William J. Donovan

"While it is still largely unknown, William J. Donovan (1883–1959) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed a close relationship during their time at the law school together. At the time, Donovan was a star of the Columbia football team and simultaneously attended both the college (BA 1905) and law school (LLD 1907). Roosevelt, an avid sports fan, became even more admiring of Donovan after he won the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal and Medal of Honor as a battalion commander in the "Fighting 69th" Regiment in World War I. Promoted regimental commander, Donovan led his unit in the New York City victory parade in 1919. In considerable secret, Roosevelt—then assistant secretary of the navy—made Donovan a member of the Office of Naval Intelligence after Donovan returned from Europe. Roosevelt sent Donovan to Siberia in 1920 to observe and report on anti-Bolshevik operations and Japanese activities. This began Donovan's career as a presidential intelligence agent. Despite being members of different parties (as Republican candidate, Donovan ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York against Herbert Lehman in 1932) and Donovan's outspoken opposition to the New Deal, the two men remained close friends. For example, Donovan was one of a small number of guests at FDR's birthday party in Warm Springs, Georgia, in early 1933.... Officially, Donovan was a Wall Street lawyer deeply involved in Republican party politics in the 1920s and 1930s. But he led a secret, double life. FDR sent Donovan to Ethiopia in 1935–36, to Spain during the Civil War, to Britain in 1940 and to a large swathe of Europe and the Middle East in 1941 to observe events and report back to the president.... These missions led to Donovan's appointment as civilian coordinator of information (COI) in 1941, followed by his recall to active duty as a colonel and appointment to head the military Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942." In 1947, President Truman created the CIA, which was "built largely on the framework of the OSS and staffed overwhelmingly by COI and OSS veterans. Anticipating a Republican presidential victory in 1948, then in 1952, Donovan campaigned quietly but intensively to head the CIA in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was gravely disappointed by Eisenhower's refusal to do so. Instead, Donovan was appointed ambassador to Thailand, where he carried activities related to containing the expansion of the PRC. Poor health forced him to resign, and he died shortly afterwards. But, for better or worse, his legacy as the founding figure of the CIA has had enormous influence over the conduct of U.S. foreign and national-security policy over the past fifty years. His statue in the main entrance to the CIA building attests to his perpetual presence as the guiding spirit of the organization." (William J. Donovan (1883-1959). By Brian Sullivan. C250 Celebrates Your Columbians.)

Albert D. Lasker's relationship with Donovan dates back at least to the 1936 presidential campaign of Roosevelt-Wallace versus Landon-Knox. Lasker and Donovan "played a considerable role in getting Knox the vice presidential nomination," and then Lasker managed Knox's campaign. At about 1:55 pm on April 5, 1939, in the New York restaurant "Twenty-One," Albert Lasker was having lunch with then-Col. William J. Donovan, soon to be head of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. At a nearby table, divorcee Mary Woodard Reinhardt was having lunch with Rosita Winston, and Donovan introduced Albert to Mary. Mary felt that she had not been noticed sufficiently, and they were subsequently introduced again by Lewis Strauss (an old friend of Albert Lasker's from his Shipping Board days, later the head of the Atomic Energy Commission), and again by Max Epstein, Illinois industrialist and art collector. Lasker finally reacted and got Mrs. Bernard Gimbel (of the department stores) to invite Mary to lunch at the Gimbel's country house. And Max Epstein invited the couple for drinks at the Ritz. (From: Taken at the Flood. The Story of Albert D. Lasker. By John Gunther. Harper & Brothers, 1960.) Lasker and Max Epstein of the General American Tank Car Co. were benefactors of the University of Chicago.

The Mary Lasker Papers Collection at Columbia University includes 6 folders of correspondence between her and Donovan, dating from 1941 to 1959, and 3 folders with his law firm, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Lumbard.

During World War II, John Hay Whitney was temporarily detailed to William J. Donovan in the OSS. (Freeport Sulphur's Early Years with John Hay Whitney. In: David Atlee Phillips, Clay Shaw, and Freeport Sulphur, by Lisa Pease. Probe magazine 1996 March-April;3(3).)

