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"A LIE BELIEVED BY EVERYBODY IS NOT THE TRUTH..."  
read below to find out who said this and why

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"A LIE BELIEVED BY EVERYBODY IS NOT THE TRUTH..."   read below to find out who said this and why
"Can somone tell me what is the the connection between illuminati, freemasonry, and the jesuits , because im little confused who controlls who."..Reader
"That's a big question, Mr. X. In my opinion, the connection is CONTROL. Not the organization Maxwell Smart works for, but the need to control other people's thoughts and actions.
In this world, it is most easily accomplished with lies, which all of the organizations you mention use with great effect. Most of the big lies that the modern world suffers under, were spread thick by members of the Illuminati, which is not as organized as some believe, but a loose coalition of like minded people. Universities, Newspapers and mass media have shaped our view of the world, and in most cases, can be traced to the influence of people who want to control the thoughts of others. this is the battleground of the Illuminati.
Freemasonry,as it is understood by the masses, is a recruiting tool of the Illuminati. Masons who display the right thinking are advanced to a high enough rank in the organization to where they are informed of the true goals, and the "god" they worship, Lucifer. Until the 31st degree, they are lied to about these, and many other things. "Morals and Dogma", by Albert Pike, is a must read for anyone serious about learning of the true motives and methods of freemasonry.
The Jesuits, Society Of Jesus, is the military arm of the Roman Catholic Church. They were formed to force "heretics", which are any who don't believe the Catholic doctrine and worship the pope as God's representative on Earth, to enter the fold, or die. They are a perfect example of a "terrorist organization". They use lies, stealth, secrecy, assassination and bribery to achieve their goals.
One thing these organizations have in common, is a false front that looks like a humanitarian, caring group with only the "good" of mankind as their goal. Beware of any person or group that wants to force "good" on anyone else!! Will


http://letsrollforums.com/connection-between-illuminati-freemasonry-t18242.html

Julian Assange faces assassination risk: WikiLeaks spokesman
                                                                           Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group

December 5, 2010 
by legitgov

Ah, then came the dawn. Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group By Kirk James Murphy, M.D. 04 Dec 2010 [As reported by Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett in Counterpunch in September]

Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he [Luis Posada Carilles] was involved in blowing up... Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden? She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University -- who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.  She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana -- whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras.

http://www.legitgov.org/Assange-Accuser-Worked-US-Funded-CIA-Tied-Anti-Castro-Group


Julian Assange is Controlled Opposition Under Mind Control
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194294.0

NSA nexus: former Google security boss Ben Laurie on Wikileaks' advisory board!!
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194274.0

Assange literally in bed with CIA asset/operative: his Swedish accuser is CIA op
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194293.0








 "A LIE BELIEVED BY EVERYBODY IS NOT THE TRUTH..."   read below to find out who said this and why
"Can somone tell me what is the the connection between illuminati, freemasonry, and the jesuits , because im little confused who controlls who."..Reader
"That's a big question, Mr. X. In my opinion, the connection is CONTROL. Not the organization Maxwell Smart works for, but the need to control other people's thoughts and actions.
In this world, it is most easily accomplished with lies, which all of the organizations you mention use with great effect. Most of the big lies that the modern world suffers under, were spread thick by members of the Illuminati, which is not as organized as some believe, but a loose coalition of like minded people. Universities, Newspapers and mass media have shaped our view of the world, and in most cases, can be traced to the influence of people who want to control the thoughts of others. this is the battleground of the Illuminati.
Freemasonry,as it is understood by the masses, is a recruiting tool of the Illuminati. Masons who display the right thinking are advanced to a high enough rank in the organization to where they are informed of the true goals, and the "god" they worship, Lucifer. Until the 31st degree, they are lied to about these, and many other things. "Morals and Dogma", by Albert Pike, is a must read for anyone serious about learning of the true motives and methods of freemasonry.
The Jesuits, Society Of Jesus, is the military arm of the Roman Catholic Church. They were formed to force "heretics", which are any who don't believe the Catholic doctrine and worship the pope as God's representative on Earth, to enter the fold, or die. They are a perfect example of a "terrorist organization". They use lies, stealth, secrecy, assassination and bribery to achieve their goals.
One thing these organizations have in common, is a false front that looks like a humanitarian, caring group with only the "good" of mankind as their goal. Beware of any person or group that wants to force "good" on anyone else!! Will


That's a big question, Mr. X. In my opinion, the connection is CONTROL. Not the organization Maxwell Smart works for, but the need to control other people's thoughts and actions.
In this world, it is most easily accomplished with lies, which all of the organizations you mention use with great effect. Most of the big lies that the modern world suffers under, were spread thick by members of the Illuminati, which is not as organized as some believe, but a loose coalition of like minded people. Universities, Newspapers and mass media have shaped our view of the world, and in most cases, can be traced to the influence of people who want to control the thoughts of others. this is the battleground of the Illuminati.
Freemasonry,as it is understood by the masses, is a recruiting tool of the Illuminati. Masons who display the right thinking are advanced to a high enough rank in the organization to where they are informed of the true goals, and the "god" they worship, Lucifer. Until the 31st degree, they are lied to about these, and many other things. "Morals and Dogma", by Albert Pike, is a must read for anyone serious about learning of the true motives and methods of freemasonry.
The Jesuits, Society Of Jesus, is the military arm of the Roman Catholic Church. They were formed to force "heretics", which are any who don't believe the Catholic doctrine and worship the pope as God's representative on Earth, to enter the fold, or die. They are a perfect example of a "terrorist organization". They use lies, stealth, secrecy, assassination and bribery to achieve their goals.
One thing these organizations have in common, is a false front that looks like a humanitarian, caring group with only the "good" of mankind as their goal. Beware of any person or group that wants to force "good" on anyone else!! Will
__________________
A LIE BELIEVED BY EVERYBODY IS NOT THE TRUTH

I agree totally with Trueblue,in the end,the Vatican runs everything.
__________________
John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

"Lest Satan should get an advantage over us: for we are not ignorant of his devices"

- 2 Corinthians 2:11http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.38/t.gif


http://letsrollforums.com/connection-between-illuminati-freemasonry-t18242.html

It is well-known that the Illuminati controls Freemasonry from the inside. It infiltrated it hundreds of years ago and became "a secret society within a secret society" as Robert Anton Wilson said.

That links the Illuminati to Freemasonry as Freemasonry's controller. The Illuminati was started in 1776 as a Jesuit front by Adam Weishaupt, who was trained by Jesuits all his life (School, High School, University). His father was a professor at a Jesuit university. He would later become a professor of Roman Catholic canon law at that very same Jesuit university.

He allegedly 'broke ties' with the Jesuits and started the Illuminati. This is a lie, though. Weishaupt never broke all ties with the Jesuit order. His Jesuit superiors ordered him to separate himself from the order so that he could set up a front organization that would appear to be entirely separate from the order.

This front organization, the Illuminati, would be used to infiltrate Freemasonry and take the blame for Rome's crimes (The Illuminati did it!). An example of this is the French Revolution. Almost every leader of the revolution was Jesuit-trained, but people instead looked at the story of Lanz, an Illuminati courier who was struck by lightning when he was carrying a plan for the Revolution.

The job of the Illuminati is to take the blame for Jesuit crimes.. therefore, it cannot be linked in any way to the Jesuits.. that's why Jesuit Adam Weishaupt was ordered to pretend to leave the order.

The Illuminati was used to infiltrate and control Freemasonry.

Irrefutable evidence that Adam Weishaupt never broke ties with Rome comes from the Church itself. They admit that he was reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed.

Further, I'm sure you know about Albert Pike, who was known as "Grand Supreme Pontiff" of Freemasonry. Pontiff means 'Pope'. So much for Freemasonry and Catholicism being enemies.
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      • Julian Assange faces assassination risk: WikiLeaks spokesman
        Reuters
        December 2, 2010

        http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/02/julian-assange-faces-assassination-risk-wikileaks-spokesman.html

        wikileaksspokesmanReut543 Julian Assange faces assassination risk: WikiLeaks spokesman

        WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson (C) listens to questions from the media during an event at the Frontline club in London, December 1. The disclosure of a trove of confidential US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks is perfectly legal, the spokesman for the whistle-blowing website said on Wednesday. — Photo by Reuters

        LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is at risk of being assassinated over the release of secret US documents and will remain in hiding for his own security, the website’s spokesman said Wednesday.

        Spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said the Australian’s safety was at stake after US politicians called for him to face treason charges and an adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reportedly said he should be killed.

        “We have had threats from governments and commentators, some of them totally preposterous, even calls for the assassination of Julian Assange,” Hrafnsson said during a debate at the Frontline Club in London.

        “He is justified in being concerned for his safety. When you have people calling, for example, for his assassination, it is best to keep a low profile,” he added.

        Hrafnsson said Assange’s whereabouts would remain secret. He is known to have recently spent time in Sweden and London and is the subject of an Interpol arrest request over a rape allegation in Sweden.

        He has faced calls from the United States for his arrest, with Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential hopeful, reportedly saying that those responsible for the leaks were guilty of treason and should face execution, CNN reported.

        Separately, Tom Flanagan, an advisor to Canada’s prime minister, said flippantly in a television interview that Assange “should be assassinated” and that US President Barack Obama “should put out a contract and maybe use a drone.”

