Creature of the CIA--Centro Mondiale Commerciale

One of the best sources of information about the Canadian subject, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, interestingly enough, is the book written by the late District of Attorney from New Orleans, Jim Garrison. 

Clay Shaw's Role in Permindex
In On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison wrote:

It was not until much later, well after the Shaw trial when it could have been of any use to us, that we discovered Shaw's extensive international role as an employee of the C.I.A. Shaw's secret life as an Agency man in Rome trying to bring Fascism back to Italy was exposed in articles in the Italian press which we obtained from Ralph Schoenmann, secretary to the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who had been one of the earliest supporters of our investigation.

According to these articles, the C.I.A.--which apparently had been conducting its own foreign policy for some time--had begun a project in Italy as far back as the early 1960s. The organization, named the Centro Mondiale Commerciale (the World Trade Center), had initially been formed in Montreal, then moved to Rome in 1961. Among the members of its board of directors, we learned, was one Clay Shaw from New Orleans.

The Centro Mondiale Commerciale's new headquarters, according to the Roman press, was elegant. Its publicity, announcing the new, creative role it was going to play in world trade, was impressive. The Centro opened an additional office in Switzerland, also an impressive move.

However, in 1967, the Italian press took a close look at the board of directors of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale and found that it consisted of a very curious collection of individuals. The board contained at least one genuine prince, Gutierrez di Spadaforo, a member of the House of Savoy, whence came Umberto, the last of Italy's kings. Spadaforo, a man of considerable wealth, with extensive holdings in armaments and petroleum, had once been the undersecretary of agriculture for Il Duce, Benito Musolini. Through his daughter-in-law, Spadaforo was related to the famous Nazi minister of finance, Hjalmar Schacht, who had been tried for war crimes in Nuremberg.

Another director of the Centro was Carlo D'Amelio, the lawyer for other members of the former Italian royal family. Another was Ferenc Nagy, the exiled former premier of Hungary and the former head of its leading anti-communist political party. Nagy also was described by the Italian newspapers as the president of Permindex (ostensibly a foundation for a permanent exposition and an offshoot of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale). Nagy, the Italian newspapers said, had been a heavy contributor to Fascist movements in Europe. Yet another director was a man named Giuseppi Zigiotti, the president of something with the congenial title of the Fascist National Association for Military Arms.

One of the major stockholders of the Centro was a Major L.M. Bloomfield, a Montreal resident originally of American nationality and a former agent with the Office of Strategic Services, out of which the United States had formed the C.I.A. (Note: This was significant not only because of his espionage background but because of a curious non-scheduled air trip taken by Clay Shaw and David Ferrie to Bloomfield's home city of Montreal in early 1961 or 1962; see Chapter 9.)

Centro Mondiale Commerciale

Some of the information about the permanent industrial exposition appeared in the American press as well. The following article, datelined Rome, was credited to the Chicago Daily News and appeared under the byline of Ed Kandlik in the Oakland Tribune in October 1960, one month before John F. Kennedy was elected President:

 

Clay Shaw's Aliases and the SDECE

In Chapter 3 of Salvador Astucia's book, Opium Lords, he adds additional information about Garrison's investigation involving Clay Shaw:

Jim Garrison proved that Clay Shaw often used aliases Clay Bertrand or Clem Bertrand. Danish journalist, Henrik Krüger, wrote in his 1976 book, The Great Heroin Coup, that a Colonel René Bertrand, alias Colonel Beaumont, worked for SDECE [Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (English: External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, SDECE) was France's external intelligence agency from 1944 to 1982] in the 1940s. According to Krüger, Colonel Bertrand used his influence in 1949 to get French gangster Jo Attia’s prison sentence reduced from life to four years. Attia [Joseph Brahim Attia] had been convicted in France for illegal possession of weapons and involvement in the death/murder of another gangster, Pierrot le Fou. Attia had saved Colonel Bertrand’s life during World War II and evidently asked Bertrand to return the favor by getting his sentence reduced.

A website called Gangsters, Inc. tells us the following:

In early 1947 General de Gaulle had formed a right wing anti-Communist front, the Rassemblement du Peuple Francais (RPF), forerunner of the present-day Gaullist, party (UDR). It soon established a security corps known as the Service d'Ordre du RPF (SO du RPF). The corps made extensive use of Corsican gangsters against its political enemies. Dominique Ponchardier, its commander, later glorified the escapades of his Gorilles in a series of novels; other ringleaders included Roger Frey, Roger Barberot, Alexandre Sanguinetti, Paul Comiti and Jacques Foccart. Among the criminals recruited in 1947 by the CIA and SO du RPF were the Guerini brothers, the Francisci clan, Jo Renucci and Jo Attia. Unfortunately for the six-man CIA team, word of their underworld partnership arrived before them in Washington, where they were fired on the Spot....

The French Narcotics Connection

The CIA used the Mafia's allies, the Union Corse, to take Marseilles away from the independent and communist unions, leaving the Corsican hoods in control of Marseilles, the most important port in France. The geopolitical rationale for this, from both the French and the American perspective, wasn't only the threat the leftists posed to control of France, but to the Indochina war. The Vietminh had considerable support among French leftists in 1947. In an attempt to force the French government to negotiate with the Vietminh, the communist dock worker unions, which were full of former Maquis fighters, refused to load American arms destined for Vietnam....In 1947 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established, just at the peak of France's political crisis. The center of unrest was Marseilles, where U.S. intelligence agents were already on the job.

Jay Lovestone and Irving Brown, under cover of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), had infiltrated French trade unions and were handing out money left and right. In November 1947, the CIA's first director, Admiral Hillenkoetter, sent a team of experienced anti-Communist agents to Paris and Marseilles. It consisted of three OSS veterans and three "representatives" of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). They were told to "do something, Pitched battles disrupted Paris the day the team arrived. The Communists had called for a struggle against the "parti Americain" and the Ramadier government had been toppled. When the agents hit Marseilles, the red flag waved over the Palace of Justice, and the leftists appeared in control of the city. The six agents wired home that the situation was desperate and that drastic measures were needed. Those measures required gangsters from the Italian and Corsican underworld, hordes of whom were sent into battle. Their methods were brutal, the fight short but bloody. Within weeks the hoods had the situation under control. The CIA had been able to mobilize them so rapidly thanks to an important local ally.