The New York City Cancer Committee

Donovan was a member of the advisory committee of the New York City Cancer Committee in 1946. The general campaign chairman was Gen. John Reed Kilpatrick, and James S. Adams of the Lasker ASCC takeover group directed solicitation by the commerce and industry committee. Other members of the advisory committee were Sidney J. Weinberg, president of Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Eugene W. Stetson, chairman of the board of the Guaranty Trust Company; and Stanton Griffis, chairman of the executive committee of Paramount Pictures. (Named to Head Division in Cancer Fund Campaign. New York Times, Mar. 11, 1946.) Brig. Gen. Julius Ochs Adler, vice president and General manager of The New York Times, headed solicitations in the advertising, entertainment, and professional fields; and Douglass B. Simonson, vice president of the National City Bank, was appointed treasurer. (Group Head Named in Cancer Drive. New York Times, Mar. 21, 1946.) Kilpatrick, Donovan, Adams, and Weinberg were elected to the board of directors. (Cancer Unit Elects Directors. New York Times, May 27, 1946.) Donovan's old friend from OSS days, Grayson M.-P. Murphy, joined the Guaranty Trust in 1916, the same year as Stetson.

The American Cancer Society

Donovan was a director of the New York City Cancer Committee of the American Cancer Society in 1952. Other directors included James S. Adams of Lazard Freres, W. Alton Jones, Paul U. Kellogg, and Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Mrs. Edward F. Hutton was Vice President, and S. Sloan Colt, president of the Bankers Trust Company, was treasurer. (Letter, Robert A. Loberfeld of N.Y.C. Cancer Committee to Dr. Willard F. Greenwald, Medical Director of Philip Morris Co., Feb. 18, 1952.)

Gen. William J. Donovan was Board Chairman of the ACS from 1950-52, and Chairman of the Executive Committee in 1953. He was an Honorary Life Member of the American Cancer Society in 1956, along with Anna M. Rosenberg, Eric A. Johnston, and Alfred P. Sloan Jr. The Board of Directors includes James Adams of Lazard Freres; Lane W. Adams; Elmer H. Bobst; William U. Gardner, later the director of the Council for Tobacco Research; Frank Stanton, the president of CBS; and Mrs. Albert D. Lasker. Donovan was an honorary director of the ACS in 1957.

Donovan and Frank Knox

"FDR: Pacific Warlord," by Tom Mayock, 2000, describes Donovan as Knox's mentor, whom FDR had sent to Britain "to gauge its chances of holding out. On Donovan's return from England, newspaperman Knox had arranged for him to publish a series of articles on the Fifth Column's part in the German victories in Europe, echoing warnings the president had sounded in a speech in late May."

"The President on 11 July 1941 appointed William J. Donovan of New York to sort the mess as the Coordinator of Information (COI), the head of a new, civilian office attached to the White House.... When Frank Knox bcame FDR's new Secretary of the Navy in 1940, he brought William Donovan to Roosevelt's attention (FDR and Donovan had been classmates - although not companions - at Columbia Law School)[sic]." (COI Came First. CIA Website.) Clifton R. Read, who had been Publicity Director of the American Cancer Society's predecessor, the American Society for the Control of Cancer since 1936, joined the OWI in 1941.

The official story of Donovan's role as COI and head of the OSS

"The years immediately before the United States entered World War II saw American interest in developments in Europe and the Pacific intensify dramatically, prompting both formal and informal efforts to gather and analyze information. President Franklin Roosevelt relied heavily on American and British friends traveling abroad to provide him with intelligence on the intentions of other leaders. One such friend was William J. Donovan, an aficionado of intelligence and a veteran of World War I, whom Roosevelt sent to Europe in 1940 to gather information on the stability of Britain and again in the spring of 1941 to gather information on Italian Dictator Mussolini, among other matters. Upon his return, Donovan lobbied hard for the creation of a centralized, civilian intelligence apparatus to complement that of the military.