        Hrafnsson, an Icelandic former journalist, defended Assange’s decision to remain in hiding and not to face up to the Swedish arrest warrant, saying the timing of the Interpol alert was “curious”.

        “He is in a secret location and working on the project with a group of our staff. It is necessary in the circumstances to keep his location secret,” Hrafnsson said.

        The spokesman also pointed to the fact that WikiLeaks was suffering repeated cyber attacks as evidence that it was being targeted.

        “We know the interest of the US government in bringing down WikiLeaks,” he said.

        US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused WikiLeaks on Monday of an “attack on the international community” by releasing the documents, but Hrafnsson insisted that WikiLeaks had done nothing illegal.

        “There has been a lot of talk about legal actions taken against Wikileaks and Julian, about how we have done something illegal, that we are criminals, but we have not seen any reference to how we are supposed to have broken the law,” he said.

        share save 120 16 Julian Assange faces assassination risk: WikiLeaks spokesman

        undefined
        Map of countries by the number of politicians, which have attended one or more conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group


        List of Bilderberg participants

        The following is a list of prominent persons who have attended one or more conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group. The list is currently organized by category. It is not a complete list and it includes both living and deceased people. Where known, the year(s) they attended are denoted in brackets.

        Royalty

        Politics

        United States

        Presidents

        Senators

        Governors

        United Kingdom

        Prime Ministers

        Belgium

        Netherlands

        France

        Portugal

        Finland

        Iceland

        Germany

        Poland

        Canada

        Sweden

        Norway

        • Siv Jensen (2009) - Seen in Alex Jones' Blueprint movie.

        EU Commissioners

        European Union Commissioners who have attended include:

