Podcast appearances and mentions of dean rusk

President Trump has been threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal since he regained power. In this episode, listen to testimony from officials serving on the Federal Maritime Commission who explain why the Panama Canal has become a focus of the administration and examine whether or not we need to be concerned about an impending war for control of the canal. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Current Events around the Panama Canal March 5, 2025. the Associated Press. Sabrina Valle, Suzanne McGee, and Michael Martina. March 4, 2025. Reuters. Matt Murphy, Jake Horton and Erwan Rivault. February 14, 2025. BBC. May 1, 2024. World Weather Attribution. World Maritime News Staff. March 15, 2019. World Maritime News. July 29, 2018. Reuters. Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 U.S. Department of State. The Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative” Michele Ruta. March 29, 2018. World Bank Group. The Trump-Gaza Video February 26, 2025. Sky News. Laws Audio Sources Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation January 28, 2025 Witnesses: Louis E. Sola, Chairman, Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) Daniel B. Maffei, Commissioner, FMC , Professor, Scalia Law School, George Mason University Joseph Kramek, President & CEO, World Shipping Council Clips 17:30 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Between the American construction of the Panama Canal, the French effort to build an isthmus canal, and America's triumphant completion of that canal, the major infrastructure projects across Panama cost more than 35,000 lives. For the final decade of work on the Panama Canal, the United States spent nearly $400 million, equivalent to more than $15 billion today. The Panama Canal proved a truly invaluable asset, sparing both cargo ships and warships the long journey around South America. When President Carter gave it away to Panama, Americans were puzzled, confused, and many outraged. With the passage of time, many have lost sight of the canal's importance, both to national security and to the US economy. 18:45 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): But the Panama Canal was not just given away. President Carter struck a bargain. He made a treaty. And President Trump is making a serious and substantive argument that that treaty is being violated right now. 19:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): President Trump has highlighted two key issues. Number one, the danger of China exploiting or blocking passage through the canal, and number two, the exorbitant costs for transit. 19:20 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Chinese companies are right now building a bridge across the canal at a slow pace, so as to take nearly a decade. And Chinese companies control container points ports at either end. The partially completed bridge gives China the ability to block the canal without warning, and the ports give China ready observation posts to time that action. This situation, I believe, poses acute risks to US national security. 19:50 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Meanwhile, the high fees for canal transit disproportionately affect Americans, because US cargo accounts for nearly three quarters of Canal transits. US Navy vessels pay additional fees that apply only to warships. Canal profits regularly exceed $3 billion. This money comes from both American taxpayers and consumers in the form of higher costs for goods. American tourists aboard cruises, particularly those in the Caribbean Sea, are essentially captive to any fees Panama chooses to levy for canal transits, and they have paid unfair prices for fuel bunkering at terminals in Panama as a result of government granted monopoly. Panama's government relies on these exploitative fees. Nearly 1/10 of its budget is paid for with canal profit. 21:25 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Panama has for years flagged dozens of vessels in the Iranian ghost fleet, which brought Iran tens of billions of dollars in oil profits to fund terror across the world. 21:40 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): And Chinese companies have won contracts, often without fair competition, as the infamous Belt and Road Initiative has come to Panama. China often engages in debt trap diplomacy to enable economic and political coercion. In Panama, it also seems to have exploited simple corruption. 32:40 Louis Sola: The Panama Canal is managed by the Panama Canal Authority, ACP, an independent agency of the Panamanian government. The ACP is a model of public infrastructure management, and its independence has been key to ensure a safe and reliable transit of vessels critical to the US and global commerce. 33:25 Louis Sola: In contrast, the broader maritime sector in Panama, including the nation's ports, water rights, and the world's largest ship registry, falls under the direct purview of the Panamanian government. 33:35 Louis Sola: Unfortunately, this sector has faced persistent challenges, including corruption scandals and foreign influence, particularly from Brazil and China. These issues create friction with the ACP, especially as it works to address long term challenges such as securing adequate water supplies for the canal. 33:55 Louis Sola: Although the ACP operates independently, under US law both the ACP and the government of Panama's maritime sector are considered one in the same. This means that any challenges in Panama's maritime sector, including corruption, lack of transparency, or foreign influence, can have a direct or indirect impact on the operations and long term stability of the canal. This legal perspective highlights the need for diligence in monitoring both the ACP's management and Panama government's policies affecting maritime operations. 34:30 Louis Sola: Since 2015, Chinese companies have increased their presence and influence throughout Panama. Panama became a member of the Belt and Road Initiative and ended its diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Chinese companies have been able to pursue billions of dollars in development contracts in Panama, many of which were projects directly on or adjacent to the Panama Canal. Many were no bid contracts. Labor laws were waived, and the Panamanian people are still waiting to see how they've been benefited. It is all more concerning that many of these companies are state-owned, and in some cases, even designated as linked to the People's Liberation Army. We must address the significant growing presence and influence of China throughout the Americas and in Panama, specifically. 35:20 Louis Sola: American companies should play a leading role in enhancing the canal's infrastructure. By supporting US firms, we reduce reliance on Chinese contractors and promote fair competition. 36:55 Daniel Maffei: Because the canal is essentially a waterway bridge over mountainous terrain above sea level, it does depend on large supplies of fresh water to maintain the full operations. Panama has among the world's largest annual rainfalls. Nonetheless, insufficient fresh water levels have occurred before in the canal's history, such as in the 1930s when the Madden Dam and Lake Alajuela were built to address water shortages. Since that time, the canal has undertaken several projects to accommodate larger, more modern ships. In the last couple of years, a trend of worsening droughts in the region, once again, has forced limits to the operations of the canal. Starting in June of 2023 the Panama Canal Authority employed draft restrictions and reduced the number of ships allowed to transit the canal per day. Now the Panama Canal limitations, in combination with the de facto closure of the Suez Canal to container traffic, has had serious consequences for ocean commerce, increasing rates, fees and transit times. 39:30 Daniel Maffei: Now, fortunately, Panama's 2024 rainy season has, for now, alleviated the most acute water supply issues at the canal, and normal transit volumes have been restored. That said, while the Panamanian government and Canal Authority have, with the advice of the US Army Corps of Engineers, developed credible plans to mitigate future water shortages, they also warned that it is likely that at least one more period of reduced transits will occur before these plans can be fully implemented. 41:55 Eugene Kontorovich: We shall see that under international law, each party to the treaty is entitled to determine for itself whether a violation has occurred. Now, in exchange for the United States ceding control of the canal which it built and maintained, Panama agreed to a special regime of neutrality. The essential features of this regime of neutrality is that the canal must be open to all nations for transit. That's Article Two. Equitable tolls and fees, Article Three. An exclusive Panamanian operation, Article Five. The prohibition of any foreign military presence, Article Five. Article Five provides that only Panama shall operate the canal. Testifying about the meaning of the treaty at the Senate ratification hearings, the Carter administration emphasized that this prohibits foreign operation of the canal, as well as the garrisoning of foreign troops. Now, Article Five appears to be primarily concerned about control by foreign sovereigns. If Panama signed a treaty with the People's Republic of China, whereby the latter would operate the canal on Panama's behalf, this would be a clear violation. But what if Panama contracted for port operations with a Chinese state firm, or even a private firm influenced or controlled in part by the Chinese government? The Suez Canal Company was itself, before being nationalized, a private firm in which the United Kingdom was only a controlling shareholder. Yet this was understood to represent British control over the canal. In other words, a company need not be owned by the government to be in part controlled by the government. So the real question is the degree of de jure or de facto control over a Foreign Sovereign company, and scenarios range from government companies in an authoritarian regime, completely controlled, to purely private firms in our open society like the United States, but there's many possible situations in the middle. The treaty is silent on the question of how much control is too much, and as we'll see, this is one of the many questions committed to the judgment and discretion of each party. Now turning to foreign security forces, the presence of third country troops would manifestly violate Article Five. But this does not mean that anything short of a People's Liberation Army base flying a red flag is permissible. The presence of foreign security forces could violate the regime of neutrality, even if they're not represented in organized and open military formations. Modern warfare has seen belligerent powers seek to evade international legal limitations by disguising their actions in civilian garb, from Russia's notorious little green men to Hamas terrorists hiding in hospitals or disguised as journalists. Bad actors seek to exploit the fact that international treaties focus on sovereign actors. Many of China's man made islands in the South China Sea began as civilian projects before being suddenly militarized. Indeed, this issue was discussed in the Senate ratification hearings over the treaty. Dean Rusk said informal forces would be prohibited under the treaty. Thus the ostensible civilian character of the Chinese presence around the canal does not, in itself, mean that it could not represent a violation of the treaty if, for example, these companies and their employees involved Chinese covert agents or other agents of the Chinese security forces. So this leads us to the final question, Who determines whether neutrality is being threatened or compromised? Unlike many other treaties that provide for third party dispute resolution, the neutrality treaty has no such provision. Instead, the treaty makes clear that each party determines for itself the existence of a violation. Article Four provides that each party is separately authorized to maintain the regime of neutrality, making a separate obligation of each party. The Senate's understanding accompanying to ratification also made clear that Article Five allows each party to take, quote, "unilateral action." Senator Jacob Javits, at the markup hearing, said that while the word unilateral is abrasive, we can quote, "decide that the regime of neutrality is being threatened and then act with whatever means are necessary to keep the canal neutral unilaterally." 46:35 Joseph Kramek: My name is Joe Kramek. I'm President and CEO of the World Shipping Council. The World Shipping Council is the global voice of liner shipping. Our membership consists of 90% of the world's liner shipping tonnage, which are container vessels and vehicle carriers. They operate on fixed schedules to provide our customers with regular service to ship their goods in ports throughout the world. 47:15 Joseph Kramek: As you have heard, using the Panama Canal to transit between the Atlantic and Pacific saves significant time and money. A typical voyage from Asia to the US or East Coast can be made in under 30 days using the canal, while the same journey can take up to 40 days if carriers must take alternate routes. From a commercial trade perspective, the big picture is this. One of the world's busiest trade lanes is the Trans Pacific. The Trans Pacific is cargo coming from and going to Asia via the United States. Focusing in a bit, cargo coming from Asia and bound for US Gulf and East Coast ports always transits the Panama Canal. Similarly, cargo being exported from US and East Coast ports, a large share of which are US Agricultural exports, like soybeans, corn, cotton, livestock and dairy also almost always transits the Panama Canal. The result is that 75% of Canal traffic originates in or is bound for the United States. 48:55 Joseph Kramek: We've talked about the drought in 2023 and the historic low water levels that it caused in Lake Gatún, which feeds the canal locks, a unique system that is a fresh water feed, as contrasted to an ocean to ocean system, which the French tried and failed, but which is actually active in the Suez Canal. These low water levels reduced transits from 36 transits a day to as low as 22 per day. Additionally, the low water levels required a reduction in maximum allowable draft levels, or the depth of the ship below the water line, which for our members reduced the amount of containers they could carry through the canal. This resulted in a 10% reduction in import volumes for US Gulf and East Coast ports, with the Port of Houston experiencing a 26.7% reduction. 51:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Are you aware of allegations from some vessel operators of disparate treatment such as sweetheart deals or favorable rebates by Panama for canal transits? Louis Sola: Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman, we have become aware through some complaints by cruise lines that said that they were not getting a refund of their canal tolls. When we looked into this, we found a Panamanian Executive Order, Decree 73, that specifically says that if a cruise line would stop at a certain port, that they could be refunded 100% of the fees. And as far as I know, that's the only instant where that exists. 53:05 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): So Panama was the very first Latin American country to join China's Belt and Road Initiative, and right now, China is building a fourth bridge across the Panama Canal for car traffic and light rail. Chairman Sola, why should Chinese construction of a bridge near Panama City concern the United States? Louis Sola: Mr. Chairman, we all saw the tragedy that happened here in the Francis Scott Key Bridge incident and the devastation that had happened to Baltimore. We also saw recently what happened in the Suez Canal, where we had a ship get stuck in there. It's not only the construction of the bridge, but it's a removal of a bridge, as I understand it, called the Bridge of the Americas. It was built in 1961 and that would paralyze cargo traffic in and out of the canals. 53:55 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Panama also recently renewed the concessions for two container ports to a Chinese company, Hutchison Ports PPC. Of course, Chinese companies are controlled by the Communist Party. How does China use control of those ports for economic gain? Louis Sola: Mr. Chairman, I am a regulator, a competition regulator. And the Chinese ports that you're referring to, let me put them into scope. The one on the Pacific, the Port of Balboa, is roughly the same size as the Port of Houston. They do about 4 million containers a year. They have about 28 game tree cranes. The one on the Atlantic is the same as my hometown in Miami, they do about 1 million containers. So where Roger Gunther in the Port of Houston generates about $1 billion a year and Heidi Webb in Miami does about $200 million, the Panama ports company paid 0 for 20 years on that concession. So it's really hard to compete against zero. So I think that's our concern, our economic concern, that we would have. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Commissioner Maffei, anything to add on that? Daniel Maffei: Yeah, I do too also think it is important. I would point out that you don't have to stop at either port. It's not like these two ports control the entrance to the canal. That is the Canal Authority that does control that. However, I think it's of concern. I would also point out that the Panamanian government thinks it's of concern too, because they're conducting their own audit of those particular deals, but we remain very interested as well. 56:25 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Would the facts discussed here be considered violations of the neutrality treaty in force right now between the United States and Panama? Eugene Kontorovich: So I think Senator, I think potentially they could, but it's impossible to say definitively without knowing more, in particular, about the degree of Chinese control and involvement in these companies. I think it's important to note that these port operation companies that operate the ports on both sides, when they received their first contract, it was just a few months before Hong Kong was handed over to China. In other words, they received them as British companies, sort of very oddly, just a few months before the handover. Now, of course, since then, Hong Kong has been incorporated into China, has been placed under a special national security regime, and the independence of those companies has been greatly abridged, to say nothing of state owned companies involved elsewhere in in the canal area, which raised significantly greater questions. Additionally, I should point out that the understandings between President Carter and Panamanian leader Herrera, which were attached to the treaty and form part of the treaty, provide that the United States can, quote, "defend the canal against any threat to the regime of neutrality," and I understand that as providing some degree of preemptive authority to intervene. One need not wait until the canal is actually closed by some act of sabotage or aggression, which, as we heard from the testimony, would be devastating to the United States, but there is some incipient ability to address potential violations. 58:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): If the United States determines that Panama is in violation of the treaty, what is the range of remedies the United States would have for that treaty violation? Eugene Kontorovich: So I think it may be shocking to people to hear today, but when one goes over the ratification history and the debates and discussions in this body over this treaty, it was clear that the treaty was understood as giving both sides, separately, the right to resort to use armed force to enforce the provisions of the treaty. And it's not so surprising when one understands that the United States made an extraordinary concession to Panama by transferring this canal, which the United States built at great expense and maintained and operated to Panama, gratis. And in exchange, it received a kind of limitation, a permanent limitation on Panamanians sovereignty, that Panama agreed that the United States could enforce this regime of neutrality by force. Now, of course, armed force should never be the first recourse for any kind of international dispute and should not be arrived at sort of rationally or before negotiations and other kinds of good offices are exhausted, but it's quite clear that the treaty contemplates that as a remedy for violations. 1:03:20 Louis Sola: I believe that the security of the canal has always been understood to be provided by the United States. Panama does not have a military, and I always believed that there's been a close relationship with Southern Command that we would provide that. And it would be nice to see if we had a formalization of that in one way or another, because I don't believe that it's in the treaty at all. 1:05:05 Daniel Maffei: While we were down there, both of us heard, I think, several times, that the Panamanians would, the ones we talked to anyway, would welcome US companies coming in and doing a lot of this work. Frankly, their bids are not competitive with the Chinese bids. Frankly, they're not that existent because US companies can make more money doing things other places, but even if they were existent, it is difficult to put competitive bids when the Chinese bids are so heavily subsidized by China. 1:06:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): What would China's incentive be to heavily subsidize those bids to undercut American companies and other companies? Daniel Maffei: Yeah, it's not a real short answer, but Senator, China's made no secret of its ambitious policies to gain influence of ports throughout the globe. It's invested in 129 ports in dozens of countries. It runs a majority of 17 ports, that does not include this Hong Kong company, right? So that's just directly Chinese-owned ports. So it has been a part of their Belt and Road strategy, whatever you want to call it, the Maritime Silk Road, for decades. So they believe that this influence, this investment in owning maritime ports is important to their economy. 1:07:05 Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE): In 2021, Hutchison was awarded those two ports, Port Balboa and Port Cristobal, in a no-bid award process. Can you tell me, does the United States have any authority or recourse with the Panama Canal Authority under our current agreement with Panama to rebid those terminal concession contracts. And perhaps Mr. Kantorovich, that's more in your purview? Louis Sola: Senator, both of those ports were redone for 25 years, until 2047, I believe. And they have to pay $7 million is what the ongoing rate is for the Port of Houston- and the Port of Miami-sized concessions. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE): And it can't be rebid until after that date? Louis Sola: Well, I believe that that's what the comptroller's office is auditing both of those ports and that contract. That was done under the previous Panamanian administration. A new administration came in, and they called for an audit of that contract immediately. 1:20:10 Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): Are the companies now controlling both sides of the Panama Canal, the Chinese companies, subject to the PRC national security laws that mandate cooperation with the military, with state intelligence agencies. Does anyone know that? Eugene Kontorovich: They're subject all the time. They're subject to those laws all the time by virtue of being Hong Kong companies. And you know, they face, of course, consequences for not complying with the wishes of the Chinese government. One of the arguments -- Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): Wouldn't that be a violation of the treaty? And isn't that a huge risk to us right now that the Chinese -- Eugene Kontorovich: That is a threat to the neutrality -- Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): If they invaded Taiwan, invaded the Philippines, they could go to these two companies saying, Hey, shut it down, make it hard, sink a ship in the canal. And wouldn't they be obligated to do that under Chinese law if they were ordered to by the PLA or the CCP? Eugene Kontorovich: I don't know if they'd be obligated, but certainly the People's Republic of China would have many tools of leverage and pressure on these companies. That's why the treaty specifically says that we can act not just to end actual obstructions to the canal. We don't have to wait until the canal is closed by hostile military action. Thatwould be a suicide pact, that would be catastrophic for us, but rather that we can respond at the inchoate, incipient level to threats, and then this is up to the president to determine whether this is significantly robust to constitute -- Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): So aren't we kind of walking up to the idea of a suicide pact, because we've got two big Chinese companies on both ends of the Panama Canal, who, if there's a war in INDOPACOM, Taiwan that involves us and China, these companies would be obligated to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party and PLA? I mean, are we kind of walking up to a very significant national security threat already? Eugene Kontorovich: Yeah, certainly, there's a threat. And I think what makes the action of the Chinese government so difficult to respond to, but important to respond to, is that they conceal this in sort of levels of gray without direct control. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): Let me ask you on that topic, as my last question, Professor, let's assume that we find out. And again, it wouldn't be surprising. I think you can almost assume it that these two companies have Chinese spies or military officials within the ranks of the employees of the companies. Let's assume we found that out, somehow that becomes public. But I don't think it's a big assumption. It's probably true right now. So you have spies and military personnel within the ranks of these two companies that are controlling both ends of the Panama Canal for you, Professor, and Chairman Sola, wouldn't that be a blatant violation of Article Five of the neutrality treaty, if that were true, which probably is true? Eugene Kontorovich: Yeah, I do think it would be a clear violation. As former Secretary of State, Dean Ross said at the ratification hearings, informal forces can violate Article Five as well as formal forces. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): Is there any evidence of Chinese spies or other nefarious Chinese actors embedded in these companies? Louis Sola: Senator, we have no information of that. That's not under the purview of -- Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): But you agree that would be a violation of Article Five of the neutrality treaty? Louis Sola: I do. 1:26:25 Daniel Maffei: Senator Sullivan was talking about Hutchison Ports. That's actually the same company that runs terminals on both ends of the canal. I am concerned about that. However, if we want to be concerned about that, all of us should lose a lot more sleep than we're losing because if there are spies there, then there might be spies at other Hutchinson ports, and there are other Hutchinson ports in almost every part of the world. They own the largest container port in the United Kingdom, Felix Dow, which is responsible for nearly half of Britain's container trade. They control major maritime terminals in Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Myanmar, the Netherlands, South Korea and Tanzania. If owning and managing adjacent ports means that China somehow has operational control or strategic control over the Panama Canal, they also have it over the Suez, the Singapore Straits, the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel. 1:35:45 Louis Sola: The fees that I think we are looking at, or have been looked at, the reason that we went there was because of the auctioning of the slots. And so what Panama did is they had a smaller percentage, maybe 20% allocation, and then they moved it up to 30% and 40% because it became a money maker for them. So as they were doing -- Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): Okay, let me interject here. The auctioning of the slots gives these the right to skip the queue? Louis Sola: Yes, ma'am. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): Okay, so just for the record there. Continue. Louis Sola: So the auctioning of the slots. Under maritime law, it's first come first serve, but Panama has always put a certain percentage aside, and they started to put more and more. So we got a lot of complaints. We got a lot of complaints from LNG carriers that paid $4 million to go through, and we got a lot of complaints from agriculture that didn't have the money to pay to go through, because their goods were gonna go down. So if you look at the financial statements -- I'm a nerd, I look at financial statements of everybody -- the canal increased the amount of revenue that they had from about $500 million to $1.8 billion in the last three years just because of those fees. So this is what is very concerning to us. 1:39:20 Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): Do you know of any instances where the United States has been singled out or treated unfairly under the neutrality treaty in the operation of the canal? Daniel Maffei: I do not. I would add that one of the reasons why saying the US is disproportionately affected by raises in Canal fees and other kinds of fees at the canal is because the United States disproportionately utilizes the canal. 1:44:55 Louis Sola: We have a US port there, SSA, out of Washington State that I actually worked on the development of that many years ago, and helped develop that. That used to be a United States Navy submarine base, and we converted that. As far as the two ports that we have, they're completely different. One is a major infrastructure footprint, and also a container port that's moving 4 million containers a year. That's really phenomenal amount. That's more than Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and you've probably got to get Tampa and a little bit of Jacksonville in there to get that type of volume. And on the other side, we have a very small port, but it's a very strategic port on the Atlantic. So how are the operations done?I don't know how they don't make money. I mean, if you want to come right down to it, if they've been operating the port for 20 years, and they say that they haven't made any money, so they haven't been able to pay the government. That's what concerns me is I don't believe that we're on a level playing field with the American ports. 1:58:50 Eugene Kontorovich: I think the charges and fees are less of an issue because they don't discriminate across countries. We pay more because we use more, but it's not nationally discriminatory. 1:59:00 Eugene Kontorovich: The presence of Chinese companies, especially Chinese state companies, but not limited to them, do raise serious issues and concerns for the neutrality of the treaty. And I should point out, in relation to some of the earlier questioning, the canal, for purposes of the neutrality treaty, is not limited just to the actual locks of the canal and the transit of ships through the canal. According to Annex One, paragraph one of the treaty, it includes also the entrances of the canal and the territorial sea of Panama adjacent to it. So all of the activities we're talking about are within the neutrality regime, the geographic scope of the neutrality regime in the treaty. 2:00:30 Daniel Maffei: I actually have to admit, I'm a little confused as to why some of the senators asking these questions, Senator Blackburn, aren't more concerned about the biggest port in the United Kingdom being run by the Chinese. Petraeus in the port nearest Athens, one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean, is not just run by a Chinese-linked company, it's run directly by a Chinese-owned company, and I was there. So you're on to something, but if you're just focusing on Panama, that's only part. 2:01:45 Louis Sola: About a year ago, when we were having this drought issue, there was also a lot of focus on Iran and how they were funding Hamas and the Houthis because they were attacking the Red Sea. What the United States has found is that Iranian vessels are sometimes flagged by Panama in order to avoid sanctions, so that they could sell the fuel that they have, and then they can take that money and then they can use it as they wish. Panama, at the time, had a very complicated process to de-flag the vessels. There was an investigation, there was an appeals process. By the time that OFAC or Treasury would go ahead and identify one of those vessels, by the time that they were doing the appeals and stuff like this, they've already changed flags to somewhere else. So when we went to Panama, we met with the Panamanian president, and I must say that we were very impressed, because he was 30 minutes late, but he was breaking relations with Venezuela at the time because the election was the day before. We explained to him the situation. The very next day, we met with the maritime minister, with US embassy personnel and Panama actually adjusted their appeals process so to make it more expedient, so if the United States or OFAC would come and say that this Iranian vessel is avoiding sanctions, now we have a process in place to go ahead and do that, and 53 vessels were de-flagged because of that. 2:06:05 Sen. John Curtis (R-UT): Is there any reason that China can't watch or do whatever they want from this bridge to get the intel from these containers? And does that concern anybody? Louis Sola: Well, it definitely concerns Southern Command, because they've brought it up on numerous occasions that there could be some sort of surveillance or something like that on the bridges. 2:20:30 Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT): We segregate ourselves artificially in a way that they do not. We segregate ourselves. Let's talk about military. Let's talk about intelligence. Let's talk about economics. They don't. China doesn't work that way. It's a whole of government approach. They don't draw a delineation between an economics discussion and a military one. And their attack may not look like Pearl Harbor. It may look like an everyday ship that decides, you know, it pulls into the locks and blows itself up. And now the locks are non-functional for our usage, and we can't support an inter ocean fleet transfer, and our ability to defend it, as you referred to Chairman, is now inhibited by the fact that we no longer have the military infrastructure around the canal that we did just as recently as 1999. 2:21:10 Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT): So from a commercial perspective, do the shipping companies have concerns over the security of the narrow waterways? We've the Strait to Malacca, we've got the Suez Canal, we've got Gibraltar, we've got Panama. Is that a concern that's thrown around in the boardrooms of the largest shipping corporations in the world? Joseph Kramek: Senator, I think it's something they think about every day. I mean, really, it's drawn into sharp relief with the Red Sea. It was what I call a pink flamingo. There's black swans that just come up and there's pink flamingos that you can see, but you don't act. But no one really thought a whole lot that one of the most important waterways in the world could be denied, and moreover, that it could be denied for such a sustained period. The good news is that -- Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT): And denied, I might add, by a disaffected non-state actor of Bedouins running around with rocket launchers, who also managed to beat us in a 20 year war in Afghanistan. My point to saying all this is we're just debating operational control of the canal, yet it seems very clear to all of us that a very simple act can debilitate the canal and eliminate our ability to use it in a matter of minutes with no warning, and we have no ability to intervene or stop that. To me, that means we do not have operational control of the canal. 2:30:40 Daniel Maffei: I will say that certainly we need to look at other kinds of ways to get US companies in positions where they can truly compete with the Chinese on some of these things. Blaming it all on Panama really misses the point. I've seen the same thing in Greece, where Greece didn't want to give the concession of its largest port to a Chinese company, but because of its financial difficulties, it was getting pressure from international organizations such the IMF, Europe and even maybe some of the United States to do so. So I just ask you to look at that. 2:31:20 Daniel Maffei: Panamanians are making far more on their canal than they ever have before. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's going to the right place. But where they're really making the money is on these auctions, and that is why it remains a concern of mine and I'm sure the chairman's. That is where we are looking at, potentially, using our authority under Section 19 of the Merchant Marine Act where we could, if we can show that it is a problem with the foreign trade of the US, it's interfering with foreign trade of the US, there are certain things that we can do. Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 15, 2024 Clips 4:01:40 Marco Rubio: The thing with Panama on the canal is not new. I visited there. It was 2016. I think I've consistently seen people express concern about it, and it's encapsulized here in quote after quote. Let me tell you the former US ambassador who served under President Obama said: "the Chinese see in Panama what we saw in Panama throughout the 20th century, a maritime and aviation logistics hub." The immediate past head of Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, said, "I was just in Panama about a month ago and flying along the Panama Canal and looking at the state owned enterprises from the People's Republic of China on each side of the Panama Canal. They look like civilian companies or state owned enterprises that could be used for dual use and could be quickly changed over to a military capability." We see questions that were asked by the ranking member in the house China Select Committee, where he asked a witness and they agreed that in a time of conflict, China could use its presence on both ends of the canal as a choke point against the United States in a conflict situation. So the concerns about Panama have been expressed by people on both sides of the aisle for at least the entire time that I've been in the United States Senate, and they've only accelerated further. And this is a very legitimate issue that we face there. I'm not prepared to answer this question because I haven't looked at the legal research behind it yet, but I'm compelled to suspect that an argument could be made that the terms under which that canal were turned over have been violated. Because while technically, sovereignty over the canal has not been turned over to a foreign power, in reality, a foreign power today possesses, through their companies, which we know are not independent, the ability to turn the canal into a choke point in a moment of conflict. And that is a direct threat to the national interest and security the United States, and is particularly galling given the fact that we paid for it and that 5,000 Americans died making it. That said, Panama is a great partner on a lot of other issues, and I hope we can resolve this issue of the canal and of its security, and also continue to work with them cooperatively on a host of issues we share in common, including what to do with migration. 4:38:35 Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT): Now, President Trump has recently talked a little bit about the fact that there are some questions arising about the status of the Panama Canal. When we look to the treaty at issue, the treaty concerning the permanent neutrality and operation of the Panama Canal, we're reminded that some things maybe aren't quite as they should be there right now. Given that the Chinese now control major ports at the entry and the exit to the canal, it seems appropriate to say that there's at least an open question. There's some doubt as to whether the canal remains neutral. Would you agree with that assessment? Marco Rubio: Yes. Here's the challenge. Number one, I want to be clear about something. The Panamanian government, particularly its current office holders, are very friendly to the United States and very cooperative, and we want that to continue, and I want to bifurcate that from the broader issue of the canal. Now I am not, President Trump is not inventing this. This is something that's existed now for at least a decade. In my service here, I took a trip to Panama in 2017. When on that trip to Panama in 2017 it was the central issue we discussed about the canal, and that is that Chinese companies control port facilities at both ends of the canal, the east and the west, and the concerns among military officials and security officials, including in Panama, at that point, that that could one day be used as a choke point to impede commerce in a moment of conflict. Going back to that I -- earlier before you got here, and I don't want to have to dig through this folder to find it again, but -- basically cited how the immediate past head of Southern Command, just retired general Richardson, said she flew over the canal, looked down and saw those Chinese port facilities, and said Those look like dual use facilities that in a moment of conflict, could be weaponized against us. The bipartisan China commission over in the House last year, had testimony and hearings on this issue, and members of both parties expressed concern. The former ambassador to Panama under President Obama has expressed those concerns. This is a legitimate issue that needs to be confronted. The second point is the one you touched upon, and that is, look, could an argument be made, and I'm not prepared to answer it yet, because it's something we're going to have to study very carefully. But I think I have an inkling of I know where this is going to head. Can an argument be made that the Chinese basically have effective control of the canal anytime they want? Because if they order a Chinese company that controls the ports to shut it down or impede our transit, they will have to do so. There are no independent Chinese companies. They all exist because they've been identified as national champions. They're supported by the Chinese government. And if you don't do what they want, they find a new CEO, and you end up being replaced and removed. So they're under the complete control of their government. This is a legitimate question, and one that Senators Risch had some insight as well. He mentioned that in passing that needs to be looked at. This is not a joke. The Panama Canal issue is a very serious one. 4:44:30 Marco Rubio: In 2016 and 2017 that was well understood that part of the investments they made in Panama were conditioned upon Panama's ability to convince the Dominican Republic and other countries to flip their recognition away from Taiwan. That happened. Jen Briney's Recent Guest Appearances Travis Makes Money: Give and Take: Music by Editing Production Assistance