Paris Flammonde's book

 Paris Flammonde's book--The Kennedy Conspiracy: An Uncommissioned Report on the Jim Garrison Investigation (Merideth Press, 1969, from pages 15-17)--is sometimes difficult to find in print in this day, but parts of it were preserved for us by Mae Brussell many years ago in this excerpt:

Rather than draw on the excellent, but necessarily second hand, report of the group of star journalists mentioned, the author established communications with the original source, the newspaper Paesa Sera of Rome. What follows is the result of that line of inquiry. There was established in Rome an organization named the Centro Mondiale Commerciale. Its origins, functions, rotating presidency, geographical displacements, sub-, subsequent, and alternate designations, were so complex and labyrinthine as to make a comprehensive and comprehensible description of it in anything less than a moderate-sized book impossible. Nonetheless, the essence of its activities can be sketched here, and as they seem to deeply incorporate Clay Shaw, a former OSS colonel, Italian Fascists, supporters of the far, paramilitary right in Europe, the CIA, and other like subjects, it is vital that the fundamentals of this situation be clarified as much as space and the entire business' innate irreducible confusion permit. (12)

Exposition Universale Roma

In 1959 another of the mysterious figures who appear to comprise the major portion of the persons somehow related to the investigation in New Orleans, a Hungarian, George Mandel, at one point Italianized to Giorgio Mantello, created a Societa Italo-Americana, the purpose of which was announced as industry and commerce. On November 14 of that year he inaugurated what Paesa Sera regards as his most important "creation," the Italo-American Hotel Corporation. Its stated object was the construction of the Hotel du Lac of the EUR (Exposition Universale Roma). The largest of its shareholders were three foreign credit groups, "represented in Italy by the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, the De Famaco Astalde Vaduz (Swiss), the Miami Astalde Vaduz (American), and the Seligman Bank of Basel. The De Famaco and the Seligman institutions were among the most powerful stockholders of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale." (13)

The CMC was founded in 1961. Spokesmen asserted that it would function as an international commercial organization, that it would aid in the establishing of a permanent exposition, and generally assist concerns involved in trade. The staffing was expansive, the offices elaborate, and it gave all the appearance of being a rather grand operation.

The board of directors was interestingly assorted. Several respected Italians were present—Christian Democrat Deputy Mario Ceravolo and former Social Democrat Deputy Corrado Bonfantini. Listed as president was Carlo D'Amelio, lawyer and administrator of the former royal family's interests [also of Egyptian King Farouk]. The remainder of the board consisted of non-Italian names. Swiss Minister Ernest Feisst; Swiss Professor Max Hagemann, owner-editor of the newspaper National Zeitung (not to be confused with the neo-Nazi German National and Soldaten Zeitung); Hans Seligman-Schurch, Basel banker; Professor Edgar Salin, president of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Basel; Dr. Enrico Mantello, brother of George Mandel (Mantello), the power behind the Societa Italo-Americana; Ferenc Nagy, former Hungarian premier and erstwhile leader of the anti-Communist Countryman's party, and president of Permindex (the head office of the CMC); Prince Gutierez di Spadafora, industrialist and landowner of oddly totalitarian turn of mind, related through his daughter-in-law to Adolf Hitler's notorious Minister of Finance, Hjalmar Schacht tried as a war criminal at Nuremburg; and Clay L. Shaw, of New Orleans.(14)

Hjalmar Schacht

Now what of these associates of the "old-fashioned liberal of the Wilson-Roosevelt persuasion"? What kind of persons did they seem to be? Again, space precludes a full examination of each, or, for that matter, even a cursory individual analysis, but we certainly can look into the background and activities of a few.

First there is Giorgio Mantello (Mandel), a Hungarian refugee, Austrian citizen, functioning in Italy, Switzerland, and elsewhere with financial transactions reaching throughout Europe, Africa, and America, who has, according to Paesa Sera, been condemned for his "criminal activities" in Switzerland. This latter revelation was originally carried in the August 19, 1961, issue of the Basel newspaper A-Z, which featured a report about directors of government agencies, saying:

"In many articles we have justly spoken of the criminal activities of Messrs. [Ferenc] Nagy and Mantello."

Mantello initiated a suit against the Swiss journal, then abruptly abandoned it, causing A-Z to observe: "Too bad; we would have heard some great things at the trial." (15)

Ferenc Nagy was closely associated with Mantello in his highly secret financial political maneuverings. When Mantello founded Permindex, the head office and other face of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale, Nagy became its president. He was the Nagy accused of "criminal activities" along with Mantello, and identified by Swiss newspapers as a "dependent" of the CMC in Rome.

"As president of Permindex, I would like to thank the Italian government for the
good will and sincere interest shown toward our great undertaking, the permanent
industrial exposition and the CMC," orated Nagy, as the operation he fronted began. It was all very grand and impressive, but to quote Paesa Sera:

"The farce . . . reached the point of the grotesque when the lawyer D'Amelio, praising Permindex as 'a capillary organization located in the principal centers of production, with its head office [CMC] in Rome' (an organization, all the while, virtually non-existent), brought all of Italian civilization into play by affirming that thanks to the Centro [CMC], 'Rome will recover once again her position as caput mundi, as center of the civilized world.'"(16)

Actually it was soon to become evident that the seemingly vast, mighty structure was not a rock of solidarity, but a shell of superficiality; not constructed with mass, supporting promise, but composed of channels through which money flowed back and forth, with no one knowing the source or the destination of these liquid assets.

Ferenc Nagy, who, while premier of Hungary, was "compelled by Communists in
key government positions to expel from his party various of its members who had
been arrested for plotting . . . against the government,"(17) and who, while on a trip
to Switzerland on May 29, 1947, telephoned his resignation to Budapest, moved in shadowy areas of finance and politics. "President of Permindex and Board Member
of the CMC," reports Paesa Sera, " [he] was said by the French press to be a
munificent contributor to the philo-fascistic movement of [Jacques] Soustelle, and
[a] patron of far-right movements throughout Europe, including Italy." (18)

Certainly one is led to wonder why, of all the hundreds of nations on earth, Nagy ended up in the United States; and why of all the thousands of cities in the United States, Nagy ended up in Dallas. For that is where the violently right-oriented, GAS-financing, president of Permindex and board member of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale did end up, in the city that boasted the infamous "Wanted for Treason" manifesto, which accused Kennedy of being a Communist; in the city where the
President was assassinated—in Dallas.

These were two of liberal Clay Shaw's associates in his European activities. Prince Gutierez di Spadafora, Undersecretary of Agriculture in Mussolini's Fascist government, was another. After his wartime achievements he turned his talents to his vast landholdings and commerce, especially to the establishment of a corporation, with himself as president, which constructed a huge refinery at Milazzo, in Messina, Sicily. He is also president of the Sicilian Compagnia Armatrice Industriale Petrolifera Armatoriale, which is involved with arms and oil. The prince also owns what is reputed to be the largest hothouse in the world, in Pachino, Syracuse. The more than a hundred employees were for some time supervised by "landsmen" from his feudal estates in Valle d'Olma and Mussomeli, in the province of Caltanissetta who rode about in velvet jackets and high black boots, with fancy revolvers flashing from their belts. According to Paesa Sera "the Syracusans, unaccustomed to these Mafia-like habits, held a great general strike in protest, in December, 1962, and the Mafiosi of the Prince were forced to return" to his more feudal properties.

The Centro Mondiale Commerciale boasted another interesting name in its background. He is Giuseppe Zigiotti, president of the Fascist National Association
for Militia Arms.

