Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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Time Luncheon Guests [Morton Barrow "Tony" Jackson] [E. Howard Hunt] [Charles Colson] [Dr. Lewis Fielding break-in] [Watergate]
by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Approved for Release 2004/10/28: CIA-RDP88-01314R0003000180002-2
1972/1973

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Documents relating to or mentioning Morton Barrows "Tony" Jackson and his contacts and employment with the Agency, including but not limited to those mentioned in https://ia601504.us.archive.org/18/item ... ackson.pdf This includes previous disclosure of his employment by your Agency. His death has been widely and extensively reported. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-16/ ... on-jackson

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written featured articles on the Agency, and have a long-term contract to write the Encyclopedia of the OSS. http://andmagazine.com/us/1431865273.html

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Michael Best

Approved for Release 2004/10/28: CIA-RDP88-01314R0003000180002-2

Time Luncheon Guests
1:00 p.m.
3 December 1973
888 16th Street, N.W.

The following will be the luncheon guests today:

Hugh Sidey -- Host and Bureau Chief. Always been cordial, friendly and fair as far as I can figure out. He covered Kennedy in 1960; then was White House correspondent and then began writing a column on the Presidency for Life. When it folded, he took the column to Time. He appears on the Agronsky show and you may have met him when he came out with the Time writers for a briefing.

John Stacks -- He is the Washington News editor. He is the second man in the Washington Bureau; an inside desk man, I would think.

Jess Cook -- He was out here at your ONE backgrounder. We get calls from him now and then.

John Steele -- He was out here for the briefing a year or so ago. He is the magazine's senior correspondent. I gather he does corporation business, e.g., the visit of Japanese industrialists under Time, Inc. sponsorship was his baby.

John Mulliken -- He covers the White House and has been out here for a number of briefings and has been appreciative.

Jerry Hannifin -- He is the one who talked to me about the Vietnam torture story and told me that the conduct of the POW's was a reaffirmation of what kept our nation going at Valley Forge, at Cold Harbor, at Vicksburg. Hannifin is the Time man on the Watergate case, according to a memo you wrote concerning his uncovering of the name of Morton Jackson.

In 1962, Nancy [Cooke de Herrera]... married Morton Barrows Jackson.

-- Obituary: Nancy Cooke de Herrera, by Analisa Harangozo, Patch Staff

Jerry Schecter -- Diplomatic editor in Washington and a long-time friend of Bill Nelson's. Nelson has pressed him a couple of times on the sourcing of the Khruschev memoirs. Bill knows Jerry from their days in Tokyo.

8. SON OF FORMER AGENCY ASSET IS PARTNER OF BERNARD L. BARKER

Miguel A. Suarez mentioned in an earlier Watergate Incident Status Report dated 26 June 1972, has now been correctly identified as Miguel A. Suarez Sarrain. The previously reported information about his real estate partnership with Bernard L. Barker and his Republican Party activities in Florida is correct. He has not, however, been in contact with this Agency at any time, and the Agency has had no contact with his firm, Ameritas. On the other hand, his father, Miguel A. Suarez Fernandez, was [DELETE] as noted previously.

Miguel A. Suarez Sarrain was born in Cuba in about 1936, and is a United States citizen. He is married to Yolanda Suarez Sarrain, was educated in the United States, and passed the Florida Bar examinations in 1963. Prior to 1965 he was a law clerk for Attorney Ellis S. Rubin, Miami Beach, Florida. He also worked as secretary of the Pan American Drug Company in Miami, of which his father was President. Suarez Sarrain was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for mayor of Miami in 1971.

9. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION INQUIRIES

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has inquired regarding the following additional individuals and activities:

A. William Marihugh

The specific reason for the FBI's interest in Mr. Marihugh was not stated. Mr. Marihugh entered on duty with this Agency on 31 March 1958. He retired under a medical disability as a GS-14 Electronics Engineer on 16 February 1972.

B. Morton Barrows Jackson

Mr. Jackson and Everette Howard Hunt are believed to have been in contact with each other during early 1972. Mr. Jackson listed Mr. Hunt as a Character Reference on his Agency employment application in August 1950.

QUESTION (to Mr. John Warner on 29 November 1972):

Details on Morton Barrows Jackson, who worked about twenty years ago with the Agency.

RESPONSE:

Mr. Morton Barrows Jackson was utilized by the Agency overseas in a covert capacity covering the period from February 1951 to approximately June 1954. He was never a Staff Employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Although Mr. Jackson is known to have listed Mr. Everette Howard Hunt as a character reference in August 1950, we have no information on the nature or extent of their association. Attached is a memorandum prepared giving full details on the background of Morton Barrows Jackson.

On 19 August 1972 Mr. Jackson called the Agency asking how to respond to possible Grand Jury questions with respect to his connections with the Agency. He was advised to say that there had been an association during the early 1950’s but to try to refer further specific questions to the Agency. On 31 August 1972 he phoned to say he had done so, that no problems had arisen, and that he expressed appreciation.

MORTON BARROWS JACKSON

1. Subject’s name came to the attention of this Agency through the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as a possible contact of Everette Howard Hunt, Jr., on the West Coast during early 1972. (Subject, in August 1950, listed Mr. Hunt as a character reference for covert Agency employment.)

2. Subject was born on 17 July 1921 at Devils Lake, North Dakota. He attended Harvard University from 1938 to 1940 and the University of Southern California from 1946 to 1948. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1949. Subject’s legal experience includes service on the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, Geneva, Switzerland, from 1954 to 1957, and as Regional Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice, from 1958 to 1959. Subject is a retired lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He is presently a partner in Jackson, Goodstein, Kumler, Copes, Croskey and Smith, Suite 1651, 1901 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles (Century City), California 90067; telephone: (213) 277-0200. The firm engages in general civil and trial practice in all State and Federal Courts.

3. Subject was a covert asset of this Agency in Bangkok, Thailand, from February 1951 until January 1954, which his contract expired. He was associated then with the Intercontinental Engineering Corporation.

4. In February 1954 Subject was considered for an administrative position with an Agency-sponsored Fund in Switzerland. The International Organizations Division cancelled their interest on 2 June 1954. Subject was, during 1954, an occasional source of the Bern, Switzerland, Station, but no formal relationship existed.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE FILES
FROM: PETE KINSEY
SUBJECT: INTERVIEW OF CHARLES COLSON – JAN. 20, 1975

On January 20, 1975, Senators Weicker and Baker and A.B. Culvahouse and myself met with Charles Colson at the U.S. Courthouse in Washington D.C.

As a preliminary matter, Sen. Weicker read back the notes of the interview which he had had with Colson on January 13, 1975. With certain corrections, Colson confirmed their accuracy. Colson indicated that it was Richard Ober – the CIA liaison man to Kissinger – who received packages from Howard Hunt and passed them on to Richard Helms. Colson stated that the impeachment hearings contain certain information related to a “MR. X” and that there is an affidavit stating that Hunt was bringing Ober packages through May of 1972, which were being passed on to Helms (Bill Gill of ABC News believes that the “MR. X” is, in fact, Ober). Colson indicated that although he did not know for sure, he believed the packages passed to Ober may have contained tapes. Colson bases his speculation on two things. The first relates to an NBC interview with Bernard Barker in April of 1972. Barker described being with Hunt during an interview with an individual in Miami who had been with Castro at the time Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Hunt had a tape recorder and when Barker asked Hunt what the tapes were for, Hunt replied that they were for the CIA (Bill Gill said that Hunt replied “taping for the old company”). The second basis for Colson’s speculation related to the time when Hunt met with David Shapiro while trying to see Colson to pass on a request for money. When Shapiro would not let Hunt see…

[LINES OF TEXT MISSING]

Colson mentioned Morton Jackson again and the fact that Hunt had had breakfast with Jackson the morning of the [Dr. Lewis] Fielding break-in and that the Greenspun capes had been planned in Jackson’s home.

On the subject of Lucien Conein, Colson stated he had reason to believe that the DEA activities abroad of the type we were interested in were being handled by Conein, e.g. kidnapping, assassination.

Senator Baker queried Colson as to whether he believed Mullen and Col. was CIA propriety citing the facts that Caddy operated out of it, the firm’s main clients were Hughes, the Free Cuba Committee and Rotary International. Colson also said that Mullen and Co. hired the people the CIA wanted it to.

Colson noted that the CIA Watergate file mentions that when Bob Bennett needed more money to hire a new man, the money was paid by Hughes rather than the CIA.

In response to a question by Senator Weicker, Colson stated that the CIA broke into the Chilean Embassy in the fall of 1971 to install wiretaps. The taps were shut off during the elections but resumed afterward to monitor information relating to trade delegations coming to the U.S. The taps were removed in May of 1973 because the CIA thought Dean knew of their existence. Colson mentioned that in April of 1972, McCord had called the Chilean Embassy to get himself wiretapped.

With respect to the CIA’s relationship with ITT, Colson recounted a statement by Geneen where Geneen said that “we’re putting our money to work with your boys in Chile.” Colson believes the CIA was very important. Later, Colson said he talked with Buzardt who told him to stay away from the CIA – that you can’t tell where Hughes begins and the CIA ends and that there are some big Republicans involved. Colson said he talked to Nixon twice after that and that Nixon told him to stay out of the matter – that someone in Colson’s office was feeding information to the CIA. Colson said that all of his conversations with Nixon had been subpoenaed, but only two were introduced. All the rest were withheld.

Colson said that in his conversations with Nixon, Nixon had an obsession about Hunt. In response to Colson telling Nixon to get out the Watergate story, Nixon kept referring to the trouble with Hunt arising out of Hunt’s contacts with Ehrlichman and Colson. This conversation occurred on February 13, 1973. In an earlier conversation on June 20, 1972 when Colson was telling Nixon to expose those involved in Watergate, Nixon told Colson that “they know about Hunt,” apparently, as Colson sees it, in an effort to slow Colson down. Colson remarked that the President’s obsession about Hunt and his contacts with Ehrlichman and Colson was expressed months before the evidence shows that Nixon had knowledge of the Ellsberg break-in (March 17, 1973).

Colson recounted Bennett’s inquiry to him about finding out what Maheau did with the $50,000 that was supposed to go to Rebozo, and whether or not Maheau had pocketed the money.

[LINES OF TEXT MISSING]

… one who recommended McCord for a job at CREEP.

Colson told of a February 28, 1973 meeting at the Watergate Hotel between Bennett and Eric Isenstead. Bennett said “I will take care of Ervin if you take care of Hunt”. A record of this conversation is in the CIA Watergate File.

Senator Baker inquired as to whether Colson had any knowledge of domestic assassination operations. Colson replied that he did not know but that such operations did go on overseas.

Colson said that the CIA had been trying hard to discredit Andrew St. George – that the agency was afraid of him.

Colson said we should look into the surroundings of the death of an Italian named Sarti, who was a major narcotics trafficker shot in Mexico about two years ago. Sarti bought his way out of jail and got to Mexico where he was shot. Colson said this case will show the other half of Conein’s operation.

Colson discussed certain private firms either owned by the CIA or used by the CIA. These include:

-- Intertel, a private detective firm in Washington owned by Hughes doing work for the CIA

-- Anderson Security Consultants – CIA propriety

-- Morton Jackson’s Law Firm

There was also mention of the firm of Wagoner and Baroody which came out of the firm of Down and Roosevelt – the latter having definite CIA ties.

Senator Weicker inquired as to whether Pepsico may have firm …

[LINES OF TEXT MISSING]

bona fides established but rather needed only to make the tie office …

Colson then began listing the areas we should explore more thoroughly:

-- Richard Ober – Believes his role was critical and that he would know what was being passed between Hunt and Helms.

-- Fritz Kramer and Jay Lovestone – Lovestone ran the CIA projects for the AFL-CIO. Kramer is Kissinger’s rabbi (who is somehow connected to Lovestone – this needs further exploration with Colson).

-- Clifford Irving Manuscript – Colson said that something in the Irving manuscript threw the White House, Bennett and Hughes into a panic. Hunt and McCord were approached by Hughes’ people to steal the manuscript. Hunt and McCord said they would need $55,000 for the job. Hughes people said “too much”, so the job was never pulled off. There was speculation around the table that by the time Hunt and McCord came around with the 55k figure, Hughes people may have bought off Irving. Colson believes Bill Safire had a copy of the manuscript.

Colson mentioned that Helms had gone out of his way to get Hunt placed in a job. After Hunt went to work at Mullen, he complained that his pay was not comparable to what he had been payed at the CIA. Bennett then raised his salary to a comparable level.

Colson said Hunt’s “casing” photos of the Fielding office were processed by the CIA. The photos were given directly to Helms with Fielding’s name circled.

Senator Baker asked Colson if he knew why Hunt had stopped at the Pentagon for two hours prior to leaving from Dulles on the Fielding break-in.

Colson’s speculation that Hunt’s and the CIA’s justification for supplying the wigs and other equipment to Hunt was fictitious.

Colson said he knows that the CIA gave Hunt the name of a lock picker in January 1972, and that the CIA gave Hunt Anderson Security Consultants to use on a security job for Hughes in Las Vegas.

Colson mentioned a July 10 memo from Lakowski (phonetic) of the CIA to files. The memo stated that Bennett said that he had a backdoor contact with Edward Bennett Williams and if the CIA approves Bennett will feed information to him to get the heat shifted away from the CIA to the White House and Colson. This Memo went to Helms, whose initials appear on it. Colson’s lawyer, Ken Adams, said that Williams asked things in the civil suit depositions that he could only have learned from Bennett. For example, Adams said that Williams first question to Hunt was whether Hunt had gone to Cappaquiddick to interview DeMott. Colson had testified about this before the grand jury but does not believe Williams got it from Silbert or Glanzer.

Colson referred to a list of Plumbers activities which had been shown to him by the FBI. The memo/list was dated August 31-71 and listed the projects which were being undertaken by the plumbers. One item had been blacked out. At the point Colson’s lawyers told the FBI that Colson was a defendant in the case, the FBI withdrew the document and terminated the interview. Colson’s lawyer made handwritten notes on the list which he will supply to me.

Sen. Weicker inquired of Colson’s knowledge of meetings in Mardian’s operation in the Internal Security division at Justice. Colson believed the CIA was into the operation, particularly pre-convention time – funneling information to Mardian. Colson…

[LINES OF TEXT MISSING]

break-in. Colson said Smyth had done some debugging work for him (this may need clarification).

Colson said Seymour Hush [Hersh?] had the CIA story plus much more back in January of 1974. Hush [Hersh?] called Colson and told him that Colby had spent two hours in his office confirming everything. This was during the time of the meetings Colson was having with Haig and Buzhardt.

Colson said he could go through the Helm’s testimony at his confirmation hearings and show where he committed perjury.

Colson said he was with Kissinger on June 14, at 8:00 A.M. after the Pentagon Papers broke. Colson said his log’s show he was with Kissinger on Tuesday the 15th and he is sure he was with Kissinger on Monday. Colson said Kissinger was going through the ceiling – that Kissinger was almost irrational. Colson feels that there is something more deep and personal to Henry Kissinger than the covers which were blown by the leak. Colson also told of Kissinger’s close relationship with Rockefeller and Kissinger’s use of Rockefeller’s facilities in conducting secret negotiations. Kissinger was consulting Rocky in this area. Colson at this time was conducting domestic negotiations for Kissinger.

***

Page 3755

Senator BAKER. I have a great respect for Director Helms and if he says it was a brown wig, I believe him.
And you have identification papers; you have camera equipment; you have recording equipment; you have the processing of film; you have the making of prints; you have help in the assembling of the cables; you have your contact with General Cushman; you have Mr. Jackson, Mr. Morton Jackson, a former CIA agent whom you went to as your best friend farthest from Washington. The record is simply studded with that sort of thing.

Now, what I am really reaching for, Mr. Hunt, is a pretty important and crucial question, I judge. That is whether or not the CIA, wittingly or unwittingly, officially or unofficially, was in effect a support agency for your operation and others at the White House.

Do you care to characterize that it was or was not, under those circumstances, a support facility, in effect, for your operations?

Mr. HUNT. Well, under – certainly, the initial circumstances; yes, Senator.

Senator BAKER. Mr. Martinez was still on the payroll, I believe, as a consultant for the CIA.

Mr. HUNT. So I understand.

Senator BAKER. Were there other CIA involvements that I do not know about or I have not asked you about? Can you embellish that scenario any further?

Mr. HUNT. No, sir.

Senator BAKER. Would you if you could?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Senator BAKER. I ask you if you had a letter of instruction on this project, which I understand to be a phrase of art in the intelligence community. Did the letter of instructions tell you what you should do if you got caught or did you have orders to that effect from anyone?

Mr. HUNT. No, sir, and by the way, a letter of instruction is only given by the Director to a chief of station, not to subordinate personnel.

Senator BAKER. But you understand that having been a chief of station?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Senator BAKER. Did you have anything equivalent to a letter of instructions?

Mr. HUNT. No, sir.

Senator BAKER. Would you tell me if you did?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Senator BAKER. Did Mr. Bittman tell you how he used that $156,000, how he disbursed it?

Mr. HUNT. How he disbursed it? I am sorry, I perhaps misunderstood it.

Senator BAKER. Mr. Bittman, your attorney, did he disclose to you …

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Page 87

when he was preparing Mr. Hunt for grand jury testimony probably in April or May.

Mr. BUTLER. April or May 1973. All right. Thank you Mr. Bittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DONOHUE. Mr. Seiberling.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Bittman, what was the name of the attorney who referred Mr. Hunt to you as a client?

Mr. BITTMAN. Morton Jackson

Mr. SEIBERLING. And he was from Los Angeles?

Mr. BITTMAN. Yes, sir. He’s a personal friend of Mr. Hunt’s, represented him in the capacity as an attorney and as a member of a law firm. I don’t know how big it is out there. I didn’t meet him. I didn’t know him when he called me.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Do you know how much pension Mr. Hunt received from the CIA?

Mr. BITTMAN. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Based on your observations of Mr. Hunt would you consider him to be an intelligent person?

Mr. BITTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Would you consider that he had a reasonably or had a reasonably sophisticated perception of the things that motivate other people?

Mr. BITTMAN. I am not sure I understand that question.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Well, was he reasonably sophisticated about human nature?

Mr. BITTMAN. No, sir. Mr. Hunt was an operative and by operative I mean if he was given an order by a superior he would do it regardless of what it was.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Well, that isn’t quite the point of my question. My point is did he understand what motivates people?

Mr. BITTMAN. I just don’t think I understand the question. I don’t think I can answer it. I’m sorry.

Mr. SEIBERLING. I see. All right. I yield my time to M. Saranes.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Bittman –

Mr. BITTMAN. I will be happy to answer it, Congressman, if you can rephrase it again. I am not trying to avoid it.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Well, my only question was was he reasonably conversant with human beings so that he would understand –

Mr. BITTMAN. Well, he was conversant with human beings but he has lived a very bizarre life with the CIA for 21 years involved in covert activities so that’s all I can say.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Are you saying he didn’t have dealings with other people?

***

Page 9348

Mr. ARMSTRONG. What was the purpose of your trip in January of 1972?

Mr. HUNT. I am sure from that date that that was exclusively concerning the San Diego site or the forthcoming Republican convention.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Was that the occasion of the contact with Mr. – what was his name? – Mr. Winte?

Mr. HUNT. I don’t know. We were out there pretty frequently. I wouldn’t think that that was it. I think the contact with Mr. Winte came later. If we could find out, for example, when Senator Muskie withdrew, we would know when the cutoff point was.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, on that occasion you were registered as being – Mr. Liddy was registered – Mr. Leonard was registered as being from Hughes Tool Co.

Mr. HUNT. Well, this was probably not the only occasion when we used that leased wire.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. To make arrangements?

Mr. HUNT. Yes. Let me say this; we always got better accommodations when Hughes Tool made accommodations for us.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. You were back out there again February 19 or February 17, 1972. Do you recall the specifics?

Mr. HUNT. I don’t recall the specific purpose, no, sir. There was at least one occasion when Mr. Liddy told me that he had to go out to California and would I like to come along for the ride – expenses paid. And I said, “Sure.” That might have been the time.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Are you aware of anyone that has done any clandestine work for the Hughes Tool Co.

Mr. HUNT. No, sir, other than Intertel.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Other than Intertel in their paid capacity?

Mr. HUNT. I wouldn’t know of any, no, sir.

***
EXCERPTS FROM HEARING OF SEPTEMBER 11, 1973

Present: Terry Lenzner, assistant chief counsel; Scott Armstrong, investigator; and H. William Shure, assistant minority counsel; Sidney Sachs, counsel for Mr. Hunt.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Was Mr. Morton Jackson aware of the nature of your business with Mr. Winte in Los Angeles?

Mr. HUNT. No.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Or the fact that you had business with Hughes Tool Co.?

Mr. HUNT. No. I had no business with Hughes Tool Co.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Had you projected business with Hughes Tool Co., that is had you hoped to do business with Hughes Tool Co.?

Mr. HUNT. I do not know that I did. I think that is a premise I would object to.

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, consulting with the Hughes Tool Co.?

Mr. HUNT. I would again reject that assumption, Mr. Armstrong.

Mr. SHURE. Do you have any relationship with the Hughes Tool Co.?

Mr. HUNT. I had been introduced to Mr. Winte, who is the chief security officer for the Hughes Tool Co. I had some conversation with him.

***

Page 3690

16.3 E. HOWARD HUNT TESTIMONY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1973, 9 SSC 3690

Mr. DASH. Now, did you hear from Mr. Liddy during this period of time?

Mr. HUNT. What period of time?

Mr. DASH. Shortly after, around June 19 or around that time?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir, I did.

Mr. DASH. What, if anything, did he tell you?

Mr. HUNT. Toward midday on the 19th, I got a telephone call from him at my Mullen Co. office saying that he needed urgently to meet me. We met at the corner of the USIA building, which I believe is at 17th and Pennsylvania Ave. We met, walked around the block. During the course of the conversation, he told me that it was necessary for me to get out of town, that “they” wanted me to get out of town.

Mr. DASH. Did he indicate who “they” were?

Mr. HUNT. Not at that time.

Mr. DASH. Then, was it a fact that that particular order was rescinded?

Mr. HUNT. He told me that it was.

Mr. DASH. Now, in fact, you did leave Washington, did you not?

Mr. HUNT. I did.

Mr. DASH. And did you ultimately go to California?

Mr. HUNT. I did.

Mr. DASH. At that time, did you make arrangements to obtain Counsel?

Mr. HUNT. I obtained local counsel in California, but not Washington counsel.

Mr. DASH. Well, in California, who did you meet, what California counsel?

Mr. HUNT. I was staying at the home of an attorney, an old friend named Morton B. Jackson. Mr. Liddy appeared out there unannounced on June 21. I reiterated my request to him that he or somebody obtain counsel for me in the Washington area. Mr. Liddy gave me $1,000 and said, this will help with Jackson.

I thereupon gave the $1,000 in cash to Mr. Jackson, retaining him as my counsel on the west coast.

Mr. DASH. And did Mr. Jackson refer you to any Washington lawyer?

Mr. HUNT. In due course, he did.

Mr. DASH. Yes, and what lawyer was that?

Mr. HUNT. He referred me some time later to two attorneys, neither of whom were known to, I believe, either Mr. Jackson or myself. Simply through an alphabetical process, I decided to retain, to inquire of Mr. Bittman whether or not he would be interested in representing me.

Mr. DASH. And did you retain Mr. William Bittman?

Mr. HUNT. I did.

Mr. DASH. And when did you first meet Mr. Bittman in Washington?

Mr. Hunt. On the night of July 3.

Mr. DASH. What was your understanding, Mr. Hunt, concerning legal fees and support of your family that you would receive? What general understanding did you have?

Mr. HUNT. At the time, Mr. Liddy appeared at the home of Mr. Jackson on June 21, I raised the question with him, as I had with…

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[admin]

Charles Montague Cooke
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/10/20


Charles Montague Cooke
Circa 1909
Born: May 6, 1849, Honolulu, Hawaii
Died: August 27, 1909 (aged 60)
Occupation: Businessman
Spouse(s): Anna Charlotte Rice
Children: 8
Parent(s): Amos Starr Cooke; Juliette Montague


The Cooke family

Hawaii's Big Five

C. Brewer & Co.
Theo H. Davies & Co.
Amfac
Castle & Cooke
Alexander & Baldwin

Charles Montague Cooke (May 6, 1849 – August 27, 1909) was a businessman during the Kingdom of Hawaii, Republic of Hawaii, and Territory of Hawaii.

Life

Charles Montague Cooke was born May 6, 1849 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was Amos Starr Cooke...

Amos Starr Cooke (December 1, 1810 – March 20, 1871) was an American educator and businessman in the Kingdom of Hawaii. He was patriarch of a family that influenced Hawaii during the 20th century.

Amos Starr Cooke was born in Danbury, Connecticut, December 1, 1810. His father was Joseph Platt Cooke (1760–1841) and mother was Annis Starr (died 1813). His grandfather Joseph Platt Cooke (1730–1816) served in the American Revolutionary War. Juliette Montague was born in Sunderland, Massachusetts, March 10, 1812. Her father was Caleb Montague (1781–1825) and mother Martha Warner. They were married November 27, 1836, and in less than a month in the 8th company from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Hawaii.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most important of American missionary organizations and consisted of participants from Reformed traditions such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and German Reformed churches.

After some secessions due to the slavery issue and the movement of New School Presbyterian-affiliated missionaries to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, the ABCFM was left as a Congregationalist body after 1870. The American Board, as it was known continued to operate as a largely Congregationalist entity until the 1950s. In 1957, the Congregational Christian church merged with the German Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ. As a part of the organizational merger associated with this new denomination, the ABCFM ceased independent existence and merged operations with other missions entities to form the United Church Board for World Ministries, an agency of the United Church of Christ....

The founding of the ABCFM was inspired by the Second Great Awakening.

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations. The Second Great Awakening led to a period of antebellum social reform and an emphasis on salvation by institutions. The outpouring of religious fervor and revival began in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1790s and early 1800s among the Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists....

It led to the founding of several well known colleges, seminaries and mission societies. The Great Awakening notably altered the religious climate in the American colonies. Ordinary people were encouraged to make a personal connection with God, instead of relying on a minister. Newer denominations, such as Methodists and Baptists, grew quickly....

Historians named the Second Great Awakening in the context of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1750s and of the Third Great Awakening of the late 1850s to early 1900s. The Second and Third Awakenings were part of a much larger Romantic religious movement that was sweeping across England, Scotland, and Germany.

New religious movements emerged during the Second Great Awakening, such as Adventism, Dispensationalism, and the Latter Day Saint movement.

-- Second Great Awakening, by Wikipedia

In 1806, five students from Williams College in western Massachusetts took shelter from a thunderstorm in a haystack. At the Haystack Prayer Meeting, they came to the common conviction that "the field is the world" and inspired the creation of the ABCFM four years later. The objective of the ABCFM was to spread Christianity worldwide. Congregationalist in origin, the ABCFM also accepted missionaries from Presbyterian (1812–70), Dutch-Reformed (1819–57) and other denominations.

-- American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, by Wikipedia

They sailed from Boston December 14, 1836, on the Mary Frazier and reached Honolulu on April 9, 1837.

The Cookes were put in charge of the Chiefs' Children's School. King Kamehameha III selected as students those who would be eligible for the throne based on their family background. Instruction was in English, and all five of the next ruling monarchs were students at the school. A complex of buildings was built to house the Cookes and students in 1840 as it became a boarding school. In 1846 it was renamed the Royal School, and became funded by the government.

In 1849 Cooke worked for Samuel Northrup Castle who had been a shipmate on the Mary Frazier as secular supply agent for the mission. As the American Board reduced funding for the Hawaii stations, he co-founded Castle & Cooke as a private company in June 1851. Edward Griffin Beckwith (1826–1909) became the next principal of the Royal School, as it opened to students of all races.

The business started as a general store, and continued as supply agents to the mission. Their store house is part of the Mission Houses Museum. Cooke made one trip to supply mission stations in the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands. In 1858 Cooke became a partner in the Haʻikū Sugar Company on the island of Maui. During the American Civil War in the 1860s, the company became an agent for selling sugar from the sugar plantations in Hawaii to the western United States. However, Cooke's health declined and he turned over his duties to Joseph Ballard Atherton who had started as a clerk in 1859.

Cooke died in Honolulu, March 20, 1871. The company went on to be one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii.

-- Amos Starr Cooke, by Wikipedia

co-founder of Castle & Cooke.

Castle & Cooke, Inc., is a Los Angeles-based company that was once part of the Big Five companies in territorial Hawaii. The company at one time did most of its business in agriculture including becoming, through mergers the modern Dole Food Company, the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables. In 1995 it was spun off from Dole and today most of the company's business is in real estate and residential, commercial, and retail development.

Castle & Cooke was founded in 1851 as a partnership between Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke as a department store that sold farm tools, sewing equipment, and medicine. Joseph Ballard Atherton joined as clerk in 1858 and rose to become partner by 1865. Over the next few decades, the company invested heavily in Hawaii's sugar industry, running plantations in Kohala and Haiku. Atherton became president after the deaths of Cooke in 1871 and Castle in 1894, when the company incorporated. After the death of Atherton, George Parmele Castle (1851–1932) became president. G. P. Castle retired in 1916 and Edward Davies Tenney became chairman.

In the 1910s, the company, along with three other Big Five companies, invested in Matson Navigation Company.

Matson, Inc. is a U.S. owned and operated transportation services company founded in 1882.

Matson, Inc.'s subsidiary Matson Navigation Company provides ocean shipping services across the Pacific to Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Micronesia, the South Pacific, China and Japan.

Matson acquired the historic Moana Hotel (now part of the Moana Surfrider Hotel complex) and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki on the island of Oahu in 1932.

William Matson (1849–1917) founded Matson Navigation Company. He was born in Lysekil in Västra Götaland County, Sweden, and orphaned during childhood. He arrived in San Francisco after a trip around Cape Horn in 1867. Working aboard the Dickel family yacht, he struck up a friendship with tycoon Claus Spreckels, who financed many of Matson's new ships. In 1882 the three-masted schooner Emma Claudina ran to the Hawaiian Islands.

The enterprise began in the carrying of merchandise, especially of plantation stores, to the islands and returning with cargoes of sugar. This led to gradually expanding interests at both ends of the line....

For a brief period after World War II, Matson operated an airline using Douglas DC-4 aircraft between the Pacific Coast and Hawaii. The airline ultimately ceased operations because of political pressure from Pan American World Airways, which resulted in inability to obtain federal government scheduled operating authority....

In 2015 Matson, Inc. acquired Horizon Lines, formerly its main competitor in the United States domestic market, for $469 million.

Primarily a conveyor of freight, Matson also introduced into service a number of passenger liners to capitalize on the burgeoning tourist trade. In 1926 Matson took over the Oceanic Steamship Company, operating three trans-Pacific liners, including Sonoma.

-- Matson, Inc., by Wikipedia

Tenney became president of Matson after William Matson's death. In 1931, the company also bought a 21 percent share of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which was later renamed the Dole Food Company. After the death of Tenney, Alexander G. Budge became president in 1935. Castle & Cooke bought the remaining shares of Dole in 1961.

Between 1964 and 1968, Castle & Cooke acquired the Standard Fruit Company, adding bananas and other tropical fruits to its existing pineapple operations. In 1976, it acquired Bud Antle Inc., a California-based lettuce and celery farmer; it was renamed Dole Fresh Vegetables in 1989.

The company maintained Dole's large pineapple plantations throughout the state, including a particularly large one on the island of Lanai, where Castle & Cooke owned about 95 percent of the island.

In the decades that followed, Castle & Cooke began to face severe financial trouble as Hawaii's agriculture industry weakened. In 1985, the company merged with the Flexi-Van Corporation, a transportation leasing company. In 1991, the company was renamed Dole Food Company.

In 1995, the real estate operations of The Dole Food Company were spun off as the newly reformed company Castle & Cooke. The new Castle & Cooke was bought by Dole CEO, David H. Murdock, who remains the CEO of Castle & Cooke today.

On May 2, 2012 (made public in June), Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison signed an agreement to buy most of the 6th largest Hawaiian island of Lanai from Castle & Cooke for $300 million.

-- Castle & Cooke, by Wikipedia

His mother Juliette Montague Cooke was the teacher of future leaders of the Kingdom of Hawaii at the Royal School. He was educated at Punahou School and Amherst Agricultural College where he roomed with friend William Owen Smith.

William Owen Smith (August 4, 1848 – April 13, 1929) was a lawyer from a family of American missionaries who participated in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. He served as attorney general for the entire duration of the Provisional Government of Hawaii and the Republic of Hawaii.

-- William Owen Smith, by Wikipedia

In 1871 Cooke worked as a clerk for his father's firm. He moved up to head bookkeeper. Castle & Cooke was one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii.[1]

He married Anna Charlotte Rice (1853–1934) on April 30, 1874. In 1877 he became business partners with Joshua G. Dickson and Robert Lewers importing lumber and hardware. After Dickson died in July 1880, the firm became Lewers & Cooke. He was an investor in several sugar plantations in Hawaii, which became more profitable after the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 removed tariffs.[2]

On January 18, 1893, immediately after the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, he was appointed to an advisory council for the Provisional Government of Hawaii. On February 1 he was sent as a representative to Washington, DC in an unsuccessful attempt to have the United States annex the islands.[3] He was a founder in 1893 of the Bank of Hawaii with Peter Cushman Jones and Joseph Ballard Atherton (his brother-in-law).[4]

He moved to California expecting to retire in 1894, but returned and became Bank of Hawaii president in September 1898 after the death of Jones. In 1899 he also became president of C. Brewer & Co., another of the Big Five (Hawaii).[5]

C. Brewer & Co., Ltd. was a Honolulu-based company that was once part of the Big Five companies in territorial Hawaii. The company did most of its business in agriculture.

The company was founded by Captain James Hunnewell (1794–1869) of Massachusetts in 1826, making it the oldest of Big Five companies. The company originally traded sandalwood with China. Henry A. Peirce joined in 1828 as a clerk, and worked his way up to a partner. Peirce took over when Hunnewell left in 1830. Charles Brewer (1804–1885), the master of Peirce's ships, became a partner in December 1835 and the business was known as Peirce & Brewer.

Peirce retired to a life as diplomat in 1843, and the company was renamed after Brewer, who shifted the company's focus to supplying whaling ships and general merchandise. Brewer ran the business with his nephew Charles Brewer II (1823–1863) until 1845, returned to Boston in 1849, on the ship that brought the first gold from the California Gold Rush. He continued to be an investor, and convinced Peirce and Hunnewell to rejoin him for a while....

In 1863, the company entered Hawaii's sugar cane industry, managing three plantations on Maui. Peter Cushman Jones became a partner in 1871, and its president from 1883 until 1891. In 1904, the company purchased the Pepeekeo Sugar Company on the island of Hawaii.

The company emerged to become one of Hawaii's Big Five companies, albeit the smallest. By 1925, after more consolidation, C. Brewer handled 25% of the islands' sugar and was one of Hawaii's largest corporate landholders. In 1930 the new C. Brewer headquarters building was built at 827 Fort Street in the heart of downtown Honolulu's business district which is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Oahu. In 1959, seeing the need for further diversification, the company entered the macadamia nut industry, and in the 1990s produced the majority of the world's macadamia nuts under the name Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation.

-- C. Brewer & Co., by Wikipedia

Bernice Pauahi Bishop appointed him as one of the first trustees of the Kamehameha Schools, known then as the Bishop Estate. He served on its board from 1884 to 1897.[6] In 1904 he founded the Waikiki Aquarium[7], and in 1909 donated funds for the library at Punahou School. He kept his businesses intact through the Panic of 1907.[2]

Their children were:

1. Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. was born December 20, 1874, became a scientist, and died October 29, 1948.
2. Clarence Hyde Cooke (1876–1944) took over as president of the Bank of Hawaii.
3. William Harrison Rice Cooke (namesake of his father-in-law William Harrison Rice) was born in 1878 but died young in 1880.
4. George Paul Cooke was born December 2, 1881, married Sophie Boyd Judd (1883–1966), granddaughter of missionary Gerrit P. Judd, they had eight children, one of their sons was musician Francis Judd Cooke (1910–1995).[8] He died in 1960. Their great-grandson was baseball player Steve Cooke (Stephen Montague Cooke III).[9]
5. Richard Alexander Cooke was born January 24, 1884, married Dagmar Sorenseon [Sorenson] [1884-1962] in 1907, was executive at Bank of Hawaii and C. Brewer, and died in 1941. Their daughter-in-law Lorraine (Day) Cooke founded La Pietra school for girls.

Richard Alexander Cooke, Jr. (1914-1999)
Marriage: 1942
Nancy Louise Veitch (1922-2013)
PARENTS AND SIBLINGS
Richard Alexander Cooke (1884-1941)
Marriage:
Dagmar Sorenson (1884-1962)
Children (5)
Anna Karen Cooke (1909-1990)
Alice Montague Cooke (1911-1987)
Richard Alexander Cooke Jr. (1914-1999)
unknown Cooke (1916-1916)
Patricia Cooke (1926-1978)

-- Richard Alexander Cooke Jr. (1914-13 January 1999, by FamilySearch

6. Alice Theodora Cooke (1887–1968) married Philip Edmunds Spalding (1889–1968), for whom a building is named at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Their home is now the Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu).[10]
7. Theodore Atherton Cooke (1891–1973) married Muriel Elizabeth Howatt (1891–1969).
8. Dorothea Cooke (twin of Theodore) was born August 23, 1891 but died young February 26, 1892.

He died August 27, 1909 after a second stroke.[11] Most of the family is buried at the Mission Houses Cemetery near Kawaiahaʻo Church.[12] A house he had built on Thomas Square in 1882 became the Honolulu Museum of Art. Anna Rice Cooke also left 4500 pieces of artwork they had collected to the academy.[13] His estate was incorporated as Charles M. Cooke, Ltd. in 1898, and dissolved and distributed to 58 shareholders in 1942. Some of the assets became the Charles M. and Anna C. Cooke Trust, which became a charitable foundation in 1971. In 1980, it became the Cooke Foundation. The Hawaii Community Foundation continues to administer grants.[14]

References

1. Castle & Cooke (1951). The first 100 years: a report on the operations of Castle & Cooke for the years 1851-1951. Castle and Cooke, Limited.
2. William Richards Castle (October 1906). "Charles Montague Cooke". The Friend. LXVI (12). pp. 14–15, 21.
3. "Cooke, Charles Montague office record". state archives digital collections. state of Hawaii. Archived from the original on 2012-03-20. Retrieved 2010-05-03. (combined with those of his son)
4. "About Bank of Hawaii". official web site. Bank of Hawaii.
5. George F. Nellist, ed. (1925). "Charles Montague Cooke". The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders. Honolulu Star Bulletin.
6. "First Trustees Appointed to Care for the Princess's Trust". official web site. Kamehameha Schools. Archived from the original on 2010-05-27. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
7. "History of the Waikiki Aquarium" (PDF). University of Hawaiʻi. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-21. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
8. John William Siddall, ed. (1921). Men of Hawaii: being a biographical reference library, complete and authentic, of the men of note and substantial achievement in the Hawaiian Islands. Honolulu Star-Bulletin. p. 107.
9. "Family forest for Thomas Emerson" (PDF). October 2008. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
10. "Philip Edmunds Spalding". Building Names official web site. University of Hawaii at Manoa.
11. "Charles M. Cooke Dead; Was a Leading Financier of Hawaii and a Multi-Millionaire" (PDF). The New York Times. August 28, 1909.
12. William Disbro (November 6, 2001). "Mission Houses Cemetery, Honolulu, Hawaii". US Genweb archives. Retrieved 2010-05-01.
13. Mike Gordon (July 2, 2006). "Anna Rice Cooke". Honolulu Advertiser. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
14. "Cooke Foundation, Limited: History". Archived from the original on 2011-10-03. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
15. "Finding Aid to the Rice Family papers, 1838-1964" (PDF). Kauai Historical Society.
16. "Cooke Family History and Kūaliʻi • Manoa Heritage Center". Manoa Heritage Center. Retrieved 2020-04-06.

External links

• "Private Sender Marks - Private Commercial Firms". Post Office in Paradise. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
• "Cooke Library". Punahou School official web site. Archived from the original on 2010-05-27. Retrieved 2010-05-03.

Further reading

• Josephine Sullivan (1926). Karl Clayton Leebrick (ed.). A history of C. Brewer & Company, limited: one hundred years in the Hawaiian Islands, 1826-1926. Walton Advertising & Printing Company.
• Clarence Hyde Cooke (1949). Charles Montague Cooke, 1849-1909. the author.

[admin]

Introduction and Chapter 1. Welcome to India, from "All You Need is Love: An Eyewitness Account of When Spirituality Spread from the East to the West" [Excerpt]
by Nancy Cooke de Herrera
Foreword by Deepak Chopra
© 2003 by Nancy Cooke de Herrera

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Introduction

My LIFE has been blessed. I have experienced the extraordinary in peoples, places, and situations, given birth to four happy, caring children, and loved from the depth of my soul. In spite of the loss of this great love, I found the path to peace and to the beauty of simplicity. I grew up in a family with a father, mother, grandfather, and two sisters. Our home in Northern California was supportive, loving, and close. This happy foundation encouraged me to later become an adventuresome risk-taker. One of the qualities I still possess today, which I am grateful for, is an insatiable sense of curiosity that's seemed to be inherent from birth. It is a fascination that has evolved from the innocence of a child to the understanding of a person attracted to spirituality out of a need to comprehend love and loss. I needed to know there is justice in the universe!

Shaken to the core, and left with four young children in Argentina after my husband, Luis's, death, I felt empty, abandoned, and alone. At the same time I knew there had to be a just reason for taking from me this magical person I so deeply loved. I could not face the word "eternity," which I saw carved on most headstones as I prepared for his burial. I wouldn't allow myself to think of never having contact with Luis again. There had to be something more.

Out of a genuine desire to comfort and support, a dear friend Biju Nehru from India, sent me a book, titled The Autobiography of a Yogi, about the life, teachings, and philosophy of Paramhansa Yogananda. His remarkable childhood, his encounters with many saints and sages during his search throughout India for an illumined teacher, the ten years of training by a revered yoga master, and especially his discussions on reincarnation, were all I needed to spark more than an interest in visiting his mystical homeland. So, it was not unexpected that seven years after Luis's death, I found myself, in 1962, landing in India to seriously begin my spiritual exploration.

In spite of obvious poverty, most Indians seem happy and energetic. They believe in something. Everyone has a little altar in his home for daily prayer. They live their spirituality. They love and help each other. Over and over again I witnessed the loving hospitality of these beautiful people. They may be poor, but they know about love.

Wandering through the mountain villages, and into the Valley of the Saints, I spoke with a variety of locals, holy men, and sages. Ultimately, I was directed by Swami Shivananda to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founding father of Transcendental Meditation (TM). He would become my mentor, guru, and friend. We would travel the world together spreading his words of love, peace, and the benefits of meditation. I would become a teacher of TM, an "initiator," which I continue to be to this day. When The Beatles, the most popular music group at the time, came to the ashram in India to learn from Maharishi, it helped open the door to the Western mind about the value of meditation. It was an exciting time. Spirituality spread from the East to the West!

What transpired from that point to now has taken me through cathartic transformation time and again. When I started meditation, friends would often express dismay, "You're not sick, you're not that old! Why do you need such a crutch?" In later years many of these same persons came to me for help. Starting out, my goal was finding if justice does exist in the universe. Now I know it does; nothing happens by chance, and everything happens for a reason.

I am a person interested in spirituality, but still live fully in this world. I have given up nothing; I have added to my life. The "path of the householder" does not require withdrawal, as does the "path of the monk." I have experienced "inner bliss," and the consciousness of "being." I have learned that love is an essential but earned emotion, and a sense of guilt is a waste of time. "As we sow, so shall we reap." Would I have done things differently when I look back on the past? Maybe, but it has been a learning process. And on the path I have encountered some of the most enchanting and intriguing personalities.

Maharishi teaches we must learn it all -- life, death, and after death. He says, "To learn only about life, is like taking a course in oceanography and only studying the waves." Over the years many spiritual students and friends have asked me, " How did you find your path? What is different with TM from prayer or guided relaxation? What has it done for you?" In writing this book I hope I have answered many questions. It has been an exciting life, and who knows what lies around the next corner.

Gratefulness is said to be one of the most spiritual of words. For this opportunity to share with you, I am most grateful. So, come along with me through my initial turbulent trials to a place of serenity. I went out looking for answers, India taught me where to find them -- they were within me all the time.

As you travel your own path through life, may you remember, all you need is love and faith.

-- NANCY COOKE DE HERRERA

***

Part One: Changing Focus on Life

1. Welcome to India

ON A DARK, STARLESS NIGHT in March of 1962, I had a premonition that I was about to take a step into the unknown as my plane descended onto the landing strip of Delhi, India. I knew I was on a search for some deeper understanding of my own spirituality. I had finished the book, Autobiography of a Yogi, after my husband, Luis de Herrera's death. A close friend, Ambassador B.K. (Biju, as I called him) Nehru, the Indian Ambassador to the United States, had sent it to me as a token of consolation. He felt it might give some answers to my many questions at that time about what happened once we passed on from this life. While reading this book, I became enveloped with the desire to know the truth, if any, there was to the stories about life after death.

While reading the book, I not only became fascinated with the life of Yogananda, but also became inspired by the India described in the footnotes throughout, and thus set out to seek some answers that I sensed might be found in this exotic land. Having experienced such grief at Luis's loss, I wanted to find something more to believe in than the "hellfire and damnation" that seemed to be layered in the Christian books I had read. I needed to have some hope that somehow we would be together once more. The possibility of it fueled my sense of adventure. Would this mystical land supply me with answers to the questions that had haunted me for seven years? After all, India was known as the cradle of spiritual knowledge. It raised my curiosity enough that once again in my life, I found myself taking the risk to step out into the unknown.

Little did I know that in the next weeks, months, and years, my journey would take me from the origin of the Ganges to the Valley of the Saints and back home to California, and back again. Time after time. It became a continuum, like a circle -- no beginning, and no end. How was I to know that this particular trip would change my life forever?

I had been traveling around the world as a goodwill personality with the U.S. State Department giving lectures on customs, costumes, and cultures. I was known as the U.S. Ambassadress of Fashion, and therefore, was accustomed to being welcomed by governments with a full agenda of activities awaiting me. On this night, however, I was an unofficial visitor, strictly on my own. India was a new horizon for me. Not knowing a soul in this ancient and mysterious country, I prayed that my good friend Tom Slick would be there to meet me.

Three months had passed since our last communication about my coming -- would he show up? I was to meet Tom, a Texas oilman and parapsychologist, and our plan was to roam the Himalayan foothills together calling on lamas, swamis, and yogis. While Tom was searching for psychic phenomena, levitation, teleportation, and materialization, I would follow my own search.

When a steward opened the door of the plane, an earthy fragrance filled the cabin. A wave of insecurity washed over me as I climbed down the ramp and looked through the airport lights for the customs house. Then as the soft air caressed me, a thrill of anticipation pushed away my insecurities.

"I'm finally in India. This is the moment I have been waiting for."

I'd come directly from Tehran where, as a guest of the Shah of Iran, I had presented a fashion show to provide publicity for The New Path Society. This was a group of Iranian women who were attempting to ban the obligatory usage of the chador and the facial veil that the women had been wearing for centuries.

"Where is my natural love of adventure?" I silently asked, prodding myself into a confident air. "No matter what happens, it will be fine. If Tom's not here, I'll check into a hotel and in a few days go on to Bangkok."

We were herded into a low, tin-roofed shed glaring with fluorescent lights. A uniformed Indian reached for my suitcase keys, asking in clipped English, "Have you anything to declare, Memsahib?" I shook my head, indicating no, and scanned the crowd teeming in the balmy air around me. Standing nearly six feet tall, I looked out over the crowd but saw nothing familiar. "Oh please, Tom, be here. I have such expectations for this trip."

Emaciated bearers waited by the exit, their somber eyes scrutinizing the passengers. One porter placed three large suitcases on another's head. White-turbaned Sikhs with dark faces and curled up beards milled among brown-skinned women in bright saris. Then, finally, a broad, sunburned forehead framed by prematurely gray hair and mystical, silver-blue eyes peered through the congestion. A smile of recognition lighted the face.

"Tom, over here!" I pushed my way past the passengers. "Boy, am I glad to see you. I was wondering what I'd do if you were not here."

Tom gave me a hug and laughed. "Welcome to India," he said. "You look like a rhapsody in blue. And that blonde mane of yours is like a beacon in this place. You were easy to find."

While at Yale, Tom opted for a life of scientific research rather than the world of oil exploration. From a fortune in huge oil deposits discovered by his late father, he had the financial reserves to make such a choice.

He had established several important foundations, but his favorite was The Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, and nothing was too unusual for him to consider. Several months before, I accompanied him looking for Bigfoot (also known as the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman) in the Trinity Alps, a primitive area of Northern California.

A well-built 5'9", Tom, intellectually and spiritually, was my soul mate. He challenged my horizons, he excited me with his ideas, and I felt safe with him. Romantically, time would tell. Neither of us was pushing for a commitment, although we had a close relationship. For now, I was thrilled by his presence.

Tom frowned at my four-inch heels. "Let's get you off those stilts and down to my size. From now on you'll be in hiking boots and khaki."

"I'll be delighted to get out of these clothes, but I had to make an elegant departure from Tehran."

"You will find plenty of material here for your next lecture series."

"I've already thought of that. My agent will make a new brochure with the pictures I'll bring back."

Tom signaled a turbaned porter to secure my bags, and soon we were in an old-fashioned taxi rattling into the night. Little could be seen in the darkness; wooden-wheeled bullock carts passed silently in the opposite direction, their shrouded drivers asleep as the animals patiently plodded along. There was almost no traffic, other than a stray cow or two.

Excitement had pushed away my fatigue. "Okay, I'm here ... ready to go ... when do we start?"

"Early tomorrow morning. But the first order of business is to get you to the hotel and to sleep. Later this afternoon, an Indian parapsychologist from Rajasthan University, Ranjit Ganguli, will join us. He'll bring a Yogiwho will demonstrate complete control over his body. While we take his pulse, he will stop his heartbeat for minutes; then he'll send blood to any part of his body we indicate."

"It sounds fascinating."

"It could be more than fascinating -- it could be very practical," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. I ignored his innuendo; my interest was on our travel plans.

"Later you can take a tour of the city, and tonight we go to a ball at the French Embassy."

"And tomorrow, where do we go?"

"To A1mora, in the mountains near the Tibetan border. Hopefully, we will find Lama Anagarika Govinda. Govinda is translating Buddhist works into books for Western readers. He's well-known in England where he lectures yearly."

This was particularly interesting to me. Previously, during a period of stress and indecision in my life, I had sought answers in Buddhist literature. However, even though the Buddhist emphasis on compassion attracted me, I found the writings unfathomable. I would need to learn a new language to understand the texts.

Religion had always fascinated me. At times this interest got me into trouble. During the seventh grade, while attending a private convent, I asked so many questions during catechism the nuns finally dismissed me from class and had me take art during that hour instead. Yes, I looked forward to meeting Govinda.

Soon our car turned off Jan Path, Delhi's main shopping thoroughfare, into a driveway lined with stately palm trees that led to the Imperial Oberoi Hotel. A magnificently uniformed Sikh doorman greeted us and led the way into a dark wood-paneled lobby, straight out of the thirties. It was inviting and appropriate. Again I noticed the smell of India. It seemed to impart a mixture of flowers, smoke, and earth.

An hour later, unpacked, bathed, and lying on cool sheets, I watched the ceiling fan turn slowly, my thoughts turning with it. "Am I really here resting on a hotel bed in India?" As far away from my family in California as I could be, I wondered what my three sons and daughter were doing. It was yesterday for them, I realized.

A flood of love and gratitude washed over me as I thought of Mother. By living with us, and with the help of our housekeeper, she made it possible for me to follow my career. My two sisters also lived nearby, completing this support system.

A year after my husband's death in Argentina, we left our home in Buenos Aires and all the happy memories it contained, and returned to San Francisco. It was a painful but correct decision, and now, seven years later, things were going well; my children were thriving, and I loved my profession, along with the financial stability it provided.

With this contented thought, and to the sounds of birds greeting the Indian day, jet lag won out and I fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, Tom, Ranjit Ganguli -- an earnest young Indian -- and I set out on our journey in a brand new Dodge, a real luxury in India. Our Sikh driver, Kali, was so proud of his car that every time we came to a bump in the road he made us get out and walk. Then when the radiator boiled over, we found he didn't know how to open the hood.

"I think we're in for trouble," announced Tom. "We would have been smarter to stick to the Indian-made Ambassador car; every driver knows how to fix them."

We traveled over rough terrain, across the hot Ganges plain as we headed north. The hours passed rapidly, as everything was a feast for the eyes. Tom was an encyclopedia on India. "The first time I came here I hated it; the next trip I fell in love with it. It's important to meet this country properly." This was his eighth trip, so I knew I was in good hands.

At night while the driver slept in the car, Ranjit, Tom, and I shared Spartan sleeping quarters, usually a DAK bungalow, a kind of primitive cement hut built by the British for passing travelers. We bathed out of a bucket, and our beds consisted of four posts and a webbed frame over which we spread our bedrolls -- hardly conducive to flaming romance.

For food by day, I lived on hardboiled eggs, fresh oranges, bananas, and peanut butter, rather than eat in the dirty places available. "If you stick to Punjabi food straight out of the boiling oil, you will be safe," cautioned Tom, but I treasured my powdered milk and the other staples I'd picked up in Delhi. At night we'd get the DAK bungalow attendant to buy fresh vegetables, which were plentiful, and cook our meal over a small fire in front of us. This way I knew what we were eating -- I was taking no chances with dysentery.

Soon snow-capped mountains were visible, but it was slow going. We had just spent a day waiting for a mechanic to come from a far away village to fix the car. Tom had had it with delays; he decided to go on without the troublesome Dodge or its driver. "Kali will go back and we will continue by bus."

The bus was memorable. The windows were so dirty one could hardly see out. A leathery-faced old hillsman sat backwards, cleaning his teeth with a stick and staring at me without interruption.

"You are a one-woman show for him," laughed my companion. "He may never have seen blue eyes before."

The bus driver rarely took his hand off the horn. Women got on with naked babies, and everyone took turns helping the mothers. It didn't matter that the baby would wet the pants of the obliging passenger. Everyone laughed and chatted. I felt as though I were on the "Toonerville Trolley." When we came to villages, we got down to tend to bathroom necessities -- it was my introduction to standing on two footblocks and squatting.

It was getting cold as we gained altitude. "Look at that, Tom, I'm impressed! In spite of this chilly weather, those people are bathing. They wash their few rags and then put them on again."

He explained, "It's part of the Hindu religion to bathe daily, even if it means going into a cold river. You rarely smell any body odor amongst the hill people."

There was constant activity in the villages. Everyone seemed to have a job to do. "These people don't seem to be starving, as most Westerners think," I remarked.

"It is all worked out on a barter system. When statistics report that the average Indian lives on only two rupees a day, it's misleading."

Finally we arrived in the hill station of Almora. The imprint of the British Raj still remained in the architecture of what had originally been summer residences. Lama Govinda's home was another five miles of walking. So huffing, puffing, and suffering in the thin, cold air at 6,000 feet, we traversed the final mountain slope astonished by the magnificent scenery around us.

With no means of communication, there was no way to ascertain that the Lama would be there, or that he would receive us. Tom explained the term lama as when a Buddhist monk becomes a teacher and has a following, he earns the title of lama.

Finally, a small stone house came into view. A tall pole stood between the building and us. From its top fluttered long white clothes covered with strange print. Tom explained, "These are Buddhist prayer flags. Each Tibetan family has its own prayer mark; they use it to stamp cloth after cloth until they create a whole grove of flags as evidence of their devotion. As the wind blows, the prayers flutter their way up to heaven." I thought, "What fun to do this at home."

The heavy rough-hewn front door opened and a thin, angular-faced European woman stood on the threshold. With long, flowing robes and her hair tucked into a hood that arched over her dark-rimmed eyes, she could have been from another century. Hardly pausing to study us, she tipped her head to the side with a smile and said, "I am Li Gotami, the lama's wife. My husband is working, but he will be pleased to receive you." We felt such relief at her welcome.

Li Gotami escorted us into a small, bare room. The whitewashed, stone walls bore the scant decoration of mandalas, portraits of monks, and mountain scenes. There was little furniture on the stone floor. Thangkas, Tibetan scrolls, hung from the ceiling.

On a carpeted platform, spotlighted by sunshine beaming through a tall window, sat a frail figure. Above his burgundy and saffron robes, the man wore a loose wool cap, which hung below his ears and rose to a point high over his head. This framed a thin face with bushy eyebrows, deep-hollowed blue eyes, and an aquiline nose. A thin white beard hung from the tip of his chin. This was Govinda; born to German parents in Bolivia, he was, at 64, the most revered Western-born lama.

I followed Tom's example and greeted him with my hands pressed together -- prayer like -- in namaste fashion, the traditional Indian salutation. Then I ventured, "Mi querido Padre. Con mucho gusto conocerle."

"Gracias -- y yo tambien, Senora."

Govinda inquired about my Spanish and how I happened to have a name like de Herrera.

"My late husband was an Uruguayan."

Govinda bobbed his head enthusiastically. "Yes, yes ... I know that continent well. My grandfather was a comrade in arms to Simon Bolivar, one of the gran libertadores of South America." With this, he gestured for us to sit on cushions lying on the floor.

"Your Holiness," Tom said, introducing himself. "I have come to you for help. I am seeking proof of psychic and physical phenomena that can be repeated under scientifically controlled conditions at my Mind Science Foundation in Texas. I believe that if we can demonstrate these abilities in a manner beyond dispute, we will be able to get our foot in the door of the Western mind and open up new realms for exploration."

Govinda's face exhibited little. He drew Tom out, asking him to enlarge on some of his points. Then he seemed to make up his mind; evidently he would trust this stranger's motives and talk freely. I felt relief; I'd been praying for four days that this would not be a false lead.

"To us Buddhists, such attempts to 'prove' extrasensory perception through scientific tests seem crude and laughable. The conditions for these experiments are in themselves the greatest hindrance to any success." Govinda's cheeks flushed. He paused and cleared his throat. "By reaching for objectivity, you exclude the emotional and spiritual elements of the human mind, without which no state of real contemplation can be created."

We were jolted by his concise appraisal. Seeing the expression on my face, Govinda softened his voice. "In Tibet, our concentration and psychic sensibility is greatly increased in the solitude and silence of nature. The mind is not blunted and diverted from itself by the noise and activity of modern life. Rather, it becomes spiritually attuned and can enter into a silent communication with other attuned minds." His eyes shifted back toward Tom as he gently added, "Thus, telepathy is common among Tibetans."


Tibetan children at the Self-Help Center (Mussoorie, India)

Whether it was the musky incense or the conviction of this uncommon man, I sensed myself slipping into another dimension. Govinda continued, "Whenever the object of concentration comes before the mind, it takes on a greater reality and can then be held and contemplated with full attention. The past is telescoped into the present and the present shows itself not as a dividing line between a past that has died and a future that has yet to be born, but as a single aspect of the co-existence and continuous body of living experience in four dimensions .... "

"Do you believe in the existence of the fourth dimension?"

"It is amusing, young man, that just two weeks ago a Professor Heisenberg came here to ask me about that subject."

"Heisenberg!" I was astonished. Recently I had read an article about Heisenberg, the discoverer of quantum physics. I almost shouted, "The man who won the Nobel Prize? Do you mean he came all the way here?"

Govinda nodded, "Yes, that is the same man. Apparently, modern mathematicians are reaching such complicated answers they need to learn about the fourth dimension in order to explain them. They know we understand this dimension." He smiled as he shared this confidence.

Excitedly, Tom pursued the topic and soon the lama was describing one of his own psychic experiences. He related how lung gumpa, the Tibetan walking levitation, came over him once in a perilous situation and brought him back to safety ... he was able to walk across a lake!

Tom concentrated on getting an exact description of the event, but I felt he was ignoring the state of mind, which evokes such feats-the physical phenomenon was but the momentary effect of a mental state, which could have far greater implication in our lives. Govinda was showing us a path to unlimited possibilities. Casting aside my timidity, I asked, "Your Holiness, if one is interested in seeking spiritual knowledge, how should one begin?"

"First you must practice meditation, my lady. Meditation is essential for the evolution of the soul."

"But how do I learn this?" The cushion on the floor was no longer un-comfortable.

"You will need a teacher. He will teach you ... there are many forms of meditation. Some use the breath, some a mantra, some use colors .... "

"What is a mantra?"

"It is a sacred sound vibration which awakens and stimulates the intuitive qualities of the mind. But leave this to your guru; he will know what is best for you." His eyes penetrated mine as he said, "Always remember, your guru will be in a mortal body and only be a certain percent divine; so forgive his weakness and keep your eye on the divine."

"Your Holiness, do you believe in reincarnation?"

He smiled, "Yes, we believe the soul evolves through many lifetimes."

Later, Tom said that was like asking the lama if he breathed. But I wasn't discouraged; I had to begin somewhere. Ever since my husband's death, I had been looking for assurance that there is justice in the universe. I had already concluded it involved more than one lifetime to work out that justice, so Govinda's words encouraged me.

Later that afternoon as we descended the mountainside, I felt as if I were walking on clouds. I was dizzy and my vision out of focus. The world around me seemed like a Van Gogh painting. I could see swirls spinning in cartwheels against the alpenglow. Everything was in motion.

"Tom, I don't know what's happening. I have such a strange feeling, as if I were drunk."

He laughed, "You have become 'sensitized.' Just by sitting near such a saintly man, you receive his darshan, the energy, the good vibrations."

"I feel as though my heart will break open, it's so full of happiness. Boy, if we could ever bottle this, we'd retire for life!"

"Speaking of bottles, is that a bottle of scotch I see in that store?" We had come into a local center; on both sides of the road were little stall-like shops. This particular shop sold everything from soap to incense -- and scotch. The Haig and Haig was dirty but intact. The proprietor said he'd had it for over ten years. "I bet he was getting worried that he'd never sell it," said Tom.

Later we celebrated in the men's waiting room at the railroad station, where we spent the night on benches. There were no hotels, and I refused to stay alone in the women's section. From my knapsack I produced a can of caviar I'd brought from Iran. We had a party while Ranjit looked on with distaste. I don't know whether it was due to our repast, or due to the fact that I, a woman, was in the men's room.

The morning train took us to Dehradun, a former site of a major British cantonment. After a splendid cup of tea, it was the bus again, this time to Hardwar, the second most holy place in India, located on the banks of the Ganges. As it was my first glimpse of the sacred river, I insisted on running down the ghat steps and wading in the water before we started our search for a revered yogi Tom had been told about.

We had a name and no directions, but miraculously we found him sitting on top of a cement temple, his naked body baking in the sun.

After Ranjit convinced him in Hindi, the little dried-up man begrudgingly agreed to talk to us. He asked for a glass of water to illustrate his point. When the glass appeared, we were each requested to touch the water. The yogi then held it quietly, and we watched the liquid turn solid! Ranjit then asked us to touch it again to verify that it was now ice. We were thunderstruck] We had not expected anything like this. The man wore only a loincloth, had no props, it was a hot day, and we were not hypnotized.

The holy man told Ranjit, "Water is made up of so many molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. Ice is the same; all I have done is to change the characteristic of the water by altering the rate of vibration of the molecules."

Scowling, he continued, "You are scientists; can you control nature peacefully? You will destroy the world with your science; leave this place and bother us no more, or stay and learn union with God." His eyes shut in dismissal.

Later, in a noisy taxi we debated about what we'd seen. "There is no scientific explanation for what we have just observed." I had majored in chemistry at Stanford; I was scientifically oriented.

"Agreed, but the title yogi is given only after the individual demonstrates his ability to control nature," Tom pointed out. "That old boy sure earned his credentials. If only I'd had a movie camera."

"Someone would insist you'd faked it," I consoled, but I knew we had just witnessed something that was impossible.

Tom was in high spirits ... now he knew this expedition would make history. "Our next goal is to find a swami named Sivananda who lives in Rishikesh." It was 13 miles north of Hardwar over a windy road full of potholes, which did not slow down our driver for a minute. He roared through the congestion of carts, animals, bicycles, and horsedrawn tongas, buggies, overloaded with passengers. Tom chuckled as I held my breath and prayed. "I don't think it's our karma to be killed on the way to The Valley of the Saints."

"The hell with our karma, what if the driver thinks it's good for his karma to die in such a holy place?"

It's called The Valley of the Saints because of the holy men who live there near the headwaters of the Mother Ganga. The valley is dotted with numerous temples and ashrams, or religious academies. Most of these clustered near the town, perched on the river bank. Sivananda, the most revered of the saints, had the largest ashram in this spiritual center.

The streets were lined with small wooden stalls. Through the car window I could make out piles of vegetables, dried grains, brassware, brightly colored yard goods, religious objects, and crudely made household tools. Men haggled over prices while others gathered around open braziers, where turbaned Sikhs prepared vegetable dishes in wok-like pans filled with spitting hot oil. The enticing scent of curry was everywhere.

Suddenly our driver screeched to a halt. Ahead, like a sea of dirty laundry, swirled an impenetrable confusion of carts and pedestrians. He turned his sweat-beaded brow to Tom and said, "You walk now, Sahib."

Tom leaned forward, "How will we find The Divine Life Forest Academy?"

"No problem, Sahib. It is very close." He pointed to a street corner about a hundred yards away, "There turn right, walk down to river embankment and turn left. Ashram easy to find." The din enveloped his singsong English as Tom opened the door. I put my dark glasses on to ease the glare and keep out the dust. Beggars and hawkers ran up trying to attract our attention and money. Tom grabbed our daybag and pulled me by the hand, ignoring pleas and gestures of baksheesh.

There were no sidewalks, so we zigzagged down the center of the dusty, clay road -- retreating to the sides every few steps to avoid rickshaws and carts. Making our way slowly, we encountered a group of lepers sitting on the side of the street. They were horribly disfigured. Some balanced their dented cups between handless limbs; without lips or noses they pleaded for alms. Others held out their walking sticks to bar our passage and force a gift from us. I froze, not wanting to touch anything they had handled.

"Here, take these small coins," Tom said, forcing them into my paralyzed hand, "Put one in each cup and they'll leave you alone."

I did what he said, but tried not to look at the pathetic creatures. It was hard to realize they were human -- this thought made me feel guilty. "Oh, Tom, why must people exist in such horrible condition?"

"Yes, I know, but the Indian government does provide a place for lepers to live."

"Can you imagine what those places are like if they'd rather live here and beg?"

We began to walk faster. Just before the corner a rickshaw backed us against the wall; I felt a hand lightly tap my shoulder, "Baksheesh, Memsahib?"

I spun around to see a naked man daubed all over with ashes. His black hair was coiled on top of his head and a huge live snake hung from his neck. I gasped and threw my last coins at him.

Tom tugged me around the corner; nothing seemed to faze him. "The driver said to turn here ... " The crowd thinned out as we descended toward the swiftly flowing waters of the Ganges. Across the wide river whitewashed domes and temples fringed the far bank. All appeared empty except for one huge building, which was entirely covered with ornate printing.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It is the Gita Bhavan. A wealthy and devout Hindu built it to shelter those who want to study the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures. The decorative printings are Vedic quotes."

Suddenly on our left was a high wall. Crude brick stairs ran up its side and ended in a gated archway. Square black letters surrounded by colored lights announced Sivananda's ashram.

We must have been observed climbing the stairs, for as we crossed the stone courtyard, a gaunt, dark Indian in white robes came out of a room on the far side and walked toward us in greeting.

"I am Chidananda, secretary and disciple to His Holiness Swami Sivananda." When he heard why we had come, he smiled, "You are in luck. His Holiness has just come out of a long meditation and will be giving an audience shortly. But we must hurry."

We followed him into the main building and down a stairway to a basement called the "meeting cave." He seated us on a wooden bench against a cold, damp wall, and excused himself. Other disciples, or chelas, of the Swami, Westerners mostly, had already gathered in the room. They sat on pillows strewn about the earthen floor. Their heads were shaven and their white robes bespoke their devotion. Tom and I shifted on our bench, trying to be comfortable without leaning against the wet wall.

Little light came into the cave and many candles were burning. Smoke mingled with the sinuous trails of incense and the sweet aroma of flowers. Potted plants were clustered near a chair at one end of the room. Mildewed and peeling whitewashed walls were heavily decorated with religious paintings depicting blue Krishnas, photographs of sadhus, or holy beggars, and figurines of animal-headed gods. Between these hung garlands of dusty artificial flowers. Some of the chelas sat in the lotus posture with their eyes closed, their hands cradling a humble offering to their master. Others lounged, talking to their colleagues, glancing at us with interest. There were about 20 in all.

Chidananda reappeared at a door near the chair. Turning and looking expectantly back through the opening, he slowly retreated from the entrance. "The master is coming," he announced quietly. The students jumped to their feet and held out their offerings, making short, shallow bows and uttering low chanting sounds.

A broad, hairless, yellow-brown head floated calmly into the room. Chelas threw themselves to the floor to kiss Sivananda's feet. The massive holy man slowly made his way through the commotion, waving blessings to all. He accepted fruit and flowers from those in his path, while others stood behind him, bestrewing his coat with rose petals. Finally, when he stood before his chair, he motioned for everyone to sit and then did so himself.

A disciple picked his way through the crowd and received permission to place a heavy garland of orange targate flowers around the Swami's neck. Sivananda put his feet on a stool, revealing velvet boots. He beamed as he slowly reviewed his congregation. A camel-hair coat magnified his immense frame. His brown eyes appeared slightly crossed behind a bulbous nose, but this did not negate a powerful, confident demeanor.

When his gaze came around to us, he called Chidananda to his side. Learning who we were, he welcomed us to his ashram in good English. He instructed his secretary to take the garland from his shoulders and to place it on mine. Everyone turned to look at me; it was an honor, but it was heavy and I felt like a horse that had just won the Derby.

Sivananda intoned to his chelas, "Come, let's have one of you rise and tell our guests what you have learned here at the Academy." Not one, but more than half the gathering stood up in turn and told of their gratitude and love for their master, for the wisdom he bestowed on them. Then the Swami began a discourse. He pitched his comments toward Tom, turning to us while describing the achievements of science.

Taking advantage of a pause, Tom asked rhetorically if scientific knowledge was leading to peace. The answer came back, "No, to destruction! In order to generate peaceful vibrations, one must possess individual tranquility, which alone will pave the way to world peace. This requires self-discipline ... this is what we practice here."

Giving Tom a confident smile, he concluded, "A scientist without discipline is a danger to the world. You should learn to meditate."

My thoughts went back to the irate "ice yogi." Evidently, science was a dirty word in the Valley. How differently Lama Govinda had received Tom as a scientist.

Tom was nonplused by the Swami's ardor, but asked, "Your Holiness, could you explain about meditation? What does it offer a scientist?"

"What are the benefits of meditation?" A smile flickered across his face, and he played to the crowd. He talked at length about meditation and its goals. "Meditation helps the mind to rule the senses and the practitioner to control his mind." This quickly led into a description of the path to God-realization, and, prompted by questions from the chelas, to comments on the Divine Presence, Advaitic Unity, Sadhana -- Atmic Glory -- we were lost. Was he speaking English? The garland got heavier. I was tempted to take it off, but was afraid of insulting some tradition.

When the discourse ended, Sivananda came over and sat between Tom and me, ordering a chela to take a picture. An ancient camera was produced which made a flash and a puff of white smoke. Only when he took leave of us did I notice his wrinkled hands and realize he was a very old man.

As the Swami left, the students chanted and rang small bells ... they ignited powders and passed around strange things to eat, combinations of seeds, pastes, and dried fruits. Leery of food prepared by unclean hands, I took no chances, and, pretending to eat, dropped what I was given inside the front of my blouse.

After Sivananda retired, Chidananda came over and sat next to me. "What did you think of Swamiji?" He used the suffix-ji, which I had learned was a form of endearment.

There being no point in pretense, I said, "My impressions are somewhat negative. All the ritual and the kissing of feet are simply not for me."

Chidananda's face showed compassion. "Yes, I could see that in your expression. There is much you do not understand." He gestured for Tom to listen and continued. "If Swamiji could have his way, none of this obeisance would take place. When he first came out of the forest where he lived for years in solitude, people fell to the ground to kiss his feet. He had no choice but to let them show their devotion to him in such humble ways, or they felt themselves unworthy."

That seemed rational to me. He then went on to tell us about the Academy and its students, and describe their practice of self-discipline. He encouraged me to ask questions and later, as he escorted us to the gate, asked me, "Did you ever think of finding a guru for yourself?"

"Yes, I'm looking for a teacher to guide me, but I'm not ready to renounce my worldly life. It's a dilemma for me."

Chidananda's eyes darkened, "Yes, it is hard to renounce." Then he brightened and offered, "Perhaps I can help you. There is a swami, very respected by Sivananda, with an ashram across the river who appeals to Western students. He teaches the path of the householder, and requires no withdrawal from worldly activity. You might talk with him; his name is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Perhaps he will be the teacher for you. If not, do not worry, we have a saying here: 'When the chela [student] is ready, the master appears.'''

We bid the friendly holy man goodbye and headed for the river to find the man named Mahesh. Tom was just as curious as I. A barge-like boat was departing for the opposite bank and we asked if we could ride along; already overcrowded, the passengers made room for us. Quietly, numerous pairs of dark eyes stared at us. I tried to pull myself in from being touched by the ash-covered saint sitting next to me.

Tom had explained, "The ashes keep him warm."

A small child extended her hand to my hair. Her mother explained, "Please excuse my daughter. She has a doll with hair like yours, and wants to touch it." We laughed and answered her questions as to where we were from and what we were doing there. Before long we reached the other side and asked a kind-looking man on the shore where we might find Mahesh and directions to the ashram.

"Oh, you are too late. Maharishi has just left for California. It is a pity; he is a very respected teacher."

So we were saved a climb up the hill. Little did I know then how many times I would return to this exact place in the future and make that climb.

THE YOGA-VEDANTA FOREST ACADEMY
P.O. SIVANANDANAGAR, RISHIKESH
DIST. DEHRA DUN, HIMALAYAS, lNDIA.

Founder
Sri Swami Sivananda

17.6.62

Srl Nancy Cooke,
California.

Rev. Immortal Self,

Salutations and adorations. Om Namo Narayanaya.

I am delighted to go through the contents of your kind letter of the 8th instant.

Kindly send a copy of the book that you are intending to publish for our library. I am sure your notes and experiences on your trip here with Mr. Glick will prove to be of great inspiration to others in your country and our own students here.

All your friends are welcome to this abode. Welcome to all of them! I shall attend to them all and serve them. I am sure by your efforts and influence more and more of your countrymen will take interest in the Eastern culture and philosophy and find peace and solace in them.

May Lord bless you all with fine health, long life, joy, peace and eternal happiness!

Will deep regards, Prem and OM,

Thy own Self,

Sivananda

[admin]

Chapter 2. An Offering of Miracles, and Chapter 3. Atomic Death, from "All You Need is Love: An Eyewitness Account of When Spirituality Spread from the East to the West" [Excerpt]
by Nancy Cooke de Herrera
Foreword by Deepak Chopra
© 2003 by Nancy Cooke de Herrera

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

2. An Offering of Miracles

FOR WEEKS WE TRAVELED by rickshaw, oxcart, train, taxi, and bus. Sometimes during that month our quest was in vain, other times successful. Our bedrolls got grimier by the day, but the soul of India had entered my heart. This exotic land captivated me, and my mind was being blown open by what I was witnessing.

In Srinagar, capital of Kashmir, we interviewed a young boy with a special ability. By covering his head with a black bag and concentrating on the whereabouts of a particular person described to him, he would go into a trance, and tell in detail the location of that individual. By this method he had helped the police recover the body of a drowned child after all other attempts had failed. The body was covered by weeds in Dal Lake.

Near Amritsar, then capital of Punjab, a man read the Bhrigu Samhita, the book of life, for us. Finding the corresponding palm leaf, marked in mulberry juice with the correct astrological signs for that day, he told Tom his past, present, and future; as it turned out, he was accurate about the past, but way off on the future.

Tom was so hopeful and became exasperated with me when on occasion I would point out how easily something could have been faked. After one demonstration I spoke out, "Give me an hour and all those robes and I bet I could do better. You talk about scientific, controlled conditions -- that was a complete con-job!" I was worried that Tom, in his eagerness to find phenomena, would be fooled.

By late March, we looked forward to one of the highlights of our expedition -- a visit to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama, God-King of the Tibetans. We lucked out; a forest ranger lent us his jeep and driver. However, while passing through the Kumaon Forest, made famous by Jim Corbett's book on tiger hunting in this region, we got stuck in a river. Night was falling, and our driver became increasingly anxious about man-eating tigers, "See those cliffs ahead, Memsahib; the people are too poor to burn their dead, so they throw the bodies over the cliffs. The tigers are used to man-meat."

This news startled us. Tom remarked, "All we have to protect ourselves are fishing poles. Maybe we'd better listen to the driver and spend the night in the temple he insists on going to."

I was so disappointed; I'd been looking forward to the hotel in Dharamsala -- especially to the use of a Western toilet. It was a ghastly night, surrounded by sleeping and coughing bodies. Poor people; I'm sure I heard a few give a last agonized gasp. In the morning I insisted on taking a cold bath out of a bucket, "I'm not going to call on a God-King covered with negative vibrations." Tom tolerated my outburst; I'd been a good sport so far.

Dharamsala, where His Holiness resided, is near the Tibetan border at 7,000 feet. As we wound up the mountain, we observed the precautions the Indian Army was taking to protect the revered holy man. At every turn were tanks, guns, and troops. India had granted him political asylum after his spectacular escape from Tibet. For three months after leaving Lhasa, the God-King, and the thousands who followed him into exile, disappeared until he arrived in India. The Chinese planned to kill him and put the Panchen Lama in his place.

Just before reaching the summit, we met a large group of Tibetan children parading down the hill, each carrying a long white scarf. They greeted us with happy faces, cheeks pink from the brisk air. With youthful energy they hailed us, "Jole, where are you from? California, is that in America?"

An older man, who seemed to be in charge, came forward. He wore a Tibetan hat, its crown covered with dusty brocade; the fur-lined earflaps were turned up like a Dutch girl's cap. His heavy, black padded robe hung below his knees and was thrown off one shoulder and caught in the middle by a wide leather belt. A long turquoise and coral earring hung from one ear only. When he smiled, he showed large, stained teeth.

"It is most auspicious that you arrive at this time. His Holiness has just come out of two weeks of silence. Today we are celebrating the second anniversary of his escape from Lhasa. These children were just received by him." He gave us directions and went on his way.

With renewed excitement, we continued up the steep grade. When we came to the gate and the guards protecting the holy residence, we presented the letter we had prepared in advance requesting an audience. Within minutes, a young man with a gaunt, high-cheekboned face approached us from within the official compound.

"I am Sonam Kazi, interpreter for His Holiness." He held out his hand in greeting, and shook ours with enthusiasm. "If you will follow me, I will take you to him. He will be very happy to receive you on this special day." We were elated. Kazi's English was excellent.

We followed his long, black-coated figure up the hill to what must have been an old English summer bungalow with green wooden shingles, and leaded glass windows. It was surrounded by pine trees and overlooked a magnificent view of the mountains and Gangetic plains below. I could feel the altitude as we walked up the Lingkor, the holy path that circled the residence in exile. We passed pilgrims making rounds, repeating their mantras, and spinning their miniature prayer wheels.

We entered a friendly, faded-chintz-covered room. There was the assorted furniture usually found in summer places -- what didn't fit somewhere else was sent here. The floor was covered with Tibetan carpets of all sizes; the furniture was large, overstuffed, and comfortable. Little wooden tables, an umbrella stand, thangkas, books, magazines -- all added to the busy friendliness of the room. Kazi stopped us. "No, you do not need to take off your shoes."

Before we could be seated, a tall young man briskly entered the room from the rear. A spicy scent of incense arrived with him. His face was long and cleanly shaven. He wore eyeglasses, which accented his penetrating gaze. We knew him to be in his late twenties.

Kazi stepped forward, "I have the honor of presenting His Holiness, the Dalai Lama." We made the sign of namaste. I presented my khata, a white ceremonial scarf, and we seated ourselves as directed on the couch. I was thrilled -- we were sitting two feet away from a God-King.

The Dalai Lama wore Western men's shoes and trousers; a long, wine-colored robe with saffron-colored lining covered these. His right hand fingered his prayer beads. As we related, through Kazi, the purpose of our trip, he watched our faces with keen interest. However, he brushed aside the subject of psychic phenomena. "What Iwant you to hear is about the genocide being practiced against my people by the Chinese. The outside world does not know the truth."

The cruelties he spoke of were almost unbelievable -- the killing of thousands of priests, the raping of nuns, the refugees fleeing out over treacherous mountain passes with new stories of their ruthless captors.

"Hundreds of monasteries have been destroyed. These were the centers of our Tibetan culture."

As he told us of the thousands who had lost their lives in attempting to escape, his serious face was filled with sadness. "Instead of bringing their own belongings, they carried out the holy scriptures, the Kangyur, printed on palm leaves hundreds of years old and carefully wrapped in cloth." Kazi brought one for us to see.


Presenting khata to His Holiness the Dali Lama (Dharamsala, India, 1962).

"In order to keep our tradition alive, we must get as many young children out of Tibet as possible. We need money to build schools. Switzerland, Norway, and the United States have been very kind to us. We will get our country back one day, but it may be a hundred years or so. Time means nothing to a Tibetan."

Soon the hour we had been allotted had passed. Catching Tom's eye, I signaled it was time. Kazi nodded his head in agreement. Standing up, we expressed our thanks to His Holiness for receiving us, and I added, "You can be sure I will pass on all I have heard to my audiences, and Mr. Slick will help through his education foundation. He has a special affection for Tibetans and Sherpas ever since he organized a group of them and went hunting for the Yeti."

"What do you know about the Yeti?" came in English from His Holiness. It surprised us to hear him speak directly after having spoken through an interpreter for an hour. Now he came forward, took each of us by the arm, and said, "Please stay; my English is poor, but there is much to talk about."

"Do you believe in the existence of the Yeti?" I asked.

"First, tell me what you know about the Yeti."

Luckily, Tom always carried photos of the evidence he had collected to prove the existence of this legendary creature. He dug into his pockets, and minutes later the three of us had our heads together like a group of conspirators. The pictures were of Yeti footprints, a skull, the droppings, and a lair where the creature supposedly gave birth.

As I sat there, I kept reminding myself who this man was. He was so likeable and easygoing. Tom had told me, "For two years after the death of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, the court lamas searched until they found him as a small child." While a youth, he was cloistered from contact with outsiders except on religious occasions, yet at this moment he was like any young man, swapping adventure stories.

Everyone who lived in Dharamsala, and thousands of Tibetan refugees in India, were there only to be near him, the same man who at this point was asking Tom to describe the droppings of the Yeti!

Only after exhausting Tom's information did His Holiness tell us, "Yes, I am convinced of the existence of the Yeti. One of my most respected lamas told me of a creature who would come each day and help him draw water from the well. It was very similar to yours, Mr. Slick."

His face was animated now; it was easy to see this was a subject of great interest to him. "Another lama reported to me that a similar creature would visit his hermitage every week or so to eat the grain he spread out on the frozen ground. He knew when it was approaching by the strong smell that preceded it."

'That is evidently why it got the name of the Abominable Snowman," added Tom. "Was he ever able to tame this creature?"

"No, but it continued its visits for a long period of time -- especially during the winter months when food was hard to find. They usually eat the blossoms of the rhododendron trees and wild berries. They are not carnivorous."

All barriers to friendship were soon dissolved when Tom volunteered to raise money for schools. His Holiness then came forward with an offer, which electrified us. "I am convinced of your dedication, Mr. Slick. If you will bear all expenses of the project, I will send three of my lamas to your foundation in Texas, and they will exhibit the power of man to levitate, materialize objects, and to pull the load of seven elephants under duress!"

We were stunned. Was it possible? Our search was over; Tom had found what he had come to India for. I was elated at having been part of such an important expedition. Plans were made for follow through, and when we finally took leave, we shook hands with the God-King, promising to tell the Western world about the Chinese atrocities.

We floated down the hill to where Ranjit awaited, as the guards had not allowed him to accompany us. He would be so happy to return home. On many occasions he had asked me, "Are all Americans so full of energy?" He had difficulty in keeping up with us.

Little fat dogs yapped at our feet, and soon a curious crowd gathered around us while we related our experience to our Indian companion. Kazi explained, "Many of them have never seen a European before. They would like you to share tea with them."

Smiling, Tom watched me as I took my first sip.

"Oh my God, what's in this?"

He laughed, "It is tea made with rancid yak butter and salt; it is very good for keeping the body temperature up in cold weather."

The taste was unexpected and nauseating. It prompted my ungracious reply, "The heck with my temperature going up, my problem will be in keeping the tea down!"

***

3. Atomic Death

By EUROPEAN STANDARDS, the Dharamsala hotel could hardly be called deluxe, but it had electricity. So that night, after a shower, I settled down to read some Buddhist literature and to think back on the interview with His Holiness. Feeling chilly, I decided to plug in the small wall-heater. As I inserted the plug, all the lights went out. Looking out the window, I could see the whole place was in darkness. Soon a bearer came with a candle, "So sorry, Memsahib, somebody plug in heater and blowout all lights. Man come fix tomorrow." So much for my evening of reading.

The weak candle threw strange images against the walls, but I felt cozy in my room alone. It was pleasant to let my mind wander back over the past month calling on certain spiritual personalities -- holy men. There had been few moments of solitude in which to do so.

It appeared that Tom had been successful in his quest, but what about mine? I'd certainly found plenty of lecture material, as well as colorful, ethnic costumes for my show. That afternoon I'd bought articles of clothing from the refugees, which would help me illustrate the dramatic story of the Tibetans. But what about that other dimension -- the spiritual world which was beginning to intrigue me? I had felt such serenity while sitting at the feet of the holy men we'd called on. It was a serenity I had not felt for years, and I was not going to let it slip away. Had I been guided to India by this inner need? I seemed ripe for the knowledge I was receiving.

After seven years of reading and searching I had come to certain conclusions, but it was here in India that those conclusions were taking form and being expressed back to me in words. These words excited me; they pointed to a path for me to follow. I needed a belief that would serve as an insurance policy, an insulator, against ever again experiencing the terrible grief that had engulfed me after my late husband's death.

A deep sadness came into the silence around me as a face drifted into my consciousness -- it was the face of a handsome, dark-haired man with golden lights in his brown eyes. His finely chiseled features were full of intelligence and humor. Everything about him exuded energy and passion. Oh, beloved Luis, what a short time we had together, but what an impact you have had on my life! Yes, he was the love of my life, and what joy we shared -- more happiness and excitement than most people would know in a lifetime.

My thoughts went back to our meeting.

It was summer 1951 -- my first trip to Europe. One evening in Paris, my French friend Huguette Empain had implored me, "I know you are exhausted by parties, but you must join us, we need you. We have three attractive Americans who drove in the Le Mans last week. You won't have to struggle with French; they all speak English. Be a good sport and meet us at eleven o'clock at the Plaza Athene." She would not take no for an answer.

Luis told me later that when he saw me in the distance, he thought to himself, "Hope she is the one joining us." He said he liked the way I was dressed, the way I walked, and the way I came up and in a friendly way said, "Hi, I'm Nancy Cooke." Nothing coy, nothing mysterious.

What a night it was! We went to Dinashads, a Russian restaurant specializing in caviar-filled blinis. These were washed down by quantities of champagne. Every time we drank a glass, presented to us on a violin, we emptied it and threw it into the fireplace. Later, while dancing at Jimmy's, Luis led me into a slow tango. Wrapping our bodies together, as is customary with this sensuous dance, he made me terribly aware of the intimacy we shared. I liked the smell of his hair and the feeling of his strong body pressed to mine. I surrendered myself totally to his directions. When the music stopped, he slowly let me go, saying, "I think I've been searching for you all of my life." I laughed and discounted his words, "Isn't it wonderful what magic champagne creates."

It was 8:30 A.M. when I returned to my hotel. Five hours later I met Luis de Herrera for brunch at the Ritz. I was curious as to how I'd find him by day. Iwas puzzled by the deep impression he'd made on me. Maybe I'd be disappointed. But he looked even better, in spite of a lack of sleep. When he entered a room, something changed-his vitality radiated to all. Six-foot-three and powerfully built, he had been the amateur golf champion of every South American country. He had played in the British Open just before coming to Le Mans to meet his pal Briggs Cunningham, the veteran U.S. racing driver. Although born in London, he was actually a Uruguayan citizen living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Educated both in Spain and France, he'd finished his schooling at Cambridge. All of this I had found out the night before.

Now across the table we discreetly probed to find out more about each other. He took the initiative, "I've known and liked many North Americans, but you are not typical. Huguette said you were in your twenties, but you have a quiet confidence, a worldliness beyond your years. Where does this come from?"


Nancy posing with Ester Williams (Honolulu, 1949).

What a question. I laughed, "Two months ago my divorce was finalized, after nine years of marriage in Honolulu. Also, I'm the mother of three little boys who at present are spending their vacation holidays with their father, while their mother takes her first trip to Europe." I made a sweeping gesture. "So there it all is, my life history."

"No, I want to know more. You are very at home in the world and have a natural ease with people. I watched you closely last night, or didn't you notice?" He was persistent. "Tell me more about your background, your family."

"Well, I had a wonderful childhood shared by two look-alike sisters, which made life even more fun. I went to Stanford University for three years before getting married to Richard Cooke, and lived in Honolulu during the war."

"That must have been interesting."

"It was fascinating. As all the military wives were sent home, we local women were in great demand. We became hostesses for the top army and navy officers -- we became good friends with Admiral Nimitz and Admiral Halsey especially."

"Was your husband in the military service?"

"Not before the war. After Pearl Harbor he became a naval officer."

"So it was a command performance when the top boys invited you."

"Yes. As a matter of fact, Admiral Towers, who was head of Naval Air for the Pacific, included my husband and me at all his functions. He even sent his aide to teach me how to make a perfect martini."

"I like that man's style."

"It was a unique experience; we were in on everything. Also, I took part in community theater and helped entertain the troops."

He laughed, "My question is well answered."

"Thank you, but now tell me about yourself."

"I'm a banker by profession, on an extended holiday. But this I talked about last night. I am married and have four children."

My heart registered dismay, but it was just as well. It was best not to get involved with anyone yet; I needed time to enjoy my newly won freedom.

Then I heard Luis add, "But I no longer live with my wife. We have a separacion del cue, po (a legal separation), as there is no divorce law in Argentina."

Not so safe after all.

As we talked, something special was happening. So-called experts have reported that we know these things within ten minutes. His eyes searched mine and found answers. A part of me quietly suggested caution. Things were moving too fast.

We spent several days visiting Versailles, touring the French countryside, and eating in small inns. Luis was full of enthusiasm. His French was fluent, as well as his knowledge of French art and history. I could not have picked a more attractive guide. We ran over with words -- we had so much to talk about. Knowing that he was leaving in a few days' time, and that this relationship could go nowhere, I kept him at arms distance -- actually was shy about allowing him into a more intimate relationship -- I'd been off the "dating market" for such a long time, and I was unsure of myself.


Nancy berating a longshoreman at a "We the Women" picket line (LIFE: MAGAZINE, July 20, 1949).

He mentioned he would be in England at the same time I'd be visiting my friend Nancy Oakes (well-known to the press because of the notoriety resulting from the grisly murder of her father, Sir Harry Oakes, in Nassau during World War II). I'd given him my London address, and as I said goodbye in Paris, I silently prayed, "Please call me. I do want to see you again." How little I knew; maybe he had a ladyfriend already there waiting for him.

Several days later, arriving at Heathrow, there was Luis waiting for me! I was so surprised -- he looked unbelievably handsome. My heart almost burst as he embraced me and kissed me in a very gentle way.

His first words delighted me. "Something came up unexpectedly. Your friend Nancy has gone to Scotland for a few days. I told her I'd meet you and be your guide. She agreed it would be more convenient for her to have you stay at the London Ritz where I am until she returns."

The staff at the Ritz greeted me with great warmth. They had known Luis during his Cambridge days. I was a bit perplexed when we came to a suite of rooms connecting to the public hall through one common door. But my room was on the left and Luis's on the right, so I said nothing.

"Do your unpacking, and then come over to me for a lovely English high tea," invited my handsome guide. (It actually crossed my mind as to how we would keep our bills straight. I was so naive.)

Needless to say, once I crossed that hall, I never got back to my room again except to bathe and change clothes.


Nancy with Johny Gomez and Jimmy and Gloria Stewart (Honolulu, 1950)

Luis with great gentleness introduced me to the passion my body was capable of and had never experienced. Until then it had been easy to keep my distance with men -- sex was no big thing as far as I knew. Arriving at the altar as a virgin, I found my wedding night a total disappointment. Why all the hoopla about this painful, messy act? Time didn't seem to help. Dick and I had no "fire" between us and I slowly became a "frigid wife." But now, with an experienced partner, possessing a body chemistry perfectly matched to mine, a whole new world of sensations opened up.

Several days later Luis confessed, "I called Nancy Oakes and told her you would be delayed a week -- maybe you'd better give her a ring."

So she had been there all the time! She howled when I explained, and said, "Go off and enjoy yourself, I'll be here all summer."

Luis and I had fallen desperately in love by the time we joined his Australian friend Peter Reid, and spent a month touring France, Switzerland, and Monaco. It was a storybook trip, one that would make us suffer more when we parted. We could not stay together; there were too many obstacles, but knowing it didn't make it easier.

Luis followed me to New York and then to Los Angeles, delaying our eventual separation. Finally, with despair, we agreed to go our separate ways. He returned to Argentina and his family, and I to Honolulu to bring the boys back to California for school. My enchanted summer was over.

The joy of being reunited with my precious, blonde-haired, little sons helped my aching heart, but it was an emotional time for me. I'd closed a nine-year chapter in my life, and would now move away from my circle of supportive friends. We had all been newlyweds and first-time parents together -- our roots were deep. My mother-in-law, whom I loved, had asked me not to stay in the Islands for Dick's sake.


Raising the morale of wounded Korean War soldiers at Tripler Hospital (Honolulu, 1950).

So, even though I was relieved to have my divorce behind me, I felt both apprehension and hopeful expectations as I returned to the San Francisco Bay area.

Getting my family resettled and moved into a new house kept me so busy that life began to fill in, even though I longed for Luis. Then in October a letter arrived. He wrote, "You are under no obligation to me, but I can't go on as it is. I will get a divorce in Uruguay and Mexico. Only when I am completely free will I appear in your life again. Darling girl, I refuse to envision a future without you!"

I didn't come down from the clouds for days; my happiness wiped away all problems. Everything would be worked out in time. What I knew for now was that it was possible! Six long months later, Luis came to California and formally called on my father to ask for my hand.

Then Dick came for a visit with our sons. While staying at my sister's, he agreed to my taking the boys to Argentina. This was a big relief to me, as I had to have his written permission to take them out of the U.S. (Foolishly, I thought his oral promise was good enough.) It was agreed that I would send the boys to Honolulu for the summer, and go to Argentina, select schools, and so on, and then return for them in September. We would make the trip back to Buenos Aires together.

So with good faith I made my plans. Only when I looked at a map and saw how far away Buenos Aires was did I have butterflies in my stomach. It was as far away from San Francisco as Australia. My family had mixed emotions. They were happy for my joy, but felt sad about my going such a distance. However, I had no choice; Luis's family banking business was there, and this was the source of his income.

On June 26, 1952, one year from the day we met in Paris, I joined my husband-to-be in Chile; from there we traveled to Argentina. The country was in turmoil over the impending death of Evita Peron. All nightlife was subdued as the people waited, but it hardly affected us. All we needed was each other. Luis would go to the office for an hour, and then return home for lunch to make sure I was not homesick. Luckily, he had a good Scottish manager to run things.

After selecting a fine British school, ordering uniforms, and getting everything ready for the children, Luis and I went to Montevideo, Uruguay to be married. We were so happy, even though I wished my family could have been there with us.

Then the bomb dropped. Dick wrote saying he would never let the boys come to Argentina. He had waited until I was married and could not change my mind.


Nancy and Luis: the happy couple (Monte Carlo, 1951)


Nancy and Luis: the happy couple (Monte Carlo, 1951)

It threw me into a complete panic, soon to be replaced by rage. Luis comforted me with plans to return together to the U.S. for Christmas. So began my custody battle with the Cooke family, one that dragged on and on.

On April 12, 1954, my birthday, our daughter Maria Luisa was born -- what a heavenly time! It was also a time to make another decision, one the boys begged me to make. So, after trying for two years through lawyers and repeated lengthy stays in California, I took the whole family back to Argentina without the written permission of anybody.

I took enough money with me to support the boys until their father came to his senses. Now my happiness was complete. We all adored the baby, Luis was a supportive and admired stepfather, and we bought a large house outside the city near the school. Everything was going beautifully when, six months later, tragedy struck.

On returning from a New Year's Eve party, Luis had been violently sick. He recovered, but didn't feel normal for a couple of weeks, so we decided he should check into the British Hospital for a check-up. As a typical Argentine, he was sure it was something wrong with his liver.

How I remember that dreadful day -- every minute is engraved on my heart. It was the 15th of January, a beautiful summer day. A battery of diagnostic tests were run, and we were waiting in his room for the results.

Finally, Harry Fergusson, Luis's doctor and old golfing friend, came in with a handful of papers and announced, "Well, pal, I'm afraid my suspicions were correct. You have a blood intoxication. It must have been what you ate the night you became so sick."

"That Chilean lobster?" asked Luis.

"Very likely. Anyway, you're not going to get over it immediately. We're going to keep you here and give you regular transfusions until we wash out this reaction." Turning to me, he said, "I guess you'll be staying here for a while, dear Nancy. You'd better move your car into the shade. It's going to be a hot day. Let me walk out with you."

This was strange. I had parked my car in the shade, but I didn't say anything. Evidently, Harry wanted to talk to me alone.

Once out in the corridor, he took my elbow and guided me into a nearby waiting room. His rawboned, weathered Scots face was sad. "Nancy, Luis is seriously ill."

I don't know why, but a dreaded thought crossed my mind. I asked, "Is it leukemia?"

"Yes." His large features seemed to drop as he sighed.

"Does that mean he is going to ... to die?" I choked on the word.

''I'm afraid so, unless there is a miracle. It's rare at his age, but the leukemia is acute."

"But he's always been so strong and healthy."

"Yes, but now there will be a crisis. If we can just get him through the next ten days .... "

I was sinking into the earth. Harry's voice seemed far away as he continued, "I contacted Dr. Albert Pavlowski, head of the World Blood Society, who is luckily in Buenos Aires. I asked him to check my diagnosis, praying I or the lab made a mistake. The diagnosis is correct."

For a moment my vision expanded. Harry seemed to be standing at the opening of a distant tunnel. As if outside myself, my voice asked, "Will it be a painful death?"

"No, he'll be spared that."

Someone pulled the cork, and my whole life poured out on the floor.

I tried to grab hold of myself -- not break down. In a matter of minutes, I had to see Luis. Harry settled me back into a chair and asked a passing nurse to bring me a sedative.

He took my hands, "This will be hard. Go back and stay with Luis until Dr. Pavlowski and I return." His grip tightened. "Talk and try to appear as normal as you can. We don't want to arouse his fear. He has only a small chance of surviving this crisis, but if he panics, he won't even have that."

I don't know how I did it, but it is amazing what you can do for someone you love. Harry and I agreed it was best to convince Luis that he was reacting to lobster poisoning. If I broke down, he would guess the truth.

The next hour seemed like a hundred. Sitting on the hospital bed, running my fingers through Luis's fine black hair and chatting with him, I had to fight back thoughts of the reality crushing in on us. To me, my husband was everything a man could be. His Latin temper was counterpoised by his English heritage. He was tender, affectionate, and bombastic. How he loved to debate, an incessant devil's advocate, taking either side. Never knowing what to expect from him, I was captivated by this electric man. I looked at his strong chest and shoulders, his athletic golfer's hands and legs. He emanated health. I couldn't believe what was happening.

Finally, Harry returned with a small, fair-skinned man whose kind brown eyes looked out of a prematurely lined face. After Dr. Pavlowski examined Luis, he asked me to join him for a cup of coffee in the hospital cafe, leaving Harry and Luis talking golf.

Harry had told Pavlowski that Luis and I had been exposed to an atomic fallout 20 months before. Perhaps there was a connection. He urged me, "Please start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out. I need to get the complete picture."

"In May of '53," I began, "we were visiting the Grand Canyon. One evening in a bar, we heard a radio announcement that the atomic test that was previously scheduled for that day had been canceled because of high winds. Luis commented, 'Those damn fools don't know what they're fooling around with.' Another man at the bar volunteered, 'They're taking tremendous precautions -- it won't hurt anyone but a few animals. All roads in and out of the area are closed.' He sounded well-informed, so we dropped the subject, and forgot about it.

"Early the next morning, we left for Zion National Park. I was driving and remember turning off the car radio, as there was no reception in the canyon. We were awestruck by the rugged beauty of the scenery -- I don't have any idea exactly how long we were there."

Pavlowski asked me if we knew the bomb had gone off. "No, we'd never thought of it since leaving the hotel." Now I thought back on how stupid we had been.

He interrupted, "What kind of car were you in? Were the windows down?"

"Oh yes. It was a station wagon. It was a beautiful, warm day, and we had the windows wide open."

"Where were you stopped?" He was making notes.

"We had driven through the towns of Mesquite and St. George, which are in Utah. Shortly after we left St. George, three men in army fatigues signaled us to pull over."

"Were there no signs warning you to stay off the road -- anything to that effect? Had you seen any other army personnel?"

"No, we were just driving along, enjoying the beauty of the desert."

"And the soldiers? What then?"

'They were three young corporals. One asked, 'Where have you come from?' When we explained, he said, 'But that road is closed. Don't you know there's been an atomic fallout?' We didn't know a thing. I thought back to the scene. How oblivious we had been. I pointed out that we hadn't seen and couldn't have heard anything.

"One of the soldiers in a uniform one size too big commented, There's been a slip-up somewhere; the roads in that area are closed from the Canadian border to Mexico.' They told us to get out of the car so they could do some testing. One of them pulled out an instrument, explaining, 'This Geiger counter tests for radioactivity.'"

"At this request, I raised my foot while he held the instrument to my moccasin. I saw the red needle go to the top, and asked, 'What does that mean?'''

"It says you're hot, lady."

"Foolishly, I answered, 'Oh, thank you.'''

"Luis reprimanded me, 'This is not funny, Nancy.' Then they tested the car, and pronounced it the hottest one they had seen that day."

"You mean other cars happened through also?" asked the doctor. "Apparently."

"What about the people who live in those towns you mentioned? Were they evacuated?"

"No. We asked about that. They were warned to keep their windows shut and stay indoors until advised differently."

Dr. Pavlowski sighed. "About what time of day was it?"

"Mid-afternoon. They sent us about a halt-hour's drive down the road to what they called a decontamination center. There the car was washed approximately six times and each time retested with the Geiger counter."

"What did you and your husband do during this time?"

"Well, Luis was angry. He asked one of the soldiers, 'How do you know if you've received a dangerous dose of this radiation?' The soldier wasn't very tactful. 'Oh, you'll know. You'll get nauseated, your hair will begin to fallout, and you may go blind.'

"'For Christ's sake!' was Luis's response. His Latin blood boiled over. There was a saloon across the street. We went there. Luis ordered a double scotch, only to be told by the bartender, 'Sorry, sir, it's a state election day, and in Nevada we can't serve alcohol 'til after seven.' That's when the you-know-what hit the fan."

Pavlowski's eyes never left my face.

"And then what did you do, see a doctor?"

"No. When we returned to the car, we were given a package of soap and told to bathe and wash our hair with it. We were to put our clothes in a laundry bag and send them to the cleaners." So they could contaminate everybody else's, flashed through my mind. "It was suggested we have a blood count taken in about six months, but we really didn't know enough to be worried."

"Yes, go on."

"Well, there's not much more to tell. The road to Overton, Nevada, where we had planned to stay with relatives, was closed. So we went straight to Las Vegas where my aunt and uncle came and met us instead. That night Luis and Uncle Fred drank up practically all the scotch in town."

The doctor was now conversing with himself. "So that makes it about 19 to 20 months ago -- that figures." "What do you mean?" I held my breath, not wanting to hear the answer.

"Most of the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, who didn't die during the blast, developed this particular acute type of leukemia and died between 18 months and 2 years after the fallout."

"Oh, Doctor Pavlowski, do you really think this is the same thing? Isn't there any chance it could be something else?" I was begging for hope.

"My dear, I wish I could tell you differently, but you've asked me to be truthful. I know of no case where a patient has lasted longer than ten months with this illness. And, I've never seen a more virulent case." He went on to describe how the cells looked like little walking canes under the microscope. There could be no mistake. I clenched my fists to my mouth.

"Your husband will have a crisis in ten days. If he lives through that, he can live from two to ten months, allowing that he can tolerate the medication."

He looked directly at me. "You should stay away from X-ray or any form of radiation for the rest of your life." This fell on deaf ears. My only interest then was Luis.

Later I asked more questions. The doctor felt the fact that Luis had had hepatitis shortly before leaving Buenos Aires had made him more vulnerable to the deadly effects of radiation. Also, he was 14 years older than I. Pavlowski said he would call Dr. John Lawrence at the University of California's Atomic Research Lab with the exact details, to find out if this information could have any bearing on his course of treatment.

"Isn't there anything else we can do? Should we get Luis to the States?"

"I don't think your husband could tolerate a long trip, but there is something we can try. I have been using a new medicine, which might help. However, I want to confer with Dr. Lawrence before administering Perinithol."

This presented another hurdle. There was only enough Perinithol in Argentina for two days of treatment; we had to obtain more from the U.S. immediately. I threw myself completely into solving this -- the momentary problem helped to stave off thinking of the future, but when I heard Mother's voice on the phone and told her of Luis's illness, I broke down for the first time. It made me realize how far away I was, how alone.

Mother promised to put the Perinithol on the first Pan Am flight, so treatment commenced. Luis responded well; his blood count held up between transfusions, and Harry became optimistic that he would survive the first crisis. We hung on every straw. I took hope. If we could just get him home where we could build up his strength for the second crisis. Two to ten months -- anything could happen in that amount of time. I would not allow myself to think otherwise.

I spent every possible hour in Luis's room treasuring each moment, trying to imprint every sound, every touch into my memory. During the periods between headaches and relapses, Luis was especially lively-particularly after the transfusions. Switching from subject to subject and waving his arms for emphasis, he was his animated, handsome, and cheerful self. It seemed unbelievable that he could be dying. I watched for signs of the coming crisis. I prayed for a miracle.

Leslie Pepper, an old friend of Luis's, came to the hospital daily to relieve me, so that I could dash home to check on our household. Miss Julia, our nine-month-old baby's nurse, was aware of the gravity of Luis's condition, but I said little to the boys, not wanting to alarm them. I'd decided to wait until we got Luis home. On the eighth day, Leslie took me aside and said, "I think we're in for trouble. Luis is hemorrhaging again."

"But Harry said that he was much better."

"He said that yesterday. Now he's worried that the medicine is losing its effect. Nancy, there's just no point in fooling ourselves." I didn't want to admit it, but I too had noticed how Luis's urine bottles were black with blood. He sneezed blood. His gums were raw. Dr. Pavlowski had predicted he would die of a cerebral hemorrhage. I was terrified. Harry reassured Luis that it was the body just throwing off some blood from the transfusions. I wondered if Luis suspected the truth but was afraid to ask.

Leslie had not given up hope. He said, "Theodore Hicks is in town again. I've arranged for you to meet him."

The previous year, Hicks, an American evangelist, had come to Argentina on a tour of the major South American cities. Quoting the Bible, he affected instantaneous healings before the multitudes who jammed into the theaters and stadiums to hear him. The newspapers were filled with stories of his miraculous cures. Leslie's daughter, who had Down syndrome, had been helped by her encounter with Hicks. This I had helped to arrange. Now Leslie wanted to do the same in reverse.

"I think you should see him ... even Peron has told the Catholic Church to put up or shut up. He suggested they demonstrate the same kind of healing that Hicks was doing for hundreds in Buenos Aires every day."

"But of course I'll go to see him. He may be the miracle we've been praying for. Thank you, thank you, my dear friend." A visit with the faith healer presented a ray of hope. If only my faith were strong enough, God would help.

So the next evening, as I sat in The Continental Hotel lobby waiting to see Hicks, I prayed for strength. Also, "Not Luis, please do not take Luis." I didn't want to face life without him. I promised to atone for any sins I might have committed. I hadn't meant to hurt Dick when I took the children away. Mentally, I went through any acts of mine that had caused unhappiness for others.

I made all sorts of promises, if only my husband could be saved. But I felt so alone. Then is when a strong faith would have helped me.

Mr. Hicks's secretary found me in the lobby and escorted me upstairs to the evangelist's room. If I had not been led to him, I never would have noticed him. He was a man of medium build with salt-and-pepper gray hair. He wore a baggy suit, but his appearance belied the conviction in his steady, pale blue eyes, which penetrated me as he opened the door.

"Come in, my child. There is help for all who seek it in the house of God." Mr. Hicks's measured tone was smooth and rich. "Your friend told me of your beloved husband's illness. We will speak of that later, but first let us talk about you."

He motioned for me to sit on the couch next to him. "Do you believe that the Almighty Father has unlimited power?"

"Yes."

"Do you pray?"

"Yes, constantly. I talk to God and to Jesus and implore them to heal Luis and to give me strength. My words may sound trite, but God knows what is in my heart and how desperate I feel." The dam broke, and the tears I had been holding back poured out.

"It is better to let the tears come first, my child," he whispered. "Then we will pray together and ask God to send you strength."

When I regained control, Mr. Hicks asked me to kneel and put my arms around his waist while he stood holding my head in his hands. He intoned a prayer in a loud, firm voice. "Lord God Almighty, we stand here in your presence .... "

A soothing calm came over me. I could feel the ringing words of his prayer permeating me, bypassing my comprehension. Mr. Hicks prayed that God would give me strength to pass through my ordeal, that I might have great faith, knowing that only faith would help me in the days to come. He was not praying for Luis, but for me!

I felt better and we made plans for Mr. Hicks to visit Luis the following morning. I also warned, "Luis doesn't know what he has, or the severity of his illness. Have I been wrong in not telling him the truth? The doctor suggested waiting until later."

"No, my child. We all must make decisions. You are doing a kindly thing. You want to save your husband. He will know when it is his time to die." A smile transformed his solemn demeanor.

"As for my call, I will tell him that I am visiting various floors in the hospital and make the whole meeting seem accidental."

When the evangelist dropped in the next day, Luis received him cordially. I left the room so that they could be alone. When I returned Mr. Hicks had departed, and Luis described a remarkable scene. "The old boy asked me about my life, my beliefs, and whether there was anything burdening my conscience. I told him I hoped I had not caused anybody harm, and if I had, it was not with bad intention." Luis went on, "He then had me put my arms around his waist and asked me to pray with him. When Hicks touched my head, my sinuses, congested by this hemorrhaging, suddenly cleared, and I could smell all of the roses in the room! Nancy, that man has something -- some quality of tremendous spirituality. I'm delighted he came to this room."

Did Luis secretly sense his great danger? Happiness and hope flooded my being -- maybe a miracle had happened.

"So cheer up my love, before you know it I'll be as good as new. That transfusion really did the trick." He ruffled my hair -- his eyes full of light again.

But, by afternoon, while I watched in panic, the hemorrhaging turned into a deluge. Luis complained of a dreadful headache. Narco and oxygen were administered, but eventually even they could not control the pain. Luis's last words to me before he went into a coma were, "Que dolor, mi pobre cabeza -- mi querida, mi querida. " ("What pain, my poor head -- my dear, my dear.") I held his hands and the doctor and I watched as his respiration stopped. His strong heart kept beating, and then gradually, without oxygen, his pulse disappeared and my Luis was gone from me.

The doctor left the room. I sat there with Luis's quiet hand in mine. I became aware of the fragrance of roses in the room. The nurses came in shortly to prepare Luis. I asked them not to take the lamp away that I had brought from home. It was on the bedside table next to him and its light was soft and so much nicer than that of the harsh overhead light of the hospital room. I was then led down the hall to a room. I was in such shock I thought nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing. I was then told that certain decisions must be made now. And so I did.

I then asked to be alone with my husband for the last time. I stroked his hair and thanked him for the happiness he had given me. I knew I would never love another person with the passion I had felt for him. Later, when I was taken home, Miss Julia, the nurse, said that Maria Luisa started to cry inconsolably at the exact moment of her father's death.

Early the next morning I went into the garden and cut all the beautiful blossoms off of Luis's favorite tree. They would cover his casket. Then I gathered my three sons and gently broke the news that our Luis had left us. Rikki, the eldest at ten, asked, "Will we have lots of problems, Mom?" My answer was, "Yes." He volunteered to get a job to help the family.

The months that followed brought an agony I cannot describe. Slowly, through my overwhelming sorrow came the realization of our predicament. It arose like a slow sunrise, its rays lighting up the valleys of my dilemma. It would have been easier to lie down and die of a broken heart the way dogs often do after losing a master. Until then grief had been a foreign sensation for me; now I was overwhelmed by its unrelenting persistence. It enveloped me during sleepless nights, it made my throat refuse food -- and yet, I had to pull myself together -- I was in a faraway land with four dependent children and almost no money.

Our protector, benefactor, and interpreter was gone, and the wolves were forming a ring outside our door. Amongst them were some of Luis's immediate family who had never met or accepted me. As we were never legally married in Argentina, now I was not recognized as the legal wife, and all payments from the office ceased. Four months before, we'd bought our wonderful old house out of a German estate. I paid the first payment of $35,000 cash, the money I'd brought to support the boys; Luis was to pay me back when his money from Uruguay arrived, but this never happened.

It wasn't only a financial dilemma. I had brought my children to Argentina without the permission of their father. Now, from bitterness he wrote, "You made your own bed, so lie in it." He refused us any help and let me know he would take me to court on my return to the United States. So bridges had been burned behind us.

But maybe in the long run it was a blessing to have all these problems. It made me stay busy. I had to discipline my thoughts -- if I cried all night, I was useless the next day. It was as though I couldn't even afford the luxury of my own terrible grief. Too much depended on my staying strong.

As much as Mother feared flying, she came from California. She will never know what this meant to me -- meeting her at the airport brought the first ray of sunshine into my heart since Luis's death. After appraising our situation, she got us moving. We had a sale such as diplomats often do when leaving an assignment. We sold the house and many of our valuable belongings. The boys set up a table and sold their blue jeans and boxes of bubble gum.

Mother left after two months, but it took more than a year to unscramble our affairs. Between legal matters and the revolution, which ousted Peron, it was a tumultuous time. The only time I felt any serenity was when I sat by Luis's grave. I accepted the fact that there was a reason why he had to die; I never questioned God's will, but thanked that force for allowing me the three years of happiness we'd had.

I couldn't bear the word eternity and had engraved on Luis's headstone, Sleep Peacefully Beloved Until We Meet Again. If there were justice in the universe, and there had to be, I figured it involved continuity of lifetimes. (I wasn't familiar with the term reincarnation then.) I continued to dwell on Mr. Hicks and his remarkable conviction and longed to believe myself.

I had so many questions to be answered. I envied him his unquestioning faith. Shortly after Luis's death he sent me a note saying, "Do not worry about your husband's soul. His talk with me had the quality of a full confession. He died with God's grace."

I believed him, and it was then that my thirst began, a thirst for answers, a thirst for a trust to be used as a faith, a support, should such a terrible grief engulf me again. And I knew that when I found a belief that worked for me, like Mr. Hicks, I would tell the world about it.

The warm Indian sun was shining in my room. It took a minute to realize where I was ... in the hotel in Dharamsala. I had fallen asleep in a sitting position. Had it all been a dream? Sometimes on awakening I prayed my worlds were reversed, that Luis's death had been just a nightmare. But this was reality. However, I knew one question had been answered. My search was not ended. It was just beginning. It was time to take some real steps into a new dimension, the world of going within, the world of spirit, of justice and self-knowledge. I hastily dressed. I had many questions to ask Kazi. This was an opportunity not to be lost.

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Part 1 of 3

Chapter 9: A Yeti-Hunting 007, from "True Stories of Real-Life Monsters" [Excerpt]
by Nick Redfern
©  2015 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

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Did the Central Intelligence Agency secretly encourage a famous pursuer of monsters to do its dark and dirty work for them in the 1950s? Is it possible that more than a few of this man's expeditions in search of the legendary Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas were nothing but ingenious cover stories to allow for clandestine espionage operations on nations that were potentially hostile to the United States? And what of this same character's untimely death in a plane crash that still provokes controversy to this very day, decades after it occurred? These and many other highly charged issues dominated the life and work of a fascinating and mysterious man named Tom Slick, a devotee of cryptozoology, an Indiana Jones-like adventurer, a figure with numerous links to the secret world of officialdom, and -- just perhaps -- the James Bond of the monster-hunting world.

A Seeker of Strange Creatures

Born in San Antonio. Texas, in 1916, when the First World War was still raging,Thomas Baker Slick, Jr., was the son of one Thomas Baker Slick, Sr., who made a mountain of money in the oil business of the 1920s, and who became known as both the King of the Wildcatters and Lucky Tom. Fate demonstrated that Tom Slick's father wasn't so lucky in the end, however: He died in 1930 at the tragically young age of only 46. Slick may have lost a parent, but in doing so, he inherited a fortune of literally millions.

Just like his father, Tom Junior proved to be a mover and a shaker. During the Second World War, after having studied at Yale, Harvard, and MIT, Slick worked with the Washington, DC-based War Production Board as well as the Board of Economic Warfare, and served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater. He was the brains behind three organizations that became known as the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, the Southwest Research Institute (the focus of which was on advancing technologies), and the Mind Science Foundation, which explored the mysterious potentials of the human brain. Slick was also a big fan of modern art, and an author with world peace firmly on his forever busy mind: In 1958 he published a book on this very matter, titled Permanent Peace: A Check and Balance Plan. And then there are those monsters that so fascinated him.

Rather interestingly, it seems that Tom Slick's passion for excursions of the wildlife variety was prompted by a 1928 expedition to China that the sons of President Theodore Roosevelt -- Kermit and Theodore IV -- embarked on, during which they hunted down and killed a giant Panda. As we saw in the first chapter of this hook, Roosevelt Sr. himself was no stranger to cryptozoology, and he may very well have been the recipient of an early report of a predatory Bigfoot on the loose in the Pacific Northwest. This is interesting because, although Slick's interest in cryptozoology was wide-ranging, it was the legendary Abominable Snowman, or Yeti -- so similar to the American Bigfoot -- that attracted most of his attention. But before we get to the matter of Tom Slick's Yeti quest, let's first take a look at what the legendary beasts might actually be.

Cases, Sightings, and Theories

Depending on who you care to ask, the Yeti is thought to be a giant ape of unclassified origins and nature, a surviving example of something long thought to be extinct, or an admixture of hoax, folklore, misidentification, and myth. In Tibetan, and particularly Nepalese, culture, tales of a giant, Bigfoot-like creature existing centuries ago are still passed from generation to generation. The Rongkup people, for example, recount ancient tales of a mighty creature of the glaciers, a large and lumbering ape-like animal that used stones as weapons, and whose blood was occasionally used in religious ceremonies. In 1832 the story surfaced of a mountaineer and naturalist named Brian Houghton Hodgson, who exhibited a deep interest in Buddhist teachings and beliefs. That same story told of how a number of Hodgson's team encountered on the Himalayas a large, hairy animal that walked on two legs and that was clearly thought to be neither bear nor man. Hodgson, utterly baffled but admittedly fascinated, could only theorize that the creature was possibly an orangutan, or at least something along those lines. Similar reports would continue to surface, but it was not until 1921 that the appellation "Abominable Snowman" came into being.

In that year, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury -- a British politician and a soldier with the King's Royal Rifle Corps -- led a team to the Himalayas called the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. Its primary goal was to determine whether the northern side of the massive mountain might admit access to the peak. While mapping out the treacherous mountain at an altitude in excess of 20,000 ft. (6.1 km), Howard-Bury and his team came across a set of surprisingly large footprints that appeared to resemble those of a barefooted man -- certainly not something the group had anticipated encountering at those heights! A number of the local guides who had been hired to take part in the trek were later interviewed about their experiences by a journalist named Henry Newman (who wrote for the Calcutta-based Statesman). It was Newman who coined the term "Abominable Snowman," after hearing of their knowledge of the legendary monster. It was almost certainly a mistranslation, however. The guides described the beast as being metoh, meaning "filthy," which Newman then misinterpreted to mean "abominable." And it was out of that error (or, as some suggest, that imaginative artistic license) that the creature's most famous name was introduced to a soon-to-be captivated world.

Interest in the mythological beast seemed to reach fever pitch in the 1950s, when a number of acclaimed mountain climbers, including Eric Shipton, Sir Edmund Hilary, and a team sponsored by Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, photographed what appeared to be gargantuan footprints in the frozen heights and collected sightings of the wild man-thing said to be in their midst. While public interest in and fascination with the Abominable Snowman is certainly nowhere near what it was decades ago, the hunt still goes steadily on.

One interesting candidate for what the animal/beast might really be is the Gigantopithecus blacki, a massive ape with an estimated height of around 10 ft. (3 m) and a weight in excess of 1,000 pounds. That these creatures lived and roamed across significantly sized portions of what are today Vietnam, China, and India makes the possibility that they are responsible for Yeti reports all the more intriguing. Expect for one problem, an impediment that is just about as big as the legendary Snowman itself. According to mainstream science, Gigantopithecus blacki is thought to have become extinct more than 100,000 years ago. On the other hand, nature is undeniably tenacious and very good at clinging on against all odds, perhaps even against accepted scientific wisdom. Thus, if Gigantopithecus blacki is not so extinct, after all, we may well have the perfect explanation for the Yeti in the form of an empirically verified huge ape that dwelled in the very same area where, thousands of years after its presumed extinction, people are still seeing huge, anomalous apelike creatures.

Gigantopithecus is an extinct genus of ape from the Early to Middle Pleistocene of southern China, represented by one species, G. blacki. The remains of Gigantopithecus, two third molar teeth, were first identified in a drugstore by anthropologist Ralph von Koenigswald in 1935, who subsequently described the ape. In 1956, the first mandible and over 1,000 teeth were found in Liucheng, and numerous more remains have since been found in at least 16 sites. Only teeth and 4 mandibles are known currently, and other skeletal elements were likely consumed by porcupines before they could fossilise. Gigantopithecus was once argued to be a hominin, a member of the human line, but it is now thought to be closely allied with orangutans, classified in the subfamily Ponginae.

Gigantopithecus has traditionally been restored as a massive, gorilla-like ape, potentially 200–300 kg (440–660 lb) when alive, but the paucity of remains make total size estimates highly speculative. The species may have been sexually dimorphic, with males much bigger than females. The incisors are reduced and the canines appear to have functioned like cheek teeth (premolars and molars). The premolars are high-crowned, and the fourth premolar is very molar-like. The molars are the largest of any known ape, and have a relatively flat surface. Gigantopithecus had the thickest enamel by absolute measure of any ape, up to 6 mm (a quarter of an inch) in some areas, though was only fairly thick when tooth size is taken into account.

Gigantopithecus appears to have been a generalist herbivore of C3 forest plants, with the jaw adapted to grinding, crushing, and cutting through tough, fibrous plants; the thick enamel functioning to resist foods with abrasive particles such as stems, roots, and tubers with dirt; and teeth bearing traces of fig family fruit. It primarily lived in subtropical to tropical forest, and went extinct about 300,000 years ago likely due to climate change and the retreat of preferred habitat, and potentially archaic human activity.

-- Gigantopithecus, by Wikipedia

With all of this as context, let us now return to the mystery-filled life and work of Tom Slick, the Yeti-hunter par excellence.

On the Trail of the Unknown

Tom Slick was a man with a deep passion for travel, adventure, and exotic lands -- all perfect and prime ingredients for becoming a cohort of the CIA in the 1950s. In 1956, for example, Slick was in Guyana on a diamond hunt when disaster struck, and his aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing. He ended up spending time with a local tribe for two weeks before finally being rescued. His only means of survival in the harsh, primitive environment was a diet of parrot meat. Then there was Slick's excitement-filled 1950s trip to New Zealand, the site of an ambitious hunt for wild boar. These are just a two examples of the man's many and varied escapades of the alternative and entertaining kind. But it was in relation to the Yeti that Slick really made, and left, his mark.

In 1956, Slick decided that Nepal was going to be next on his list of must-see places, and the Yeti was going to be his next creature of interest. And how was he going to find the mighty, lumbering man-ape of the huge and ancient mountains? With a helicopter and bloodhounds -- what else? This was hardly well-received by local authorities, however, who immediately put a stop to Slick's plans. However, on March 17 of the following year, according to cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, an undeterred Tom Slick kicked things off in style in the Arun Valley, located in eastern Nepal.

During the next 48 hours, the Nepalese government made a public statement -- intended for the media to disseminate widely -- loudly warning all visiting adventurers and explorers that any attempts to snare, harm, or kill a Yeti would result in the wrath of officialdom coming down very hard on the culprit or culprits. Slick got the message, but that didn't deter him from roaming the mountains with a loaded gun. Nor did it prevent him and his team from taking along for the ride a number of steel traps in which to imprison a Yeti, in the event they were lucky enough to find and capture one. Although, one imagines it would not have been an easy task to try and entice a giant hairy ape into a cage it had no intention of entering!

Several expeditions were undertaken and funded by Slick in the late 1950s. His own, personal excursions, however, came to a sudden and life-changing halt when, on one such trip, the brakes failed on the vehicle that he and his team were driving through the treacherous mountains. One and all quickly leaped to safety, but for Slick the jump was a bad one: His knees were severely damaged; from then on he was forced to play the role of funder rather than participant. Nevertheless, Slick's time in Nepal had convinced him that the Yeti was a very real creature. When Slick began to expand his research to include the North American Bigfoot, his attitude toward the world's mysterious man-beasts began to change dramatically. The days of wanting to hunt down and kill such a creature were replaced by a desire to obtain definitive and irrefutable evidence in the form of photographs and then let the beasts live in peace and privacy. Sadly, as we will see later, Slick did not live to see his dreams and plans come to fruition.

Tibet in Turmoil

One of the most fascinating claims made about Tom Slick is that while he was legitimately searching for the Yeti in Tibet, he was also there at the request, or maybe even the order, of the CIA to keep a close and careful watch on the fraught relationship that existed between its population and the government of the People's Republic of China. History would seem to bear this out. Skirmishes between Tibetan rebels and Chinese armed forces in both the Amdo and Kham regions of Tibet dated back to 1956, only months before Slick popped up to allegedly do his bit of monster hunting, which may not have been entirely coincidental. Some have suggested that perhaps Slick had a secondary but arguably far more important role in Tibet -- namely, to secretly check out the area, forge links to see who was saying what to whom, secure plenty of photographs of the land, and become an influential player and a ferreter and collector of intelligence data at a local level on the growing problems that Tibet was having with China.

It was in the early spring of 1959 that the conflict in the region reached boiling point. On March 10, violent chaos broke out in Lhasa, the capital city, which was under the iron grip of the Chinese Community Party, and had been since 1951. Seen as being a potential threat to the life of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, the fighting quickly prompted secret plans to get him out of the area as fast as possible. And who was at the forefront of this clandestine operation? None other than the CIA's Special Activities Division, which successfully achieved its assignment of getting the Dalai Lama into India, where he created what became known as the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala. This clearly had the full support of the people of Tibet, as evidenced by the fact that more than 80,000 fellow countrymen eventually followed him.

As for the CIA's Special Activities Division, as the name suggests, this is the one branch of the agency that, perhaps more than any other, takes key and decisive roles in potentially touchy operations relative to intelligence matters. Paramilitary operations are a regular part of its work, as are programs using psychological warfare against the enemy. As we have seen already, psy-war projects were used by U.S. Intelligence in two earlier cryptozoological controversies in the 1950s -- the Flatwoods Monster of West Virginia and the Aswang Vampire of the Philippines. A case of first, second, and now, with the Yeti, third time lucky? Quite possibly. Of course, if Tom Slick was involved in capers of the spying kind while roaming around Tibet, wouldn't we have some evidence of this -- something in his background, the people he mixed with, the places he went? Well, guess what? We do.

The Name's Slick, Tom Slick

There's very little doubt that Tom Slick did some work for the CIA. He certainly would have been the right person to have on board for such an ingenious project -- namely, to do a bit of localized spying under a carefully scripted ruse of looking for a bunch of Yetis. Not only did Slick have a genuine fascination for cryptozoology in general and the Abominable Snowman in particular, but he moved in a lot of powerful circles with numerous Significant people -- many of whom were linked to the secret worlds of spying, the CIA, official chicanery, and Intelligence gathering. One of those, and a good friend to Slick, was Sir Ellice Sassoon, 3rd Baronet, GBE, a resident of Shanghai who spent a great deal of time protecting and advancing Western interests in the Far East and the Orient.

Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon, 3rd Baronet, GBE (20 December 1881 – 13 August 1961) was a businessman and hotelier from the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant and banking family.

Baghdadi Jews, also known as Indo-Iraqi Jews, is the traditional name given to the former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East, who settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

Beginning under the Mughal Empire in the 18th century, merchant traders from Baghdad and Aleppo established originally Judeo-Arabic speaking Jewish communities in India, then in a trading network across Asia, following Mizrahi Jewish customs. These flourished under the British Empire in the 19th century, growing to be English-speaking and British oriented.

These grew into a tight trading and kinship network across Asia with smaller Baghdadi communities being established beyond India in the mid-nineteenth century in Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Baghdadi trading outposts were established across colonial Asia with families settling in Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Australia. Until the Second World War, these communities attracted a modest flow of Jewish emigrants from Iraq, with smaller numbers hailing from Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and Turkey.

The Second World War, brought strife to India, the Japanese occupation of Burma, Hong Kong and Shanghai, then swiftly the end of the British Empire in Asia. Dislocated by war, the violence of the Indian Partition, rising nationalism and the uncertainty of independence in both India and Burma, an exodus began to the newly founded state of Israel, Britain and Australia. Their old trade routes severed by first Communist victory in China, the ocean trade stifled in India and Burma by postcolonial nationalizations and trade restrictions, the Baghdadi Jewish had emigrated almost in their entirety by the 1970s. Families of Baghdadi Jewish descent continue to play a major role in Jewish life, especially in Great Britain where families such as the Sassoons and Reubens have enjoyed great prominence in business and politics.

-- Baghdadi Jews, by Wikipedia

The Sassoon family, known as "Rothschilds of the East" due to the immense wealth they accumulated in finance and trade, is of Baghdadi Jewish descent and international renown. It was based in Baghdad, Iraq, before moving to Bombay, India, and then spreading to China, England, and other countries. It is said that the family descended from one of the court families of the Iberian Peninsula in the twelfth century. They later served as Financial Advisors to Islamic Rulers.

From the 18th century, the Sassoons were one of the wealthiest families in the world, with a corporate empire spanning the entire continent of Asia.

-- Sassoon family, by Wikipedia

Sir Ellice Victor Elias Sassoon was born 30 December 1881 in Naples, Italy while his family was en route to India. He was raised in England where he attended Harrow and Trinity College (Cambridge University). He was from a Baghdadi Jewish family who had made their fortune in the opium business. The family also had large holdings in the Indian cotton industry. Sir Victor served in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. He survived a plane crash in 1916 and sustained leg injuries that plagued him for the rest of his life. When his father died in 1924, Victor inherited his title and became 3rd Baronet of Bombay. He moved to India, where he managed his family's textile mills and served in the Indian Legislative Assembly.

In the 1920s and 1930s, he transferred much of his wealth from India to Shanghai, China and contributed to a real estate boom there by investing millions of US dollars in the local economy. Sir Victor frequently traveled worldwide for business and pleasure and divided his time between Poona, India and Shanghai. He acquired the Cathay Land Company, the Cathay Hotel Company and at least 50 other companies. Sassoon built the Cathay Hotel (now the Peace Hotel) in 1929, and other large hotels, office buildings and residences, many in The Bund, a waterfront area in central Shanghai (including Hamilton House, Metropole Hotel and Embankment). At one time, he owned over 1,800 properties there. Sassoon endeavored to protect Western interests in the Orient and helped European Jews survive in the Shanghai Ghetto.

Sir Victor Sassoon loved photography and opened a studio in Shimla first called Hamilton Studios. In 1928 he established his hobby and opened a studio in Bombay State at Ballard Estate by the same name as Hamilton Studios at E.D.Sassoon Building (one of his property), Ballard Estate, and all the negatives from Shimla were brought here, to Bombay, closing down that studio completely. He was also fond of horse racing, Chinese ivories, international friendships and travel. He counted members of the aristocracy and such Hollywood stars as Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Basil Rathbone and Bette Davis among his acquaintances. An accomplished photographer, he made many images of friends, and of local and foreign landscapes and created numerous photograph albums. He also illustrated his diaries with his own photographs.

He lived in Shanghai until 1941, when due to China's war with Japan, he was forced to leave. After the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, he sold his business interests in China and relocated to Nassau, Bahamas.

-- Victor Sassoon, by Wikipedia

Slick's name also appears in the address book of a certain Russian character named George de Mohrenschildt, a petroleum geologist who, upon immigrating to the United States in 1938, was put on J. Edgar Hoover's FBI watch list, following a tipoff from contacts in British Intelligence intimating that he, de Mohrenschildt, was spying for the Germans. On top of that, de Mohrenschildt was in Fort Worth, Texas, in the summer of 1962 and just happened to become pals with none other than one of the most infamous and controversial characters in American history, Lee Harvey Oswald.

De Mohrenschildt believed that Oswald had been a pawn in the shooting of President Kennedy and testified to as much before the Warren Commission. This statement was widely publicized by the New Orleans DA Jim Garrison, who later became a famed investigator of the death of JFK. Notably, James Douglass, the author of JFK and the Unspeakable -- a book that concludes Kennedy was murdered by elements of the Mafia, CIA, and FBI, acting on orders from on high as a direct result of Kennedy's plans to end the Cold War -- said of de Mohrenschildt that he had been Oswald's CIA-approved shepherd in Dallas [who] probably [had] no understanding in advance of the scapegoat role that lay ahead for [Oswald]" (Douglass, 2010).

In addition, de Mohrenschildt was also very chummy with the Bush family. Yes, that Bush family. To the extent that while at the Andover, Massachusetts-based Phillips Academy, de Mohrenschildt's nephew, a man named Edward G. Hooker, roomed with none other than President George Herbert Walker Bush.

George Sergius de Mohrenschildt (Russian: Георгий Сергеевич де Мореншильд; April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death, two days after the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.

Mohrenschildt began life as Jerzy Sergius von Mohrenschildt in Mozyr, in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus, born on April 4 in the old-style Russian Julian calendar. He had an older brother, Dimitri. His wealthy father, Sergey Alexandrovich von Mohrenschildt, was of German, Swedish, and Russian descent. Mohrenschildt's mother, Alexandra, was of Polish, Russian, and Hungarian descent. Sergey von Mohrenschildt was claimed by his son to have been a Marshal of Nobility of the Minsk Governorate from 1913-1917, and a civil rank of Actual Civil Councilor corresponding to Major General. In 1920, some years after the Russian Revolution, Sergey von Mohrenschildt was arrested by the Bolsheviks for anti-communist activities. He was sentenced to exile for life in Veliky Ustyug, a town in the north of Russia. Mohrenschildt later testified to the Warren Commission that while awaiting transport to Veliky Ustyug, his father had become ill. Two Jewish doctors who treated him in jail advised him to stop eating so he would appear more sickly. The doctors then told the Soviet government that Sergey was too ill to survive the trip to Veliky Ustyug and he should be allowed to stay at home to recover, under the condition that he check in weekly until he was well enough to be sent to Veliky Ustyug. The Soviet government agreed. After his release, Sergey, his wife and the young Mohrenschildt then fled to Poland in a hay wagon (Mohrenschildt's older brother Dimitri was awaiting execution, but was later released in a prisoner exchange in Poland). During their journey, Mohrenschildt, his father and mother Alexandra contracted typhoid fever. Alexandra died of the disease shortly after the family entered Poland.

After the death of his mother, Mohrenschildt and his father made their way to Wilno, where the family had a six-acre property. Mohrenschildt graduated from the Wilno gymnasium in 1929 and later graduated from the Polish Cavalry Academy in 1931. He went on to earn a master's degree at the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies. Having completed a dissertation on the economic influence of the U.S. on Latin America, he received a doctor of science degree in international commerce from the University of Liège in Belgium in 1938.

George von Mohrenschildt migrated to the United States in May 1938, after which he changed the nobiliary particle in his name from the German "von" to the French "de". According to Mohrenschildt, he and Fraiss, among their other duties, gathered information about people involved in "pro-German" activities, such as those bidding for US oil leases on behalf of Germany before the US became involved in World War II. Mohrenschildt testified that the purpose of their data collection was to help the French outbid the Germans.

Mohrenschildt spent the summer of 1938 with his older brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt on Long Island, New York. Dimitri was a staunch anti-communist, member of the OSS and one of the founders of the CIA's Radio Free Europe and Amcomlib (a.k.a. Radio Liberty) stations. His contacts included top officials of the CIA.

While in New York, Mohrenschildt became acquainted with the Bouvier family, including the young Jacqueline Bouvier, the future wife of John F. Kennedy. Jacqueline grew up calling Mohrenschildt "Uncle George" and would sit on his knee. He became a close friend of Jacqueline's aunt Edith Bouvier Beale.

Mohrenschildt dabbled in the insurance business from 1939 to 1941, but failed to pass his broker's examination. In 1941, he became associated with Film Facts in New York, a production company owned by his cousin Baron Maydell, who was said to have pro-Nazi sympathies. (Mohrenschildt denied any Nazi sympathies of his own, claiming that he had helped raise money for the Polish resistance.) Mohrenschildt made a documentary film about resistance fighters in Poland. According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent."

In 1942, Mohrenschildt married an American teenager named Dorothy Pierson. They had a daughter, Alexandra (known as Alexis) and divorced in early 1944. In 1945, Mohrenschildt received a master's degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas.

After the end of World War II, Mohrenschildt moved to Venezuela, where he worked for Pantepec Oil, a company owned by the family of William F. Buckley. In 1947, he married Phyllis Washington, the daughter of a diplomat with the State Department. They divorced in 1949. That same year, Mohrenschildt became a U.S. citizen. In 1950, he launched an oil investment firm with his step-nephew Edward Hooker, with offices in New York City, Denver, and Abilene. In 1951, Mohrenschildt's third marriage was to the physician Wynne "Didi" Sharples. The following year, the couple settled in Dallas, Texas, where Mohrenschildt took a job with oilman Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist. Mohrenschildt and his third wife had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom were born with cystic fibrosis (the couple's son died of the disease in 1960, as did their daughter in 1973). Mohrenschildt and Sharples were divorced in 1957.

Mohrenschildt joined the Dallas Petroleum Club, was a member of the Dallas Council on World Affairs, and taught at a local college. One of his longtime friends, offshore oil engineer George Kitchel, told the FBI that Mohrenschildt counted among his good friends oil barons Clint Murchison, H.L. [Haroldson Lafayette] Hunt, John W. Mecom, Sr., and Sid Richardson. Mohrenschildt also joined the right-wing Texas Crusade for Freedom, whose members included Earle Cabell, Everette DeGolyer, Harold Byrd and Ted Dealey.

In 1957, Mohrenschildt went to Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department-sponsored International Cooperation Administration. While in Yugoslavia, he was accused by the authorities there of making drawings of military fortifications. After returning to the United States, Mohrenschildt was debriefed by the CIA, both in Washington and in Dallas.

Following his divorce in 1957, Mohrenschildt married his fourth wife, former dancer and model Jeanne LeGon, in June 1959. LeGon (née Eugenia Fomenko) was the daughter of a director of the Chinese Far East Railway who was later killed by communists. From late 1960 and into 1961, he and his wife toured Central America and the Caribbean. His "walking trip" through Central America was made to recover from the grief of losing his only son in 1960 to cystic fibrosis. However, Mohrenschildt submitted a written report of his trip to the U.S. State Department, and a photograph shows him meeting the American ambassador to Costa Rica.

Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian-born wife Marina Oswald were introduced to Mohrenschildt in the summer of 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas. Mohrenschildt testified to the Warren Commission in 1964 that he had met the Oswalds through a prominent member of the local Russian-American community, oil accountant George Bouhe. When asked whether it was safe to help Oswald, Bouhe said that he had checked with the FBI. Mohrenschildt also believed that he had discussed Oswald with Max Clark, whom he believed was connected with the FBI, and with J. Walton Moore, whom Mohrenschildt described as "a Government man — either FBI or Central Intelligence", and who had debriefed Mohrenschildt several times following his travels abroad, starting in 1957.(According to a CIA classified document, obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore was an agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division in Dallas.) Mohrenschildt asserted that, shortly after meeting Oswald, he had asked Moore and Fort Worth attorney Max E. Clark about Oswald to reassure himself that it was "safe" for the Mohrenschildts to assist Oswald. Mohrenschildt testified that one of the persons with whom he had discussed Oswald told him that Oswald "seems to be OK," and that "he is a harmless lunatic." However, he was not exactly sure who had who told him that.... After returning home from a weekend trip to Houston, Mohrenschildt became aware that someone had broken into his home and copied his personal papers and other documents. At the time, he also had a manuscript that Oswald had given him to read, and realized that the document might also have been photocopied in the search. His primary concern was that the CIA was behind the break-in. According to Mohrenschildt, Moore flatly denied that the CIA was involved in any way....

On April 14, 1963, Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne visited the Oswalds' apartment. As Marina was showing Jeanne around the apartment, they discovered Oswald's rifle leaning against the wall inside a closet. Jeanne told George that Oswald had a rifle, and George joked to Oswald, "Were you the one who took a pot-shot at General Walker?" (General Edwin Walker was a conservative activist about whom George de Mohrenschildt said he "knew that Oswald disliked.") When later asked by the Warren Commission about Oswald's reaction to his question, Mohrenschildt said that Oswald "smiled at that." In an interview with Edward Jay Epstein, Mohrenschildt claimed to have been in touch with the CIA about Oswald's attempted assassination of Walker. "I spoke to the CIA both before and afterwards. It was what ruined me." The Warren Commission concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald had attempted to kill General Walker.

In June 1963, Mohrenschildt moved to Haiti. He never saw Oswald again.

After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in April 1964. According to Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, then chief Pentagon-to-CIA liaison officer, Mohrenschildt had several private lunches with former CIA director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles while testifying before the commission. In November 1966, Mohrenschildt left Haiti and returned to Dallas. During 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed Mohrenschildt and his wife as part of Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw. Garrison said that both of the Mohrenschildts insisted that Oswald had been the scapegoat in the assassination. Garrison concluded from his conversation with them that George de Mohrenschildt had been one of Oswald's unwitting "baby-sitters ... assigned to protect or otherwise see to the general welfare of Oswald."...

On September 17, 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate Mohrenschildt, because he had "attempted to get in touch with the CIA Director." On September 5, 1976, Mohrenschildt had written a letter to the director of the CIA, George H. W. Bush, asking for his assistance. He was acquainted with the Bush family; George H.W. Bush had roomed with Mohrenschildt's nephew, Edward G. Hooker, at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. The letter said:

You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation. I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from [cystic fibrosis] over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people — I do not know. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much. Could you do something to remove the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more. Good luck in your important job. Thank you so much.

George H. W. Bush responded:

Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter. I believe I can appreciate your state of mind in view of your daughter's tragic death a few years ago, and the current poor state of your wife's health. I was extremely sorry to hear of these circumstances. In your situation I can well imagine how the attentions you described in your letter affect both you and your wife. However, my staff has been unable to find any indication of interest in your activities on the part of Federal authorities in recent years. The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long subsided. I can only speculate that you may have become "newsworthy" again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination, and thus may be attracting the attention of people in the media. I hope this letter had been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely.

— George Bush, Director of Central Intelligence. [CIA Exec Reg. # 76,51571 9.28.76]

On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had Mohrenschildt committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and listed in a notarized affidavit four previous suicide attempts while he was in the Dallas area. In the affidavit, she stated that Mohrenschildt suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him. However, he was released at the end of the year....

On March 16, 1977, Mohrenschildt returned to the United States from his trip. His daughter talked with him at length and found him to be deeply disturbed about certain matters, reporting that he had expressed a desire to kill himself. On March 29, Mohrenschildt gave an interview to author Edward Jay Epstein, during which he claimed that in 1962, Dallas CIA operative J. Walton Moore and one of Moore's associates had handed him the address of Lee Harvey Oswald in nearby Fort Worth and then suggested that Mohrenschildt might like to meet him. He suggested to Moore that he would appreciate some help from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti. "I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it," Mohrenschildt said. "Too much was at stake." On the same day as the Epstein interview, Mohrenschildt received a business card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, telling him that he would like to see him. The HSCA considered him a "crucial witness". That afternoon, Mohrenschildt was found dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head in a house at which he was staying in Manalapan, Florida. The coroner's verdict was suicide.

-- George de Mohrenschildt, by Wikipedia

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Part 2 of 3

And speaking of Bush Sr., there's a Tom Slick connection there, too, and it's a very significant one. Slick was on the board of directors of an organization that went by the title of Dresser Industries, a multinational outfit based out of Dallas, Texas. It transpires that Henry Neil Mallon, the president of Dresser, gave George H. W. Bush -- the director of the CIA and future president -- his inroad into the lucrative world of the oil industry. And here's where we see even more evidence of Slick popping up in significant places and with even more significant people.

Dresser Industries, Inc. [CIA partner]. Maintained liaison with the CIA through the Business Council.

-- The Almost Classified Guide to CIA Front Companies, Proprietaries & Contractors, by Wayne Madsen

Henry Neil Mallon (1895 – March 1, 1983) was an American businessman. He served as the chair of the board, president, and director of Dresser Industries (Cleveland, OH) (now Halliburton).

Henry Neil Mallon was born in 1895. He graduated from Yale University, where he became friends with Prescott Bush.

Mallon served as chair of the board, president, and director of Dresser Industries. He was also the president of Dresser Manufacturing Limited (Toronto, Ontario, Canada); the chair of the board, director, Bryant Heater Company (Cleveland, Ohio); factory manager, general manager, director 20–29, US Can Company (Cincinnati, Ohio); 19–20 w/Continental Can Company (Chicago, Illinois); Director, Bovaud & Seyfang Manufacturing Company (Bradford, Pennsylvania), Clark Brothers Inc (Olean, New York), Day & Night Manufacturing Company (Monrovia, California), International Derrick & Equipment Company (Columbus, Ohio), Kobe, Inc (Huntington Park, California), Pacific Pumps, Inc (CA), Roots-Connersville Blower Corporation (Connersville, Indiana), Security Engineering Company (Whittier, California), Stacey Brothers, Gus Construction Company (Cincinnati, Ohio), Pharis Tire & Rubber Company (Newark, Ohio), Petrolite Corporation (St. Louis, Missouri), Magazines of Industry (New York City), Hydrocarbon Research Inc (New York City), Carthage Hydrocol Corporation (New York City).

Mallon hired George Herbert Walker Bush to work for Dresser Industries in West Texas shortly after he graduated from Yale University. He was also an early investor in Zapata Corporation, founded by Bush. Bush in turn named one of his sons, Neil Mallon Bush, after his mentor.

-- Henry Neil Mallon, by Wikipedia

In the early 1950s, Bush, along with partners Hugh and Bill Liedtke, established Zapata Petroleum, a company that in just a few years was worth millions. In 1954, the president-to-be decided to go it alone and purchased the subsidiary Zapata OffShore. By 1958, the company was drilling in Mexico's eastern Gulf. Intriguingly, the islands of the area had been leased to Howard Hughes -- himself deeply involved with the CIA -- and plans were made to use them as bases from which to attack Cuba in the early 1960s. And guess who was a very close friend of Hughes back then? Tom Slick. The two even had adjoining premises at the Beverly Hills Hotel!

Hughes Aircraft Corporation. [CIA partner]. Based in Culver City, California, provided corporate cover for CIA officers, including Barton Evans, the CIA specialist on world aviation. CIA slipped in agents under Hughes cover to spy on Soviet aircraft exhibited at the Paris Air Show. Involved with CIA's Project OXCARD (SR-71/A-12) and AQUATONE (U-2).

Hughes Tool Company. [CIA partner]. Operated Sal Cay in the Bahamas as a CIA base for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

-- The Almost Classified Guide to CIA Front Companies, Proprietaries & Contractors, by Wayne Madsen

And so we see Tom Slick mixing with CIA asset Howard Hughes, an outfit (Dresser Industries) that put a U.S. president and CIA director on the road to success, a shadowy and controversy-filled character with links to Lee Harvey Oswald, and a powerful baronet who spent a great deal of time ensuring that the West's influence in the Orient remained strong and vital And, as if more proof were needed of Slick's ties to officialdom. the family's corporation ran a freight airline service called Slick Airways, whose Douglas DC-4 and DC-6 aircraft and its Lockheed Super Constellations were used in clandestine CIA missions to secretly ferry munitions and agents to areas of the globe where the Agency wished to wield its influence (in other words, pretty much everywhere).

Cryptozoology vs. Cryptic-Zoology

To further support the idea that Tom Slick was an important asset of the CIA, we see that he was not the only one who combined monster-hunting with a bit of daring espionage. There were others in the field of cryptozoology who appeared to be doing exactly the same thing when circumstances demanded it. Sidney Dillon Ripley was just one such example. In the Second World War he was in the employ of the Office of Strategic Services, which was the biggest inspiration behind the creation of the CIA in 1947. From 1964 to 1984, he was also the secretary of the prestigious Smithsonian Institute and a board member of the World Wildlife Fund. Loren Coleman says of Ripley that he was "involved in several cryptozoological episodes, including the search for the Spiny Babbler," a peculiar and elusive species of bird that lives only in Nepal. Concerning Ripley's links to the covert and clandestine world of intelligence, as well as his enthusiasm for seeking out unusual or legendary animals, Coleman has this to say: "There is little doubt he used his searching for multiple objectives" (Coleman, 2006).

Sidney Dillon Ripley II (September 20, 1913 – March 12, 2001) was an American ornithologist and wildlife conservationist. He served as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for 20 years, from 1964 to 1984, leading the institution through its period of greatest growth and expansion. For his leadership at the Smithsonian, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985.

Ripley was born in New York City, after a brother, Louis, was born in 1906 in Litchfield, Connecticut.. His mother was Constance Baillie Rose of Scottish descent while his father was Louis Arthur Dillon Ripley, a wealthy real estate agent who drove around in an 1898 Renault Voiturette. Both his paternal grandparents, Julia and Josiah Dwight Ripley, died before he was born but he connected to them was through Cora Dillon Wyckoff. Great Aunt Cora and her husband, Dr. Peter Wyckoff, often hosted young Ripley at their Park Avenue apartment. Cora and Julia's father (his great-grandfather) and partial namesake was Sidney Dillon, twice President of the Union Pacific Railroad. and his uncle was Sidney Dillon Ripley I. Both Gilded Age tycoons....

In 1936, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University. While at Yale he briefly considered a more traditional career path after a conversation with his brother. “Louis told me we ought to have a lawyer in the family,” he has said, “but I really hated the idea, and in the summer of 1936, after graduating from college, I resolved to abandon all thoughts of a prosperous and worthy future and devote myself to birds, the subject I was overpoweringly interested in.”

A friend of the Ripleys, John Mott, whose father founded the Young Men's Christian Association, and Celestine Mott were planning a visit to India to set up a YMCA hostel in India.

John Raleigh Mott (May 25, 1865 – January 31, 1955) was an evangelist and long-serving leader of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in establishing and strengthening international Protestant Christian student organizations that worked to promote peace. He shared the prize with Emily Balch. From 1895 until 1920 Mott was the General Secretary of the WSCF. Intimately involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948, that body elected him as a lifelong honorary President. His best-known book, The Evangelization of the World in this Generation, became a missionary slogan in the early 20th century.

-- John Mott, by Wikipedia

This led to a visit to India at age 13, along with his sister. They stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay and then went to Kashmir and included a walking tour into Ladakh and western Tibet. In Kashmir, they flew falcons with Colonel Biddulph.

Colonel John Biddulph (25 July 1840 – 24 December 1921) was a British soldier, author and naturalist who served in the government of British India.

Biddulph was born in 1840, and was the third son of Robert Biddulph. He was educated at Westminster School, and at the age of 18 joined the 19th Lancers and proceeded to India where he served in Awadh during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Afterwards, he joined the political department of the government of British India. Between 1873 and 1874 he accompanied Thomas Douglas Forsyth, Thomas E. Gordon, Henry Walter Bellew, Ferdinand Stoliczka, Henry Trotter, and R. A. Champman on the Second Yarkand Mission – an expedition across the Himalayas to Chinese Turkestan. During this journey, Biddulph collected numerous specimens of birds and mammals, including an unknown species of Podoces which was later named in his honour by Allan Octavian Hume as Podoces biddulphi.

In 1877 Biddulph was posted at Gilgit, in the extreme north-western corner of Kashmir, and remained there until 1881. During this period he corresponded on ornithology with Hume and his observations and research in this region were published in two papers in the Ibis. After holding many posts as British Resident at various princely states and serving for four years on the staff of the Viceroy of India, Lord Northbrook, Biddulph retired from the service in 1896. He died on 24 December 1921 in Grey Court, London, aged 81.

-- John Biddulph, by Wikipedia

They also visited Calcutta and Nagpur. One of Ripley's brothers shot a tiger at a shoot hosted by a Maharaja. This led to his lifelong interest in the birds of India. He returned to St Paul's to complete his studies. It was suggested to him that Yale would be the best for him. Ripley received a training in making specimens from Frank Chapman [an American ornithologist and pioneering writer of field guides] and even had tea once as a sophomore [with] Erwin Stresemann.

Erwin Stresemann (22 November 1889, in Dresden – 20 November 1972, in East Berlin) was a German naturalist and ornithologist. Stresemann was an ornithologist of extensive breadth who compiled one of the first and most comprehensive accounts of avian biology of its time as part of the Handbuch der Zoologie (Handbook of Zoology). In the process of his studies on birds, he also produced one of the most extensive historical accounts on the development of the science of ornithology. He influenced numerous ornithologists around him and oversaw the development of ornithology in Germany as editor of the Journal für Ornithologie.

-- Erwin Stresemann, by Wikipedia

He decided that birds were more interesting than law and after graduating from Yale in 1936 he was advised by Ernst Mayr that "the most important thing you can do is get a sound and broad biological training."

Ernst Walter Mayr ForMemRS (/ˈmaɪər/; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005)[1][2] was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

Although Charles Darwin and others posited that multiple species could evolve from a single common ancestor, the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating the species problem. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species. In his book Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group of morphologically similar individuals, but a group that can breed only among themselves, excluding all others. When populations within a species become isolated by geography, feeding strategy, mate choice, or other means, they may start to differ from other populations through genetic drift and natural selection, and over time may evolve into new species. The most significant and rapid genetic reorganization occurs in extremely small populations that have been isolated (as on islands).

His theory of peripatric speciation (a more precise form of allopatric speciation which he advanced), based on his work on birds, is still considered a leading mode of speciation, and was the theoretical underpinning for the theory of punctuated equilibrium, proposed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould. Mayr is sometimes credited with inventing modern philosophy of biology, particularly the part related to evolutionary biology, which he distinguished from physics due to its introduction of (natural) history into science.

-- Ernst Mayr, by Wikipedia

He then enrolled at Columbia University. and he began studying zoology at Columbia University. As a part of his study, Ripley participated in the Denison-Crockett Expedition to New Guinea in 1937-1938 and the Vanderbilt Expedition to Sumatra in 1939. He later obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from Harvard University in 1943.

During World War II, he served under William J. Donovan ("Coordinator of Information") in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the early days Ripley acted as liaison with the British Security Coordination led by Sir William Stephenson at the Rockefeller Center. He later was in charge of American intelligence services in Southeast Asia. Others who joined the OSS early included Ripley's Yale friends Sherman Kent and Wilmarth S. Lewis. Ripley held a high regard for his OSS colleagues and considered it unfair on the part of some to decry those who were socially inclined leading to some calling the organization as "Oh So Social".

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

-- The Origins of the Overclass, by Steve Kangas

Ripley trained many Indonesian spies, all of whom were killed during the war. He was posted briefly to Australia with the identity of a lieutenant colonel in case he was captured. He was to go through England, Egypt, China and then on to India and Ceylon. He then worked with Detachment 404 in Bangkok, working to recover Allied airmen who had been captured in the region with the help of friendly Thais who worked to keep them under cover from the Japanese forces. After this period he moved to Sri Lanka and never got to Australia as originally planned. He worked with and "cultivated" Lord Mountbatten throughout this period. The two often met at dinners and parties both in New Delhi and at Trincomalee. On one occasion, Ripley noticed a green woodpecker and went off to shoot it while dressed only in a towel. The specimen label reads "Shot at cocktail party... towel fell off." It was in Kandy, Sri Lanka that he met his future wife Mary Livingston and her roommate Julia Child (then Julia McWilliams) both working with the OSS. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson was also here and he would introduce Julia to Paul Child, her future husband. An article in the August 26, 1950 New Yorker said that Ripley reversed the usual pattern, where spies posed as ornithologists in order to gain access to sensitive areas, and instead used his position as an intelligence officer to go birding in restricted areas. The government of Thailand awarded him the Order of the White Elephant, a national award for his support of the Thai underground during the war. In 1947, Ripley entered Nepal pretending to be a close confidante of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Nepal government, eager to maintain diplomatic ties with its newly independent neighbour, allowed him and Edward Migdalski to collect bird specimens. Nehru came to hear of this from an article in The New Yorker and was furious, leading to a difficult time for his collaborator and coauthor, Salim Ali. Salim Ali came to hear of Nehru's displeasure through Horace Alexander and the matter was forgiven after some effort. The OSS past however led to a growing suspicion that American scientists working in India were CIA agents. David Challinor, a former Smithsonian administrator, noted that there were many CIA agents in India, with some posing as scientists. He noted that the Smithsonian sent a scholar to India for anthropological research who unknown to them was interviewing Tibetan refugees from Chinese-occupied Tibet but went on to say that there was no evidence that Ripley worked for the CIA after he left the OSS in 1945.

He joined the American Ornithologists' Union in 1938, became an Elective Member in 1942, and a fellow in 1951. After the war he taught at Yale and was a Fulbright fellow in 1950 and a Guggenheim fellow in 1954. At Yale, one of the key scientific influences on Ripley was the ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson, who had led the Yale expedition to India in 1932. Ripley became a full professor and director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Ripley served for many years on the board of the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S., and was the third president of the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP, now BirdLife International).

-- Sidney Dillon Ripley, by Wikipedia

Then there is a character named John Chambers [make-up artist], who passed away in 2001. A major force in the world of Hollywood, Chambers was responsible for the groundbreaking facial makeup in the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, for which he deservedly won an Academy Award. Chambers was also openly accused of being the brains behind the so-called Patterson Film, a decidedly controversial piece of footage shot on October 20, 1967, by a man named Roger Patterson, at the Klamath River in California. The film appears to document a large, hairy female Bigfoot on the move. For the record, Chambers denied playing any kind of role whatsoever in the creation of the film. It is, however, most interesting that Chambers was awarded the CIA's highest award for civilians, given his connection to Bigfoot via the Patterson footage, and the fact that he had brought the creatures in Planet of the Apes to life. The reason for the award was actually simple and prosaic: He secretly assisted the agency when field agents were required to be disguised using makeup, wigs, and advanced prosthetics.

John Chambers (September 12, 1922 – August 25, 2001) was an American make-up artist and prosthetic makeup expert in both television and film. He received an Academy Honorary Award from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1968. He is best known for creating the pointed ears of Spock in the television series Star Trek (1966), and for his groundbreaking prosthetic make-up work on the Planet of the Apes film franchise.

Chambers was awarded CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit for his involvement in the Canadian Caper, in which six American hostages escaped during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

The "Canadian Caper" was the joint covert rescue by the Canadian government and the CIA of six American diplomats who had evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979, after the Iranian Revolution, when Islamist students took most of the American embassy personnel hostage, demanding the return of the US-backed Shah for trial.

After the diplomats had been sheltered by the British mission and Canadian diplomatic personnel, the Canadian and United States governments worked on a strategy to gain their escape through subterfuge and use of Canadian passports. The "caper" involved CIA officer (Tony Mendez and his colleague known as "Julio" for this event) joining the six diplomats in Tehran to form a fake film crew. It was purportedly made up of six Canadians, one Irishman and one Latin American, who were finishing scouting for an appropriate location to shoot a scene for the nominal science-fiction film Argo. On the morning of Sunday, January 27, 1980, the full eight-person party passed through passport control, at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, boarded a Swissair flight to Zürich and escaped Iran.

An article written about these events was published in Wired in 2007. It was used loosely as the basis of the film Argo (2012), which dramatized these events. This fictionalized account of the operation won three Academy Awards and three BAFTA awards, including Best Picture.

-- Canadian Caper, by Wikipedia

The incident was the basis of the film Argo, which won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture, and in which Chambers was played by John Goodman....

Work with the CIA

In the late 1970s, Chambers worked as a contractor for the CIA, creating "disguise kits" for CIA personnel stationed in other countries. Some of his work can be seen at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.

In 1980, Chambers was enlisted by CIA officer Tony Mendez to work on the Canadian Caper—the rescue of six American embassy personnel who hid at the residence of the Canadian ambassador during the Iran hostage crisis. Chambers set up a fake movie and production company as a cover story of a film crew planning to shoot a science fiction film, titled Argo, in Iran. To make the cover believable, Chambers used actor Michael Douglas's former office during the filming of The China Syndrome (1979) at Sunset Gower Studios. Chambers and Mendez printed fake business cards, held a film press party at a nightclub in Los Angeles, and took out advertisements in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter magazines. Fellow make-up artist Robert Sidell and his wife Andi assisted in the hoax; Andi posed as the receptionist of their fake production company.

The rescue effort was successful, and Chambers was awarded CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit, but he was required to keep his involvement a secret, until the story was declassified in 1997. In the 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture-winning film Argo, Chambers was portrayed by John Goodman.

-- John Chambers (make-up artist), by Wikipedia

There were other cryptozoologists who were rumored to have connections to the high echelons of U.S. government. An acclaimed and near-legendary cryptozoologist named Ivan T. Sanderson was the author of many books, including Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life and Green Silence: Travels through the Jungles of the Orient. Sanderson also happened to have worked for Britain's Naval Intelligence during the Second World War. His specialty: counterespionage.

Ivan Terence Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a biologist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Along with Belgian-French biologist Bernard Heuvelmans, Sanderson was a founding figure of cryptozoology, a pseudoscience and subculture. Sanderson authored material on paranormal subjects and wrote fiction under the pen name Terence Roberts....

He became famous claiming to have seen an Olitiau after being attacked by a creature he described as "the Granddaddy of all bats".

The olitiau is a giant bat reported from the Assumbo Mountains of Cameroon in West-Central Africa, known from native folklore and a single sighting made by Ivan T. Sanderson. It has sometimes been equated with the kongamato.

-- Olitiau, by Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology

Sanderson conducted a number of expeditions as a teenager and young man into tropical areas in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining fame for his animal collecting as well as his popular writings on nature and travel.

During World War II, Sanderson worked for British Naval Intelligence, in charge of counter-espionage against the Germans in the Caribbean, then for British Security Coordination,...

British Security Co-ordination (BSC) was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

Its purpose was to investigate enemy activities, prevent sabotage against British interests in the Americas, and mobilise pro-British opinion in the Americas. As a 'huge secret agency of nationwide news manipulation and black propaganda', the BSC influenced news coverage in the Herald Tribune, the New York Post, The Baltimore Sun, and Radio New York Worldwide. The stories disseminated from Rockefeller Center would then be legitimately picked up by other radio stations and newspapers, before being relayed to the American public. Through this, anti-German stories were placed in major American media outlets to turn public opinion.

Its cover was the British Passport Control Office. BSC benefitted from support given by the chief of the US Office of Strategic Services, William J. Donovan (whose organisation was modelled on British activities), and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt who was staunchly anti-Nazi.

-- British Security Co-ordination, by Wikipedia

finally finishing out the war as a press agent in New York City. Afterwards, Sanderson made New York his home and became a naturalized U.S. citizen....

Sanderson was an early follower of Charles Fort. Later he became known for writings on topics such as cryptozoology, a word Sanderson coined in the early 1940s, with special attention to the search for lake monsters, sea serpents, Mokèlé-mbèmbé, giant penguins, Yeti, and Sasquatch.

Sanderson's book Abominable Snowmen argued that there are four living types of abominable snowmen scattered over five continents. The book was criticized in the Science journal as unscientific. The reviewer noted that "unfortunately, the author's concept of what constitutes scientific evidence will scarcely be accepted by most scientists. His standards are unbelievably low." Sanderson relied upon anecdotal reports and dubious footprints.

Sanderson has been described as credulous for suggesting that aircraft and boats went missing at Devil's Sea because of a wrinkle in spacetime, gravitational or magnetic aberrations, extra-terrestrials or mysterious underwater people. Larry Kusche who traced the Devil's sea stories to their original sources found that the phenomena of Devil's Sea had been fabricated and was nothing more than an exaggeration based on the loss of several fishing boats over a period of five years.

Sanderson's credibility was damaged with his endorsement of the giant penguin hoax. In 1948 (and the next decade), giant three-toed footprints were found at Clearwater Beach in Florida. Sanderson proclaimed that the footprints were impossible to fake and were made by a fifteen-foot tall penguin. In 1988, Tony Signorini a prankster admitted that with a friend he had made the footprints by a pair of cast iron feet attached to high-top sneakers.

Sanderson founded the Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation in August 1965 on his New Jersey property, which became the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) in 1967. SITU was a non-profit organization that investigated claims of strange phenomena ignored by mainstream science.

-- Ivan T. Sanderson, by Wikipedia

Then there was Carleton S. Coon, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, a man with a Significant interest in the Abominable Snowman, and, like Ivan T. Sanderson, an asset of the Office of Strategic Services. He was a rumored asset of the CIA, too.

Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American physical anthropologist. A Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime and are considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology....

Coon's interest was in attempting to use Darwin's theory of natural selection to explain the differing physical characteristics of races. Coon studied Albanians from 1920 to 1930; he traveled to Ethiopia in 1933; and in Arabia, North Africa and the Balkans, he worked on sites from 1925 to 1939, where he discovered a Neanderthal in 1939. Coon rewrote William Z. Ripley's 1899 The Races of Europe in 1939.

Coon wrote widely for a general audience like his mentor Earnest Hooton.

Earnest Albert Hooton (November 20, 1887 – May 3, 1954) was an American physical anthropologist known for his work on racial classification and his popular writings such as the book Up From The Ape. Hooton sat on the Committee on the Negro, a group that "focused on the anatomy of blacks and reflected the racism of the time."...

He was educated at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. After earning his BA there in 1907, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, which he deferred in order to continue his studies in the United States. He pursued graduate studies in Classics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received an MA in 1908 and a Ph.D. in 1911 on "The Pre-Hellenistic Stage of the Evolution of the Literary Art at Rome", and then continued on to England. He applied for and was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, electing to study at Oxford. There he assisted in the excavation of Viking boat burials. Studying with R.R. Marett, he received a diploma in 1912 and with Marett’s strong support he secured a teaching position at Harvard for next four decades. During this time, he was also Curator of Somatology at the nearby Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology....

Hooton used comparative anatomy to divide humanity up into races — in Hooton's case, this involved describing the morphological characteristics of different "primary races" and the various "subtypes". In 1926, the American Association of Physical Anthropology and the National Research Council organized a Committee on the Negro, which focused on the anatomy of blacks. Among those appointed to the Committee on the Negro were Aleš Hrdlička, Earnest Hooton and eugenist Charles Davenport. In 1927, the committee endorsed a comparison of African babies with young apes. Ten years later, the group published findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology to "prove that the negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race." Hooton played a key part in establishing the racial stereotypes about black athleticism and black criminality of his day in terms of an anthropological framework. Hooton was one of the first to attempt to develop mathematically rigorous criteria for race typology.

At the same time, Hooton maintained that no scientific basis existed correlating mentality with racial variation. "...Each racial type runs the gamut from idiots and criminals to geniuses and statesmen. No type produces a majority of individuals from either end of the scale. While there may be specific racial abilities and disabilities, these have not yet been demonstrated. There are no racial monopolies either of human virtues or of vices." While advocating eugenic sterilizations of those deemed "insane, diseased, and criminalistic", he emphasized there was no justification to correlate such "degeneracy", as he termed it, with race.

-- Earnest Hooton, by Wikipedia

Coon published The Riffians, Flesh of the Wild Ox, Measuring Ethiopia, and A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent. A North Africa Story was an account of his work in North Africa during World War II, which involved espionage and the smuggling of arms to French resistance groups in German-occupied Morocco under the guise of anthropological fieldwork. During that time, Coon was affiliated with the United States Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Coon served as a mentor to another Harvard-educated OSS agent and anthropologist who embraced anthropometry (measuring features of the human body, such as crania and nose sizes) as a means asserting racial types and categories. This was Lloyd Cabot Briggs, author of Living Races of the Sahara Desert (1958) and later of No More for Ever: A Saharan Jewish Town (1962) about the Jews of the Mzab region of the Algerian Sahara, which he wrote with Norina Lami Guède (née Maria Esterina Giovanni). The historian Sarah Abreyava Stein (who argued that Guede had done most of the research) noted that Briggs and Coon corresponded during the writing of No More for Ever, joking, for example, about the genital depilation customs of Jewish women in Ghardaïa....

Strategic Services?

When Lloyd Cabot Briggs submitted an application to the FBI in April 1942, hoping to service the Office of Strategic Services [OSS], the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, as a civilian in North Africa, he identified himself as the recipient of a 1931 bachelor's degree in anthropology from Harvard University, a 1932 diploma in anthropology from the University of Oxford, a 1938 master's degree in anthropology from Harvard and nearly a decade's experience as a stockbroker; a fluent speaker of French and a passable speaker of German and Spanish; a graduate of ten army extension courses and holder of a Restricted Radio Telephone Operator's License; and member of various academic societies in England and the United States. Briggs required only one week's advance notice for deployment and was willing to accept "any" pay.4 His application did not state that the applicant could also boast a powerful genealogical lineage -- both Lloyd Cabot Briggs and his wife of seven years, Eleanor Moncrieffe Livingston, hailed from Boston Brahmin families.5 What a fine match Briggs made for the OSS, called by some the "Oh So Social" due to the significant number of socially prominent men and women it attracted.6 As for Briggs himself, he was -- in the words of his interviewer at the OSS -- "cool" and "tough."7 Six months after lodging his application with the FBI, Briggs arrived in Algiers. He was thirty-four years old. Blue blood, personal connections, an elite education, a robust work portfolio -- combined, these elements ensured that Briggs would "occupy the equivalent of the position of a Major in his assignment in North Africa" and be paid $443 each month, including $250 in base pay, $105 for lodging, $63 for "subsistence," and $25 for "foreign duty."8 It was a significant sum and a lofty title for a young man with neither military nor intelligence experience to occupy in war-torn Algiers.

Created by presidential military order of Franklin Roosevelt but a year prior to Briggs's arrival in Algeria, the OSS existed for three years, from 1942 to 1945, after which the obligations of the organization were assumed by the Department of State and Department of War, an arrangement maintained until President Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. Because they possessed linguistic skills that were rare among members of the armed forces, social scientists (numerous anthropologists among them) were targeted by the OSS as would-be employees; as such, the scholars were tasked with supplying the Joint Chiefs of Staff with information pertinent to the war effort (much of which was obtained through espionage), conducting special assignments and spreading Allied propaganda. David Price has argued that the Second World War ushered in an era of optimism within the anthropological community, which overwhelmingly supported the idea of scholars' contributing to the war effort; this was a departure from the skepticism of earlier years (in 1917, Franz Boas famously warned fellow anthropologists against putting their skills to the service of the state) and in no way signaled the tremendous discord and rancor that would divide the profession in the Cold War era.9

In subsequent years, Briggs evinced neither modesty nor shame about his service to the OSS. In the heady year 1967 he chose the Fellow Newsletter of the American Anthropological Association to reminisce about his mutually informing work as an OSS officer and anthropologist (this amidst a controversy over a proposal that the AAA to endorse a "Resolution against Warfare" that censured the American government's means of fighting the Vietnam War, including "deliberate policies of genocide" that "offend human nature").10 A similarly sanguine spirit surfaces in the memoir of Carleton Coon, an erstwhile mentor of Briggs's at Harvard, who also served the OSS in North Africa during the war.11 Coon was a self-proclaimed adventurer who had already spent some two decades living, working, and traveling in North Africa, mostly in the Rif Mountains of Morocco. His account of his time as an OSS employee, in which he boasts of training assassins and kidnappers, is nothing short of swashbuckling, occasionally straining credulity and not infrequently raising ethical questions.12

How did Briggs spend the war years? In the wake of the war, when Briggs was nominated for a Medal of Freedom, his supervisor, Rudyard Boulton, would describe Briggs's wartime activities in warm but vague terms: "Mr. Briggs was appointed Security Officer of the Regiment with duties of devising ways and means of indoctrinating regimental personnel, forestalling attempts at penetration on the post of enemy agents, screening and vetting foreign personnel to be employed locally and behind the enemy lines, and assuring the safety of the classified documents of the Regiment."13 In fact. Briggs's experience of war was brief. During the Allied invasion of southern Europe, he joined the Seventh Army as a special security detail in France, but was forced to return quickly due to ill health. By then, most Americans stationed in North Africa had been withdrawn. Briggs was desperate to stay. In a series of frantic letters to his supervisors In Washington, he insisted that the OSS required a man on the ground in Algiers, "certainly the most important city south of Marseille and west of Cairo." Without such a representative in North Africa, Briggs fretted, the OSS would "lose face," and "the U.S. Government will lose face (but seriously, and I believe it is serious)," and certain career diplomats with whom he viewed the OSS (or, perhaps, himself) to be in competition (American Consul Robert Daniel Murphy was one) would win "a rather violent scramble ... for North Africa."14

So began a strange few years, in which Briggs lived in Algiers as a civilian but served, undercover, as "Chief of Station, OSS, Algers" -- a title he either adopted or was assigned in December 1944. In this capacity, he voluntarily adopted a code name for himself ("179") and for others with whom he communicated; he entered into an increasingly embattled relationship with the office of the American Consul General; and he labored without pay for at least six months (from October 1944 to April 1945) because, it seems, no one was directly supervising him.15 Perhaps the single strangest document generated during these ambiguous months was by Briggs's father-in-law, Gerald Livingston, who wrote a caustic letter to the OSS in October 1946 begging the agency to order Briggs's return. Briggs, Livingston wrote, "has very important responsibilities here (in the United States]," including an elderly mother, a wife, a daughter " who is rapidly growing up," (his daughter Eleanor was then seven years old) and a business that was allocating Briggs "a good proportion of the firm's earnings" despite the fact that he was "doing no work." Briggs "has certainly done his duty for our country," his father-in-law continued, cautioning, "No one is essential in any job." "All the husbands of my daughter's friends have returned and are back in their former positions in civilian life," Livingston concluded: "It looks to me as though Mr. B thinks the world will come to an end unless he runs your affairs at Algiers."16

Briggs's father-in-law may have been a crank, but he was not the only discontent; nor was he wrong in sensing something was amiss with his son-in-law in Algiers. Briggs and his wife would divorce within the year, and he was to remarry Madeleine Danus, a native of Marseille, soon after.17 In the professional realm, too, all was not as it seemed. In the unruly, immediate postwar years, a number of grievances against Briggs were lodged with the OSS. One was by Harold Finley, newly appointed American consul in Algiers, who expressed concern about "the erroneous character of the information [Briggs] transmits to the OSS." Finley's attention had apparently earlier been drawn to the unreliability of Briggs's reportage, but his letter to the American Consulate General focused on two recent episodes. The first of these was a report of 29 July 1946, concerning the ostensible arrival, from Brazaville, of the renowned Algerian nationalist Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj. Briggs's report describes the political activist being "received with an impressive informal spontaneous demonstration consisting principally of numerous Moslem owned vehicles forming a cortege to accompany him, and also rushing about certain sections of town, with their occupants shouting "Vive Messali" and similar sentiments."18 This information, Finley noted, did not square with that generated by his own sources, including Air France (which had no evidence of Messali's arrival from Brazaville), government officials, or the city's "newspaper men": he speculated, further, that Briggs's report may well have confused Messali with Andre Marty, secretary of the Communist Party, "who was in transit through Algiers on July 27, and for whom a 'tea' was given at the Hotel de Ville."

The second piece of information to which Finley objected concerned the political predilections of Algiers' Jewish community. In a memo of 30 July, Briggs informed his supervisors of negotiations between the Jewish Consistory and "Moslem Nationalists," by which, in the event of the granting to Algeria of partial or complete autonomy, the Arabs undertake to give the Jews a sort of 'preferred status,' that is to consider them rather as Moslems than Europeans in matters where there is a differentiation between the two. The Jews on their part [sic], have agreed to help the Moslems to achieve as great a degree of independence as possible, and to help them get the new state running." This possibility, Finley's complaint noted, was "startling news, coming at a time when Moslem-Jewish antipathies are extremely bitter."19 Finley's letter to his superior notes that he called Briggs to his office, remarking that it would be prudent for Briggs and the Consulate General's office to "report the same 'facts,' even if, as might be expected from time to time, our interpretations of the facts differed." Briggs replied that he was under instruction from the OSS "to report what he hears without necessarily checking his information.... He added that if the information he reported turned out to be wrong, his error would be discovered in Washington before the report was made available to the Department of State and other Departments having an interest in intelligence." Finley asked Briggs whether he might read the OSS's orders to this effect, to which Briggs retorted they were oral instructions delivered in Washington. It was an episode for which Briggs would be indirectly censured by his superiors.20

Was Finley, new consult in town, struggling to assert authority over an American not directly subordinate to him, whose experience he found threatening or whose standing he felt undeserved? Was Briggs genuinely lazy in his reporting? These questions -- which are impossible to answer with confidence -- are less intriguing than is Briggs's attitude in Algiers, his relationship to the information he gathered, and the narratives this information emboldened him to build. For what Lloyd Cabot Briggs's early history in Algeria teaches us is that this was a lover of drama: a man animated by subterfuge, flashy names, grand encounters, moments of suspense. He was comfortable stringing loosely related anecdotes together -- anecdotes gathered second- and thirdhand, their original source unidentifiable -- and weaving the results into a tale whose vividness was ultimately more pleasing than its veracity. He was alos a man who delighted in connections and credentials, even if their depth was exaggerated.21 These impulses Briggs transmitted from his days in the OSS into "the field" of the Sahara and, ultimately, into the pages of No More for Ever.

Briggs returned to the States in the spring of 1947, and found that his erstwhile mentors at Harvard were receptive to the idea of his "returning to the academic fold." (Prior to his tenure with the OSS Briggs had passed qualifying exams at Harvard that advanced him to the status of doctoral candidate.) His hope was to conduct a portion of his coursework at the University of Algiers, where he had already been approved as a doctoral candidate.22 Were he to return to Algeria, he wished to carry on laboratory work at the Bardo Museum of Algiers with the help of Maurice Reygasse (the museum's director and former district commissioner of Tebessa), to excavate a cave in the Gorges de Palestro, and to tour the country, looking for Paleolithic deposits.23 All these ambitions Briggs would realize within the decade. He successfully pursued a doctorate in physical anthropology (awarded in 1952) under the mentorship of Earnest Hooton and with the assistance of Coon, writing a dissertation that focused on the prehistory of northwest Africa and that hinged on research carried out at the Bardo's Laboratory of Physical Anthropology and Prehistoric Archeology. The year after his degree was completed, Briggs would travel to the Algerian Sahara for the first time in the company of Reygasse and the distinguished American photographer David Douglas Sunchan, who was preparing a photographic essay on the Tuareg of the Sahara for Life magazine.24 (As Briggs wrote to his classmates at Harvard on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their graduation: "A great place if you like deserts, which I do.")25 (See figure 3.)

Over a period of fourteen years (1948-1962) that followed his doctoral training at Harvard, Briggs established a home in Algiers (at 7 rue Pierre Viala) and purchased a farm nearby -- these Briggs shared with Danus, who served as something of an assistant to her husband, occasionally accompanying him on his travels.26 All the while, Briggs was amassing an extraordinary private collection of Tuareg art, especially of the Algerian Sahara. Some of these objects he purchased from other collectors, including Reygasse and a number of French army officers, researchers, and colonial administrators; some he purchased on behalf of the Peabody Museum through the American School for Prehistoric Research, an Algiers-based institution affiliated with the Peabody.27 Following Briggs's wishes, his family would donate the bulk of his extraordinary collection to the Peabody after his death.28

Even before Briggs journeyed to the Sahara with Reygasse, he was writing The Living Races of the Sahara Desert. The book's introduction explained to readers: "for the purposes of ecological and cultural description, we will attempt to picture the Saharan peoples as they were two or three generations ago, when substantial modern European political and economic influence had not yet penetrated much beyond the outer fringes of the Desert. Those day as will be our 'present' whenever possible."29 This methodological approach had the advantage of being romantic and practical. As Briggs himself confessed, the study was based on little to no fieldwork but was based, instead, on the published scholarship of others, and, especially, on the insights of Reygasse.30 Reygasse, recalled Briggs jovially, offered the anthropologist the "benefit of his inexhaustible fund of instructive anecdotes and miscellaneous information gathered in the course of extensive travels in the Sahara in years gone by. In many long and pleasant conversations he drew for me pictures of the Desert and its inhabitants so clear and vivid that I was reasonably familiar with many parts of the area before ever I set foot in them."31

-- Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria, by Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Coon did photography work for the United States Air Force from 1954–1957. He photographed areas where US planes might be attacked. This led him to travel throughout Korea, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, Nepal, Sikkim, and the Philippines.

Coon published The Origin of Races in 1962. In its "Introduction" he described the book as part of the outcome of his project he conceived (in light of his work on The Races of Europe) around the end of 1956, for a work to be titled along the lines of Races of the World. He said that since 1959 he had proceeded with the intention to follow The Origin of Races with a sequel, so the two would jointly fulfill the goals of the original project. (He indeed published The Living Races of Man in 1965.) The book asserted that the human species divided into five races before it had evolved into Homo sapiens. Further, he suggested that the races evolved into Homo sapiens at different times. It was not well received. The field of anthropology was moving rapidly from theories of race typology, and The Origin of Races was widely castigated by his peers in anthropology as supporting racist ideas with outmoded theory and notions which had long since been repudiated by modern science. One of his harshest critics, Theodore Dobzhansky, scorned it as providing "grist for racist mills".

-- Carleton S. Coon, by Wikipedia

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Part 3 of 3

And then there's the late anthropologist George Agogino. Not only did he pen the preface to Ivan T. Sanderson's aforementioned Abominable Snowmen book, but he was also a consultant to Tom Slick. And Agogino had one more arrow in his quiver: He had been contracted to do work for the CIA in the past.

The Archaeologist-Spies Who Went Into the Cold (To Search for the Abominable Snowman)

George Allen Agogino can perhaps lay claim to being the spookiest of all serious archaeologists in the later twentieth century, a triple threat of archaeological scholar, cryptozoologist, and spy. Agogino was a respected archaeologist who had founded Eastern New Mexico University's Anthropology Department and had extensive experience in the southwestern United States. He collaborated with geologist C. Vance Haynes to examine the controversial Sandia Cave site.100 Excavations at Sandia Cave in New Mexico had turned up what appeared to be mammoth bones and Paleo-Indian artifacts sealed within a sequence of cemented breccia layers with lower strata under a calcium carbonate deposit thought to be at least 25,000 years old and with a uranium series date of more than 200,000 years ago.101 For much of the twentieth century, distinctive Clovis projectile points dating to 14,000 years ago were considered the oldest in the Americas, a model generally discarded today. Haynes had been a key critic of pre-Clovis claims, and in the case of Sandia Cave he identified the cause of the stratigraphic problems to be bioturbation, disturbance by burrowing rodents.102

Agogino was one of the scientific advisors in the yeti expeditions organized by the Texas oil millionaire Tom Slick and his tycoon friends. The yeh-teh has roots in Nepalese culture but was appropriated in the twentieth century and transformed by Westerners into the more ape-like "abominable snowman." That form of the legend leaked into the global imagination in 1920 alongside media coverage of attempts to climb Mount Everest. The climbing expedition led by Eric Shipton in 1951 catapulted the yeti to international fame with photographs of a line of footprints, including one of a footprint and an icepick, a tool of exploration, added for scale. Despite subsequent claims that the footprint was a composite of two mundane prints melted in the sun, or that Shipton had faked the line of tracks, the yeti became the subject of intense interest by real and armchair explorers.103 Sir Edmund Hillary, the leader of the first Western team to summit Everest, organized an unsuccessful expedition to track the snowman. Slick entered the scene at this point, hiring primarily nonscientist trackers and explorers to hunt the yeti and bring evidence back to specialists working with Slick.

As part of Slick's 1959 expedition, Agogino coordinated a secret network of researchers on yeti fecal material at laboratories in the United States. Agogino's equivalent in the United Kingdom was William Charles Osman Hill, an accomplished primatologist who had also investigated the Nittaewo little people legends of Sri Lanka and, like MacRitchie and others had concluded for Europe half a century earlier, suggested that they might be a relict population of fossil hominins. Agogino and Osman Hill were the tissue connecting other anthropologists and researchers quietly working with Slick's monster hunters. An opinion survey twenty years after Slick's expedition found that one in eight physical anthropologists believed that mystery primates like the yeti might be real.104

Agogino was never comfortable with Slick's team of cryptozoologists. He was friendly with the television animal presenter and paranormal author Ivan Sanderson and collaborated with him in various ways but thought that Sanderson's low-quality work was harming the science. While Agogino was involved from the start with Slick's hunt for North America's Bigfoot, he found the unprofessionalism of Slick's yeti hunters had turned more toward fraud. He was increasingly skeptical as each physical sample he analyzed turned out to be fraudulent or mistaken. Yet Agogino continued to work in cryptozoology, including appearing on television.105

Slick's most infamous cryptozoology actions involved the Pangboche hand, a skeletal "yeti" relic in a Nepalese lamasery. Cryptozoologist Peter Byrne obtained parts of the hand by swapping them with known human thumb and phalanx bones, unbeknown to the monks of the lamasery. The supposed yeti bones were then passed to the actor Jimmy Stewart and his wife, Gloria, who hid them in her underwear (not while being worn) and smuggled them out of India to England. Both Agogino and physical anthropologist Carleton Coon were skeptical of the hand. Coon, an OSS veteran wounded in North Africa, suggested that the yeti may be related to Gigantopithecus, a massive Pliocene-Pleistocene ape of Southeast Asia....

-- Spooky Archaeology: Myth and the Science of the Past, by Jeb J. Card

George Agogino

When he joined the Slick project, George Agogino held a position teaching anthropology and archaeology in South Dakota. Like so many academics in this story, Agogino was at first unsure as to whether the Yeti existed, but he grew intrigued by the idea and felt it a reasonable scientific pursuit to find out once and for all. He accepted Slick's request to act as a consultant. He also quietly contacted Carleton Coon for advice on how to deal with Slick. Agogino and Coon began to correspond regularly and had an entire discourse on the proceedings outside the official Slick expedition correspondence track. They did this for a number of reasons. First, while Coon was in the Slick camp, he had also been wooed by Life magazine to be part of their Yeti project and to spy on Slick.56 Secondly, Coon (and then Agogino) had suspicions about Slick, his methods, and motivations. Having been enthusiastic about going on the Yeti expedition, Coon remained upset with Slick for being demoted off the field team at the last minute. Agogino met with Coon at his Harvard office for lunch just after Christmas of 1958 and discussed how to deal with the wealthy Texan. Coon told Agogino to watch his step, to which Agogino replied, "You can be sure I will be most careful in my dealings with him." He also lamented how some of their colleagues discounted the idea of a Yeti, unwilling to look into it. Determined, he told Coon, "Somebody must do this work or the situation will never be cleared up. It just makes me angry we must deal with individuals like Tom Slick."57 Agogino appreciated Slick's commitment, and his money, but was troubled by his and his mountaineer associates' lack of scientific training and apparent focus on adventure rather than research. He liked to refer to Slick's entourage as "the Slick Mob."58

In 1959, as the Dalai Lama was fleeing his home, Agogino began to receive field samples of supposed Yeti dung from Nepal. He sent them off to Heuvelmans, Coon, Osman-Hill, and Izzard. They all (except for Izzard, who had no such analytical expertise or facilities) concluded the droppings did not come from a primate. When Slick sent Agogino a small black and white photo of the Pangboche hand for confidential inspection Agogino sent a copy to an unimpressed Carleton Coon.59 That no trained zoologists accompanied the team in the field to determine useful from useless materials, and no one with training in technical photography to record finds, quickly showed its drawbacks. The mountaineers and adventurers who made up the team had no experience making such decisions or producing a proper photographic record. Had Coon gone along, as he thought he should have, an enormous amount of time and resources would not have been wasted. This concerned Agogino more than ever. Instead of preparing for important details, the Slick people had made preparations for situations they had no experience with and which Agogino felt unlikely to occur. He told Coon, "The Slick Mob is resorting to live traps and power weapons with drugs in the payload instead of lead."60 During his trip, Slick encountered "Boris of Xanthmandu." Slick utilized Lissanevitch's services to smooth the way for his expedition and, in return, presented the Russian with one of the "power weapons" Agogino referred to. Slick had inquired about tranquilizer guns with Cornell University as well as the American Museum of Natural History. It was an odd contraption Lissanevitch's biographer -- and Yeti debunker -- Michel Peissel called an "Alka Seltzer gun," a kind of tranquilizer projector which had both a sleeping agent and one to wake the creature back up. Lissanevitch feared lending it to anyone or even touching the thing himself.61

George Agogino thought it the wildest fantasy to try to catch a Yeti alive and bring it back home like King Kong. As did Coon, Agogino thought the emphasis on catching a Yeti ill-advised and did not like the way the Pangboche hand had been treated. The field team also sent back photos and X-rays of another artifact called the "Makalu Hand." All the scientists who looked at the photos concluded dejectedly that it was from either a wolf or a snow leopard, not a legendary hairy monster. Agogino also grumbled about how much work he did for Slick without getting paid, and he did not care for the press coverage or for the increasingly circus-like atmosphere. He complained to Coon: "I certainly hope our profession can do better than that."62 The two scientists tried to determine Slick's deeper motivations, but without success. Agogino voiced his concerns about the Slick expedition to Ralph Izzard and William Charles Osman-Hill and told Coon "they seem as confused as we" as to Slick's intentions.63

Despite his reservations, Agogino continued his commitment to the problem. He sent Coon a list of everything that had been collected, and sent hair samples to zoologist Charles Leone of the University of Kansas for serological analysis, and similar specimens from the Pangboche scalp to retired Rutgers University zoologist and mammal hair and blood specialist Leon Hausman (1889-1966). Hausman had tested the first "Yeti" hair samples to come out of Nepal in 1953, so Agogino went to him in 1959. Rutgers had recently opened the first major serology, or blood research, laboratory and it was hoped the new facility might crack the case of the Yeti's blood. Hausman found the 1953 sample to be several hundred years old, consistent with a religious relic, but made of hair from an animal unlikely to be the monster of Asia.64

By now, Agogino found himself in an awkward position. He felt the Yeti phenomenon should be investigated by scientists, and while he appreciated being on the receiving end of Slick's materials, he did not appreciate the manner in which they were acquired. He started creating a private file of his dealings with Slick "in the event that Tom Slick misquotes anyone or breaks away from me." He told Coon he insisted to Slick that none of his reports be made public until an approved final report could be produced, and that "he better not violate this rule." He also did not want to antagonize Slick for fear the stream of materials being sent would dry up should some actual evidence be found.65

By the spring and summer of 1959, disillusionment with the Slick project reached a peak. After careful examination of photos of the Pangboche hand, Coon told Agogino, "Peter Byrne is no better photographer than he ever was." To his anatomist's eye, the hand was clearly human not primate. Coon felt more testing on the Makalu hand a waste of time as well. Continuing to hope, however, he said, "I would like to see the X-rays if possible; they will cinch the diagnosis."66 Agogino sent him more materials to examine, including another hair sample, a gnawed twig, and yet another fecal sample, and asked if Fred Ulmer could look at it.67 Coon examined this material and wearily told his partner in "Snowmaniana" that it was nothing. "As for the turd," he continued, "it has little in it." Fred Ulmer examined the material but decided not to comment because "he is tired of the whole thing."68 Agogino, too, felt the effects. "I am running out of steam and ideas," he told Coon. By then Charles Leone had completed his tests and had come up with nothing. Fred Ulmer thought the footprint cast Slick had sent a fake, though Agogino wondered how or by whom a fake would have been made in Nepal. Adolf Schultz, the director of the Anthropologisches Institut Der Universitat Zurich, thought the print that of a panda.69 Frustrated by the lack of advancement, Agogino asked, resignedly, "Where do we go from here? I have tried almost every research angle I can think of."70 He admitted that "I started out to expose this as a hoax," but despite the lack of progress he found it "harder to do than I first suspected," but no conclusive material seemed to exist to prove anything one way or another.71

In addition to Asia and the intelligence community, another disturbing connection between these early monster hunts manifested in the way of a possible shared ideology. One other scientist Coon corresponded with over the Yeti was Italian statistician and demographer Corrado Gini (1884-1965). A prominent fascist theorist in the 1920s and 1930s, and close to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Gini shared an interest in anomalous primates with Coon and his cohorts.72 An arch eugenicist Gini believed that nations, like individual people, went through periods of birth, youth, growth, old age then decline, and that strong nations need not apologize for their forceful expansion.73 He also thought, like Coon, that the Snowman might shed light on human evolution and sociological structure. In the late 1930s Gini founded a society that studied genetics and eugenics -- its journal was Genius, where in later years Ivan Sanderson and George Agogino published articles. In 2004 Russian anomalous primate researcher Dmitri Bayonov said that in 1962 Gini founded the Comite International pour l'Etudes Humanoides Velus. [International Committee for Hairy Humanoid Studies] Members of this committee included William Charles Osman-Hill, Bernard Heuvelmans, John Napier, and Phillip V. Tobias as well as John Green and Rene Dahinden.74 While Coon certainly had politically incorrect ideas about race, the others had no overt fascist sympathies. They may simply have welcomed any help from the international community that supported their work -- they embraced scientists from the Soviet bloc as well.

Either unaware of, or intentionally discounting, the fact that the entire enterprise seemed to be going nowhere, was riddled with spying and counter spying, and had peculiar fascist connections, Tom Slick remained enthusiastic. Writing in Explorer's Journal at the end of 1959 Slick said the expedition had done well and even found tracks at the 12,500-foot level. He speculated that multiple species of Snowman must prowl the earth because multiple, but consistent, descriptions of the animals encountered had come to light. He summed up, saying he believed the idea "which has been suggested before by several anthropologists," that the Yeti "might be related to the extinct ape man Gigantopithecus."75 Not long after this, one last expedition headed to Nepal, but Tom Slick did not take part.

The Hillary-Perkins Expedition

In 1960 and 1961 Edmund (now Sir Edmund) Hillary (1919-2008) and American television wildlife personality Marlin Perkins (1905-86) went to Nepal to wrap up the Yeti mystery, they thought, once and for all.76 Perkins, director of the Lincoln Park Zoo of Chicago, soon to be the host of the popular television show Wild Kingdom, had followed the Yeti saga with interest.77 The expedition had the backing of the well known World Book Encyclopedia, which claimed the trip would ostensibly test the effects of high altitude on climbers. As with the Slick expedition, Communist propagandists argued the Hillary-Perkins operation was a cover for spying on the Nepalese border with China for some nefarious capitalist skullduggery.78 Unlike the Slick expedition, the Hillary-Perkins operation brought along a brace of scientists (Although invited, George Agogino declined to go due to previous commitments.) They made a beeline for the Pangboche monastery, where the monks allowed the team to examine the Pangboche Hand. To the media covering the story, evidence seemed to be mounting that "there is indeed still at least one known anthropoid awaiting scientific discovery in Central Asia."79

Hillary and Perkins found Peter Byrne's doctored hand, which the monks had yet to realize had been tampered with. Not knowing of Byrne's switcheroo, Perkins made the obvious observation of its modern human nature. Both Perkins and Hillary, already suspicious of the hand, had come at the Yeti legend from a position of skepticism. The modern aspect of the hand only seemed to confirm their position. The Yeti scalp on the other hand intrigued them. Like all the expeditions before them, the Hillary-Perkins team asked to take the scalp with them. To their surprise this time the monks said yes.

Just because the Sherpas had been taken in by Tom Slick and Peter Byrne, it did not mark them as fools. Determined to get something out of the increasing stream of Westerners tramping through their country looking to climb mountains and chase monsters, they approached Hillary with an intriguing offer. They would allow Hillary to take the scalp to England and America if one of their elders, Kunzo Chumbi, went along with it. Having been used by Westerners for their own purposes, the monks at Pangboche now slyly used the Westerners in return. Chumbi became a media darling and spoke to numerous groups, using Hillary to raise money to build schools in Nepal and to generate prestige and political power for himself back home. Another Sherpa mi-che (political big man) used publicity from the expedition to get the funds to build a much needed water system and to compete with Kunzo Chumbi. Far from being unsophisticated Asian hillbillies the Sherpas turned out to be shrewd politicians who quickly grasped the notion of using to their advantage the foreign fascination with Everest and the Yeti, and the outside view of themselves as noble savages.80

Edmund Hillary took the scalp out for analysis, including visiting William Charles Osman-Hill. It did not impress anyone in its complete form any more than it had as a few stray hairs years before. The Sunday Times said it all: "The decisions of anthropologists and other scientists in Chicago, Paris and London are unanimous -- it isn't a scalp at all." It was the old culprit: the goat called a serow.81 While Hillary still thought some unanswered questions lingered in the case, the analysis of the scalp and the hand had all but sealed the fate of the Yeti as far as interest from the scientific community.

Like the Slick expedition, the Hillary-Perkins expedition had its share of international intrigue. A member of the team, legendary National Geographic magazine photographer Barry Bishop (1932-94) who over the course of his career had taken some of the most famous photographs of Everest expeditions, encountered unusual outside interest. Ralph Styles, a U.S. Navy captain and a member of the Defense Department, contacted Bishop upon his return to America. Styles invited Bishop to come to Washington, D.C., for a chat about his Hillary-Perkins adventure. There, Bishop answered questions about the region's climate and the potential survivability of U.S. aircrews should they go down there. U2 spy plane flights had been coming out of Pakistan to roam over Communist bloc areas. Should they be shot down, the pilots would be forced to eject over the home of the Snowman. The U.S. Air Force had partly funded the Hillary expedition and National Geographic Society director Melville Grosvenor, a prominent Republic Party supporter, often allowed National Geographic writers to have similar chats with the CIA upon their return from overseas assignments: something that did not always sit well with the staff.82

Conclusion

The details are murky, but it seems clear that at the very least a Western intelligence element existed alongside the search for the Yeti. The mixture of cloak-and-dagger spy work with anomalous primate research seems almost comical in its unfolding. It raises the question, who was not working for the CIA or British intelligence in this operation? Carleton Coon spied on Tom Slick, who may have been a spy himself. Coon worked with Slick, but did not trust him, nor did he care for Peter Byrne, another alleged agent. Coon told fellow spy George Agogino to watch himself around Slick, and Agogino heartily agreed. Did Carleton Coon do anything in Asia besides hunt monsters? As with any study of intelligence operations, the hidden motives, demagoguery, secret documents, sealed archives, and the fog of the cold war make it difficult to be sure just what happened until more official documents are made available. To add one last intrigue to the story, this author received an interesting reply to attempts to procure Freedom of Information Act requests from the United States government over this issue. The CIA supplied once-classified documents on the intelligence work of Dillon Ripley, Carleton Coon, and others. Whenever I made a search term request they happily gave me what they had or requested further information to help them make a more thorough search, then sent that material along. When I made requests for information they did not have, I received almost apologetic letters stating they did not have any materials on that topic. When I made a request using the search terms YETI and ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, however, they did not say they had no such materials. The terse and cryptic reply stated "the mission of the Central Intelligence Agency is primarily concerned with the collection of foreign intelligence matters that affect the national security of the United States. Therefore, we must decline to process your request."83 This suggests they have documents on these topics, but they are considered national security, so the information will not be released. Ivan Sanderson's ranting about the importance of getting the Yeti before the Soviets may have had some basis after all.84

In the end, using the hunt for the Yeti as a cover for espionage may or may not have produced useful intelligence for the American or British governments; it certainly did not produce useful scientific data about hairy bipeds roaming the wastes of central Asia. The extant correspondence shows that whatever their political motivations, the scientists and amateurs involved in the Yeti hunt were sincere in their desire to gather irrefutable scientific evidence proving the creatures existed. From the beginning of anomalous primate studies in the 1950s, amateurs complained that professional scientists did not take them or their work seriously. Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan Sanderson made this argument one of the central paradigms of the field. However, while members of the scientific world did dismiss the enterprise, a number of them embraced it. Reports of the Yeti -- especially after the publication of the Shipton photos in 1951 -- immediately captured the imagination of anthropologists and primatologists, who began serious research. They eagerly sought out physical evidence and photos to examine and seriously speculated on the possibilities of the creature's existence. They excitedly tested hair and stool samples as well as footprint evidence. Far from being upset that amateurs brought such material to them, they encouraged it. Carleton Coon's pique regarding Tom Slick came not because Slick asked him to go on a Yeti expedition to Nepal, but because at the last minute Slick changed his mind and did not bring him along. George Agogino grew upset with Slick because his methods and approaches made it difficult for Agogino to study the Yeti: something Agogino keenly wanted to do. William Charles Osman-Hill eagerly sought the Pangboche Hand for study. Troubled by the behavior of some of the amateurs -- and the lack of any followup evidence coming out of Nepal -- the academics who wanted to investigate the phenomenon and thought it a worthwhile activity, drifted away and went back to their other work. The frenetic style of the amateurs, the scanty evidence that did not hold up to their microscopes, blood tests, and wide knowledge of animal behavior, anatomy, and evolution, combined to put the scientists off. The Yeti saga highlights the difficulties that arise when scientists and enthusiastic amateurs with less sophisticated training investigate the same phenomenon. The scientists asked for legitimate evidence and applied to it the research techniques of zoology, biology and evolution studies. They urged caution and waved off worthless evidence. Amateurs often interpreted this normal scientific behavior as stonewalling, or disdain for the search, or as evidence of a grand conspiracy to stifle the truth.

Eggheads like Osman-Hill, Coon, Agogino, and their fellows wanted facts, but the crackpots brought them none (even when the Daily Mail Expedition did bring a few specialists nothing turned up). What they received for inspection proved frustratingly worthless. As it was, they resisted coming out too publicly on the issue. With all the public accounts of the expeditions to Nepal, the scientists remained relatively obscured: Agogino advocated keeping their presence quiet until final reports could be prepared. Newspaper articles from this period generally refer vaguely to "the scientific community" rather than to any individuals. The most public scientist at this time was the American, Marlon Perkins. He was involved only briefly at the end of the Asia phase of the story and was more a popularizer -- and a skeptic -- looking for material for his television show rather than as a formal researcher. Some of his antics, like wearing the Yeti scalp as a hat in a widely circulated photograph, proved as annoying and counterproductive as anything Tom Slick did. Agogino did not like the "Hillary Mob" any more than he liked the Slick group.85 The academics preferred materials collected under carefully controlled conditions and by scientific techniques as opposed to the collection methods Slick and his team engaged in.

With the Hillary-Perkins expedition, the era of big Yeti hunts ended. Many of the serious academic scientists who had rushed with enthusiasm to the Yeti cause had their enthusiasm sorely tested. Most laid aside their interests in hairy monsters, at least publicly. For a group of amateurs in North America, however, the enthusiasm had just begun.

***

Far from the swashbuckling mountaineers of the Yeti hunts of Asia, in North America the model of the dedicated, obsessive, amateur manlike monster hunter took the form of Swiss-born, Canadian Rene Dahinden (1930-2001). The irascible and original Dahinden entered the quest for Sasquatch upon his arrival in the New World and developed a reputation for being coarse and abrupt with anyone he thought a fraud or a food: which in the end formed a rather long list. He regularly discounted scientists, whom he variously referred to as boffins and deadheads. To his credit, with no scientific or research training -- in fact little formal education at all -- he launched himself into the Sasquatch fray and tirelessly tracked down and documented witnesses and went to the sites of alleged direct encounters. Like many amateurs he secretly yearned to be an academic and live the life of an erudite scholar, but felt hurt, embittered, frustrated, and resentful of those who did: especially when most of them dismissed him. He sacrificed his family life and stability in order to continue his chase and never looked back or showed much public regret. Not as sophisticated as Bernard Heuvelmans, as well published as Ivan Sanderson, or as skilled a writer as John Green, he pursued other monster hunters as tenaciously as he pursued monsters. While eccentric, he was not an out-of-control paranormalist and approached his subject as rationally as any academic should. He represents a great lost opportunity in the history of science. He had the heart, but not the tools. A prime mover in the search for anomalous primates, he could lay claim, along with Green and Peter Byrne, to the title of "grand old man of North American monster hunting."

The Anti-Krantz

Rene Dahinden and Grover Krantz represent the archetypes of the crackpot versus egghead concept. Dahinden was born in Lucerne, Switzerland, and deposited by his mother in a local Catholic orphanage. This began a childhood of stepparents, foster homes, and work farms. As a result he developed a penchant for self-reliance and wariness of the motives of others. His one book, Sasquatch (1973), written with Don Hunter, is in large part an autobiography. In it he grimly refers to a day at the orphanage when "some people came and picked me up like a dog from a kennel."1 On his own by the early 1950s, Rene happily roamed about postwar Europe. In 1953 he immigrated to Canada with his future wife, Wanja Twan, and found work on a dairy farm in Calgary, British Columbia. Shortly after his arrival Dahinden read a newspaper article about the expedition sponsored by the Daily Mail to the Himalaya Mountains in search of the Yeti.2

In Sasquatch, Dahinden explains how the idea of the Daily Mail Expedition fired his imagination. He told his employer, Mr. Willick, that he would love to go on such a trip. Willick offhandedly asked why he would want to go all the way around the world to look for something wandering around right in his own backyard. Long tradition said a creature just like the Yeti lived in Canada: a hairy thing or some such that the native people believed in and which non-Indian Canadians occasionally encountered as well. Dahinden began searching local libraries for information on the creature. By 1956 he had made the acquaintance of John Green, a local newspaperman, also interested in the Sasquatch legend. Green, a university trained journalist, published the Aggisiz-Harrison Advance and lived in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. While interested in the legend himself, Green told Dahinden not to take it too seriously. In 1957 the town fathers of Harrison Hot Springs hatched a scheme to cash in on the Sasquatch legend now somewhat more popular because of the Daily Mail Expedition. They wanted an expedition of their own -- mostly as a publicity stunt -- and both Dahinden and Green took part. Though the foray never came off, Dahinden and Green established themselves as local experts on anomalous primates, their private interest now a public career. Unfortunately, the circus atmosphere and the characters drawn to the production annoyed the serious Dahinden, and his contempt for fellow Sasquatch hunters began. In 1959, as Carleton Coon, George Agogino, and other scientists' interested waned, Dahinden's career found a focal point when large, human-like Sasquatch footprints were found near Bluff Creek, California. Dahinden and Green headed there, eventually encountered Tom Slick, and became caught up in Slick's latest adventure, the Pacific Northwest Expedition.

-- Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology, by B. Regal

The Yeti: Soviet Statements and Secret Files

Despite the best attempts by American officialdom to keep everything under wraps, the Soviet government had deep suspicions that the seemingly innocent quests of Tom Slick to seek out the truth about the Yeti were actually far more complex and devious than they appeared to be. Indeed, as evidence of this, on April 27, 1957, none other than the New York Times ran an article titled "Soviet Sees Espionage in U.S. Snowman Hunt" that focused on this very issue. Evidently the Soviets had hit on solid intelligence data, since the article in question even referred to the actions of Slick in the region, and Russian concerns about U.S. government agencies using presumed monster hunts as part of a plot involving the "subversion of Communist China" (Ibid.). Most notable of all, the Times added, according to the Soviets, the "engineering" of the growing divisions between Nepal and China were prompted by the missing link in the story of the mysterious scientific expeditions sent to the Himalayas in quest of the 'snowman"' (Ibid.).

While the seething Soviets perceived -- certainly correctly -- Tom Slick's adventures in Nepal as prime examples of outrageous, undercover espionage, other elements of the US. government were far more focused on the reality of the Abominable Snowman itself, rather than the way in which the air of mystery surrounding the beast could be manipulated for intelligence matters. A perfect case in point is documentation declassified by the Department of State dated November 30, 1959, and that originated with the U.S. Embassy at Kathmandu. It tells an undeniably fascinating story. Titled Regulations Covering Mountain Climbing Expeditions In Nepal -- Relating To Yeti, the document, prepared by Ernest H. Fisk, at the time the counselor of the Embassy, demonstrates a number of criteria for Yeti hunting that had been carefully spelled out in the heart of bureaucracy. First, anyone wishing to search for the monsters had to secure a legal specific permit from the government of Nepal. And second, while it was considered legal to photograph a Yeti, and even capture a living specimen, "it must not be killed or shot at except in an emergency arising out of self defense. More intriguingly, and specifically in relation to matters that might have had bearings upon official secrecy, the Department of State noted two significant matters: (a) that any photographs taken that appeared to show evidence of the creatures had to be surrendered to the Nepalese Government at the earliest opportunity; and (b) any information "throwing light on the actual existence of the creature was not to be provided to "the Press or Reporters for publicity without the permission of the Government of Nepal (Ibid). Fisk noted in the sternest of tones: "These regulations are to be observed." (Ibid.). Mark Murphy, the archivist who stumbled upon the remarkable document more than 50 years after it was prepared, said, "I thought I was seeing things. These documents show that finding the Yeti was a big deal in the 1950s. It goes to show the government was taking this seriously" (Bedard and Fox, 2011).

A major point to be emphasized is that cover, the assumption of some ostensible legitimate status to conceal the hand of intelligence or operations personnel and protect their activities, must be treated as an integral part of the plan for the conduct of any clandestine operation. It does not fall into the category of a support factor on the peripheral framework of the plan nor is it an element solely of its executional phase. Such views are intrinsic hazards to the basic philosophy of clandestine operation. Cover is a determining element; in the plan itself, and a sound concept of its application must be worked out in advance.

-- Cover in Unconventional Operations, by Harvey B. McCadden, CIA Historical Review Program

The three regulations are as follows:

1. Royalty of Rs. 5000/-- Indian Currency will have to be paid to His Majesty's Government of Nepal for a permit to carry out an expedition in search of 'Yeti'.

2. In case 'Yeti' is traced it can be photographed or caught alive but it must not be killed or shot at except in an emergency arising out of self defence. All photographs taken of the animal, the creature itself if captured alive or dead, must be surrendered to the government of Nepal at the earliest time.

3. News and reports throwing light on the actual existence of the creature must be submitted to the Government of Nepal as soon as they are available and must not in any way be given out to the Press or Reporters for publicity without the permission of the Government of Nepal.

FOR THE AMBASSADOR,

Ernest H. Fisk
Counselor of Embassy

-- The U.S. Government takes note of the Yeti. © U.S. Department of State, 1959. Source: Department of State, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

And there's one final matter of note regarding this document: A copy of it turned up in the archives of none other than the CIA, albeit without any explanation as to why, unfortunately. But, by this stage, it can scarcely be a surprise that matters pertaining to Nepal and the Yeti -- and in the very same context and during the same time frame that the land and its people were in a state of violent turbulence -- should be held so tightly by the "Men in Black" at the CIA.

Death in the Skies and Hollywood Interest

And what, you may be wondering, ever became of Tom Slick? Well, therein lies yet another controversial saga: In October of 1962, Slick was flying to Canada in a Beechcraft airplane when it suddenly exploded in mid-air, killing him and showering debris down on the good state of Montana. For some researchers the tragedy was merely one of the many potential hazards that any globe-trotting adventurer might one day unfortunately come up against. For others, however, and taking into consideration the large number of official secrets that Slick may have learned during his time working with the CIA, the old maxim that "dead men tell no tales," is one that should, perhaps, be kept solidly in mind.

But maybe the saga of Tom Slick is not quite over. Back in the 1990s, there were rumors that Nicolas Cage's production company, Saturn Films, was going to make a movie on the life of this extraordinary adventurer, to be titled Tom Slick: Monster Hunter, with Cage himself in the starring role. Unfortunately, the project has not yet come to fruition. Maybe one day another Hollywood producer will take up the challenge, and the life of Tom Slick will finally be splashed across the big screen for all to see. And maybe, just maybe, a few secrets regarding both the CIA and the Abominable Snowman will surface, too.