Thái độ kềm chế của tổng thống Mỹ John F. Kennedy và sự khôn ngoan của lãnh tụ Liên Xô, Nikita S. Khrushchev đã tránh cho nhân loại một thảm họa hạt nhân ở đầu thập niên 1960. Không chỉ là đối thủ của nhau, Kennedy-Khrushchev còn là những đồng minh trong nhiệm vụ gìn giữ hòa bình. Nhà sử học Georges Ayache trở lại với cuộc đấu trí giữa Nikita S. Khrushchev và John F. Kennedy trong tác phẩm Những cuộc đối đầu trong lịch sử của nhân loại. (Tạp chí phát lần đầu ngày 20/10/2016)  Vào lúc quốc tế cảnh báo trước nguy cơ kịch bản chiến tranh lạnh tái diễn, vị lãnh tụ cuối cùng của Liên Bang Xô Viết, Michael Gorbatchev, lo ngại khi thấy Washington và Matxcơva đang « tiến gần tới lằn ranh đỏ ». Ngoại trưởng Đức Frank-Walter Steinmeier không lạc quan hơn khi cho rằng : tình hình hiện nay còn « nguy hiểm hơn cả so với thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh ».Trong bối cảnh căng thẳng đó, đầu tháng 10/2016 dưới sự điều hành của Alexis Brezet và Vincent Tremolet de Villiers, hơn 20 nhà sử học, nghiên cứu, cựu nhân viên ngoại giao, nhà báo, nhà văn vừa cho ra mắt công chúng một tập hợp nói về 20 cuộc đối đầu đánh dấu lịch sử của nhân loại, từ thời Đại Đế Alexandre, hơn 300 năm trước Công Nguyên, cho đến cuộc song đấu Michael Gorbatchev - Boris Eltsine cuối thập niên 1980 đánh dấu ngày tàn của Liên Bang Xô Viết : Les Grands Duels qui ont fait le monde, Nhà Xuất Bản Perrin.Nổi bật hơn cả là cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », Kennedy-Khrushchev ở vào đầu thập niên 1960, với đe dọa hạt nhân tiềm tàng, được Georges Ayache nhà sử học và cũng là một nhà ngoại giao kể lại.Vào mùa thu năm 1960, Hoa Kỳ chuẩn bị bầu lại tổng thống. Nixon hay Kennedy sẽ trở thành vị tổng thống thứ 35 trong lịch sử của nước Mỹ ? Điện Kremlin thận trọng theo dõi tình hình từ xa. Các cuộc thăm dò cho thấy, phó tổng thống Richard M. Nixon, ứng cử viên của đảng Cộng Hòa, một chính khách nổi tiếng chống cộng ở Mỹ, chiếm lợi thế so với thượng nghị sĩ John F. Kennedy của đảng Dân Chủ.Sói già và cừu non Tại Matxcơva, lên cầm quyền từ năm 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev từng có dịp tiếp xúc với Nixon thực sự bất ngờ trước thắng lợi của Kennedy, một chính trị gia « còn quá trẻ để ngồi vào chiếc ghế tổng thống ». Mật vụ Liên Xô có một số thông tin về vị thượng nghị sĩ trẻ tuổi, nổi tiếng là « tay chơi » này : JFK là một cậu công tử con nhà giàu, tốt nghiệp đại học Harvard, đẹp như tài tử điện ảnh, nổi tiếng ăn chơi và dễ làm phụ nữ xiêu lòng.Kennedy, dành nhiều thời gian để du thuyền hơn là lui tới Thượng Viện. Mật vụ KGB còn nắm rõ cả hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy : họ biết ông đã nhiều lần suýt chết, bị đau cột sống và mắc một chứng bệnh hiểm nghèo, phải chích cortisone với liều lượng mạnh để cầm cự.Theo lời tác giả, chỉ cần Mật vụ Liên Xô tung hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy ra cho công chúng, là cũng đủ vĩnh viễn chôn vùi giấc mơ bước vào Nhà Trắng của thượng nghị sĩ bang Massachusetts. Đắc cử tháng 11/1960, John Fitzgerad Kennedy chính thức nhậm chức đầu tháng Giêng năm sau.Trong khi đó ở Matxcơva, tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã củng cố vị thế trên bàn cờ chính trị Liên Xô từ năm 1953, sau cái chết của Stalin. Xuất thân từ một gia đình nông dân, thủa trẻ Khrushchev từng lao động trong các lò rèn ở Donbass, miền đông Ukraina hiện nay, nhiều lần vào sinh ra tử trong các trận chiến trước khi từng bước thăng tiến trong guồng máy Đảng.Trên con đường thăng tiến đó, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã từng bước qua không ít xác người. Dưới những năm tháng Stalin, ai ai cũng phải vận dụng mọi thủ đoạn, mánh khóe xảo quyệt để tồn tại. Sống sót được dưới gọng kềm của Stalin đã là một kỳ công, ngồi vào chiếc ghế của Stalin để còn vạch trần tội ác của Stalin cũng là những thành tích không kém.Nói cách khác, nếu như Jonh F. Kennedy, 43 tuổi, là một chính trị gia ít kinh nghiệm sống trong nhung lụa, phía bên kia võ đài, Nikita S. Khrushchev, 64 tuổi, là một con cáo già đã quá từng trải.Thượng đỉnh Vienna, chiến tranh tâm lý Kennedy-Khrushchev ? Dưới con mắt tinh đời của Khrushchev, Kennedy là một nhà chính trị tay mơ. Điều đã được chứng minh qua chiến dịch đổ bộ lên Vịnh Con Heo, Cuba tháng 4/1961. Chiến dịch đó là một thất bại ê chề của tình báo CIA với đồng thuận của tân chính quyền Kennedy, chống chế độ Fidel Castro.Từ điện Kremlin, Khrushchev lại càng thích thú khi thấy JFK phải cầu viện Nixon cố vấn trên hồ sơ Cuba, hay như hình ảnh trên bìa báo Life cho thấy một, Kennedy khép nép như cậu học trò đứng bên ông thầy, tướng Eisenhower sau một cuộc họp ở Camp David.Trong thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh, Kennedy lên cầm quyền vào lúc quan hệ giữa Washington và Matxcơva xấu đi đáng kể sau vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 của Mỹ bị phát hiện và bắn hạ trên bầu trời dãy núi Ural của Liên Xô (hồi tháng 5/1960), rồi kế tới là hồ sơ Cuba.Nhưng hơn bao giờ hết Washington và Matxcơva ý thức được là đôi bên cần nối lại đối thoại. Kennedy - Khrushchev dự trù họp thượng đỉnh tại Vienna, Áo vào tháng 6/1961.Nikita S. Khrushchev đến Vienna với quyết tâm « hỏi tội » Mỹ về vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 và muốn chứng minh với quốc tế, Liên Xô là một siêu cường, ngang hàng với Mỹ. Đành là chưa giàu có như Mỹ, nhưng Liên Xô đã qua mặt Hoa Kỳ trong cuộc chạy đua chinh phục không gian.Theo nhà sử học và ngoại giao Georges Ayache, Khrushchev bằng mọi giá phải ghi được một bàn thắng tại Vienna về mặt ngoại giao để đánh lạc hướng công luận trong nước trước hàng loạt những khó khăn kinh tế. Chủ nhân điện Kremlin cũng biết rằng thành phần bảo thủ trong đảng chỉ chờ cơ hội để bắt Khrushchev « đền tội » sau khi đã hạ bệ Stalin.Không xem thường đối thủ nhưng Khrushchev nghĩ rằng, ông sẽ dễ dàng áp đảo được Kennedy, cái ông tổng thống « còn nhỏ tuổi hơn con trai » của mình.Về phía Kennedy, vị tổng thống trẻ tuổi này của nước Mỹ cũng cần một thắng lợi ngoại giao. Chẳng vậy mà, trước khi lên đường tới Vienna, Kennedy đã phải dừng chân ở Paris để tham khảo ý kiến tổng thống Pháp, vị lão tướng Charles de Gaulle.Thượng đỉnh Kennedy-Khrushchev mở ra trong hai ngày 03 và 04/06/1961 tại thủ đô nước Áo. Hơn 1.500 phóng viên quốc tế tập hợp về Vienna để đưa tin.Về hình thức, lãnh đạo hai nước họp kín với một dàn cố vấn trong bầu không khí « giá lạnh ». Như thông lệ, Khrushchev dùng những lời lẽ đao to búa lớn để hù dọa đối phương. Kennedy càng tỏ ra chừng mực và từ tốn chừng nào, Khrushchev lại càng lấn lướt chừng nấy. Thậm chí theo lời một người trong cuộc, Khrushchev « mắng » Kennedy như mắng trẻ con.Về nội dung thượng đỉnh Vienna, Kennedy muốn tập trung vào hồ sơ nguyên tử, Khrushchev sau khi dậy cho tổng thống Mỹ một bài học về thuyết Mác-Lênin, đòi Nhà Trắng giải quyết dứt điểm về quy chế của Tây Berlin, công nhận hai nước Đông và Tây Đức. Đây là lần thứ ba Matxcơva đòi Washington trở lại hồ sơ này.Với Liên Xô ốc đảo Tây Berlin giữa lòng nước Đông Đức cộng sản là một cái gai : sự phồn thịnh của Tây Berlin càng làm lộ rõ cách biệt về đời sống giữa hai khối Tự Do và Cộng Sản. Khoảng cách đó hủy hoại những nỗ lực tuyên truyền của khối Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa.Kết thúc hai ngày họp, thượng đỉnh Vienna không đem lại một kết quả cụ thể nào. Trước khi ra về Khrushchev dọa Kennedy và phương Tây trước viễn cảnh nổ ra chiến tranh. Tổng thống Mỹ lễ phép đáp lời Chủ tịch Liên Xô : « Nếu như vậy thưa Ngài, thì chiến tranh sẽ xảy ra. Đó sẽ là một mùa đông buốt giá… »Rời Vienna, Khrushchev biết rõ ông đã áp đảo được đối phương và buông lời nhận xét về Kennedy như sau : « Hắn quá trẻ, chưa đủ già dặn, rất thông minh, nhưng quá nhu nhược ».JFK thì buột miệng than với các cộng tác viên là ông đã thực sự bị Khrushchev « xơi tái ». Nhưng qua cuộc chạm trán đó, Kennedy tin chắc tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô chỉ muốn « nắn gân » nước Mỹ : Matxcơva sẽ không khai chiến vì Berlin hay vì Đông Đức, bởi « có điên mới lao vào cuộc chiến » mà Khrushchev chắc chắn không phải là người điên.Kennedy không nhượng bộ tại Vienna lần này, nhưng Khrushchev hy vọng sẽ có cách « trị » ông tổng thống Mỹ còn non tay này. Matxcơva đợi cơ hội.Tháng 08/1961, điện Kremlin ngỡ rằng thời cơ đã đến. Trong đêm 12 rạng sáng ngày 13/08/1961, chính quyền Water Ulbricht bất đầu xây dựng bức tường « ô nhục » như để thách thức Washington. Căng thẳng Đông-Tây gia tăng thêm một nấc vào tháng 10 cùng năm khi chiến xa của Mỹ và Liên Xô « đối mặt » nhau trong nhiều giờ đồng hồ. Chỉ cần một tiếng súng, một sự cố nhỏ cũng đủ dẫn đến những hậu quả tai hại khôn lường.Không xảy ra chiến tranh, nhưng bức tường Berlin lại càng làm xấu thêm hình ảnh của Liên Xô trong công luận quốc tế.Khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba Tại Washington Kennedy chịu áp lực của phe diều hâu chủ chiến. Ở Matxcơva, Khrushchev cũng không thoải mái hơn dưới sức ép của cơ quan Mật Vụ KGB và bên quân đội.Đầu năm 1962, viện cớ bảo vệ chế độ Castro ở Cuba, Liên Xô bí mật triển khai tên lửa, tàu ngầm, đưa quân sang sát cạnh lãnh thổ Hoa Kỳ. Kremlin thừa biết, sau thất bại ê chề ở Vịnh Con Heo, Mỹ không động chạm tới Cuba, nhưng Liên Xô muốn dùng lá bài Cuba để mặc cả với Mỹ về quy chế của Berlin. Tháng 10 cùng năm, kế hoạch của Liên Xô bị phát hiện.Tiếp theo đó là một cuộc khủng hoảng kéo dài trong 13 ngày. Tên lửa SS-4 của Liên Xô có sức công phá lớn gấp 200 lần so với quả bom đã thả xuống thành phố Hiroshima.Phe diều hâu chủ trương « ra tay trước » đối phương. Kennedy do dự và một lần nữa ông bị chỉ trích là « nhu nhược ». Trên thực tế, với Dean Rusk và Robert McNamara ở vị trí bộ trưởng Ngoại Giao và Quốc Phòng, JFK không « do dự hay yếu đuối ». Nhà Trắng nhìn thấy rõ nước cờ của điện Kremlin : triển khai tên lửa tại Cuba để mặc cả với phương Tây về Berlin. Kennedy nêu lên nghi vấn : Biết đâu, Liên Xô cũng e bom nguyên tử của Mỹ ?Còn tại Matxcơva, phe bảo thủ và diều hâu Liên Xô cũng dồn Khrushchev vào chân tường. Bên quân đội cũng chủ trương « đánh trước ».Ngày 22/10/1962 trong bài diễn văn để đời, tổng thống Kennedy chính thức thông báo phát hiện vũ khí của Nga tại Cuba, ban hành lệnh phong tỏa hòn đảo này. Không đi đến chiến tranh, nhưng thái độ của Mỹ không có chút gì là « nhu nhược ». Thông điệp của Nhà Trắng được chủ nhân điện Kremlin đón nhận như một tin vui. Khrushchev ý thức được rằng, Kennedy không tấn công ngay lập tức, có nghĩa là Washington tạm gác giải pháp quân sự sang một bên. Chiến tranh sẽ không xảy ra.Tối ngày hôm đó, Nikita S. Khrushchev an tâm đi xem hát : đó là buổi trình diễn của nam danh ca Mỹ Jerome Hines.Khác với Khrushchev, Kennedy không chơi đòn rung cây dọa khỉ, nhưng trong cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », phần thắng đã nghiêng hẳn về phía Washington. Dù vậy Kennedy đã để ngỏ một cánh cửa, không để đối phương mất mặt.Sau một số các cuộc trao đổi trực tiếp, JFK lo ngại Khrushchev không hoàn toàn làm chủ tình hình ở Matxcơva. Đôi bên nhanh chóng tìm được thỏa thuận quy định Liên Xô rút vũ khí khỏi Cuba. Mỹ thì cam kết không động chạm đến chế độ Castro ở La Habana, và rút tên lửa Jupiter đặt tại Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ.Hạ màn Sau trận đối đầu kịch liệt đó, mở ra một thời kỳ « tan băng » - tiêu biểu nhất là đường dây điện thoại đỏ Hot Line giữa Nhà Trắng và điện Kremlin. Tổng thống Kennedy liên tục có những phát biểu hòa hoãn hướng về phía Liên Xô. Đổi lại, Khrushchev đã bằng lòng đàm phán với Mỹ về một thỏa thuận hạt nhân.Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày tại Nhà Trắng, John F. Kennedy cùng với Nikita S. Khrushchev đã là tâm điểm trên sân khấu chính trị quốc tế, để rồi cả hai nhà lãnh đạo này đều bước vào hậu trường gần như cùng lúc.Tổng thống Mỹ, JFK bị ám sát tại Dallas tháng 11/1963. Tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô Nikita S. Khrushchev qua đời năm 1971 trong sự quên lãng của công luận và mang theo niềm cay đắng : bảy năm trước đó, ông bị hạ bệ. Sự nghiệp của Khrushchev đã khép lại khi khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba bước vào hồi kết.Nhà sử học Georges Ayache kết luận : Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày ở cương vị tổng thống Hoa Kỳ, Kennedy đã chứng minh ông là một vị nguyên thủ có đầu óc thực tiễn, một nhà lãnh đạo bình tĩnh và quyết tâm. Những đức tính đó của Kennedy càng làm lộ rõ hình ảnh một Nikita Khrushchev thùng rỗng kêu to.Ngày Kennedy qua đời, phu nhân tổng bí thư Khrushchev đã bất ngờ khóc khi bà đến tòa đại sứ Mỹ ở Matxcơva ký sổ tang. Một tuần sau, bà Kennedy, gửi thiệp cảm ơn đến lãnh đạo Liên Xô với lời lẽ cảm động và bất ngờ không kém. Jacqueline Kennedy viết : Từng là những đối thủ của nhau, nhưng hai ông Kennedy và Khrushchev lại là những « đồng minh trước quyết tâm để thế giới không bị phá hủy (…) Các vị đã tôn trọng lẫn nhau và đã có thể tìm ra một tiếng nói chung (…) Những vĩ nhân ý thức được rằng, họ cần kềm chế, còn những kẻ xoàng xĩnh thường bị nỗi sợ hãi và sự kiêu ngạo thôi thúc (…) Phải chi mà trong tương lai, những con người tầm thường cũng có thể cùng ngồi vào bàn đàm phán trước khi dùng đến vũ lực … ».