"In July 1941, in response to Donovan's urging, Roosevelt appointed Donovan as Coordinator of Information to form a non-military intelligence organization. The Coordinator of Information was to 'collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon the national security' for the President and those he designated. The Coordinator was given the authority, 'with the approval of the President,' to request data from other agencies and departments, but was specifically admonished not to interfere with the duties and responsibilities of the President's military and naval advisors. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, faring a loss of authority to the new Coordinator, secured the President's commitment that the Bureau's primacy in South America would not change.

"Borrowing heavily from the British intelligence model, Donovan created a special staff to pull together and analyze all national security information and empaneled an eight-member review board, drawn from academia, to review analysis and test its conclusions. In concert with the Librarian of Congress [Archibald MacLeish, Skull & Bones 1915], COI Donovan organized the Division of Special Information at the Library, to work with Donovan's analytical staff and to coordinate scholarship within the Library and in academia. In theory, the Division was to provide unclassified information to Donovan's staff, who would combine it with classified information to produce an analysis that would be reviewed by the special board before presentation to the President. Although in practice the process did not operate precisely as planned, the concept of centralized analysis was established.

"The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, brought America into the war and revealed a significant failure on the part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. As subsequent investigations found, intelligence had been handled in a casual, uncoordinated manner, and there had been insufficient attention to certain collection requirements. The lack of coordination among agencies, principally the Army and the Navy, resulted in a failure to provide timely dissemination of relevant information to key decisionmakers. Moreover, intelligence analysts had grossly underestimated Japanese capabilities and intentions, revealing a tendency to misunderstand Japanese actions by looking at them with American cultural biases. After the war, the resolve of America's leaders 'never again' to permit another Pearl Harbor largely prompted the establishment of a centralized intelligence structure." (From the 1996 report of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, which was created under the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, "Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence," in "The Evolution of the U.S. Intelligence Community - An Historical Overview." The Chairman of this commission was Harold Brown, member of the board of directors of Philip Morris since 1983; Warburg Pincus partner since 1990; trustee of the Trilateral Commission and member of the CFR; and trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University.)

"In the historical library at York University [England], the diary of Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to America in 1941, shows that on May 2, 1941, Halifax lunched with Roosevelt and that FDR expressed the hope that U.S. patrols in the Atlantic would provoke Germany into war. The British Public Record Office in London has evidence that in both July and August, 1941, Roosevelt told the British that he intended to provoke a war... William Donovan, Roosevelt's coordinator of information, received warning from the British that the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor." (The Great Deceivers. FDR and the "infamy" behind Pearl Harbor. The John Birch Society, 1996).

British Security Coordination and the OSS

"The head of British intelligence in the United States was William S. Stephenson, a Canadian businessman, better known today by his New York cable address, Intrepid. Arriving in the United States on April 2, 1940, Stephenson was, by January 1941, operating under the name of British Security Coordination (BSC), which administered all the varied secret British intelligence and propaganda organizations in the United States. Those organizations included British Secret Intelligence (SIS or MI-6), which was responsible for intelligence outside of Britain and the Commonwealths; Britain's Internal Security Service, MI-5, which, much like the FBI in this country, dealt with internal British security, and also a number of lesser-known security agencies.

"BSC made use of any means, legal or illegal, to fight those it deemed enemies of Britain, a classification that consisted mainly of non-interventionist Americans who wanted to keep the United States out of the war, rather than actual German agents. In essence, BSC sought to override the democratic will of the American people in the interests of the British government; and, most significantly, in this effort it was aided and abetted by the Roosevelt administration.

"Of such great influence was BSC's influence in the Roosevelt administration that in 1941 it was able to design an American intelligence counterpart, the United States Coordinator of Information, which became the Office of Strategic Services the next year. The COI/OSS was created in the 'image and likeness of British Security Coordination.' Although officially headed by William Donovan, Stephenson's assistant, Dick Ellis, did much of the day-to-day running of the security agency, which was staffed by many other British agents. Moreover, 'BSC passed on an attitude as much as it passed on specific technical skills. It passed on a way of looking at problems and an opnenness to possible solutions - no matter their legality or morality."