"Another fact which may help us understand certain things about the personalities around the CMC," said Paesa Sera, "is the presence in this group of  H. Simonfay, Hungarian refugee, who directs BO-DA, an agency for provocative information from and for the socialistic countries. He is director in Italy of ACEN (specializing in hostile activities on the confrontations of socialist countries), who had an important position in the field of public relations for the CMC, for which he received a secret fee of half a million lire a month." (19)

However, no behind-the-scenes figure is more intriguing than Maj. L. M. Bloomfield, formerly of the American OSS, and later suspected by Jim Garrison of having some affiliation with the CIA.

On July 21, 1961, Giorgio Mantello appeared at the Italian Assembly representing all the stockholders of the CMC. These included himself, his brother Enrico, another Hungarian refugee, Joseph Slifka and Fellender Erwin, banker Hans Seligman, and lawyer Carlo D'Amelio ... holder of 500,000 lire worth of shares. And Major L. M. Bloomfield, who held half the shares or 250 million, for party or parties unknown.(20)

Now obviously the activities of these Shaw associates were closely orchestrated, considering the financial-political manipulator Mantello was permitted to represent not only himself but the six other stockholders of the CMC, including Bloomfield, former United States espionage agent and now a banker in Montreal, who is reputed to control Le Credit Suisse of Canada, Heineken's Breweries, Canscot Realty, the Israel Continental Company, the Grimaldi Siosa Lines, Ltd., etc.(21)

Even Montreal is not without significance, for to quote the Canadian journal Le Devoir:

"But here is where the affair assumes stranger and stranger characteristics. It has just been learned that the name of Clay Shaw was found among that of eleven directors of a company which, up until 1962, had its headquarters in Montreal [italics added] . . . [presently] in Rome, it is known as the Centro Mondiale Commerciale . . ." (22)

Shortly thereafter, while alluding to other directors, Le Devoir reports:

"Ferenc Nagy, exiled head of the Hungarian Peasants Party . . . maintains close ties with the CIA and which link him with the Miami Cuban colony."

Also listed are the previously mentioned Fascist Giuseppe Zigiotti, Bloomfield, and an Egyptian, Faruk Churbagi. This particular episode is worthy of mention for various reasons, not the least of which is its exemplifying of some of the tactics which seem as common to forces behind the CMC and its activities as to those of other forces halfway around the world. The CMC or the Italo-American Hotel Corporation (into which part of the former turned) are, relates Paesa Sera, "also linked to other names which have appeared recently in the yellow press; another sign that, taking part in the same groups as the CMC and its former members, are persons who are quite suspect.

"One of these persons is Faruk Churbagi, the young Lebanese-Egyptian industrialist who was killed in Rome under still unexplained circumstances. It is said in groups around the former CMC that shortly before he was killed, the young man had turned over 200 million lire as dues for participation in the activities of the Centro . . . ."

And then there was the German Christa Wanniger, connected to the CMC by business dealings and "personal friendships," who was stabbed to death in Via Veneto under [apparently inevitably] unexplained circumstances." (23) However, to return to areas of CMC endeavors about which a fragment or two more is known.

Le Devoir elaborates on Bloomfield, noting that he was active in the espionage arm of the U.S. government during World War II and "was at the time the principal shareholder in a society having headquarters in Switzerland and affiliated with the Centro Mondiale Commerciale in Rome, known as Permindex. Other shareholders in Permindex were banks of a more or less shadowy character with headquarters in Liechtenstein, plus Miami Astaldo Vaduz, De Famaco Vaduz, and the Credit Bank of Geneva. Among the directors, the name of Max Hagemann was noted, director of the National Zeitung, a newspaper specializing in anti-Communist diatribes.

Whatever the case may be, the Centro Commerciale and Permindex got into difficulties with the Italian and Swiss governments. They refused to testify to the origins of considerable amounts of money, the sources of which are, to say the least, uncertain, and they never seemed to engage in actual commercial transactions. These companies were expelled from Switzerland and Italy in 1962 and then set up headquarters in Johannesburg." (24)

Another individual described by Paesa Sera as a "high level financial backer" was one Dr. David Biegun, "national secretary of the National Committee for Labor Israel, Inc., whose offices are in New York. Biegun was the person who actually handled the liquidation of the agency (CMC), receiving considerable credit for this, though officially 'unknown to the banks.' " (25)  "A short time [after its inauguration]," reports Paesa Sera, when the enormous Centro began to show the true face of its organization with very precise goals, which were anything but commercial, certain persons in Parliament became interested. Odo Spadazzi presented the question to the Chamber. But when the news came out, Spadazzi quickly withdrew. Shortly thereafter, he became [the new] president of the CMC.

While under the presidency of Spadazzi, the Centro was again questioned by the Christian Democrat Mario Ceravolo, who asked for an accounting of all of the activities of the Centro. Ceravolo, a member of the CMC's Board of Directors. . . had been a member of the board since its founding. Since then, he had seen money spent left and right, and had also seen that no commercial activities were being concluded. He wanted to know where the money was going and where it was coming from, but could get no accurate response. At this point, in 1962, he returned [sic; resigned?] from the board and directly demanded the bankruptcy of the Centro, obtaining a confiscation of two million lire.(26)

The Centro's attorneys immediately assured one and all that "the CMC is straightening itself out" and was "now in the process of complete recovery." A recovery which never occurred. It was these curious and mostly untraceable manipulations which led Ceravolo to make public the following letter:

I refer to the article concerning Clay Shaw which appeared in your paper [Paesa Sera] of 4 March 1967. My name was mentioned therein. To avoid misunderstandings and false interpretations, I ask that you please publish the fact that I left the administrative board of the CMC on 25 July 1962 because it was no longer possible to understand the sources of great sums of money obtained abroad by Mr. Giovanni [Giorgio] Mantello, and the real destination of this money. I was the first to call for the bankruptcy of the CMC and of Mr. Mantello, which paid their representatives, administrators, employees, etc. according to their own pleasure. The magistrate did not wish to grant the request for bankruptcy which I, first of all, presented against the Centro.(27)

 The letter is clear, and so is the question it poses. Who was giving virtually unlimited sums of money to the CMC and who was getting it? And for what?