Thái độ kềm chế của tổng thống Mỹ John F. Kennedy và sự khôn ngoan của lãnh tụ Liên Xô, Nikita S. Khrushchev đã tránh cho nhân loại một thảm họa hạt nhân ở đầu thập niên 1960. Không chỉ là đối thủ của nhau, Kennedy-Khrushchev còn là những đồng minh trong nhiệm vụ gìn giữ hòa bình. Nhà sử học Georges Ayache trở lại với cuộc đấu trí giữa Nikita S. Khrushchev và John F. Kennedy trong tác phẩm Những cuộc đối đầu trong lịch sử của nhân loại. (Tạp chí phát lần đầu ngày 20/10/2016)  Vào lúc quốc tế cảnh báo trước nguy cơ kịch bản chiến tranh lạnh tái diễn, vị lãnh tụ cuối cùng của Liên Bang Xô Viết, Michael Gorbatchev, lo ngại khi thấy Washington và Matxcơva đang « tiến gần tới lằn ranh đỏ ». Ngoại trưởng Đức Frank-Walter Steinmeier không lạc quan hơn khi cho rằng : tình hình hiện nay còn « nguy hiểm hơn cả so với thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh ».Trong bối cảnh căng thẳng đó, đầu tháng 10/2016 dưới sự điều hành của Alexis Brezet và Vincent Tremolet de Villiers, hơn 20 nhà sử học, nghiên cứu, cựu nhân viên ngoại giao, nhà báo, nhà văn vừa cho ra mắt công chúng một tập hợp nói về 20 cuộc đối đầu đánh dấu lịch sử của nhân loại, từ thời Đại Đế Alexandre, hơn 300 năm trước Công Nguyên, cho đến cuộc song đấu Michael Gorbatchev - Boris Eltsine cuối thập niên 1980 đánh dấu ngày tàn của Liên Bang Xô Viết : Les Grands Duels qui ont fait le monde, Nhà Xuất Bản Perrin.Nổi bật hơn cả là cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », Kennedy-Khrushchev ở vào đầu thập niên 1960, với đe dọa hạt nhân tiềm tàng, được Georges Ayache nhà sử học và cũng là một nhà ngoại giao kể lại.Vào mùa thu năm 1960, Hoa Kỳ chuẩn bị bầu lại tổng thống. Nixon hay Kennedy sẽ trở thành vị tổng thống thứ 35 trong lịch sử của nước Mỹ ? Điện Kremlin thận trọng theo dõi tình hình từ xa. Các cuộc thăm dò cho thấy, phó tổng thống Richard M. Nixon, ứng cử viên của đảng Cộng Hòa, một chính khách nổi tiếng chống cộng ở Mỹ, chiếm lợi thế so với thượng nghị sĩ John F. Kennedy của đảng Dân Chủ.Sói già và cừu non Tại Matxcơva, lên cầm quyền từ năm 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev từng có dịp tiếp xúc với Nixon thực sự bất ngờ trước thắng lợi của Kennedy, một chính trị gia « còn quá trẻ để ngồi vào chiếc ghế tổng thống ». Mật vụ Liên Xô có một số thông tin về vị thượng nghị sĩ trẻ tuổi, nổi tiếng là « tay chơi » này : JFK là một cậu công tử con nhà giàu, tốt nghiệp đại học Harvard, đẹp như tài tử điện ảnh, nổi tiếng ăn chơi và dễ làm phụ nữ xiêu lòng.Kennedy, dành nhiều thời gian để du thuyền hơn là lui tới Thượng Viện. Mật vụ KGB còn nắm rõ cả hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy : họ biết ông đã nhiều lần suýt chết, bị đau cột sống và mắc một chứng bệnh hiểm nghèo, phải chích cortisone với liều lượng mạnh để cầm cự.Theo lời tác giả, chỉ cần Mật vụ Liên Xô tung hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy ra cho công chúng, là cũng đủ vĩnh viễn chôn vùi giấc mơ bước vào Nhà Trắng của thượng nghị sĩ bang Massachusetts. Đắc cử tháng 11/1960, John Fitzgerad Kennedy chính thức nhậm chức đầu tháng Giêng năm sau.Trong khi đó ở Matxcơva, tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã củng cố vị thế trên bàn cờ chính trị Liên Xô từ năm 1953, sau cái chết của Stalin. Xuất thân từ một gia đình nông dân, thủa trẻ Khrushchev từng lao động trong các lò rèn ở Donbass, miền đông Ukraina hiện nay, nhiều lần vào sinh ra tử trong các trận chiến trước khi từng bước thăng tiến trong guồng máy Đảng.Trên con đường thăng tiến đó, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã từng bước qua không ít xác người. Dưới những năm tháng Stalin, ai ai cũng phải vận dụng mọi thủ đoạn, mánh khóe xảo quyệt để tồn tại. Sống sót được dưới gọng kềm của Stalin đã là một kỳ công, ngồi vào chiếc ghế của Stalin để còn vạch trần tội ác của Stalin cũng là những thành tích không kém.Nói cách khác, nếu như Jonh F. Kennedy, 43 tuổi, là một chính trị gia ít kinh nghiệm sống trong nhung lụa, phía bên kia võ đài, Nikita S. Khrushchev, 64 tuổi, là một con cáo già đã quá từng trải.Thượng đỉnh Vienna, chiến tranh tâm lý Kennedy-Khrushchev ? Dưới con mắt tinh đời của Khrushchev, Kennedy là một nhà chính trị tay mơ. Điều đã được chứng minh qua chiến dịch đổ bộ lên Vịnh Con Heo, Cuba tháng 4/1961. Chiến dịch đó là một thất bại ê chề của tình báo CIA với đồng thuận của tân chính quyền Kennedy, chống chế độ Fidel Castro.Từ điện Kremlin, Khrushchev lại càng thích thú khi thấy JFK phải cầu viện Nixon cố vấn trên hồ sơ Cuba, hay như hình ảnh trên bìa báo Life cho thấy một, Kennedy khép nép như cậu học trò đứng bên ông thầy, tướng Eisenhower sau một cuộc họp ở Camp David.Trong thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh, Kennedy lên cầm quyền vào lúc quan hệ giữa Washington và Matxcơva xấu đi đáng kể sau vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 của Mỹ bị phát hiện và bắn hạ trên bầu trời dãy núi Ural của Liên Xô (hồi tháng 5/1960), rồi kế tới là hồ sơ Cuba.Nhưng hơn bao giờ hết Washington và Matxcơva ý thức được là đôi bên cần nối lại đối thoại. Kennedy - Khrushchev dự trù họp thượng đỉnh tại Vienna, Áo vào tháng 6/1961.Nikita S. Khrushchev đến Vienna với quyết tâm « hỏi tội » Mỹ về vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 và muốn chứng minh với quốc tế, Liên Xô là một siêu cường, ngang hàng với Mỹ. Đành là chưa giàu có như Mỹ, nhưng Liên Xô đã qua mặt Hoa Kỳ trong cuộc chạy đua chinh phục không gian.Theo nhà sử học và ngoại giao Georges Ayache, Khrushchev bằng mọi giá phải ghi được một bàn thắng tại Vienna về mặt ngoại giao để đánh lạc hướng công luận trong nước trước hàng loạt những khó khăn kinh tế. Chủ nhân điện Kremlin cũng biết rằng thành phần bảo thủ trong đảng chỉ chờ cơ hội để bắt Khrushchev « đền tội » sau khi đã hạ bệ Stalin.Không xem thường đối thủ nhưng Khrushchev nghĩ rằng, ông sẽ dễ dàng áp đảo được Kennedy, cái ông tổng thống « còn nhỏ tuổi hơn con trai » của mình.Về phía Kennedy, vị tổng thống trẻ tuổi này của nước Mỹ cũng cần một thắng lợi ngoại giao. Chẳng vậy mà, trước khi lên đường tới Vienna, Kennedy đã phải dừng chân ở Paris để tham khảo ý kiến tổng thống Pháp, vị lão tướng Charles de Gaulle.Thượng đỉnh Kennedy-Khrushchev mở ra trong hai ngày 03 và 04/06/1961 tại thủ đô nước Áo. Hơn 1.500 phóng viên quốc tế tập hợp về Vienna để đưa tin.Về hình thức, lãnh đạo hai nước họp kín với một dàn cố vấn trong bầu không khí « giá lạnh ». Như thông lệ, Khrushchev dùng những lời lẽ đao to búa lớn để hù dọa đối phương. Kennedy càng tỏ ra chừng mực và từ tốn chừng nào, Khrushchev lại càng lấn lướt chừng nấy. Thậm chí theo lời một người trong cuộc, Khrushchev « mắng » Kennedy như mắng trẻ con.Về nội dung thượng đỉnh Vienna, Kennedy muốn tập trung vào hồ sơ nguyên tử, Khrushchev sau khi dậy cho tổng thống Mỹ một bài học về thuyết Mác-Lênin, đòi Nhà Trắng giải quyết dứt điểm về quy chế của Tây Berlin, công nhận hai nước Đông và Tây Đức. Đây là lần thứ ba Matxcơva đòi Washington trở lại hồ sơ này.Với Liên Xô ốc đảo Tây Berlin giữa lòng nước Đông Đức cộng sản là một cái gai : sự phồn thịnh của Tây Berlin càng làm lộ rõ cách biệt về đời sống giữa hai khối Tự Do và Cộng Sản. Khoảng cách đó hủy hoại những nỗ lực tuyên truyền của khối Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa.Kết thúc hai ngày họp, thượng đỉnh Vienna không đem lại một kết quả cụ thể nào. Trước khi ra về Khrushchev dọa Kennedy và phương Tây trước viễn cảnh nổ ra chiến tranh. Tổng thống Mỹ lễ phép đáp lời Chủ tịch Liên Xô : « Nếu như vậy thưa Ngài, thì chiến tranh sẽ xảy ra. Đó sẽ là một mùa đông buốt giá… »Rời Vienna, Khrushchev biết rõ ông đã áp đảo được đối phương và buông lời nhận xét về Kennedy như sau : « Hắn quá trẻ, chưa đủ già dặn, rất thông minh, nhưng quá nhu nhược ».JFK thì buột miệng than với các cộng tác viên là ông đã thực sự bị Khrushchev « xơi tái ». Nhưng qua cuộc chạm trán đó, Kennedy tin chắc tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô chỉ muốn « nắn gân » nước Mỹ : Matxcơva sẽ không khai chiến vì Berlin hay vì Đông Đức, bởi « có điên mới lao vào cuộc chiến » mà Khrushchev chắc chắn không phải là người điên.Kennedy không nhượng bộ tại Vienna lần này, nhưng Khrushchev hy vọng sẽ có cách « trị » ông tổng thống Mỹ còn non tay này. Matxcơva đợi cơ hội.Tháng 08/1961, điện Kremlin ngỡ rằng thời cơ đã đến. Trong đêm 12 rạng sáng ngày 13/08/1961, chính quyền Water Ulbricht bất đầu xây dựng bức tường « ô nhục » như để thách thức Washington. Căng thẳng Đông-Tây gia tăng thêm một nấc vào tháng 10 cùng năm khi chiến xa của Mỹ và Liên Xô « đối mặt » nhau trong nhiều giờ đồng hồ. Chỉ cần một tiếng súng, một sự cố nhỏ cũng đủ dẫn đến những hậu quả tai hại khôn lường.Không xảy ra chiến tranh, nhưng bức tường Berlin lại càng làm xấu thêm hình ảnh của Liên Xô trong công luận quốc tế.Khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba Tại Washington Kennedy chịu áp lực của phe diều hâu chủ chiến. Ở Matxcơva, Khrushchev cũng không thoải mái hơn dưới sức ép của cơ quan Mật Vụ KGB và bên quân đội.Đầu năm 1962, viện cớ bảo vệ chế độ Castro ở Cuba, Liên Xô bí mật triển khai tên lửa, tàu ngầm, đưa quân sang sát cạnh lãnh thổ Hoa Kỳ. Kremlin thừa biết, sau thất bại ê chề ở Vịnh Con Heo, Mỹ không động chạm tới Cuba, nhưng Liên Xô muốn dùng lá bài Cuba để mặc cả với Mỹ về quy chế của Berlin. Tháng 10 cùng năm, kế hoạch của Liên Xô bị phát hiện.Tiếp theo đó là một cuộc khủng hoảng kéo dài trong 13 ngày. Tên lửa SS-4 của Liên Xô có sức công phá lớn gấp 200 lần so với quả bom đã thả xuống thành phố Hiroshima.Phe diều hâu chủ trương « ra tay trước » đối phương. Kennedy do dự và một lần nữa ông bị chỉ trích là « nhu nhược ». Trên thực tế, với Dean Rusk và Robert McNamara ở vị trí bộ trưởng Ngoại Giao và Quốc Phòng, JFK không « do dự hay yếu đuối ». Nhà Trắng nhìn thấy rõ nước cờ của điện Kremlin : triển khai tên lửa tại Cuba để mặc cả với phương Tây về Berlin. Kennedy nêu lên nghi vấn : Biết đâu, Liên Xô cũng e bom nguyên tử của Mỹ ?Còn tại Matxcơva, phe bảo thủ và diều hâu Liên Xô cũng dồn Khrushchev vào chân tường. Bên quân đội cũng chủ trương « đánh trước ».Ngày 22/10/1962 trong bài diễn văn để đời, tổng thống Kennedy chính thức thông báo phát hiện vũ khí của Nga tại Cuba, ban hành lệnh phong tỏa hòn đảo này. Không đi đến chiến tranh, nhưng thái độ của Mỹ không có chút gì là « nhu nhược ». Thông điệp của Nhà Trắng được chủ nhân điện Kremlin đón nhận như một tin vui. Khrushchev ý thức được rằng, Kennedy không tấn công ngay lập tức, có nghĩa là Washington tạm gác giải pháp quân sự sang một bên. Chiến tranh sẽ không xảy ra.Tối ngày hôm đó, Nikita S. Khrushchev an tâm đi xem hát : đó là buổi trình diễn của nam danh ca Mỹ Jerome Hines.Khác với Khrushchev, Kennedy không chơi đòn rung cây dọa khỉ, nhưng trong cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », phần thắng đã nghiêng hẳn về phía Washington. Dù vậy Kennedy đã để ngỏ một cánh cửa, không để đối phương mất mặt.Sau một số các cuộc trao đổi trực tiếp, JFK lo ngại Khrushchev không hoàn toàn làm chủ tình hình ở Matxcơva. Đôi bên nhanh chóng tìm được thỏa thuận quy định Liên Xô rút vũ khí khỏi Cuba. Mỹ thì cam kết không động chạm đến chế độ Castro ở La Habana, và rút tên lửa Jupiter đặt tại Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ.Hạ màn Sau trận đối đầu kịch liệt đó, mở ra một thời kỳ « tan băng » - tiêu biểu nhất là đường dây điện thoại đỏ Hot Line giữa Nhà Trắng và điện Kremlin. Tổng thống Kennedy liên tục có những phát biểu hòa hoãn hướng về phía Liên Xô. Đổi lại, Khrushchev đã bằng lòng đàm phán với Mỹ về một thỏa thuận hạt nhân.Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày tại Nhà Trắng, John F. Kennedy cùng với Nikita S. Khrushchev đã là tâm điểm trên sân khấu chính trị quốc tế, để rồi cả hai nhà lãnh đạo này đều bước vào hậu trường gần như cùng lúc.Tổng thống Mỹ, JFK bị ám sát tại Dallas tháng 11/1963. Tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô Nikita S. Khrushchev qua đời năm 1971 trong sự quên lãng của công luận và mang theo niềm cay đắng : bảy năm trước đó, ông bị hạ bệ. Sự nghiệp của Khrushchev đã khép lại khi khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba bước vào hồi kết.Nhà sử học Georges Ayache kết luận : Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày ở cương vị tổng thống Hoa Kỳ, Kennedy đã chứng minh ông là một vị nguyên thủ có đầu óc thực tiễn, một nhà lãnh đạo bình tĩnh và quyết tâm. Những đức tính đó của Kennedy càng làm lộ rõ hình ảnh một Nikita Khrushchev thùng rỗng kêu to.Ngày Kennedy qua đời, phu nhân tổng bí thư Khrushchev đã bất ngờ khóc khi bà đến tòa đại sứ Mỹ ở Matxcơva ký sổ tang. Một tuần sau, bà Kennedy, gửi thiệp cảm ơn đến lãnh đạo Liên Xô với lời lẽ cảm động và bất ngờ không kém. Jacqueline Kennedy viết : Từng là những đối thủ của nhau, nhưng hai ông Kennedy và Khrushchev lại là những « đồng minh trước quyết tâm để thế giới không bị phá hủy (…) Các vị đã tôn trọng lẫn nhau và đã có thể tìm ra một tiếng nói chung (…) Những vĩ nhân ý thức được rằng, họ cần kềm chế, còn những kẻ xoàng xĩnh thường bị nỗi sợ hãi và sự kiêu ngạo thôi thúc (…) Phải chi mà trong tương lai, những con người tầm thường cũng có thể cùng ngồi vào bàn đàm phán trước khi dùng đến vũ lực … ».

