Amery and Shackley: The Atlantic Cercle, Inc.In Le Cercle and the Struggle for the European Continent ISGP identified Conrad Gerber as a Cercle member.
Gerber has been a close friend to CIA spook Theodore Shackley. Shackley, whose had the nickname "blond ghost", retired from the agency in 1979 and (briefly) went into some oil business. But instead of joining the board of some regular, legal oil company, Shackley teamed up with oil smuggler John Deuss and Conrad Gerber, an economist in Ian Smith's racist white minority government of Rhodesia. Deuss, Gerber, Shackley and associates tried to keep Smith's government in power by evading the oil embargos, an effort that eventually failed.
Gerber moved on. He founded Petro-Logistics in 1980 and has been heading it ever since. Petro-Logistics basically is an intelligence firm focused on the international oil markets and has many connections in the Persian Gulf and Black Sea regions. The firm's reports are an important source on OPEC for the International Energy Agency (IEA) and have a significant impact on the oil market. Throughout his life Gerber maintained a close friend of Ted Shackley.
Because of this information, and the fact that CIA men as William Colby and William Casey have been members of the Cercle, ISGP had already compiled a biography of Ted Shackley, assuming this person would sooner or later be identified as a Cercle member. We were right, because it now turns out that from 1994 to 2002 Shackley was the official owner of the Cercle.
ISGP actually found this out in a very simple way. Back in 2003 The Observer wrote:
"Founded in the 1950s by France's Antoine Pinay and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer Le Cercle - also known as The Atlantic Circle..."
It has been the only source - anywhere - that referred to Le Cercle as "The Atlantic Circle". Nothing could be found under this name several years back. But a recent, more creative search on "Atlantic Cercle" turned up the following information on Corporationwiki:
"The Atlantic Cercle - Incorporated by Julian Amery, Richard McCormack, Robert Zoelly, Theodore G Shackley, Thomas R Spencer, The Atlantic Cercle, Inc. is located at 801 Brickell Ave Ste 1901 Miami, FL 33131. The Atlantic Cercle, Inc. was incorporated on Wednesday, August 17, 1994 in the State of FL and is currently not active. Thomas R Spencer represents The Atlantic Cercle, Inc. as their registered agent." [3]
The presence of Julian Amery immediately gives away that this group is Le Cercle. Amery was Cercle president from 1985 until the early 1990s, after which his protege Jonathan Aitken took over the presidency.
Julian Amery, who has held a variety of public offices, has been one of Great Britain's multi-faceted superspooks. As a strategist, he shared some ideas with Zbigniew Brzezinski. As already discussed in the 1001 Club article, it was Amery who once stated:
"The prosperity of our people rests really on the oil in the Persian Gulf, the rubber and tin of Malaya, and the gold, copper and precious metals of South- and Central Africa. As long as we have access to these; as long as we can realize the investments we have there; as long as we trade with this part of the world, we shall be prosperous. If the communists [or anyone else] were to take them over, we would lose the lot. Governments like Colonel Nasser's in Egypt are just as dangerous."
As an elitist, Amery was a member of the low profile Other Club since 1960, over the years together with the Duke of Devonshire (Cavendish), the 7th Marquess of Salisbury (Le Cercle), Lord Carrington (Pilgrims Society president), Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne (major Pilgrims Society member), Lord Rothschild, Lord Rees-Mogg, Prince Charles, Paul Channon (Le Cercle), Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Sir Edward Heath, Sir Denis Thatcher, and Winston S. Churchill. He also was a member of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Club in the 1950s and 1960s and visited the White's Club. Amery and the Cecils largely ran the pro-apartheid Conservative Monday Club. This club was one of the staunchest supporters of the earlier-mentioned pro-colonialist, white minority government of Ian Smith in Rhodesia. It could well be that Amery was working together with Conrad Gerber and Ted Shackley during this time period.
Amery certainly wasn't a stranger to covert operations either. He was close to SAS founder David Stirling and Cercle member Col. Billy McLean. Together they tried to undermine Nasser in Egypt in the 1960s with help from the Mossad, arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and the Cercle-affiliated royal houses of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In the early 1990s, Stirling, and in all likelihood Amery, were also involved in operations aimed at upholding the apartheid system in South Africa. Besides that, in the 1980s Amery was a consultant to the notorious BCCI. He also chaired the British branch of the Global Economic Action Institute, financed by the Moonie cult. Around the same time he became president of Le Cercle.