        UN, WTO, NATO and other International Organizations

        Military

        Financial institutions

        Major corporations

        University, institute and other academic

        Media

        References

        1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "Bilderberg Meeting of 1997 Assembles". PR Newswire. 13 June 1997.
        2. ^ Video showing DSK, Queen Beatrix and James Wolfensohn among others at Bilderberg 2000
        3. ^ a b c d Welcome to ActivePaper
        4. ^ a b "Obituary - Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands". The Times. December 3, 2004. "Bernhard’s visits abroad provided the background for an enterprise which interested him greatly, the Bilderberg conferences at which, from 1954 onwards, statesmen, businessmen and intellectuals from Europe and America had private discussions once or twice a year. The idea of the conferences originated with Dr Joseph H. Retinger as a counter to the anti-Americanism in Western Europe."
        5. ^ Jon Ronson (March 28, 2001). "Exposed: The Secret Club Of Powermongers Who Really Rule The World". The Mirror. "Prince Charles and Bill Clinton have been to sessions."
        6. ^ Jean Stead (April 28, 1986). "Prince Charles attends meeting on South Africa". The Guardian (London). "The 34th Bilderberg conference ended at Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, yesterday after a debate on the South African crisis attended by Prince Charles. He arrived for the economic debate on Saturday and stayed overnight at the hotel."
        7. ^ Mark Oliver (June 4, 2004). "The Bilderberg group". The Guardian.
        8. ^ a b "'High Priests Of Globalization' In Istanbul". Turkish Daily News. May 31, 2007. "The Turkish state minister and chief negotiator, Ali Babacan, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Dervis, the Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen (Tusiad) Chairwoman Arzuhan Dogan Yalcindag, Koc Holding Executive Board President Mustafa Koc and the Bogazici University rector, Prof Dr Ayse Soysal, will attend the meeting on behalf of Turkey. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Sofia of Spain, Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium, Greek National Economy and Finance Minister Yeoryios Alogoskoufis, former Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemao of Portugal, former Foreign Minister Michel Barnier of France, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, Finance Minister Anders Borg of Sweden, Foreign Trade Minister Frank Heemskerk of the Netherlands, Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen of Finland, former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, Agriculture Minister Christine Lagarde of France, Justice Minister Michael McDowell of Ireland, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato, the EU commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, and the US ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, are among foreign guests of the meeting. Meanwhile, tight security measures were taken in and around the Ritz Carlton Hotel, the venue of the meeting."
        9. ^ "Duke Of Edinburgh In Como Talks". The Times. April 03, 1965. p. 7. "The Duke of Edinburgh took part today in the opening session of the Bilderberg meeting at the Villa d'Este on Lake Como."
        10. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. April 03, 1967. p. 12.
        11. ^ Official List of Participants for the 2009 Bilderberg Meeting
        12. ^ a b c "World Leaders Attended Secret Bilderberg Meeting, The Spotlight Reports". PR Newswire. July 16, 1991. "Michael Boskin, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, is listed as sharing one session with Karl Otto Pohl, president of the Deutsche Bundesbank. (Boskin refused to answer The Spotlight's inquiries about what he said). Jack F. Matlock, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, was also listed on a panel exploring developments in the USSR. Robert B. Zoellick, under-secretary of state designate for economic affairs was listed on still another panel, as was Thomas W. Simons, U.S. ambassador to Poland. David Rockefeller, former chairman of the Chase-Manhattan Bank and a leading Bilderberger, was reported as pushing for expanded free trade through both the Mexico and GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) negotiations now under way. John S. Reed, chairman of Citibank's parent corporation, was also on the list. Two U.S. governors, Douglas Wilder of Virginia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas are on the list with Diane Feinstein, the ex-mayor of San Francisco who lost a 1990 bid for governor of California. Sens. John Chafee (R-R.I.) and Bennett Johnston (D-La.) are on the list of the American delegation, by far the largest at Baden-Baden. Top industrialists, lawyers, and diplomats dominate the list. The only U.S. labor leader was Lynn Williams, president of the United Steelworkers of America. Arthur Dunkel, director general of GATT, which is currently shaping a completely free trade world in Geneva, and Etienne Davignon, former vice chairman of the European Community, were listed. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Queen Sophia of Spainwere also on the list with the prime ministers of Belgium, Luxemburg and Netherlands and the federal chancellor of Austria. The press lords listed included Conrad Black, the Canadian publisher who recently purchased London's Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post. George Ball, former undersecretary of state, was said to cause an "uproar" when he warned that a Mideast peace conference, if held, would "explode" in the present volatile political climate in that region. Harlan Cleveland, another former high State Department official, was reported to have privately urged the overthrow of the Persian Gulf monarchies as the first step toward a Mideast peace."
        13. ^ "George W. Ball Papers, 1880s-1994" (PDF). Princeton University Library. Archived from the original on 2007-06-24.
        14. ^ "Text Of Remarks By National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger To The Bilderberg Steering Committee; "Strengthening The Bipartisan Center: An Internationalist Agenda For America"". Federal News Service. November 4, 1999.
        15. ^ a b c Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend?
        16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bilderbergers celebrate half a century of intrigue, secrecy. 20. The New American. June 28, 2004. ISSN 08856540. "Attendees from the U.S. this year reportedly included: Senators Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.); Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates; Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company; Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal ReserveBank of New York; Douglas Feith, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense; Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute; Jessica T. Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Indra K. Nooyi, president and CEO of Pepsico; Peter Weinberg, CEO of Goldman Sachs International; and James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank.".
        17. ^ a b c Bilderberger Conspiracy
        18. ^ a b Kenneth Maxwell (2004). "The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs:: Kissinger, Pinochet and Operation Condor". David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Archived from the original on 2007-03-11.
        19. ^ "Herter, Christian Archibald, 1895-1966. Papers: Guide.". Houghton Library, Harvard.
        20. ^ Aubourg, Valerie (2003). "Organizing Atlanticism: the Bilderberg group and the Atlantic institute, 1952- 1963". Intelligence and National Security 18:2: 92–105.
        21. ^ a b Hatch, Alden (1962). H.R.H.Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands: An authorized biography. London: Harrap. ISBN B0000CLLN4.
        22. ^ a b c "Western Issues Aired". The Washington Post. April 24, 1978. "The three-day 26th Bilderberg Meeting concluded at a secluded cluster of shingled buildings in what was once a farmer's field. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjorrn Falldin, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and NATO Commander Alexander M. Haig Jr. were among 104 North American and European leaders at the conference."
        23. ^ "The Real Aims of the Bilderberg Club". BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. April 6, 1982.
        24. ^ Jasper, William F. (July 12, 2004). Rogues' gallery of EU founders: the emerging European superstate, now moving forward under the EU, is the result of a deliberate scheme put into motion many years ago by powerful planners and plotters. 20. The New American. p. 15. ISSN 08856540. "Attendees at the founding Bilderberg meeting (1954), for example, included: David Rockefeller, global banker and later chairman of the CFR; Dean Rusk, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and later U.S. Secretary of State; Joseph E. Johnson, president of the Carnegie Endowment; C.D. Jackson, head of Time, Inc.; Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, former head of the OSS, precursor to the CIA; and Lord Dennis Healey, Labor Party leftist and later British Chancellor of the Exchequer.".
        25. ^ a b c Bill Hayton (29 September 2005). "Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group". BBC.
        26. ^ a b "Clinton; Tony and Gordon just have to work this out; The former president, who is expected to play a starring role at the Labour conference, talks to Toby Harnden about the party; its future and its leadership contest". The Spectator. September 16, 2006. p. 14. "In fact, Clinton, then governor of Arkansas and considered a rank outsider for the 1992 presidential race, first met Brown in June 1991 at the Bilderberg conference in the Black Forest resort of Baden-Baden. By all accounts, the two clicked."
        27. ^ Mark Rich (2008). Hidden Evil. ISBN 9781435750104.
        28. ^ U.S. Sen. John Edwards at Bilderberg. (06-JUN-04) UPI NewsTrack
        29. ^ The Nation: Conspiracy Theorists Unite; A Secret Conference Thought to Rule the World
        30. ^ Jackie Kucinich (May 12, 2005). "World leaders attend meeting that they won't talk about". The Hill. p. 4. "Several members of Congress have been said to be on the guest list in the past, including Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C) took a break from the campaign trail to attend the meeting last year. Hagel's office confirmed that he had attended the conference in 1999 and 2000."
        31. ^ Christy Hoppe (Thursday, May 31, 2007), Perry off to secret forum in Turkey, The Dallas Morning News, retrieved 2009-07-21
        32. ^ a b "Why is our governor visiting this group". The Augusta Chronicle. June 19, 2008. p. 8. "Some of the names on the list are intriguing. Some of the well-known names include:Ben Bernanke - chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System; Condoleezza Rice - U.S. secretary of state; James A. Johnson - tasked with choosing U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's running mate; Paul Wolfowitz - with the Institute for Public Policy Research. The one name that stands out in my opinion this year is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford."
        33. ^ Ian Aitken (May 26, 1989). The Guardian (London). "Mr Paddy Ashdown is not yet wholly at ease with the trappings of office, even if the office in question is only that of leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats. Attending the Bilderberg Conference of European political leaders in Spain last week, he was deeply impressed by the splendour of the official cars and the intensity of the security precautions laid on for his arrival. Reaching the conference headquarters at last, he sank into a chair and said to his neighbour: 'Hello, I'm Paddy Ashdown.' The neighbour smiled diffidently, put out his hand, and said: 'Hello, I'm the King of Spain.'"
        34. ^ Telegraph.co.uk Taxpayers foot bill for Ed Balls 'junket'. Daily Telegraph
        35. ^ a b c "Who pulls the strings?". The Guardian. 10 March 2001.
        36. ^ a b "Memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards - Complaint against Mr Kenneth Clarke". United Kingdom Parliament. 11 July 1997. "Mr Clarke subsequently explained that he and Mr Blair considered that they were attending the conference as representatives of the Government and the Opposition respectively, and stated that 'I was quite confident that I was at the time meeting the rules applying to Ministers, and it did not occur to me that the new rules concerning registration could apply to this visit'."
        37. ^ House of Commons - Register of Members' Interests, Commons Publications, 2 December 1998, retrieved 2009-07-21
        38. ^ "Register of Members' Interests". 9 June 1999. "3-6 June 1999, to Portugal, to attend Bilderberg meetings. I paid for my own air fare; the hotel accommodation for three nights was paid for by the organisers."
        39. ^ "Register of Members' Interests". 21 May 2003. "15-18 May 2003, to Versailles, France, to attend a Bilderberg Conference. I paid for my own air fare; the hotel accommodation for three nights was paid for by the organisers."
        40. ^ "Register of Members' Interests". 8 June 2004. "3-6 June 2004, to Stresa, Italy, to attend Bilderberg Conference. I paid for my own air fare; the hotel accommodation for three nights was paid for by the organisers.",
        41. ^ House of Commons - Register of Members' Interests
        42. ^ Kenneth Clarke MP, Rushcliffe (TheyWorkForYou.com)
        43. ^ "Register of Members' Interests - Kenneth Clarke". United Kingdom Parliament. 16 June 2008.
        44. ^ "Kenneth Clarke:Full register of members' interests". The Guardian. "5-8 June 2008, to Chantilly, Virginia, USA, to attend Bilderberg Conference. Hotel accommodation paid for by the conference sponsors. (I paid my travel costs.) (Registered 12 June 2008)"
        45. ^ "'Atlantic world' theme for Bilderberg conference". The Times. April 19, 1974. p. 6.
        46. ^ a b [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmregmem/memi19.htm British House of Commons - Register of Journalists' Interests
        47. ^ a b c "Our man at Bilderberg". The Guardian. 19 May 2009. "Mandelson's office has confirmed his attendance at this year's meeting: "Yes, Lord Mandelson attended Bilberberg. He found it a valuable conference.""
        48. ^ a b c d e f g h John Deverell (May 31, 1996). "Vast array of international VIPs talk things over at secretive Bilderberg '96 in King City". The Toronto Star. "Lord Carrington, Conference chairman; former NATO secretary-general; Francisco Pinto Balsemao, Former prime minister of Portugal; Queen Beatrix, Netherlands; Lloyd Bentsen, Former treasury secretary, U.S.; Carl Bildt, The High Representative Sweden; Conrad Black, Chairman, Hollinger, Canada; Frits Bolkestein, Liberal party leader, Netherlands; Jean Chretien, Prime minister of Canada; Etienne Davignon, Executive chairman, Societe Generale de Belgique, Belgium; Stanley Fischer, International Monetary Fund; Charles Freeman, Former assistant secretary of defence, U.S.; Mike Harris, Premier of Ontario; Richard Holbrooke, Former assistant secretary of state, U.S.; Peter Job, Chief executive, Reuters Holding, Britain; Lionel Jospin, Socialist party leader, France; Henry Kissinger, Former U.S. secretary of state; Andrew Knight, News Corp., Britain; Winston Lord, Assistant secretary of state, U.S.; Paul Martin, Finance minister, Canada; Philippe Maystadt, Finance minister, Belgium; John Monks, Union leader, Britain; Mario Monti, European commissioner; Sam Nunn, U.S. senator; William Perry, Defence secretary, U.S.; Jan Petersen, Conservative party leader, Norway; Malcolm Rifkind, Foreign secretary, Britain; Renato Ruggiero, Director-general, World Trade Organization; Mona Sahlin, Member of parliament, Sweden; Klaus Schwab, President, World Economic Forum; Queen Sofia, Spain; George Soros, President, Soros Fund Management, U.S.; George Stephanopoulos, Senior adviser to the president, U.S.; Peter Sutherland, Former director-general, GATT and WTO, Ireland; J. Martin Taylor, Chief executive, Barclays Bank, Britain; Alex Trotman, Chairman, Ford Motor, U.S.; John Whitehead, Former deputy secretary of state, U.S.; James Wolfensohn, World Bank president."
        49. ^ a b "Register of Members' Interests - George Osborne". United Kingdom Parliament. 3 July 2007.
        50. ^ "Register of Members' Interests - George Osborne". United Kingdom Parliament. 16 June 2008.
        51. ^ "Register of Member' Interests - George Osborne". United Kingdom Parliament. 27 May 2009.
        52. ^ Ronson, Jon (10 March 2001). "Who pulls the strings? (part 3)". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-07-04. ""During the Falklands war, the British government's request for international sanctions against Argentina fell on stony ground. But at a Bilderberg meeting in, I think, Denmark, David Owen stood up and gave the most fiery speech in favour of imposing them. Well, the speech changed a lot of minds. I'm sure that various foreign ministers went back to their respective countries and told their leaders what David Owen had said. And you know what? Sanctions were imposed.""
        53. ^ "Heath asks nation to be calm, fair, responsible, constructive". The Times. April 29, 1968. p. 2. "The outstretched hand of Mr. Powell was rejected by the leader of a coloured delegation which tried to present a petition to him today at the ski lodge at Mont Tremblanc Quebec, where Mr. Powell was attending the seventeenth annual Bilderberg conference."
        54. ^ "Register of Lords Interests - Lord Roll of Ipsden". United Kingdom Parliament. 1 October 2004. Archived from the original on 2008-02-07.
        55. ^ "Twenty-fifth Bilderberg meeting held". Facts on File World News Digest. May 14, 1977. "Alec Douglas-Home, the former prime minister of Great Britain, chaired the conference, replacing Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who had previously headed the Bilderberg invitation committee. (Prince Bernhard had resigned all public positions after the 1976 Lockheed scandal.)"
        56. ^ "News in Brief". The Times. April 26, 1975. p. 5. "Mrs Thatcher, the Conservative leader and Mr Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were among participants in the twenty second Bilderberg Conference."
        57. ^ a b "Secret Meeting Held in Cannes". The Washington Post. March 30, 1963.
        58. ^ a b c d e f g Geschiedenis: Bilderberg-conferentie 1954
        59. ^ "American Trip By M. Defferre Hope Of Meeting The President". The Times. Friday, Mar 20, 1964. p. 13. "The main purpose of M. Defferre's visit however, is to attend the annual Bilderberg Colloquy at which leaders of western thought are invited to speak their minds in the strictest secrecy."
        60. ^ Valtiovarainministeriö: Heinäluoma Bilderberg-kokouksessa Ottawassa
        61. ^ Valtiovarainministeriö: Katainen Bilderberg-kokoukseen Istanbuliin
        62. ^ a b Tiedote
        63. ^ a b c d e f g "Alþýðuflokksmaður boðinn í fyrsta sinn á Bilderbergfund". Morgunblaðið (The Morning Paper). 24 April 1993.
        64. ^ Vefur Reykjavíkurborgar - Vefur Bjarna Benediktssonar
        65. ^ a b Björn Bjarnason 13.9.2001
        66. ^ Samtíðarmenn 2003
        67. ^ Alþingi - 112. löggjafarþing, 277. fundur, fyrirspurn: greiðsla kostnaðar á fundaferðum ráðherra (Icelandic)
        68. ^ Alþingi - 100. löggjafarþing, 88. fundur, 357. mál, utanríkismál (Icelandic)
        69. ^ Wikileaks - Bilderberg meeting report Aachen, 1980
        70. ^ Alþingi - Æviágrip: Jón Sigurðsson (Icelandic)
        71. ^ Westerwelle traf Gül - EU-Beitritt im Zentrum der Gespräche (German) Free Democratic Party of Germany. 30 May 2007.
        72. ^ Sir Edward Beddington-Behrens (June 13, 1960). "Obituary - Mr. Joseph Retinger". The Times. p. 12.
        73. ^ a b c Glen Mcgregor (May 24, 2006). "Ottawa to host top-secret meeting -- or maybe not: Rumours run rampant that ultra-influential Bilderberg to come here". Ottawa Citizen. "Several Canadian political figures have spoken at Bilderbergs, including prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, New Brunswick premiers Bernard Lord and Frank McKenna, and former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office would not say yesterday whether he has been invited to attend the rumoured Ottawa meetings. Mr. Harper attended the 2003 conference in Versailles, France."
        74. ^ Robert Benzie (June 12, 2006). "Ontario to build nuclear reactors". The Toronto Star.
        75. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        76. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        77. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        78. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        79. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        80. ^ a b "Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission". European Parliament. 15 May 2003.
        81. ^ Valerie Aubourg (June 2003). Organizing Atlanticism: the Bilderberg Group and the Atlantic Institute 1952-63.
        82. ^ Official List of Participants for the 2009 Bilderberg Meeting
        83. ^ a b Caroline Moorehead (18 April 1977). "An exclusive club, perhaps without power, but certainly with influence: The Bilderberg group". The Times.
        84. ^ Charlie Skelton (May 18, 2009). "Our man at Bilderberg: I should be ashamed". Guardian. "He shows me another: a long-range shot of two happy globalists in an inflatable doughnut ring and Speedos, skidding about behind a powerboat. If only the image was sharper we might see Peter Mandelson snatching a chat with Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank. "So how do we sell ... splooosh! ... wooo! ... the abolition of the pound to the ... sploosh! ... electorate? Again! Again! Once more round the bay!""
        85. ^ a b c d Bruno Fay's blog on Le Monde
        86. ^ Bilderberg-Mirror.org.uk
        87. ^ STLtoday - St. Louis Post-Dispatch Archives
        88. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        89. ^ Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv 2009-11-12
        90. ^ "Prufrock: Rulers of the world prepare to expel Black". The Sunday Times. February 15, 2004. "The final straw came this month when Black said he would sue Henry Kissinger andRichard Perle, both directors of Hollinger and fellow Bilderbergers. Now he is going to be pressed to leave the group."
        91. ^ "Leaders' meeting exclusive, secret: Chance for relaxed discussions". Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada). June 1, 1996.