CTL Script/ Top Stories of December 30th        Publish Date: December 29th      Henssler :15  From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast  Today is Saturday, December 30th and Happy 87th Birthday to HOF pitcher Sandy Koufax. ***12.30.23 – BIRTHDAY – SANDY KOUFAX*** I'm Keith Ippolito and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Credit Union of Georgia.  Authorities Advise Against Leaving Christmas Gift Boxes with Trash Judicial Approval Granted to New Georgia Congressional and Legislative Maps Cherokee County's Designated Spots for Christmas Tree Disposal We'll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you're looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe!    Commercial: CU of GA   STORY 1: Police: Don't Leave Boxes for Christmas Gifts Out With Trash Canton police are warning residents not to leave boxes out that might show what you or your loved ones got for Christmas. "Just a friendly reminder: Do not announce your gifts from Santa to criminals," the Canton Police Department said on its Facebook page. If you have large boxes, Canton PD advises that you break them down put them in the trash or recycle bin so they are out of sight. If possible, stagger the times that boxes are placed in the trash instead of putting them all in at the same time. STORY 2: Judge Upholds New Georgia Congressional and Legislative Maps U.S. District Judge Steve Jones upheld Georgia's new legislative and congressional maps, emphasizing that federal judges lack the authority to alter political power between parties in voting rights cases. The ruling rejected claims that the maps violated the Voting Rights Act and highlighted the legislative body's right to consider partisan advantage without violating Section 2. Although Democrats anticipated gains, the Republican-drawn maps maintain a 9-5 GOP advantage in the congressional delegation and secure control of the General Assembly. U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath announced plans to run in the new Black-majority district, reflecting ongoing debates on redistricting and political influence.     STORY 3: Where to Take Your Christmas Tree in Cherokee County Cherokee County residents can recycle Christmas trees at various locations. The "Bring One for the Chipper" event at Hobgood Park on January 6 offers free tree seedlings to participants. Cherokee Recreation and Parks will accept trees from January 6 to 13, turning them into mulch for Patriots Park's dog park. Canton's Collection Site accepts trees from December 28 to 30 and January 4 to 6, open only to city residents. Woodstock's Bring One for the Chipper event at Olde Rope Mill Park on January 6 also collects trees for recycling until January 19. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepts trees at Lake Allatoona until January 3 for fish habitats.   We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info.    Back in a moment  Break: DRAKE – ESOG – HELLER LAW   STORY 4: Raffensperger Renews Call to End General Election Runoffs Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has urged the General Assembly to eliminate general election runoffs in the state. Raffensperger argues that ending runoffs following the November elections would provide Georgians with a respite from politics during the holiday season. He previously raised this issue in December after the U.S. Senate runoff. Raffensperger contends that general election runoffs are unnecessary and a waste of tax dollars, especially when candidates like Raphael Warnock secured victory in both the general election and runoff. Georgia and Louisiana are the only states with general election runoffs, and Raffensperger wants Georgia to reconsider this practice. STORY 5: Cherokee County Farm Bureau Receives GFB Award Cherokee County Farm Bureau (CCFB) was honored at the 86th Annual Georgia Farm Bureau Convention for its outstanding member programs and agricultural advocacy activities. CCFB received the GFB Rewarding Excellence in Ag Program (REAP) Harvester Award in the large membership division. The REAP award recognizes county Farm Bureaus for their activities in organization/membership, advocacy, leadership development, education, and outreach. The award reflects CCFB's efforts between September 1, 2022, and August 31, 2023. The recognition highlights the dedicated volunteer leaders and staff's work in promoting agriculture within their local communities, particularly in schools and with elected officials.   Commercial: CHEROKEE CHAMBER – INGLES 7   STORY 6: Cherokee Schools Announces STEM Essay Contest Winners The Cherokee County School District honored winners of the second annual Sixth-Grade Fall STEM Essay Contest, sponsored by Cobb EMC and Gas South. The contest aims to recognize student excellence in communicating STEM concepts. Winners from Cobb EMC's service area received cash prizes, ranging from $20 to $50. The contest, coordinated by CCSD's Office of Curriculum and Instruction, encourages STEM learning and helps students understand the real-world applications of their STEM lessons. The first-place winners included students from Creekland, Dean Rusk, E.T. Booth, Teasley, and Woodstock Middle Schools, with other students earning second, third, and fourth to tenth place across various schools. STORY 7: Officials to Close the Gap on the Noonday Creek Trail A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Noonday Creek Trail Extension Project, connecting Woodstock and Cherokee County to Cobb County's trail networks. The project aims to close a 1.8-mile gap in the Noonday Creek Trail, linking the trailhead at Highway 92 in Woodstock to Noonday Park on Shallowford Road in Cobb County. The project will enhance recreational opportunities and regional transportation infrastructure, connecting Woodstock to a trail-focused community in Cobb County. Construction is set to begin in January 2024, with the trail progressing northward to connect with Woodstock's existing Noonday Creek Trail.     We'll have closing comments after this.    COMMERCIAL: Henssler 60    SIGN OFF –   Thanks again for listening to today's Cherokee Tribune Ledger podcast. . If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Marietta Daily Journal Podcast, the Gwinnett Daily Post, the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties, or the Paulding County News Podcast. Get more on these stories and other great content at tribune ledger news.com. Giving you important information about our community and telling great stories are what we do.     Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.    Produced by the BG Podcast Network   Show Sponsors: henssler.com ingles-markets.com jeffhellerlaw.com drakerealty.com esogrepair.com mallofgeorgiachryslerdodgejeep.com cherokeechamber.com     #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversations See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Saturday November 9th, fans rioted at Roosevelt Field Raceway in Long Island, battling police and setting fires. At least fifteen were hurt and the head of security died of a heart attack during the riot. Sunday November 10th was the evening before Veteran's Day. On NBC, Frank McGee signed on for Monitor with a salute to the holiday. Andrew Pearson had correspondence from Vietnam, while President Kennedy spent much of the weekend in New York City. On this same day, Black Muslim activist Malcolm X delivered what would become a widely re-quoted speech to the Northern Negro Leadership Conference at the King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit. His message was one of revolution. He heavily criticized civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who he said sold out and added that the March on Washington was "nothing but a circus, with clowns and all... white and black clowns." The next morning President Kennedy and his family flew to the white house. The President and John Jr. went to Arlington National Cemetery to take part in Veterans Day Ceremonies. Meanwhile, The first interplanetary probe in the Soviet Union's Zond program, Kosmos 21, failed to escape Earth orbit after rocket misfire and a failure of proper altitude control. On November 12th, The President met with Portuguese and Uruguayan Ambassadors before hosting an off the record meeting on Cuba that included Robert Kennedy, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara. He also signed off on National Security Memorandum 271, a then-secret memo to NASA Administrator James E. Webb, telling him "to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility" to develop specific technical proposals "for broader cooperation between the U.S. and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs." On Wednesday, November 13th, at 11:15PM, Jean Shepherd signed on from WOR talking about protests, intellectuals, and angry demagogues. Two days after this broadcast, on Friday November 15th, 1963, seven days before President Kennedy's scheduled visit to Dallas, Democratic Party leader Baxton Bryant sent an angry telegram to President Kennedy complaining that Democratic supporters were being shut out of the planned November 22nd luncheon by Dallas Republicans who were in control of the Dallas Citizens Council. The plea was for the President to do something or face a boycott by his most loyal supporters. A motorcade from Dallas Love Field to downtown Dallas was arranged for the Kennedys after another Bryant complaint. That evening, the President flew to Palm Beach, Florida.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 922, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: baseball managers 1: IN '72 Ted Williams became the 1st manager of this team that plays its home games in Arlington, TX.. the Texas Rangers. 2: Since taking over the Yankees in 1996, he's guided the team to 6 World Series appearances, winning 4 times. Joe Torre. 3: After retiring as the Dodgers' manager, he guided the 2000 U.S. Olympic baseball team to the gold medal. Tommy Lasorda. 4: This San Francisco Giants manager has the same name as a 49ers running back. Roger Craig. 5: Hall of Fame manager George Anderson receved this nickname because of his scrappy determination. "Sparky". Round 2. Category: "union"s 1: This country's breakup December 25, 1991 made headlines. the Soviet Union. 2: It's what ads for the International Ladies' Garment Workers want you to "Look for". the union label. 3: Nickname for the flag of Great Britain. the Union Jack. 4: It's a co-op banking association in which members pool their savings and lend to each other. credit union. 5: This company erected the first transcontinental telegraph line. Western Union. Round 3. Category: "i", "ay", "eye" 1: Portugal's peninsula. Iberian. 2: Bart Simpson's foreign catch phrase. "Ay Caramba!". 3: Mr. Merchant's movie partner. James Ivory. 4: On the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dean Rusk said "We're" this "and the other fellow just blinked". Eyeball to eyeball. 5: Title for a scholar in Islamic law and religion; he may be a young up and "Khomeini". Ayatollah. Round 4. Category: beauty queens 1: The Miss America Pageant stopped giving this award for friendliness in 1974. Miss Congeniality Award. 2: He was involved with 1972's Miss Tennessee, Linda Thompson, while he and Priscilla were divorcing. Elvis Presley. 3: She was Miss Mississippi and Miss America, and now she's Mrs. Gary Collins. Mary Ann Mobley. 4: A scandal involving her lover lost this ex-Miss America her job with Mayor Koch's office. Bess Myerson. 5: She won Miss World-USA in '73 --but the headband, bracelets and red, white and blue costume came later. Lynda Carter. Round 5. Category: hits of the '90s 1: This 1996 dance hit was actually an English remix by the Bayside Boys using the Spanish chorus by Los Del Rio. "The Macarena". 2: TLC "don't want no" these; one of these "is a guy that can't get no love from me". "Scrubs". 3: In Spetember 1995 this artist's "You Are Not Alone" became the first single in history to enter the Hot 100 chart at No. 1. Michael Jackson. 4: Toni Braxton asked her lover to do this to "my heart, say you'll love me again". un-break. 5: The refrain of his hit "Lullaby" is "Everything's gonna be all right, rock-a-bye...". Shawn Mullins. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Dr Greg Poulgrain is a historian and lecturer on Southeast Asian history and author of JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia. In 1936, an Allen Dulles-established company discovered the world's largest gold deposit in remote Netherlands New Guinea. In 1962, President Kennedy intervened, and Netherlands New Guinea was added to President Sukarno's Indonesia. Neither Sukarno nor JFK was aware of the gold, since Dulles had not informed Kennedy. Using archival records as a basis, Greg Poulgrain adds word-of-mouth evidence from those people who were directly involved--such as Dean Rusk and others who worked with President Kennedy and Allen Dulles at the time; or the person who was with Michael Rockefeller when he mysteriously disappeared in West New Guinea during this whole affair. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/out-of-the-blank-podcast/support