Amery retired from public office in 1991 and died in 1996. Now it turns out that two years before his death, he was involved in incorporating Le Cercle in Miami under the name "The Atlantic Cercle" at a residence owned by - of all the people in the world - Theodore Shackley. If that doesn't solidify his intelligence credentials, then probably nothing will. Following are excerpts from a 1983 Wall Street Journal article. For more details on Shackley, look at the full Cercle membership list.
[img]"Few men have had more to do with U.S. covert operations in the cold war than Theodore G. Shackley. Before he retired from the Central Intelligence Agency after 30 years' service in September 1979, Mr. Shackley had led the secret war against Cuba, the secret war in Laos, been CIA station chief in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam war and then No. 2 man running the clandestine services division at CIA headquarters in Langley...
"The [Australian government] report refers to contacts between Mr. Shackley and Michael Hand, the currently missing former CIA operator who founded, owned and managed the Nugan Hand banking group. Mr. Hand's partner, Australian Frank Nugan, died of a gunshot wound in January, 1980, later ruled a suicide, and Nugan Hand failed a few months later. Investigations following Mr. Nugan's death and the failure of the bank revealed widespread dealings by Nugan-Hand with international heroin syndicates...[/img]
"Many retired high-ranking Pentagon and CIA officials were executives of or consultants to Nugan-Hand... Among the high-level Pentagon and CIA officials associated with Nugan Hand were former CIA director William Colby, who was its attorney..." [4]
Cercle members and drug trafficking. Shackley's career is loaded with accusations of involvement in CIA drug trafficking to finance covert operations and arms sales. Examples: With General Vang Phao in Laos with the "secret team"; with drug lord Khun Sa who mentioned his name together with Richard Armitage (today at the Cercle-Soros affiliated International Crisis Group); with the heroin bank Nugan Hand, to which Cercle members Bill Colby, Willam Casey, and General Stilwell were also tied. After Nugan Hand was exposed drug & money laundering operations were moved to another bank, BBRDW, in which Casey, Armitage and George Bush were involved (Shackley had apparently retired by then). Shackley's co-founder of Atlantic Cercle, Inc., Julian Amery, later played a role in the BCCI, just as many other associates of Shackley. Shackley worked a lot with Miami mafia boss Santos Trafficante, who has been tied to the JFK assassination. Miami is also the state where Shackley ran the anti-Castro JM/Wave and is the state to which he retired and incorporated the Atlantic Cercle, Inc. in 1994.An associate of ISGP looked up the tax filings of the Atlantic Cercle for the years 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. It seems that after the 2002, Le Cercle, under this corporation, went inactive, probably because Shackley passed away in December 2002.
The website address is spelled wrong. The 2001 forms showed the url with a double "c". It seems that even Cercle members themselves can't really decide on whether they are going to name their group Cercle or Circle. If the group indeed had a website in 2001 and 2002, it seems they are also confused about how low-profile they want to keep their meetings.The tax filings show that Cercle meetings were organized once or twice a year, mainly at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, but also at the Conrad Hilton in London and the Lisbon Intercontinental in Portugal. The Sunday Telegraph of June 18, 2000, had already mentioned the meeting in Portugal, showing that Le Cercle meetings officially were arranged under Shackley's tax exempt organization. Below is a complete list of known Cercle meetings, which can be used by reporters to find out who has been at these meetings. The information in blue has been added with this article.
