Conversations With the Crow

by Gregory Douglas

  RTC: Did Mueller get these too, are you sure?

  GD: I have seen some of them. Yes. Of course the Raphael would be impossible to sell in public auction, but the coins are a different matter. Some for the wife and his second family, some for my dealer friends and some for me. A good, constructive business, Robert.

  RTC: All that income was most welcome.

  GD: Oh yes, and I wonder how many top CIA people have a Raphael or Fra Fillippi print on their walls. I have a few of my own. Who can prove where they came from? Who cares? On the other hand, if the Polacks discovered where the Raphael was now, there would be many loud questions asked.

  RTC: I would imagine that we kept most of that noise making down. Amazing what a few private threats will do.

  GD: Well, if I had it, I would just hang it on my wall and avoid eating Polish sausage. My God, Heini made millions with the stuff. And I’ll bet he even gave you people a few dollars out of the kindness of his heart.

  RTC: We take it where we get it. Swiss gold, Nazi looted art, drugs, name it and rejoice.

  GD: Name it? You adulterated the gold reserves of a number of our blessed allies during the war…or rather after it. They think they have pure gold bars but what they do have are low grade gold heavily plated. Well, they put the stuff in their vaults and never use it. And how much of the other countries stuff did you keep? I mean, just to protect it from the Russians? Of course they stole too but we beat them to most of it. I have a tea service that belonged to Catherine the Great but someone wants to buy it so I may part with it. I don’t give tea parties these days and silver is so hard to keep clean.

  RTC: If you have a nice porcelain teapot, Emily would love it.

  GD: I have about eight in storage. Eighteenth century French do?

  RTC: Original?

  GD: Of course. Who knows where it came from so enjoy it. I have a nice gold cigarette case that belonged to Nicholas the Second. Faberge work. Don’t smoke but it looks nice on the table right under a nice oil of the last Tsar. They smoked long cigarettes with attached cardboard holders. Has Nicky’s initial set with stones on the front lower right. You smoke?

  RTC: Well……..I’m not supposed to. Were you going to give me the gold case?

  GD: I thought a box of Camels might do.

  RTC: A very kind person. But you don’t smoke.

  RRRGD: Ah, but you’re not supposed to. How about a nice eighteenth century silver Torah? The Gestapo bagged it in some synagogue in Stuttgart in November of 38. Tag and all. Fine work but it looks weird in the hall and like the silver service, it’s a bitch to keep clean.

  RTC: No thanks.

  (Concluded at 9:27 AM CST)

  Conversation No. 82

  Date: Friday, May 2, 1997

  Commenced: 9;45 AM CST

  Concluded: 10:11 AM CST

  RTC: Gregory, I was going to ask you if you could recommend a good coin dealer. I want to buy a few small gold coins for the younger relatives.

  GD: In your area? I don’t…but let me look around. American gold?

  RTC: Preferably,

  GD: How about some small two and a half dollar Indian heads? You could get a few of these that are not a numismatic item and have the mounted in a bezel and worn around the neck. Any good jeweler could do this.

  RTC: Numismatic?

  GD: Yes. American coins are sold by date, condition and mint mark. You could have two identical coins of the same date but one would be selling for hundreds more because it was a Denver mark instead of a Philadelphia. I can check for you. Attractive coins but I can shop around for you.

  RTC: Many thanks, Gregory. Are you into coins?

  GD: No, but I had many friends who were and I understand the market.

  RTC: I remember ten or so years ago, maybe more when gold was going up and up.

