Financing the Ratlines

Who was Patricia Spector Martinson?

Green Beret author, DEA and even Watergate?

Refer back to our posting of Chapter 20, in which a 1975 New York Times News Service (NYTNS) article appeared under the headline "Is Model the Link to Drug Ring?" The "model" was identified under her sketch as Patricia Richardson Martinson, said to be the former wife of a World War II intelligence officer named William H. Spector. The authors of the piece wrote that Spector had been going from one police department to another, ranting obsessively about his ex-wife's connection to a drug ring. While stirring up some investigative interest, he was unsuccessful proving his case against her.

The New York Times, had spent a month on research, the authors said, starting with unspecified documents furnished them by Spector. The police agencies which he apparently contacted (listed in the blurb to the right) go from the local cops all the way up to Interpol.

Although the NYTNS article failed to identify the French financier who was friends with President Nixon, we feel certain he could only have been Paul-Louis Weiller, creator of Air France.

It's Not MY Fault!

We get a somewhat adequate picture of Patricia from the full article linked above, but only a vague impression of her accuser, William Spector, as an outraged husband from upstate New York unable to cope with his wife leaving him. Probably just a psycho with a vivid imagination, over-reacting to being jilted, right?

Spector failed to explain why he had set up the car dealership in tiny Ogdensburg, New York, on the U.S. side of the Canadian border, when his family owned one of the biggest Cadillac dealerships in the East two hours to the south in his hometown of Syracuse. Did he perhaps know that being located so close to Canada would be useful to a drug ring operating between Canada and the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where his wife was born? And on that note, exactly how did he meet his young wife unless he had been to St. Maarten himself at the precise time the scheme was being planned?

Why did this story so pique the interest of Robin Moore, who had previously written The Green Berets in 1964, followed by The French Connection in 1971? Was there possibly much more to this story than meets the eye?

Answering these questions requires research into the murky background of Mr. Spector, beginning first with his felony indictment in 1971. Prior to October that year he had sold seven cars that had "floor plan" financing without paying the bank $18,000 on its lien. His defense attorney attempted to offer flimsy evidence that the crime began in mid-1970 when Spector said he first discovered the beautiful Patricia had secretly charged $20,000 in bills to his credit accounts. To remedy this debt he created new liens against his home and business to the bank whose money had not been paid on the cars—a worthless endeavor considering the fact that the prior lienholders quickly foreclosed (allegedly without giving personal notice to Spector) before the end of 1971, preventing these third liens from being paid off.

What children?

It is not known if Bill confronted Patricia about her spending habits, only that six months after their home and business were taken in foreclosure —from some time in May until July 24, 1971—he claimed he was hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment. He came out to find "his children" alone, his wife having returned to St. Maarten; he had to spend an entire week attending to the matter of finding a nanny, he told the jury. Unsurprisingly it took these twelve men and women only two and half hours to say they did not believe a word of that rubbish. Rightly so, it seems, as he had no children! At least his 1995 obituary mentioned none.

Most intriguing of all is that not until August 1974 (at the exact time Richard Nixon resigned) did Spector begin claiming that

"a drug ring was using his cars to smuggle heroin across the Canada-U.S. border during the early 1970's. Neither attorney brought any of these allegation to bear" in his criminal trial.

Family Background

Spector's father, Solomon Spector, was a Jewish immigrant from Russia, naturalized as an American citizen in 1914, the same year he began selling cars in Syracuse. There were four sons—Joseph, Myers, William, and Nathan Theodore—all born before Solomon and his wife, the former Ida Cohen, divorced. When Solomon died in Miami in 1978, having cut William and Theodore out of his will, they sued the estate, valued at upwards of a million dollars, settling out of court.

Two Spector brothers enlist.

Ida's Jewish father had run a grocery store in Syracuse, but her youngest brother became a physician, Dr. Nathan Cohen, in Elmira, N.Y., where William himself lived for 16 years before starting the dealership near the Canadian border. Elmira was not far from his prep school,  Manlius School in DeWitt, New York, which he attended from 1936-39, before entering Cornell.