In less than five years of activities which seemed to begin nowhere, go nowhere, and accomplish little or nothing, while receiving from unnamed sources and delivering to anonymous persons and causes vast sums of money, the CMC found reason to change its presidents or directors ten times, or on an average of every six months, although the men controlling its destinies—whatever they may be—are always the same. "Among its possible involvements (supported by the presence in directive posts of men deeply committed to European organizations of the extreme right)," comments Paesa Sera, "is that the Centro was a creature of the CIA . . . set up as a cover for the transfer of CIA . . . funds in Italy for illegal political-espionage activities. It still remains to clear up the presence on the administrative board of the CMC of Clay Shaw and ex-Major Bloomfield." (28)

"It is a fact," the newspaper subsequently commented, "that the CMC . . . is nevertheless the point of contact for a number of persons who, in certain respects, have somewhat equivocal ties whose common denominator is an anti-communism so strong that it would swallow up all those in the world who have fought for decent relations between East and West, including Kennedy." (29)

A mysterious financial manipulator and a former Hungarian premier who supported the military right-wing GAS, kept close ties with the CIA and went halfway around the world to live in Dallas, both of whom were accused of "criminal activities" by the Swiss press. These are two of Shaw's European associates. A former member of Mussolini's cabinet, father-in-law to the daughter of Hitler cabinet minister Hjalmar Schacht, and the leader of a national Fascist organization. Two more who sat on the CMC board with Shaw. A mysterious ex-spy and a man who resigns from the organization out of conscience. Two more of Shaw's companions in business in Rome. Surely a strange assortment of colleagues for an "old-fashioned liberal of the Wilson-Roosevelt persuasion." But then, the Centro Mondiale Commerciale and
Permindex are curious operations, as has become evident.

Clay Shaw's name first appeared in the Rome newspapers in relationship to the CMC on February 14, 1962, in Paesa Sera, but, as that journal itself said, his "name did not have, at the time, any particular significance." Later that was to alter, of course.

"There have been great repercussions from the revelations of Paesa Sera," remarked that publication in its March 6, 1967, issue, "concerning the connection between Clay Shaw, the man incriminated by D.A. Garrison in the Kennedy assassination, and the World Trade Center (CMC) which was [until] recently working in Rome. The information we published was amply followed up by all the Italian dailies. Il Giorno of Milan, La Gazette del Popolo of Turin, De La Sera in Rome, even Il Tempo, which wrote 'the businessman accused by D.A. Garrison was among the administrators of the CMC . . . .' " (30)

". . . the lawyer d'Amelio," continued Paesa Sera, ". . . confirmed Shaw's presence on the administrative board of the CMC at the time he [d'Amelio] was its President."

Subsequently d'Amelio called Shaw "the inventor" of this type of commercial organization. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know quite what kind of organizations the CMC and Permindex were. One of the few things public about them—if one looked—was that Clay Shaw of New Orleans was a member of both of their boards.

"D'Amelio has tried to justify Shaw's presence (in the CMC and on its Board of Directors)," says the newspaper, "by the fact that Shaw 'had organized in New Orleans a permanent trade exhibit like the one which we wanted to set up in Rome,' and therefore 'through courtesy, we offered Shaw a position on the administrative board.'

"D'Amelio did not speak of the activities of Ferenc Nagy who, through the CMC's head office, Permindex, had financed [Jacques] Soustelle and the OAS; he did not know that several Swiss newspapers had called the activities of Nagy and Mandel [Mantello] 'criminal'; and he did not speak of the completion of the CMC (nor could he, since [in terms of its publicly announced intentions]) this has turned out to be nothing but a tremendous failure." (31)

On March 14 Paesa Sera observed that Clay Shaw had "confirmed everything" it had reported regarding his European alliances. "That is to say," it wrote, "that he has declared that he had been, in effect, administrative adviser to the CMC. Shaw, however, has tried to minimize the importance of this, saying that he had accepted the position 'in exchange two New Orleans-Rome airline tickets.' " (32)

Comments Paesa Sera: "According to American sources, Shaw left the U.S. two days after the assassination of Kennedy and came to Europe, visiting, among other places, Italy." (33) Further, it reports, "Clay Shaw, by his own admission, came to Rome during the time preceding the disbanding of the CMC."

Two enigmatic organizations, shadowy figures of finance, neo-Nazi, Fascist individuals manipulating interests in various areas including arms and oil, untold funds from unnamed origins funneled to unspecified ends—the information piles higher and higher, and one senses that one has barely begun to climb the mountain of mystery atop which these men sit and direct their unknown acts to unknown ends. However, to sum up very briefly Clay Shaw's role in this extraordinary drama, a final quote from Paesa Sera of March 6, 1967.

It is certain that Clay Shaw, who was arrested in New Orleans . . . (and, therefore, whether on true grounds or not, is a person who is certainly not limited to the quiet pursuit of his profession as a director of industry, but who must therefore have his finger in the pies of it is not clear what political activities) had a position on the board of the CMC in Rome. It is certain that the CMC (taking advantage of the good faith of d'Amelio and of other Italians who were involved in that disastrous enterprise) has not fulfilled any of the activities for which it was originally projected. It is certain that an important shareholder in the CMC was an ex-official of the American service. Concerning the CMC and the organizations formed by Mandel, it is not clear on whose account many Hungarian refugees who were implicated in espionage activities were working, nor through what agencies large financial dealings in European political movements have been taking place.(34)

It was stated at the beginning of this examination of Clay Shaw's European participations and alliances that the entire matter of the CMC, Permindex, and the various presidents, directors, members of the boards, shareholders, theoretical and actual intentions, extra- and inter-organizational financial manipulations, far- and military-right sponsorings, and so forth, was so complicated as to require a book to cover what is known about these subjects, and that, even then, the most one could draw from would be iceberg visibility. However, it was felt that to understand anything of this strange man, Clay L. Shaw of New Orleans, and who knows where, the simple two-dimensional sketch offered to the public should be given the depth a more concrete mass of material would reveal.

One last point must be noted before we leave this particular area of inquiry. Seeking more information regarding the Centro Mondiale Commerciale, the author telephoned the office of the Italian Consul General in New York. After having received silence in response to requests for information in three successive steps, the author was turned over to an apparent superior. When the question "What can you tell me about the CMC in Rome?" was put, for the fourth time, to a man whom the entire series of exchanges indicated to be of considerable authority, he replied:

"Why don't you contact the American Embassy?"   "The American Embassy?" echoed the author, not a little surprised at the candidness implied. "The American Embassy in Rome," the anonymous informant repeated. "But we are interested in the CMC as seen from the Italian perspective," the author explained. "Try the American Embassy, I can't help you any further." The gentleman was thanked for his assistanceand the conversation concluded.(35)

In New Orleans, Clay L. Shaw is a distinguished citizen. In Rome he was a key member of the boards of two highly recondite, clandestine organizations, numbering among his colleagues persons accused of "criminal activities" on an international level, Fascists, and victims of European assassinations. Are they, in any way, reconcilable images?

The complexity of Shaw's associations does not end with the Centro Mondiale Commerciale and Permindex, but extends deeply into his personal relationships in Europe. His private address and telephone book, for example, carries the name and address of the wife of a well-known English Fascist, as well as the name, address, and private telephone number of Principessa Marcelle Borghese (now Duchessa de Bomartao), who is related to Prince Valerio Borghese, sometimes referred to as "the Black Prince," or "the New Duce," leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano, the anti-British, anti-American neo-Fascist organization. The prince was a much-decorated midget-submarine commander during the war, following which he was tried and sentenced to twelve years in prison for cooperating with the Nazis after the Italian armistice with the Allies was signed.

However, as he had spent four years in jail awaiting trial, after sentencing, the remaining prison period was suspended.(36)

To return to the happenings in New Orleans.

