Reply #18: It's a history that sets a valuable context for understanding

[Minstrel Boy]

what the forces behind Bush are trying to accomplish.

It's unfortunate the deplorable record of leading American industrialists and investment bankers during the 1930s and '40s is not better known. They're loyalty was stateless: it was to corporatist rule, just as Cheney's is. In other words, fascism.

At the end of the war, it was these same figures who, with the Nazi spy Gehlen and his intelligence agency grafted onto the OSS, founded the CIA and America's National Security State.

From "Ratlines:The CIA & The Nazis":

Many of Rockefeller's dealings with the Nazis were through Rockefeller controlled shell corporations centered in Latin America. The dealings were facilitated by Nelson Rockefeller's appointment to the post of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, by Forrestal in 1940. This was the position of the top spy in Latin America, the post was suggested to Forrestal by Rockefeller himself. Rockefeller had proposed to Harry Hopkins that England and Hitler fight each other to the death, regardless of which side won, the U.S. had to be ready to pick up the pieces to increase corporate America's economic influence. In essence Rockefeller's only concern was to safeguard corporate America interests. His definition of totalitarian was limited to the USSR. Once Nelson Rockefeller accepted the position he informed his staff that their job was to use the war to take over Latin American markets. Rockefeller also used his position to see to it, that the Nazis got anything they wanted in South America such as refueling bases while forcing the British to pay cash. Additionally he effectively blackmailed Britain by the threat of withholding or blocking the shipment of raw materials and food to Britain. Rockefeller's chief aim was to drive the British out of Latin America and monopolize the markets for himself. In each country he set up coordinating committees composed of reactionary executives from Standard Oil of New Jersey, United Fruit and General Electric.... Further, a pro-Nazi bloc of countries led by Peron of Argentina was actively involved in helping hide escaping war criminals. Peron was a friend of none other than Allen Dulles.

Dulles and their firm were not the only investors in Germany at this time. Many of the top corporations in the U.S. initiated direct investments on their own among these are GM, ITT, Ford, and GE. Likewise other Wall Street firms specialized in German investments such as Dillon Reed & Co. who favored loans to the Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Frick's interests Key players at Dillon included James Forrestal, William Draper, Paul Nitze, Ferdinand Eberstadt and C. Douglas Dillon all of whom later served in the government. Brown Brothers & Harriman was another such firm and of course Harriman later served in the government as well. This was the firm in which Bert Walker; George Bush's grandfather and father were associated with. Bush's grandfather was instrumental in setting up a deal to take over Hamburg-America Line a Nazi front company used for espionage. Prescott Bush hired Allen Dulles to hide his assets invested in Germany from authorities. In 1942 Prescott Bush was charged with running Nazi front groups and those assets were siezed.

In just this little snippet of history we have nine individuals (counting the Dulles brothers) all associated with Wall Street firms serving the wealthy, who later went on to serve later in the government. Forrestal was mentioned earlier in the context of promoting policies opposing the views of Truman. We need to look closer at the past Directors of the CIA to fully establish the connection between Wall Street and the CIA. Four of the past Directors including Wild Bill Donovan as head of the OSS there have been Wall Street lawyers, Donovan, Dulles, Colby and Casey. These four have been at the head of the CIA for a total of twenty-one years out of the fifty two-year history of the CIA or almost half the time. The remaining Directors have all came from the elite class as defined by Domhoff in an earlier chapter. Clearly we have established a revolving door between the wartime government and Wall Street as well as establishing the same revolving door between Wall Street and the CIA.

The question of how extensive the work of Dulles was in acting, as a middleman in setting up deals between the rich and the Nazis cannot be answered with any great certainty. However, a document prepared by Pruessen for the State Department totals over a billion dollars. Remember that is only deals in which Dulles was personally involved in and that it is a floor value, there may be additional deals that Pruessen failed to uncover. Likewise, Commerce Department records shows that investments in Germany increased 48.5% from 1929 to 1940. Additionally many US firms bought direct interest in German firms and in turn plowed the profits back into the Aryanization (seizing of Jewish firms) or arms production. Among those firms are International Harvester, Ford, GM, Standard Oil of New Jersey and du Pont.

http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/ratlines.htm