One of Frank Wisner's OSS Agents in Bucharest

Bill Spector appears to have put off military service until he was drafted. He had already completed his degree at Cornell and moved on to the University at Buffalo when called to serve. He entered as a First Lieutenant and was shipped off to Augusta, Georgia for training. Because he had learned the Russian language from his parents, the lieutenant was assigned to the secret intelligence unit of the OSS in Bucharest, commanded from August 1944 until January 1945 by Frank G. Wisner with Major Robert Bishop, second in command. The goal in sending an OSS team to Romania had been to rescue 2,000 captured airmen held as prisoners of war there and in Bulgaria, but the mission would continue for a year after peace with a secret stay-behind unit remaining within the Soviet-controlled sphere.

Bill Spector talks about Romania.

At that time Romania was a monarchy which had gained  Transylvania, Bessarabia and much Hungarian territory after being on the winning side in WWI, but, because of strong anti-Russian sentiment in those acquired regions, a Nazi-allied Iron Guard gained political power of the country. By the time WWII began, the Romania entered the war on the German side. At precisely the moment in 1944 that the Soviet armies reached the border, however, King Michael, who had been installed by military dictator Prime Minister Marshall Ion Antonescu, switched over to the side of the Allies, possibly hoping to save its industrial base from the Russians. The wealthiest industrialists in Bucharest was a man we've met before, quite recently, Nicolae Malaxa.

Anticipating Germany's surrender, Allen Dulles left his OSS station in Bern to begin plans for secret peace negotiations with Germany at  the Berlin station. In January 1945 Wisner was assigned to Berlin, as  second in command to Dulles. As the war in Europe was coming to a  close, the OSS would be disbanded in September 1945.

Wisner's previous assignment in Bucharest was left under the temporary command of his immediate subordinate, Major Robert Bishop, and this is where things really started to become interesting for the young officer, Lt. William H. Spector, whose name appears in recently declassified Top Secret files relating to certain events that occurred in the career of Major Bishop at this time.

Major Bishop and his boss, Frank Wisner, had worked long and hard in developing Romanian intelligence agents who had penetrated Romania's Communist Party:

Many tons of German documents and film

Wisner served during the war as the self-confident and capable head of the OSS station in Bucharest. He was credited with masterminding a number of operations in the Balkans, including the pinpointing of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania for the massive raid the U.S. Air Force launched from Egypt. In September 1944 while in Romania, Wisner was informed by Romanian intelligence—which had penetrated the Romanian Communist Party undetected—that the Russians planned to impose Soviet-friendly regimes in Eastern Europe. Wisner wanted to act against the Soviet plans, but no one would allow him. Wisner's experiences with Russian forces in the Balkans laid the groundwork for a growing anticommunism that was reinforced during his tour of duty in postwar Germany. There he was second in command to Allen W. Dulles at the OSS station in Berlin. American intelligence agents often encountered hostility in their Soviet counterparts and were impeded in their missions in Russian-controlled areas. By the time the two men were recalled to the United States, Dulles had begun to sympathize with Wisner, who wanted to move on from searching for Nazis to finding out what the Communists were doing.

Wisner moved along to Berlin, leaving behind the cache of documents and files the two men had collected against the Nazis only to have the index to the files be either destroyed or rendered useless. Were these the same files that revealed the atrocities of which Nicolae Malaxa was guilty? Is it possible Malaxa, whose son-in-law, George Palade, was a medical researcher, made a deal with the Rockefeller banking establishment to bring him and his family to the United States and sweep whatever war crimes they may have committed under the proverbial rug?

Russians were supporting Malaza/Malaxa?

One page of the Report relating to the investigation of his successors against Major Bishop seems to contain Malaxa's name, (misspelled as Malaza in the black inset to left). We know there was a connection between Max Ausnitt and Malaxa, though not entirely friendly. The question becomes whether these files could have been seen by Richard Nixon during his stint as a Navy lawyer. Was he in the right place at the time these files were sent to the United States for storage? Whether Nixon discovered this on his own, or was used by someone else who did know, seems irrelevant at this point.