Notes:

12 Paesa Sera, March 4, 1967.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., March 11 - 12, 1967.
17 Universal Standard Encyclopedia, Vol. XVI, p. 5,974.
18 Paesa Sera, March 4, 1967.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., March 14, 1967.
22 Le Devoir, March 16, 1967.
23 Paesa Sera, March 4, 1967.
24 Le Devoir, March 16, 1967.
25 Paesa Sera, March 18, 1967.
26 Ibid., March 11 - 12, 1967.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., March 4, 1967.
29 Ibid., March 14, 1967.
30 Ibid., March 6, 1967.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., March 14, 1967.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., March 6, 1967.
35 Author's private files.
36 Dennis Eisenberg, The Re-emergence of Fascism (London, MacGibbon and Lee, 1967).

Motive: To Make Sure Israel Kept the Bomb?

In the Introduction to his book, Salvador Astucia wrote that the motive for assassinating John Kennedy was clear.  It was done to end the Kennedy Dynasty: 

The reason Israel acted when they did was because Kennedy was on the verge of ending the Cold War. He was also making plans to prevent them from acquiring the Bomb. This called for a drastic response....President Kennedy had voiced strong, albeit private, opposition to Israel’s development of the Bomb. The Kennedy Administration was well-aware of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona. In fact, Kennedy and Ben-Gurion got into a heated personal exchange over that issue. Kennedy was concerned about Israel’s nuclear capabilities and made a secret deal for regular American inspections of the nuclear reactor in Dimona in exchange for Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, something that Ben-Gurion wanted. Ben-Gurion allowed an inspection once, but it was a deception. The Dimona facility was disguised to look like a nuclear power plant, but the CIA advised Kennedy that this was not the case and advised the President to push for further inspections.

Astucia continued his Introduction by setting out a "scenario of how the plot against President Kennedy was conceived and accomplished":

I believe the assassination was decreed by Nahum Goldmann, founder of the World Jewish Congress and its president in 1963, after taking counsel from influential friends of Israel.

They likely included, but were not limited to the following individuals:

• David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Mapai Party (1948-53 & 1955-63)
• Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Mapai-Labour Party (1963-69)
• Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Labour Party (1969-74)
• Menachem Begin, former commander of the terrorist organization, Irgun Zvai Leumi (Hebrew: National Military Organization), Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Likud Party (1977-83)
• Yitzhak Shamir, former member of the terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang, also a former member of Irgun Zvai Leumi, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Likud Party (1983-84 & 1986-92)
  
• Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Labour Party (1974-77 & 1992-95)
• Samuel Bronfman, billionaire businessman, former bootlegger, owner of Seagram-Distillers Corporation; resided in Montreal
• Louis Bloomfield, international lawyer (and Bronfman’s attorney), contractor for the CIA and FBI, formerly a British Intelligence officer who served in Palestine under the command of General Charles Orde Wingate training Haganah soldiers during the Arab Revolt in the 1930s; resided in Montreal
• Bernard Bloomfield (brother of Louis), influential businessman; resided in Montreal

One can easily see Goldmann, speaking not only for himself, but as President of the World Jewish Congress that year, prophesing that President Kennedy should die for the nation of Israel. And his death would not only be for that nation, but for all friends of Israel scattered abroad. From that day forth they plotted to kill him. Louis Bloomfield was directed to manage the assassination. And he did so with the full knowledge and support of Lyndon Baines Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover.

Astucia says further that David Ferrie had flown the assassins from Dallas to Montreal in a private plane several days after the assassination, and, from there Bloomfield arranged to have them flown back to Marseilles, France." He cites as his source a statement made by Christian David to "Steve Rivele that the assassins were flown from Dallas to Montreal about ten days after the assassination (reference The Men Who Killed Kennedy). [See DVD version]. Second, it has been established by Garrison and others that Ferrie provided pilot services on an as needed basis for members of the 'cabal.'  Garrison specifically pointed out that Ferrie had flown Shaw to Montreal on numerous occasions. (Reference On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 136-137.)"

 Part of the above theory is supported by the contents of a file resulting from a lawsuit filed in 1982 by Gary Shaw, with Bernard Fensterwald acting as his attorney. The report dated June 1981 is referred to as "A Possible French Connection," and involved a dentist in Houston, Texas named Lawrence M. Alderson. The two served in the military together in Europe and Algeria. This file can be read in person at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, where Harold Weisberg's archives are stored.

In 1936 Nahum Goldmann was in Geneva, elected chairman of the administrative committee of the first World Jewish Congress.  Judge Julian Mack of New York was elected honorary president, with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise named chairman of the executive committee. The meeting adjourned on August 15 that year, and in the years after the war, as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims, Goldmann negotiated  the German- Israel restitution agreement with West Germany for it to pay $805 million in reparations to Israel, which was signed in September 1952. He also succeeded Rabbi Wise as president of the World Jewish Congress.

As for Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, Astucia cites David Goldman and Jeffrey Steinberg research that Bloomfield was "recruited into the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1938, during the war was given rank within the US Army, and eventually became part of the OSS intelligence system, including the FBI’s Division Five. Reportedly, Bloomfield became quite close with J. Edgar Hoover." 

[See book about Rabbi Wise.]

He also includes in another footnote (fn. 3) a reference to the book written by Louis' brother, Bernard Bloomfield, Israel Diary (1950), p 5. Stating that "Louis had been a major in the Army Service Corps," before the two brothers traveled to Israel in 1949, Bernard had written: 

"We had dinner at the hotel and then went to a night club. There Amos [brother-in-law*] met a soldier whom he hadn’t seen for twelve years. They were at that time involved in the same arms smuggling plot, back in 1936, for which Amos was sent to jail. They had quite a reunion. He was a fine big fellow, a major, married, with children. When he learned Louis was a major in the Army Service Corps, in which he also had served, he became more communicative and told Louis and Amos that he was fed up with life—all his friends having been killed or wounded. He couldn’t get out of the army because he was such a good soldier; they wouldn’t release him. He said he received 38 [Israeli pounds] per month as pay, and it cost him 75 [Israeli pounds] to live. He made a very good impression on us—a decent and serious fellow."

 Astucia also cites Michael Marrus book, Sam Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam (1991, p. 112) as the source for the following statement:

Sir Mortimer Barnett Davis [owner of the Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company] was a whisky supplier to Sam Bronfman during prohibition.

THE DAILY GLEANER - January 26, 1933

A REVIEW OF THE WHOLESALE
LIQUOR TRADE

A depressing picture of the fate of those interested in depots for the American trade appeared in a London morning paper the other day. This report, which was dated from Nassau, opened with the cheerful news that "the days of dry America are numbered, and in their passing passes also the bootlegger, the rum-runner, and the highjacker." The result for one Colony, we are told, is debt and destitution.