Opponents of US intervention were smeared as pro-Nazis. (Nazi persecution of the Jews was ignored, however.) "Among the many luminaries who consciously cooperated with British intelligence were publisher Henry Luce, noted columnist Walter Lippmann, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, and many of the foremost Hollywood producers. Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt's speechwriter, went so far as to clear the president's speeches with Stephenson before they were delivered." Lippmann's brother-in-law created a map to promote bogus claims of a planned German invasion of South America.

"Mahl evaluates British intelligence activities in the United States as 'one of the most important and successful covert operations of history.' What is most astounding, however, is not the British activity but the collaboration by the Roosevelt administration.... For such an egregious violation of the democratic will and the laws of the country, Franklin Roosevelt deserved not simply impeachment but imprisonment." [The Lasker Syndicate conspirators were Roosevelt's manipulators, and they have continued their "egregious violation of the democratic will and the laws of the country" in their anti-smoking activities, with impunity, ever since. -cast] (The Conquest of the United States by Britain... with a little help from her friends. Sniegoski on Desperate Deception by Thomas Mahl. By Dr. Stephen J. Sniegoski.)

American International Group

From "The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men," by Mark Fritz. The Los Angeles Times 2000 Sep. 22: "Newly declassified U.S. intelligence files tell the remarkable story of the ultra-secret Insurance Intelligence Unit, a component of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, and its elite counterintelligence branch X-2. Though rarely numbering more than a half dozen agents, the unit gathered intelligence on the enemy's insurance industry, Nazi insurance titans and suspected collaborators in the insurance business. But, more significantly, the unit mined standard insurance records for blueprints of bomb plants, timetables of tide changes and thousands of other details about targets, from a brewery in Bangkok to a candy company in Bergendorf... 'Germany had 45% of the worldwide wholesale insurance industry before the war began and managed to actually expand its business as it conquered continental Europe. As wholesalers, or 'reinsurers,' these companies covered other insurers against a catastrophic loss that could wipe out a single company. In the process, the wholesaler learned everything about the lives and property they were reinsuring...

"The men behind the insurance unit were OSS head William "Wild Bill" Donovan and California-born insurance magnate Cornelius V. Starr. Starr had started out selling insurance to Chinese in Shanghai in 1919 and, over the next 50 years, would build what is now American International Group, one of the largest insurance companies in the world. He was forced to move his operation to New York in 1939, when Japan invaded China... Starr sent insurance agents into Asia and Europe even before the bombs stopped falling and built what eventually became AIG, which today has its world headquarters in the same downtown New York building where the tiny OSS unit toiled in the deepest secrecy. Starr died in 1968, but his empire endures. AIG is the biggest foreign insurance company in Japan. More than a third of its $40 billion in revenue last year came from the Far East theater that Starr helped carpet bomb and liberate."

Donovan's FBI Files

The FBI investigated Donovan's background when President Eisenhower considered appointing him as US Ambassador to Thailand, part of the Golden Triangle for opium, in 1953. He had already been under surveillance by the FBI for a number of years. From the FBI's background report: William Joseph Donovan was born Jan. 1, 1883 in Buffalo, NY. Parents Timothy P. and Anna Lennon Donovan. Admitted to NY bar "probably" 1907. US District Attorney for the Western District of NY, 1922-24. Counsel for NY State Fuel Administration 1924 and for the Commission for Revision of NY State Public Service Commission laws in 1929. Republican candidate for lieutenant governor 1922, and candidate for governor in 1932 [defeated by Herbert H. Lehman]. Director of OSS during WWII as Major General, US Army. Unofficial observer for the Secretary of the Navy in Great Britain and SE Europe, 1940-41. [The Secretary of the Navy, Col. Frank Knox, previously of the Chicago Daily News, was one of Albert Lasker's friends. Edward Lasker and future presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson seved as Knox's assistants. -cast]

"On 1/29/41 the NYC PD advised that an investigation had been conducted concerning Count John Perdicari (believed to be a German spy) who had been in the US allegedly since 1934 as a representative of Piccioli (a tobacco firm in Italy). During a personal interview with the investigator Pericardi said the purpose of Col. William Donovan's journey to Europe was to 'feel out' various nations as to a United States of Europe. He said that Col. Donovan was sent by Secretary Knox and that the State Dept. was receptive toward sponsoring such a movement" (FBI report dated 9/9/41, page 10). Allen Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said that he was closely associated with Donovan during World War II. "On 9/29/41 Mr. Berle [Assistant Secretary of State] advised that the matter of distributing pro-American propaganda had been divided between Col. Donovan's organization and the Nelson Rockefeller organization, with Col. Donovan to cover everything outside of the Western Hemisphere and Rockefeller to cover Central and South America (Memo to the Director, 10-2-41).