A Report released by the CIA as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request, however, mentions that William H. Spector was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. military in 1945, engaged to marry Elisabeth Mezey-Feher, the subject of the 1945 report :

11. Fiance: 1st Lt. William H. SPECTOR ASN 0-438 705; age 23; born Syracuse, New York Residence: 132 W. 11th St., Elmira, New York

***

18. Identification papers: a. Subject carries a Dutch "Protection Passport" issued April 14, 1945, by the Royal Swedish Legation in Bucharest (Charge d'Affairs K. Anjou), temporarily representing the interests of the Netherlands Government. The passport is valid until July 14, 1945. b. Major Bishop stated on April 29th that Lt. Spector had obtained a Roumanian passport and exit visa for Subject late in March through his connections with a Gen. Stonescu, Roumanian Minister of Foreign Affairs. This passport was left at the office of the Russian Legation by Lt. Spector when he attempted to obtain Russian plane clearance. The plane clearance was not granted and the Russian Passport Control Office is still in control of the Roumanian passport. Subject professed absolutely no knowledge of the above passport or transactions and is extremely anxious to have this matter clarified by her fiance, Lt. Spector. c. Allied Force Permit No. 12501. issued on April 14, 1945 by the U.S. Military Representative, ACC, for Roumania, entitling owner to travel to Italy. Valid until July 14, 1945. d. Subject has no birth certificate. She left her only certificate with the Dutch Consul in Bucharest, Mr. Charles Dozzy, from whom a copy can be obtained if necessary. e. Letter of introduction from Mr. Lolle Snit, Phillips Radio Co. representative in Roumania, Hungary and Holland (Dutch citizen) to Mr. Oscar Berntsen, Phillips Radio Co. representative in Belgrade. Subject did not visit Berntsen while in Belgrade. f. A letter of recommendation dated 16 April 1945 by Major Robert Bishop, OSS/X-2 representative in Bucharest. g. A letter by Lt. William H. Spector dated 17 March 1945 to Mr. B. Y. Berry, American Representative in Roumania, declaring his engagement to Subject. h. Several miscellaneous personal letters.

The full declassified TOP SECRET Report dated 11 October 1945 which contains the report about  Spector's fiancee is titled "Report of Investigation in case of Major Robert Bishop, AC, 0918130," who was ordered to leave the Bucharest's OSS Station just as Spector's fiancee was attempting to leave the city in his own personal automobile. By his refusal to leave as ordered, Bishop faced a severe reprimand and even court-martial. As we see from the stamp, this report was not released by the CIA until 2006, pursuant to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. From the records of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) we learn that Major Robert Bishop of the Office of Strategic Services, was at the X-2 Branch in Bucharest, Romania before the end of WWII and that hearings were held to determine whether he had committed certain violations relating to Elisabeth Mezey-Feher, Lt. Spector's fiancee, who was a suspected informer to the German Nazis in Romania.

We do know that Max Ausnitt told the subject of one report he would pay $25,000 to anyone who helped him escape Romania. That subject was at the time none other than the fiancee of Lt. William Spector—Elizabeth Mezey-Feher (a/k/a Jocky Cristea)—rumored to be then living in Major Bishop's residence. We know that Spector obtained a Dutch passport for this "strikingly beautiful" woman who had married a Romanian man (Ionel Cristea) to head her Jewish stepfather's textile business in order to protect it from the Nazis. Her name was added to Major Bishop's list of sources of information which he eventually completed for the officer sent to replace him in Bucharest.

Both Ausnitt and Malaxa were still alive in 1951, and Frank Wisner, who by that time was back in covert intelligence work, was aware of Malaxa's deportation hearing, while struggling to keep those who had been allowed to escape away from each other's throats. Major Bishop was also back in the CIA by that time. Could he perhaps have recruited Spector as well? These men had helped develop escape routes for persons who had survived the Nazi regime and wished to find safety away from the Soviets, who were about to take charge of their post-war country.

That was all part of subterfuge which involved Lt. William H. Spector's engagement to Elisabeth Mezey-Feher. But once she escaped to Naples, and Spector was transferred to Austria, she married not Spector but another soldier named Elmer L. Kincaid, Jr. and later lived in Bronxville, NY, where she worked as a Conover (Powers) model. She sometimes was in touch with Spector, who still wanted to marry her, she told a friend not long before she made her way to Hollywood and into the movies as Lisa Ferraday. (See Lisa Kincaid, Appendix C.) She was also mentioned in a gossip column in 1949 in connection with a group that included Pat DiCicco, Howard Hughes' associate, and Cubby Broccoli, who later produced Ian Fleming's James Bond novels for the movies.