This is the second episode examining the phone calls so often cited as proof of the Chennault Affair and Lyndon Johnson's acknowledgement of Richard Nixon's "treason". When you listen to them all it will often leave you wondering if there is any there, there. Or is it the hope of a man, prone to paranoia, looking for an excuse as to why something he hoped so totally would come to pass, peace in Vietnam under his watch, would come true. Here you will hear them all, from start to finish, not snippets meant to prove a narrative, but the entire phone call, and it will give you a fuller sense of what Lyndon Johnson actually knew, and or believed he knew. These are the calls made after the Bombing Halt announcement on October 31, 1968 but before the November 5, 1968 Presidential General Election. 

This is not as complicated as it looks, but we start with these two episodes to have a subset of a subset of our series on 1968. These are a collection of phone calls, in their entirety of President Lyndon Johnson talking to the three Presidential candidates, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, Democratic Senator Richard Russell, and cabinet members Dean Rusk and Clark Clifford. In it you will hear Lyndon Johnson talking to people with different goals in mind. He is sending messages to others through some people and developing strategy for how to deal with situations with others and seeking reassurance in still others.  It is a real glimpse at how LBJ operated and how he often thought out loud as he worked his way through problems. Unlike the news reports or historical documentaries, we are playing these calls in their entirety, not just snippets trying to prove our point. You will get to hear LBJ talk about Treason, and people's kids , the mundane, to the outrageous, and you will get to hear for yourself the messages, and the thoughts, of our 36th President, as he struggles with trying to force his will on a war, an election, an ally, and an entrenched enemy, all at the same time.  You will get to hear for yourself the use of the Johnson treatment with all its bombast, bullying, flattery, deceptiveness, and delusions, plus his real desire and hope to play a role in peace, and ending this war. A war that brought his career to an end. These calls were the ones made before the announced bombing halt on October 31, Halloween 1968. 

Wakefield began his journalism career as a civil rights reporter for The Nation, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The New York Times. After his coverage of the Emmett Till trial, he continued being fascinated by trials. “It was like reading a novel,” he explains in this episode. He talks about the James Jones From Here to Eternity trial and the Adam Clayton Powell tax evasion trial, and he talks about Dorothy Day, Norman Mailer, and William Buckley. In 1968 he wrote a longform piece about the Vietnam War, “Supernation at War and Peace” that came out as an entire issue of the Atlantic and was reprinted as a book. That reporting took him to San Francisco, where he spent time with his old New York friends Joan Didion and John Donne. During this reporting assignment, he interviewed Dean Rusk and Hubert Humphrey.

This episode unfolds in two parts. In the mid 1990's, Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara wrote a book in which he describes what he called the mistakes his generation of leadership had made in Vietnam and his thoughts on how future generations could avoid them.  He admits they were wrong.  McNamara has often been criticized by historians, even in our series we used one interview with Michael Beschloss where he described McNamara's representations critically  from this very book. So I thought we should here from the man himself. This was his appearance, in 1996, with Ted Koppel on the  ABC News show " Nightline" Then we pick up where we left off with an escalating war in South East Asia and the protests it set off here at home. Here you can hear some of the hearings started by Senator William Fulbright, and the aggressive voicing of concerns from Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, and we can listen in as President Lyndon Johnson tries to control it all, to no avail, as the war grows to a half a million men in a full scale land war in Asia, and lays the ground work for a political explosion in 1968, a Presidential election year. 

In this episode we see events start moving fast. You see a divide start to show between members of the Johnson Administration as to what to do about the problems of Vietnam. The enemy starts bombing American targets including the Brinks Hotel during the Christmas season, maximizing the number of deaths in the hotel.Still Lyndon Johnson refuses to retaliate. He still has to be convinced that a war in Vietnam would be worth it. He listens as his advisor George Ball urges him to walk away and let the Government fall. South Vietnam had become a basket case in the year and a few months since the assassination of its long time President Ngo Dinh Diem. Johnson assistant, Jack Valenti,  called it a "turnstile of leadership" as the country's Presidency was passed around, one time in just 19 days. Listen to various interviews from several Johnson Advisors, George Ball, Jack Valenti, Dean Rusk,  Clark Clifford, William Bundy, Bill Moyers, Daniel Ellsberg, and Robert Thompson all discuss how the momentum built toward the decision to commit land troops in Vietnam.  These interview snippets are from PBS's "LBJ Goes to War", and "LBJ: The American Experience", plus LBJ's actual phone calls as he wrestles with moving forward and committing troops. An act that will Americanize the war and eventually lead to 500,000 American soldiers on the ground in Vietnam, a country half way around the World. 

