and they have the common goal of protecting their asses and increasing their profits. We have what they call big business which consists of international companies, mostly the huge New York banking giants but some manufacturing companies as well. This country got great by being a manufacturing country but that’s slipping a bit. At the turn of the century it was railroads and steel, but that has faded a little…
GD: A little? A lot.
RTC: Yes, a question of degree, I suppose. Anyway, we have really big business as one entity. The other is the political part of our society. Most Congressmen are put into office to take care of business.
GD: And then we have Huey Long, who was not interested in business.
RTC: Yes, and Roosevelt had him shot very dead, didn’t he?
GD: Yes.
RTC: But Congress passes the laws and since most of them are on the take, they are careful not to pass too many laws to injure their business paymasters.
GD:
But under Roosevelt they went the other way.
RTC: But Roosevelt is dead and when he died, we had a new dawn of commerce. And Congress knows where the money comes from and acts accordingly. Eventually we will see someone in the Oval Office who is also Chairman of the Board of Chase Bank. Just joking, but there are those who would love the concept. We have business and political and then we have the Mafia. Yes, it is a huge industry, spawning billions of dollars in revenue. Joe Kennedy turned to them to get Jack elected and then turned on them and began to persecute them using the other brother. Look at all the damage that short-sighted behavior did to the family. And that leads us into our very own CIA. We are at the top of the pyramid, Gregory, for a number of reasons. As you know, we started out as a small advisory group whose job it was to supply Harry Truman accurate international intelligence. Harry never trusted the Army and he found out about the humped Gehlen Report and wanted more facts to work with. Now we got Allen Dulles whose brother, John Foster, was a lawyer with Sullivan and Cromwell in New York. Sullivan and Cromwell was, in essence, a Nazi establishment. They were firm supporters of Hitler and worked with the Schroeder bank in Cologne. And you ought to know that when he was Ambassador to England, Joe Kennedy did business with Hitler and got huge blocks of I.G. Farben stock. It got taken away at the end of the war, seized by the Justice Department and one of the first things Joe did when Jack became President was to have him put Bobby in as AG so he could get his stock back. Oh yes, those people were for Hitler right up to the last week of the war. And even afterwards as well. Of course now that Jews are getting more power here and especially in the CIA, we do not mention any of this. Same thing with your Mueller friend. Of course we used him because he was the top Nazi expert on Communists. Why not? But, of course, if the Jews ever had to face that fact, they would come unglued. Can you imagine the huge headlines in The New York Times?
GD: Yes, I can. We called that Second Coming Type.
RTC: Wrong. The New York Times is run by Jews and sucks at Israel’s tit but they would never discuss this, let alone put it on the front page. Why? Because we have control over what they print. You see, we help our friends in business with delicate political nuisance problems. Like the nice Belgians in the Congo who had all that uranium. Kill off the left wing politicos who tried to grab it all. They really weren’t Communists planning to give uranium to Russia but that’s what we told the President and that’s what our friends who publish The New York Times heard. And that’s what they published and that’s what they condoned. Naturally, with such a dangerous menace, the CIA rushed up to save us all and kill off old Patrice.[39] Same in Guatemala and the same in Iran with Mossadegh. The enemy is identified as dangerous to our business friends. We do studies to prove it to the rabble such as …fake documents and all that…that these enemies are vile Communists, working for the Soviet Union, and a real danger to all of America. On the one hand, get permission to destroy these enemies and on the other, launch a publicity campaign through our many friends in the media to make it just another heroic crusade.
Conversations With the Crow Page 25