        Categories: International nongovernmental organizations | Bilderberg Group | Lists of businesspeople




        George H. W. Bush


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        Young George H. W. Bush taking his first steps at his grandfather's house in Kennebunkport, Maine, circa 1925
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        Bush with President Dwight D. Eisenhower
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        Bush (far right) in the Nashua debate with Reagan (far left) and the moderator
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        Bush with President Ronald Reagan
        Bush in Nashua, New Hampshirein 1987
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        President Ronald Reagan endorses Bush in May 1988 at the President's dinner in Washington, DC; First Lady Nancy Reagan is at left and Barbara Bush on the right
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        Bush campaigns in Omaha, Nebraska, 1988
        Chief Justice William Rehnquistadministering the oath of office to Bush during Inaugural ceremonies at the United States Capitol, January 20, 1989
        George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States (1989-1993). He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President (1981–1989), a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.
        In office: January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993; His Vice President: Dan QuaylePreceded by President : Ronald Reagan Succeeded by President: Bill Clinton
        43rd Vice President of the United StatesIn office: January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989 President at the time: President Ronald Reagan;
        Preceded by: Walter Mondale Succeeded by: Dan Quayle
         11th Director of Central Intelligence In office: January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977 President at the Time: Gerald Ford 
        Preceded by: William E. Colby  Succeeded by: Adm. Stansfield Turner
        Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China In office: September 26, 1974 – December 7, 1975 
        President at the Time: Gerald Ford Preceded by: David K. E. Bruce Succeeded by: Thomas S. Gates, Jr.  
        48th Chairman of the Republican National Committee In office: 1971 – 1973 President at the time:  Richard Nixon  Preceded by: Charles W. Yost Succeeded by: John A. Scali
        Member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 7th congressional district In office January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1971
         Preceded by:John V. Dowdy Succeeded by: Bill Archer
        Born: June 12, 1924 (age 85); Birth name: George Herbert Walker Bush; Political party: RepublicanSpouse(s): Barbara Pierce Bush 
        Occupation; Businessman (oil); Military Service: Service/branch: United States Navy;Rank: Lieutenant (junior grade);  Years of : 1942–45 Unit: Fast Carrier Task Force;  

        Bush was born in Massachusetts to Senator and New York Banker Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941, at the age of 18, Bush postponed going to college and became the youngest navalaviator in the US Navy at the time.[1] He served until the end of the war, then attended Yale University. Graduating in 1948, he moved his family to West Texas and entered the oil business, becoming a millionaire by the age of 40.

        He became involved in politics soon after founding his own oil company, serving as a member of the House of Representatives, among other positions. He ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States in 1980, but was chosen by party nominee Ronald Reagan to be the vice presidential nominee; the two were subsequently elected. During his tenure, Bush headed administration task forces on deregulation and fighting drug abuse.

        In 1988, Bush launched a successful campaign to succeed Reagan as president, defeating Democratic opponentMichael DukakisForeign policy drove the Bush presidency; military operations were conducted in Panama and the Persian Gulf at a time of world change; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later. Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise and after a struggle with Congress, signed an increase in taxes that Congress had passed. In the wake of economic concerns, he lost the 1992 presidential election to DemocratBill Clinton.

        Bush is the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, and Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida. He is the most recent president to have been a World War II veteran, and the most recent president to have fought in a war prior to being elected.

        Early Years

         

        George Herbert Walker Bush was born at 173 Adams Street in Milton, Massachusetts[2] on June 12, 1924. The Bush family moved from Milton toGreenwich, Connecticut shortly after his birth.

        Bush began his formal education at the Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich.[3] Beginning in 1936, he attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,[3] where he held a large number of leadership positions including being the president of the senior class and secretary of the student council, president of the community fund-raising group, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, and captain of both the varsity baseball and soccer teams.[4]

        World War II

        Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Bush decided to join theUS Navy,[1] so after graduating from Phillips Academy earlier in 1942,[4] he became a naval aviator at the age of 18.[3] After completing the 10-month course, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve at Corpus Christi, Texas on June 9, 1943, just three days before his 19th birthday, which made him the youngest naval aviator to that date.[1]

        He was assigned to Torpedo Squadron (VT-51) as the photographic officer in September 1943.[1] The following year, his squadron was based on the USS San Jacinto as a member of Air Group 51, where his lanky physique earned him the nickname 'Skin'.[5] During this time, the task force was victorious in one of the largest air battles of World War II: the Battle of the Philippine Sea.[1]

        After Bush's promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade on August 1, the San Jacinto commenced operations against the Japanese in the Bonin Islands. Bush piloted one of four Grumman TBM Avenger aircraft from VT-51 that attacked the Japanese installations on Chichijima.[6] His crew for the mission, which occurred on September 2, 1944, included Radioman Second Class John Delaney and Lieutenant Junior Grade William White.[1] During their attack, the Avengers encountered intense anti-aircraft fire; Bush's aircraft was hit by flak[7] and his engine caught on fire.[1] Despite his plane being on fire, Bush completed his attack and released bombs over his target, scoring several damaging hits.[1] With his engine afire, Bush flew several miles from the island, where he and one other crew member on the TBM Avenger bailed out of the aircraft;[7] the other man's parachute did not open.[1] It has not been determined which man bailed out with Bush[1] as both Delaney and White were killed as a result of the battle.[7] Bush waited for four hours in an inflated raft, while several fighters circled protectively overhead until he was rescued by the lifeguard submarine USS Finback.[1] For the next month he remained on the Finback, and participated in the rescue of other pilots.

         

        Bush subsequently returned to San Jacinto in November 1944 and participated in operations in the Philippines[1] until his squadron was replaced and sent home to the United States. Through 1944, he flew 58 combat missions[7] for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to San Jacinto.[1]

        Because of his valuable combat experience, Bush was reassigned to Norfolk Navy Base and put in a training wing for new torpedo pilots. He was later assigned as a naval aviator in a new torpedo squadron, VT-153. Upon the Japanese surrender in 1945, Bush was honorably discharged in September of that year.