  GD: Yes, and it came down and down. That was a rigged market, Robert. An artificial one pushed up by some for their own profit and then allowed to fall after they took the profit out. I remember getting some of my rich friends to buy Krugerrands oh around $300 or so. A bunch of them got together and I bought quite a few and even dipped into my own savings to get some for myself. Kept them in a dresser drawer until the weight collapsed it. What a mess. Anyway, gold kept going up and it got to be a South Seas Bubble type of rise. Feeding on itself and aided by the manipulators of course. Oh, it went to $500 and my buying friends were wetting themselves. And it went to $600 and all the real experts, who are dumb as posts, said it would go to a grand at least. More frantic buyers and up went the prices every day. It got to $700 but I began to feel very badly about the whole thing. My Grandfather was a banker who felt that the frenzied stock market was out of control in ’29 and sold out in September just a month before the huge crash. He said it was an unrealistic frenzy, like the tulip craze in Holland and such over-capitalization could not last. He was right and when the bottom fell out, Grandfather was holding all his profits in cash. The banks crashed too so he was better off than almost everyone else. During the war, he bought up commercial property at ten cents on the dollar and the war boom sent his holdings up into the stratosphere. But he taught me a good deal and you have to use common sense in dealing with these bubbles and get in early and get out the same way. Remember, catch a rising market and sell out before it peaks but just before the peak.

  RTC: And the gold?

  GD: Oh, yes. When it got to $810 I decided to sell but my dealer told me I was a damned fool and to hang on until it reached a thousand. I went home and thought about it and the next day, I hauled a big suitcase of coins, got a neighbor to help me because it was so heavy, and went to the coin store. It was noontime and it was packed with all kinds of professional types buying. Let me tell you that when I sold the contents of the case at $811, before I left the place, every coin was sold. And did they laugh at me. But a few days later, when gold plunged to $200 or so, I was the one who was laughing. And my investing friends, who were not aware of my sell out, told me that at least on paper they did very well. I informed them that I had sold out before the break and to come over and pick up their cash. I took out a modest commission plus the cost of repairing of the broken drawer bottom and we all did quite well.

  RTC: Of course you might have not told them.

  GD: Never happen. Never fuck your friends, Robert but keep that list small.

  RTC: This South Sea thing…

  GD: I was just reading about this in Mackay’s book on the madness of crowds. It was a stock scam and ruined a huge number of people. Early eighteenth century England. Supposedly the King of Spain granted a London company the trading rights in the Pacific and since the possibilities were enormous, the subscribers to the stock program were enthusiastic and many. Stock prices soared and many very influential Brits got involved. Of course it was a fraud. The King of Spain allowed one ship a year to call at his South American ports but the public was not informed of this. The whole thing got to be a frenzy like the tulip craze but like all of these things, it collapsed and took a lot of people and money with it. The gullible front men, mostly members of the nobility and the clergy, got the law onto them but the real crooks escaped across the Channel with their loot.

  RTC: Is the book available?

  GD: Yes, it was originally printed in England in the eighteen forties and reprinted again and again. Do you want the full title?

  RTC: Why not? Always interested in new stories.

  GD: Let me get the book

  (Pause)

  GD: Here it is. ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ by Charles Mackay. My reprint is from ’63 so you should be able to find a copy.

  RTC: I’ll ask Bill to dig me up a copy.

  GD: They call these bubbles. Start out as con jobs with a grain of truth and sometimes, the public gets frantic and the rigged stock, or the gold coins, soar in value. That happened with the gold recently and it happened in ’29 with the market.

  RTC: But the Roosevelt people put on so many controls over the ma
rket that I doubt if it could happen that way again.

  GD: Yes. As long as the controls remain. But if some evil person or gang of persons managed to remove them, the thing will surely happen again. That’s the true nature of the capitalist system. Boom or bust, or rather boom and bust. Just look at the cycles at the end of the nineteenth century right here. If the market wasn’t under tight control, we would have it again. A few would get very rich and a lot, mostly middle class hopefuls would buy into the dream and get poor quickly.

  RTC: Attacking our beloved system, are you?

  GD: Marx was right once in awhile but his basic premise was flawed. Like Christianity, Communism won’t work. Why? What do they say about this? From each according to his ability to each according to his need? Wonderful thinking but flawed. People are greedy and rapacious and others bleat like sheep. Let him take who is able and let him keep who can. Christianity is the same way. Much talk about brotherhood. Noble words and thoughts in church on Sundays and fuck them all the rest of the week. Well, our stock market is safe for now but surely the speculators will strike again whenever and wherever they can. God help the country if these types ever get into power.

