I did some interesting research on Prescott’s father – Samuel Prescott Bush last year and he’s the true Patriarch of the family. Let me dig it up… one second…
Aha… found it. It’s long and some of the links that I linked to are now down. So I am going to post this in full as an archive. This family has been involved in two World Wars and are now on the cusp of fomenting the next. The history of the Bush family dovetails with the greatest wars over the past century… in each one you can find another Bush warpig enriching himself and his friends.
Samuel Prescott Bush (1863 October 4 Brick Church NJ – 1948 February 8 Columbus OH) was the father of Senator Prescott Bush, grandfather of George H. W. Bush and greatgrandfather George W. Bush.
He was the son of the Rev. James Smith Bush.
The Grand Patriarch of the Bush clan founded the Buckeye Steel Castings Company of Ohio in 1894 as The Buckeye Malleable Iron & Coupler Company. They manufactured steel car couplers for trains, truck bodies, bolsters, truck fenders, yokes, and (among other things) made railway parts for the Harrimans. The two families were closely associated at least until the end of World War II. Samuel, as did all the other Industrialists of the time, grew very wealthy and influential.
He was the first president of National Manufacturers Association, and cofounder of Scioto Country Club and Columbus Academy.
In the spring of 1918, Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board of Bernard Baruch and Clarence Dillon, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with Remington and other weapons companies. Bush was essentially taking national responsibility for government assistance to his own Remington Arms Company and other weapon makers. Through these weapons manufacturers, Samuel Bush made and sold arms to 75% of the WWI combatants on both sides.
Senate hearings in 1934 by the Nye committee attacked the ‘Merchants of Death’—war profiteers such as Remington Arms and the British Vickers company—whose salesmen had manipulated many nations into war and then supplied weapons to all sides.
Unfortunately most of the records and correspondence of Bush’s arms-related section of the government have been burned ‘to save space’ in the National Archives.
Tarpley and Chaitkin say:
"With the war mobilization conducted under the supervision of the War Industries Board, U.S. consumers and taxpayers showered unprecedented fortunes on war producers and certain holders of raw materials and patents. Hearings in 1934 by the committee of U.S. Senator Gerald Nye attacked the "Merchants of Death", war profiteers such as Remington Arms and the British Vickers company, whose salesmen had manipulated many nations into wars, and then supplied all sides with the weapons to fight them. Most of the records and correspondence of Samuel Bush’s arms- related section of the government have been burned, "to save space" in the National Archives. This matter of destroyed or misplaced records should be of concern to citizens of a constitutional republic. Unfortunately, it is a rather constant impediment with regard to researching George Bush’s background: He is certainly the most "covert" American chief executive."
Samuel Bush was labeled a "Merchant of Death" in the years following the Great War as investigations began into the instigators of the war and of the new emerging world militarism. The German Army under the Kaiser was the largest and most well armed in the world in 1914, and they were largely armed by Samuel Bush. After WWI, Germany was stripped of their arms, but Samuel Bush was allowed to keep his millions, and his arms business was allowed to grow and prosper. In 1944 he was awarded a huge government contract to make armor casings for WWII. He died shortly after the war ended in 1948, within months of the passage of the National Security Act.
The empire of Evil.
THE BUSH EMPIRE
How four generations of arms, oil, fascism, and US Govt. defiance made America’s First Familyby Charles Shaw
"Almost everybody knows that George W. is the son of the 41st President. But fewer know that the family has wielded power in corporate boardrooms and capital corridors for a century and a half. On his mom’s side, he’s related to Franklin Pierce, the 14th President (1853-57). His dad’s paternal grandfather, Samuel P. Bush, was an Ohio steel executive and the first president of the National Association of Manufacturers. Samuel’s son, Prescott, became a Connecticut senator. Prescott’s wife, Dorothy, was the daughter of George Herbert Walker, a co-founder of Brown Brothers Harriman, the oldest and largest private investment house on Wall Street. The Walker family helped finance the construction of Madison Square Garden and the Belmont Park racetrack–and later owned a big chunk of the New York Mets"
–Business Week, Nov 15, 1999
The previous quote embodies the public face of the Bush family, one of the richest and most influential American political dynasties in all our history. But it is almost shocking how little people actually know about the Bush family, particularly the history of the Bush men. I thought we might look beneath the veneer at the true face of America’s political dynasty.
I am going to open with a story that is guaranteed to blow your hair back. This is a story that has been impossible to confirm in the mainstream press. Of course, this is part of the whole story, and why curiously the story keeps surfacing and disappearing all over the Internet. At the very least, this story is referred to enough to qualify as a modern legend. This is the extraordinary story of a dinner date that was scheduled to happen on March 31st 1981, the day of the strange assassination attempt on the life of former President Ronald Reagan. What should have been the biggest story of the 1980’s seems to have been wiped clean from history, systematically prevented from ever again being mentioned by corporate media.More at link…
Here some irony… – Killing his family legacy. What kind of man would do that?
GW BUSH SHUTDOWNS AMTRACK AND BUCKEYE STEEL CASTING BY UNDURFUNDING THE RAIL INDUSTRY.
“Meager federal funding for Amtrak contributes to the closure of large Ohio steel company,” states the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers last week in a press release.
The Ohio ARP’s administrative director, Stu Nicholson in Columbus, said, “Years of subsistence level funding for Amtrak is now contributing to the near demise of an Ohio steel supplier that provides the passenger railroad’s fleet with most of its undercarriage assemblies. This may result in the loss of hundreds of good-paying jobs.”
The Ohio ARP is a non-profit railroad advocacy association.
Buckeye Steel Castings Corp. of Columbus said it had suspended operations as it negotiates for financing to continue operations.
Buckeye once employed more 1,400 people, but that number shrank to as few 400 two years ago. Business had begun to turn around slightly and employment rose to almost 700 as of last week.The post-September 11, 2001 downturn in the economy and railroad industry saw the domestic demand for Buckeye products drop.
“This drop in business is due in no small part to the fact that action to fully fund Amtrak, one of Buckeye Steel’s major customers, has been sidetracked by Congress and the Bush Administration,” said Nicholson.
Buckeye Steel’s closure and layoffs follows the loss of another major Ohio rail industry supplier – a Timken bearings plant in Columbus, which also had Amtrak as an important customer. Ohio has more than 100 rail industry suppliers, many of which serve Amtrak and commuter rail agencies nationwide.
“When the federal government starves Amtrak, it also starves Amtrak’s suppliers, their employees and local economies which depend on these manufacturing jobs,” said Nicholson.