Even though we were already involved, this was the event that really started us down the long road to a full scale land war in Asia. Strangely, to this day no one knows exactly for sure what happened in the middle of the night on the other side of the world. Most likely, nothing. But the supposed attack on the U.S.S. Maddox and U. S. S.  C. Turner Joy led to a retaliatory strike against North Vietnam and then the Johnson Administration seeking a resolution from Congress that would unshackle it and allow it to wage war in Vietnam. Not only are the events that happened in the night shrouded in mystery so are the events that led to Lyndon Johnson's announcements and his decision to retaliate. The entire thing begged a question that was  raised against the next President in another situation more famously, but it still applies to the Gulf of Tonkin and Lyndon Johnson too. What did the President know and when did he know it? Did Lyndon Johnson's Defense Secretary, a holdover from the Kennedy Administration, ever tell him that there was  evidence that the two ships may actually have never been fired upon at all and the entire thing could have been the results of " an over eager sonar man and freak weather effects"  Here listen to accounts from the military men who were actually there that night as they retold it to the The Learning Channel in its documentary "The Johnson Tapes" and then listen to the actual phone calls to and from Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and then listen as Johnson's aids describe a man who torturously analyzed the situation trying to figure out any way he could avoid escalating  involvement in Vietnam into a full scale Land War in Asia. 

  Author of the new book JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia Foreword by Oliver Stone and afterword by Jim DiEugenio Also the author of The Incubus of Intervention Download Chapter 2: JFK, Dulles and Hammarskjold (PDF) How Greg Poulgrain got interested in the case Indonesia and India were the most profitable colonies Indonesia was exploited for 100 years more than India Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations Documentary: Cold Case Hammarskjold: Stream on Amazon, iTunes, Directv, Microsoft, Verizon, Vudu Kennedy's planned trip to Indonesia in early 1964 Sino-soviet split Book: The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook Dutch vs. Rockefeller interests in Guinea Richest deposits of gold Enough gold for 200 years of mining !! Freeport Indonesia, the American company in Indonesia Joseph Luns, ex-Secretary General of NATO Greg Poulgrain interviewed Luns The Dutch were kicked out of Indonesia by the American mining interests During WWII, Dean Rusk was one of the top five intelligence people working in the US Army Kennedy wanted to stop konfrontasi Dulles was keen to describe Sukarno as communist Sukarno was a nationalist, not a communist Regime change to overthrow Sukarno and replace him with Suharto The great killings of 1965-66 More than a million people killed One of the worst massacres of the twentieth century How Suharto became the president Chapter 7 of JFK vs. Allen Dulles deals with the coup and how Suharto became President Church Committee identified Dulles as responsible for the death of Patrice Lumumba Allen Dulles was the first person approached by Japan for surrender after World War II President Roosevelt appointed Dulles and Bill Donovan to get America into World War II After John Foster Dulles died, Allen Dulles went berserk Allen Dulles knew George de Mohrenschildt since he was 10 years old De Mohrenschildt discovered oil in New Guinea Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was trained by the British intelligence  

  Mark de Valk is a Senior Lecturer in Film Production at The University of Winchester Book: The Film Handbook by Mark de Valk: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle FREE Borrowable Ebook: Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave Three books on/by Edward Lansdale Book: In the Midst of Wars by Edward Lansdale: Paperback Free Borrowable Ebook: Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American by Cecil B. Currey Book: Edward Lansdale's Cold War by Jonathan Nashel A fourth book on Lansdale titled The Road Not Taken by Max Boot FREE Borrowable Ebook: The Quiet American by Graham Greene The 1958 movie The Quiet American was based on Greene's novel The novel had an anti-American posture but the movie was pro-American The Quiet American was remade in 2002; Trailer This version is much closer to the novel FREE Borrowable Ebook: The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick This is a pro CIA book A film was made in 1963 bearing the same title starring Marlon Brando Movie: Watch the movie The Ugly American here Senator John Kennedy sent copies of The Ugly American to his senate colleagues in 1959 FREE Borrowable Ebook: JFK: CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate JFK by Col. Fletcher Prouty Helio aircraft FREE Borrowable Ebook: Report from Iron Mountain by Leonard C. Lewin An excerpt from Col. Prouty's talk about the Report from Iron Mountain FREE Borrowable Ebook: A Nation of Sheep by William Lederer Edward Lansdale in Dealey Plaza Dallas on 22 Nov, 1963 confirmed by Col. Prouty & Gen. Victor Krulak Lansdale served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Lansdale retired on Oct 31, 1963, just a day before the coup in Saigon Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 Download this Ebook in EPUB or MOBI format Ed Lansdale's Robin Hood team The Collected Works of Col. Prouty CD-ROM available for direct download here for just $30 June 10 1963, JFK's American University commencement address titled 'A Strategy of Peace': Audio, Video, Text The "Seven Sisters" oil companies Col. Prouty thought that the Secret Team was out of control and so decided to talk about it Saint Pierre's Plan for Perpetual Peace New York Times Book Review: Report From Iron Mountain: The Guest Word by Leonard Lewin Malthusian theory NSAMs 55, 56 and 57 Appendix 3 from Col. Prouty's book The Secret Team Read the full book here for free NSAM 271: Cooperation with USSR on outer space matters Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip Video: President Kennedy calls out the steel companies (1962) FREE Ebook: A Heritage of Stone by Jim Garrison: Scanned PDF, Text PDF, Online (html) Book: Screening the Tortured Body by Mark de Valk: Hardcover, Kindle Video: JFK Remembered -- A Topographical Diary Bob Dylan's new song/poem on the JFK assassination: Murder Most Foul Lyrics of Murder Most Foul Article: The Dylan/Kennedy Sensation by Jim DiEugenio Act 1, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Hamlet Lee Harvey Oswald on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album cover Cecil B. Currey's introduction to the 1992 edition of Lansdale's book In the Midst of Wars Lansdale admitted that he worked for the CIA Letter from Ambassador Lodge to Dean Rusk, Secretary of State; dated Sept 13, 1963 Ad hominem attacks on Col. Prouty in Max Boot's book The Road Not Taken FRUS 1961-63 Volume IV: Vietnam August-December 1963 (Read online) FREE Online Ebook: Understanding Special Operations Interview with Col. Prouty Listen to episode #976 Len Osanic's song on Lansdale: The Ballad of Ed Lansdale Diem spent two years at the Maryknoll Seminary in Lakewood, New Jersey FREE Download Ebook: The Chicago Plot by Edwin Black Limit CIA Role To Intelligence by Harry S. Truman, Dec 22, 1963, The Washington Post President Eisenhower's farewell address on Jan 17, 1961: Video,

In so many ways the Korean story is also an American story. The US has sacrificed tens of thousands of America lives in east Asia, from WW2 through the Korean war. For over a hundred and fifty years America has tried - and is still trying - to influence events in Korea.     Continue reading →

(Dean Rusk on his decision to divide Korea at the 38th parallel) "“What none of us there at that meeting from the State Department and the Army knew was that earlier in the century there had been discussions between the Russians and the Japanese about a division of a sphere of influence in Korea along the 38th parallel. Had we known that we would have selected any other dividing line. “ Continue reading →

Did the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949 not know, or not comprehend, that North Korean leader KIM il-sung was chafing at the bits to invade the South? They they not even realise that the Soviets were holding back on supporting an invasion because they believed the US would strike back hard, perhaps starting a WW3? It appears that American military leaders, and President Truman himself, thought it was more important to back away from foreign commitments. Each of you will draw your own conclusion as to what lessons are there for current world leaders. Continue reading →

In this episode I read another short story from my favorite author Hunter S Thompson. "Marching through Georgia with Ted Kennedy...Deep, down and dirty; on the dark side of shame...The Politics of Mystery and Blood on the Hands of Dean Rusk...Jimmy Carter's Law Day Speech, and Why it was Shrouded in Secrecy by Persons Unknown... Derby Day in the Governor's Mansion and the Strangling of the Sloat Diamond" Enjoy! twitter @undoctrinated1 instagram @undoctrinatedpodcast email undoctrinatedpodcast@gmail.com please subscribe and write a review. Thanks!