  RTC: Well, the Democrats are in now so we are not likely to have high rolling stock swindlers running things.

  GD: Yes, but the pendulum swings and it always makes a full swing, Robert. Always. It’s like a wheel in that what is at the bottom today will be at the top today. And remember, shit always floats to the top of the septic tank.

  RTC: So disrespectful, Gregory. No wonder Kimmel views you as the Antichrist.

  GD: In older times, if you told the truth about sacred matters the Church would barbecue you but now they just ignore you and laugh.

  (Concluded at 10:11 AM CST)

  Conversation No. 83

  Date: Tuesday, May 6, 1997

  Commenced: 8:30 AM CST

  Concluded: 8:55 AM CST

  GD: What’s up, Robert?

  RTC: At my age, Gregory, not a great deal. Yourself?

  GD: My sheep are happy, Robert. Listen, I got a leaflet in the mail about the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam and your agency was purported to have proof that there were hundreds of poor Americans still locked up in hidden Vietnam camps. True or not?

  RTC: Not. The Cong did have captives and they either died in captivity or we did get them back. After we pulled out and they said they won, relations got back to relative normalcy. No, the stories are basically just that, stories. But in this case, there are organizations interested and when organizations are interested, there are charity drives, requests for money and so on. If there were any number, say over ten, Americans still captive, we would know about it. Most of this is just self-serving hype and I would not believe any of it.

  GD: Well, we know the Soviets had some American airmen under lock and key during the Stalin time.

  RTC: Stalin was a crazy old man later in life. Mind you, very intelligent, ruthless and very clever but mad as a hatter. While he was slowly dying of hardening of the arteries, he got crazier and crazier. He was paranoid and fearful. Assassins were everywhere and once Joe got it into his head that some group, like the Soviet Jews, were plotting against him, he schemed and planned to kill them all off. Never in public but out in the camps although quite a few were shot in the head in various basements and dumped into pits along with quicklime. Stalin was in some sense, a great man, but typically Russian, or Georgian as you wish. Peter the Great was at one time, a great visionary and at the same time, a paranoid creep. It must have something to do with the water.

  GD: But you can say authoritatively that to your first hand knowledge there are no large numbers of Americans still held in prison in Vietnam?

  RTC: You don’t quote me, of course, but yes, that is true. And what about the voluntary stay-behinds? There were a few in Korea and a few in Vietnam. And as to the missing in action, most of these are men killed when a chopper full of troops crashed into a quagmire of a rice paddy complex and the bits and pieces scattered all over the place and soon covered with mud. No, leave the dead alone, Gregory. Maybe in the future, some bones or a dog tag will show up and another missing man will be at least partially found.

  GD: I felt that this was just another professional money machine.

  RTC: Yes, just like the Jews howling about everyone giving them money because they suffered as no one else ever had. Entire families wiped out in some camp, including the pet cat, but then, where did the survivors come from? Some ash heap somewhere? No, that business is for political gain and money, pure and simple. It never got started until well after the war because it wasn’t true and got invented about ’48. Now, it’s a huge money machine and they use it as an excuse for butchering Arabs, and a reason for attacking their perceived enemies by calling them Nazis and moaning about new holocausts being planned in some underground Nazi bunker in Des Moines. Only problem is that Americans don’t really care about such things and they get pushed aside by other, more interesting, schemes of enrichment. Oh, even the Irish have their weeping machines but nowhere as huge and sophisticated…and politically powerful… as our Hebrew friends. When one of them starts moaning about our eternal debt to them, I remind them of the Liberty. I suppose I brand myself as a Jew-hater but no one likes the truth. No, as far as I know, there are very few Americans missing that possibly could still be imprisoned by the Vietnamese or Koreans.

  GD: How about the Japanese still holding enormous compounds of prisoners deep in the jungles of Borneo?