2002 form, apparently showing the last Cercle meeting under Atlantic Cercle, Inc. Shackley died in December 2002, seemingly resulting in the Atlantic Cercle, Inc. going inactive. Amery had already died in 1996. Cercle meetings are still going on. Question is where the group is registered today and under what name. An AFIO newsletter confirmed that the Atlantic Cercle was headquartered at Shackley's estate. [5]MeetingsDate / Location /Source
December 1, 1979 / Madison Hotel, Washington, U.S. / Langemann papers (November 1988, Lobster Magazine, #15, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith')
January 5-6, 1980 / Zurich, Switzerland / Langemann papers (November 1988, Lobster Magazine, #15, 'Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith')
December 1980 / Washington, U.S. / 1993, Brian Crozier, 'Free Agent', p. 217
October 1986 / Hotel Negresco, Nice, France / 1990, Xan Fielding, 'One Man in His Time - The life of Lieutenant-Colonel NLD ('Billy') McLean, DSO'
November 30, 1990 / Al Bustan Hotel & Al-Baraka Palace, Muscat, Oman / 1993, Alan Clark, 'Diaries', p. 369-374
1996 / Amman, Jordan / June 29, 1997, The Independence, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club; Is it the ultimate dishonour'
1997 / Berlin, Germany / June 29, 1997, The Independence, 'Aitken dropped by the Right's secret club; Is it the ultimate dishonour'
May 23, 1998 / Istanbul, Turkey / Samuel M. Hoskinson speech about NATO expansion to Le Cercle (at the 2000-2002 Atlantic Circle website)
1999 / Watergate Hotel, Washington / 1999, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
1999 / Conrad Hilton, London / 1999, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
June 2000 / Lisbon Intercontinental, Lisbon, Portugal / Lobster Magazine, Issue 40, winter 2000-2001 (orginal source: June 18, 2000, Sunday Telegraph); 2000, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
2000 / Watergate Hotel, Washington / 2000, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
2001 / Watergate Hotel, Washington / 2001, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
June 27 - July 1, 2002 / Morocco / 2002 UK Parliament record of William Hague (Register of Members' Interests)
2002 / Watergate Hotel, Washington / 2002, Tax form, Atlantic Cercle, Inc.
June 18, 2004 / Belgrade, Serbia, Royal Palace / June 18, 2004, Chancellery of HRH Crown Prince Alexander II of Yugoslavia, 'Reception in honor of the "Le Cercle" conference
Late 2004 or early 2005 / Washington, U.S. / September 5, 2004, Sunday Times, 'Le Cercle of the elite'
June 16-17, 2005 / Paris, France / June 21, 2005, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia - London / Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 'Ambassador talks to major foreign policy-security group'
June 23, 2007 / Washington, D.C. / Chas W. Freeman, Jr. speech about China, as published on U.S. China Policy Foundation and the Middle East Policy Council.
November 14, 2008 / Washington, D.C. / Hooshang Amirahmadi speech about U.S.-Iran relations, as published on the American-Iranian Council website.
Besides Amery and Shackley, other founding officers of the Atlantic Cercle, Inc. were Richard T. McCormack, Thomas R. Spencer, Jr., and Robert Zoelly.
Officers of the Atlantic Cercle, Inc. in 2000. This is the last year that its Swiss director Robert Zoelly appeared. It seems people were getting old. Amery died in 1996. Shackley would pass away in December 2002.McCormack has been a relatively high level politician in the offices of Nixon, Reagan and Bush. From 1992 until 2005 he was consultant to the U.S. Government on International Economic Affairs. From 2004 to 2006 he could be found at CSIS, just as many other Cercle members, and in 2006 he became vice chairman of Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. He also sat on the board of Africa Petroleum, which has links to the National Intelligence Council, the CIA, another Cercle participant, and an association in London calling itself the International Oil Club.
Robert Zoelly appears to have been the Swiss director of the Atlantic Cercle. Virtually nothing is known about him, although he is probably the same Robert Zoelly who was vice president of the U.S. department of the Schwarzenbach textile company in the 1950s. This Zoelly returned to Switzerland in 1956 to become chief engineer of Linoleum A.G. Giubiasco. What this person did between 1956 and 1994 is not known at this point.
Atlantic Cercle, Inc.'s vice president and director Thomas R. Spencer, Jr. is very interesting again, compared to what we know about Zoelly. Like Gerber, he has been a long time friend of Ted Shackley. Spencer even was the lawyer for General John Singlaub (OSS; founding member CIA; commander during the Vietnam war of the Military Assistance Group-Special Operations Group (MAG-SOG), a political murder unit; co-founder Western Goals Foundation in 1979 with the Englishman John Rees (board member of the notorious Cercle-linked Maldon Institute, from which some Illuminati disinformation has emanated) and Larry McDonald; founder U.S. chapter WACL in 1981; board member American Freedom Coalition, which was extremely close to the Moonie Cult; board member of the William J. Donovan Foundation, which in 2002 merged with the Pilgrims Foundation/Pilgrims of the United States. Other board members were the daughter of William Casey, Frank Wisner Jr., the 1001's Francis Kellogg, and William vanden Heuvel) in 1988 when General Singlaub, General John Poindexter, General Richard Secord, Ted Shackley, Albert Hakim, and Lt. Col. Oliver North were all accused by the Christic Institute of cooperating with Columbian drug cartels during the Iran Contra affair.