        Marriage and college years

        George Bush married Barbara Pierce on January 6, 1945, only weeks after his return from the Pacific. Their marriage produced six children: George Walker Bush (born 1946), Pauline Robinson Bush ("Robin", 1949–1953, died of leukemia), John Ellis "Jeb" Bush(born 1953), Neil Mallon Bush (born 1955), Marvin Pierce Bush (born 1956), and Dorothy Bush Koch (born 1959).[8]

        Bush had been accepted to Yale University prior to his enlistment in the military,[9] and took up the offer after his discharge and marriage. While at Yale, he was enrolled in an accelerated program that allowed him to graduate in two and a half years, rather than four.[9] He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and was elected president. He also captained the Yale baseball team, and as a left-handed first baseman, played in the first two College World Series.[9] As the team captain, Bush met Babe Ruth before a game during his senior year. Late in his junior year he was, like his father Prescott Bush (1917), initiated into the Skull and Bones secret society. He graduated as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.[10]

        Oil ventures

        After graduating from Yale, Bush moved his family to West Texas. His father's business connections proved useful when he ventured into the oil business, starting as a sales clerk[11] with Dresser Industries,[12] a subsidiary of Brown Brothers Harriman. His father had served on the board of directors there for 22 years. Bush started the Bush-Overby Oil Development company in 1951[13] and co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation, an oil company which drilled in the Permian Basin in Texas, two years later. He was named president of the Zapata Offshore Company, a subsidiary which specialized in offshore drilling, in 1954.[11] The subsidiary became independent in 1958, so Bush moved the company from Midland, Texas to Houston.[12] He continued serving as president of the company until 1964, and later chairman until 1966, but his ambitions turned political.[12] By that time, Bush had become a millionaire.[11]

        Political career (1964–1980)

         

        Congressional years

        Bush served as Chairman of the Republican Party for Harris County, Texas in 1964, but wanted to be more involved in policy making, so he set his stakes high: he aimed for a US Senate seat from Texas.[12] After winning the Republican primary, Bush faced his opponent, incumbent Democrat Ralph W. Yarborough. Yarborough attacked Bush as a right-wing extremist, and Bush lost the general election.[14]

        Bush did not give up on elective politics and was elected in 1966 to a House of Representatives seat from the 7th District of Texas, defeating Democrat Frank Briscoe with 57% of the vote;[15] he became the first Republican to represent Houston.[12] His voting record in the House was generally conservative:[12] Bush opposed the public accommodations contention in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and supported open-housing legislation, something generally unpopular in his district.[12] He supported the Nixon administration's Vietnam policies, but broke with Republicans on the issue of birth control.[12] Despite being a first-term congressman, Bush was appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee,[11] where he voted to abolish the military draft.[11] He was elected to a second term in 1968.[16] In 1970, Nixon convinced Bush to relinquish his House seat to again run for the Senate against Ralph Yarborough, a fierce Nixon critic. In the Republican primary, Bush easily defeated conservative Robert J. Morris, by a margin of 87.6 percent to 12.4 percent.[17]However, former Congressman Lloyd Bentsen, a more moderate Democrat and native of Mission in south Texas, defeated Yarborough in the Democratic primary.[11] Yarborough then endorsed Bentsen, who defeated Bush, 53.4 to 46.6 percent.[18] Nixon came to Texas to campaign in Longview for Bush and his gubernatorial ticket-mate, Paul Eggers, a Dallas lawyer who was a close friend of U.S. Senator John G. Tower.[19]

        1970s

        Ambassador to the United Nations

        Following his 1970 loss, Bush was well known as a prominent Republican businessman from the "Sun Belt", a group of states in the Southern part of the country.[11]Nixon noticed and appreciated the sacrifice Bush had made of his Congressional position,[12] so he appointed him Ambassador to the United Nations.[10] He was confirmed unanimously by the Senate, and served for two years, beginning in 1971.[12]

        Chairman of the Republican National Committee

        Amidst the Watergate scandal, Nixon asked Bush to become chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973.[10] Bush accepted, and held this position when the popularity of both Nixon and the Republican Party plummeted.[20] He defended Nixon steadfastly, but later as Nixon's complicity became clear, Bush focused more on defending the Republican Party, while still maintaining loyalty to Nixon.[12] As chairman, Bush formally requested that Nixon eventually resign for the good of the Republican party.[12] Nixon did this on August 9, 1974; Bush noted in his diary that "There was an aura of sadness, like somebody died... The [resignation] speech was vintage Nixon — a kick or two at the press — enormous strains. One couldn't help but look at the family and the whole thing and think of his accomplishments and then think of the shame... [ Ford's swearing-in offered] indeed a new spirit, a new lift."[21]

        Envoy to China

        Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, appointed Bush to be Chief of the US Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador", though he unofficially acted as one. The time that he spent in China — 14 months — were seen as largely beneficial for US-Chinese relations.[12] After Ford's accession to the presidency, Bush was under serious consideration for being nominated as Vice President. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona declined to be considered and endorsed Bush, who, along with his supporters, reportedly mounted an internal campaign to get a nomination.[citation needed] Ford eventually narrowed his list to Nelson Rockefeller and Bush. However, White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld reportedly preferred Rockefeller over Bush.[22] Rockefeller was finally named and confirmed.

        Director of Central Intelligence

        In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. He served in this role for 357 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977.[23] The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including those based on investigations by Senator Frank Church's Committee regarding illegal and unauthorized activities by the CIA, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale.[24] In his capacity as DCI, Bush gave national security briefings to Jimmy Carter both as a Presidential candidate and as President-elect, and discussed the possibility of remaining in that position in a Carter administration[25] but it was not to be.

        Other positions

        After a Democratic administration took power in 1977, Bush became chairman on the Executive Committee of the First International Bank in Houston.[26] He later spent a year as a part-time professor of Administrative Science at Rice University[27] in the Jones School of Business beginning in 1978, the year it opened; Bush said of his time there, "I loved my brief time in the world of academia."[27] Between 1977 and 1979, he was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations foreign policy organization.[28]

        1980 presidential campaign

        Bush had decided in the late 1970s that he was going to run for president in 1980;[22] in 1979, he attended 850 political events and traveled more than 250,000 miles (400,000 km) to campaign for the nation's highest office.[22] In the contest for the Republican Partynomination, Bush stressed his wide range of government experience, while competing against rivals Howard BakerBob DoleJohn Anderson (who would later run as an independent), Phil CraneJohn Connally, and the front-runner Ronald Reagan, former actor andGovernor of California.[22] In the primary election, Bush focused almost entirely on the Iowa caucuses, while Reagan ran a more traditional campaign.[22] Bush represented the centrist wing in the GOP, whereas Reagan represented conservatives. Bush famously labeled Reagan's supply side-influenced plans for massive tax cuts "voodoo economics." His strategy proved useful, to some degree, as he won in Iowa with 31.5 percent to Reagan's 29.4 percent.[22] After the win, Bush stated that his campaign was full of momentum, or "Big Mo".[22] As a result of the loss, Reagan replaced his campaign manager, reorganized his staff, and concentrated on the New Hampshire primary. The two men agreed to a debate in the state, organized by the Nashua Telegraph, but paid for by the Reagan campaign. Reagan invited the other four candidates as well, but Bush refused to debate them, and eventually they left.[22] The debate proved to be a pivotal moment in the campaign; when the moderator, John Breene, ordered Reagan's microphone turned off, his angry response, "I am paying for this microphone Mr. Greene" [sic], struck a chord with the public.[22] Bush ended up losing New Hampshire's primary with 23 percent to Reagan's 50 percent.[22] Bush lost most of the remaining primaries as well, and formally dropped out of the race in May of that year.[22] With his political future seeming dismal, Bush sold his house in Houston and bought his grandfather's estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, known as "Walker's Point."[29]At the Republican Convention, however, Reagan selected Bush as his Vice Presidential nominee, placing him on the winning Republican presidential ticket of 1980.

        Vice Presidency (1981–1989)

        As Vice President, Bush generally took on a low-profile while recognizing the constitutional limits of the office; he avoided decision-making or criticizing Reagan in any way.[22] As had become customary, he and his wife moved into the Vice President's residence at Number One Observatory Circle, about two miles from the White House. The Bushes attended a large number of public and ceremonial events in their positions, including many state funerals, which became a common joke for comedians.[22] Mrs. Bush found the funerals largely beneficial, saying, "George met with many current or future heads of state at the funerals he attended, enabling him to forge personal relationships that were important to President Reagan."[22] As the President of the Senate, Bush stayed in contact with members of Congress, and kept the president informed on occurrences on Capitol Hill.[22] On March 30, 1981, early into the administration, Reagan was shot and seriously wounded in Washington, D.C. Bush, second in command by the presidential line of succession, was in Dallas, Texas and flew back to Washington immediately. Reagan's cabinet convened in the White House Situation Room, where they discussed various issues, including the availability of the Nuclear Football. When Bush's plane landed, his aides advised him to proceed directly to the White House by helicopter, as an image of the government still functioning despite the attack.[22] Bush rejected the idea, responding, "only the president lands on the South Lawn."[22] This made a positive impression on Reagan,[22] who recovered and returned to work within two weeks. From then on, the two men would have regular Thursday lunches in the Oval Office.[22] In his position, Bush chaired a special task force on deregulation, reviewing hundreds of rules and making specific recommendations on which ones to amend or revise, in order to curb the size of the federal government.[22] The Reagan administration introduced new policies in the War on Drugs, and Bush was part of this by heading another task force, this one on international drug smuggling and federal efforts to stop the spread of drugs from entering the US.[22] Both were popular issues with conservatives, and Bush, largely a moderate, began courting them through his work.[22] Reagan and Bush ran for reelection in 1984. The Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, made history by choosing a woman as his running mate, New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro. She and Bush squared off in a single televised Vice Presidential debate.[30] Serving as a contrast to the Ivy-League educated Bush, Ferraro represented a "blue-collar" district in Queens, New York; this, coupled with her popularity among female journalists, left Bush at a disadvantage.[22] However, the Reagan-Bush ticket won in a landslide against the Mondale-Ferraro ticket. Early into his second term as Vice President, Bush and his aides were planning a run for the presidency in 1988. By the end of 1985, a committee had been established and over two million dollars raised for Bush.[22] Bush became the first Vice President to become Acting President when, on July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon. Bush served as Acting President for approximately eight hours. The administration was shaken by a scandal in 1986, when it was revealed that administration officials had secretly arranged weapon sales to Iran, and had used the proceeds to fund the anticommunist Contras in Nicaragua, a direct violation of the law.[22] When the Iran-Contra Affair, as it became known, broke to the media, Bush, like Reagan, stated that he had been "out of the loop" and unaware of the diversion of funds,[31] although this was later questioned.[32] Public opinion polls taken at the time indicated that the public questioned Bush's explanation of being an "innocent bystander" while the trades were occurring; this led to the notion that he was a "wimp".[22] However, his fury during an interview with CBSDan Rather largely put the "wimp" issue to rest.[22]

        As Vice President, Bush officially opened the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis.