We are informed by Peter Grose in his book, Operation Rollback: America's Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain, that after the war Bishop worked for the International Rescue Organization (possibly he meant the International Relief and Rescue Committee, which was later shortened to the International Resc

Operation Rollback
by Peter Grose

ue Committee) and that he helped develop the "rat lines" with Krunoslav Draganović, financing the escape of Nazis through the Counter Intelligence Corps' unvouchered funds. One of the men in charge of those funds was Carmel Offie, who had been in charge of the Naples OSS team, where Spector's "fiancee" escaped to. Was that a mere coincidence? (See also chapter 9 of Frances Stonor's book, The Cultural Cold War.)

Think about this for a second. Is it possible the same ratlines were used to distribute heroin? This idea is not original to me; it was suggested by David Guyatt in his essay "The Mafia, the CIA & the Vatican's Intelligence Apparatus," in which he stated:

The principal means of funding Operation Amadeus activities was the hugely profitable narcotics business. Large stocks of SS morphia had been smuggled out of Europe and into "Catholic" South America at the end of the War in accordance with the Sunrise agreement.

The morphia was accompanied by looted SS gold and large quantities of counterfeit British banknotes, forged in concentration camps by captive but skilled counterfeiters as part of an SS scheme known as Operation Bernhardt.

The escape "lines" used to move wanted men around South America, away from the prying eyes of Israeli agents, also proved ideal as smuggling routes for drugs. Decades later, the stocks of heroin smuggled into the United States for distribution by the CIA-protected Mafia would be complemented with locally grown cocaine.

French Connection Through Haiti and French Antilles

Saint Martin/Sint Maarten

What was Spector's wife—or more likely Spector himself—doing between the West Indies and Canada from 1969 until 1971? It was not until Patricia Richardson (or Richards, as her name was given in the account of Spector's criminal trial) left her husband that he "discovered" through her diaries that she had known quite an assortment of extremely dodgy characters in St. Maarten, in the late 1960's, at about the same time she married William Spector. In Chapter Three of Henrik Kruger's book, we find these same men mentioned there as well. They were all members of Marcel Paul Francisci's international cartel, consisting of heroin refining labs in France, a distribution network run by the Corsican Mafia, and a money-laundering system of banks to hide the source of funds and make it available for reinvestment. As Kruger stated:

Most of it [heroin] was sold on the U.S. market, where Italian and Cuban wholesalers entered the scene. In 1971 the Corsican Mafia delivered 80 percent of the heroin on the U.S. market. They deposited their millions in Bahamian, Swiss, and Lebanese banks, reinvesting some of it later in legal enterprise.

The "Italian and Cuban wholesalers" mentioned above were described in greater detail in Chapter 9, where he wrote that Francisci used his connections with French politicians to negotiate an international agreement whereby his cartel could import opium into France and export the refined heroin through Italian mobsters. The distribution network (export) consisted of two air and three sea routes into the United States. As to the sea routes, he wrote:

The shipping lanes... either ended in  

• Brazil/Paraguay,  
• Haiti and the French West Indies, or  
• went directly to the east coast of the United States. 

Heroin smuggled into the U.S. from the French Antilles and Haiti, like that from Paraguay, went via Florida or Mexico.

The French Antilles islands—those islands within the Lesser Antilles subject to French colonial rule —are composed of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy, and the northern half of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten (an island divided between the French to the north and the Dutch half to the south). Therefore, it is not surprising that French criminals would be able to ship drugs out of St. Maarten.