The truth of the matter is that the wet victory in the United States has nothing to do with the depression in the West Indies. Several years ago it was found that Canada proved a more satisfactory base for operations. with the result that the West Indies lost much of their former prosperity. In a few hectic years one Colony had replaced rock ruts with roads; waterworks were substituted for wells; public wharves and schools were built. Naturally, it is now feeling the difference.

So, too, is Canada, for that matter; for as a result of the enactment vetoing shipments of liquor consigned to United States ports, the trade is now operated from the French Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The American market is so important that strong influences are at work to induce the Dominion Government to rescind the Export Act. Such a step would give a great impetus to the Canadian liquor trade, and Scotch whisky would also benefit to a lesser extent.

ATLANTIC WHISKY COMBINE.

According to a pronouncement from the leading independent distilleries in Canada, a merger of the Canadian and Scoto-Canadian interests "on an equitable basis," still depends on a good deal of compromise from the extreme bargaining position taken up by principals of the various companies. When several years ago the Distillers' Corporation (the Canadian subsidiary of the Distillers Company, Ltd.. Edinburgh) united with Joseph Seagram and Sons, following the merger of Hiram Walker with Gooderham and Worts, a larger amalgamation was only frustrated, it is believed, by the opposition of the Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company. Since that time, business has been poor, and larger stocks of liquor have been accumulated by all the competing concerns; competition for the irregular United States trade having combined with the high internal taxes to reduce profits.

Turning Plowshares into Swords--Roy Cohn and Lionel

During World War II many of America's factories with machine-tool capabilities, were switched by the War Industries Board into manufacturing weapons for war use. Lionel Corp. made toy trains out of metal and was easily adaptable for this purpose.

Joshua Lionel Cowen, an avid inventor, had founded Lionel Manufacturing Company in 1900--after patenting a mine-detonating device he sold to the U.S. Navy--to turn to making toys for young boys. Retiring from the business in 1958, he sold it to his great-nephew, Roy Cohn.
 

Joshua Lionel Cowen (who had changed his name from Cohen) was at that time alive and living in Florida (until 1965). His son, Lawrence Cowen, had been the company's president from around 1945 until he was named president of the safety razor company called Schick in the spring of 1960.

 

Cohn's mother, formerly Dora Marcus, wife of Judge Albert Cohn, was the daughter of J. Lionel Cowen's sister, Mrs. Joseph (Rachel Celia Cohen) Marcus. Thus, Lawrence Cowen and his sister, Isabel Cowen Otis Brandaleone, were Roy's second cousins. Lionel Corp. was losing money, and the founder's children went into debt to help Cohn bail out the toy train manufacturer.  Lawrence resigned as president in October 1959 but not replaced until August 1960, when a Army General Medaris was elected to the position, where he would serve almost three years.
Roy Cohn, labelled by the Berkshire NY Eagle on Oct. 20, 1959 as "the young cigar-smoking lawyer," was said to have recently headed a group which 

"purchased most of the 200,000 Lionel shares from members of the founder's family at $15 a share, some $5 over the market value at the time. 'We didn't want a proxy fight,' he emphasized....The group is keeping many officials of the old management in the top operating posts. A president for the company has not yet been selected. 'We are considering several candidates and will make a decision shortly. He probably will be an outsider.' Cohn. 32, was a graduate lawyer at 20. His father was the late Justice Albert M. Cohn of the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division."

August 8, 1960 - General Medaris Heads Toy Firm

NEW YORK (AP) — Maj. Gen. John B. Medaris, former head of the Army rocket and guided missile program, today became president of a toy train manufacturing company.

Lionel Corp. announced Medaris' new position. He also was elected a director.

Lionel has been without a president since last October.

Lionel has long been the nation's largest manufacturer of electric trains and accessories. It also makes other electric and mechanical toys, chemistry sets and sporting equipment.

The company also manufactures an explosive switch with broad applications in bombs, missiles, rockets and mines.

Medaris resigned from the Army in January. At that time he claimed the United States' "reluctant dragon" attitude toward space was leading to disaster.

There was a short-lived rise in the stock's value the year after Medaris took over, but then by 1963, as Time magazine described events, Lionel:

lost $2,500,000 in 1961, another $4,000,000 in 1962; Cohn shucked off several of the new subsidiaries and eased out General Medaris. Last week the word went out that Cohn was surrendering the controls at Lionel. First step: granting options for his 55,000 shares to a group headed by Manhattan Entrepreneur Victor Muscat [often referred to as the "toothpaste tube tycoon"]. The Lionel shares that he bought for $15 each closed last week at $6.50, which even at that represented a $1.25 rise for the week on news of Cohn's retreat.

The Muscat Family of Brooklyn founded United American Metals in 1889. Like Lionel, their factory was also converted into making armaments during World War II. After the death of the patriarch, Lazarus Muscat in 1944, "Victor Muscat, branched off into Victor Industries and became the largest produce of collapsible tubes in the country; producing Tin-base, Lead base and Aluminum tubes for the pharmaceutical, dental and general trades."

There is definitely more here than meets the eye. 

General John B. Medaris holding a model of the Redstone rocket -Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco May 17, 1957. (U.S. Army, courtesy of Medaris Collection, Florida Institute of Technology.)

Why Roy Cohn Hated Bobby Kennedy

Life magazine said in its Oct. 3, 1963 issue: "Roy Cohn sits in a chemical complex of dupes and jugglers--all involved in the United Dye Co. conspiracy and the government's indictment of Cohn."

Somewhere in this chemical complex sits Roy Cohn.

The previous blog entry here included an excerpt of an excellent copyrighted research from DUCK KEY ONLINE about early development of Duck Key (on an island chain extending up from Key West) relative to an FBI investigation concerning whether Roy Cohn owned a residence there in his own name. As one of the included exhibits at the Duck Key website reveals, Roy Cohn was a co-defendant in a bribery case brought against him in New York with fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Morton Robson, who had been previously associated with an assortment of questionable prosecutions, including one against Adam Clayton Powell. In a case arising 56 years after initially being admitted to practice law (a case involving German financier Guido Bensberg), Robson would eventually be disbarred.

Robson's name also appeared in FBI files--with an identification number following it (58-1232), which in other FBI files is simply designated "New York"--connected to New York Bureau information sent to J. Edgar Hoover in Washington, D.C. It appears to indicate that a copy of such investigative information was also sent to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, where Morton Robson and Roy Cohn had been employed as attorneys by U.S. Attorney Frank Hogan before Morgenthau's appointment in 1961 by Kennedy.

The bribery case brought against the two attorneys concerned United Dye & Chemical, then controlled by one Lowell MacAfee Birrell. A 1958 report from "Legat, Havana" (short for Legal Attache, or the FBI agent in an embassy abroad) to Director Hoover identified Birrell as follows:

In the past LOWELL M. BIRRELL has been associated with the Oriental Park Race Track outside of Havana. An article appeared in the "Times of Havana", an English language newspaper in Havana on March 4, 1958 reporting that BIRRELL had been ordered to pay a $3,256,639 judgment to the Dynamics Corporation of America for "frauds committed on the corporation by BIRRELL." This article indicated that Federal Judge SYLVESTER J. RYAN had filed the default judgment against BIRRELL following an inquest hearing in New York City....