        1988 presidential campaign

        Bush had been planning a presidential run since as early as 1985,[22] and entered the Republican primary for President of the United States in October 1987. His challengers for the Republican presidential nomination included US Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, US Representative Jack Kemp of New York, former Governor Pete DuPont of Delaware, and conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson.

        Though considered the early frontrunner for the nomination, Bush came in third in the Iowa caucus, behind winner Dole and runner-up Robertson.[33] Much like Reagan did in 1980, Bush reorganized his staff and concentrated on the New Hampshire primary.[22] With Dole ahead in New Hampshire, Bush ran television commercials portraying the senator as a tax raiser;[34] he rebounded to win the state's primary. Bush continued seeing victory, winning many Southern primaries as well.[12] Once the multiple-state primaries such as Super Tuesday began, Bush's organizational strength and fundraising lead were impossible for the other candidates to match, and the nomination was his.[11] Leading up to the 1988 Republican National Convention, there was much speculation as to Bush's choice of running mate. Bush chose little-known US Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, favored by conservatives.[11] Despite Reagan's popularity, Bush trailed Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, then Governor of Massachusetts, in most polls.[35] Bush, occasionally criticized for his lack of eloquence when compared to Reagan,[22] delivered a well-received speech at the 1988 Republican National Convention.[35] Known as the "thousand points of light" speech, this described Bush's vision of America: he endorsed the Pledge of Allegianceprayer in schoolscapital punishment, gun rights, and his opposition to abortion.[35] The speech at the convention included Bush's famous pledge: "Read my lips: no new taxes".[36] The general election campaign between the two men has been described as one of the nastiest in modern times.[36] Bush blamed Dukakis for polluting the Boston Harbor as the Massachusetts governor.[12] Bush also pointed out that Dukakis was opposed to the law that would require all students to say the Pledge of Allegiance,[11] a topic well covered in Bush's nomination acceptance speech.[35] Dukakis's unconditional opposition to capital punishment led to a pointed question during the presidential debates. ModeratorBernard Shaw asked Dukakis hypothetically if Dukakis would support the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, were raped and murdered.[37] Dukakis's response of no, as well as the Willie Horton ad, contributed toward Bush's characterization of him as "soft on crime."[12] Bush defeated Dukakis and his running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, in the Electoral College, by 426 to 111 (Bentsen received one vote from a faithless elector).[36] In the nationwide popular vote, Bush took 53.4 percent of the ballots cast[12] while Dukakis received 45.6 percent. Bush became the first serving Vice President to be elected President since Martin Van Buren in 1836[22] as well as the first person to succeed someone from his own party to the Presidency via election to the office in his own right since Herbert Hoover in 1933.

        Presidency (1989–1993)

        Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 1989, succeeding Ronald Reagan. He entered office at a period of change in the world; the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Union came early in his presidency.[38] He ordered military operations in Panama and the Persian Gulf[38] and, at one point, was recorded as having a record-high approval rating of 89 percent.[39] However, economic recession and breaking his "no new taxes" pledge caused a sharp decline in his approval rating, and Bush was defeated in the 1992 election.[38] In his Inaugural Address, Bush said: I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree. A new breeze is blowing, and a nation refreshed by freedom stands ready to push on. There is new ground to be broken, and new action to be taken.[40]



        Presidency of George W. Bush

        43rd President of the United States
        In office: January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009:
        Vice President Dick Cheney
        Preceded by: Bill Clinton  Succeeded by: Barack Obama  Born: July 6, 1946 (age 63); New HavenConnecticutPolitical party: Republican  Spouse(s): Laura Bush
        Residence: Crawford, Texas; Occupation:well known publicly as a failed  Businessman (OilBaseball), and a drunk, womaniser and gambler: President of the United States
        Religion: United Methodist  Signature: undefined

        The Presidency of George W. Bush began on his inauguration on January 20, 2001 as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush was elected president in the2000 general election, thus becoming the second second-generation president (after John Quincy Adams), succeeding his father after just one other president, and with just two terms between them. The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Goreeffectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush by allowing the Florida Secretary of State's previous certification of Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes to stand. Florida's 25 electoral votes gave Bush, theRepublican candidate, 271 electoral votes, defeating Democratic candidate Al Gore in a close and controversial election. Bush was re-elected in 2004, and his term ended on January 20, 2009. As president, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, and also pushed forsocially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives. Nearly 8 millionimmigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005 – more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history.[1]Almost half entered illegally.[2] After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush declared a global War on Terrorism and, in October 2001, ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda, and to capture Osama bin Laden. In March 2003, Bush received a mandate from the U.S. Congress to lead an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441.[3] Bush also initiated an AIDS program that committed $15 billion to combat AIDS over five years and is credited for saving millions of lives.[4] His record as a humanitarian can also be tied to help enroll as many as 29 million of Africa's poorest children in schools.[5] Unfortunately, some of Bush's humanitarian efforts failed to address larger picture items, such as with his AIDS fight, stressed only abstinence.[6] On his second full day in office, Bush implemented the Mexico City Policy; this policy required any non-governmental organization receiving US Government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.[7] Also in 2002, President Bush withdrew funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a key player in promoting family planning in the developing world.[8] Running as a self-described "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War,[9] Bush won re-election in 2004,[10] as hiscampaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy.[11][12] His second term was highlighted by several free trade agreements, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 alongside a strong push for offshore and domestic drilling, the nominations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, a push forSocial Security and immigration reform, a surge of troops in Iraq, which was followed by a drop in violence, and several different economic initiatives aimed at preventing a banking system collapse, stopping foreclosures, and stimulating the economy during the recession.[13][14][15][16][17]

        After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism, even from former allies. His worldwide and domestic popularity decreased[18] due to the war and other issues such as the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, record budget deficits affecting the administration, and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. As president, Bush received some of the highest approval ratings in American history as well as some of the lowest, and he left office as one of the most unpopular Presidents in history.[19][20] Bush's Cabinet had included figures that were prominent in past administrations, notably former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had served as United States National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had served as White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford; Rumsfeld's successor, Robert Gates, served as Director of Central Intelligence under George H.W. Bush. Vice President Dick Cheney served as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush.Bush placed a high value on personal loyalty and, as a result, his administration had high message discipline. He maintained a "hands-off" style of management. "I'm confident in my management style. I'm a delegator because I trust the people I've asked to join the team. I'm willing to delegate. That makes it easier to be President," he said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC in December 2003. Critics allege, however, that Bush is willing to overlook mistakes[34] made by loyal subordinates.There was only one non-Republican in Bush's cabinet: Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, the first Asian American cabinet secretary, who had previously served as Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton, is a Democrat. Mineta resigned from Bush's cabinet on July 7, 2006 to pursue "other challenges".[35] Mary Peters, a Republican, was nominated and confirmed to succeed him as Transportation Secretary. At least one other non-Republican was apparently offered a position in the administration but declined. CNN reported that in the transition to his second term, Bush offered the positions of Ambassador to the United Nations and subsequently Secretary of Homeland Security to Senator Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat and currently an "Independent Democrat".[citation neededIn 2006, Bush replaced long-time chief of staff Andrew Card with Joshua Bolten and made major staff and cabinet changes with the intention of revitalizing his Administration.[36]On November 8, 2006 (the day after the Democrats took back Congress in the midterm elections), Bush announced plans to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA Director Robert Gates. Gates was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 6 and took office as the 22nd Secretary of Defense on December 18.[37] 

        undefined

        Cabinet meeting
        Attorney General: Bush's first Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft, was politically controversial, but widely viewed as competent. Ashcroft resigned days after Bush's 2004 re-election. Bush's second Attorney General was Alberto Gonzales. In addition to his work on providing guidelines for detainee interrogation methods prior to his appointment,[38][39] he claimed there was no right to Habeas Corpus.[40] Michael Mukaseysucceeded Gonzales and was the country's 81st Attorney General.
        Labor: Bush's first nomination for Secretary of Labor was Linda Chavez. This nomination came under attack when evidence came to light that she had given money to an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who lived in her home. Chavez claimed that the woman was not an employee and she had merely provided her with emergency assistance due to the domestic abuse the woman had been facing at the time.[41] Chavez's nomination was withdrawn. 

        Energy: ush's first Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, was controversial at the time of his 2001 appointment because as a senator he co-sponsored S.896, a bill to abolish the United States Department of Energy, in 1999.[42] Samuel Wright Bodman IIISc.D. is the United States Secretary of Energy and was previously Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department.