"[Name blacked out] advised a Bureau Agent (date not given) in the strictest of confidence that Gen. Eisenhower had demanded that Col. Donovan's men be withdrawn from Africa, and that Gen. MacArthur had made the same demand with reference to Col. Donovan's men in Australia. Donovan contacted Secretary of War Stimson with reference to having men landed in the Philippines but Mr. Stimson did not want Donovan fooling around in that country. Apparently the reason for the move on the part of Col. Donovan was that the Signal Corps of the Army had made contact with three different groups of American soldiers which were left on the Philippines and had apparently taken to the hills. [Name blacked out] summed this matter up from the standpoint of the War Department by saying, 'Donovan's past sins are at last catching up with him'" (Memo for the Director, 1/15/43). "A letter to the Director, attention Mr. Ladd, dated 6/10/45 from Donald L. Daughters in Paris made reference to counter-intelligence operations of X-2, OSS. This letter stated that Gen. William Donovan of OSS was responsible for insisting upon absolute and exclusive operation for X-2 in the apprehension of one of the managing directors of the I.G. Farben Company who was held in custody by X-2. Representatives in Paris refused to make the above official of the I.G. Farben Company available to any Allied Gov't Agency. Col. H. Gordon Sheen was obliged to intervene and overrule the order of Gen. Donovan" (Letter from the Legal Attache in Paris, 6/10/45). "The 'Daily Worker' for 7/23/45, pg. 9, carried an article entitled, 'Reveals Big Business Domination of OSS.' This article stated that almost every key man in the OSS had direct connections with large international industrial and banking interests. Among those listed as having been key OSS executives were Julius Spencer Morgan and Henry Sturgis Morgan, sons of the late J.P. Morgan, who were special assistants to Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan, head of OSS." "This reference is a resume of information contained in Bureau files, in March 1949, concerning John Foster Dulles. In 1946 [blacked out] MID, advised the Bureau that he was periodically contacted by George Michanowsky, [blacked out] according to Local Board #31 in NYC, who reported that when Gen. William Donovan was director of OSS he made all information available to Allen Dulles, one of his assistants. Dulles in turn made all information available to his brother John Foster Dulles" (Memo for Mr. Nichols from Mr. Jones, 3/28/49).

"On 1/14/47 Mr. Roach of the Liaison Section called on Mr. George Allen and furnished information concerning Joseph Panuch, Allen Dulles, et al. Mr. Allen was advised that Allen Dulles, the brother of John Foster Dulles, was a friend of Gen. (Wild Bill) Donovan and an individual whom Donovan was sponsoring to become Executive Director of CIG (Central Intelligence Group) and that should Dulles receive the job, he would undoubtably be a 'Charley McCarthy' for Donovan" (Memo to Director from Mr. Ladd, 1/14/47). "On 9/15/47 [blacked out] Intelligence Society of the United States contacted the NY office regarding an applicant for Special Agent in whom he was interested. [Blacked out] of G2, advised that the Intelligence Society of the United States was a group composed of former employees of OSS. [Blacked out] stated that this group was banded together under Gen. William Donovan to keep in touch with each other, and it was his [blacked out] impression that they had some kind of office in Wash., D.C. and more or less utilized Gen. Donovan's office in NYC" (NY Memo, 9/20/47). "On 5/25/48 [blacked out] confidentially advised S.A. DeLoach of the Liaison Section that a reliable ONI informant had advised him that various remnants of OSS personnel who had previously operated in and around Paris, France, were operating in that same locality on a private commercial basis under the leadership of their former director, William Donovan. [Blacked out] stated that former OSS personnel had made arrangements with British SOE (Special Operations Executive Branch) to work strictly for British Intelligence, and that those individuals were being compensated accordingly by the British Gov't. [Blacked out] stated that Donovan had made a trip to Paris for the purpose of surveying and inspecting the activities of the above group." "On 9/11/52 Bureau Agents interviewed [blacked out] at which time [blacked out] stated [blacked out] was trying to develop an invention which would take smoke out of the air, and in this regard, a corporation had been formed called the Electronatom Corporation with offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and laboratory at 7 West 45 Street, NYC. This corporation was being promoted by Gen. William Donovan" (NY Rpt, 9/29/52). "On 3/25/54 the WFO submitted an affidavit dated 1/14/53 in which Bernard Joseph Reis explained or denied Communist front associations and specifically denied CP membership. In this statement Reis stated that he was Treasurer of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, Inc., on which Board, among others, was Gen. William J. Donovan" (Bureau memo, 4/2/54).