French Connection to Lebanon

 It is also not remarkable that the distribution network run by French gangsters would involve Lebanese banks to launder their profits. When the League of Nations, after World War I, divided up the Ottoman Empire, the French were given a mandate over Syria and Lebanon, while the British took control of Palestine and Iraq. Additional clues about this Lebanese connection appear in Chapter 20:

Several things point to [Robert] Vesco involvement in the long‑standing partnership of the CIA, the Lansky/Trafficante syndicate and the Cuban exiles, in a drugs ‑for ‑guns ‑for ‑terror deal to step up armed suppression and anti‑communism in Latin America. Journalist [Jim] Hougan* ventures that the conspirators might have used such go‑betweens and couriers as the beautiful Patricia Richardson Martinson. According to her ex‑husband, the former army intelligence agent William Spector, Ms. Martinson had very close relationships with almost everyone of importance in the drug business:

• Yussef Beidas, the Lebanese founder and managing director of INTRA Bank, known as one of the major financiers of the heroin traffic; 
• Paul Louis Weiller, a French financier similarly alleged to be behind the narcotics trade [the French financier named above as Nixon's friend];
• Eduardo Baroudi, a big‑time heroin and gun smuggler suspected of having arranged Beidas' mysterious death in Switzerland; 
• Christian "Beau Serge" David; 
• Conrad Bouchard, a top heroin trafficker heavily involved in Frank Peroff's Vesco heroin allegations; and 
• Marcel Boucan, the skipper of the Caprice du Temps, which was seized in 1972 with 425 kilos of pure heroin.

________________
*Hougan, Jim. Spooks: The Haunting of America — The Private Use of Secret Agents. New York: Bantam Books, 1979. 481 pages.

Howard Burris' Mentor, Thomas K. Finletter

Air Force Secretary Thomas Knight Finletter, born in Philadelphia in 1893, was slightly younger than Howard L. Burris' own father, and he had already had quite an impressive career by the time Burris became his aide in 1953.

After receiving a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Finletter had joined the 312th Field Artillery as a captain during WWI, after which he became an attorney licensed in Pennsylvania and also New York; first employed by Cravath and Henderson (forerunner of Cravath, Swaine and Moore--law firm of John J. McCloy). He spent the remainder of his legal career as partner in the international law firm, Coudert Brothers, and would have represented some of the firm's major clients during the period from 1926-1941:

Coudert Brothers' expertise in international law brought new challenges during World War I. For example, it represented the French government when it arranged in 1915 to borrow $500 million from private U.S. banks. The firm also helped the Russian and Italian governments as they sought to purchase U.S. supplies and weapons after they joined the Allied nations in their fight against Germany and the other Central Powers. Meanwhile, Coudert Brothers attorneys consulted with President Woodrow Wilson on how to deal with the Mexican Revolution.
In the 1920s Coudert Brothers and Coudert Frères, the Paris practice, both prospered. As more American elites moved to Paris, Coudert Frères represented various Guggenheims, Vanderbilts, and other prominent individuals regarding their wills and estates. American firms such as General Motors, Western Electric, Du Pont, Frigidaire, 3M, and ITT established French operations with the counsel of Coudert Frères. Meanwhile, the New York office benefited from plenty of estate work, litigation, and representation of U.S. subsidiaries of French companies. By 1929 Coudert Brothers had 11 partners, mostly young men in their 30s. Although Coudert Brothers did well in the 1920s, big New York law firms such as Sullivan and Cromwell, White and Case, and the Cravath firm grew much faster and larger. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Coudert Brothers' earnings declined significantly, but the firm remained profitable. Like some other law firms, it represented the increased number of firms declaring bankruptcy. And it also represented new clients in the entertainment and movie industry as it grew in the 1930s. For example, Coudert Brothers successfully defended comedian W.C. Fields when he was accused of torturing his canary in one of his acts. The firm's corporate practice grew slowly, with clients such as Banca Commerciale Italiana and the Buckley family's oil and gas firms. As war approached in Europe in the late 1930s, Coudert Brothers represented France in its purchase of American airplanes and engines. Many of those planes did not reach France before it was invaded by Germany; they ended up being used by the British in the Battle of Britain. In any case, those purchases stimulated the U.S. aircraft industry, which helped the United States once it joined the Allies after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Finletter ostensibly left Coudert (to which he repeatedly returned) to become a special assistant to FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who was called "the Father of the United Nations." At the conclusion of World War II, Finletter returned to Coudert but was appointed in 1945 to serve as consultant to the U.S. Delegation in San Francisco which set up the United Nations. President Truman appointed him Chairman of the President's Air Policy Commission from 1947-1948, then Minister in charge of the Economic Cooperation Administration Mission to the United Kingdom, 1948-1949, and finally Secretary of the Air Force, 1950-1953.