Spreading disinformation?In more recent years, Spencer and James "Jim" Angleton, Jr. have been involved in setting up the Ted Shackley Miami chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), which at the national level has had directors as Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Frank Carlucci, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, James Woolsey, and William Webster. Spencer himself also became a director in the 1990s. What's peculiar about the Miami AFIO chapter, of which Angleton, Jr., is the president, is that they have been involved with quite a number of UFO-related authors.
From ISGP's own 2006 archives, we still know that this AFIO chapter arranged a September 14, 2004 meeting at which Dr. Hal Puthoff and Dr. Edgar Mitchell spoke. Both men were part of Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discover Sciences (NIDS), together with other UFO- related luminaries who pretty much all have gotten endless airtime on shows like Coast to Coast AM. Some of the NIDS members are listed below:
Another interesting question: What is Richard Falk doing at the MEPC with all its CIA, DIA and oil company connections? It was Falk who teamed up with prominent 9/11 Truth author David Ray Griffin (who unfortunately also pushed the no-plane disinfo theories). Ever noticed that higher level 9/11 conspiracy talk often comes from anti-neocon corners?Col. John Alexander: Good friend of Robert Bigelow; good friend of Army Intelligence General Albert Stubblebine who has spread 9/11 disinformation that no plane could have hit the Pentagon; notorious right wing special forces and Army Intelligence guy who could be found at the Cercle-related U.S. Global Security Council.
Dr. Colm Kelleher: Did research on the Skinwalker ranch and the black triangle phenomenon.
Dr. Jacques Vallee: Protege of J. Allen Hynek, the scientific advisor to the official UFO government investigations Project Sign, Grudge and Blue Book; astronomer employed at SRI International; proposed the interdimensional extraterrestrial theory.
Dr. Roger Leir: Conducts surgeries to retrieve alleged alien implants.
Dr. Hal Puthoff: NSA; Scientology; At SRI with Russell Targ, where they set up the remote viewing project, Project Stargate, which was funded by the CIA and DIA; American physicist interested in the paranormal, studying Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, Pat Price, and Joseph McMoneagle; CEO of EarthTech International, which focuses on zero-point energy
Gordon Novel: Involved in the "Schlumberger heist" (a company represented in the 1001 Club) with alleged JFK conspirators David Ferrie, Arcacha Smith and Guy Banister; Jim Garrison's chief of security and later claimed Garrison was fabricating evidence; the FBI once claimed that Novel tried to fabricate evidence linking Castro to the JFK assassination.
Dr. Bruce Maccabee: Worked for the Navy and was involved in projects as SDI and Ballistic Missile Defense; Maryland's MUFON director; allround UFO researcher.
Dr. Edgar Mitchell: Former astronaut who walked on the moon; paranormal investigator; great supporter of Uri Geller; broke with Dr. Greer after the latter continually began to "overreach his data".
Back in 2006, ISGP came across this information after suspecting that Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project (who has been peddling ever increasing amounts of disinformation) had probably taken "inside" information from Jim Angleton, Jr. Apparently it was also Angleton, Jr. who provided researchers as Dr. Richard Boylan (pure disinformation), Dr. Harold Puthoff, author Robert M. Collins (author of 'Exempt from Disclosure - The disturbing case about the UFO coverup', with contributions of Richard Doty and Timothy S. Cooper (Roswell and MJ-12 stuff)), and others with bogus papers which he claimed were from Einstein and had been written in 1952.
This whole UFO and free energy involvement of Shackley, Spencer and Angleton, Jr. is something that warrants a very detailed investigation, especially since other researchers close to the Cercle have been responsible for spreading disinformation about the New World Order, the Illuminati, JFK, 9/11 (no plane theories, but this subject may have a different motive) and more and more it seems, about the UFO phenomenon. Colonel Corso with all his intelligence and extreme right underground connections fits right in with this bunch.