“Amtrak’s trains don’t even serve Columbus, and yet the ripple effect from starving Amtrak has had a direct and serious impact on our local economy. If the federal government provided enough funding to create a world-class passenger rail system, world-class economic development would be an obvious result,” Nicholson added.
Buckeye Steel, an OARP corporate member, began 121 years ago as the Murray-Hayden Foundry. Ironically, President George W. Bush’s great-grandfather, Samuel Prescott Bush, was president of Buckeye Steel from 1907-1927.
“Yet, President Bush proposes a $571 million budget for Amtrak in 2003 that would result in its shutdown. Amtrak said it needed at least $1.2 billion for 2003 just to survive,” Nicholson added, “but the General Accounting Office reported earlier this year that Amtrak needs $2.4 billion per year to run the system as-is and begin returning the condition of its physical assets to a state of good repair. That includes the replacement of hundreds of worn-out trucks that Buckeye Steel would likely provide, as well as assemblies for new rail passenger cars.”
Buckeye Steel officials say that would immediately improve its financial situation and preserve valuable jobs.
“It’s ironic that President Bush’s lack of support for Amtrak is contributing to the fall of a company that his great-grandfather helped make a success,” Nicholson said.“President Bush and Congress can change this tomorrow by working to give Amtrak the funding it needs to rebuild.”
http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df/df10282002.shtml
VARIOUS COMMENTS – ANTI-ARMS INDUSTRY
“Since the Nye report in February 1936 much water has run under the bridge, but by judging what President Bush is doing today about Iraq, nothing has changed in the Americans’ methods and intentions for war as a stimulant of the ailing national economy. Recently a “Hard Talk” interviewer on the BBC was recounting name by name which members of the Bush Administration were key managers of which American Arms Company before the present Bush Administration came to power two years ago.”
http://www.turkpulse.com/american.htm
The Nye Committee was headed by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota; his investigation into the reasons for the US entry to WWI sparked controversy. The Nye Committee, 1934-36. The Nye report convinced millions of citizens that the bankers who had lent money to the European allies had been "merchants of death" and had tricked the country into war. The "mistake" of 1917 must never be repeated. United States and World War II. Nye Congressional Committee evaluates WWI experience, 1934-36. Strict Neutrality Laws passed by Congress, 1933-35. 1936-39 Rising Axis Powers threat; appeasement; Munich Conference. September 1939 Hitler Invades Poland; WWII begins. ; US begins to shift away from isolation: “Cash and Carry” Policy, 1939. US-British 50 destroyers deal, 1940. The Nye Committee was headed by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota; his investigation into the reasons for the US entry to WWI sparked controversy. American bankers and munitions makers profited from WWI. The staff uncovered facts about the lobbying activities and profits of American companies. Example: The Du Pont company’s earnings went from $5 million in 1914 to $82 million in 1918.
http://www.harwich.edu/depts/history/pp/wwiiA/tsld005.h…
Sept. 1934 – Nye Committee (Sen. Gerald P. Nye of N. Dakota)
Findings used by writers and intellectuals and peace movement
* Charles Beard denounced "merchants of death"
* 1935 Walter Millis book "Road to War"
* Dorothy Detzer & Women’s International League for peace and Freedom supported Nye’s investigation.INFO ON NAM
(National Manufacturers Association) Samuel Prescott Bush was the organization’s first president.Besides funding pro-fascists groups like the Silver Shirts, corporate America sponsored several other groups with a hint of respectability. One such organization that figured prominently in spreading the propaganda was the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Such organizations as NAM would serve as bridge groups between the rich corporate owners and the public.
NAM along with the National Industrial Information Committee picked up the banner of du Pont’s free enterprise dogma. It was Fulton Lewis Jr. a former employee of NAM that became the mouth piece for NAM. Using his radio program on the Mutual Network, Lewis spread the NAM propaganda to roughly three million people daily. Lewis denied the truth put forth by the La Follette and the Truman committees and instead aired NAM’s propaganda under the disguise as "Your Defense Reporter."21 At the 1942 NAM convention, NAM went on record of supporting Free Enterprise fully. The convention adopted a plank of full support of du Pont’s concept of free enterprise even if it hindered the war effort. In contrast, the 1942 CIO convention went on record for first winning the war. 24 In other words labor was willing to make the sacrifices need to win the war; big business on the other hand wasn’t and put profits ahead of the war.
NAM was only one group of many that was used to propagandize America. There were many others including the Chamber of Commerce. In the previous chapter, it was detailed how corporate America used groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legion as bridge groups between the leaders of corporate America and the workers. The following chapter will detail how NAM served as a bridge group. The reader should be fully aware that the top officials of the John Birch Society in the 1950s were all former officials of NAM.
Many of the members of the National Publishers Association were also members of NAM. William Warner publisher of McCall’s and Redbook was the head of NAM. The Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies Home Journal was represented by P.S. Collins a spokesman for W.D Fuller the president of NAM. The Luce publications Time, Life and Fortune were also closely associated with NAM.
Today the media is even more consolidated than the media in the 1940s, less than ten corporations control over eighty percent of the airwaves and press. The Republicans have repeated the lie that the media is biased to the left so many times that many people buy into it even though the reverse is true. The corporations in fact censor the media. Two thirds of the editors when questioned have reported that their advertisers have threatened to withdraw advertising because of the content of news stories. Seventy five percent report that large advertisers have tried to influence the content of news stories in a 1992 survey.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930sp4.html
Stuart D. Brandes. Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997. 371 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8131-2020-9.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Jacob Vander Meulen
Department of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3J5A new book on wartime profit-making with a title like "Warhogs" might suggest yet another entry for the "merchants of death" school on the relationship between private enterprise and the military in America. The notion that the relation is inherently corrupt, and the idea that the main beneficiaries of war are contractors, bankers, and market capitalism, have been widely shared among Americans at least since the Pequot wars of the 1630s when profiteering gunsmiths scandalized New England (pp. 16-17). During the twentieth-century that perspective assumed an even more sinister hue. Not only did merchants of death profit from war, they instigated it at every opportunity.
Staurt Brandes’ title, however, is tongue-in-cheek. Warhogs traces profiteering and efforts to control it through America’s various wars from the colonial period to the end of World War Two. The author shows how exaggerated were common assumptions and constant charges of graft and malfeasance in military supply. He also shows how basic such suspicions have been to popular republicanism in America and how that ideology has continuously shaped national policy on the business of war. Brandes wants to contribute to what he calls the "New Military History" which, he asserts, offsets ideology and conspiracy-mindedness by concentrating "less opprobriously on understanding civil-military relations" (p. 357).
Warhogs is particularly strong on war-profit politics during World War One and through Senator Gerald P. Nye’s investigation of the munitions industry in 1934-35. Readers might want to compare Brandes’ dismissal of the Nye Committee’s methods as "eerily close to the methods of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" and the Nye Report as "pure demagoguery" with Matthew Ware Coulter’s recent study. Nevertheless, Brandes credits the Nye Committee and the Vinson-Trammell Act of 1934 for the general success of excess-profit taxation and renegotiated contracts during World War Two.http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewsw36.htm
The Roaring 20s and the Roots of American Fascism
Part 2: Economic Warfare & Traitors in High PlacesOn January 1, 1926 an agreement between du Pont, DAG and VCR was consummated, and was similar to another agreement of the same date between du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries of Britain. This agreement, debated at length in the 1934 Nye Committee hearings, was found unsigned in du Pont files. It was a gentlemen’s agreement that could be denied if discovered. The agreement detailed exchanges of patents and technical information. In defiance to the Treaty of Versailles banning German companies from selling military explosives, it provided a means by which du Pont could sell German produced explosives. The Nye report provides the best summary of the agreement:
"In other words, though German munitions companies cannot sell abroad, American companies can sell for them, and to our own government at that." 25
In effect, the agreement between du Pont, DAG and VCR reestablished the pre-war cartel between du Pont, Koln-Rottweiler Pulverfabriken and the British Nobel Dynamite Trust. Under this agreement, du Pont agreed not to erect any powder works in Europe, and the other signers agreed not to erect power
works in the United States. Technical information was exchanged among the signatories, and du Pont agreed to inform the others of the quantity, quality and requirements of all powder sales to the United States Government. In 1910, the Justice Department found the agreement a violation of anti-trust laws, resulting in the breakup of du Pont powder works. This resulted in the formation of Atlas Powder and Hercules Powder. Within a few years of the 1910 ruling, du Pont reorganized in Delaware due to its lax regulations of corporations.An agreement between du Pont and Dynamit in 1929 controlled the production of tetrazine, a substance for greatly improved ammunition primers. When W.W.II began in 1939, Remington (controlled by du Pont) received huge British ammunition orders. Because of a clause in the agreement with I.G, the British received an inferior cartridge lacking tetrazine.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1920sp2.html
Worth a read as well
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1920sp4.html
Report of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry (The Nye Report), U.S. Congress, Senate, 74th Congress, 2nd sess., February 24, 1936, pp. 3-13.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nye.htm
Report of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry (The Nye Report), U.S. Congress, Senate, 74th Congress, 2nd sess., February 24, 1936, pp. 3-13.
PHOTO OF NYE COMMITEE MEMBERS
FINDINGS
I. NATURE OF THE MUNITIONS COMPANIES
The committee finds, under the head of "the nature of the industrial and commercial organizations engaged in the manufacture of or traffic in arms, ammunitions, or other implements of war" that almost none of the munitions companies in this country confine themselves exclusively to the manufacture of military materials. Great numbers of the largest suppliers to the Army and Navy (Westinghouse, General Electric, du Pont, General Motors, Babcock & Wilcox, etc.) are predominantly manufacturers of materials for civilian life. Others, such as the aviation companies and Colt’s Patent Firearms Co., supply the greatest portion of their output to the military services. In addition to the manufacturers there are several sales companies which act as agents for various manufacturers. There are also brokers dealing largely in old and second-hand supplies. In case of war, other companies, not at present producing any munitions, would be called upon to furnish them.
The Army manufactures its own rifles, cartridges, and field artillery. The Navy manufactures most of its own propellant powder, its own guns, and half of the battleships.
II. THE SALES METHODS OF THE MUNITIONS COMPANIES
The Committee finds, under the head of sales methods of the munitions companies, that almost without exception, the American munitions companies investigated have at times resorted to such unusual approaches, questionable favors and commissions, and methods of "doing the needful" as to constitute, in effect, a form of bribery of foreign governmental officials or of their close friends in order to secure business.
The committee realizes that these were field practices by the agents of the companies, and were apparently in many cases part of a level of competition set by foreign companies, and that the heads of the American companies were, in cases, apparently unaware of their continued existence and shared the committee’s distaste and disapprobation of such practices.
The committee accepts the evidence that the same practices are resorted to by European munitions companies, and that the whole process of selling arms abroad thus, in the words of a Colt agent, has "brought into play the most despicable side of human nature; lies, deceit, hypocrisy, greed, and graft occupying a most prominent part in the transactions."
The committee finds such practices on the part of any munitions company, domestic or foreign, to be highly unethical, a discredit to American business, and an unavoidable reflection upon those American governmental agencies which have unwittingly aided in the transactions so contaminated.
The committee finds, further, that not only are such transactions highly unethical, but that they carry within themselves the seeds of disturbance to the peace and stability of those nations in which they take place. In some nations, violent changes of administration might take place immediately upon the revelation of all details of such transactions. Mr. Lammot du Pont stated that the publication of certain du Pont telegrams (not entered in the record) might cause a political repercussion in a certain South American country. At its February 1936 hearings, the committee also suppressed a number of names of agents and the country in which they were operating, in order to avoid such repercussions.
The committee finds, further, that the intense competition among European and American munitions companies with the attendant bribery of governmental officials tends to create a corrupt officialdom, and thereby weaken the remaining democracies of the world at their head.
The committee finds, further, that the constant availability of munitions companies with competitive bribes ready in outstretched hands does not create a situation where the officials involved can, in the nature of things, be as much interested in peace and measures to secure peace as they are in increased armaments.
The committee finds also that there is a very considerable threat to the peace and civic progress of other nations in the success of the munitions makers and of their agents in corrupting the officials of any one nation and thereby selling to that one nation an armament out of proportion to its previous armaments. Whether such extraordinary sales are procured through bribery or through other forms of salesmanship, the effect of such sales is to produce fear, hostility, and greater munitions orders on the p art of neighboring countries, culminating in economic strain and collapse or war.
The committee elsewhere takes note of the contempt of some of the munitions companies for those governmental departments and officials interested in securing peace, and finds here that continual or even occasional corruption of other governments naturally leads to a belief that all governments, including our own, must be controlled by economic forces entirely.
III. THEIR ACTIVITIES CONCERNING PEACE EFFORTS
The committee finds, under this head, that there is no record of any munitions company aiding any proposals for limitation of armaments, but that, on the contrary, there is a record of their active opposition by some to almost all such proposals, of resentment toward them, of contempt for those responsible for them, and of violation of such controls whenever established, and of rich profiting whenever such proposals failed.
Following the peaceful settlement of the Tacna-Arica dispute between Peru and Chile, L. Y. Spear, vice president of Electric Boat Co. (which supplied submarines to Peru) wrote to Commander C. W. Craven, of Vickers-Armstrong (which supplied material to Chile):
It is too bad that the pernicious activities of our State Department have put the brake on armament orders from Peru by forcing resumption of formal diplomatic relations with Chile * *
When the proposal to control the international traffic in arms was made in 1924 the Colt licensee in Belgium wrote:
It is, of course, understood that our general interest is to prevent the hatching up of a new agreement plan "under such a form" (as Sir Eric Drummond says) "that it may be accepted by the governments of all the countries who manufacture arms and munitions of war."
It then proposed methods of "lengthening the controversies" and to "wear out the bodies occupied with this question."
The first great peace effort after the war was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles and in the treaty of peace between the United States and Germany in the form of a prohibition on the manufacture, import, and export of arms by Germany. The manufacture and export of military powder by German companies, in violation of these treaty provisions first took place in 1924 and was known to the Nobel Co. (predecessors of Imperial Chemical Industries) of England and to the du Pont Co., but was not brought to the attention of the Department of State. The du Pont officials explained that the violation was allowed because of the close commercial relations between the British and German chemical companies. Later, United Aircraft licensed a German company for the manufacture of its airplane engines. Sperry Gyroscope also licensed a German company for the manufacture of its equipment. Both the engines and the equipment were of military availability. (See part V, B, secs. II and III.)
The second peace effort was made in 1922, when the Washington Disarmament Conference took place, not long after the American shipbuilding companies had received post-war awards of destroyers at a cost of $149,000,000, and while battleships whose construction was left pending in 1917 were being completed. The naval part of that conference succeeded in stopping a naval race. There was however, no effective action taken in regard to checking the use of poison gas, which was the other main subject for consideration. The committee’s record is incomplete on the activities of the munitions companies in this connection, but does show their opposition to proposals for control of the chemical industry and their interest in the choice of chemical advisers to the American delegation. The conference had been preceded by the sale of all the German chemical patents to the American companies for a small sum, extensive propaganda and expenditures for high-tariff protection on grounds of national defense, and the instigation and writing of news stories from London and Paris designed to give the American public the impression that France and England were engaged in the construction of great poison-gas factories of their own to offset the German ones. Some of these were written by a du Pont agent under an assumed name. The Washington Conference operated in this atmosphere, and contented itself with repeating the declarations of The Hague conventions respecting the use of poisonous gases in warfare which had been violated during the war. Several delegations pointed out that this was no progress at all, but simply a reaffirmation of supposedly existing international law.
The embargo placed at the request of the Central (Nanking) Chinese Government on exports of arms to China was, according to the evidence, violated by American and European munitions companies. Shipments via Europe and Panama were frequently considered as a means of evading the embargo.
The Geneva Arms Control Conference of 1925 was watched carefully by the American and European munitions makers. They knew the American military delegates to the conference several weeks before the public was informed of their names, and one of them told the munitions makers that he believed a licensing system (the sine qua non of any control) to be undesirable. Du Pont representatives made known their objections to publicity. At a conference at the Department of Commerce (prior to the convening of the Geneva Conference) the objections of the munitions manufacturers were considered carefully and reservations to the draft convention to be discussed at Geneva were made. State Department documents not entered into the record ,give credit to the American delegation to the Geneva Conference for weakening the proposed draft convention in two important respects. The du Pont representatives (who attended the meeting at the Department of Commerce) later remarked of the final draft of the convention regarding the arms traffic signed at Geneva in 1925:
There will be some few inconveniences to the manufacture of munitions in their export trade, but in the main they will not he hampered materially.
The draft convention was widely advertised as a large step forward in the direction of control of the traffic in arms. It has, in 1936, not yet been ratified by sufficient States to put it into effect.
The influence of American naval shipbuilding companies on the Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1927 has been described in the committee’s report on Naval Shipbuilding (74th Cong., Rept. 944). Their agent at Geneva claimed credit for the failure of that conference, which came at a time when the Big Three shipyards had been given orders by the Navy for $53,744,000 in cruisers, which would have been cut materially in case the conference had been a success. He was paid by the shipbuilders into 1929. The Navy has not denied to the committee that this agent of the shipbuilders was in possession of confidential Navy Department documents during the time of his activity at Geneva.
Following the Geneva conference an arms embargo resolution was introduced in 1928 by the chairman of the American delegation to that conference, Representative Burton of Ohio. The munitions manufacturers, cocky with their success at Geneva, consulted with such allied interests as the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute, and found it unnecessary to appear in the front ranks of opposition to this resolution. In 1932 Representative Fish introduced a resolution for a multilateral agreement renouncing the sale and export of arms. Du Pont representatives were active in lining up War and Navy opposition to it. In 1932-33 President Hoover supported an arms embargo which drew the comment from a du Pont representative:
Regarding the attempts of Mr. Hoover and the "cooky pushers" in the State Department to effect embargoes on munitions sent out of the country, I do not believe there is the least occasion for alarm at present.
The munitions people were active in opposition to the arms embargo proposal which was adopted in the Senate without opposition. Senator Bingham of Connecticut succeeded in killing the bill on reconsideration and received the thanks of the munitions people and of their organization, the Army Ordnance Association. The War Department also opposed the embargo.
In 1932, another disarmament conference was held at Geneva. By this time the failure to prevent the rearmament of Germany, described above, had resulted in great profits to the French steel industry which had received large orders for the building of the continuous line of fortifications across the north of France, to the French munitions companies, and profits were beginning to flow into the American and English pockets from German orders for aviation matériel. This in turn resulted in a French and English aviation race, and with Germany openly rearming the much-heralded disarmament conference which convened in 1932 has failed completely. It was pointed out by a committee member that Du Pont representatives were aware that–
the effect of the failure to check the treaty violation even goes to the extent of making a subsequent disarmament convention, if not improbable in its success, at least calculated to produce only an unworkable document.
In 1934, Congress adopted a joint resolution prohibiting, in effect, sales of munitions to Bolivia and Paraguay, then engaged in the Chaco War, for a period of almost 6 years. During these 6 years, the munitions companies had profited largely from the defeat of the Burton embargo proposal, offered in 1928.
The Chaco embargo, according to indictments issued by a Federal grand jury, was violated by the Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation and the Curtiss Aeroplane Motor Co. The lower court has held the embargo unconstitutional on the ground of delegation of power to the President.
Mayrink-Veiga, agents for many munitions companies in Brazil suggested that the embargo could be evaded by the shipment of planes to Europe first, stating that to be the Curtiss and Bellanca procedure.
In 1935, after a year of hearings by the special committee, a neutrality bill was passed including an embargo on arias, ammunition, and implements of war in the event of a state of war between two or more foreign states, and including a munitions-control board with power to issue export licenses. The Secretary of State has announced that not all the companies supposed to register under this law have done so. In 1936 an attempt was made to amend the neutrality law by holding the exports of necessary war materials (oil, copper, steel, etc.) to belligerents to normal quotas. This was defeated. Considerable quantities of those materials were already being exported to Italy, one of the belligerents in the Italo-Ethiopian War, and some of the exporting companies had connections and investments in Italy.
IV. THE EFFECT OF ARMAMENTS ON PEACE
The committee finds, under the head of the effect of armament, on peace, that some of the munitions companies have occasionally had opportunities to intensify the fears of people for their neighbors and have used them to their own profit.
The committee finds, further, that the very quality which in civilian life tends to lead toward progressive civilization, namely the improvements of machinery, has been used by the munitions makers to scare nations into a continued frantic expenditure for the latest improvements in devices of warfare. The constant message of the traveling salesman of the munitions companies to the rest of the world has been that they now had available for sale something new, more dangerous and more deadly than ever before and that the potential enemy was or would be buying it.
While the evidence before this committee does not show that wars have been started solely because of the activities of munitions makers and their agents, it is also true that wars rarely have one single cause, and the committee finds it to be against the peace of the world for selfishly interested organizations to be left free to goad and frighten nations into military activity.
The committee finds, further, that munitions companies engaged in bribery find themselves involved in the civil and military politics of other nations, and that this is an unwarranted form of intrusion into the affairs of other nations and undesirable representation of the character and methods of the people of the United States.
The export field of our munitions companies has been South America and China, with occasional excursions into Poland, Turkey, Siam, Italy, Japan, and other nations. There was less important dynamite loose in either South America or China than in western Europe. The activities of the munitions makers in Europe were of greater importance to the peace of the western world than their activities in either South America or China. It will remain for commissions with full powers in the large European nations to report on the provocative activities of their companies, particularly to investigate the statements made in the French Chamber of Deputies, that Skoda in Czechoslovakia, a subsidiary of Schneider-Creusot, financed the Hitler movement to power, which, more than any one other event, can be credited with causing the present huge rearmament race in Europe, so profitable to the European steel, airplane, and munitions companies.
In South America there have, in the post-war years, been moments of severe tension, occasionally breaking out into war. One of these moments apparently came directly after the World War, when Chile bought from Vickers a considerable battle fleet. This caused agitation in Brazil, Argentina, and Peru, with Vickers taking the lead in Chile and Argentina, and Electric Boat Co. in Peru and Brazil. The situation was apparently so delicate that an administration countermanded an offer from the United States Navy to sell destroyers to Peru inasmuch as the sale might encourage an outbreak of war between Chile and Peru (exhibits 54, 57).
Later tension developed between Peru and Chile over the Tacna-Arica matter and Aubry, the Electric Boat Co. agent, felt that if he brought the contracts for submarines for Peru–
it would be a great blunder going to Argentina, for instance, via Chile (In this business we have to be tactful and a little diplomatist) and so in regard to Brazil as well as to the Argentine now that affairs are going to take place at the same time (exhibit 69).
Mr. Carse, president of Electric Boat, recognized the danger of armament when he pointed out in regard to financing Peruvian purchases "the armament which this money could purchase would not insure victory, as the other nation has much stronger armament and would tend more to bring conflict to a point than if they did not purchase the armament" (exhibit 61). It was sold, nevertheless.
The spreading effects of such fears were reported by Vice President Sutphen of Electric Boat:
It appears that there has been quite an agitation in Bolivia, as you know, and a revolution has occurred there recently, and in the opinion of the bankers it has been instigated largely by Peru to have Bolivia join with her in opposition to Chile (ex. 60).
Chile was the country which bought the original increased armaments. It was in this connection that Spear wrote Craven of the "pernicious activities" of the United States Department of State in helping the resumption of diplomatic relations between Chile and Peru.
The naval armament had its military side. Evidence read into the record during the Colt Co. hearing in 1936 indicated an arms race with intense activity on the part of all machine-gun manufacturers. The country which was credited with starting military armament "out of all proportion with that of other countries in South America" was identified as a country whose officials were the most susceptible to bribes.
The Department of Commerce obligingly furnished Colts the information that the arms race was bringing about a cabinet crisis in one of the countries reluctant to participate in it.
The statement of a Federal Laboratories salesman that "the unsettled condition in South America has been a great thing for me" is the key, and also, "We are certainly in one hell of a business where a fellow has to wish for trouble to make a living."
Colombia and Peru, at the time of the Leticia incident, were each kept well informed by the munitions companies of the proposed purchases of the other nation. The evidence of the Colt agent in Peru was that the Vickers agent, after unloading a huge armament order on Peru, had boasted to the Peruvians that he would sell "double the amount, and more modern, to the Chilean Government." When a limited amount of materiel, such as machine guns, was available, Bolivia could be forced into ordering them on the threat that unless she acted quickly, Paraguay would get them. Killing the back-country Indians of South America with airplanes, bombs, and machine guns boiled down to an order to get busy because "these opera bouffe revolutions are usually short-lived, and we must make the most of the opportunity"
In China the munitions companies report that there was a certain amount of feeling between the Central (Nanking) Government and the Canton Government. The Boeing agent was able to sell 10 planes to the Canton Government. Referring to the Nanking (recognized) Government he wrote:
Their anger at us in selling airplanes to the Cantonese is more than offset by the fact that the Cantonese have gotten ahead of them and will have better equipment than they will have. In other words, the Canton sale is quite a stimulant to the sale up here.
The company, interested in making sales also to the recognized Nanking Government, replied:
If the present deal with the Cantonese can be put through, without unreasonable demands being made upon us, it is to our advantage to successfully conclude the business if for no other reason but for the effect it would have on the Nanking Government.
All this may be little more to the munitions people than a highly profitable game of bridge with special attention on all sides to the technique of the "squeeze" play, but to a considerable part of the world’s inhabitants there is still something frightful in death by machinery, and the knowledge that neighboring governments have acquired the latest and fastest engines of destruction leads to suspicion that those engines are meant to be used, and are not simply for play and show.
At the time a naval bill for $617,000,000 was before Congress, the president of the Bath Iron Works in Maine asked the publisher of a string of newspapers to reprint a Japanese war-scare story, although the Chinese source of that story had been thoroughly discredited editorially by the newspaper originally publishing it, the New York Herald Tribune. He thanked the publisher for playing up the scare story (Report on Naval Shipbuilding).
Attempts to sell munitions frequently involve bribery, which, to be effective, must go to those high in authority. This is apt to involve the companies in the politics of foreign nations. Federal Laboratories, by putting itself at the disposal of the administration of Cuba and two opposing factions, all at the same time, is a case in point. The Colt agent in Peru reported on his helping overthrow the general in charge of ordnance orders. American airplane companies reported on the political influence of French and English airplane companies, in a certain European country. Sperry Gyroscope’s representative reported on Vickers’ (English) political influence in Spain, as did also Electric Boat Co. officials.
The political power of the companies is best indicated, however, by a letter from Mr. John Ball, director of the Soley Armament Co Ltd., of England, in which he pointed out that "the stocks we control are of such magnitude that the sale of a big block of them could alter the political balance of power of the smaller States."
V. THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
The committee first, under this head, repeats its report on naval shipbuilding, in which "the committee finds, under the head of influence and lobbying of shipbuilders, that the Navy contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers constitute a very large and influential financial group", and "the committee finds that the matter of national defense should be above and separated from lobbying and the use of political influence by self-interested groups and that it has not been above or separated from either of them."
The committee finds, further, that the munitions companies have secured the active support of the War, Navy, Commerce, and even State Departments in their sales abroad, even when the material was to be produced in England or Italy.
The committee finds that by their aid and assistance to munitions companies the War, Navy, and Commerce Departments condone, in effect, in the eyes of those foreign officials cognizant of the details of the transactions the unethical practices of the companies which characterize their foreign sales efforts.
The committee finds that the munitions companies have constantly exerted pressure on the War Department to allow the exportation of the most recent American improvements in warfare, and have usually been successful in securing it, and have also furnished plans of important new machines of war to their foreign agents in advance of any release by the War Department.
The committee finds that the War Department encourages the sale of modern equipment abroad in order that the munitions companies may stay in business and be available in the event of another war, and that this consideration outranks the protection of secrets. (General Ruggles was quoted: "It was vastly more important to encourage the du Pont Co. to continue in the manufacture of propellants for military use, than to endeavor to protect secrets relating to the manufacture.")
The committee finds that as improvements are developed here, often with the cooperation of the military services, and these improvements presumably give the United States a military advantage, we are in the anomalous position of being forced to let the other nations have the advantages which we have obtained for ourselves, in order to keep the munitions manufacturers going, so that the United States can take advantage of the same improvements which its companies have sold abroad.
The committee finds, from official documents it has not entered into the record, that the United States naval missions to Brazil and Peru have been given considerable help to American munitions makers, and that their participation and leadership in war games directed at "a potential enemy" have not advanced the cause of peace in South America, and that their activity can be misinterpreted by neighboring countries as support of any military plans of the nations to which they are attached.
The committee finds, from official documents which it has not entered into the record, that the sales of munitions to certain South American nations in excess of their normal capacity to pay, was one of the causes for the defaults on certain South American bonds; and that the sales of the munitions was, in effect, financed by the American bond purchasers, and the loss on the bonds was borne by the same people.
The committee finds that the Army Ordnance Association, consisting of personnel from the munitions companies, constitutes a self-interested organization and has been active in War Department politics and promotions.
The committee finds that the Navy League of the United States has solicited and accepted contributions from steamship companies, the recipients of subsidy benefits, and that it has solicited contributions from companies with large foreign investments on the ground that these would profit from a large navy and that its contributors have at times been persons connected with Navy supplies. The committee also finds that the Navy League together with various Navy officials have engaged in political activity looking toward the defeat of Congressmen unfavorable to Navy League and Navy views.
The committee finds, further, that any close associations between munitions and supply companies on the one hand and the service departments on the other hand, of the kind which existed in Germany before the World War, constitutes an unhealthy alliance in that it brings into being a self-interested political power which operates in the name of patriotism and satisfies interests which are, in large part, purely selfish, and that such associations are an inevitable part of militarism, and are to be avoided in peacetime at all costs.
The committee finds, finally, that the neutrality bill of 1936, to which all its members gave their support and which provides for an embargo on the export of arms, ammunitions, and implements of war to belligerents, was a much needed forward step, and that the establishment of a Munitions Control Board, under the Department of State, should satisfactorily prevent the shipment of arms to other than recognized governments.
VI. INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS OF MUNITIONS COMPANIESThe committee finds, under this head, that, among the companies investigated, the following have the most extensive foreign arrangements: F. I. du Pont do Nemours Co., Colt’s Patent Firearms Co., Electric Boat Co., Sperry Gyroscope Co., Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co.
The committee finds that the usual form of arrangement is a license to a foreign ally involving rights to manufacture and sell in certain parts of the world, together with more or less definite price-fixing agreements and occasionally profit-sharing arrangements, and that in effect the world is partitioned by parties at interest.
The committee finds that the granting of licenses to manufacture and sell to nations against which there were embargoes, such as Germany, was in practice a violation of the interest of such embargoes and nullified them.
The committee finds that the international commercial interests of such large organizations as du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries may precede in the minds of those companies the importance of national policy as described publicly by the foreign office or State Department, and that such considerations of commercial interest were apparently foremost in the rearming of Germany beginning in 1924 and in the sale of a process which could he used to manufacture cheaper munitions in Japan in 1932, shortly after Secretary of State Stimson had taken steps to express the disapproval of this Nation for Japan’s military activities in Manchuokuo. Several aviation companies also licensed Japan for the use of their material in Manchuokuo at a time when the United States Government refused recognition to it. Recognition by munitions companies may be far more important than diplomatic recognition.
The committee finds that the licensing of American inventions to allied companies in foreign nations is bound to involve in some form the recurrence of experiences similar to those in the last war in which Electric Boat Co. patents were used in German submarines and aided them in the destruction of American lives, and ships, and that in peacetime the licensing involves the manufacture abroad, at lower costs, of American material.
VII. THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY AND MUNITIONS
The committee finds a general acknowledgment of the importance of the commercial chemical industry to the manufacture of such instruments of warfare as high explosives and gasses, that most of the large industrial nations have granted their chemical companies considerable measures of protection in the interests of national defense, and that no effective control has to date been established over these large military resources.
These findings were concurred in by all members of the committee.
Alfred Mendes outlines the history of America’s beloved First Family and some of their choice friends.
http://www.spectrezine.org/resist/bush.htm
1897: Long-established Union Pacific Railroad (UPR) bankrupted.
1898: Edward Henry Harriman & legal partner, Judge Robert Scott Lovett, buy UPR for $110 million, a deal brokered by New York-based Kuhn Loeb investment bank house, of which Felix Warburg was a partner. During this period, Samuel Prescott Bush was president of the Buckeye Steel Castings Co.
1914: With war looming, Percy A. Rockefeller took control of the arms manufacturer, Remington Arms & appoints Samuel F. Pryor as CEO.
1918: Robert Scott Lovett (above) now president of UPR. Samuel Prescott Bush (above) made director of the facilities division of the US War Industries Board under its chairman Bernard Baruch & his assistant, the banker Clarence Dillon.
Nov.1919: George Herbert Walker forms W.A.Harriman & Co. bank – with Walker as president & chief executive, & Averell Harriman (son of Edward Henry Harriman – above) as chairman (He was to become US Ambassador to the USSR <‘43 – ‘46>; US Secretary of Commerce <‘46 – ‘48>; & Governor of NY State <‘55 – ‘59>)
1920: Averell Harriman & George Herbert Walker of W.A.Harriman & C0. gain control of the German Hamburg-Amerika Line after negotiations with the latter’s chief executive, William Cuno, & Max Warburg of the shipping line’s bankers, M.M. Warburg. The American holding now known as the American Ship & Commerce Corp. (ASCC). Samuel F. Pryor (above) of Remington Arms had been involved in the deal & now served on the board of ASCC.
(Cuno was subsequently to become a heavy contributor to Nazi Party funds). It should be noted that Averell Harriman was chairman of UPR from 1920-1946.1922: Averell Harriman set up a branch of W. A. Harriman & Co. in Berlin under the residency of his partner, George H. Walker.
Oct. 1923: Fritz Thyssen’s contributions to the Nazi Party began with a donation of 100,000 marks (ref: his book “I Paid Hitler” ‘41).
Prior to ‘24: As revealed in a US government memorandum dated Oct. 5 ‘42 to the Executive Committee of the office of the Alien Property Custodian: “W. Averell Harriman was in Europe sometime prior to 1924 & at that time became acquainted with Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist”, and they agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen in New York. It adds that the Thyssen agent “H. J. Kouwenhoven..came to the United States..prior to 1924 for
conferences with the Harriman company in this connection”.1924: W.A.Harriman & Co invested $400,000 in setting up Union Banking Corp. (UBC) in New York to act in partnership with the Thyssen-owned Bank voor Handel en Scheepvart (Bank for Trade and Shipping, BHS) in Holland. The UBC was now in a position to transfer funds back & forth between the US and Thyssen’s companies in Germany – his Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel) in particular. Prescott Sheldon Bush Snr. (son of Samuel Bush, & son-in-law of George H Walker) joins the Harriman – controlled US Rubber Co.
1926: Prescott S. Bush Snr. made Vice-President of W. A. Harriman & Co. The Wall Street banker, Clarence Dillon (an old colleague of Prescott S. Bush Snr.’s father, Sam Bush – see above), of Dillon Read, set up the German Steel Trust with Thyssen & partner, Friedrich Flick, whereby Dillon Read would handle the Trust’s corporate banking in return for two Dillon
Read representatives being on the board of the German Steel Trust, whose chief executive was Albert Voegler, another German industrialist who was to help Hitler into power. He (Voegler) also held directorships in the BHS bank, & the Hamburg-Amerika Line. The UBC was by now in partnership with Friedrich Flick’s vast steel, coal & zinc conglomerate operating in Germany & Poland – the Silesian Holding Co. Walker, Bush, & Harriman now owned one third of Flick’s conglomerate, calling their holding the Consolidated Silesian Steel Corp.
1930/’31; As admitted by Fritz Thyssen during interrogation in Sept. ‘45, he arranged with Rudolph Hess for the transfer of “about 250-300,000 marks” via his (Thyssen’s) Dutch bank BHS to the Nazi Party – adding it was “about the sum I’d given before”. In total, he had donated & loaned more than one million dollars to the Nazi Party.
Jan. 1 ‘31: W. A. Harriman & Co. merged with the British-American investment house, Brown Brothers, resulting in Prescott S. Bush Snr., Thatcher M. Brown & the two Harriman brothers being the senior partners of the new Brown Brothers Harriman firm. A board member of Brown Bros., Robert A. Lovett (son of Robert Scott Lovett & Asst. Sec. for Air ; Under Sec. of State <‘47 – ‘49>; Dep. Sec. of Defense <‘50 – ‘51>; Secretary of Defense <‘51 – ‘53>), an American whose father had served on the War Industries Board of WW 1 with Sam Bush ), became another partner in the newly- merged firm. Prescott S. Bush Snr. now ran the New York office of the the newly-merged firm, while Thatcher Brown ran the London end. vCertain pertinent facts about Brown Bros. are worthy of note here: Montagu Collet Norman, governor of the Bank of England & well-known Nazi sympathiser, was not only an ex-Brown Bros. partner – his grandfather had also been boss of Brown Bros. during the American Civil War when they (Brown Bros.) were shipping 75% of slave cotton from the southern states of America to British mills.
1932: As reported by the US embassy in Berlin to Washington not long before Hitler’s taking over of power, questions were being raised as to who were the financial backers behind the Nazi Party electioneering & their 300,000 – 400,000 SA & SS troops – adding that the American-owned Hamburg-Amerika Line was funding propaganda against the German government’s attempts to disband these troops!
Jan. 1933: Hitler assumes power in Germany.
Mar. 7 ‘33: Prescott S. Bush Snr. notified Max Warburg (above) that he (Warburg) was to be the American Ship & Commerce Line official representative on the board of the Hamburg- Amerika Line. Warburg had been a long-time advisor to Hjalmar Schacht (German Economics Minister & a close friend of Montagu Norman), & was an executive in the Reichsbank. A further pertinent connection: Max Warburg’s brothers ran the Kuhn Loeb investment bank, which had handled E. H. Harriman’s buy-out of the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1890’s (above).
Mar. 29 ‘33: As revealed in Moshe Gottlieb’s book “American Anti-Nazi Resistance ‘33 – ‘41”, Max Warburg’s son, Erich, cabled his cousin, Frederick Warburg – who was a director of the Union Pacific Railroad – instructing him to use his influence to stop all anti-Nazi propaganda & activity in America.
Mar. 31 ‘33: As a result: the American-Jewish committee (within which the Warburgs had much influence) & The B’nai B’rith (which subsequently became known as the Anti-Defamation League) issued a joint statement counselling “that no American boycott against Germany be encouraged”!
May. 20. ‘33: As reported in the New York Times: on Hitler achieving power, an agreement to coordinate all trade between Germany & America was reached in Berlin after negotiations between Hitler’s Economics Minister, Hjalmar Schacht (above) & John Foster Dulles. As a result of this, the Harriman International Co. – under Oliver Harriman (Averell’s first cousin) – formed a syndicate of 150 firms/individuals to conduct all exports from Germany to America. It should be noted here that the two Dulles brothers, partners in the corporate law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, had acted for many Nazi enterprises during & after this period, including I. G. Farben, developer of the nerve gas, Tabun; SKF, supplier of 60% of its bearings to Germany; & the Schroeder Banking house, of which Allen Welsh Dulles became a director of its New York branch – a post he held until 1944. (Further pertinent details of the Dulles brothers: J. F. Dulles became Secretary of State <‘53 – ‘59>; A. W. Dulles became CIA Deputy Director for Plans <‘51>; Deputy Director of Central Intelligence <‘51 – ‘53>; & Director of CIA <‘53 -’61>).
Sept. 5 ‘33: North German Lloyd Co. merged with Hamburg-Amerika Line in Hamburg.
Nov. 4 ‘33: American Ship & Commerce Corp. (owners of Hamburg-Amerika – see above) installed long-time Harriman executive, Christian Beck as manager of ‘freight & operations’ in North America for this newly-merged company, now known as Hapag-LLoyd, whose chairman was Emil Helfferich, a Nazi. Nazi security guards accompanied all shipping so engaged in this trade.
Sept. ‘34: At the US Senate Nye Committee hearings, it was revealed that Samuel Pryor, executive ctte. chairman of Remington arms & founding director of both the UBC & the American Ship & Commerce Corp., had joined in a cartel agreement with I. G. Farben, the German chemical/armaments conglomerate (see above). It was further revealed that the Nazi troops (noted above) were “nearly all armed with American guns”.
Dec. 7 ‘41: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour – US now in World War 2.
Aug. 28 ‘42: Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the US government – via Leo T. Crowley, the US Alien Property Custodian – ordered the seizure of all property of Hapag-LLoyd.
Oct. 20 ‘42: Leo T. Crowley, the US Alien Property Custodian – seized the stock shares of the Union Banking Corp. of New York, whose shareholders were: Chm./Dir. E. Rowland Harriman (of Brown Brothers Harriman); Pres./Dir. Cornelis Lievense (banking functionary for the Nazis); Treasurer/Dir. Harold D. Pennington (of Brown Brothers Harriman); Dir. Ray
Morris (of Brown Brothers Harriman); Dir. Prescott S. Bush Snr.(of Brown Brothers Harriman); Dir. H.J. Kouwenhoven (Dir./Chief foreign financial exec. of German Steel Trust & the man who had brokered the deal between Fritz & the UBC); Dir. Johann G. Groeninger (Industrial Exec. in Nazi Germany). These seized shares were described in the Vesting Order as “shares held for the benefit of members of the Thyssen family, property of nationals.. of a
designated enemy country”.Oct. 28 ‘42: US government seized 2 Nazi front companies – the Seamless Steel Equipment Corp. & Holland-American Trading Corp. – both run by the UBC.
.Nov. 17 ‘42: Nazi financial interests (only) in Silesian-American Corp. (above) seized, leaving US partners (UBC) “to carry on the business”.
Jul. 2 ‘45: As revealed by the US Treasury Dept. in hearings before a 79th Congress committee: the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (see above) had produced the following proportions of Nazi Germany’s total output: Pig iron 50.8%; Pipe & tubes 45.5%; Universal plate 41.4%; Galvanised sheet 38.5%; Heavy plate 36%; Explosives 35%; Wire 22.1%.
1954: George Herbert Walker Bush Snr. (son of Prescott S. Bush Snr., grandson of Samuel Bush & George Walker – see above) now president of Zapata Offshore (oil drilling company). He had previously joined Dresser Industries & subsequently co-founded the Bush-Overby Development Co. (both in oil).
‘71 – ‘72: George Herbert Walker Bush Snr. made US ambassador to UN.
1972: George Bush Snr. made chairman of the Republican Party National committee.
‘74 – ‘75: In aftermath of President Nixon’s resignation, President Gerald Ford appointed George Bush Snr. to head the US Liaison Office in Beijing
Jan. 30 ‘76 – Mar. 9 ‘77: George Bush Snr. Director of CIA.
1979: During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, & as a result of the Sandanista rebellion led by Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza fled the country.
Jan. 20 ‘81: Ronald Reagan now president with George Bush Snr. his Vice-President. Defeat of the left-wing Sandanistas became an immediate aim of the Reagan Administration, & this was to be implemented using secretive methods (which were later to prove illegal) under the control of the Special Situations Group, whose chairman was Vice-President George Bush Snr. (who had wrested this post from Secretary of State Alexander Haig early on). Enter Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North who served on both the Inter-Departmental Group on Terrorism & the Terrorist Incident Working Group – both under Bush. They were to set-up, finance & arm an
anti-Sandanista militia, the Contras, using neighbouring Guatemala as a training ground.1983: Contras begin offensive against Sandanistas in Nicaragua.
Apr. ‘84: US congress refuses to authorise $24 million aid to Contras requested by Reagan.
Sept. ‘84: The small oil company Arbusto Energy Inc. founded by George Walker Bush Jnr. (eldest son of George H. W. Bush Snr.) in the mid-70’s proves to be an unsuccessful venture & is bought out by another oil company, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. George W. Bush Jnr. is made president of Spectrum.
Oct. ‘84: Congress cuts off any funding & support to the Contras. John Ellis (‘Jeb’) Bush, the 2nd eldest son of George Bush Snr. – & a real estate developer – had been acting as the Reagan administration’s unofficial link with Contra & Nicaraguan exiles in Miami. He also put the right-wing Guatemalan politician, Dr. Mario Castejon, in touch with Oliver North, which led to Castejon & Henry Whaley ( a former arms dealer) proposing that the State Department supply medicines, field hospitals & light aircraft to the Contras.