Extra copies of this letter have been prepared for forwarding by the Bureau to New York (3) Miami (3) and Salt Lake City (2). Additional copies have been prepared in view of the references made to MEYER LANSKY and SANTO TRAFFICANTE in order that copies may be placed in those files.

More than a year after this report, the following item appeared in the news:

 THE POST-STANDARD, Syracuse, N. Y., Wednesday, August 26, 1959

Jurors Indict
Mystery Men
In Stock Gyp

NEW YORK. (AP) — A grand jury linked two alleged master stock swindlers in a single indictment Tuesday, charging mystery-man Alexander F. Guterma [sic] and fugitive Lowell M. Birrell with conspiracy in stock market dealings. The federal grand jury indictment accused the two once-fabulously wealthy financiers with conspiring to violate the securities exchange act by filing false and misleading reports on dealings in the United Dye Chemical Corp.

Also named in the indictment were the chemical company and Virgil D. Dardi. Dardi is now president of Chem Oil Co., successor to United Dye and Chemical, of which Guterma and Birrell were once officers and directors. Others named were Robert C. Leonhardt, former head of a Wall Street brokerage firm; Louis Levin, a Quebec attorney; Pierre A. DuVal, a publisher of brochures [weekly bulletin put out by DuVal's Consensus, Inc.]; and Harry W. Bank, described as a Wall Street "finder" or promoter [one-time promoter of Omega Equities Corp. of Los Angeles]. Guterma is free on bail now with several other charges hanging over him, all involving alleged stock manipulations to swindle other firms he once controlled. They include the Bon-Ami Co. and the F.L. Jacobs Co., a huge holding company through which Guterma acquired control of businesses ranging from lace to the Mutual Broadcasting Co.

Birrell, having fled to Brazil with a false Canadian passport, revealed his opinion of the prosecution against him to Time magazine which tracked him down in Rio in July 1959 after Brazilian police had pursued the passport violation. According to Time:

New York District Attorney James V. Hallisey flew to Rio to test whether Lowell Birrell would come back willingly to stand trial. If Birrell has a change of heart, the Brazilian government, despite the lack of an extradition treaty with the U.S., can probably find ample cause to put him on a New York-bound plane.

Perhaps someone got to the Brazilian government because several months later Birrell was still "living it up in Rio," as Time reported in its November 16, 1959 edition:

Expatriate Nostalgia. With more vodka came wistful recollections of Birrell's fieldstone showplace in fashionable New Hope, Pa., where he once kept a shiny, vintage fire engine, and reportedly entertained such celebrities as his friend the master swindler Serge Rubinstein, and some of Mickey Jelke's choicer, $100-a-night call girls. "I always took a big interest in the volunteer fire department in New Hope," said Old Fire Buff Birrell. "Volunteer firemen are a great thing in rural America." He also liked the autumn hunting. But "my house and nine-acre farm are in litigation now. They took it from me; nobody will get anything except the lawyers." [Minot Jelke's story was told in a movie, "Cafe Society," available on DVD.]

Life Magazine would do a profile on Roy Cohn some years after he wriggled out of Morgenthau's grasp. It showed his closeness to Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Distributing Company, another friend of J. Edgar Hoover's who was also mentioned in the Torbitt Document.


Looking back to the 1960's following the 2008 debacle of Wall Street, we can only wonder how all those stock manipulations of the past were brought to light when so much of what the same type of manipulators do today remains hidden until they bring down their house of cards, usually on our heads. They have always loved good times and the "high life".

In 1963 Roy Cohn was 36 years old, ten years removed from the high-flying days when he and Bobby Kennedy sat on Joe McCarthy's Communist-hunting committee in the U.S. Senate. The conspiracy of which Cohn was eventually accused allegedly occurred in 1959 when he entered into an "illicit scheme" to distract a grand jury from indicting the men shown in the cartoon at the top of this blog. Cohn's actions taken on behalf of the conspiracy were said to have been committed between June 1962 and May 1963, covering up the actual stock maneuvers of the other conspirators.

Cohn's foremost defense was "Vendetta!" in which another conspiracy of sorts was to blame--Prosecutor Robert Morgenthau and his superiors, including the Real No.-1 Enemy, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. As relayed by the Life journalist, the events were traced back to 1955 when Lowell Birrell, a "brilliant student of the University of Michigan Law School, clubman and son of Presbyterian minister, held control of United Dye, a 164-year-old firm..." The public corporation listed on the NYSE had been destroyed by 1955. According to Life, "Birrell had already looted the company's treasury of some $2 million and picked its bones; now he was eager to dispose of the corpse." (page 26)

Roy's father, Albert Cohn, a local judge in New York and a "power" in the Democratic Party, and his mother, the former Dora Marcus, were pictured but not named in the 1963 Life article. Cohn met his fellow conspirators in 1957, though no proof was asserted in the case he even knew Birrell:

Cohn's co-investor in the Sunrise in Las Vegas was Allard Roen, manager of Desert Inn and Stardust casinos. (p.27)

Allard Roen had been a mere protege of oilman Sam Garfield before bringing him into the Las Vegas scene as a shareholder in a private hospital which in some minds linked him, through Roen into enterprises controlled by Purple Gang mobster Moe Dalitz, who had been investigated by Senator Estes Kefauver. Roen was, in turn, tied in up to his neck in United Dye with other stock manipulators engaged in a pump and dump scheme to foist the corporation onto the unwary public after "picking its bones," as Life writers had so colorfully described their blood-thirsty intentions. How all the players were brought into, and used by the perpetrators of, the scheme is deftly shown on page 29 of the Life article cited in the above link, though it takes some study to fully grasp all the intricate maneuvers. It takes even more head-scratching to see how the role of the former U.S. Attorney Morton S. Robson fits into the caper.

What made Roy Cohn's entry into the manipulations possible was his strangely-unknown relationship to the Marcuses and Cowens -- his mother's family -- who controlled the Lionel Corporation.

Keep in mind that this explosive issue of Life appeared at newsstands on October 3, 1963 and would be followed on November 22, 1963 by another exposé about the Quorum Club, and how Bedford and Angus Wynne of Dallas were involved in what Life called the "Bobby Baker Set" in the Q Club. Life was certainly ruffling some powerful feathers that fall.

Roy Cohn's Extended Family--Marcus and Cowen

There was a long tradition of fraud and corruption lurking in Roy Cohn's genetic makeup, as a review of his mother's family reveals.

 

The Marcus Family

Roy Marcus Cohn was the only child of American-born Doris "Dora" Gladys Marcus and her attorney husband Albert Cohn, an Assistant District Attorney in New York. The couple married in January 1924 and took a five-week honeymoon to Europe. Thereafter, Dora became a frequent traveler, including a summer voyage aboard the Queen Mary in 1951 with her son Roy when he was 24 years of age.