Donovan was a trustee of Columbia University, 1921-1927.

Donovan and the American Committee for a United Europe

Euro-federalists financed by US spy chiefs. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. The Telegraph 2000 Sep 19. "Declassifed American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement... One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen. William J. Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA... The vice chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA's first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organization in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the movement's funds. The European Youth Campaign, an arm of the European Movement, was wholly funded and controlled by Washington... ACUE's funding came from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations as well as business groups with close ties to the US government. The head of the Ford Foundation, ex-OSS officer Paul Hoffman [an old business crony of Albert Lasker who married Mary Lasker's close friend Anna Rosenberg -cast], doubled as head of ACUE in the late Fifties..."

"The American Committee on United Europe announced yesterday that Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, Mrs. John J. McCloy and Ernest A. Gross had been elected to the committee's board of directors. Mrs. Lasker, president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, also is a director of the American Cancer Society and of the Menninger Foundation. Mrs. McCloy, wife of the former United States Commissioner to Germany, is a member of the board of governors of the National Red Cross and of the board of managers of Bellevue Hospital. Mr. Gross, partner in the New York law firm of Gross & Hyde, has served in the Department of State and as deputy representative of the United States to the United Nations." (Plan for United Europe. New York Times, March 28, 1954, pg. 21.)

An Uncommon View of the Birth of an Uncommon Market, by Alfred Mendez, also names George Franklin, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, as Secretary of ACUE, and Thomas Braden, head of the CIA Division on International Organizations, as Executive Director.

"Kai Bird's account in 'The Chairman, John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment,' states: ...Very reliable information from a former CIA member now reveals that the CIA financed Dr. [Joseph Hieronymus] Retinger's efforts to convince Prince Bernhard to form this group that was later to be called the Bilderbergers. This is confirmed by the fact that General Walter Bedell Smith was the CIA director from 1950 to 1953, so, is it surprising that he would agree to join this group?"

Donovan was a correspondent of John Foster Dulles in 1936, 1941, and between 1952 and 1959.

Did Nazi Money Help Fund the American Cancer Society?

According to Mae Brussell, "This is a story of how key Nazis, even as the Wehrmacht was still on the offensive, anticipated military disaster and laid plans to transplant nazism, intact but disguised, in havens in the West." Brussell implicates OSS chief William Donovan, along with the Vatican, in the "safe diaspora" of key Nazis, including their intelligence operations, the Gehlen Organization. Gehlen's agent-in-place in the US is said to have been Otto Albrecht von Bolschwing, "who had been a captain in Heinrich Himmler's dreaded SS and Adolph Eichmann's superior in Europe and Palestine.... When he entered the U.S. in 1954, he cleverly concealed his Nazi past.... He became closely associated with the late Elmer Bobst of Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical, a godfather of Richard Nixon's political career, which brought him inside Nixon's 1960 campaign for the presidency." ("The Nazi connection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination," by Mae Brussell. The Rebel, 1983 Nov 22.)

The story of Project Hammer and stolen Nazi and Japanese gold, and its control by Citicorp President/Philip Morris director/CFR member John S. Reed.