Recording of the 3 LPs recorded in 1968 by Myron Fagan detailing the Illuminati plan for One World Government through the Council on Foreign Relations. (June 21st 2018) 2h51m Comment on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/63261054790/posts/10156554177124791Comment on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeBotCast/status/1009989009341386752     This stunning recording from 1967 speaks to the very problems we face today, including Fake News, government corruption, the corrupt United Nations and infiltration of a Luciferian Rothschild cult who may have gained irreversible control of the US government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Coureval_Fagan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfEn9Dz1_j0   Transcript http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/illuminatiagendabestoverviewyet8jun02.shtml     Part 1(Original title: The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations ) The question of how and why the United Nations is the crux of the great conspiracy to destroy the sovereignty of the United States and the enslavement of the American people within a U.N. one-world dictatorship is a complete and unknown mystery to the vast majority of the American people.   The reason for this unawareness of the frightening danger to our country and to the entire free world is simple. The masterminds behind this great conspiracy have absolute control of all of our mass communications media, especially television, the radio, the press, and Hollywood. We all know that our State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House have brazenly proclaimed that they have the right and the power to manage the news, to tell us not the truth but what they want us to believe. They have seized that power on orders from their masters of the great conspiracy and the objective is to brainwash the people into accepting the phony peace bait to transform the United States into an enslaved unit of the United Nations’ one-world government. First of all, bear in mind that the so-called U.N. police action in Korea, fought by the United States in which 150,000 of our sons were murdered and maimed, was part of the plot; just as the undeclared by Congress war in Vietnam in which our sons are dying is part of the plot; just as the plot against Rhodesia and South Africa in which our sons will be dying is part of the U.N. plot. However, the vitally important thing for all Americans, all you mothers of the boys who died in Korea and are now dying in Vietnam, to know is that our so-called leaders in Washington, who we elected to safeguard our nation and our constitution, are the betrayers and that behind them are a comparatively small group of men whose sole objective is to enslave the whole world of humanity in their satanic plot of one-world government. Now in order to give you a very clear picture of this satanic plot, I will go back to its beginning, clear back in the middle of the 18th century and name the men who put that plot into action and then bring you down to the present – today’s status of that plot. Now as a matter of further intelligence, a term used by the FBI, let me clarify the meaning of the expression “he is a liberal.” The enemy, meaning the one-world conspirators, have seized upon that word “liberal” as a cover-up for their activities. It sounds so innocent and so humanitarian to be liberal. Well, make sure that the person who calls himself a liberal or is described as a liberal is not in truth a “red.” Now then, this satanic plot was launched back in the 1760’s when it first came into existence under the name “Illuminati.” This Illuminati was organized by one Adam Weishaupt, born a Jew, who was converted to Catholicism and became a Catholic priest, and then, at the behest of the then newly organized House of Rothschild, defected and organized the Illuminati. Naturally, the Rothschilds financed that operation and every war since then, beginning with the French Revolution, has been promoted by the Illuminati operating under various names and guises. I say under various names and guises because after the Illuminati was exposed and became notorious, Weishaupt and his co-conspirators began to operate under various other names. In the United States, immediately after World War I, they set up what they called the “Council on Foreign Relations,” commonly referred to as the CFR, and this CFR is actually the Illuminati in the United States and its hierarchy. The masterminds in control of the original Illuminati conspirators, but to conceal that fact, most of them changed their original family names to American sounding names. For example, the true name of the Dillons, Clarence and Douglas Dillon (one Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department), is Laposky. I’ll come back to all this later. There is a similar establishment of the Illuminati in England operating under the name of the “British Institute of International Affairs.” There are similar secret Illuminati organizations in France, Germany, and other nations operating under different names and all these organizations, including the CFR, continuously set up numerous subsidiary or front organizations that are infiltrated into every phase of the various nations’ affairs. But at all times, the operations of these organizations were and are masterminded and controlled by the Internationalist Bankers, they in turn were and are controlled by the Rothschilds. One branch of the Rothschild family had financed Napoleon; another branch of the Rothschilds financed Britain, Germany, and the other nations in the Napoleonic wars. Immediately after the Napoleonic wars, the Illuminati assumed that all the nations were so destitute and so weary of wars that they’d be glad for any solution, so the Rothschild stooges set up what they called the Congress of Vienna and at that meeting they tried to create the first League of Nations, their first attempted one-world government, on the theory that all the crowned heads of European governments were so deeply in debt to them that they would willingly or unwillingly serve as their stooges. But the Czar of Russia caught the stench of the plot and completely torpedoed it. The enraged Nathan Rothschild, then the head of the dynasty, vowed that some day he or his descendants would destroy the Czar and his entire family, and his descendants did accomplish that very threat in 1917. At this point, bear in mind that the Illuminati was not set up to operate on a short-range basis. Normally a conspirator of any type enters into a conspiracy with the expectation of achieving his objective during his own lifetime. But that was not the case with the Illuminati. True, they hoped to accomplish their objective during their lifetime, but paraphrasing “The show must go on,” the Illuminati operates on the very long-range basis. Whether it will take scores of years or even centuries, they have dedicated their descendants to keep the pot boiling until they hope the conspiracy is achieved. Now, let’s go back to the birth of the Illuminati. Adam Weishaupt was a Jesuit-trained professor of canon law, teaching in Engelstock University, when he defected from Christianity to embrace the luciferian conspiracy. It was in 1770 that the professional money lenders, the then recently organized House of Rothschild, retained him to revise and modernize the age-old Protocols of Zionism, which from the outset, was designed to give the Synagogue of Satan, so named by Jesus Christ, ultimate world domination so they could impose the luciferian ideology upon what would remain of the human race after the final social cataclysm by use of satanic despotism. Weishaupt completed his task May 1, 1776. Now you know why May 1 is the great day with all communist nations to this very day (May 1 is also “Law Day” as declared by the American Bar Association). That was the day, May 1, 1776, that Weishaupt completed his plan and officially organized the Illuminati to put the plan into execution. That plan required the destruction of all existing governments and religions. That objective was to be reached by dividing the masses of people, whom he Weishaupt, termed: “goyism” or human cattle into opposing camps in ever increasing numbers on political, social, economic, and other issues – the very conditions we have in our country today. The opposing sides were then to be armed and incidents provided which would cause them to fight and weaken themselves and gradually destroy national governments and religious institutions. Again I say, the very conditions in the world today. And at this point let me stress a prime feature of the Illuminati plans. When and if their blueprint for world control, the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, is discovered and exposed, they would wipe all the Jews off the face of the earth in order to divert suspicions from themselves. If you think this is far fetched, bear in mind that they permitted Hitler, a liberal socialist himself, who was financed by corrupt Kennedy, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds, to incinerate 600,000 Jews. Now just why did the conspirators choose the word: “Illuminati” for their satanic organization? Weishaupt himself said that the word is derived from Lucifer and means: “holder of the light.” Using the lie that his objective was to bring about a one-world government to enable those with mental ability to govern the world and prevent all wars in the future. In short, using the words: “peace on earth” as his bait, exactly as that same bait as: “peace” was used by the 1945 conspirators to force the United Nations on us, Weishaupt financed, I repeat, by the Rothschilds, recruited some 2,000 paid followers. These included the most intelligent men in the field of arts and letters, education, the sciences, finance, and industry. He then established Lodges of the Grand Orient; Masonic Lodges to be their secret headquarters and I again repeat, that in all of this he was acting under orders from the House of Rothschild. The main features of the Weishaupt plan of operation required his Illuminati to do the following things to help them to accomplish their purpose: Use monetary and sex bribery to obtain control of men already in high places in the various of levels of all governments and other fields of endeavor. Once influential persons had fallen for the lies, deceits, and temptations of the Illuminati they were to be held in bondage by application of political and other forms of blackmail, threats of financial ruin, public exposure, and fiscal harm, even death to themselves and loved members of their families. Do you realize how many present top officials in our present government in Washington are controlled in just that way by the CFR? Do you realize how many homosexuals in our State Department, the Pentagon, all federal agencies, even in the White House are controlled that way? Illuminati and the faculties of colleges and universities were to cultivate students possessing exceptional mental ability belonging to well-bred families with international leanings and recommend them for special training in internationalism. Such training was to be provided by granting scholarships to those selected by the Illuminatists. That gives you an idea what a “Rhodes scholarship” means. It means indoctrination into accepting the idea that only a one-world government can put an end to recurring wars and strife. That’s how the United Nations was sold to the American people.  One of the most notable Rhodes scholars we have in our country is Senator William J. Fulbright, sometimes referred to as half-bright. His entire voting record spells Illuminati. All such scholars were to be first persuaded and then convinced that men of special talent and brains have the right to rule those less gifted on the ground that the masses don’t know what is best for them fiscally, mentally, and spiritually. In addition to the Rhodes and similar scholarships, today there are three special Illuminati schools located in Gordonstown in Scotland, Salem in Germany, and Annavrighta in Greece. These three are known ones, but there are others that are kept undercover. Prince Philip, the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, was educated at Gordonstown at the instigation of Lord Louis Mountbatten, his uncle, a Rothschild relative, who became Britain’s Admiral of the Fleet after World War II ended. All influential people trapped into coming under the control of the Illuminati, plus the students who had been specially educated and trained, were to be used as agents and placed behind the scenes of all governments as experts and specialists so they would advise the top executives to adopt policies which would in the long run serve the secret plans of the Illuminati one-world conspiracy and bring about the destruction of the governments and religions they were elected or appointed to serve. Do you know how many such men operate in our government at this very time? Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, Hubert Humphrey, Fulbright, Keekle, and goes on and on and on. Perhaps the most vital directive in Weishaupt’s plan was to obtain absolute control of the press, at that time the only mass communications media, to distribute information to the public so that all news and information could be slanted so that the masses could be convinced that a one-world government is the only solution to our many and varied problems. Do you know who owns and controls our mass communications media? I’ll tell you. Practically all the movie lots in Hollywood is owned by the Lehmans; Kuhn, Loeb, and Company; Goldman-Sachs; and other internationalist bankers. All the national radio and TV channels in the nation are owned and controlled by those same internationalists bankers. The same is true of every chain of metropolitan newspapers and magazines, also of the press wire services, such as Associated Press, United Press International, etc.. The supposed heads of all those media are merely the fronts for the internationalist bankers, who in turn compose the hierarchy of the CFR, today’s Illuminati in America. Now can you understand why the Pentagon Press agent, Sylvester, so brazenly proclaimed that the government has the right to lie to the people. What he really meant was that our CFR controlled government had the power to lie to and be believed by the brain-washed American people. Let us again go back to the first days of the Illuminati. Because Britain and France were the two greatest world powers in the late years of the 18th Century; Weishaupt ordered the Illuminati to foment the colonial wars, including our Revolutionary War, to weaken the British Empire and organize the French Revolution to start in 1789. However; in 1784, a true act of God placed the Bavarian government in possession of evidence which proved the existence of the Illuminati and that evidence could have saved France if they, the French government, hadn’t refused to believe it. Here is how that act of God happened. It was in 1784 that Weishaupt issued his orders for the French Revolution. A German writer, named Zweig, put it into book form. It contained the entire Illuminati story and Weishaupt’s plans. A copy of this book was sent to the Illuminists in France headed by Robespierre whom Weishaupt had delegated to foment the French Revolution. The courier was struck and killed by lightening as he rode through Rawleston on his way from Frankfurt to Paris. The police found the subversive documents on his body and turned them over to the proper authorities. After a careful study of the plot; the Bavarian government ordered the police to raid Weishaupt’s newly organized Lodges of the “Grand Orient” and the homes of his most influential associates. All additional evidence thus discovered convinced the authorities that the documents were genuine copies of the conspiracy by which the Illuminati planned to use wars and revolutions to bring about the establishment of a one-world government; the powers of which they, headed by the Rothschilds, intended to usurp as soon as it was established, exactly in line with the United Nations’ plot of today. In 1785, the Bavarian government outlawed the Illuminati and closed the Lodges of the “Grand Orient.” In 1786; they published all the details of the conspiracy. The English title of that publication is: “The Original Writings of the Order and the Sect of the Illuminati.” Copies of the entire conspiracy were sent to all the heads of church and state in Europe. But the power of the Illuminati, which was actually the power of the Rothschilds, was so great that this warning was ignored. Nevertheless; the Illuminati became a dirty word and it went underground. At the same time, Weishaupt ordered Illuminists to infiltrate into the Lodges of “Blue Masonry” and formed their own secret societies within all secret societies. Only Masons who proved themselves internationalists and those whose conduct proved they had defected from God were initiated into the Illuminati. Thenceforth; the conspirators donned the cloak of philanthropy and humanitarianism to conceal their revolutionary and subversive activities. In order to infiltrate into Masonic Lodges in Britain; Weishaupt invited John Robison over to Europe. Robison was a high degree Mason in the “Scottish Rite.” He was a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University and Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Robison did not fall for the lie that the objective of the Illuminati was to create a benevolent dictatorship; but he kept his reactions to himself so well that he was entrusted with a copy of Weishaupt’s revised conspiracy for study and safekeeping. Anyway; because the heads of state and church in France were deluded into ignoring the warnings given them; the revolution broke out in 1789 as scheduled by Weishaupt. In order to alert other governments to their danger, in 1798, Robison published a book entitled: “Proof of a Conspiracy to Destroy all Governments and Religions” but his warnings were ignored exactly as our American people have been ignoring all warnings about the United Nations and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Now here is something that will stun and very likely outrage many who hear this; but there is documentary proof that our own Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton became students of Weishaupt. Jefferson was one of Weishaupt’s strongest defenders when he was outlawed by his government and it was Jefferson who infiltrated the Illuminati into the then newly organized lodges of the “Scottish Rite” in New England. Here is the proof. In 1789; John Robison warned all Masonic leaders in America that the Illuminati had infiltrated into their lodges and on July 19, 1789; David Papen, President of Harvard University, issued the same warning to the graduating class and lectured them on how the influence of Illuminism was acquitting on American politics and religion, and to top it off; John Quincy Adams, who had organized the New England Masonic Lodges, issued his warnings. Adams wrote three letters to Colonel William L. Stone, a top Mason, in which he exposed how Jefferson was using Masonic lodges for subversive Illuministic purposes. Those three letters are at this very time in Whittenburg Square Library in Philadelphia. In short; Jefferson, founder of the Democratic Party, was a member of the Illuminati which at least partly accounts for the condition of the party at this time and through infiltration of the Republican Party; we have exactly nothing of loyal Americanism today. That disastrous rebuff at the Congress of Vienna created by the Czar of Russia, Alexander I, did not by any means destroy the Illuminati conspiracy. It merely forced them to adopt a new strategy realizing that the one-world idea was, for the moment, killed. The Rothschild’s decided that to keep the plot alive they would have to do it by heightening their control of the money system of the European nations. Earlier; by a ruse the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo had been falsified, Rothschild had spread a story that Napoleon had one bad battle which precipitated a terrific panic on the stock market in England. All stocks had plummeted down to practically zero and Nathan Rothschild bought all the stocks for virtually a penny on its dollar values. That gave him complete control of the economy of Britain and virtually of all Europe. So immediately after that Congress in Vienna had boomeranged; Rothschild had forced Britain to set up a new “Bank of England” which he had absolute control exactly, as later through Jacob Schiff; he engineered our own “Federal Reserve Act” which gave the House of Rothschild a secret control of the economy in the United States. But now for a moment; let’s dwell on the activities of the Illuminati in the United States. In 1826; one Captain William Morgan decided it was his duty to inform all Masons and the general public what the full proof was regarding the Illuminati, their secret plans, intended objectives, and to reveal the identities of the masterminds of the conspiracy. The Illuminati promptly tried Morgan in absentia and convicted him of treason. They ordered one Richard Howard, an English Illuminist, to carry out their sentence of execution as a traitor. Morgan was warned and he tried to escape to Canada, but Howard caught up with him near the border; near the Niagara Gorge to be exact, where he murdered him. This was verified in a sworn statement made in New York by one Avery Allen to the effect that he heard Howard render his report of the execution to a meeting of “Knights Templers” in St. John’s Hall in New York. He also told how arrangements had been made to ship Howard back to England. That Allen affidavit is on record in New York City Archives. Very few Masons and very few of the general public know that general disapproval over that incident of murder caused approximately half of all the Masons in the northern jurisdiction of the United States to secede. Copies of the minutes of the meeting held to discuss that matter are still in existence in safe hands and that all that secrecy emphasizes the power of the masterminds of the Illuminati to prevent such terrible events of history from being taught in our schools. In the early 1850’s; the Illuminati held a secret meeting in New York which was addressed by a British Illuminist named Wright. Those in attendance were told that the Illuminati was organizing to unite the Nihilist and Atheist groups with all other subversive groups into an international group to be known as Communists. That was when the word: “communist” first came into being and it was intended to be the supreme weapon and scare word to terrify the whole world and drive the terrorized peoples into the Illuminati one-world scheme. This scheme: “communism,” was to be used to enable the Illuminati to foment future wars and revolutions. Clinton Roosevelt, a direct ancestor of Franklin Roosevelt; Horace Greeley; and Charles Dana; foremost newspaper publishers of that time were appointed to head a committee to raise funds for the new venture. Of course, most of the funds were provided by the Rothschilds and this fund was used to finance Karl Marx and Engels when they wrote “Das Kaptial” and the “Communist Manifesto” in Soho, England. And this clearly reveals that communism is not a so-called ideology, but a secret weapon; a bogy man word to serve the purpose of the Illuminati. Weishaupt died in 1830; but prior to his death, he prepared a revised version of the age-old conspiracy, the Illuminati, which under various aliases was to organize, finance, direct, and control all international organizations and groups by working their agents into executive positions at the top. In the United States we have Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, William Fulbright, George Bush etc., as prime examples. In addition, while Karl Marx was writing the “Communist Manifesto” under the director of one group of Illuminists, Professor Karl Ritter of Frankfurt University was writing the antithesis under the direction of another group. The idea was that those who direct the overall conspiracy could use the differences in those two so-called ideologies to enable them to divide larger and larger members of the human race into opposing camps so that they could be armed and then brainwashed into fighting and destroying each other. And particularly, to destroy all political and religious institutions. The work Ritter started was continued after his death and completed by the German so-called philosopher Freidrich Wilhelm Nietzache who founded Nietzscheanism. This Nietzecheanism was later developed into Fascism and then into Nazism and was used to foment World War I and II. In 1834; the Italian revolutionary leader, Guiseppe Mazzini, was selected by the Illuminati to direct their revolutionary program throughout the world. He served in that capacity until he died in 1872, but some years before he died; Mazzini had enticed an American General named Albert Pike into the Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one-world government and ultimately he became the head of this luciferian conspiracy. Between 1859 and 1871 he, Pike, worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th century. Again I remind you that these conspirators were never concerned with immediate success. They also operated on a long-range view. Pike did most of his work in his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. But a few years later; when the Illuminati’s Lodges of the Grand Orient became suspect and repudiated because of Mazzini’s revolutionary activities in Europe, Pike organized what he called the New and Reformed Palladian Right. He set up three Supreme Councils; one in Charleston, South Carolina, one in Rome, Italy, and a third in Berlin, Germany. He had Mazzini establish 23 subordinate councils in strategic locations throughout the world. These have been the secret headquarters of the world revolutionary movement ever since. Long before Marconi invented the radio; the scientists in the Illuminati had found the means for Pike and the heads of his councils to communicate secretly. It was the discovery of that secret that enabled intelligence officers to understand how apparently unrelated incidents, such as the assassination of an Austrian Prince [Arch Duke Ferdinand I ] at Serbia, took place simultaneously throughout the world which developed into a war or a revolution. Pike’s plan was as simple as it has proved effective. It called for Communism, Nazism, political Zionism, and other international movements to be organized and used to foment three global world wars and at least two major revolutions. The First World War was to be fought so as to enable the Illuminati to destroy Czarism in Russia, as vowed by Rothschild after the Czar had torpedoed his scheme at the Congress in Vienna, and to transform Russia into a stronghold of atheistic communism. The differences stirred up by agents of the Illuminati between the British and German Empires were to be used to foment this war. After the war would be ended; communism was to be built up and used to destroy other governments and weaken religions. World War II, when and if necessary, was to be fomented by using the controversies between Fascists and political zionists, and here let it be noted that Hitler was financed by Krupp, the Warburgs, the Rothschilds, and other internationalist bankers and that the slaughter of the supposed 600,000 Jews by Hitler didn’t bother the Jewish internationalist bankers at all. That slaughter was necessary in order to create worldwide hatred of the German people and thus bring about war against them. In short; this second world war was to be fought to destroy nazism and increase the power of political zionism so that the state of Israel could be established in Palestine. During this World War II; international communism was to be built up until it equalled in strength to that of the united Christendom. When it reached that point; it was to be contained and kept in check until required for the final social cataclysm. As we know now; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin put that exact policy into effect and Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and George Bush continued that same exact policy. World War III is to be fomented by using the so-called controversies, the agents of the Illuminati operating under whatever new name, as are now being stored up between the political Zionists and the leaders of the Moslem world. That war is to be directed in such a manner that all of Islam and political Zionism (Israel) will destroy each other while at the same time; the remaining nations once more divided on this issue will be forced to fight themselves into a state of complete exhaustion; physically, mentally, spiritually, and economically. Now, can any thinking person doubt that the intrigue now going on in the near Middle and far East is designed to accomplish that satanic objective? Albert Pike himself foretold all this in a statement he made to Mazzini on August 15, 1871. Pike stated that after World War III is ended; those who will aspire to undisputed world domination will provoke the greatest social cataclysm the world has ever known. Quoting his own words taken from the letter he wrote to Mazzini and which letter is now catalogued in the British Museum in London, England; he said: “We shall unleash the nihilists and the atheists and we shall provoke a great social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to all nations the effect of absolute atheism; the origins of savagery and of most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the people will be forced to defend themselves against the world minority of the world revolutionaries and will exterminate those destroyers of civilization and the multitudes disillusioned with Christianity whose spirits will be from that moment without direction and leadership and anxious for an ideal, but without knowledge where to send its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer brought finally out into public view. A manifestation which will result from a general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and Atheism; both ! conquered and exterminated at the same time.” When Mazzini died in 1872; Pike made another revolutionary leader named Adrian Lemmy; his successor. Lemmy, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all those men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschilds. We are supposed to believe that the international bankers of today, like the money changers of Christ’s day, are only the tools or agents of the great conspiracy, but actually they are the masterminds behind all the mass communications media leading us into believing that communism is a movement of the so-called workers; the actual fact is that both British and American intelligence officers have authentic documentary evidence that international liberals, operating through their international banking houses; particularly the House of Rothschilds, have financed both sides of every war and revolution since 1776. Those who today comprise the conspiracy (the CFR in the United States); direct our governments whom they hold in usury through such methods as the Federal Reserve System in America to fight wars, such as Vietnam (created by the United Nations), so as to further Pike’s Illuminati plans to bring the world to that stage of the conspiracy when atheistic communism and the whole of Christianity can be forced into an all out third world war within each remaining nation as well as on an international basis scale. The headquarters of the great conspiracy in the late 1700’s was in Frankfurt, Germany where the House of Rothschild had been established by Mayar (or Mayer) Amschel who adopted the Rothschild name and linked together other international financiers who had literally sold their souls to the devil. After the Bavarian government’s exposure in 1786; the conspirators moved their headquarters to Switzerland then to London. Since World War II (after Jacob Schiff, the Rothschild’s boy in America died); the headquarters of the American branch has been in the Harold Pratt Building in New York City and the Rockefellers, originally proteges of Schiff, have taken over the manipulation of finances in America for the Illuminati. In the final phases of the conspiracy; the one-world government will consist of the king-dictator; the head of the United Nations, the CFR, and a few billionaires, economists, and scientists who have proved their devotion to the great conspiracy. All others are to be integrated into a vast conglomeration of mongrolized humanity; actually slaves. Now let me show you how our federal government and the American people have been sucked into the one-world take over plot of the Illuminati great conspiracy and always bear in mind, that the United Nations was created to become the housing for that one-world, so-called, liberal conspiracy. The real foundations of the plot of the takeover of the United States were laid during the period of our Civil War. Not that Weishaupt and the earlier masterminds had ever overlooked the new world, as I have previously indicated; Weishaupt had his agents planted over here as far back as the Revolutionary War, but George Washington was more than a match for them.   Part 2   It was during the Civil War that the conspirators launched their first concrete efforts. We know that Judah Benjamin, chief advisor of Jefferson Davis, was a Rothschild agent. We also know that there were Rothschild agents planted in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet who tried to sell him into a financial dealing with the House of Rothschild. But old Abe saw through the scheme and bluntly rejected it thereby incurring the undying enmity of the Rothschilds; exactly as the Russian Czar did when he torpedoed their first League of Nations at the Congress in Vienna. Investigation of the assassination of Lincoln revealed that the assassin John Wilkes Booth was a member of a secret conspiratorial group . Because there were a number of highly important government officials involved; the name of the group was never revealed and it became a mystery; exactly as the assassination of Jack Kennedy is still a mystery. But I am sure it will not remain a mystery for long. Anyway; the ending of the Civil War destroyed temporarily all chances of the House of Rothschilds to get a clutch on our money system; such as they had acquired in Britain and other nations in Europe. I say temporarily because the Rothschilds and the masterminds of the conspiracy never quit so they had to start from scratch; but they lost no time in getting started. Jacob H. Schiff Shortly after the Civil War; a young immigrant, who called himself Jacob H. Schiff, arrived in New York. Jacob was a young man with a mission for the House of Rothschild. Jacob was the son of a Rabbi who was born in one of the Rothschild’s houses in Frankfurt, Germany. I will not go deeply into his background. The important point was that Rothschild recognized in him not only a potential money wizard; but more important, he also saw the latent Machiavellian qualities in Jacob that could, as it did, make him an invaluable functionary in the great one-world conspiracy. After a comparatively brief training period in the Rothschild’s London Bank; Jacob left for America with instructions to buy into a banking house which was to be the springboard to acquire control of the money system of the United States. Actually; Jacob came here to carry out four specific assignments. 1. The most important, was to acquire control of America’s money system.2. Find desirable men, who for a price, would be willing to serve as stooges for the great conspiracy and    promote them into high places in our     federal government, our Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and all  federal agencies.3. Create minority group strife throughout the nations; particularly between the whites and blacks.4. Create a movement to destroy religion in the United States; but Christianity to be the chief target. Earlier I stated that Jacob Schiff came to America with orders by Rothschild to carry out four specific directives. The first and most important one was to get control of the United States’ money system. Let’s trace Schiff’s step to accomplish that directive. As a first step he had to buy into a banking house; but it had to be the kind of a house that he could absolutely control and mold for that primary objective of entrapping our U.S. money system. After carefully scouting around; Jacob bought a partnership in a firm that called itself: Kuhn and Loeb. Like Schiff; Kuhn and Loeb were immigrants from German Jewish ghettos. They came to the U.S. in the mid 1840’s and both of them started their business careers as itinerant pack peddlers. In the early 1850’s; they pooled their interests and set up a merchandise store in Lafayette, Indiana under the firm name of Kuhn and Loeb servicing the covered wagon settlers on their way west. In the years that followed; they set up similar stores in Cincinnati and St. Louis. Then they added pawn broking to their merchandising pursuits. From that to money lending was a short and quick step. By the time Schiff arrived on the scene; Kuhn and Loeb was a well-known private banking firm and this is the firm Jacob bought into. Shortly after he became a partner in Kuhn and Loeb; Schiff married Loeb’s daughter, Teresa, then he bought out Kuhn’s interests and moved the firm to New York and Kuhn and Loeb became Kuhn, Loeb, and Company; international bankers with Jacob Schiff, agent of the Rothschilds, ostensibly the sole owner. And throughout his career; this blend of Judas and Machiavelli, the first heirarch of the Illuminati’s great conspiracy in America, posed as a generous philanthropist and a man of great holiness; the cover-up policy set forth by the Illuminati. As I have stated; the first great step of the conspiracy was to be the entrapment of our money system. To achieve that objective; Schiff had to get full cooperation of the then big banker elements in America; and that was easier said than done. Even in those years; Wall Street was the heart of the American money mart and J.P. Morgan was its dictator. Next in line were the Drexels and the Biddles of Philadelphia. All the other financiers, big and little, danced to the music of those three houses; but particularly to that of Morgan. All of those three were proud, haughty, arrogant potentates. For the first few years; they viewed the little bewhiskered man from the German ghettos with utter contempt; but Jacob knew how to overcome that. He threw a few Rothschild bones to them. Said bones being distribution in America of desirable European stock and bond issues. Then he discovered that he had a still more potent weapon in his hands in the following. It was in the decades following our Civil War that our industries began to burgeon. We had great railroads to build. The oil, mining, steel, textile industries were bursting out of their swaddling clothes. All of that called for vast financing; much of that financing had to come from abroad. That meant the House of Rothschild and that was when Schiff came into his own. He played a very crafty game. He became the patron saint of John D. Rockefeller, Edward R. Harriman, and Andrew Carnegie. He financed the Standard Oil Company for Rocky, the Railroad Empire for Harriman, and the Steel Empire for Carnegie. But instead of hogging all the other industries for Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, he opened the doors of the House of Rothschild to Morgan, Biddle, and Drexel. In turn; Rothschild arranged the setting up of London, Paris, European and other branches for those three; but always in partnerships with Rothschild subordinates and Rothschild made it very clear to all those men that Schiff was to be the boss in New York. Thus at the turn of the century Schiff had a tight control of the entire banking fraternity on Wall Street which by then, with Schiff’s help, included Lehman brothers, Goldman-Sachs, and other internationalist banks that where headed by men chosen by the Rothschilds. In short; that meant control of the nation’s money powers and he was then ready for the giant step – the entrapment of our national money system. Now under our Constitution; all control of our money system is vested solely in our Congress. Schiff’s next important step was to seduce our Congress to betray that Constitutional edict by surrendering that control to the hierarchy of the Illuminati’s great conspiracy. In order to legalize that surrender and thus make the people powerless to resist it, it would be necessary to have Congress enact special legislation. To accomplish that; Schiff would have to infiltrate stooges into both houses of Congress. Stooges powerful enough to railroad Congress into passing such legislation. Equally or even more important; he would have to plant a stooge in the White House a president that is without integrity and without scruples who would sign that legislation into law. To accomplish that he had to get control of either the Republican or the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was the more vulnerable; it was the hungrier of the two parties. Except for Grover Cleveland; the Democrats had been unable to land one of their men in the White House since before the Civil War. There were two reasons for that: 1. Poverty of the Party. There were considerably more Republican-minded voters than Democrats. The poverty matter was not a great problem, but the voter problem was a different story. But as I previously said; Schiff was a smart cookie. Here is the atrocious and murderous method he employed to solve that voter problem. His solution emphasizes how very little the Jewish internationalist bankers care about their own racial brethren as you shall see. Suddenly; around 1890, there broke out a nationwide series of pogroms in Russia. Many, many, thousands of innocent Jews; men, women, and children were slaughtered by the Cossacks and other peasants. Similar pogroms with similar slaughter of innocent Jews broke out in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. All those pogroms were fomented by Rothschild agents. As a result; the Jewish terrified refugees from all of those nations swarmed into the United States and that continued throughout the next two or three decades because the pogroms were continuous through all those years. All those refugees were aided by self-styled humanitarian committees set up by Schiff, the Rothschilds, and all the Rothschild affiliates. In the main; the refugees streamed into New York, but the Schiff-Rothschild humanitarian committees found ways to shuffle many of them into other large cities such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc.. All of them were quickly transformed into “naturalized citizens” and educated to register as Democrats. Thus all of that so-called minority group became solid Democratic voter blocks in their communities all controlled and maneuvered by their so-called benefactors. And shortly after the turn of the century; they became vital factors in the political life of our nation. That was one of the methods Schiff employed to plant men like Nelson Aldrich in our Senate and Woodrow Wilson in the White House. 2. Racial Strife. At this point let me remind you of another one of the important jobs that was assigned to Schiff when he was dispatched to America. I refer to the job of destroying the unity of the American people by creating minority group and racial strife. By the pogrom-driven Jewish refugees into America; Schiff was creating a ready-made minority group for that purpose. But the Jewish people, as a whole, made fearful by the pogroms, could not be depended upon to create the violence necessary to destroy the unity of American people. But right within America; there was an already made-to-order, although as yet, a sleeping minority group, the Negroes, who could be sparked into so-called demonstrations, rioting, looting, murder, and every other type of lawlessness – all that was necessary, was to incite and arouse them. Together; those two minority groups, properly maneuvered, could be used to create exactly the King of Strife in America the Illuminati would need to accomplish their objective. Thus at the same time that Schiff and co-conspirators were laying their plans for the entrapment of our money system; they were also perfecting plans to hit the unsuspecting American people with an explosive and terrifying racial upheaval that would tear the people into hate fractions and create chaos throughout the nation; especially on all college and university campuses; all protected by Earl Warren decisions and our so-called leaders in Washington D.C. (Remember the Warren commission on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy). Of course, perfecting those plans require time and infinitely patient organizing. Jack Kennedy, during his term of office as the President of the United States, became a Christian. In his attempt to repent, he tried to inform the people of this Nation (at least twice) that the Office of the President of the United States was being manipulated by the Illuminati/CFR. At the same time, he put a stop to the ‘borrowing’ of Federal Reserve Notes from the Federal Reserve Bank and began issuing United States Notes (which was interest free) on the credit of the United States. It was the issuing of the United States Notes that caused Jack Kennedy to be assassinated. Upon the taking the Oath of Office; Lyndon B. Johnson stopped the issuing of the United States Notes and went back to borrowing Federal Reserve Bank Notes (which was loaned to the people of the United States at the going rate of interest of 17%). The US Notes, that was issued under John F. Kennedy, was of the 1963 series which beared a “Red” seal on the face of the Note. Now to remove all doubts; I’ll take a few moments to give you the documentary proof of this racial strife plot. First of all they had to create the leadership and organizations to draw in millions of dupes, both Jewish and Negroes, who would do the demonstrating and commit the rioting, looting, and lawlessness. So in 1909; Schiff, the Lehmans, and other conspirators, organized and set up the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People known as the “NAACP.” The presidents, directors, and legal councils of the NAACP were always “white men Jews” appointed by Schiff and this is the case to this very day. Then in 1913; the Schiff group organized the Anti-defamation League of the B’nai B’rith commonly known as the “ADL” to serve as the gestapo and hatchet man outfit for the entire great conspiracy. Today the sinister ADL maintains over 2,000 agencies in all parts of our country and they advise and completely control every action of the NAACP or of the Urban League of all the other so-called Negro civil rights organizations throughout the nation including such leaders as Martin Luther King, Stockely Carmichael, Barnard Rustin, and others of the ilk.           Part 3   By 1917 the conspirators had achieved their primary objective; all of Europe was in a state of destitution. All the peoples were war weary and crying for peace and the outcome too was all set. It was to come as soon as the United States would be hurled on the side of the Allies and that was all set to happen immediately after Wilson’s re-election. After that, there could be only one outcome; complete victory for the Allies. To fully confirm my statement that long before 1917; the conspiracy, headed in America by Jacob Schiff, had it all set to hurl the United States into that war. I will cite the proof. When Wilson was campaigning for re-election in 1916; his chief appeal was: “re-elect the man who will keep your sons out of the war.” But during that same campaign; the Republican Party publicly charged that Wilson had long committed himself to throw us into the war. They charged that if he would be defeated he would accomplish that act during his few remaining months in office; but if re-elected, he would hold off until after the election. But at that time the American people looked upon Wilson as a “God-man.” Well; Wilson was re-elected and as per the schedule of the conspirators; he hurled us into the war in 1917. He used the sinking of the Lusitania as an excuse; a sinking which also was prearranged. Roosevelt, also a God-man in the eyes of the American people, followed the same technique in 1941 when he used the prearranged Pearl Harbor attack as his excuse for hurling us into World War II. Now exactly as the conspirators planned; victory for the Allies would eliminate all the Monarchs of the defeated Nations and leave all their people leaderless, confused, bewildered and perfectly conditioned for the one-world government. The great conspiracy intended would follow; but there still would be an obstacle; the same obstacle that had balked the Illuminati and Rothschild at that Congress in Vienna (peace gathering) after the Napoleonic Wars. Russia would be on the winning side this time as it was in 1814 and therefore the Czar would be securely seated on his throne. Here it is pertinent to note that Russia, under the Czarist regime, had been the one country in which the Illuminati had never made any headway nor had the Rothschilds ever been able to infiltrate in their banking interests thus a winning Czar would be more difficult than ever to cope with. Even if he could be enticed into a so-called “League of Nations;” it was a foregone conclusion that he would never, but never, go for a one-world government. So even before the outbreak of World War I, the conspirators had a plan in the making to carry out Nathan Rothschild’s vow of 1814 to destroy the Czar and also murder all possible royal heirs to the throne and it would have to be done before the close of the war. The Russian Bolsheviks were to be their instruments in this particular plot. From the turn of the century; the chiefs of the Bolsheviks were Nicolai Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and later Joseph Stalin. Of course, those were not their true family names. Prior to the outbreak; Switzerland became their haven. Trotsky’s headquarters was on the lower East Side in New York; largely the habitat of Russian-Jewish refugees. Both Lenin and Trotsky were similarly bewhiskered and unkempt. In those days, that was the badge of Bolshevism. Both lived well yet neither had a regular occupation. Neither had any visible means of support, yet both always had plenty of money. All those mysteries were solved in 1917. Right from the outset of the war; strange and mysterious goings on were taking place in New York. Night after night; Trotsky darted furtively in and out of Jacob Schiff’s palace mansion and in the dead of those same nights there were a gathering of hoodlums of New York’s lower East Side. All of them Russian refugees at Trotsky’s headquarters and all were going through some mysterious sort of training process that was all shrouded in mystery. Nobody talked; although it did leak out that Schiff was financing all of Trotsky’s activities. Then suddenly Trotsky vanished and so did approximately 300 of his trained hoodlums. Actually they were on the high seas in a Schiff-chartered ship bound for a rendezvous with Lenin and his gang in Switzerland. And also on that ship was $20,000,000 in gold; the $20,000,000 was provided to finance the Bolsheviks takeover of Russia. In anticipation of Trotsky’s arrival; Lenin prepared to throw a party in his Switzerland hideaway. Men of the very highest places in the world were to be guests at that party. Among them were the mysterious Colonel Edward Mandell House, Woodrow Wilson’s mentor and palsy-walsy, and more important; Schiff’s special and confidential messenger. Another of the expected guests was Warburg of the Warburg Banking Clan in Germany who was financing the Kaiser and whom the Kaiser had rewarded by making him chief of the Secret Police of Germany. In addition; t