  RTC: Gregory, we both know that is pure crap but please do not say such things, even in jest because some clever person will take it up and have a Freedom for American Prisoners of Imperial Japan foundation with a retired Marine Corps general as honorary chairman.

  GD: The truth at last from the mouth of the great one.

  RTC: And the Red Cross is the worst of all, Gregory.

  GD: Oh tell me. We had a small flood in our town when a clogged creek backed up and poured water in one part of town. The Red Cross came into town, got the schools to open their gyms and local restaurants to donate free meals, all to people with six figure incomes and seven figure houses. Ah, but after the victims went back to their damp living rooms a day later, they were sent huge bills by the Red Cross. Know about this first hand. But the United Crusade is worse. I worked for Catholic Charities once and I can tell you that they do a great job. The Salvation Army, too, is good. Anyway, thanks for the input on the MIA business. I probably won’t write about it anyway because the people who run the business, will view me as an interloper who might be after some of their money so they would trash me. They’ll get some Medal of Honor winner to point at me and call me a crook when actually, he is the tool of crooks. Actually, Robert, most people are overweight mentally deficient twits who haven’t seen their dicks or even their feet for ten years and will soon die of heart attacks. They cremated one really huge fatty recently and he melted and the river of fat caught on fire and destroyed the building. Well, if Malthus was right and we overgraze our ranges, we can put the fatties into pens and use them to feed our people, our skinny people that is.

  RTC: I don’t think eating all that greasy fat is good for people.

  GD: Well, we could flense them and use the blubber to make a kind of whale oil for our lamps. The flame of the statue of Liberty run on human fat.

  RTC: Now, be careful of that, Gregory, or the Jews will start to howl. They are sensitive about rending people.

  GD: I once went to a military show and commented to a Jewish attendee who was pointing at some military badge with an evil swastika on it and moaning about the great suffering. I had seen a pile of soap bars on a table and I pointed it out to him. I told him he should check it out and that he might find a relative there.

  RTC: (Laughter) Bad boy.

  GD: Oh, I thought you said bad goy. When I come to see you, Robert, I will give you a lampshade made of human skin with a tattoo of a ship on it.

  (Concluded 8:55 AM CST)

  Con
versation No. 84

  Date: Tuesday, May 27, 1997

  Commenced: 10:07 AM CST

  Concluded: 10:32 AM CST

  GD: Good morning to you, Robert. How goes it with you today?

  RTC: Quite well, thank you. And yourself?

  GD: I can always complain but then there is the alternative. I’ve been going over this Kennedy business and I was very curious to know why it is that the role of certain people never became public. Or why such silly stories about Oswald’s non-visit to Mexico and his certainly non-visits to the Russian or Cuban embassies were never challenged.

  RTC: Well, we have such a lock on the media here that no paper would ever publish anything about this if we asked them not to. And, of course, we did. And when the Warren Commission report came out, terribly flawed as it was, the New York Times raved about it and turned it into a best seller.

  GD: They put it in the fiction section, naturally.

  RTC: No, they treated it like what it was: A precious revelation of the truth, cutting through a jungle of lies. Actually, we also created the jungle of lies.

  GD: Ah yes, one hand washing the other.

  RTC: Precisely. I mean, Gregory, one could not cover up such an action unless one had complete control over the media and the major publishing houses. And some of the really nut books were done for us just to create literary smoke screens. And besides, the further away we get from the actual happening, and this was way back in ’63, don’t forget, the safer we all are. The circles of fanatics and nuts will always remain but the chance of their uncovering anything of importance is growing more impossible. The public has other things to think about, Gregory. More silly stories about whether this bimbo actress is in love with some pretty boy actor who actually is a cocksucker. No, that business is buried in a jungle of vines and palm trees and no explorer wants to go there. Hell, they can talk about Clinton’s latest muncher instead. And don’t forget the most important fact of all Gregory. Kennedy is still dead. And so is his pest of a brother although Hoover did him, not us.