Others implicated in the Lasker Syndicate who served in the OSS in World War II are Laurence A. Tisch of Loews Corporation, which owned Lorillard Tobacco; and anti-smoker researcher Ernst L. Wynder, who founded the American Health Foundation.

Granville Whittlesey Jr.

"*GRANVILLE WHITTLESEY, JR. New York City; ACS Director-at-Large (1953-62) Member, Law Firm, Donovan, Leisure, Newton and Irvine. ACS Secretary (1955-60); Chm., Committee of Membership on Constitution, Bylaws and Organization. Mem., Assn. of the Bar of the City of New York; Am. Bar Assn. Pres., The Masters Nursery. Dir. Columbia Law School Alumni Association." (Know Your Board of Directors 1961. American Cancer Society.)

Horace R. Lamb

Horace R. Lamb graduated from Cornell University in 1916 and received his law degree at Cornell Law School. In 1926 and 1927, Horace R. Lamb was a special assistant to William J. Donovan, then Assistant United States Attorney General, after which he became a partner in Donovan, Leisure and Lombard. He was a founding partner in the law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & Macrae at 140 Broadway; also general counsel for the St. Regis Paper Company and a member of its board of directors and its executive committee for more than 25 years. (H.R. Lamb, New York Law Firm Partner. New York Times, Nov. 12, 1977.) He married Beatrice Louise Pitney, daughter of  Supreme Court Justice Mahlon Pitney. The ushers at his wedding included U.S. Representative Lewis Williams Douglas, later president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company; Edward S. Pinney; and Bethuel M. Webster, later counsel to Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. Mrs. Herbert Hoover, wife of the U.S. President, attended. (Mrs. Hoover Sees Miss Pitney Wed. New York Times, Feb. 9, 1930; Lamb-Pitney Rite Attended By First Lady. Washington Post, Feb. 9, 1930.) Horace R. Lamb was the attorney for James D. Mooney, CEO of General Motors Overseas Operations; his client was the head of  an "influential group" of industrialists which included Col. Sosthenes Behn, CEO of ITT; Ralph B. Strassburger; Pennsylvania financier; Edsel Ford; Eberhard Faber; and representatives of Eastman Kodak, the Underwood Elliott Fisher Cy. and The International Milk Cy., who, according to a wire from Hitler's US representative Dr. Westrick, "agreed to put pressure on FDR to improve relations with Germany by suspending shipments of armaments to Great Britain." (Texaco Cy. Had Forged Bonds With the Nazis. In: Portrait of a Revered Madman. Galveston Publications; The Car Connection. In: Trading With the Enemy. By Charles Higham; James D. Mooney Papers Collection, Georgetown University.) Lamb and Mooney were both natives of Cleveland, Ohio. Three lawyers of LeBoeuf, Lamb & Leiby were officers during the 1960s of the CIA proprietary, Foreign Air Transport Development. (The CIA's Corporate Shell Game. By John Marks. Washington Post, Jul. 11, 1976.)

Joseph F. Murphy, Esq., of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae, New York, was a director and policy advisor of the American Council on Science and Health from 1978 into the 1980s. Partner Donald J. Wood represented R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in product liability suits in the 1980s; later, he represented Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in securities litigation against R.J. Reynolds. When R.J. Reynolds filed conflict of interest charges, Judge John M. Walker Jr. gave LeBoeuf a pass: "In a judicial sleight-of-hand, Judge Walker found that R.J. Reynolds was a former client, even though LeBoeuf was representing it when it filed the lawsuit for Hartford Accident. He concluded that since Mr. Wood alone possessed confidential information from R.J. Reynolds and since that information was not related to the securities litigation, Leboeuf had not violated conflict rules." (Business and the Law. By Stephen Labaton. New York Times, Oct. 9, 1989.)

Whiting Willauer

Whiting Willauer, co-founder with Claire Chennault of the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers), later the Civil Air Transport Co. which was bought by the CIA, was a correspondent of William Donovan between 1945 and 1954. Willauer also worked for China Defense Supplies as an assistant to Chinese millionaire TV Soong, and was a correspondent between 1942 and 1952. (Whiting Willauer Papers, Princeton University.)

cast 07-06-07