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Dean Rusk is professor of International Law at the University of Georgia. He served as U. S. Secretary of State from 1961-1969 and is a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation. He now serves as an advisor to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the State Department.

During his tenure as a university lecturer, the novelist (and former football goalkeeper) Vladimir Nabokov instructed his students that the reader of literature needed three things: imagination, memory, and a dictionary. This advice applies as well for the reader of Gideon Haigh‘s essays on cricket, collected in Sphere of Influence: Writings on Cricket and Its Discontents (Victory Books, 2010). Certainly, Gideon taps the lexicon like no other sportswriter, peppering his columns with sibilance, hypertrophic, and phosphoresce (verb), and even nifty neologisms like gossipmongery and zeitgeistiest. The reader’s memory is stretched with cultural allusions that go beyond the standard sports commentator’s references to Will Ferrell movies or Saturday Night Live skits. The essays feature cameos by Dean Rusk, William O. Douglas, John Kenneth Galbraith, P.G. Wodehouse, and Captain Renault from Casablanca. And the imaginative reader will delight in metaphors and similes that conjure brilliant images: a bowler demolishes a wicket stump “like a dynamited chimney”; the excess of millions in contemporary cricket is compared to a saturnalia; and Sachin Tendulkar’s entry to the pitch has the same awe and drama as if he was being carried “on a bejeweled palanquin by dusky maidens amid the flourish of imperial trumpets.” But there is also substance behind the style. Gideon’s career began in business journalism, and many of his articles probe the financial side of cricket. He questions the direction that cricket’s commercialization is heading, and how it is fueling a profligacy of competitions and leagues and televised matches that is threatening to cannibalize the sport. There is much cause for discontent, from hyperbolic television commentary to WAG’s staking their place in the tabloids, and fans who do not follow cricket will find that many of Gideon’s critiques apply to their own sports as well. At the same time, Gideon is also a cricketer. As he makes clear throughout the interview, he has a profound love and respect for the game that comes from avidly playing it. He shows an appreciation for the skill of the masters in his comments on Tendulkar and Shane Warne. And he has hope for the future, despite the looming retirement of these icons and the current tumult in the sport, because it is a good game–perhaps even, as he says, the best game. But for all this pride in his favorite sport, Gideon also appreciates the compliment he’s received from readers, including this one, that he writes about cricket in a way that outsiders to the game can understand. Certainly, this ability to communicate cricket, even to non-cricket speakers, is apparent in our interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices