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1917

In January the Grace Russian Company was formed, the joint owners being W. R. Grace & Co. and the San Galli Trading Company of PetrogradAmerican International Corporation had a substantial investment in the Grace Russian Company and through Holbrook an interlocking directorship.

Leon Trotsky wrote in his autobiography, My Life, “My only profession in New York was that of a revolutionary socialist.” Yet the Trotsky family apartment in New York had a refrigerator and a telephone, and, according to Trotsky, that the family occasionally traveled in a chauffeured limousine. The stylish living standard is also at odds with Trotsky’s reported income. The only funds that Trotsky admits receiving in 1916 and 1917 are $310, and, said Trotsky, “I distributed the $310 among five emigrants who were returning to Russia.” Yet Trotsky had paid for a first-class cell in Spain, the Trotsky family had traveled across Europe to the United States, they had acquired an excellent apartment in New York – paying rent three months in advance – and they had use of a chauffeured limousine. All this on the earnings of an impoverished revolutionary for a few articles for the low-circulation Russian-language newspaper Nashe Slovo in Paris and Novy Mir in New York! Trotsky claimed that those who said he had other sources of income are “slanderers” spreading “stupid calumnies” and “lies,” but obviously Trotsky had an unreported source of income.

Portugal, Fatima. Such phenomena including disks, like an “aircraft of light,” described exactly in these terms by the witnesses of the fifth apparition. Also observed were double supersonic detonations, light protuberances, electro-static charges, and moving “stars,” mysterious white flowers or snow that dropped down from the “aircraft of light,” but disappeared when it made contact with the ground. These descriptions of “snow” or mysterious white “flowers” are quite similar to the descriptions of “angel hair” that are well known from some famous UFO cases. This was accompanied by additional unexplained aerial phenomena, in the form of glowing spheres and disc-shaped objects. The story given was that a silver disc appeared just as “the rain stopped and the clouds rolled back, the sun dimmed out and everything took on a gray, opaque appearance”. The disc then dove in an erratic, zigzag pattern at the crowd, stopped just above their heads and then slowly maneuvered back into the sky. As it faded from view, the sun brightened and began to shine again normally. A local reporter took a photo of the disc.

Germany Bonn. The flamboyant fighter pilot Baron Manfred von Richtofen, known as the Red Baron not only shot down 80 enemy planes for the Germans during World War I, it is claimed that he also was the first human in history to gun down an alien spaceship! Former German Air Force ace Peter Waitzrik says he watched in astonishment as the deadeye fighter pilot shot a UFO with undulating orange lights out of the sky over Belgium in 1917. Then, Waitzrik says, he stared in disbelief as two bruised and battered occupants of the downed craft climbed from their spaceship and scampered off into the woods — apparently never to be seen again.

“The Baron and I gave a full report on the incident back at headquarters and they told us not to ever mention it again,” the feisty, 105-year-old retired airline pilot recently told a reporter. “And except for my wife and grandkids, I never told a soul. But it’s been over 80 years, so what difference could it possibly make now?”

The aging Waitzrik said he and Baron Manfred von Richtofen — the renowned Red Baron — were flying an early morning mission over western Belgium in the spring of 1917 when the UFO suddenly appeared in a clear, blue sky directly ahead of their Fokker triplanes. “We were terrified because we’d never seen anything like it before,” recalled the easygoing great-great grandfather of five. “The U.S. had just entered the war, so we assumed it was something they’d sent up. “The Baron immediately opened fire and the thing went down like a rock, shearing off tree limbs as it crashed in the woods. Then the two little baldheaded guys climbed out and ran away.” Waitzrik said he assumed the glittering silver spaceship was some sort of enemy invention until the flying saucer scare that began in the late 1940s convinced him that his buddy had shot down a UFO. “The thing was maybe 40 meters (136 feet) in diameter and looked just like those saucer- shaped spaceships that everybody’s been seeing for the last 50 years,” the awed oldster said. “So there’s no doubt in my mind now that that was no U.S. reconnaissance plane the Baron shot down, that was some kind of spacecraft from another planet and those little guys who ran off into the woods weren’t Americans, they were space aliens of some kind.”

The Soviet Union is formed after Tsar Nicholas II is overthrown. It is often said that Jacob Schiff of Kuhn and Loeb financed the Russian Revolution, however, documents in the State Department files confirm Jacob Schiff was in fact against support of the Bolshevik regime. This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.

Woodrow Wilson, who ran for office again on the slogan, “He kept us out of the war”, begins his second term. In December, the US enters World War I.

G. Amsinck & Co., Inc. of New York; control of the company was acquired by American International Corporation in November 1917. Amsinck was the source of financing for German espionage in the United States.

American International Corporation formed, in November, and wholly owned the Symington Forge Corporation, a major government contractor for shell forgings. Consequently, American International Corporation had significant interest in war contracts within the United States and overseas. It had a vested interest in the continuance of World War I.

American International Shipbuilding Corporation was wholly owned by AIC and signed substantial contracts for war vessels with the Emergency Fleet Corporation: one contract called for fifty vessels, followed by another contract for forty vessels, followed by yet another contract for sixty cargo vessels. American International Shipbuilding was the largest single recipient of contracts awarded by the U.S. government Emergency Fleet Corporation.

The directors of American International and some of their associations in 1917:

J. OGDEN ARMOUR Meatpacker, of Armour & Company, Chicago; director of the National City Bank of New York; and mentioned by A. A. Heller in connection with the Soviet Bureau
GEORGE JOHNSON BALDWIN Of Stone & Webster, 120 Broadway. During World War I Baldwin was chairman of the board of American International Shipbuilding, senior vice president of American International Corporation, director of G. Amsinck (Von Pavenstedt of Amsinck was a German espionage paymaster in the U.S.), and a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation, which financed the Marburg Plan for international socialism to be controlled behind the scenes by world finance.
C. A. COFFIN Chairman of General Electric (executive office: 120 Broadway), chairman of cooperation committee of the American Red Cross.
W. E. COREY (14 Wall Street) Director of American Bank Note Company, Mechanics and Metals Bank, Midvale Steel and Ordnance, and International Nickel Company; later director of National City Bank.
ROBERT DOLLAR San Francisco shipping magnate, who attempted in behalf of the Soviets to import tsarist gold rubles into U.S. in 1920, in contravention of U.S. regulations.
PIERRE S. DU PONT Of the du Pont family.
PHILIP A. S. FRANKLIN Director of National City Bank.
J.P. GRACE Director of National City Bank.
R. F. HERRICK Director, New York Life Insurance; former president of the American Bankers Association; trustee of Carnegie Foundation.
OTTO H. KAHN Partner in Kuhn, Loeb. Kahn’s father came to America in 1948, “having taken part in the unsuccessful German revolution of that year.” According to J. H. Thomas (British socialist, financed by the Soviets), “Otto Kahn’s face is towards the light.”???
H. W. PRITCHETT Trustee of Carnegie Foundation.
PERCY A. ROCKEFELLER Son of John D. Rockefeller; married to Isabel, daughter of J. A. Stillman of National City Bank.
JOHN D. RYAN Director of copper-mining companies, National City Bank, and Mechanics and Metals Bank.
W. L. SAUNDERS Director the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 120 Broadway, and chairman of Ingersoll-Rand. According to the National Cyclopaedia (26:81): “Throughout the war he was one of the President’s most trusted advisers.”
J. A. STILLMAN President of National City Bank, after his father (J. Stillman, chairman of NCB) died in March 1918.
C. A. STONE Director (1920-22) of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 120 Broadway; chairman of Stone & Webster, 120 Broadway; president (1916-23) of American International Corporation, 120 Broadway.
T. N. VAIL President of National City Bank of Troy, New York
F. A. VANDERLIP President of National City Bank.
E. S. WEBSTER Of Stone & Webster, 120 Broadway.
A. H. WIGGIN Director of Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the early 1930s.
BECKMAN WINTHROPE Director of National City Bank.
WILLIAM WOODWARD Director of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 120 Broadway, and Hanover National Bank.

The positions of the twenty-two directors of American International Corporation with other institutions is significant. The National City Bank had no fewer than ten directors on the board of AIC; Stillman of NCB was at that time an intermediary between the Rockefeller and Morgan interests, and both the Morgan and the Rockefeller interests were represented directly on AIC. Kuhn, Loeb and the du Ponts each had one director. Stone & Webster had three directors. No fewer than four directors of AIC (Saunders, Stone, Wiggin, Woodward) either were directors of or were later to join the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. William Boyce Thompson, who contributed funds and his considerable prestige to the Bolshevik Revolution, was also a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – the directorate of the FRB of New York comprised only nine members.

In 1917 the three Class A directors of the FRB were Franklin D. Locke, William Woodward, and Robert H. Treman. William Woodward was a director of American International Corporation (120 Broadway) and of the Rockefeller-controlled Hanover National Bank.

The three Class B directors were William Boyce ThompsonHenry R. Towne, and Leslie R. Palmer. We have already noted William B. Thompson’s substantial cash contribution to the Bolshevik cause. Henry R. Towne was chairman of the board of directors of the Morris Plan of New York, located at 120 Broadway; his seat was later taken by Charles A. Stone of American International Corporation (120 Broadway) and ofStone & Webster (120 Broadway).

The three Class C directors were Pierre JayW. L. Saunders, and George Foster Peabody. Nothing is known about Pierre Jay, except that his office was at 120 Broadway and he appeared to be significant only as the owner of Brearley School, Ltd. William Lawrence Saunders was also a director of American International Corporation; he openly avowed pro-Bolshevik sympathies, disclosing them in a letter to President Woodrow Wilson. George Foster Peabody was an active socialist. In brief, of the nine directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, four were physically located at 120 Broadway and two were then connected with American International Corporation. And at least four members of AIC’s board were at one time or another directors of the FRB of New York.

Woodrow Wilson was the fairy godmother who provided Trotsky with a passport to return to Russia to “carry forward” the revolution. This American passport was accompanied by a Russian entry permit and a British transit visa. Jennings C. Wise, in Woodrow Wilson: Disciple of Revolution, makes the pertinent comment, “Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport.”

Consequently, by virtue of preferential treatment for Trotsky, when the S.S. Kristianiafjord left New York on March 26, 1917, Trotsky was aboard and holding a U.S. passport – and in company with other Trotskyire revolutionaries, Wall Street financiers, American Communists, and other interesting persons, few of whom had embarked for legitimate business. This mixed bag of passengers has been described by Lincoln Steffens, the American Communist:

The passenger list was long and mysterious. Trotsky was in the steerage with a group of revolutionaries; there was a Japanese revolutionist in my cabin. There were a lot of Dutch hurrying home from Java, the only innocent people aboard. The rest were war messengers, two from Wall Street to Germany….

Notably, Lincoln Steffens was on board en route to Russia at the specific invitation of Charles Richard Crane, a backer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party’s finance committee. Charles Crane, vice president of the Crane Company, had organized the Westinghouse Company in Russia, was a member of the Root mission to Russia, and had made no fewer than twenty-three visits to Russia between 1890 and 1930.Richard Crane, his son, was confidential assistant to thenSecretary of State Robert Lansing. According to the former ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Crane “did much to bring on the Kerensky revolution which gave way to Communism.”

And so Steffens’ comments in his diary about conversations aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord are highly pertinent:

” . . . all agree that the revolution is in its first phase only, that it must grow. Crane and Russian radicals on the ship think we shall be in Petrograd for the re-revolution.”

Crane returned to the United States when the Bolshevik Revolution (that is, “the re-revolution”) had been completed and, although a private citizen, was given firsthand reports of the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution as cables were received at the State Department. For example, one memorandum, dated December 11, 1917, is entitled “Copy of report on Maximalist uprising for Mr Crane.” It originated with Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in Moscow.

The unlikely and puzzling picture that emerges is that Charles Crane, a friend and backer of Woodrow Wilson and a prominent financier and politician, had a known role in the “first” revolution and traveled to Russia in mid-1917 in company with the American Communist Lincoln Steffens, who was in touch with both Woodrow Wilson and Trotsky. The latter in turn was carrying a passport issued at the orders of Wilson and $10,000 from supposed German sources. On his return to the U.S. after the “re-revolution,” Crane was granted access to official documents concerning consolidation of the Bolshevik regime: This is a pattern of interlocking – if puzzling – events that warrants further investigation and suggests, though without at this point providing evidence, some link between the financier Crane and the revolutionary Trotsky.

Documents on Trotsky’s brief stay in Canadian custody are now de-classified and available from the Canadian government archives. According to these archives, Trotsky was removed by Canadian and British naval personnel from the S.S. Kristianiafjord at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 3, 1917, listed as a German prisoner of war, and interned at the Amherst, Nova Scotia, internment station for German prisoners. Mrs. Trotsky, the two Trotsky boys, and five other men described as “Russian Socialists” were also taken off and interned. Their names are recorded by the Canadian files as: Nickita Muchin, Leiba Fisheleff, Konstantin Romanchanco, Gregor Teheodnovski, Gerchon Melintchansky and Leon Bronstein Trotsky (all spellings from original Canadian documents). […]

The Trotsky party was removed from the S.S. Kristianiafjord under official instructions received by cablegram of March 29, 1917, London, presumably originating in the Admiralty with the naval control officer, Halifax. The cablegram reported that the Trotsky party was on the “Christianiafjord” (sic) and should be “taken off and retained pending instructions.” The reason given to the naval control officer at Halifax was that “these are Russian Socialists leaving for purposes of starting revolution against present Russian government for which Trotsky is reported to have 10,000 dollars subscribed by Socialists and Germans.”

On April 1, 1917, the naval control officer, Captain O. M. Makins, sent a confidential memorandum to the general officer commanding at Halifax, to the effect that he had “examined all Russian passengers” aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord and found six men in the second-class section:

“They are all avowed Socialists, and though professing a desire to help the new Russian Govt., might well be in league with German Socialists in America, and quite likely to be a great hindrance to the Govt. in Russia just at present.”

The next document in the Canadian files is dated April 7, from the chief of the General Staff, Ottawa, to the director of internment operations, and acknowledges a previous letter (not in the files) about the internment of Russian socialists at Amherst, Nova Scotia:

“. . . in this connection, have to inform you of the receipt of a long telegram yesterday from the Russian Consul General, MONTREAL, protesting against the arrest of these men as they were in possession of passports issued by the Russian Consul General, NEW YORK, U.S.A.”

The reply to this Montreal telegram was to the effect that the men were interned “on suspicion of being German,” and would be released only upon definite proof of their nationality and loyalty to the Allies.

No telegrams from the Russian consul general in New York are in the Canadian files, and it is known that this office was reluctant to issue Russian passports to Russian political exiles. However, there is a telegram in the files from a New York attorney, N. Aleinikoff, to R. M. Coulter, then deputy postmaster general of Canada. The postmaster general’s office in Canada had no connection with either internment of prisoners of war or military activities. Accordingly, this telegram was in the nature of a personal, nonofficial intervention. It reads:

DR. R. M. COULTER, Postmaster Genl. OTTAWA
Russian political exiles returning to Russia detained Halifax interned Amherst camp. Kindly investigate and advise cause of the detention and names of all detained. Trust as champion of freedom you will intercede on their behalf. Please wire collect.
NICHOLAS ALEINIKOFF

On April 11, Coulter wired Aleinikoff,

“Telegram received. Writing you this afternoon. You should receive it tomorrow evening. R. M. Coulter.”

This telegram was sent by the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph but charged to the Canadian Post Office Department. Normally a private business telegram would be charged to the recipient and this was not official business.

The follow-up Coulter letter to Aleinikoff is interesting because, after confirming that the Trotsky party was held at Amherst, it states that they were suspected of propaganda against the present Russian government and “are supposed to be agents of Germany.” Coulter then adds,” . . . they are not what they represent themselves to be”; the Trotsky group is “…not detained by Canada, but by the Imperial authorities.” After assuring Aleinikoff that the detainees would be made comfortable, Coulter adds that any information “in their favour” would be transmitted to the military authorities.

On April 11 Arthur Wolf of 134 East Broadway, New York, sent a telegram to Coulter. Though sent from New York, this telegram, after being acknowledged, was also charged to the Canadian Post Office Department.

Pay close attention to this: In the Trotsky affair, here we have two American residents corresponding with a Canadian deputy postmaster general in order to intervene in behalf of an interned Russian revolutionary, a Canadian or Imperial military matter of international importance. Coulter’s subsequent action suggests something more than casual intervention.

After Coulter acknowledged the Aleinikoff and Wolf telegrams, he wrote to Major General Willoughby Gwatkin of the Department of Militia and Defense in Ottawa – a man of significant influence in the Canadian military – and attached copies of the Aleinikoff and Wolf telegrams. He wrote:

These men have been hostile to Russia because of the way the Jews have been treated, and are now strongly in favor of the present Administration, so far as I know. Both are responsible men. Both are reputable men, and I am sending their telegrams to you for what they may be worth, and so that you may represent them to the English authorities if you deem it wise.

Coulter intimates that he knows a great deal about Aleinikoff and Wolf. His letter was in effect a character reference, and aimed at the obvious source of the internment problem – London.

Gwatkin was well known in London, and in fact was on loan to Canada from the War Office in London.

Aleinikoff then sent a letter to Coulter to thank him

“most heartily for the interest you have taken in the fate of the Russian Political Exiles …. You know me, esteemed Dr. Coulter, and you also know my devotion to the cause of Russian freedom …. Happily I know Mr. Trotsky, Mr. Melnichahnsky, and Mr. Chudnowsky . . . intimately.”

It might be noted as an aside that if Aleinikoff knew Trotsky “intimately,” then he would also probably be aware that Trotsky had declared his intention to return to Russia to overthrow the Provisional Government and institute the “re-revolution.”

On receipt of Aleinikoff’s letter, Coulter immediately (April 16) forwarded it to Major General Gwatkin, adding that he became acquainted with Aleinikoff

“in connection with Departmental action on United States papers in the Russian language” and that Aleinikoff was working “on the same lines as Mr. Wolf . . . who was an escaped prisoner from Siberia.”

Previously, on April 14, Gwatkin sent a memorandum to his naval counterpart on the Canadian Military Interdepartmental Committee repeating that the internees were Russian socialists with “10,000 dollars subscribed by socialists and Germans.” The concluding paragraph stated: “On the other hand there are those who declare that an act of high-handed injustice has been done.”

Then on April 16, Vice Admiral C. E. Kingsmill, director of the Naval Service, took Gwatkin’s intervention at face value. In a letter to Captain Makins, the naval control officer at Halifax, he stated, “The Militia authorities request that a decision as to their (that is, the six Russians) disposal may be hastened.” A copy of this instruction was relayed to Gwatkin who in turn informed Deputy Postmaster General Coulter.

Three days later Gwatkin applied pressure. In a memorandum of April 20 to the naval secretary, he wrote, “Can you say, please, whether or not the Naval Control Office has given a decision?”

On the same day (April 20) Captain Makins wrote Admiral Kingsmill explaining his reasons for removing Trotsky; he refused to be pressured into making a decision, stating, “I will cable to the Admiralty informing them that the Militia authorities are requesting an early decision as to their disposal.”

However, the next day, April 21, Gwatkin wrote Coulter:

“Our friends the Russian socialists are to be released; and arrangements are being made for their passage to Europe.”

The order to Makins for Trotsky’s release originated in the Admiralty, London. Coulter acknowledged the information, “which will please our New York correspondents immensely.”

We can conclude that Coulter and Gwatkin were intensely interested in the release of Trotsky, but we do not know why. There was little in the career of either Deputy Postmaster General Coulter or Major General Gwatkin that would explain an urge to release Leon Trotsky.

Dr. Robert Miller Coulter was a medical doctor of Scottish and Irish parents, a liberal, a Freemason, and an Odd Fellow. He was appointed deputy postmaster general of Canada in 1897. His sole claim to fame derived from being a delegate to the Universal Postal Union Convention in 1906 and a delegate to New Zealand and Australia in 1908 for the “All Red” project. All Red had nothing to do with Red revolutionaries; it was only a plan for all-red or all-British fast steamships between Great Britain, Canada, and Australia.

Major General Willoughby Gwatkin stemmed from a long British military tradition (Cambridge and then Staff College). A specialist in mobilization, he served in Canada from 1905 to 1918.

Given only the documents in the Canadian files, we can but conclude that their intervention in behalf of Trotsky is a mystery.

Lieutenant Colonel John Bayne MacLean, a prominent Canadian publisher and businessman, founder and president of MacLean Publishing Company, Toronto, with a long-time association with Canadian Army Intelligence, wrote for his own MacLean’s magazine, in 1918, an article entitled “Why Did We Let Trotsky Go? How Canada Lost an Opportunity to Shorten the War.” The article contained detailed and unusual information about Leon Trotsky which provides two clues. Government records since released by Canada, Great Britain, and the United States confirm MacLean’s clues to a significant degree. MacLean’s opening argument is that

“some Canadian politicians or officials were chiefly responsible for the prolongation of the war [World War I], for the great loss of life, the wounds and sufferings of the winter of 1917 and the great drives of 1918.” Further, “the man chiefly responsible for the defection of Russia was Trotsky… acting under German instructions.”

Who was Trotsky? According to MacLean, Trotsky was not Russian, but German

Odd as this may seem it does coincide with other scraps of intelligence information: to wit, that Trotsky spoke better German than Russian, and that he was the Russian executive of the German “Black Bond.

According to MacLean, Trotsky in August 1914 had been “ostentatiously” expelled from Berlin; he finally arrived in the United States where he organized Russian revolutionaries, as well as revolutionaries in Western Canada, who “were largely Germans and Austrians traveling as Russians.” MacLean continues: Originally the British found through Russian associates that Kerensky, Lenin and some lesser leaders were practically in German pay as early as 1915 and they uncovered in 1916 the connections with Trotsky then living in New York.

In the early part of 1916 a German official sailed for New York. British Intelligence officials accompanied him. He was held up at Halifax; but on their instruction he was passed on with profuse apologies for the necessary delay. After much manoeuvering he arrived in a dirty little newspaper office in the slums and there found Trotsky, to whom he bore important instructions. From June 1916, until they passed him on [to] the British, the N.Y. Bomb Squad never lost touch with Trotsky. They discovered that his real name was Braunstein and that he was a German, not a Russian.

Such German activity in neutral countries is confirmed in a State Department report (316-9-764-9) describing organization of Russian refugees for revolutionary purposes.

Continuing, MacLean states that Trotsky and four associates sailed on the “S.S. Christiania” (sic), and on April 3 reported to “Captain Making” (sic) and were taken off the ship at Halifax under the direction of Lieutenant Jones. (Actually a party of nine, including six men, were taken off the S.S. Kristianiafjord. The name of the naval control officer at Halifax was Captain O. M. Makins, R.N. The name of the officer who removed the Trotsky party from the ship is not in the Canadian government documents; Trotsky said it was “Machen.”) Again, according to MacLean, Trotsky’s money came “from German sources in New York.”

MacLean states further that Trotsky was released “at the request of the British Embassy at Washington . . . [which] acted on the request of the U.S. State Department, who were acting for someone else.”

The theme of MacLean’s report is that Trotsky had intimate relations with, and probably worked for, the German General Staff. While such relations have been established regarding Lenin – to the extent that Lenin was subsidized and his return to Russia facilitated by the Germans – it appears certain that Trotsky was similarly aided. The $10,000 Trotsky fund in New York was from German sources, and a recently declassified document in the U.S. State Department files reads as follows:

March 9, 1918 to: American Consul, Vladivostok from Polk, Acting Secretary of State, Washington D.C. For your confidential information and prompt attention: Following is substance of message of January twelfth from Von Schanz of German Imperial Bank to Trotsky, quote Consent imperial bank to appropriation from credit general staff of five million roubles for sending assistant chief naval commissioner Kudrisheff to Far East.

This message suggests some liaison between Trotsky and the Germans in January 1918, a time when Trotsky was proposing an alliance with the West. The State Department does not give the provenance of the telegram, only that it originated with the War College Staff. The State Department did treat the message as authentic and acted on the basis of assumed authenticity. It is consistent with the general theme of Colonel MacLean’s article.

Official documentation clearly demonstrates two faces to Trotsky: one for the public, and one in private. For example, the Division of Far Eastern Affairs in the U.S. State Department received on March 23, 1918, two reports stemming from Trotsky; one is inconsistent with the other. One report, dated March 20 and from Moscow, originated in the Russian newspaper Russkoe Slovo. The report cited an interview with Trotsky in which he stated:

“…any alliance with the United States was impossible: The Russia of the Soviet cannot align itself… with capitalistic America for this would be a betrayal It is possible that Americans seek such an rapprochement with us, driven by its antagonism towards Japan, but in any case there can be no question of an alliance by us of any nature with a bourgeoisie nation.”

The other report, also originating in Moscow, is a message dated March 17, 1918, three days earlier, and from Ambassador Francis:

“Trotsky requests five American officers as inspectors of army being organized for defense also requests railroad operating men and equipment.”

This private request to the U.S. is of course inconsistent with the public rejection of an “alliance.”

So long as we see all international revolutionaries and all international capitalists as implacable enemies of one another, then we miss a crucial point – that there has indeed been some operational cooperation between international capitalists, including fascists. And there is no a priori reason why we should reject Trotsky as a part of this alliance.

First there’s Trotsky, a Russian internationalist revolutionary with German connections who sparks assistance from two supposed supporters of Prince Lvov’s government in Russia (Aleinikoff and Wolf, Russians resident in New York). These two ignite the action of a liberal Canadian deputy postmaster general, who in turn intercedes with a prominent British Army major general on the Canadian military staff. These are all verifiable links.

In short, allegiances may not always be what they are called, or appear. We can, however, surmise that Trotsky, Aleinikoff, Wolf, Coulter, and Gwatkin in acting for a common limited objective also had some common higher goal than national allegiance or political label. This is the only a logical supposition from the facts. (WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION By Antony C. Sutton. 2001, HTML version created in the United States of America by Studies in Reformed Theology)

Olof Aschberg and Nya Banken in Stockholm were central to Bolshevik funding.

With the entry of the United States into the war, Barnes and Gray, Hoover’s helpers in the Belgian Relief Operation, were given important posts in the newly created U.S. Food Administration, which also was placed under Herbert Hoover’s direction. Barnes became President of the Grain Corporation of the U.S. Food Administration from 1917 to 1918, and Gray was chief of Marine Transportation. Another J. Henry Schroder partner, G. A. Zabriskie, was named head of the U.S. Sugar Equalization Board.

Hoover chose Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss as his principal assistant in theU.S. Food Administration. Strauss was soon to become a partner in Kuhn Loeb Company, marrying the daughter of Jerome Hanauer of Kuhn Loeb. Throughout his service with the Belgian Relief Commission, the U.S. Food Administration, and, after the war, the American Relief Administration,Hoover’s closest associate was one Edgar Rickard, born in Pontgibaud, France. After Hoover became Secretary of Commerce under Coolidge, Hamill tells us that Hoover awarded his friend the Hazeltine Radio patents, which paid him one million dollars a year in royalties.