Dora's father had come to America in 1885 and became a naturalized citizen three years later. Joseph S. Marcus was of Russian ancestry, but born in Germany, while his wife, the sister of Joshua Lionel Cowen, was born in England.

After arriving in America as a young man, Marcus quickly became a successful clothing manufacturer, who by 1910 was a bank president, and resided at 315 Riverside, later moving to a high-rise apartment at 525 West End Avenue.
Joseph S. Marcus founded "Bank of United States" on Delancey Street in 1913, and after his death in 1927, the bank was managed by Roy Marcus Cohn's uncle, Bernard K. Marcus,

who acted in close association with Bank Vice-President Saul Singer. Their strategy involved three elements. One was expansion through mergers and bank purchases. The second involved a series of securities affiliates and a syndicate for stock trading. The third was extensive investment in real estate development projects. These operations generated a bewildering variety of affiliated corporations. The complex linkages among the Bank and the affiliates ultimately gave rise to the fraudulent bookkeeping on the basis of which Marcus and Singer served prison terms. A. Within the space of a year, between May 21, 1928 and May 13, 1929. when the stock market boom was very strong. BUS merged with or purchased five other banks with total book value of about $26 million and with about $170 millions in deposits. [Source: The Failure of the Bank of United States, 1930: A Rejoinder to Anthony Patrick O'Brien by Paul B. Trescott]

Bernard Marcus's obituary in 1954 stated under the headline, "Principal in U.S. Financial Debacle Passes at 63":

Photo of Bernard K. Marcus' arrest in 1931

LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA. MONDAY, JULY 19, 1954

HUNTER, N.Y. — (AP) — Bernard Marcus, 63, who headed the Bank of United States when it collapsed in one of the spectacular financial debacles of the depression, and who later served a prison term, died Friday.

Marcus spent 23 months in prison in the aftermath of the Bank of United States' closing on Dec 11, 1930. He was later granted a pardon by then governor Herbert H. Lehman.
With 400,000 depositors and deposits of nearly $203,000,000 the bank was forced by the state banking superintendent to close its 82 offices in New York City. For days it had been subjected to a "run" of unprecedented proportions as word that it was in trouble spread like wildfire through the city.

Marcus was convicted in 1931 of charges of misapplying funds of the Municipal Safe Deposit Co a Bank of United States subsidiary.

Amidst the huge bank scandal involving Bernard Marcus, statements made by the judge at his 1931 sentencing were reported as follows:

In passing sentence, Judge Donnellan said he believed despite the testimony of the defendants that they acted in good faith in the transaction which led to the indictment that there was a "consciousness of wrong-doing."

He asserted that the willful misapplication of which the three men were convicted resulted from their gambling in Bank of United States/Bankus Corporation stock units and he said if the units had gone up in price instead of down, he had "absolutely no doubt the profits would have been pocketed by these defendants."

The court granted a week's stay to permit defense attorneys to petition for a certificate of reasonable doubt. During this stay, the defendants will be housed in Tombs prison.

Trial Lasted 12 Weeks

The trial of the bankers and young Singer, a law clerk, lasted 12weeks, the longest criminal trial in the history of New York county.

Marcus, 41 years of age, became known as one of the youngest presidents of a large bank, when at 37 he was elected president of the Bank of United States in 1927 as the successor of his father, the late Joseph S. Marcus.

As the executive vice president, Singer was a powerful figure in the expansion of the bank that started shortly after Bernard Marcus became president and made the institution one of the largest in the city with 59 branches. He is 49, and a native of Crimea, Russia.

Singer became prominent in the cloak and suit business from a humble start as a $2 a week worker. He finally became president of the cloak, suit and shirt manufacturers.

He was first associated with the Bank of United States as a director in 1919 and six years later became vice president.

Herbert Singer, 24, a law clerk in the office of Isidor J. Kresel, counsel and a director of the bank, was indicted with the men sentenced today but was granted a severance due to illness.

The Cowens

A few blocks away from the Joseph Marcus apartment lived Rachel Celia Cohen (Mrs. Joseph) Marcus' brother, Joshua Lionel Cowen, in an apartment at 219 West 81st Street, along with his wife and two children, Lawrence and Isabel (later moving closer downtown to 305 West End Avenue). The Cowen/Cohen siblings' parents were Hyman Nathan and Rebecca Kantrowitz Cohen, who lived in the Bronx. Joshua Lionel Cowen was married to the former Cecilia Liberman of New York.

Cowen manufactured authentic-looking electric toy trains through his company, Lionel Corporation, founded with Harry C. Grant in 1900. A native New Yorker, Cowen nevertheless was eager to convert his business of toy-making into making war instruments during World War I; his passport application made in 1922 shows that Lionel Corporation was making scientific nautical instruments out of its Irvington, N.J. factory at that time. City directories indicate he had an office at 48 East 21st Street.

But even much earlier than that "Great" war, Cowen had made other inventions which were of interest to the American military. His write-up in Who Was Who calls him the  

"Pioneer developer of the dry-cell battery, flashlight; builder galvanic and faradic batteries, also cytoscopic lamps; inventor fuse to set off magnesium flash powder used in photography; awarded contract to equip mines with detonators USN, 1898; builder model r.r.s, 1900, early engines equipped with battery, later engines electricified."

Cowen lived to be 88 years old and died at his home on Nightingale Trail in Palm Beach in 1965. He had long since (at least by 1945) turned over the operation of the Lionel Corporation to his son Lawrence Cowen, who by 1930 was married and working as a stock broker, living at 1125 Park Avenue on the upper east side of Manhattan. Lawrence was interviewed by Mary Harrington, a reporter for United Press International in 1945, as Christmas approached:

Lawrence Cowen, president of the Lionel Corp., largest maker of
electric trains, said his company will produce 15 per cent of his
1941 dollar volume business. "We're through with war work,
and we'll have two electric train sets, transformers, electric switches
and tracks." he said. "But there won't be nearly enough for all the kids."

A June 1943 item by Peter Edson, appearing on the editorial page of numerous newspapers, and headed "War Industry Reconversion," had relayed information that "Lionel Corporation, which used to make toy trains, had an ordnance parts contract taken away from it so that its workers could get onto more delicate fire control and navigation instruments requiring labor of a higher skill."

Lawrence would later move up to bigger and better things, so to speak. According to Time magazine on March 21, 1960 :

Lawrence Cowen, 52, president of Lionel Corp. from 1946 until last fall, was named chairman and chief executive officer of Schick Inc., makers of electric shavers. Cowen, who bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange at the age of 21, was ousted from Lionel when a new group led by Lawyer Roy M. Cohn took control of the company founded by Cowen's father (who gave his middle name, Lionel, to the toy electric trains he created). At Schick, Cowen succeeds Chester G. Gifford, who took over as Schick chairman in November 1958 when Revlon President Charles Revson bought a controlling 20% share of Schick stock for Revlon, resigned after a stormy tenure.