In his 1972 oral history interview Finletter stated that he had been:

assigned the responsibility of going to the San Francisco Conference which set up the United Nations. Then I returned to my practice of the law. In 1948 I was Chairman of the Air Policy Commission which rendered a report as of December 31, 1948, to President Truman on air policy. I was Secretary of the Air Force under President Truman from 1950 to 1953, when his term ended. I then developed a rather keen interest in politics and especially in the career of Adlai Stevenson, who ran for the Presidency on two occasions in the following years. In both cases he was defeated, much to my regret. After the second defeat of Mr. Stevenson and the election of Mr. Kennedy as President of the United States, President Kennedy named me Ambassador to NATO, where I served until July 14, 1965. I then returned to the practice of the law in my firm, Coudert Brothers, in New York City where I stayed for several years and then retired from that firm.

Several men who would almost certainly have had an impact on Finletter's outlook jump out at us from the above brief biography of his career.

• Cord Meyer, Jr.

From page 350, Baratta

Cord Meyer's admirers included Finletter as well as Grenville Clark, an attorney whose family was explored in this blog a few months earlier. Clark's parents had a family relationship to the first wife of the man responsible for getting Frank Wisner his first job on Wall Street--Franklin Lord. Although complicated, the details set out in the articles in the above links paint a portrait of the society men and women who were in control of the intelligence agencies that operated in America leading up to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. Both Cord Meyer and Frank Wisner played significant roles within that establishment, as did Howard Lay Burris' boss, Thomas K. Finletter. It was an establishment of Democrats, some say liberal Democrats, which set up an internationalist vision founded upon an earlier Democrat's failed attempt to set up a League of Nations following WWI.

Understanding how that liberal outlook led to such a fiasco requires researchers to follow the money behind the men who first set up the networks that supported Americans' international trade networks--the rope that tied it all together.

• John J. McCloy

Also born in Philadelphia, McCloy had a lower middle-class background but would become wealthy and associated with men of wealthy during his life. In the 1950s, McCloy was chairman of the New York Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), of which Finletter was also a member. They, as well as Cord Meyer had a world federalist outlook. Grenville Clark of the firm Root Clark Buckner and Ballantine--partner of the late Secretary of State Elihu Root--one-time chairman of the American Bar association committee on civil liberties, and also one of the main organizers of World Federalists and the United Nations. McCloy worked for European Union as High Commissioner of Germany and as a friend of  French counterpart, Jean Monnet.

CHESTER (PA.) TIMES - TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1950

World Federal Government

Back in 1939, Clarence K. Streit announced a plan for world union of democratic nations in a talk at Swarthmore College. "Union Now" was the name given to the proposal. Outbreak of war blocked promotion of the plan, and centered Streit's efforts on "Union Now With Britain". Today an organization known as United World Federalists, Inc., is making an impression with the proposals "For World Government with Powers Limited but Adequate to Assure Peace". More than 700 separate chapters of United World Federalists have been organized. There is one in Swarthmore under chairmanship of Willard P. Tomlinson.

Alan Cranston, former newspaperman, is president of UWF, and Cord Meyer, jr., is chairman of the executive committee. Vice-presidents include Cass Canfield, of Harper and Brothers, publishers; Grenville Clark, lawyer; Norman Cousins editor, Saturday Review of Literature; Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, former minister to Norway; W. T. Holliday, chairman of the board, Standard Oil of Ohio; Robert Lee Humber, Raymond Swing, radio commentator, Carl Van Doren, author, and Federal Judge Robert N. Wilkin. 

As a "Statement of Beliefs," World Federalists declare:

"We believe that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice, of law, of order—in short, of government, and the institutions of government; that world peace can be created and maintained only under a world federal government, universal and strong enough to prevent armed conflict between nations, and having direct jurisdiction over the individual in those matters within its authority."

In its "Statement of Purposes," World Federalists are working to create world federal government with authority to enact, interpret and enforce world law adequate to insure peace:

1. By urging use of the amendment processes of the United Nations to transform it into such a world federal government; 
2. By participating in unofficial international conferences of private individuals, parliamentary or other groups seeking to produce draft constitutions for consideration and possible adoption by the United Nations or by national governments in accordance with their respective constitutional processes; 
3. By pursuing any other reasonable and lawful means to achieve world federation.