[admin]

Corrado Gini
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/12/20

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Corrado Gini (Motta di Livenza, 23 May 1884 – Rome, 13 March 1965) was an Italian statistician, demographer and sociologist who developed the Gini coefficient, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was a proponent of organicism and applied it to nations.[1]

Career

Gini was born on May 23, 1884, in Motta di Livenza, near Treviso, into an old landed family. He entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna, where in addition to law he studied mathematics, economics, and biology.

Gini's scientific work ran in two directions: towards the social sciences and towards statistics. His interests ranged well beyond the formal aspects of statistics—to the laws that govern biological and social phenomena.

His first published work was Il sesso dal punto di vista statistico (1908). This work is a thorough review of the natal sex ratio, looking at past theories and at how new hypothesis fit the statistical data. In particular, it presents evidence that the tendency to produce one or the other sex of child is, to some extent, heritable.

In 1910, he acceded to the Chair of Statistics in the University of Cagliari and then at Padua in 1913.

He founded the statistical journal Metron in 1920, directing it until his death; it only accepted articles with practical applications.[2]

He became a professor at the Sapienza University of Rome in 1925. At the University, he founded a lecture course on sociology, maintaining it until his retirement. He also set up the School of Statistics in 1928, and, in 1936, the Faculty of Statistical, Demographic and Actuarial Sciences.

Under fascism

In 1926, he was appointed President of the Central Institute of Statistics in Rome. This he organised as a single centre for Italian statistical services. He was a close intimate of Mussolini throughout the 20s. He resigned from his position within the institute in 1932.[3]

In 1927 he published a treatise entitled The Scientific Basis of Fascism.[4]

In 1929, Gini founded the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems (Comitato italiano per lo studio dei problemi della popolazione) which, two years later, organised the first Population Congress in Rome.

A eugenicist apart from being a demographer, Gini led an expedition to survey Polish populations, among them the Karaites. Gini was throughout the 20s a supporter of fascism, and expressed his hope that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy would emerge as victors in WW2. However, he never supported any measure of exclusion of the Jews.[5][6] Milestones during the rest of his career include:

• In 1933 – vice president of the International Sociological Institute.
• In 1934 – president of the Italian Genetics and Eugenics Society.
• In 1935 – president of the International Federation of Eugenics Societies in Latin-language Countries.
• In 1937 – president of the Italian Sociological Society.
• In 1941 – president of the Italian Statistical Society.
• In 1957 – Gold Medal for outstanding service to the Italian School.
• In 1962 – National Member of the Accademia dei Lincei.[7]

Italian Unionist Movement

On October 12, 1944, Gini joined with the Calabrian activist Santi Paladino, and fellow-statistician Ugo Damiani to found the Italian Unionist Movement, for which the emblem was the Stars and Stripes, the Italian flag and a world map. According to the three men, the Government of the United States should annex all free and democratic nations worldwide, thereby transforming itself into a world government, and allowing Washington, D.C. to maintain Earth in a perpetual condition of peace. The party existed up to 1948 but had little success and its aims were not supported by the United States.

Organicism and nations

Gini was a proponent of organicism and saw nations as organic in nature.[1] Gini shared the view held by Oswald Spengler that populations go through a cycle of birth, growth, and decay.[1] Gini claimed that nations at a primitive level have a high birth rate, but, as they evolve, the upper classes birth rate drops while the lower class birth rate, while higher, will inevitably deplete as their stronger members emigrate, die in war, or enter into the upper classes.[1] If a nation continues on this path without resistance, Gini claimed the nation would enter a final decadent stage where the nation would degenerate as noted by decreasing birth rate, decreasing cultural output, and the lack of imperial conquest.[8] At this point, the decadent nation with its aging population can be overrun by a more youthful and vigorous nation.[8] Gini's organicist theories of nations and natality are believed to have influenced policies of Italian Fascism.[1]

Honours

The following honorary degrees were conferred upon him:

• Economics by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (1932),
• Sociology by the University of Geneva (1934),
• Sciences by Harvard University (1936),
• Social Sciences by the University of Cordoba, Argentine (1963).

Partial bibliography

• Il sesso dal punto di vista statistica: le leggi della produzione dei sessi (1908)
• Sulla misura della concentrazione e della variabilità dei caratteri (1914)
• Quelques considérations au sujet de la construction des nombres indices des prix et des questions analogues (1924)
• Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.1: Variabilità e Concentrazione (1955)
• Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.2: Transvariazione (1960)
• "The Scientific Basis of Fascism," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1927), pp. 99–115 (17 pages) at JSTOR

References

1. Aaron Gillette. Racial theories in fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 40.
2. "Corrado Gini's Biography". Società Italiana di Statistica (SIS). Retrieved 2016-11-05.
3. "Tales of Statisticians | Corrado Gini". http://www.umass.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
4. The Scientific Basis of Fascism, Political Science Quarterly Vol.42, No 1, March 1927 pp. 99-115.
5. Mikhail Kizilov, The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority Among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945, BRILL, 2009 pp.278ff.
6. Riccardo Calimani, Storia degli ebrei italiani, vol.3, Mondadori 2015 p.583.
7. Boldrini, Marcello (1966). "Corrado Gini". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General). 129 (1): 148–150. JSTOR 2343927.
8. Aaron Gillette. Racial theories in fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 41.

External links

• Biography Of Corrado Gini at the Metron, the statistics journal he founded.
• Paper on "Corrado Gini and Italian Statistics under Fascism" by Giovanni Favero June 2002
• A. Forcina and G. M. Giorgi "Early Gini’s Contributions to Inequality Measurement and Statistical Inference." JEHPS mars 2005
• Another photograph

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Italian Eugenics Under Fascism, from "The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics" [Excerpt]
edited by Alison Bashford, Philippa Levine
Oxford University Press
2010

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City hosted the Second International Congress of Eugenics in the autumn of 1921. In America, "race" was the exclusive focus of eugenicists concerned about the germ plasm. The perceived threat posed by Blacks, Jews, and immigrants stood at the top of their agenda. American delegates at the 1921 conference supported calls for legal sanctions against all detrimental influences upon the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant breeding-stock of the nation.18 By contrast, Italian eugenicists took a soft-line approach to the problem of race contamination. They did contemplate the adoption of some form of negative eugenics, but they again stopped well short of endorsing anything as radical as forced sterilization. In the 1920s, a lively debate about these issues continued to take place in fascist Italy in the pages of specialist medical, public health, and legal journals. Government bodies also participated in discussions about what the desirable and appropriate contours of a eugenic policy might be in Italy.

One of the main loci of discussions about these contentious matters was the Italian Institute of Hygiene, Insurance, and Social Assistance, originally founded in Rome in 1922 as a private charity devoted to the study of problems relating to public health. Its founder was Ettore Levi (1880-1932 [by suicide]), a Jewish intellectual who had been a member of the moderate Left, the birth control movement, and the eugenics society before the rise of fascism. Levi was the leading proponent of social medicine in Italy. As founder of the Institute of Social Medicine, he was instrumental in its establishment as a recognized discipline, backed by university training programs and guidelines. He defined social medicine as the science of those illnesses affecting the health of the collectivity, the purpose of which was the prevention and cure of disease for the benefit of the individual and the nation. Levi was drawn to fascism because of its professed commitment to the health and hygiene of the "stirp" (denoting ethnic Italians); in this regard, he is an interesting example of a Jewish fascist, which was by no means a contradiction before the dissemination of anti-Jewish legislation beginning in 1938. Levi's Institute was committed to the principles of "eutenics" (eutenica), which, in contrast to "Anglo-Saxon" or "Nordic" eugenics, advocated improvements to the home and social environment, as well as the protection of motherhood and infancy through welfare reforms, as the best means to promote racial advancement.

Launched in 1922, the Institute's journal, Difesa Sociale (Social Defence), began a dialogue with fascist officialdom and a range of health and medical professionals in Italy. One of the most controversial issues under consideration was the so-called "pre-matrimonial certificate." Some eugenicists and their supporters, including members of the government's Royal Commission for the Study of Post-war Problems, believed that medical certification, demonstrating that a couple were free of contagious social and sexual diseases, such as tuberculosis and syphilis, should be a requirement before marriage. Objections to prenuptial health screening were based on the grounds that it would be offensive, intrusive, coercive and impractical. Opponents alleged that any such scheme would create the possibility of medical fraud for gain, would pose the difficulty of actually enforcing the ban on the unfit from getting married, and would cause extramarital unions and illegitimacy to rise. Levi's Institute lobbied for the introduction of a mild negative eugenic program for social prophylaxis and favored the idea of medical certification before marriage.19

The fascist regime, however, remained opposed to any measures that deviated from the pronatalist path already being frantically pursued. The preparedness of the dictatorship to control all aspects of its demographic campaign, which was devoted to an increase in the quality and the quantity of the Italian population, is amply illustrated by the fact that it simply subsumed Levi's institute within the organs of the state: it became a public agency under the direction of the National Fund for Social Insurance in 1928. While this gave the Institute a national platform, the change also marked the loss of freedom of that sector within Italian eugenics which veered toward the idea of some sort of selection for the sake of the race. Talk of any kind of restrictions to reproductive freedoms now became an impossibility, as the regime co-opted eugenics and steered population policy towards an unconditional pronatalist, reformist, and environmentalist position. "Positive" health and welfare reforms, the fascist line oft repeated, would gradually bring about beneficial psycho- physiological adaptations to the individual and the race. Grounded in a Lamarckian evolutionary perspective, this thinking ran contrary to the hereditarian and Mendelian paradigm that was perceived to be the doctrinal basis of "Anglo-Saxon" and "Nordic" eugenics. Under state control, the activities of Levi's institute were restricted to the dissemination of "sanitary propaganda" and its research confined to questions relating, in particular, to the government's attempts to contain the spread of tuberculosis.

This unwavering pronatalist and positive stance gained official endorsement from the state in fascist Italy's new penal code, which came into effect in July 1931, and took a tough line against so-called "anti-Malthusianism" or "the procurement of impotence to procreate." It defined as an absolute necessity for the nation the defense of the "continuation and integrity of the race" through strict measures against abortion, birth control, and sterilization. The Pope had spoken specifically on these matters for the first time when Pius XI issued his famous encyclical, Casti connubii, on 31 December 1930. This decree affirmed the sanctity of marriage and its procreative purpose and condemned all forms of contraception as acts against God and nature. The Pope broadened the scope of his condemnation when he specifically stated that any artificial intervention to prohibit conception ran contrary to Church doctrine. Moreover, a separate part of the address condemned both compulsory sterilization by the state and voluntary sterilization by the individual. The state had no right whatsoever to sterilize an innocent person. And "self-mutilation" was also unlawful; the "bodily organs should not be rendered unfit for natural functions except when the good of the whole body cannot otherwise be provided for," the Holy Office emphatically decreed.20

A wholesale disintegration of liberal and humanitarian values, as happened in interwar Germany, did not occur in fascist Italy. If anything, the unrelenting pronatalism and welfarism of Mussolini's dictatorship helped keep Italy's eugenic movement in check. The eugenicists who came to prominence during this period reflected the priorities of the regime. One immensely influential religious leader, Father Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959), a Franciscan friar, was instrumental in making Catholicism compatible with eugenics. He founded the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan in 1921 and served as its chancellor for many years. A physician by training, Gemelli devoted his life to the study of psychology and was a major figure in that field. A Lombrosian revisionist, Gemelli criticized the simplistic and rigid positivism of Lombroso and his contemporaries and attacked the biological materialism of his own colleagues within the international eugenic movement. His research affirmed that each human being, defined as a totality of organic matter, emotional responses, and complex behaviors determined by environmental, psychic, and innate forces, was remarkably plastic and changeable. Gemelli believed wholeheartedly that even the most "hopeless" or "useless" individuals could be cured or redeemed by science.21

Italian eugenicists responded to the obstacle that Catholicism posed to their cause by adapting their platform to the particular circumstances of their own country. In other Catholic nations too, such as Belgium, eugenics took on a populist, pronatalist guise as a campaign for "family endowment" in order to attract support. Formally established in 1919, the Belgian eugenics society, like the French, had an intense interest in promoting the interests of large families through benefits, incentives, and privileges. This support for familles nombreuses was the linchpin of a proposed legislative program revolving around the aim of increased fertility, which included, as in Italy, fierce opposition to birth control and abortion, as well as the single-issue campaign for the so-called "moral" education of youth. The one major negative proposal that Belgian eugenicists contemplated -- and advocated far more vociferously and openly than in Italy -- was the premarital medical examination. Moderation paid off well, in the sense that official recognition came with the patronage of the Belgian king and the Belgian Red Cross after the war; government support for a eugenic social and population policy also grew in the 1920s.22

In Portugal, too, a Catholic context helped shape eugenics. But in Portugal, as in Spain and Latin America, eugenics responded just as much to the socioeconomic realities of the country as it did to the religious affiliation of the population. In an overwhelmingly poor, low-waged, and agrarian nation like Portugal, where mere subsistence was a real difficulty for many peasants, urban factory workers had few rights, and labor and social conditions in general were appalling by European standards, eugenicists (who were slow to organize into a proper society and movement) called chiefly for the extension of basic public health provision and the introduction of even a modicum of government reforms. As state welfare hardly existed at all, and church and charitable institutions struggled to deal with disease and destitution on a mass scale, the severity of social problems dominated native eugenics, while the more esoteric obsessions that could preoccupy some eugenicists in privileged and affluent nations were simply not seen as an option.23

In some contexts, culture took precedence over religion in determining the content of a national variety of eugenics. In Austria, for example, where Catholicism remained by a huge margin the largest denomination within the republic throughout the interwar years, the brand of eugenics that finally emerged officially in 1925 had the audacity to campaign loudly for widespread use of birth control (not technically illegal) by the working class, premarital screening for mental defects, and even the abolition of the ban against abortion on the grounds that these would be appropriate social defenses against the wanton procreation of the undesirable subaltern orders. Like any other special-interest group, eugenicists were able to enjoy full freedom of speech and assembly in Austria's newly formed liberal democracy. Possibly the presence of such vocal anti-clericals, as many Austrian eugenicists were, and their connections to the Socialist Party, contributed to the ferocious clerical reaction and right-wing backlash that occurred in Austria in the 1930s and had such tragic consequences after the Anschluss by Nazi Germany in 1938.24

Operating within the context of a dictatorship, single-mindedly pursuing its own social agenda, as well as a political policy of pacification of the Vatican, Italian eugenicists were not in a position to dictate their own terms. Insofar as it existed, dissent from the official line endorsed by the alliance of church and state, consecrated in 1929, did not have much of an outlet in fascist Italy. At least one prominent doctor, Cesare Michele, who worked for the fascist regime's welfare organization catering to women and children, was rumored at the time to be violating the law by performing abortions for rich clients in secret. Aware of the potential scandal, Mussolini and his advisors chose not to make an example of the physician because to have done so would have resulted in potentially damaging publicity. His activities, like that of other suspected abortionists, remained underground. Achille Loria, like Mussolini himself, had been in the pre-war period a well-known "Malthusian," or advocate of birth control. There arc many examples such as these, but controversial views that ran contrary to fascist dictates were kept quiet. The regime's campaign to increase the birthrate was a major showpiece whose ultimate success, despite its demonstrable failure to reverse demographic trends, was never allowed to be questioned in the media.25

The Emergence of "Latin" Eugenics Within the International Movement

Held in Milan in September 1924, the first conference ever organized by the Italian Society of Genetics and Eugenics (formed in 1919 from its precursor), together with the Royal Italian Society of Hygiene, emphasized that positive reforms would be the hallmark of Italian eugenics.26 Despite the inclusion of genetics in the title of their society and the increasing prominence of questions relating to biology and genetics at subsequent national conferences in 1929 and 1937 (the last before 1949), Italian eugenicists preferred to use the term "social eugenics" to describe their aims and to distinguish their movement from those with a more hereditarian, selectionist, or eliminationist orientation. In September and October 1929, they held their second, two-week congress, this time in Rome; over 300 delegates, including many foreigners, attended.27 Along with Achille Loria and Cesare Artom (1879-1934), a distinguished biologist, anatomist, and Jewish intellectual, [Corrado] Gini served as co-president of the thriving Italian Society of Genetics and Eugenics. His leading role within the international eugenics movement allowed him to make and sustain contacts with foreign scientists. As ideological and policy divergences within the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations (the IFEO, established in 1921) became more pronounced, and the connections between American and German eugenics and their allied movements in Britain and Scandinavia grew more deep and extensive, Gini made moves to found a separate society for those committed to a positive program.

His research activities had also gained notoriety within the International Union for the Scientific investigation of Population Problems (the IUSPP, founded in 1928), whose constitution declared that its work on population questions should not have a moral, religious, or political outlook. Gini took the opportunity of a 1933 Rome conference on population to approach like-minded foreign eugenicists with a view to establishing a break-away organization from the IFEO for those opposed in principle to the variegated platform of negative eugenics. His vision of a Latin International Federation of Eugenic Societies quickly became a reality as countries as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, France, Mexico, Romania, Catalonia (Spain), Portugal, and French and Italian Switzerland accepted invitations to join. Belgium expressed an interest in joining once it revived its flagging eugenic society.

As the prime mover of the plan to unite eugenic societies with a shared "positive" purpose, Gini served as president of the newly formed Latin international federation, which held its inaugural meeting at the congress of the Eugenic Societies of Latin America in Mexico City in October 1935. A founding address by Gini, who could not be present, was read by Alfredo A. Saavedra, a physician and perpetual secretary of the Mexican Society of Eugenics. Gini's speech emphasized the enthusiastic response that his proposal received. Every single member of the regional Latin federation of eugenic societies, which included those firmly established in Argentina, Peru, and Mexico, as well as those still in formation in Colombia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Honduras, and Panama, agreed to join the new international organization. Membership also included those European societies, in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and elsewhere, which shared a "Latin" sensibility and style in their eugenic programs. Some of these countries possessed a common cultural, linguistic, historical and ethnic heritage, such as Romania and Italy, whose strong attachment derived from their shared pedigree of Romanita Romanian eugenicists, like their Italian colleagues, were generally less inclined than eugenicists in Germany and the United States to advocate the introduction of coercive and compulsory negative measures, like the sterilization of the unfit. Partly, Gini explained, this had to do with the superior societies of these Latin nations, where, because of the strength of family and community ties, a threatening residuum of hard-core defectives and degenerates imperiling the race did not exist to the same extent as it did in the more atomized and individualistic "Anglo-Saxon" and "Germanic" nations. Romania and Italy, moreover, were kindred nations that would forever be linked by their ancient Roman connection and unbroken ties of blood and history.28 The myth of a proud Romano-Dacian race as ancestral racial progenitors, forefathers of the nation, and protectors of the "authentic" national identity and folk traditions of the Romanian people informed much of the discourse of nationalists, eugenicists, and fascists in interwar Romania and provided a powerful familial bond with their Italian counterparts.

Religion comprised a key component of Gini's conception of "Latinity." In the case of France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, this "Latin commonality" was founded upon a shared Catholicism, which functioned as a cornerstone of nation, state, and society and precluded policies favoring abortion, contraception, and other forms of reproductive restrictions. On scientific, moral, and humanitarian grounds, too, Gini stressed that Latin eugenics was a "regenerative" and "curative" science committed to births, not deaths. The pronatalism at its foundation was the most positive form of eugenics because it sought to protect and promote the essence and the best of the collectivity and the race, without sacrificing individual rights and freedoms. Latin eugenics upheld "human dignity and personal integrity." In their haste to perfect humanity, eugenicists should never forget that they were dealing with human beings and unique individuals, not laboratory "flies or rabbits" to be propagated according to some experimental blueprint of a master race. The hereditarianism of some eugenicists was a dangerous ideology with destructive nihilism as its heart. The "Latin scientist," Gini stressed, would always remain reluctant to destroy "one of the most salient manifestations of what it means to be human" -- reproductive and sexual choice -- and could never contemplate depriving human beings of their personhood and humanity.29

At the International Congress on Population in Paris in 1937, the Italian delegates spoke about the innate "vitality" of fecund populations and the "energy" associated with "reproductivity." They contended that fascist demographic policy had a sound scientific base in modern biology and defended the logic of their government's efforts to protect the race by increasing the birthrate. The underlying assumptions of their arguments were that Italian women and men were distinguished by their "hyperfecundity" and that this was a beneficial characteristic which had to be preserved.30 Since 1928, Gini had (as part of his work with the IUSPP) been compiling and examining anthropometric data taken from 15,000 Harvard female undergraduates and a random sample of Italian women; his research confirmed to him that Italian women, by virtue of their especially fertile biotype, possessed greater "reproductive potentiality" than their American counterparts; this evolutionary asset was evidenced by the early age of menarche and the late onset of menopause that typified the lives of so many Italian "mothers of the race."31 A recurring implication in the arguments used by Italian scientists was that a high birthrate positively correlated with male sexual prowess and potency; on that score, Italian men, the reasoning went, had little to fear since they were demonstrably more virile than their "Anglo-Saxon" and "Nordic" counterparts.32

The Second International Congress of the Latin Federation of Eugenic Societies was scheduled to take place in Bucharest in September 1939, but was canceled because of Britain's declaration of war against Germany. In September 1940, the National Congress on the Science of Population took place in Oporto, Portugal, and was attended by many foreign delegates. Italy was represented by Gini and Fabio Frassetto, an acclaimed anthropologist and anatomist based at the University of Bologna. Both Frassetto's paper on "biotypology" and Gini's on "denatality" continued to develop what was a formative principle of Latin eugenics -- namely, that "hyperfecundity" was a positive force for the race and that "prolificity" was a product of a superior racial constitution.

Conclusion

If historians wish to hold eugenics accountable, in some way, for the atrocities committed in the pursuit of racial betterment before and during World War II, then the existence of Latin eugenics within the international movement never amounted to much of an ameliorating force. Undoubtedly, as the twentieth century's first "public science," eugenics of the first wave succeeded, in dramatically different national contexts, in spreading "a new eugenic consciousness," shaping social opinions and ideas, and carving out for itself a prominent role in policy and government. Some eugenicists, like those in the United States and Germany, came closer than others to realizing the aims of their "total revolution" in existing values, statutes, and institutions. Similarly conceived and executed, radical programs of race hygiene by means of mass compulsory sterilization in a Nazi dictatorship and an American democracy were the concrete expression of a cultural crisis, manifest so tragically for so many in the widespread collapse of liberalism and humanism in the first half of the twentieth century, to which eugenics undoubtedly contributed.33 Others, like Gini, Gemelli, and Pende in Italy, were able to exert tremendous influence over government, while at the same time seeking to accommodate overriding political dictates and public sensibilities.

Historians preoccupied with the problem of explaining the "Dark Side of Progress," Europe's "Descent into Barbarism," and the "Road to Auschwitz" have long held eugenics to account as a peculiarity of Protestant "Anglo-Saxon" and Germanic cultures and a dangerous "pseudo-science" fueling Nazism and resulting in mass murder. Scholars now know that not all eugenicists were reactionary, anti-Jewish, or racist extremists with evil, genocidal intentions. Within the complex, shifting, and heterogeneous world eugenics movement, the strand championed by Italy and its allies represents a more palatable variety than the far more familiar Nazi type. Significantly, however, eugenics, in both its Latin and non-Latin forms, redefined the relationship between the individual, society, and the state. Whether it was pro-life, positive, and pronatalist or more extreme, negative, and antinatalist in orientation, the underlying presupposition of eugenics was that the interests of mere individuals had to be subordinated to the higher ones of the collective, the "race," the nation, and the state. Whatever shape it took, eugenics was fundamentally anti-liberal, anti-humanist, and authoritarian in means and ends. Even proposals to improve health care and welfare benefits were conceived as ways to enhance the quality of the genetic stock and the racial inheritance of the nation, rather than the quality of the lives of individuals and their families. The eugenic ideal was that the private, sexual, and social behavior of human beings could be coordinated and controlled by a masterful and commanding state and its servants of professional experts in eugenic medicine and science.

The racial utopia envisioned by eugenicists everywhere was a totalitarian fantasy that contributed in no small measure to the breakdown of democratic values and parliamentary systems in the interwar period and operated in perfect consonance with the forces of fascism, Nazism, and dictatorship that were responsible for so much misery, death, and destruction. But after the fall of fascism in 1943-1945, eugenics did not disappear in Italy or elsewhere. On the contrary, second-wave eugenics emerged as an offshoot of genetics and biotechnology. Unlike the state-centred, old-style, coercive eugenics, which mainly sought to influence government, the new eugenics primarily aims to give wealthy private individuals reproductive choices and control in the form of enhanced fertility and the ability to manipulate the genetic inheritance that they pass to their offspring.34

Until his death in 1965, Italy's premier eugenicist, Corrado Gini, continued to playa major role in a de-racialized, post-fascist version of eugenics. To public acclaim within his own country, he continued research in the newly established field of "genetic demography," which was an attempt by old-style eugenicists to rebrand their product into a socio-biological discipline befitting the post-1946 welfare democracy of the Italian Republic.35 Gini may not have been the most heinous collaborator around at the time, but elements of his fascist past, sanitized and forgotten after 1945, were decidedly unsavory.

In particular, his racism and his collaboration with the fascist regime's imperial policies should not have been whitewashed. On behalf of the International Labour Organization and other organizations, Gini became a high-profile player on the world eugenic stage after World War I. In particular, his appointment to the presidency of the International Federation of Eugenic Organization's Commission for the Study of the Eugenic and Disgenic Effects of the War in 1927 was a tremendous accolade. After all, the work of the commission comprised one of the chief collaborative and transnational projects of international eugenics in the inter-war period. The outcome of his involvement, however, led to a major controversy that contributed to his desire to break away from the IFEO. One of Gini's own major interests was the subject of so-called "primitive races"; his work in this field allowed him to contribute to the IFEO's committee on "race crossing." It also led to his involvement with the International Union for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems. Gini was enlisted by the IUSPP to compile vital statistics on so-called inferior races. With the help of the Royal Italian Geographic Society, fifteen scientific expeditions under Gini's command were sent in the 1930s to Africa, America, Asia, and elsewhere in Europe in order to compile anthropometric and demographic data on "the white race" and its interaction with a range of "primitive and decadent ethnic groups." A particular concern of Gini was to elucidate the deleterious effects of miscegenation on the "fecundity" of the white race.

Human crossing may have been a general rule from the time of the separation of sexes, and yet that other law may assert itself, viz., sterility between two human races, just as between two animal species of various kinds, in those rare cases when a European, condescending to see in a female of a savage tribe a mate, happens to choose a member of such mixed tribes. Darwin notes such a case in a Tasmanian tribe, whose women were suddenly struck with sterility, en masse, some time after the arrival among them of the European colonists. The great naturalist tried to explain this fact by change of diet, food, conditions, etc., but finally gave up the solution of the mystery. For the occultist it is a very evident one. "Crossing", as it is called, of Europeans with Tasmanian women -- i.e, the representatives of a race, whose progenitors were a "soulless" and mindless monster and a real human, though still as mindless a man -- brought on sterility. This, not alone as a consequence of a physiological law, but also as a decree of Karmic evolution in the question of further survival of the abnormal race...

It is a most suggestive fact -- to those concrete thinkers who demand a physical proof of Karma -- that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking place all over the globe, among those races, whose "time is up" -- among just those stocks, be it remarked, which esoteric philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties or abuses perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., etc., have done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all-sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. "Nothing", says even the materialist Lefevre, "can save those that have run their course .. It would be necessary to extend their destined cycle ... The peoples that have been spared ... Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion." (“Philosophy,” p. 508.)

True; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed of the operation of CYCLIC LAW difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the “destined cycle” and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their “appointed hour”? The answer that it is due to a “mental disproportion” between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden “checks to fertility” which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize with Occultists that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lefevre remarks, “the time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types” (before the Sixth Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the African negro — with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. — all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the “why.” The tide-wave of incarnating EGOS has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity.

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky

Pushing the confines of demography and population statistics ever closer to biology, eugenics, and genetics, just as Galton himself had done, Gini was also simultaneously preparing the ideological arsenal for the fascist regime's extensive anti-miscegenation legislation, which was implemented in Italian East Africa after the violent conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-1936. So draconian were the laws on cohabitation, "sexual congress," and relations between the conquering and the vanquished "races" that they have been compared to the system of Apartheid in South Africa. Indeed, the rationale was the same -- the notion of the necessity of the separate development and the total segregation of the races in order to protect European blood from contagion by inferior elements informed both experiments.36 From the late 1920s, Gini's research and connections with fascist population policies were becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the IUSPP, which attempted to consider population apolitically. In particular, the IUSPP's honorary general secretary, Captain George H. L. F. Pitt-Rivers, grew increasingly uneasy about Gini's political and scientific biases and intentions. In 1932, he formally censured Gini and then withdrew funding for his commission, before resolving, with the support of the executive committee of the IUSPP, to dissolve his investigative team entirely in 1937. Pitt-Rivers outlined his reasons in an utterly damning critique of Gini's aims and methods. This accused the renowned Italian scientist of conducting work that was entirely unscientific -- by any internationally accepted standard of research into population matters, Pitt-Rivers stressed -- and that was politically motivated, highly suspect, and sub-standard.37

The criticism had no effect upon Gini's reputation at the time or his resuscitation after the war. In fact, the national awards and honors in recognition of his outstanding service to science continued to accumulate in the 1950s and 1960s. Gini did, however, keep a low profile when it came to matters pertaining to his past life as a leading eugenicist. Discredited, eugenics ceased to play much of a role in the first and only postwar conference of the re-formed Societa Italiana di Genetica e di Eugenica (Italian Genetics and Eugenics Society), which met briefly in September 1949. Although Gini's Latin Federation failed to be revived after World War II, the sentiments that first brought it into existence have continued to have relevance in the postwar period and into the twenty-first century in government and media-generated scares about the low birthrate, a "dying" population, the endangered nation and invading immigrants. At a much deeper level of consciousness and culture as well, Italian pronatalism is alive and thriving within the Italian medical and scientific communities, as issues like abortion, reproductive technology, stem-cell research and "euthanasia," as well as the rights and responsibilities attached to them, remain highly controversial and contested. For example, advocates of scientific "progress" accuse the Catholic Church of undue influence in a secular and democratic society and contend that its position on assisted conception, reproductive technology, and research on human embryos is "medieval" and "backward."38 In an investigation of the attitudes of physicians toward the assisted death of terminal patients in a palliative context, one of many such studies over the years, the researchers concluded that the majority of doctors questioned were opposed to "euthanasia" and that "the variable most strongly associated with a negative response" was "religious belief."39 Just as they were in Gini's day, national culture and religion remain determinants of attitudes and anxieties about those issues that have concerned eugenicists, old and new, for well over a century.

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Italy
by Francesco Cassata
eugenicsarchive.ca
Accessed: 6/12/20

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The word eugenica (or, less frequently, eugenetica) began to spread in Italy in 1912, in the wake of the First International Congress of Eugenics, held in London, under the presidency of Leonard Darwin. The Italian participation at the London Congress not only stimulated a process of institutionalization of Italian eugenics—through the constitution in 1913 of the first Italian Committee of Eugenic Studies—but also demonstrated from the beginning the particular originality of the Italian approach to eugenics. Neo-Lamarckian theoretical influences, Pareto’s theory of the elite and social exchange, positive anthropological evaluation of racial interbreeding and immigration, the Lombrosian connection between genius and degeneration: all these factors created a scientific and intellectual framework that made Italian eugenics inassimilable to the Anglo-Saxon model.

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was a prominent Italian medical doctor and intellectual in the second half of the nineteenth century. He became world famous for his theory that criminality, madness and genius were all sides of the same psychobiological condition: an expression of degeneration, a sort of regression along the phylogenetic scale, and an arrest at an early stage of evolution. Degeneration affected criminals especially, in particular the "born delinquent" whose development had stopped at an early stage, making them the most "atavistic" types of human being. Lombroso also advocated the theory that genius was closely linked with madness. A man of genius was a degenerate, an example of retrograde evolution in whom madness was a form of "biological compensation" for excessive intellectual development. To confirm this theory, in August 1897, Lombroso, while attending the Twelfth International Medical Congress in Moscow, decided to meet the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy in order to directly verify, in him, his theory of degeneration in the genius. Lombroso's anthropological ideas fuelled a heated debate on the biological determinism of human behaviour.

-- Cesare Lombroso: An Anthropologist Between Evolution and Degeneration, by Paolo Mazzarello

Interpreted as dramatic counter-selection or as a means of national biological optimization, the First World War represented an important moment of development for Italian eugenics, demonstrating the efficiency of direct state management of the biological resources of the nation.

Anxieties over national regeneration, technocratic ambitions and new social welfare-oriented policies, which, after the war, accompanied the crisis of the last liberal governments and the progressive rise of fascism, favoured the affirmation of eugenics as a part of social medicine and public health. In this context, eugenics was progressively seen as a paradigm of national efficiency, based on the subordination of individual liberty to superior collective interests for the “defence of society and the race.” Such a technocratic and managerial conception of the population fascinated the Italian political elite in this period, the left as much as the right, ranging from nationalism to reformist socialism, and of course fascism. It was in these years that Italian eugenics was institutionalized, with the constitution of the Institute of Public Welfare and Assistance (IPAS,) the Italian Society for the Study of Sexual Questions (SISQS), the Italian Society for Genetics and Eugenics (SIGE) and the Italian League of Hygiene and Mental Prophylaxis (LIPIM). In the same period, the eugenic debate went through a season of extreme richness and variety, exploring the fundamental issues of birth control, premarital certification, sterilization and mental hygiene.

The orthodoxy based on the binomial quantitative eugenics, pronatalist population policy, was imposed officially by the fascist regime in 1927. The turning point was above all political, and it was sanctioned by the alliance between fascist natalist policy, inaugurated in May 1927 with Benito Mussolini’s famous Ascension Day Speech, and Catholic sexual morals, reaffirmed by the Holy See in December 1930, with the encyclical Casti Connubii. SIGE’s leadership mirrored this ideological and political fusion: the president was the demographer and statistician Corrado Gini; the vice-president was Agostino Gemelli, founder and dean of the Milan Catholic University, and principle exponent of Italian Catholic eugenics.

On a more specifically scientific level, starting from the second half of the 1920s, the theoretical paradigm that fascist eugenics was based on was constituted by the convergence between Corrado Gini’s integral demography—a synthesis of demography, biology, anthropology, economy, sociology and, obviously, eugenics—and constitutionalist biotypological medicine. Biotypology was represented, in particular, by the endocrinologist Nicola Pende. With its synthesis between biological reductionism and cultural holism, Pende’s biotypology provided the scientific rationale for the fascist project of building the “New Italian” (Italiano Nuovo), without alienating the support of the Vatican. Both Gini’s regenerative eugenics and Pende’s biotypological orthogenesis opposed the Nordic, Anglo-Germanic, and Scandinavian model.

This opposition—simultaneously scientific, ideological and political—was expressed at the institutional level by Italy’s exit from the IFEO, and the constitution in 1935 of the Latin Federation of Eugenic Societies: an alternative model, the birth of which coincided not surprisingly with the most critical phase of diplomatic relationships between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

Starting from 1936, and in particular in 1938 with the introduction of State racism in fascist Italy, the ideological and political convergence of fascism and Nazism also influenced the relationship between eugenics and racism, feeding new tensions and oppositions. Between 1938 and 1943 the nature/nurture debate became the battleground for the clash between the different racisms of fascism: biological (Telesio Interlandi and Guido Landra) and esoteric racism (Julius Evola and Giovanni Preziosi) adopted the negative Nazi eugenic model, while nationalist and Mediterranean racism (Giacomo Acerbo and Nicola Pende) remained faithful to the Latin model, environmentalist and neo-Lamarckian. The two positions were opposed in their definition of Italian racial identity, but converged in their discrimination of racial enemies, in particular the half-caste and Jews.

The end of the Second World War did not signal the definitive end of eugenics. In the 1950s and 1960s, on the one hand, the development of human and medical genetics redefined eugenics in terms of preventive medicine and reproductive hygiene. On the other, Gini’s racist eugenics provided a relevant contribution to the anti-UNESCO campaign organized by the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnography and Eugenics (IAAEE) and its journal, The Mankind Quarterly.

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Part 1 of 2

Miguel Serrano
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/12/20

Miguel Serrano: The Dalai Lama’s “friend” and chief ideologist of “esoteric Hitlerism”

"Miguel Serrano”, writes his interviewer, Isidro Palacios, “was the only [!] western foreigner who traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as the monk-emperor of the Tibetan Buddhists fled from the holy land of Tibet to the south because of the Chinese invasion. Our conversation partner [Serrano] traveled from India into the Himalayas where his meeting with the Dalai Lama took place, and since then a close friendship has existed between him and the now Nobel prize winner” (Palacios, 1990, p. 2). Who is this “close friend” of the Kundun then?

Miguel Serrano was born in Santiago, Chile in 1917. Between 1947 and 1948 he visited Antarctica for the first time, to which he later undertook many journeys. One of the massifs which he explored on an expedition there bears his name today. Between 1939 and 1945 he published the esoteric journal, La Nueva Edad [The New Age]. He was active as a diplomat for Chile in several countries, including India, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Austria. He also worked as an ambassador at the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna and at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Largely unnoticed by the public, Serrano has been in friendly contact with numerous prominent national socialist and fascist figures since the seventies: with Léon Degrelle, Otto Skorzeny, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hanna Reitsch, Julius Evola, Herman Wirth, Savitri Devi, and the French Waffen SS man and author Saint Loup. The Chilean returned to his country of birth and lives some kilometers from Santiago (as of 1999).

He published numerous books with an occult/poetic content. Even his work best known in the West, in which he recounts his encounters with the German poet Hermann Hesse and the depth psychologist C. G. Jung, displays a great deal of occultist speculation when one reads it attentively. Serrano titled his book The Hermetic Circle: Conversations, Correspondence, and Memories of Hermann Hesse and C. G. Jung. This title alone should signal that the author had formed an esoteric brotherhood with Jung and Hesse, a sort of triumvirate of magicians who had gained admittance to the archetypal storehouses of the human subconscious and are unique in the twentieth century. Jung was sympathetic towards the Chilean who had courted him. He wrote an effusive foreword to Serrano’s tale, The Visit of the Queen of Saba: “This book is unusual. It is a dream amidst other dreams, one could say, and completely different to the spontaneous creations of the unconscious with which I am familiar” (Serrano, 1980, p. 7). Serrano was also a great admirer of the American poet, Ezra Pound, who sympathized with the Italian fascists. Together with Pound’s widow (Olga Rudge) and Prince Ivanici, Serrano had a commemorative stone erected in Italy.

His occult studies took him to all parts of the world. He saw himself as a modern Percival (Parsifal) and Minnesinger, who went in search of the Grail under the protection of his diplomatic passport. “The life of an ambassador is a farce and a folly”, he said in an interview in the journal Cedade, “My post allows me to meet with people of value like the Dalai Lama, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Hanna Reitsch (Hitler’s famous female war pilot) and others” (Cedade, 1986). Switzerland, Westphalia, the mountains of Salzburg, the Pyrenées, his travels in search of the Grail led him through all these “geomantically” significant sites, but likewise to the Himalayas, Patagonia, and Antarctica.

The Chilean was rightly considered the occult eminence of modern, international fascism. Meanwhile, his phantasmagoric writings have also developed a fanatic following in the German neo-nazi scene: It is the Chilean author’s obsessive intention to convince his readers that Adolf Hitler was an avatar (a divine incarnation) or a tulku, and ever will be, since he lives on in another body in another sphere, that of the kingdom of Shambhala. According to Serrano, the Führer will reappear as the doomsday ruler and fight a terrible battle, and that in the next few years. How did this bizarre fantasy arise?

Shortly after the Second World War a mysterious “master” from the beyond is supposed to have appeared to the Chilean and said to him: “Hitler is a initiate, he can communicate with those dwelling on the astral plane. I do not know who his spiritual leaders are, but I have decided to help him. Hitler is a being with an iron, unshakable will which he inevitably put into effect. He never yielded. I was in contact with him.” (Serrano, 1987, p. 21).

After this appearance of his spiritual guru, Serrano was absolutely convinced that he had been entrusted with the mission of the century: the worldwide dissemination of Hitlerismo Esoterico (of “esoteric Hitlerism”). Whilst still performing his international duties as a Chilean Ambassador he held himself back, although he carried the idea in his heart from the nineteen fifties on. During this period he published books of a poetic/esoteric content with several respectable western publishers which, although they without exception include tantric topics (especially the “female sacrifice”), studiously avoid mentioning the name of Adolf Hitler. Only in 1978 did the Chilean first dare to go public with an open profession of belief in the German Nazi dictator, and published El Cordón Dorado — Hitlerismo Esoterico [The Golden Ribbon — Esoteric Hitlerism]. In the mid-eighties the almost 650-page, large-format book, Adolf Hitler, el Ùltimo Avatâra [Adolf Hitler, the Last Avatar], followed. Serrano summarizes the results of his extensive occult research into this topic with the concise statement that, “esoteric Hitlerism is tantric” (Serrano, 1987, p. 330).

Shambhala: The center of “esoteric Hitlerism”:

In the following sections, we hope to show just how much of his fascist world view Serrano owed to Tantrism. It is of especial interest in connection with this study that he recognized “esoteric Hitlerism” as a central doctrine from the kingdom of Shambhala: “In fact”, the author says, “Shambhala is indeed the center of esoteric Hitlerism. The entrance to it [the realm of Shambhala] was to be found in the vicinity of Shigatse or near Gyangtse [in southern Tibet]. Through my investigations I arrived at the conclusion that our center [i.e., that of Serrano’s occult order] had also been located there. The connection between Hitlerism and the Tibetans or Mongolians was also not immediate, but indirect, in as far as they established contact with the Hyperboreans (the Aryan gods of the north) and made free passage and the transmission of physical messages possible. Tibetans and Mongolians were their vassals who had to guard the magic entry gates to their world. ... When I visited Berchtesgaden [the Obersalzberg to which Hitler retreated time and again], my attention was constantly captivated by a tellurian force, a tangible vibration in the air, which instantaneously linked this point with the Tibetan Himalayas and trans-Himalaya: Hitler’s high-lying refuge with the Lhasa of the Dalai Lama, with Shambhala. For some particular reason, esoteric Hitlerism had chosen this point, which is full of direct connections, magnetic vibrations, and those which touch the stars, as the holy center of its order (the SS), and it had avoided letting a final physical struggle, which could have harmed this area, take place there” (Serrano, 1987, p. 32). In his book, NOS, Serrano defines the kingdom of Shambhala as “one of the hidden subterranean cities in which is performed the tantric initiation that transforms, transmutes and transfigures matter. There are people who say that it was the capital of Agarthi” (Serrano, 1984, p. 186). Before Shambhala was relocated in the Himalayas by the hyperborean (Nordic) siddhas, it was a kingdom at the North Pole.

Shambhala and Agarthi are thus the two occult regions (or cities) from which the national socialist dictator, Adolf Hitler, was sent to our planet. According to Serrano the two locations lie in a magic realm beneath the surface of the Earth. “Thus the submerged Agarthi and Shambhala are to be found there, which the Tibetans and Mongolians speak of as the seat of the king of the world, and also the symbolic orient of the [Knights] Templar and the true Rosicrucians. Thus the unknown leaders of these two orders, as well the organization of esoteric Hitlerism [the SS], betook themselves there. And from there Hitler clearly received instructions” (Serrano, 1987, p. 32).

Following the Second World War the rumor (which Serrano seizes upon thankfully) arose in occult circles that Hitler had settled a brotherhood of Tibetan lamas in Berlin, who stood in direct contact with the kingdom of Shambhala. After the Russians entered the city the members of the order committed suicide ( Ravenscroft, 1988, p. 262ff.).

But Hitler — Serrano says- did not suicide; rather he was able to return to his subterranean home of Shambhala. “Hitler lives. He did not die in Berlin. I have seen him under the earth. ... I kept this secret for many years; then it was dangerous to reveal it, and it was even more difficult to write about it”, the mysterious master we have already mentioned explained to his pupil, Serrano (Serrano, 1987, p. 37). The “Führer”, however, did not flee to Tibet as is assumed in other occult speculations. Serrano doubts such assumptions, since on the basis of his researches he reached the conclusion that the mythic realm of Shambhala was relocated from the Himalayas to the South Pole (Antarctica) following the war and that today the entrance to the underground imperium may be found there. Hitler is thus said to have traveled to Antarctica.

In the near future, the “Führer” with ascend to earth from the subterranean Shambhala (now at the South Pole) for a second time, with a powerful army of UFOs in fact. (At another point Serrano reports that Hitler will lead his army on a white horse, like the Rudra Chakrin, the wrathful wheel turner from Shambhala.) The “last avatar” (Hitler) will plunge the planet into a terrible apocalyptic war between the forces of light (the hyperborean Aryan race) and the powers of darkness (the Jewish race). The Jews, who currently rule the world, will be exterminated and the Nazis will found the Edidad Dorada (the “golden age”) and the “Fourth Reich”.

Serrano took his “fantasies” literally. To seek his spiritual leader (or the tulku Hitler), the Chilean diplomat (in India at the time) set off and began exploring in the Himalayas and in Antarctica. “In the book The Serpent of Paradise, I describe my search for the ashram of the Siddha in the Himalayas, which is likewise to be found beneath the earth in the Kailash mountains, in a very remote area where my master’s residence also is” (Serrano, 1987, p. 40). He was convince that he would find an entrance to Shambhala or Agarthi in the Kailash. He also tried to reach Lake Yamdrok, because he suspected there was an entrance gateway to the underground Shambhala there as well. But the Chinese turned him back at the border.

EL/ELLA:

But the time was not ripe, Serrano was unable to discover the entrance to Shambhala. In Kalimpong, “before the gates of Tibet” he encountered a “man” who assured the Chilean that a mysterious “order” exerts an influence over both the affairs of the distant past and the most recent events of world history. Obviously this man was the guru who — as he recounts in his key book EL/ELLA — initiated Serrano into the rites of sexual magic, and the order was a tantric secret society. Its members, the “man” said, “live in two cities in the Himalayas, Agarthi and Shambhala. To get there one has to trace this (tantric) way back to the origin of time” (Serrano, 1982, p. 10).

The pupil (Serrano) — we read in EL/ELLA — is prepared to go this way and is initiated into the tantras and the “laws of androgyny” by the master: “This knowledge has been passed on to us by the serpent [kundalini] that survived on the ocean floor as the world of the god-men was destroyed, in which the woman was not outside but rather inside and where man and woman were one. .... Until you are one with the woman ... you will be no priest king ... The stallion must become a mare, the man a woman ...” the guru continued his teaching (Serrano, 1982, pp. 11-12).

This is never, the pupil learns, possible through chastity and asceticism. Rather, the man must encounter the woman in the “magic love” in order to divert her feminine energies. As we know, this requires absolute control over the sexual act and above all the retention of the seed: “If the stallion expels the seed, he becomes impoverished by this. ... For as long as the seed flows outwards like a river, the play of the deceptive appearances will continue” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13). In another text it says: “the magic love that is taught in ... Shambhala. ... In it the seed may not be issued outwardly and be lost in the woman, rather it must flow inwardly into the body of its owner in order to impregnate him with the androgyne, ... as one in the likewise symbolic language of alchemy” (Serrano, 1987, p. 289). If the man does not expel his sperm he can absorb the woman’s gynergies completely. “If the woman does not receive”, Serrano says, “she gives! Through her skin she exudes substances, a concentrated energy, which satiates you and penetrates into your blood and heart” (Serrano, 1982, p. 14).

But it can happen that the tantric experiment fails. If the sadhaka (the pupil) loses his seed during the magic sexual act then he is destroyed by the aggressive femininity: “The spider devours the male who fertilizes her, the bees murder the drones, the fearsome mother wears the organ of generation tied around her neck. Everything female devours, every mare, mother, goddess, or woman. In one way or another the man is consumed” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13).

It is thus a matter of life and death. Ultimately, according to Serrano the “killing” of the external woman (the karma mudra) is therefore necessary, so that the inner woman (the maha mudra) can be formed. The author does not shrink from discussing the “tantric female sacrifice” directly: “Only those who are able to love the woman so much [!] that they externally kill her [!] in order to make possible her inner rebirth will find the immortal city of Agarthi (or Shambhala)” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13). For an uninformed reader hidden, but obvious to one who knows the logic of Tantrism, a tantric female murder is described in both of his initiatory writings, EL/ELLA [HE/SHE] and NOS [WE].

In a love scene from EL/ELL,A a young woman expires in Serrano’s arms in order to then re-emerge within him as an inner maha mudra. He bends over her, strokes her hair and kisses her bloody lips: “They tasted like bitter honey, and he swallowed a little of her blood” Then he suddenly sees the stigmata: “Strangely, it [the blood] was only on her feet and the palms of her hands as if she had been crucified. 'Here!', she said. She indicated her side, at breast level. A white line seemed to run through it, like a spear wound” (Serrano, 1982, pp. 72-73). The references to the sacrifice of Christ are obvious, indeed they seem quite blatant. “When I die,” the woman then says, “you will bear me within you; I will be you, live in you ... You have drunk my blood, and we are now two siblings. My character is already being transferred into your blood ... If god will, I shall love you even more when I am dead. ... I have to die that you may live” (Serrano, 1982, pp. 73-74). With this she fulfills the wise saying of Serrano’s master: “The decay of the one [the woman] is the purification of the other [the man]" (Serrano, 1982, p. 93). “The absolute woman”, he says at another point, “can sleep or she can die, which is the same thing” (Serrano, 1987, p. 289).

Written in a fantasy manner, the book NOS — Book of the Resurrection also depicts a tantric female sacrifice. The heroine of this “hermetic biography” is called Allouine, the main hero is admittedly Serrano. Additionally, various “tantric” masters crop up. Among them are, unmistakably, C.G. Jung, Hermann Hesse, and the American poet Ezra Pound. The contents of the book depict the voluntary self-sacrifice of Allouine, her interiorization as a maha mudra by the author (Serrano), and the latter’ achievement of immortality through the absorption of gynergy. “The woman dies. She is dead. She must die. ... She is the warrior’s [the yogi’s] companion, existing only in his mind, in his spirit” (Serrano, 1984, p. 11), Serrano instructs us once more. “She [the woman] becomes interiorized in you through her death, she inspires you”, one of his masters explains to him and in another passage continues: “The secret path of yoga along which you are traveling is only for the warrior, for the initiated hero. It is not the path for the woman; because a woman has no chakras, no kundalini to awaken. ... A woman is the Kundalini. A woman has no soul. She is the soul. A woman has no eternity. She is eternity” (Serrano, 1984, pp. 102, 147).

Serrano stages a tantric séance with Allouine, in which they both consume the five forbidden foods. Then he drinks “the liquor of orgasm ... the heavenly Soma, an spirit of secret wine ... which is now only to be found in the river of your blood” (Serrano, 1984, p. 112). We know that he is talking about the sukra, the mixture of male and female seed, of menstrual blood and sperm. This magic potion grants the Tantric immortality. In NOS too the author longs for the blood of his lover like a vampire and goes into raptures if he detects it on his lips. After he has washed the dying Allouine, he kisses her and drinks of her blood.

Yet Allouine patiently and will-lessly accepts her sacrifice: “My desire for you (i.e., for Serrano) is reaching its peak. The fire of sacrifice has already been lit in my vulva and beats there like a heart. ... My will no longer exists” (Serrano, 1984, p. 111). “The authentic, absolute woman sacrifices herself voluntarily,” we read in NOS, “immolating herself in order to give her eternity to her lover. ... The beloved is now the hidden beloved, she who has died and buried herself in your bones and your veins. The female Sophia, guru of the soul, she who courses through the blood, the female philosopher, Sophia, wisdom, the dove, gnosis” (Serrano, 1984, pp. 147-148). Dying, his “wisdom consort” says to him, “I shall but love thee better after death. I give you my eternity. … My beloved, you will be my coffin of perfumed, precious wood!” (Serrano, 1984, p. 140).

After he has internalized Allouine within himself, the Tantric Serrano can now overcome his EGO, he can now talk of NOS (WE), since his lover (maha mudra) will dwell in him for ever. Through this love, deadly for the woman, the man gains eternal life. In this context, Serrano plays upon the word AMOR, which does not just mean love, but also A-MOR, i.e., beyond death.

Eternally united with Allouine’s gynergy following her physical death, Serrano buries her corpse and places a stone at her grave into which he has chiseled a leftward hooked cross, the supreme symbol of “esoteric Hitlerism”.

Hitler as a tantric and as king of the world (Chakravartin):

From Serrano’s tantric world view it is only all too easy to assume that Hitler (as a tulku) also conducted sexual magic practices with a wisdom consort (mudra). Eva Braun, the lover of the dictator appears to have only partially performed this duty. Behind her, Serrano says, stood a greater one: “We must thus consider the relationship with Eva Braun to have been like that between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the Christian legend, like that of an alchemist to his mystic sister. ... The presence of the woman, her telepathic, self-communicating energy, the tensions this generates are indispensable for a tantric magician, for this kind of bearer of power. The mystic consort of Hitler was, however, not Eva Braun, but rather another” (Serrano, 1987, p. 25). He refers to her as the “Valkyrie” or as Lilith too. With the name Lilith he draws a connection to Adam. Like Hitler, the biblical first father of humanity (Adam) also possessed two women, an outer Eve and an inner Lilith. Did Hitler perhaps make an decisive tantric mistake, asks the author, in marrying Eva Braun (shortly before his suicide)? “... Since the secret Eve [Braun] of transient flesh and blood was accepted, she now [took] the place of the mystic consort” (Serrano, 1987, p. 25), and Hitler lost part of his magic powers (siddhis).

A according to Serrano the “Führer” of the Third Reich was a tantra master from Shambhala, the “high priest of the occident” (Serrano, 1987, p. 269) He came to earth to fulfill a mission — the control of the world by the Nordic ("hyperborean”) race. But in him Serrano does not just see the incarnation of a warlike archetype who lowered himself into a human frame in the nineteen-thirties and forties. In the dictator he directly recognized a tulku and god sent from Shambhala. Hitler “was a highly developed being, a Bodhisattva, a tulku ... the incarnation of a deity” (Serrano, n.d., p. 119).

Just as a tulku need not only appear in the form of a single person, but can rather produce many emanations of his self, so too the various fascist national “Führers” of the first half of our century were the emanations of the mightiest central tulku and Shambhala prince, Adolf Hitler: Benito Mussolini in Italy; Oliveira Salazar in Portugal; Leon Degrelle in Belgium; José Antonio Primo de Rivera in Spain; Plinio Salgado in Brazil; Doriot in France; Jorge González von Marée in Chile; and Subhash Chandra Bose in India. All the fascist energy of the world was concentrated in the German “Führer” (Hitler): “The tulku”, says Serrano, “ — in this case it is Hitler — radiates out from a center of higher power, which like an enormous sun absorbs everything and draws it into his fire and his fate. If HE falls, then all the others fall too, then HE is of course ALL [of them]" (Serrano, 1987, p. 270).

According to Serrano Hitler must also be seen as the earthly appearance of the Chakravartin: “For the initiates of the SS Hitler was that mysterious prophet or magician who … would restore the sense of royal dignity, where the king of the world is the emperor, the priest of priests and king of kings; it is the leader, who will establish a new golden age for a thousand years and more” (Serrano, 1987, p. 354). This is clearly intended for the future, since– according to Serrano — Hitler will soon return once more to fulfill his cosmic mission. One may think what one will of such prognoses, but it is in any case amazing what a large upturn fascist movements have achieved worldwide since the end of the eighties.

The SS as a tantric warrior order from Shambhala:

For Serrano the tantric initiation is the central rite of a “hyperborean” (Nordic) warrior caste. Shambhala counts as the supreme mystery site for the initiation of the “priest-warriors”. “In Shambhala”, the author says, “ the use of the force through which the mutation of the earth and the people can be carried out is taught, and the latter [the people] are introduced into the martial initiation, which makes this possible. ... Those who follow this initiatory stream have struggled to found a new/old order here on the present-day earth which has its roots in the transcendent origins, with the goal of reawakening the golden age, and they will fight on to the end...” (Serrano, 1987, p. 258).

This order is the secret brotherhood of the Shambhala officers, who have for centuries been incarnated in our world — for instance as knights of the holy grail or as Rosicrucians or finally as the occult elite of the SS, Hitler’s notorious Schutz-Staffel. “Once a year”, we learn, “the inner circle of the SS people met with their supreme leaders for a few days of retreat, the solitude, and meditation. A kind of western yoga was practiced here, but nothing is known about it” (Serrano, 1987, pp. 171-172).

According to Serrano the SS were divided into two sections, an inner esoteric one and an outer one. The “exoteric SS” were selected to “be able to deal with the most difficult tasks and adventures in the external world”. “Nothing of the esoteric of the black order, its practices and teachings, its invisible connections and its occult doctrines was known” to them (Serrano, 1987, p. 264). The “inner circle” of the SS consisted of “sun people, supermen, god-men, the total human, the human magician” (Serrano, n.d., p. 96). The esoteric SS were siddhas (magicians) from the underground kingdom of Shambhala, or at least their messengers In German, SS are the initials of the “black sun” (“schwarze Sonne”), and Serrano did also call the members of the order “the men of the black sun”. We are reminded that the planet of darkness, Rahu, which darkens the sun and moon, is also referred to in the Kalachakra Tantra as the black sun.

The author is convinced, of course, that sexual magic rites were practiced in the SS (the “new aristocracy of the Aryan race”). Like Julius Evola before him, the Chilean makes constant references in his writings to how sexuality may be converted into high-quality aggressive military energy and political power through tantric practices: “Come and take me like a warrior!”, a lover (his karma mudra) says to him at one stage in his key novels, “I give you my heart for you to devour. Let us drink our blood”(Serrano, 1982, p. 54). In EL/ELLA the author recommends to heroes initiated into the tantras that “the warrior should give death the face of his lover; the fiery femininity of death will be thus evoked” (Serrano, 1982, p. 87). For Serrano, tantric practices and the cult life of a fascist/esoteric warrior caste are one.

Additionally, the sexual magic of the SS was connected with racial experiments. These aimed at a mutation of the human race, or better, a regaining of the formerly high-standing Aryan god-men who had in the dim and distant past tarnished themselves through “ordinary” sexual intercourse with human women and produced a lesser race. According to Serrano, such experiments were conducted in the Wewelsburg, the occult center of the SS. “Laboratories of leftward magic” for the re-creation of the original, pure Aryan race were to be found there (Serrano, n.d. pp. 488, 589). But these were nothing more than the above-ground branches of corresponding establishments in subterranean Shambhala. “In Shambhala they attempted to produce a mutation of their kind which would allow them to return to that which they were before their interbreeding with the sons of man...” — when they still had a white, almost transparent body and blonde hair (Serrano, 1982, p. 54).

As Tantrics, the SS were “beyond good and evil” and for this reason their “terrible deeds” were justified by Serrano, plus that they took place at higher cosmic command (Serrano, 1987, p. 331). The “final solution to the question of the gypsies” (many gypsies perished in the concentration camps), for example, is said to have come directly “from Tibet to Hitler, certainly from Shambhala”. The gypsies used to live in Shambhala and had then been driven out of there. “The reasons for this”, says Serrano, “were known in the Tibet of the Dalai Lama” (Serrano, 1987, p. 366).

Just like the Knights Templar, the inner occult core of the SS were incarnations of the guardians of the holy grail, and “the grail of the siddhas [the magicians], of the solar and martial initiations” is to be found in Shambhala (Serrano, 1987, p. 264). The miracles which radiated from the grail were evident in the achievements of the black order in the course of the Second World War: “If one examines the achievements of the followers of Hitler in all areas of creation within a period of just six years, one cannot avoid admiring this miracle and making a comparison with the Templar order. And one comes to believe that the SS have likewise found the grail and even deciphered it” (Serrano, 1987, p. 278). Even the monumental architecture of the Third Reich is supposed to have been prepared on the building sites of Shambhala. The Hyperboreans (the gods of the north), we may read, “emigrated to two secret cities in the Himalayas, Agarthi and Shambhala. ... In Shambhala they practiced the magic of the giants which made the monumental buildings possible” (Serrano, 1982, p. 54).

In the Second World War the forces of light and the “sun race” (Hitler and the SS) stood opposed to the forces of darkness and the “moon race” (the Allies and the Jews). It was no ordinary war, but rather a global battle between the gods (the Nazis, the light Aryan race) and demons (the Jews, the dark Semitic race), between Odin, the highest god of the Germanic peoples, and Jehovah, the highest god of the Jews. The Nordic (hyperborean) heroes fought the “lord of darkness”, the “satanic demiurge”. At heart, Serrano says, the patriarchal and matriarchal powers were at war.

Admittedly Hitler outwardly lost the war, but through his sacrifice and his example he saved the ideals of the warrior caste from Shambhala. He shall return at the head of his “wild army” to finally liberate the white race from the lord of darkness (Jehovah). It will then come to a terrible final battle. “These are the dimensions of Hitler, the envoy of the hyperborean [Nordic] siddhas, the tulku, the Bodhisattva, the Chakravartin, the Führer of the Aryans, so that the demiurge Jehovah has to mobilize all his earthly and extraterrestrial legions” (Serrano, n.d., p. 50).

One may well dismiss Serrano’s visions as the product of an overactive imagination, but it cannot be denied that modern fascism has found a home and a predecessor in the Shambhala myth and in Tantrism. Its mythological conceptions and visions of power can without difficulty be brought into harmony with the practice and political ideology of the Kalachakra Tantra for all fundamental issues. The occult right wing’s move toward Tibetan Buddhism is thus in no way to be understood as the exploitation of the dharma for ignoble purposes, since there is a profound inner relatedness between these two ways of looking at the world.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Serrano:

Naturally, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama would simply dismiss any link between the Shambhala myth and Kalachakra Tantra and the “esoteric Hitlerism” of Serrano, regardless of how closely matched even the conceptual principles of the two systems may be. Nonetheless, it is of great interest to our culturally critical study that the Kundun met with the racist Chilean several times (in at least 1959, 1984, and 1992). When His Holiness visited Chile in the year 1992, he was greeted at the airport by, among others, the leader of the National Socialist Party of Chile — Miguel Serrano by name. The principal ideologue of Esoteric Hitlerism told the reporters present that he and the hierarch from Tibet had been good “friends” since his time in India (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 302). Serrano was also a friend of the German living in India whom we have so often cited, Lama Govinda, in whose meditation tower with a view of the Himalayan mountains he was able to immerse himself.

The first encounter with the Kundun took place in 1959. In his own account, the founder of “esoteric Hitlerism” was the sole foreigner to greet the Dalai Lama as he crossed the Indian border after his flight from Tibet. “Shortly before the taking of Tibet by Mao’s troops”, he reports in his own words, “the Dalai Lama succeeded in fleeing to India. I journeyed into the Himalayas to wait for him there. I donned Tibetan clothes which the Maharaja of Sikkim had given me so as to attempt to get to Tibet from there. I made it to the Tibetan border, where — incidentally — I made the acquaintance of one of Roerich’s sons who also gave me a report of the hidden city lying in the mountains (Shambhala). The at that time still very young Dalai Lama later, when everything was over, gave me a small Tibetan dog, as a sign of his gratitude” (Palacio, 1990, p. 4).

It is at any rate interesting that the Kundun, who was introduced to western culture by a member of the SS (Heinrich Harrer), meets as the first (!) Westerner after his crossing of the Indian border the fascist Miguel Serrano, who sees a mythic command from the kingdom Shambhala at the esoteric core of the SS. Serrano says of himself: “I was employed as a tool and continue to be used” (Cedade, 1986). We may recall that upon crossing the border, the Dalai Lama gave vent to the cry of “Victory to the gods!”. The gods that Serrano represented and as whose tool he served were Wotan, Odin, and, in his own words, Adolf Hitler.


Miguel Serrano and the XIV. Dalai Lama in Santiago de Chile (1992)

As far as the “enchanting” Tibetan temple bitch of “honey yellow color” which was given him by the Kundun is concerned, this creature had a most special significance for the Chilean. The lamas, the author says, referred to the petite race as the “lion of the back door of the Temple”. Serrano’s “back door lion” was called Dolma, “the name of a Tibetan goddess; in truth the shakti” (Serrano, n.d., p. 189). Dolma is the Tibetan name for the goddess Tara. As abstruse as it may sound, after some time the Chilean recognized in the Dolma given him by the Kundun the reincarnation of a woman whom he once loved as a “mystic partner” and who (in accordance with the laws of the “tantric female sacrifice”) had had to die (Serrano, n.d., p. 189). As Dolma the bitch one day passed away in his arms — Serrano had flown from Spain to Vienna just to accompany her into eternity — he recalled an event of mythological dimensions from the 16th century. As if he were in a trance he suddenly felt that it was not the Tibetan Dolma but rather the dying sister of the last Aztec emperor Montezuma, Papán by name, whom he held in his arms. Papán — Serrano claimed — originally a high priestess from the north ("Hyperborea”), had in Mexico prophesied- according to legend — the return of the white gods to America. In her final hour, Dolma (the bitch) radiated out the energy of the Aztec princess who had to suffer a ritual sacrificial death.

Thanks to this vision Serrano could once more experience the fascination which habitually flooded through him at the embrace of dying women, even if one of them had this time been incarnated in a bitch. In NOS, a dying dog (the fate of Dolma probably lies behind this) spoke to him like a tantric lover with a human voice: “You don't need me outside anymore. I will howl inside you, like my brother the wolf” (Serrano, 1984, p. 21).

Such central “hermetic” experiences naturally tied the Chilean to the Kundun and his tantric world view profoundly and so it is also not surprising that Serrano linked “esoteric Hitlerism” and the fate of Germany to the Dalai Lama directly: His “skill”, the author says of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is “closely linked to that of Hitler’s Germany ... on account of yet undiscovered connections. A few years after Germany, Tibet also fell” (Serrano, 1987, p. 366).

The Chilean did not yet know about the SS past of Heinrich Harrer, the Kundun’s “best friend” and teacher, since this first became known in 1997 in connection with the film Seven Years in Tibet. But we can be certain that this fact would have been cited by him as further evidence to justify an occult connection between Shambhala and the SS, between the Dalai Lama and Adolf Hitler, particularly as the Chilean indicates at many points in his writings that the SS sent “secret missions” to Tibet in order to search for traces of the Aryan race there.

Serrano allows himself to be celebrated as the “Führer” of the National Socialist Party of Chile. His calendar commences with the year of Adolf Hitler’s birth in 1889. He describes “esoteric Hitlerism” as the “new religion of the young heroes and future warriors and priests, the true myth of the coming century” (Cedade, 1986). In 1989, on the 100th anniversary of Hitler’s birth (the year 100 for Serrano) a commemorative celebration was staged at which the Chilean and representatives of “esoteric Hitlerism” from various countries (Chile, Spain, Italy, Germany) spoke: “On the peak of a mountain in the Andes ranges which dominates Santiago,” the Chilean newspaper, La Epoca, writes, “and to the sounds of the Ride of the Valkyrie from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), some 100 Chilean followers and foreigners commemorated Adolf Hitler in yesterday’s evening twilight and promised that in the new Hitlerist age the continuing triumph of his ideas would proceed from Chile. ... Hitler, Serrano opined, would be resurrected from in the Andes ('Andes' means 'perfected, total human) and he would do like the Caleuche [a mystic hero of Chile, whose name means 'the man who returns’) and introduce the age of Hitler” (Epoca, April 21, 1989). This event should not be underestimated on the basis of the small number of participants. For Serrano it had a ritual/symbolic significance and was reported in detail in the German neo-Nazi scene, for example.

In fascist circles worldwide, Serrano is a “hot tip” and his bizarre visions do in fact exercise a fascinating attraction on many young people. His nazi books are openly offered for sale in all South American countries. The German translation of Cordón Dorado Hitlerismo Esoterico is available as a hardback (Das goldene Band — esoterischer Hitlerismus). Highly sought after copies of the other works (about Hitlerism) in German translation and individual propaganda essays are in circulation and passed from hand to hand. “Serrano’s mystical neo-Nazism … [has] a distinct appeal to the younger generation”, writes the historian Goodrick Clark, “Here Nazism becomes a pop mythology, severed from the historic context of the Third Reich. The Gnostic Cathars, Rosicrucian mysteries, Hindu Avatars, and extraterrestrial gods add a sensational and occult appeal to powerful myths of elitism, planetary destiny, and the cosmic conspiracy of the Jews that culminate in a global racist ideology of white supremacism. … Books by Serrano … are now circulating among neo-pagans, Satanists, skinheads, and Nazi metal music fans in the United States, Scandinavia, and Western Europe” (Goodrick Clark, 1998, pp. 221-222). The Dalai Lama has never distanced himself from Serrano. Instead of decisively opposing fascism in any country, he recently called for the former Chilean State President and fascist, Augusto Pinochet, to be spared a trial.

-- The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, by Victor and Victoria Trimondi

Miguel Serrano Fernández
As ambassador to India, 1957
Born: Miguel Joaquín Diego del Carmen Serrano Fernández, 10 September 1917, Santiago, Chile
Died: 28 February 2009 (aged 91), Santiago, Chile
Resting place: Santiago, Chile
Nationality: Chilean
Alma mater: Internado Nacional Barros Arana
Occupation: Writer, novelist, essayist, journalist, explorer and diplomat
Years active: 1936–2009[1]
Notable work: The Serpent of Paradise"; "The Ultimate Flower"; "El/Ella"; "The Visits of the Queen of Sheba"; "C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships"; "Nos: Book of the Resurrection"

Miguel Joaquín Diego del Carmen Serrano Fernández, better known as Miguel Serrano (10 September 1917 – 28 February 2009), was a Chilean diplomat, writer, occultist, and fascist activist. A Nazi sympathiser in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he later became a prominent figure in the neo-Nazi movement as an exponent of Esoteric Hitlerism.

Born to a wealthy Chilean family of European descent, Serrano was orphaned as a child and raised by his grandmother. After an education at the Internado Nacional Barros Arana, he developed an interest in writing and far-right politics, allying himself with the Chilean Nazi movement. During the Second World War, in which Chile remained neutral, Serrano campaigned in support of Nazi Germany and promoted anti-semitic conspiracy theories through his own fortnightly publication, La Nueva Edad. In 1942 he joined an occult order founded by a German migrant which combined pro-Nazi sentiment with ceremonial magic and kundalini yoga. It presented the Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler as a spiritual adept who had incarnated to Earth as a savior of the Aryan race and who would lead humanity out of a dark age known as the Kali Yuga. Serrano became convinced that Hitler had not died in 1945 but had secretly survived and was living in Antarctica. After visiting Antarctica, Serrano travelled to Germany and then Switzerland, where he met the novelist Hermann Hesse and psychoanalyst Carl Jung; in 1965 he published a reminiscence of his time with the pair.

In 1953 Serrano joined the Chilean diplomatic corps and was stationed in India until 1963, where he took a keen interest in Hinduism and wrote several books. He was later made ambassador to Yugoslavia and then Austria, and while in Europe made contacts with various former Nazis and other far-rightists living on the continent. Following Chile's election of a Marxist President, Salvador Allende, Serrano was dismissed from the diplomatic service in 1970. After Allende was ousted in a coup and Augusto Pinochet took power, Serrano returned to Chile in 1973. He became a prominent organiser in the Chilean neo-Nazi movement, holding annual celebrations of Hitler's birthday, organising a neo-Nazi rally in Santiago, and producing a neo-Nazi political manifesto. He wrote a trilogy of books on Hitler in which he outlined his view of the Nazi leader as an avatar. He remained in contact with neo-Nazis elsewhere in the world and gave interviews to various foreign far-right publications.

In 2008 Serrano was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award (Premio a la Trayectoria) from the Universidad Mayor of Santiago.[2][3][4] After Savitri Devi, he has been considered the most prominent exponent of Esoteric Hitlerism within the neo-Nazi movement. In that movement, he gained respect for his devotion to the cause even among neo-Nazis who regarded his ideas as far-fetched.

Biography

Childhood: 1917–1938

Miguel Joaquín Diego del Carmen Serrano Fernández was born on 10 September 1917.[5] On his maternal line, he was descended from the countesses of Sierra Bella.[5] His mother, Berta Fernández Fernández, died when Serrano was five years old, while his father, Diego Serrano Manterola, died three years later.[5] He had two younger brothers and a sister, who were then all raised by his paternal grandmother, Fresia Manterola de Serrano, moving between a Santiago townhouse and a 17th-century country mansion in the Claro Valley.[5]

Between 1929 and 1934, he studied at the Internado Nacional Barros Arana.[5] The school had been heavily influenced by Prussian staff members who had arrived in the late 19th century, with Serrano attributing his later Germanophilia to this early exposure to German culture.[5] At the school he moved in literary circles.[5] A close friend of his was Hector Barreto, a poet and socialist. Aged 18, Barreto was killed in a brawl with uniformed Nacistas, members of the National Socialist Movement of Chile, a fascist group inspired by the example of the Nazi Party in Germany.[5] This event encouraged Serrano's involvement in left-wing politics as he began to take an interest in Marxism and the Chilean Marxist movement.[5] He wrote articles for leftist journals like Sobre la marcha, La Hora, and Frente Popular.[5] His uncle, the poet Vicente Huidobro, encouraged him to join the left-wing Republicans in the ongoing Spanish Civil War, but he did not do so.[5]

Nazism and occultism: 1939–1952

Serrano grew critical of Marxism and left-wing politics, instead being drawn to the Nacistas after their failed coup in September 1938.[5] By July 1939, Serrano was publicly associating himself with the Nacista movement, now organised as the Popular Socialist Vanguard.[6] He began writing for their journal, Trabajo, and accompanied their leader, Jorge González von Marées, on his speaking tours across Chile.[6] At the outbreak of the Second World War, in which Chile remained neutral, Serrano expressed support for Nazi Germany; from July 1941 he launched a fortnightly pro-Nazi publication, La Nueva Edad.[6] Among the magazine's regular contributors were the journalist René Arriagada, General Francisco Javier Díaz, and Hugo Gallo, who was the cultural attaché at the Italian Embassy.[6] Through this work, Serrano developed close links with the German Embassy in Chile and its personnel.[6]


Serrano admired Adolf Hitler, and later became convinced that he had not died in 1945 but instead escaped to Antarctica.

Although Serrano had initially shown little interest in Nazi attitudes towards Jewish people, he became increasingly interested in anti-semitic conspiracy theories about Jews manipulating world events.[6] Two Chilean artists gave him a Spanish language translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text purporting to expose this alleged international Jewish conspiracy.[6] According to the historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, it was this discovery of the Protocols which "marked a crucial point in the development of Serrano's Nazism".[6] From November 1941, he began printing excerpts from the Protocols in La Nueva Edad.[6]

Serrano also developed an interest in forms of religious or spiritual practice, including both Western esotericism and Hinduism.[7] In late 1941, Gallo suggested that Serrano could support the German and Italian war effort not just through his publications, but also on the etheric Inner Planes, introducing him to an esoteric order sympathetic to Nazism.[7] Serrano later claimed that this order had been founded near the start of the 20th century by a German migrant known as "F. K."[7] Serrano was initiated into the group in February 1942.[7]

F. K. claimed that the group owed its allegiance to a secretive Brahmin elite who resided in the Himalayas.[7] It practices combined kundalini yoga with ceremonial magic and expressed a pro-Nazi position.[7] It espoused a belief in an astral body which could be awakened through various rituals and meditative practices.[7] The group revered the Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler as the savior of an Aryan race and presented him as a shudibudishvabhaba, an initiate of immense willpower who had voluntarily incarnated onto Earth to assist in the overthrow of the Kali Yuga, a present dark age for humanity.[7] F. K. claimed that through the astral realm, he was able to establish a connection with Hitler, during which they had various conversations.[7]

As the Second World War ended in defeat for Nazi Germany in 1945, Serrano was convinced that Hitler had not committed suicide in Berlin as was claimed by the victorious Allies. Instead, Serrano believed that Hitler had escaped and was living in Antarctica, either in a secluded warm environment on the continent or under the ice cap itself.[7] This idea had been suggested to him by F. K.—who claimed that he remained in astral contact with Hitler—but was also widely rumoured in the Latin American press.[8] In 1947, Ladislao Szabó's book Hitler est vivo had been published, exerting an influence on Serrano. Szabó's book alleged that a U-boat convoy had taken Hitler to safety in Queen Maud Land.[9] In 1947–48, Serrano travelled to Antarctica as a journalist with the Chilean Army.[9] In 1948, he wrote his own short book, La Antártica y otros Mitos, which repeated Szabó's claims about Hitler's survival.[9]

In 1951, Serrano travelled to Europe, and in Germany visited various sites associated with the Nazi Party, including Hitler's Berlin bunker, Hitler's Berghof home, and Spandau Prison, where Rudolf Hess and other prominent Nazis were then imprisoned.[9] During this trip he also visited Switzerland, where he met and befriended the writer Hermann Hesse and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.[9]

Diplomatic career: 1953–1970


Serrano meeting Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (right) in May 1957

In 1953, Serrano—following a number of other family members—joined the Chilean diplomatic corps.[9] He hoped to gain a posting to India, a land which he considered to be a source of great spiritual truths. He was successful in this, and remained in India until 1962. In this period, he visited many Hindu temples and searched for evidence of the secretive Brahmanical order into which F. K. had alleged initiation.[9] In his role as a diplomat, he met various prominent figures, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and the 14th Dalai Lama.[9] It was while in India that he wrote and published two books: The Visits of the Queen of Sheba (1960), which had a preface by Jung, and The Serpent of Paradise (1963), which discussed his experiences in the country.[9] Serrano had engaged in further correspondence with Jung between 1957 and 1961.[10] In 1965 his book, C. J. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships, was published.[10]

Leaving India, from 1962 to 1964 he was posted as the Chilean ambassador to Yugoslavia.[9] From 1964 to 1970 he then served as his country's ambassador to Austria, for which he lived in Vienna.[9] During the latter posting, he also represented Chile at the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, both of which were based in Vienna.[9] While in Europe, he had sought out a number of individuals linked to Nazism and to the far-right more broadly; these included visits to the Ahnenerbe co-founder Herman Wirth,...

Herman Wirth (alternatively referred to as Herman Wirth Roeper Bosch, or Herman Felix Wirth or Hermann) (6 May 1885 in Utrecht – 16 February 1981 in Kusel) was a Dutch-German historian and scholar of ancient religions and symbols. He co-founded the SS-organization Ahnenerbe but was later pushed out by Heinrich Himmler....

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Wirth volunteered for military service in the German army, where he was assigned to monitor the Flemish separatists in German-occupied Belgium. In 1916 he was decorated, dismissed from the service, and subsequently appointed by Wilhelm II as a professor (Titularprofessor). In 1918 he became professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. After the war ended, he and his wive moved to the Netherlands, where they founded a nationalist Wandervogel-organization, dedicated to traditional folk-music. By then, Wirth accepted a temporary job as teacher at the gymnasium of Baarn.

August 1922 he became honorary professor in Marburg, Germany, but he took another job as a teacher in Sneek (Netherlands) until February 1924. This gave him the opportunity do dive into Frisian folk culture and the history of the apparently age-old Oera Linda Book [a manuscript written in a form of Old Frisian, purporting to cover historical, mythological, and religious themes of remote antiquity, from 2194 BCE to 803 CE. Among academics in Germanic philology, the document is widely considered to be a hoax or forgery.] In 1925 he joined the NSDAP. However, his membership was discontinued in 1926, apparently because he did not want to scare off Jewish sponsors.

Wirth then published a book about the "Prehistory of the Atlantic Nordic race" (German: Urgeschichte der atlantisch-nordischen Rasse), which found appeal in völkisch circles....

After the rise to power of the NSDAP, he rejoined the party in 1934 and shortly thereafter became a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS, membership number 258.776). He was re-awarded his former NSDAP number (20.151) personally by Adolf Hitler.

In early summer 1933, friends within the NSDAP helped Wirth to be appointed to an extraordinary professorship without teaching responsibilities at the theological faculty of Berlin University.... Wirth also re-founded his organization as Gesellschaft für germanische Ur- und Vorgeschichte, with assistance from the journalist and Nazi functionary Johann von Leers and the industrialist Ludwig Roselius. The latter had supported Wirth since the 1920s and paid for the publication of Der Aufgang der Menschheit.

Between 1933 and 1935, there was a large philosophical clash encouraged by the Nazi party between the churches, and neo-paganism supported by völkisch theories. Wirth was among those who tried to reinterpret Christianity in terms of ethnic Nordic origin of original monotheism. The free-thinking neo-pagans founded a supporting group in 1933, and included Wirth, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, and until 1934 Ernst Bergmann and numerous ex-Communists....

From 1935, sponsored by Himmler and Darré, Wirth co-founded and then headed the Ahnenerbe, which was to "research German ancestral heritage", of the SS. [The Ahnenerbe operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS) established it as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promoting the racial doctrines espoused by Adolf Hitler and his governing Nazi Party, specifically by supporting the idea that the modern Germans descended from an ancient Aryan race seen as biologically superior to other racial groups. The group comprised scholars and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines.] In 1937, Himmler restructured the Ahnenerbe, made Wirth the "Honorary President" with no real powers and replaced him as president with Walter Wüst. In 1938, Wirth also lost his department within the Ahnenerbe and in 1939 he lost his position as Ehrenpräsident.

Wirth continued his research, repeatedly financed by Himmler; both men remained in touch. Wirth remained an SS-officer...

Captured in 1945 by the U.S. Army, Wirth was detained and interviewed for two years. Feeling unwelcome in the Netherlands, he then moved to Sweden, before returning to Marburg in 1954, where he lived as a private scholar.

Although he continued to defend National Socialist principles, Wirth's teachings about "Urkulturen" found resonance in the evolving alternative scene, and in the 1970s gained support from North American native groups....

The influential Chilean neonazi Miguel Serrano interviewed Wirth in September 1979. According to Serrano, Wirth complained to him that his magnum opus Palestinabuch had recently been stolen. There are, indeed, indications that Wirth has worked between 1933 and 1969 on an antisemitic text, which could serve as a counterpart to the Ura Linda Chronicle. Since then, due to the publications of Serrano and the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, the idea of a lost major manuscript has gained some kind of cult status in extreme rightwing circles....

Wirth claimed that civilization is a curse that only a simpler way of life, as documented in archaeological findings and historical records, could lift....

Wirth placed the origins of European civilization on the mythological island of Atlantis, which he thought had been located in the North Atlantic, connecting North America and Europe. Its inhabitants supposedly were pure Aryans, influencing the cultures not just of Europeans but also of the natives of North America and the wider "Old World" beyond Europe. According to Wirth, these Atlanteans worshipped a single deity whose aspect changed with the seasons and its son, the Heilsbringer. In their religion, priestesses played a key role. Wirth thought that both the Jewish and the Christian faith were perversions of this original religion. He considered himself a symbologist and thought the Germanic people to be direct descendants of these inhabitants of Atlantis.

-- Herman Wirth, by Wikipedia

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Part 2 of 2

... the designer and occultist Wilhelm Landig,...

The Landig Group was an occultist and neo-völkisch group formed in 1950, that first gathered for discussions at the studio of the designer Wilhelm Landig in Vienna's 5th district of Margareten, in Austria. The circle's most prominent and influential members were Wilhelm Landig (1909–1997), Erich Halik (Claude Schweighardt) and Rudolf J. Mund (1920–1985). The circle has also been referred to as the Landig Circle, Vienna Group and Vienna Lodge.

Landig was the founder of the group, which has since inspired decades of völkisch mysticism. He and his group revived the ariosophical, Ario [Aryo]-Germanic mythology of Thule, the supposed polar homeland of the ancient Aryans.

Landig "coined the term Black Sun [a Nazi symbol, a type of sun wheel employed in a post-Nazi Germany context by neo-Nazis and some occult subcultures, such as Satanism], a substitute Swastika [and/or Fylfot ] and mystical source of energy capable of regenerating the Aryan race." Landig, through his circle, popularized esoteric ideas current among the pre-Nazi völkisch movement and the SS relating to Atlantis, the World Ice Theory, pre-historic floods and secret racial doctrines from Tibet.

Landig and other occult-fascist propagandists have circulated wild stories about German Nazi colonies that live and work in secret installations beneath the polar ice caps, where they developed flying saucers [see Nazi UFOs] and miracle weapons (Die Glocke) after the demise of the Third Reich. Including the theory that flying saucers were Nazi secret weapons launched from an underground base in Antarctica, from which the Nazis hoped to conquer the world.

The focus of the group’s discussions was a secret center in the Arctic known as the Blue Island, which could serve as a source point for a renaissance of traditional life. This idea was taken from Julius Evola, whose Revolt Against the Modern World became the bible of the Landig group.

More so, or at least equally as important to the group as Evola's book, the Vienna Group hungrily devoured the ideas and books of Herman Wirth.

Landig was a former SS member who revived the ariosophical mythology of Thule. He was born on 20 December 1909. He wrote the Thule trilogy Götzen gegen Thule (1971), Wolfszeit um Thule (1980) and Rebellen für Thule – Das Erbe von Atlantis (1991). He inspired the idea of the Black Sun, a substitute swastika and mythical source of energy, which was launched in the 1991 novel Die Schwarze Sonne von Tashi Lhunpo by ghostwriter Russell McCloud.

It has been shown that a younger generation continued the development of the circle's ideas from the 1980s on. This younger generation consisted of members of the German/Austrian Tempelhofgesellschaft.

-- Landig Group, by Wikipedia

... the poet Ezra Pound, and the Traditionalist thinker Julius Evola.[11] He established friendships with a number of individuals involved in the old Nazi movement, including Léon Degrelle,...

Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle (French: [dəgʁɛl]; 15 June 1906 – 31 March 1994)[1] was a Belgian politician and one of the most important Nazi collaborators and Holocaust denialists from Belgium. Degrelle rose to prominence in the 1930s as the leader of the Catholic authoritarian Rexist Party in Belgium. During the German occupation in World War II, he enlisted in the German army and fought in the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. After the collapse of the Nazi regime, Degrelle went into exile in Francoist Spain where he remained a prominent figure in neo-Nazi politics. He died 50 years after being sentenced to death and losing his Belgian nationality for collaboration in 1944.

After studying at a Jesuit college and attempting to get a degree in law and political sciences from the Catholic University of Leuven, but never graduating, Degrelle worked as a journalist for the conservative Roman Catholic periodical Christus Rex.... He led a radical group inside the Catholic Party, based on the Éditions de Rex publishing house....

Degrelle's actions inside the Catholic Party saw him come into opposition with the mainstream of the same party, many of whom were monarchist conservatives or centrists. The Rexist group, including the likes of Jean Denis, separated itself from the Catholic Party in 1935, after a meeting in Kortrijk. The newly formed party was heavily influenced by Fascism and Corporatism (but also included several elements interested solely in Nationalism or Ultramontanism); it had a vision of social equality that drew comparisons with Marxism but was staunchly anti-communist (anti-bolshevik)....

In 1936, Degrelle met Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, both of them providing Rexism with funds (2 million lire and 100,000 marks) and ideological support.... The party progressively added Nazi-inspired Antisemitism to its agenda, and soon established contacts with fascist movements around Europe. Degrelle notably met with Falange leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera and the Iron Guard's Corneliu Zelea Codreanu....

When the war began, Degrelle approved of King Leopold III's policy of neutrality. After the Germans invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, the Rexist Party split over the matter of resistance. He was arrested as a suspected collaborator and evacuated to France. Unlike other Belgian deportees, Degrelle was spared in the Massacre of Abbeville and instead sent into a French concentration camp. He was later released when the occupation began.

Degrelle returned to Belgium and proclaimed reconstructed Rexism to be in close union with Nazism—in marked contrast with the small group of former Rexists (such as Théo Simon and Lucien Mayer) who had begun fighting against the Nazi occupiers from the underground. In August, Degrelle started contributing to a Nazi news source, Le Pays Réel (a reference to Charles Maurras). Degrelle joined the Walloon legion of the Wehrmacht, which was raised in August 1941, to fight against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.... Lacking any previous military service, Degrelle joined as a private and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class in March 1942. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a lieutenant in May 1942, and received the Iron Cross First Class the same month. ... The Walloons were transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS in June 1943, becoming the Sturmbrigade Wallonien and served on the Eastern Front....

After being wounded at Cherkasy in 1943, Degrelle continued to climb the SS hierarchy after the inclusion of Walloons in the Waffen-SS....

For his actions at Korsun, Degrelle was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (major). He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz) by Hitler in February 1944. Degrelle later claimed Hitler told him, "You are truly unique in history. You are a political leader who fights like a soldier. If I had a son, I would want him to be like you."

Six months later Degrelle was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, as were seven other non-Germans....

On 8 July 1944 Degrelle's brother Édouard, a pharmacist, was killed in Degrelle's hometown of Bouillon by Belgian resistance fighters. Shortly afterwards, a Rexist hit squad executed pharmacist Henri Charles. A few days later, three civilian hostages were executed, apparently on Degrelle's orders, as all three were known to be his political enemies.

He commanded Sturmbrigade Wallonien from 18 September 1944 to 8 May 1945. He led the unit in the defense of Estonia against the Soviets. He was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in the early months of 1945.

Degrelle was promoted to SS-Standartenführer (colonel) on 20 April 1945. On 1 May 1945, Degrelle was promoted by SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler to Brigadeführer (brigadier general). This promotion, however, was extralegal due to Himmler having been removed from office on Hitler's orders on 28 April....

With the final surrender of Berlin on 2 May 1945, Degrelle was desperate to avoid Russian captivity and ordered as many of his worn-out veterans as possible to make for the Baltic port of Lübeck to surrender to the British.Degrelle himself fled first to Denmark and then Norway, where he commandeered a Heinkel He 111 aircraft, allegedly provided by Albert Speer [Albert Speer served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison.] After a 1,500-mile (2,400 km) flight over portions of Allied-occupied Europe, he crash-landed on the beach at San Sebastian in northern Spain, but was gravely injured and hospitalized for over a year. Several attempts were made to bring Degrelle to justice, including an attempt to kidnap him, but they all failed.

In 1954, in order to prevent extradition to Belgium, Spain granted him Spanish citizenship under the name José León Ramírez Reina after being adopted by an older Spanish woman, and the Falange [the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain] assigned him the leadership of a construction firm that benefited from state contracts, including with the U.S. government to build military airfields in Spain. Meanwhile, friends scoured Europe for his children. In time, all were found and spirited to Spain.

While in Francoist Spain, Degrelle maintained a high standard of living and frequently appeared in public and private meetings in a white uniform featuring his German decorations, while expressing his pride over his close contacts and "thinking bond" with Adolf Hitler. He continued to live undisturbed when Spain transitioned to democracy after the death of Franco, and continued publishing polemics, voicing his support for the political far right. He became active in the Neo-Nazi Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa (Cedade) and ran its printing press in Barcelona, where he published a large portion of his writings, including an Open Letter to Pope John Paul II on the topic of the Auschwitz concentration camp, asking the Pope not to go.

His repeated statements on the topic of Nazi genocide brought Degrelle to trial with Violeta Friedman, a Romanian-born survivor of the camps. Although lower courts were initially favourable to Degrelle, the Supreme Court of Spain decided he had offended the memory of the victims, both Jews and non-Jews, and sentenced him to pay a substantial fine. Asked if he had any regrets about the war, his reply was "Only that we lost!"

-- Léon Degrelle, by Wikipedia

...Otto Skorzeny,...

Otto Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in several operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid which rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines by using their opponents' uniforms, equipment, language and customs. He was charged for that at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted after a former British SOE agent F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas testified that he and his operatives had worn German uniforms behind enemy lines.

Skorzeny escaped from an internment camp in 1948, hiding out on a Bavarian farm for 18 months and spent time in Paris and Salzburg before eventually settling in Francoist Spain. In 1953 he became a military advisor to Egyptian President Mohammed Naguib and recruited a staff of former SS and Wehrmacht officers to train the Egyptian Army, staying on to advise President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He spent time in Argentina, where he acted as an advisor to President Juan Perón and as a bodyguard for Eva Perón. In 1962, Skorzeny was allegedly recruited by the Mossad and conducted operations for the agency.

-- Otto Skorzeny, by Wikipedia

... Hans-Ulrich Rudel,...

Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a German ground-attack pilot during World War II. Rudel was the most decorated German serviceman of World War II, being the sole recipient of the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds in January 1945. Post-war, he was a prominent neo-Nazi activist in Latin America and West Germany....

Rudel surrendered to US forces on 8 May 1945 and emigrated to Argentina in 1948. A committed and unrepentant National Socialist, he founded the "Kameradenwerk", a relief organization for Nazi refugees that helped fugitives escape to Latin America and the Middle East. Together with Willem Sassen, Rudel helped shelter Josef Mengele, the notorious former SS doctor at Auschwitz. He worked as an arms dealer and a military advisor to the regimes of Juan Perón in Argentina, of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay. Due to these activities, he was placed under observation by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In the West German federal election of 1953, Rudel, who had returned to West Germany, was the top candidate for the far-right German Reich Party but was not elected to the Bundestag. Following the Revolución Libertadora in 1955, the uprising that ended the second presidential term of Perón, Rudel moved to Paraguay, where he acted as a foreign representative for several German companies. In 1977, he became a spokesman for the German People's Union, a neo-Nazi political party founded by the extremist politician Gerhard Frey.

-- Hans-Ulrich Rudel, by Wikipedia

... Marc "Saint-Loup" Augier ...

Marc Augier (nom de plume: Saint-Loup) (19 March 1908 in Bordeaux – 16 December 1990 in Paris) was a French anti-capitalist, later turned into fascist, politician, writer and mountaineer....

Augier ... enlisted in the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism and served on the Eastern Front whilst also launching and editing the group's paper Le Combattant Européen. He served in both the LVF and the French Waffen SS as a war correspondent. He was also responsible for the French Waffen SS' official organ, Devenir ("To become" or "Becoming"). However Augier, who still supported economic socialism and hoped that Nazism would take seriously the 'socialism' part of its name, grew disillusioned by the distinct lack of anti-capitalism amongst the SS men with whom he served....

In 1945 he went underground and published Face Nord ("North Face") under the pseudonym M-A de Saint-Loup to pay for his passage to Argentina. The book had some success in France. In Argentina he acted as a technical adviser to Juan Perón and also enlisted in the Argentine Army, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He also acted as Eva Peron's ski instructor.

He was pardoned and returned to France in 1953....

Saint-Loup continued to work as an author and journalist, writing several books about the LVF (Les Volontaires; "The Volunteers") and both the French (Les Hérétiques; "The Heretics", Les Nostalgiques; "The Nostalgics") and Belgian Waffen SS (Les SS de la Toison d'or; "The SS of the Golden Fleece"). His writing was marked by a pursuit of adventure, the desire to surpass the self and an antipathy to Christian philosophy. He was an apologist for the foreign SS volunteers with whom he had served. He published several works about regionalist movements and about man's struggle to survive in wild and savage environments. He was also fascinated by cars and motorised transport and wrote biographies of Louis Renault and Marius Berliet. His last novel, La République du Mont-Blanc ("The Republic of Mont-Blanc"), was about the survival of a small Savoyard community that took refuge on the mountain to escape intermixing and decadence.

Saint-Loup influenced certain pagan and far-right authors such as Pierre Vial and Jean Mabire...

He was featured heavily in France's far right journals until his death.

-- Marc Augier [Saint Loup], by Wikipedia

... and Hanna Reitsch.[11]

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. During the Nazi era, she and Melitta von Stauffenberg flight tested many of the regime's new aircraft.

She set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere, and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah....

On 28 February 1944, she presented the idea of Operation Suicide to Hitler at Berchtesgaden, which "would require men who were ready to sacrifice themselves in the conviction that only by this means could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not consider the war situation sufficiently serious to warrant them...and...this was not the right psychological moment", he gave his approval. The project was assigned to Gen. Günther Korten. There were about seventy volunteers who enrolled in the Suicide Group as pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328, carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217. By then, she was approached by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, a founding member of the SS-Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). They adapted the V-1 flying bomb into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg including a two-seater and a single-seater with and without the mechanisms to land. The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed."...

In October 1944, she was shown a booklet Peter Riedel had obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers. She claims she believed it to be enemy propaganda, but agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. Himmler asked her if she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied.

During the last days of the war, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed Reitsch's lover, von Greim, to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April as the Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin. Reitsch landed on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate. Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim. She accepted the capsule.

During the evening of 28 April, Reitsch flew von Greim out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 from the same improvised airstrip. This was the last plane out of Berlin. Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Heinrich Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies so as to surrender. Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully.

Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 28 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch also said: "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland." When the interviewers asked what she meant by "Altar of the Fatherland" she answered, "Why, the Führer's bunker in Berlin ..." She was held for eighteen months. Von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.

Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg. During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in the Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sister and her sister's three children before killing himself.

After her release Reitsch settled in Frankfurt am Main. After the war, German citizens were barred from flying powered aircraft, but within a few years gliding was allowed, which she took up again. In 1952, Reitsch won a bronze medal in the World Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first woman to compete, and in 1955 she became German champion. She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (6,848 m (22,467 ft)) in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge....

In 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, to start a gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi.

In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy invited her to the White House.

From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana. The then Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah invited Reitsch to Ghana after reading of her work in India. At Afienya she founded the first black African national gliding school, working closely with the government and the armed forces. The West German government supported her as technical adviser.... The project was evidently of great importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part of a "modernist" development ideology.

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent a change. "Earlier in my life, it would never have occurred to me to treat a black person as a friend or partner ..." She now experienced guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance". She became close to Nkrumah. The details of their relationship are now unclear due to the destruction of documents, but some surviving letters are intimate in tone....

Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photo-journalist Ron Laytner. In her closing remarks she is quoted as saying:

And what have we now in Germany? A country of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all of Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power ... Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share – that we lost.

-- Hanna Reitsch, by Wikipedia

He also discussed issues with the ancient astronaut proponent Robert Charroux.[11]

Robert Charroux was the best-known pen-name of Robert Joseph Grugeau (April 7, 1909 – June 24, 1978). He was a French author known for his writings on the ancient astronaut theme....

Charroux was a pioneer of the theory of ancient astronauts, publishing at least six non-fiction works in this genre in the last decade of his life, including One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Unknown History (1963, 1970), Forgotten Worlds (1973), Masters of the World (1974), The Gods Unknown (1964, 1974) and Legacy of the Gods (1965, 1974)....

Some see his works as examples of Celticism. Celticism, similar to Nordicism, was a popular Nationalistic movement in France and Celtic countries in the early 20th century. He suggested in his book Lost Worlds: Scientific Secrets of the Ancients, that the Mayans and ancient Peruvians were ancient Celtic migrants. According to Charroux, the candle stick of the Andes and the Nasca Lines were created by a pre-Celtic civilization, perhaps the same as those who created the Long Man of Wilmington of Sussex in England. He also related the white skinned Gods mentioned in the Popul Vuh [a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit the Guatemalan Highlands, Mexican Chiapas, Campeche and Quintana Roo states, as well as in Belize] to ancient Celts from Hyperborea.

Writing in his book Lost Worlds Charroux rejected evolution, instead he argued for human devolution. Charroux claimed that man is regressing and was superior in the past; he claimed that "Atlantis and Mu are not dreams of spiritualists, but realities of a mysterious era". He further explained that the Atlantans and Hyperboreans were the ancestors of modern humans, and the first humans on earth were originally extraterrestrial.

Unlike most ancient astronaut writers, Charroux took a large interest in racialism. According to Charroux, Hyperborea was situated between Iceland and Greenland and was the home of a Nordic White race with blonde hair and blue eyes. Charroux claimed that this race was extraterrestrial in origin and had originally come from a cold planet situated far from the sun. Charroux also claimed that the White race of the Hyperboreans and their ancestors the Celts had dominated the whole world in the ancient past. Some of these beliefs have influenced Esoteric Nazism such as the work of Miguel Serrano.

-- Robert Charroux, by Wikipedia

"Ancient astronauts" (or "ancient aliens") refers to the pseudoscientific idea that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religions, and human biology. A common position is that deities from most, if not all, religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans....

Proponents of the ancient astronaut hypothesis often maintain that humans are either descendants or creations of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) who landed on Earth thousands of years ago. An associated idea is that humans evolved independently, but that much of human knowledge, religion, and culture came from extraterrestrial visitors in ancient times, in that ancient astronauts acted as a "mother culture". Some ancient astronaut proponents also believe that travelers from outer space, referred to as "astronauts" (or "spacemen") built many of the structures on Earth (such as Egyptian pyramids and the Moai stone heads of Easter Island) or aided humans in building them.

Various terms are used to reference claims about ancient astronauts, such as ancient aliens, ancient ufonauts, ancient space pilots, paleocontact, astronaut- or alien gods, or paleo- or Bible-SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)....

Proponents argue that the evidence for ancient astronauts comes from documentary gaps in historical and archaeological records, and they also maintain that absent or incomplete explanations of historical or archaeological data point to the existence of ancient astronauts. The evidence is argued to include archaeological artifacts that they deem anachronistic, or beyond the accepted technical capabilities of the historical cultures with which they are associated. These are sometimes referred to as "out-of-place artifacts"; and include artwork and legends which are interpreted in a modern sense as depicting extraterrestrial contact or technologies.

-- Ancient astronauts, by Wikipedia

In the 1970 Chilean presidential election, the Marxist Salvador Allende was elected president. Later that year, Serrano was dropped from the country's diplomatic service.[12] Rather than returning to Chile, he moved to Switzerland, renting an apartment in the Casa Camuzzi—where Hesse had lived from 1912 to 1931—at Montagnola in the Swiss Ticino.[10]

Later life: 1973–2009

The loss of his diplomatic position, coupled with the establishment of a Marxist government in Chile, led Serrano to take a revived interest in Nazism.[10] He began reading a number of recently published books that purported to identify links between Nazism and occultism.[10] In 1973, his book El/Ella: Book of Magic Love was published.[10] After Allende was ousted in a September 1973 coup and a right-wing military regime under Augusto Pinochet took power, Serrano returned to Chile. He nevertheless found that the Pinochet administration was not interested in his neo-Nazi and Esoteric Hitlerist ideas.[11] In 1980, his book Nos: A Book of the Resurrection was published, a form of autobiography influenced by Jungian psychology.[10] He also produced a trio of books that came to be known as his "Hitler Trilogy": El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico (1978), Adolf Hitler, el Ultimo Avatãra (1984), and Manú: "Por el hombre que vendra" (1991).[13]

He increasingly associated with old Nazis living in Chile as well as with their neo-Nazi sympathisers.[11] In May 1984 he attended the funeral of Walter Rauff—a member of the Waffen SS who had played a role in organising the early stages of the Holocaust and who had fled to Chile after the Second World War—and there gave the Nazi salute.[11] In 1986 he published a political manifesto for Nazism in the Southern Cone of South America.[14] He began organising annual celebrations of Hitler's birthday at a rural retreat in Chile.[15] In September 1993, he led a neo-Nazi rally in Santiago—dressed in what had become his trademark black leather coat—in honor of the Nazi Rudolf Hess and the Nacistas killed following their 1938 coup attempt.[14] As well as playing a role in organising the Chilean neo-Nazi movement, Serrano maintained correspondences with neo-Nazis elsewhere in the world, such as the American Matt Koehl.[14]

Serrano was the subject of an extensive interview in the Greek far-right magazine TO ANTIΔOTO. Here, he sought to engage a younger audience by contrasting his millennial vision of Nazism with his perception of the corruption of modern liberalism.[14] He was also the subject of a feature in The Flaming Sword, a magazine issued by the Black Order, a neo-Nazi Satanist group established by the New Zealander Kerry Bolton.[16] Bolton had also written his own study of Serrano's Esoteric Hitlerism,[17] and the Black Order's occult framework was influenced by Serrano's ideas.[18] Despite the interest that Nazi Satanists took in Serrano's work, he was critical of attempts to combine Satanism with Nazism, in 2001 stating that individuals who did so "will only damage our sacred fight with all the kookiness from California, like Satanism". He added that "Many Satanists do not know that they are manipulated, psychotronically, in fact hypnotized, when not infiltrated by the CIA, Mossad and other such secret organisations."[19]

By the early 1990s, Serrano's Esoteric Hitlerist ideas were spreading among modern Pagans,[20] gaining particular popularity among far-right members of the Pagan religion of Heathenry in the United States.[21] The American Heathen Katja Lane of the Wotansvolk group secured the rights to publish English translations of Serrano's work,[22] with Wotansvolk becoming the main promoter of Serrano's writings in the Anglophone world through their 14 Word Press.[23] One of the prominent far-right Heathens to be influenced by Serrano's ideas was Jost Turner.[24] Another American occultist to cite an influence from Serrano's ideas was Michael Moynihan, who also cited having been influenced by Evola, Muammar Gaddafi, Michael Bakunin, and James Mason.[25]

In 1994 Serrano, a close friend of Degrelle, wrote a book dedicated to him, Nuestro Honor Se Llama Lealtad.[26]

Serrano had three children with this first wife.[27]

Serrano died on 28 February 2009[28][29][30][31][27][32][2] after suffering a stroke in his apartment in the Santa Lucía Hill sector of the capital, Santiago.[33] During his funeral at the General Cemetery, it was Irene Klatt Getta's crypt at which his coffin and the crowd of more than 100 stopped before carrying on.[27]

Personal life

At the age of 25 Serrano married Carmen Rosselot Bordeau on 11 September 1942 in Santiago.[34][35]

In 1943 his first son, José Miguel Diego, was born.[36][37][38] He is also known as José Miguel Serrano Rosselot[35] and writes as a journalist for La Tercera newspaper.[39][40][41][42]

In 1944 his daughter Carmen was born.[36] She is also known as Carmen Serrano Rosselot.[43]

In 1948 his third child, a son, Cristián Alvaro, is born.[44] He is also known as Cristián Serrano Rosselot.[45]

In 1951 he met Irene Klatt Getta in Santiago, who played a fundamental role in his life and to whom he dedicates a large part of his work. In 1952 she died. Of her he said, "Desde ese día yo destruí todo, cualquier posibilidad de otro amor igual, hasta mi propio matrimonio. Nunca más he podido amar a nadie así. Solo he amado a Irene." ("From that day I destroyed everything, any possibility of another equal love, even my own marriage. I have never been able to love anyone like that again. I only loved Irene.") [46][44] Andrea Sierra wrote in El Mercurio that he called her "Allouine" and was the "only one – he said – who he really loved". During his funeral at the General Cemetery it was her crypt that his coffin stopped at before carrying on.[27]

In 1985 Carmen Rosselot Bordeau died.[47]

According to Andrea Sierra of the Chilean newspaper, El Mercurio, Rosario Duarte was his first wife.[27] Sierra makes no mention of Carmen Rosselot Bordeau, while the official Serrano website makes no mention of Rosario Duarte, only a marriage to Carmen Rosselot Bordeau and then a second to María Isabel Pérez Quintela.

In 2000, Serrano married his second wife, María Isabel Pérez Quintela (also known as Sabela P. Quintela, now his literary executor) in Valparaíso.[48][27][49][33][38][50][51] After his death, Quintela inherited two apartments from her late husband, Don Miguel in Santa Lucía Street in Santiago, in front of the Cerro: Santa Lucia 282, apartment 71, and Santa Lucia 382, 6 "C".[49] Sebela first met Serrano in Spain in 1989. Sabela came to live in Chile in 1994 and in those years they shared in the house of Valparaiso located at Avenida Alemania 5558.[33]

Reception and legacy

The historian of religion Mattias Gardell described Serrano as "one of the most important occult fascist ideologues in the Spanish-speaking world".[21] The historian of religion Arthur Versluis noted that Serrano was "the most important figure" in esoteric Hitlerism after Savitri Devi.[52]

According to Goodrick-Clarke, Serrano's "mystical Nazism" was "a major example of the Thulean mythology's successful migration to South America in the post-war period".[53] Goodrick-Clarke thought it "likely that old Nazis welcome[d] Serrano's enthusiasm and unswerving loyalty to their hero, Adolf Hitler", even if they found the Esoteric Hitlerist mythology that he promoted to be farfetched. Conversely, Goodrick-Clarke thought, for younger neo-Nazis, "a coloring of pop mythology, Hinduism, and extraterrestrial Aryan gods adds sensational appeal to the powerful myths of elitism, planetary destiny and the cosmic conspiracy of the Jews."[14]

The historian Rafael Videla Eissman proposed that a plaque commemorating Serrano be erected on the western side of the Cerro Santa Lucía, although in June 2014 the municipality of Santiago rejected the idea.[54] In February 2016, the newspaper La Segunda published an interview with Serrano's grandson, Sebastián Araya, in which he discussed his relationship with his grandfather.[55] In December 2017, the author and journalist Gonzalo León published a fictionalized novelisation of Serrano's life.[56]

Ideas

See also: Nazism in Chile

Serrano termed his philosophy Esoteric Hitlerism, which he has described as a new religious faith "able to change the materialistic man of today into a new idealistic hero", and also as "much more than a religion: It is a way to transmute a hero into God."[57]

In 1984 he published his 643-page tome, Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatãra (Adolf Hitler: The Last Avatar), which is dedicated "To the glory of the Führer, Adolf Hitler". In this arcane work Serrano unfolds his ultimate philosophical testament through elaborate esoteric and mythological symbolism.[10] He insists that there has been a vast historical conspiracy to conceal the origins of evolved humankind. Serrano's epic vista opens with extragalactic beings who founded the First Hyperborea, a terrestrial but nonphysical realm which was neither geographically limited nor bound by the circles of reincarnation. The Hyperboreans were asexual and reproduced through "plasmic emanations" from their ethereal bodies; the Vril power was theirs to command, the light of the Black Sun coursed through their veins and they saw with the Third eye. Serrano contends that the last documents relating to them were destroyed along with the Alexandrian Library, and that latterly these beings have been misunderstood as extraterrestrials arriving in spaceships or UFOs. However, the First Hyperborea was immaterial and altogether outside our mechanistic universe.[58]

The latter is under the jurisdiction of the Demiurge, an inferior godlet whose realm is the physical planet earth. The Demiurge had created a bestial imitation of humanity in the form of proto-human "robots" like Neanderthal Man, and intentionally consigned his creatures to an endless cycle of involuntary reincarnation on the earthly plane to no higher purpose. The Hyperboreans recoiled in horror from this entrapment within the Demiurge's cycles. They themselves take the devayana, the Way of the Gods, at death and return to the earth (as Bodhisattvas) only if they are willing.[58]

Determined upon a heroic war to reclaim the Demiurge's deteriorating world, the Hyperboreans clothed themselves in material bodies and descended on to the Second Hyperborea, a ring-shaped continent around the North Pole. During this Golden Age or Satya Yuga, they magnanimously instructed the Demiurge's creations (the Black, Yellow and Red races native to the planet) and began to raise them above their animal condition.[59] Then disaster struck; some of the Hyperboreans rebelled and intermingled their blood with the creatures of the Demiurge, and through this transgression Paradise was lost. Serrano refers to Genesis 6.4: "the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them". By diluting the divine blood, the primordial miscegenation accelerated the process of material decay. This was reflected in outward catastrophes and the North and South Poles reversed positions as a result of the fall of a comet or moon. The polar continent disappeared beneath the deluge and Hyperborea became invisible again.[59] The Hyperboreans themselves survived, some taking refuge at the South Pole. Serrano regards the mysterious appearance of the fine and artistic Cro-Magnon Man in Europe as evidence of Hyperboreans driven southward by the Ice Age.[59] In the then-fertile Gobi Desert, another group of exiled Hyperboreans established a fantastic civilization.[citation needed]

The world thus becomes the combat zone between the dwindling Hyperboreans and the Demiurge and his forces of entropy.[citation needed] But Serrano claims that the Golden Age can be reattained if the Hyperboreans' descendants, the Aryans, consciously repurify their blood to restore the divine blood-memory:[60]

"There is nothing more mysterious than blood. Paracelsus considered it a condensation of light. I believe that the Aryan, Hyperborean blood is that – but not the light of the Golden Sun, not of a galactic sun, but of the light of the Black Sun, of the Green Ray."[61]

Written works

Year / Book / Publisher, ISBN / Notes

1938 / Antología del Verdadero Cuento en Chile / Santiago de Chile, Talleres "Gutenberg". / Selections, prologue, and notes by Serrano. Short stories by: Pedro Carrillo, Braulio Arenas, Adrián Jiménez, Juan Tejeda, Eduardo Anguita, Teófilo Cid, Juan Emar, Carlos Droguett, Anuar Atías, Miguel Serrano, and Héctor Barreto.

1948 / La Antártica y otros Mitos [The Antarctic and other myths] / First edition (Spanish):
1948 (Santiago de Chile). 52 pages. Other editions: Excalibur, XIV (winter 1988). The New Age Santiago, 2004. ISBN 956-299-394-9. . Speech that was delivered by Miguel Serrano in 1948 after his participation in the Second Chilean Antarctic Expedition (1947–48). The myth: Antarctica is inhabited by unknown beings.[62]

1950 / Ni por mar ni por tierra… (historia de una generación) [Neither by land nor by sea... (story of a generation)] / First edition (Spanish): 1950 (Nascimento, Santiago de Chile). 400 pages. Other editions: EB Books. Santiago, 2017. ISBN 978-956-9436-09-3. Kier. Buenos Aires, 1979 (abbreviated). Trilogy of the search in the outside world. Nascimento Santiago, 1974 (abbreviated). / First great work of the author in which he covers the history of his generation, his own biography and the interpretation of Chile according to its landscape, unique on the planet. This book had an enormous influence on his own generation (that of the 38th) and in the following, being considered extraordinary by the critics and polemicizing about him for several years.[63]

1957 / Quién llama en los Hielos [Invitation to the icefields] / Santiago, Chile, Editorial Nascimento; Barcelona: Planeta, [1974] ISBN 84-320-5292-2 / --

1960 / Los misterios [The Mysteries] / First edition (Spanish): 1960 (New Delhi). 20 pages. Other editions: Be-uve-drais. Santiago, 2006 (Spanish). ISBN 956-7878-40-4. EB Books. Santiago, 2016 (Spanish). ISBN 978-956-9436-07-9. Excalibur, vol. XVII (autumn 1989) (Spanish). New Delhi, 1960 (English). / In truth it is a mystery; the most secret and unknown work of the author, despite having been translated into English and published in India in a very exclusive edition: with handmade paper in Nepal, kept in a box lined with raw silk from Gandhi's workshops. illustrated by the Chilean painter Julio Escámez. It is a poetic account of the initiation of magical love in its most dramatic stage: the death of the beloved.[64]

1960 / Las visitas de la Reina de Saba. Translated as The Visits of the Queen of Sheba, foreword by C. G. Jung / [Santiago de Chile] Nascimento; Bombay, New York: Asia Pub. House; New York: Harper & Row [1973, c1972], ISBN 0-06-090315-5; London, Boston: Routledge and K. Paul [1972], 2nd ed., ISBN 0-7100-7341-0 & ISBN 0-7100-7399-2 (pbk.) / One of the main works of Miguel Serrano. Translated and published in many languages, it also has a prologue written by CG Jung, this being the only time that the famous professor presented a purely literary work. A magical story, "a dream within other dreams", as he described it, where mythical and archetypal figures such as King Solomon, Melchizedek and the Queen of Sheba appear in an environment of millennia old.

1963 / La Serpiente del Paraíso. Translated as The Serpent of Paradise: The Story of an Indian Pilgrimage / Santiago, Chile, Editorial Nascimento; London: Rider [1963]; New York: Harper & Row [1st American ed., 1972] ISBN 0-06-090284-1; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul [Revised ed., 1974], ISBN 0-7100-7784-X & ISBN 0-7100-7785-8 / Book in which the author recounts his experience in India, his contacts with swamis and gurus and his pilgrimage in the Himalayas. It covers the period (between the 50s and 60s of the 20th century) during which Miguel Serrano was Chile's ambassador to that country. It is a search and amazing stories in an India full of symbolism with passages of extraordinary beauty as the child "lost in the temple", the deep analysis of the sculptures of Khajuraho or his encounters with Krishnamurti.[65]

1965 / El círculo hermético, de Hesse a Jung. Translated as C. G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships, and alternatively as Jung and Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships / Santiago: Zig-Zag [1965]; New York: Schocken Books [1966]; London: Routledge & K. Paul [1966]; ISBN 0-8052-0858-5 / Story of the meetings, conversations and experiences with the writer Hermann Hesse and the professor CG Jung. This book has a unique value for the revelations that both great men and scholars made to the author. There are many editions in different languages and countries. It includes analyses and explanations (based on the deep and extensive knowledge of Hinduism by Miguel Serrano) about the characters Demian and Siddharta of Hesse, as well as about Jung's Self. There are transcripts of letters from both authors.[66][67]

1969 / The Ultimate Flower / New York: Schocken Books [1970, c1969]; London: Routledge & K. Paul [1969], ISBN 0-7100-6620-1 & ISBN 0-06-090285-X / --

1972 / El/Ella: Book of Magic Love / New York: Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-013829-7; ISBN 0-7100-7762-9 / --

1974 / Trilogía de la Busqueda del Mundo Exterior / Santiago, Chile: Editorial Nascimento / Anthology of Ni por mar, ni por tierra, Quién llama en los hielos, and La serpiente del paraíso.

1978 / El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico [The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism] / -- / Part one of his Hitler Trilogy

1980 / Nos, libro de la Resurección. Translated to Nos, Book of the Resurrection / Buenos Aires: Editorial Kier; London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul [1984], ISBN 0-7100-9828-6 / --

1984 / Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatãra [Adolf Hitler: The Last Avatar] / -- / Part two of his Hitler Trilogy

1986 / Nacionalsocialismo, Unica Solución para los Países de América del Sur / Santiago: Alfabeta; Bogotá: Editorial Solar, 2nd ed. [1987] / --

1986 / La Resurrección del Héroe: Año 97 de la era Hitleriana / Santiago: Alfabeta Impresores / --

1987 / Contra la Usura by Gottfried Feder; Serrano [contribuidor]. / Santiago, Chile: Alfabeta Impr. / Spanish translation of Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes

1991 / MANÚ: "Por El Hombre Que Vendra" [Manu: For the Coming Man] / -- / Part three of his Hitler Trilogy

1992 / No Celebraremos la Muerte de los Dioses Blancos / -- / --

1994 / Nuestro Honor se Llama Lealtad / -- / --

1995 / Imitacion de la Verdad: La ciberpoliítica. Internet, realidad virtual, telepresencia / Santiago: Author / --

1996 / Memorias de Él y Yo vol. I, Aparición del "Yo" – Alejamiento de "Él" [Memories of Him and Me. Volume 1. Appearance of the "I", distancing from "him"] / Santiago: La Nueva Edad. First edition (Spanish): 1996 (The New Age, Santiago de Chile). 216 pages. ISBN 956-272-246-5. Other editions: Solar. Bogotá, 2001. ISBN 958-8136-15-6. / Autobiography – This first volume describes the childhood and youth of the author, who in his story seeks the roots of the childhood drama in the lineages and the land of a magical Chile, with its sacred mountains, to finally focus attention on his generation and finish with the tragic death of his friend the writer Héctor Barreto. The event that has given title to this work appears here related: the discovery of the "I", detached and independent of its "he", to be that it seems to know everything and that it would be thinking about the life of the author.[68]

1997 / Memorias de Él y Yo vol. II, Adolf Hitler y la Gran Guerra [Memories of Him and Me. Volume II. Adolf Hitler and the Great War] Santiago: La Nueva Edad. First edition (Spanish): 1997 (The New Age, Santiago de Chile). 312 pages ISBN 956-272-623-1. Other editions: Solar. Bogotá, 2001. ISBN 958-8136-16-4. / Autobiography – Coming from the socialist left, the author recounts his conversion to National Socialism (after the massacre of the Chilean Nazis that took place on 5 September 1938) and his performance during the Second World War supporting Adolf Hitler and Germany. He also talks about his expedition to Antarctica (1947–48) and his first trip to Europe (1951), when he met Hermann Hesse. This volume ends in dramatic form, being perhaps the most impressive of the four books of his Memoirs of him and me.[69]

1998 / Memorias de Él y Yo vol. III, Misión en los Transhimalaya [Memories of Him and Me. Volume 3. Mission in the Transhimalaya] Santiago: La Nueva Edad. Spanish, first edition. 312 pages. Editions The New Age (1998) ISBN 956-288-008-7 . Autobiography – Here is his mission in India and his search in the Himalayas of the original headquarters of the esoteric order to which he belonged, which supported Hitler and his revolution. Especially important is the story of the friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi (with the dramatic description of their funerals) and the Dalai Lama. There are also pages that refer especially to his friendship with Professor CG Jung, as well as countless other international personalities of those years.[70]

1999 / Memorias de Él y Yo vol. IV, El Regreso [Memories of Him and Me. Volume 4. The Return] Santiago: La Nueva Edad. First edition (Spanish): 1999 (The New Age, Santiago de Chile). 312 pages ISBN 956-288-290-X.
Other editions: Solar. Bogotá, 2001. ISBN 958-8136-8-0 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: Invalid ISBN. / Autobiography – In this last volume of his Memoirs of him and me the author arrives until our days. It narrates his personal experience with Salvador Allende, with the junta of the Military Government and with Marshal Tito (whom he brought on an official visit to Chile during his diplomatic mission in Yugoslavia), in addition to his search in Austria for the roots of esoteric Hitlerism, together with his residence for ten years in Switzerland (in the house of Hermann Hesse) until his return to Chile, to make known the worldview that was re-updated in the heights of the Engadine, in the Alps. He also tells us of his unsuccessful attempt to colonize Melimoyu volcano, in the Chilean Patagonia (Mount antipode of the Kailas, in the Transhimalaya) and how he continued to fight until the end for the old ideals and to give the youth of Chile and the world a possibility of salvation on the eve of the final judgment of the Kaliyuga.[71]

2000 / Foreword to Temple of Wotan: Holy Book of the Aryan Tribes by Ron McVan / 14 Word Press, ISBN 0-9678123-3-X / Prólogos – "Wotan, el Señor de los Ejércitos" para Ron McVan, Temple of Wotan. Holy Book of the Aryan Tribes. Wotansvolk. St. Maries, 2000.[72]

2001 / Se Acabó Chile / -- / --

2003 / El hijo del viudo [The Son of the Widower] / Spanish, 2003: La Nueva Edad. Santiago de Chile. 72 páginas. ISBN 956-291-645-6. English, 2003: The New Age Santiago. ISBN 956-291-931-5. / In this work the author makes a synthesis of all his work through a detailed and profound analysis of esoteric Christianity, the esotericism of Islam and that of the Hitlerite SS.[73]

2003 / La entrega de la Patagonia mágica / -- / --

2005 / Hipocresía. La tortura en Chile / -- / --

2005 / MAYA, La Realidad Es Una Ilusión [MAYA, Reality is an Illusion] Spanish, 2005: La Nueva Edad. Santiago de Chile. 44 páginas. ISBN 956-299-554-2. English 2006: The New Age. Santiago. ISBN 956-310-264-9 / Maya is a Sanskrit word that means "illusion" and refers to the events of life, which would be illusory. Thus, in this work it is affirmed that the Germans of Nazi Germany achieved absolute perfection in duplication and that it is known that the Rudolf Hess murdered in Spandau prison was a double.[74]

See also

• Jacques de Mahieu

References

Footnotes

1. Quintela, EB Libros Sabela P. "MIGUEL SERRANO – EB Libros – Obra – Bibliografía".
2. Vida, Cronología, 2007–2009: Despedida, Official website
3. xvi feria del libro usado ya está abierta al público amante de la lectura, El Marino, 2 February 2008
4. Escritores María Cristina Menares, Rosa Cruchaga y Miguel Serrano fueron galardonados este año con el premio a la trayectoria., El Mostrador, 14 February 2008
5. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 174.
6. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 175.
7. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 176.
8. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 176–177.
9. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 177.
10. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 178.
11. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 190.
12. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 177–178.
13. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 178; Gardell 2003, p. 185.
14. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 191.
15. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 190–191.
16. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 191, 227.
17. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 229.
18. Gardell 2003, p. 314.
19. Gardell 2003, p. 320.
20. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 267.
21. Gardell 2003, p. 185.
22. Gardell 2003, p. 186.
23. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 277.
24. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 167; Gardell 2003, p. 183.
25. Gardell 2003, p. 303.
26. "Esoteric Hitlerist: An Interview With Miguel Serrano – Blacksun Sole Nero". blacksun-sole-nero.net.
27. Sierra, Andrea; Los tesoros que deja en Chile el último ideólogo del nazismo, El Mercurio, 8 March 2009
28. Familiares y camaradas despiden al Nazi de las letras Chilenas Archived 10 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine, La Nación, 2 March 2009
29. Muere el poeta nazi chileno Miguel Serrano a los 91 años, Soitu.es, 2 March 2009.
30. Fallece escritor y ex embajador Miguel Serrano, El Mercurio, 2 March 2009.
31. Obituarios: Miguel Serrano, Poeta del nazismo en Chile, Ramy Wurgaft, El Mundo, 9 March 2009.
32. Robles, Leonardo; El poeta nazi emprendió el viaje al infinito, El Mercurio de Valparaíso, 3 March 2009
33. García, Javier; Un polémico maestro: el legado de Miguel Serrano, La Tercera, 19 August 2017
34. Vida, Cronología, 1941–1942: La Nueva Edad, Official website.
35. "Miguel Serrano Fernández – Genealogía Chilena en Red". genealogiachilenaenred.cl.
36. Vida, Cronología, 1943–1946: En Las Listas Negras, Official website.
37. Muere el poeta nazi chileno Miguel Serrano a los 91 años, Soitu, 2 March 2009
38. Miguel Serrano, peregrino por la India, El Mercurio, 16 March 2014
39. Documentos (28 December 2011). "ENCUENTRO ONÍRICO ENTRE JOSÉ MIGUEL SERRANO Y SU PADRE".
40. [1][permanent dead link]
41. "Así habló Miguel Serrano – La Tercera". latercera.com.
42. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
43. "Carmen Serrano Rosselot – Genealogía Chilena en Red". genealogiachilenaenred.cl.
44. Vida, Cronología, 1947–1952: Segunda Expedición Antártica Chilena, Official website.
45. "Cristián Serrano Rosselot – Genealogía Chilena en Red". genealogiachilenaenred.cl.
46. Memorias de él y yo. Volumen II (1997). p. 291 (Memories of him and me. Volume II (1997). p. 291)
47. Vida, Cronología, 1985–1989: Lucha Por El Melimoyu, Official website.
48. Vida, Cronología, 1995–2006: Epistolarios Por Chile, Official website.
49. Eterna, Gnosis (9 June 2011). "Nimrod de Rosario - Miguel Serrano: Miguel Serrano: artículos censurados en dhforo.com".
50. Miguel Serrano: el místico en su laberinto, La Tercera, 28 March 2015
51. https://www.geni.com/people/Miguel-Serrano-Fernández/6000000013081962158
52. Versluis 2013, p. 124.
53. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 173.
54. "Miguel Serrano se queda sin homenaje". La Segunda. 14 June 2014. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
55. Martin Romero (19 February 2016). "Agradezco que me haha tocada Miguel Serrano comp abuelo". La Segunda. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
56. Javier García (20 December 2017). "Un mago en su laberinto: la biografía novelada sobre Miguel Serrano". Culto. Archived from the original on 24 December 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
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58. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 180.
59. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 181.
60. Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 181–82.
61. Serrano 1984: 95.
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Bibliography

Gardell, Matthias (2003). Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2002). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0814731550.
Versluis, Arthur (2013). "Savitri Devi, Miguel Serrano and the Global Phenomenon of Esoteric Hitlerism". In Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic (eds.) (eds.). Occultism in Global Perspective. Durham: Acumen. pp. 121–133. ISBN 978-1-84465-716-2.

Further reading

• Kevin Coogan. 1998. Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Appendix A: Nos, pp. 565–68). Autonomedia. ISBN 1-57027-039-2
• "An Interview With Miguel Serrano: 'Esoteric Hitlerist'" in The Flaming Sword No. 3, August 1994. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 May 1999. Retrieved 28 January 2018., "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 May 1999. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
• Miguel Serrano Il cerchio ermetico (frammenti) a cura di Sabrina Albertoni disegni di Stefano Cipolat, Prato, Pentalinea, 2005