Biggest hurdle it has to overcome is the reluctance to have the United States give up any of its precious sovereignty. This same hurdle is faced in other nations. Alternative, the UWF contends, is another world war, eventually. Proposals of the United World Federalists are worthy of study and consideration by everyone interested in world order and peace.

Frank Gardiner Wisner~It's All About Whom You Know

Part 2

See Part 1 -Frank GAardiner Wisner

~ The Education of a Covert Agent

An authorized biography of Frank Wisner?

The flyleaf of Burton Hersh's The Old Boys boasts that the book is "the never-before-told story of how an elite East Coast Ivy League Wall Street clique, patriotic but arrogant, and often amateurish, dominated the OSS and later the CIA," labeling it a "history of how a secret government alien to our constitutional system grew into the CIA, which ultimately fostered the extralegal scandals of the Iran-Contra affair."

Leafing through the photo section of the hardbound book, first published in 1992, one gets a sense that the book was in large part an authorized biography of Frank Gardiner Wisner, whose family opened up their scrapbooks to Hersh and allowed him to publish nine photos from the family album, while the other ten photos of all other men from the book are taken from more official institutional collections. It leaves one wondering, "What did they want left out about this official history of how covert operations work?

As mentioned in Part 1, Wisner's life began a new direction as a result of friends he met in Virginia. Hersh casts him as somewhat of a rebel, likening his image to a young Marlon Brando. "Young Frank grew up in awe of the flinty paternal standards yet uncomfortable with the churchiness that stiffened family exchanges," he writes. He tells of the father, "Frank George," serving "a stint on the War Industries Board in 1918," as well as being president of a lobby known as the National Lumber Manufacturers Association with headquarters in Washington, D.C. He says Frank George was "displeased" with the son's "slapdash grades" and wild ways and "agreed to ship him off to Woodberry Forrest [sic] School in Orange, Virginia," which "catered unabashedly to hard cases from comfortable Southern families, its masters well practiced at shaking the rakehell out before the boys tried higher education....Nevertheless, it took family pull to get him enrolled at the university of Virginia, class of 1931."

We do not know at exactly what point Wisner met the young Franklin Lord, Jr., a born and bred New Yorker from Long Island, touted by the Gardiner branch of Wisner's clan as their own true heritage. But the two men did meet, travel together to Cuba immediately after law school graduation. But for some reason Lord's role in Wisner's future was omitted from this authorized tale of how this "unsophisticated" Southern lad would be appointed to such an important role on behalf of the "secret government".

The best way to find out is to learn more about the society into which Wisner was being cultivated.

Louise Burton Blagden and Franklin Butler Lord

Although Hersh does not name which of Wisner's classmates enveigled a job for his friend, it is quite simple to discover from public documents, as we showed in Part 1. At the time Frank went to Cuba instead of looking for work in New Orleans, as Hersh told us he had done, Franklin Lord had already been married for two years to a young socialite named Louise Burton Blagden, whose old-money family was accustomed to having its name in the news, at least in New York.

Grace Church, 820 Broadway, New York City

Louise had chosen Grace Church at 802 Broadway in Manhattan as the setting for her wedding to Franklin Lord. The Episcopal church had first opened in 1846, and its most famous rector was Dr. Henry Codman Potter, later named as Bishop of the diocese, as his uncle, Dr. Horatio Potter, had been. The Potters were an institution in American Anglicanism, as well as in pro-British sympathies of every description. More about the Potter family as the story continues.

Louise's grandmother~Julia Goodman Clark Blagden~would have approved her choice for the service, having spent years at Grace Church, operating a school teaching young matrons how to perform benevolent works for the community. She had married Samuel Phillips Blagden, a man from a notable Massachusetts family, who moved to New York to establish a lucrative insurance business in the financial district.

Louise's grandfather was U.S. manager of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Co., a marine insurer based in Edinburgh, and also had his own fire insurance firm which employed one or more of their five sons. His own father had been Rev. George W. Blagden, a member of Grace Church, who had married Miriam Phillips, sister of abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Samuel had belonged to some of the most prestigious clubs in New York, including the  Seawhanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club.

Before her marriage to Franklin, Louise and her sister Nancy lived with their parents  in the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Lenox Hill, next door to cousins Cornelia and Lydia Blagden, her bridesmaids. Samuel Blagden's insurance business had been so lucrative that his sons could afford mansions in what was then the most elite neighborhood in Manhattan. F. Meredith Blagden worked with Samuel in the insurance business, while Louise's father, Wendell P. Blagden, was a stock broker. Very little remains today of that "impressive stretch of mansions that become known at the start of the 20th Century as 'Millionaire's Row.' The boom, which began in the 1890s and lasted through the 1920s, not only filled the lots on Fifth Avenue with sumptuous and sometimes palatial residences but also led less fortunate rich people to build impressive townhouses on the side streets as far west generally as Lexington Avenue."

The Blagden mansions were on East 70th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, where James Lenox's library had once been. Many of the surrounding residences were owned by wealthy Democrats, such as William Collins Whitney or Thomas Lamont. They were Grover Cleveland and August Belmont Democrats.

But others who were equally wealthy were staunch Republicans, such as Stephen C. Clark at 46 East 70th, whose garage, and that of John D. Rockefeller, faced the Blagden homes from across the street (formerly the stable of Jules Semon Bache).

On almost the same block with the four Blagden girls was Caro Quartley Brown, daughter of Stephen Howland Brown, another stock broker like Wendell. Just before Louise's parents married, Louise Burton had gone to a masked ball at the Brown mansion at No. 154, given as a debutante party for Caro.

Stephen Brown's father, Vernon, and his law firm were the general agents for the Cunard Steamship line, whose attorney for litigation purposes was Lord, Day & Lord~Franklin's family's firm. New York was such a small world in those days.

When Wendell Blagden and Louise's mother (also named Louise Burton) were married at Trinity Church in Hewlett in 1911, they had their wedding reception at the Burton family country home in Cedarhurst on Long Island. Robert L. Burton, had actually developed Woodsburgh, adjoining Garden City, with new homes, post offices, clubs, and elegant shops, in a suburban atmosphere to attract affluent businessmen and professionals. The town of Lawrence was created shortly thereafter, and became the home of Franklin B. Lord, Sr.'s father, Daniel D. Lord. All were members of the Rockaway Hunt Club.

Franklin Butler Lord, Jr. invited Lewis Cass Ledyard III to be an usher at his wedding in 1932. Like Franklin, Cass was accustomed to everyone in his family being given the same name generation after generation. It was almost the equivalent of having titles of nobility. Ledyard's law partners, Carter and Milburn, however, did not have suitable names to adapt to the tradition, but Frank G. Milburn was at least attempting to start one when he named his son Devereux. Devereux Milburn had been a close friend of Louise's father and brothers a generation earlier.

It would have been a simple matter for either Franklin or Louise to ask the groomsman's father, Lewis Cass Ledyard, Jr., a name partner of the firm--who was also a close neighbor of Franklin's older brother, George De Forest Lord on Long Island--to talk to Frank Wisner about a job after after his admission to the New York Bar in 1935.

What, if anything, does that relationship reveal to us about Frank Wisner at the time he went to work for the OSS?

Wendell Blagden's mother was a member of the Clark family~one of the founders of Clark, Dodge & Co. at 51 Wall Street, operated by three of her brothers, along with George Blagden.

The Corporation of Harvard University, circa 1945. 
Front, left to right: Dr. Roger I. Lee, Grenville Clark, President James B. Conant. 
Rear, left to right: Paul Cabot, Charles A. Coolidge, William L. Marbury, 
Henry L. Shattuck.

Louis Crawford Clark married  Marian de Forest Cannon in 1880 and had a son named Grenville Clark. Grenville completed Harvard Law School in 1906 with Franklin Roosevelt and both joined the same law firm--Carter, Ledyard and Milburn. FDR had only stayed there one year, however, finding a career in politics much more attractive. Uncle Grenville also moved on, but by 1931 had been named to the Board of Harvard Overseers. He was also an insider in the campaign of his old friend Franklin Roosevelt.

Once FDR was elected in 1932, Franklin Lord's family surely hoped the connection would give them a path to the President's ear.

 When it was said that FDR "betrayed his class," were these the men who felt betrayed?