        Homeland Security:When Tom Ridge announced his decision to resign as Secretary of Homeland Security, Bush's first choice to replace him was Bernard Kerik, who served as Police Commissioner of the City of New York during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Kerik's nomination raised controversy when it was discovered that he had previously hired an undocumented worker as a nanny and housekeeper. After a week, Kerik pulled his nomination and Bush went on to nominate Michael Chertoff.[43]

        Advisors and other officials: 

        [edit]Defence force nominations and appointments

        [edit]Supreme Court nominations and appointments

        Bush nominated the following people to the Supreme Court of the United States:

        Environmental record

        George W. Bush’s environmental record began with promises as a presidential candidate to clean up power plants and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a speech on September 29, 2000 in Saginaw, Michigan, Bush pledged to commit two billion dollars to the funding of clean coal technology research. In the same speech, he also promised to work with Congress, environmental groups and the energy industry to require a reduction of the emissions of sulfur dioxidenitrogen oxidemercuryand carbon dioxide into the environment within a “reasonable period of time.”[45] He would later reverse his position on that specific campaign pledge in March 2001 in a letter to Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, stating that carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and that restricting carbon dioxide emissions would lead to higher energy prices.[46]

        In 2001, Bush appointed Philip A. Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, to the White House Council on Environmental Equality. Cooney is known to have edited government climate reports in order to minimize the findings of scientific sources tying greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.[47]

        In March 2001, the Bush administration announced that it would not implement the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the U.S. and does not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations.[48] In February 2002, Bush announced his alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, by bringing forth a plan to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gasses by 18 percent over 10 years. The intensity of greenhouse gasses specifically is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions and economic output, meaning that under this plan, emissions would still continue to grow, but at a slower pace. Bush stated that this plan would prevent the release of 500 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, which is about the equivalent of 70 million cars from the road. This target would achieve this goal by providing tax credits to businesses that use renewable energy sources.[49] In late November 2002, the Bush Administration released proposed rule changes that would lead to increased logging of federal forests for commercial or recreational activities by giving local forest managers the ability to open up the forests to development without requiring environmental impact assessments and without specific standards to maintain local fish and wildlife populations. The proposed changes would affect roughly 192,000,000 acres (780,000 km2) of US forests and grasslands. Administration officials claimed the changes were appropriate because existing rules, which were approved by the Clinton administration two months before Bush took office, were unclear.[50]

        In November 2004, Bush administration officials asked the United Nations to allow US industries to use an additional 458 tons of methyl bromide, an ozone-destroying pesticide that was slated for elimination by the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The additional increase request brings the US’s total exemption for the year 2005 to 9,400 metric tons of methyl bromide, more than all other nations’ requests combined, and well over the 7,674 metric tons used by US agribusiness in 2002.[51]

        In January 2004, Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a move to open nearly 9,000,000 acres (36,000 km2) of Alaska's North Slope to oil and gas development, citing claims from the energy industry that nearly 13 billion barrels (2.1×109 m3) of oil could be extracted from the region. The North Slope neighbor's the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a sanctuary and habitat for migratory birds, whales, seals and other wildlife. Reports from the U.S. Geological Survey, however, estimate that less than one-third of the reported 13 billion barrels (2.1×109 m3) is economically recoverable in the entire 23,500,000-acre (95,000 km2National Petroleum Reserve.[52]

        In July 2005 the Environmental Protection Agency decided to delay the release of an annual report on fuel economy. The report shows that automakers have taken advantage of loopholes in US fuel economy regulations to manufacture vehicles that are less fuel-efficient than they were in the late 1980s. Fuel-efficiency had on average dropped six percent during that period, from 22.1 miles per gallonto 20.8 mpg. Evidence suggests that the administration’s decision to delay the report’s release was because of its potential to affect Congress’s upcoming final vote on an energy bill six years in the making, which turned a blind eye to fuel economy regulations.[53]

        In May 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) allegedly blocked release of a report that suggested global warming had been a contributor to the frequency and strength of hurricanes in recent years. In February, NOAA (part of the Department of Commerce) set up a seven-member panel of climate scientists to compile the report. The panel’s chair, Ants Leema, received an e-mail from a Commerce Department official asking for the report to not be released as it needed to be made “less technical.”[54] NOAA would later go on to say that the report was not released because it “was not complete” and was in reality not a report, but a “two-page fact sheet about the issue.”[55] 

        Legacy

        In 2006, 744 professional historians surveyed by New York-based Siena College regarded Bush's presidency as follows: Great: 2%; Near Great: 5%; Average: 11%; Below Average: 24%; Failure: 58%. Thomas Kelly, professor emeritus of American studies at Siena College, said that "In this case, current public opinion polls actually seem to cut the President more slack than the experts do." Similar outcomes were retrieved by two informal surveys done by the History News Network in 2004 and 2008.

        Proponents may argue that accomplishments such as the President's AIDS program, reform of education by the federal government with the No Child Left Behind Act, no more foreign terrorist attacks on American soil after the September 11th attacks, the creation of Medicare Part D, and sending 29 million African children to school will allow Bush to have a positive legacy. Critics may argue that theeconomic crisis of 2008, the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, his response to Hurricane Katrina, the ballooning deficit, the planning of the Iraq War, handling of the Guantanamo Bay detaineesand other terror suspects, and calls by Democrats for possible investigation and prosecution for war crimes committed under his name will leave him as one of the worst Presidents ever.[56] In response to a question on his popularity, Bush remarked "I know I gave it my all for eight years, and I did not sell my soul for the sake of popularity. And so when I get back home and look in the mirror, I will be proud of what I see."[57]

        On January 15, 2009, Bush gave a nationally televised farewell address in the East Room of the White House. He defended many of his decisions and cited the fact that he had kept the country safe since September 11, 2001 as a major accomplishment. Bush stated that "I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right." He also said that the United States must continue promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity around the world. One of his final lines was "We have faced danger and trial, and there's more ahead. But with the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great nation will never tire, never falter and never fail."


        Major Legislation signed under President George W Bush

        2001: May 26: The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836] (through reconciliation procedure); June 7: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001; September 18: Authorization for Use of Military Force; September 28: United States-Jordan Free Trade Area Implementation Act; October 26: USA PATRIOT Act; November 28: Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act2002: January 8: No Child Left Behind Act; March 9: Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002; March 27: Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002; May 13: Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002[21]July 30: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002; October 16: Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq; November 25: Homeland Security Act of 20022003: March 11: Do-Not-Call Implementation Act; April 30: PROTECT Act of 2003 (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act) (see also Age of consent); May 23 : The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2] (through reconciliation procedure); May 27: United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003; May 28: Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003; September 3: United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act; September 3: United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act; November 5: Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003; December 3: Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003; December 8: Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003; December 16: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM); 2004: April 1: Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Laci and Conner’s Law);  July 17: United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act: August 3: United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act2005: February 18: Class Action Fairness Act of 2005; April 20: Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005; May 11: Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297] (through reconciliation procedure); August 2: Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade AgreementImplementation Act; August 8: Energy Policy Act of 2005; August 10: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005(SAFETEA); October 26: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act; December 21 : The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95] (through reconciliation procedure); 2006: January 11: United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act March 9: USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act; July 27: Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act; August 17: The Pension Protection Act of 2006[22]September 30: Iran Freedom and Support Act; October 4: Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007[23]October 17: Military Commissions Act of 2006; October 26: Secure Fence Act of 2006

        Legislation vetoed

        President Bush vetoed 12 pieces of legislation, four of which were overturned by congress:

        The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of great influence in the fields of politics, business, banking, and media. Each conference is under intense secrecy and security, with the last meeting guarded by police, security services, military helicopters and even fighter jets.[1][2]

        The group meets annually at hotels or resorts throughout the world—for two consecutive years in Europe followed by a year in theUnited States or Canada. This tradition appeared to be broken in 2008 when the meeting was held in Chantilly, Virginia, so as to give easier access to those associated with the US elections. The 2009 Bilderberg meeting took place from 14-16 May in Athens, Greece.[3]

          Participants

        The steering committee does not publish a list of attendees, though some participants have publicly discussed their attendance. Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards politicians, bankers, and directors of large businesses.[16]

        Heads of state, including Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings.[8][17] Prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In past years, board members from many large publicly-traded corporations have attended, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.[8]

        The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis; Finnish prime minister, Matti Vanhanen[18]; Sweden foreign minister, Carl Bildt; U.S. State Department number two, James Steinberg; U.S. Treasury Secretary,Timothy Geithner; World Bank president, Robert Zoellick; European Commission head, José Manuel Barroso; Queen Sofia of Spain; and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.[19]

        European Union

        In a European Parliament session in Brussels, Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of European Parliament, questioned the nominations of Bilderberg and Trilateralattendees for the posts of EU President and EU foreign minister.[20][21]

        In 2009 the group had a dinner meeting at Castle of the Valley of the Duchess in Brussels, in the 12th of November, with the participation of Herman Van Rompuy, who later became the President of the European Council. The newspaper De Tijd (and several others afterwards) reported that, at this meeting, Van Rompuy showed support for a European green tax: "Van Rompuy told the elite club that the European government leaders are increasingly becoming proponents of Europe tapping off green income, so that the contributions of member states to the EU can be decreased." [22] [23] [24]

        Conspiracy theories

        Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots.[25] Critics include the John Birch Society,[26] the Canadian writer Daniel Estulin, British writer David Icke, American writer Jim Tucker and radio host Alex Jones.

        Bilderberg founding member and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, Denis Healey has said:[27]

         

        To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.

         

        According to the American Friends of Bilderberg, the 2008 agenda dealt "mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran".[12]

        Origins of conspiracy theories

        Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states:

         

        No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted... In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg.[28]

         

        According to the investigative journalist Chip Berlet, the origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly. In Berlet's 1994 reportRight Woos Left, published by Political Research Associates, he writes:

         

        The views on intractable godless communism expressed by Schwarz were central themes in three other bestselling books which were used to mobilize support for the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign. The best known was Phyllis Schlafly's A Choice, Not an Echo, which suggested a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose policies would pave the way for global communist conquest.[29]

         

        Before the 2001 meeting, a report in the Guardian stated:

         

        ...the press have never been allowed access and all discussions are under Chatham House rules (no quoting). Not surprisingly, such ground rules, while attracting publicity-shy financiers, have also fuelled the fantasies of conspiracy theorists. The truth is probably more mundane: powerful people like meeting each other, but they argue that they need privacy if there is to be serious, honest discussions: the G8 summits are a graphic example of how all the meaningful exchanges are kept well away from the pre-prepared final communiques drawn up by civil servants.[30]
         

         

          

        Recent meetings

        Recent meetings:

         

         

         

        Further reading

        See also

        Trilateral Commission, established by David Rockefeller in 1972 after the Bilderberg Group refused to incorporate Japan.[35]

        References

        1. ^ a b "Guardian.co.uk Charlie Skelton's Bilderberg files". Retrieved 15 May 2009.
        2. ^ "Guardian.co.uk Charlie Skelton's Bilderberg files". Retrieved 17 December 2009.
        3. ^ a b "The most powerful elite will meet in Athens". GRReporter. 23 March 2009. "the club will organize its meeting in Athens between 14 and 16 May"
        4. ^ a b Hatch, Alden (1962). "The Hôtel de Bilderberg". H.R.H.Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands: An authorized biography. London: Harrap. ISBN B0000CLLN4. "The idea was to get two people from each country who would give the conservative and liberal slant"
        5. ^ a b Valerie Aubourg (June 2003). Organizing Atlanticism: the Bilderberg Group and the Atlantic Institute 1952-63.
        6. ^ a b c Rockefeller, David (2002). Memoirs. Random House. pp. 412. ISBN 0-679-40588-7.
        7. ^ a b "Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group". BBC News. 29 September 2005. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
        8. ^ a b c "Bilderberg Meeting of 1997 Assembles". PR Newswire. 13 June 1997.
        9. ^ "Parliamentary questions: Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission". European Parliament. 15 May 2003.
        10. ^ Entry for Conrad Black, The International Who's Who. Europa Publications. 2000.
        11. ^ "Bilderberg: List of Invitees". United States Department of Defense. 31 January 1996. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
        12. ^ a b c "Bilderberg Announces 2008 Conference". BusinessWire. 2008. Retrieved 7 June 2008.
        13. ^ Marcus Klöckner (17 May 2009). "Bilderberg meetings remain a mystery". Stars and Stripes.
        14. ^ a b "Twenty-fifth Bilderberg meeting held". Facts on File World News Digest. May 14, 1977. "Alec Douglas-Home, the former prime minister of Great Britain, chaired the conference, replacing Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who had previously headed the Bilderberg invitation committee. (Prince Bernhard had resigned all public positions after the 1976 Lockheed scandal.)"
        15. ^ Who's Who. 1999.
        16. ^ Caroline Moorehead (18 April 1977). "An exclusive club, perhaps without power, but certainly with influence: The Bilderberg group". The Times.
        17. ^ Mark Oliver (4 June 2004). "The Bilderberg group". The Guardian.
        18. ^ "Prime Minister Vanhanen and Minister of Finance Katainen to attend Bilderberg Conference". Finnish Government. 13 May 2009.
        19. ^ "Bilderberg Group Meets In Athens Amid Tight Security". NASDAQ.
        20. ^ http://www.ilvelino.it/articolo.php?Id=997488
        21. ^ "Premier steekt nek uit op Bilderberg-diner". HP/De Tijd. 21 November 2009. Retrieved 22 November 2009.
        22. ^ "Premier steekt nek uit op Bilderberg-diner". DE TIJD. 14 November 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2009.
        23. ^ "Herman Van Rompuy, front-runner for presidency, wants EU-wide tax". TIMES ONLINE. 17 November 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2009.
        24. ^ "Van Rompuy shows his hand at Bilderberg Group dinner". Flanders Today. 14 November 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2009.
        25. ^ "Right Woos Left"
        26. ^ Chip Berlet (1994). "Right Woos Left: John Birch Society". PublicEye.org.
        27. ^ Ronson, Jon (10 March 2001). "Who pulls the strings? (part 3)". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
        28. ^ Jonathan Duffy (3 June 2004). "Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory". BBC News.
        29. ^ Chip Berlet (1994). "The New Right & The Secular Humanism Conspiracy Theory".
        30. ^ Bunting, Madeleine Weekend break for the global elite guardian.co.uk Friday 25 May 2001 [1]
        31. ^ "Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy.". Retrieved 22 August 2007.
        32. ^ Panetta, Alexander (2006). "Secretive Bilderbergers meet". www.thestar.com. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. Retrieved 12 June 2006.
        33. ^ What was discussed at Bilderberg?, Turkish Daily News, 5 June 2007, accessed on 18 August 2007
        34. ^ "Balkenende to Meet Bush in Washington". NIS News Bulletin. 2008. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
        35. ^ "Japan–U.S. Relations—Past, Present and Future". The Daily Yomiuri. December 8, 1991. "Rockefeller: The idea (of creating the Trilateral Commission) was incorporated in a speech that I made in the spring of 1972 for the benefit of some industrial forums that the Chase held in different cities around Europe,... Then Zbig (Zbig Brzezinski) and I both attended a meeting of the Bilderberg Group ... and was shot down in flames. There was very little enthusiasm for the idea. I think they felt that they had a very congenial group, and they didn't want to have it interfered with by another element that would--I don't know what they thought, but in any case, they were not in favor."

         

        External links

        Categories: Bilderberg Group | Bilderberg Meetings | Globalization | International business | International nongovernmental organizations | Secret societies

        Bilderberg Group The group meets annually at hotels or resorts throughout the world—for two consecutive years in Europe followed by a year in the United States or Canada. This tradition appeared to be broken in 2008 when the meeting was held in Chantilly, Virginia, so as to give easier access to those associated with the US elections. The 2009 Bilderberg meeting took place from 14-16 May in Athens, Greece. Origin: The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, nearArnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Denis Healey and Józef Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe. Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together withBelgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, the Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view. Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference along with 11 Americans.
        The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity. Conferences were held in 
        FranceGermany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first US conference was held in St. Simons, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied further funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences. 

        ORGANIZATIONAL STUCTURE:
        Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of around eighteen nations. Official posts, in addition to a chairman, include an Honorary Secretary General. There is no such category in the group's rules as a "member of the group". The only category that exists is "member of the Steering Committee". In addition to the committee, there also exists a separate advisory group, though membership overlaps.Entry forConrad Black,  Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel took over as permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by Joseph E. Johnson of the Carnegie EndowmentWilliam Bundy of PrincetonTheodore L. Eliot, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, and Casimir A. Yost of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. A 2008 press release from the American Friends of Bilderberg stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued" and noted that the names of attendees were available to the press. The Bilderberg group unofficial headquarters is the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

        Chairmen: Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1954–1975); Alec Douglas-Home (1977–1980), Walter ScheelEric Roll (1986–1989), Lord Carrington (1990–1998), Étienne Davignon

        Participants:The steering committee doesn't publish a list of attendees, though some participants have publicly discussed their attendance. Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards politicians, bankers, and directors of large businesses.
        Heads of state, including Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings. Prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In past years, board members from many large publicly-traded corporations have attended, including IBMXeroxRoyal Dutch ShellNokia and Daimler.
        The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime ministerKostas KaramanlisFinnish prime ministerMatti Vanhanen; Sweden foreign minister, Carl BildtU.S. State Department number two, James Steinberg; U.S. Treasury SecretaryTimothy GeithnerWorld Bank president, Robert ZoellickEuropean Commission head, José Manuel BarrosoQueen Sofia of Spain; and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
        European Union: In a European Parliament session in Brussels, Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of European Parliament, questioned the nominations of Bilderberg and Trilateral attendees for the posts of EU President and EU foreign minister.
        In 2009 the group had a dinner meeting at 
        Castle of the Valley of the Duchess in Brussels, in the 12th of November, with the participation of Herman Van Rompuy, who later became the President of the European Council. The newspaper De Tijd (and several others afterwards) reported that, at this meeting, Van Rompuy showed support for a European green tax: "Van Rompuy told the elite club that the European government leaders are increasingly becoming proponents of Europe tapping off green income, so that the contributions of member states to the EU can be decreased."
        Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots. Critics include the John Birch Society, the Canadian writer Daniel EstulinBritish writer David Icke, American writer Jim Tucker and radio host Alex Jones.
        Bilderberg founding member and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, Denis Healey has said:
        According to the American Friends of Bilderberg, the 2008 agenda dealt "mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorismAfricaRussia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran".
        Origins of conspiracy theories: Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states: This secrecy, and lack of reporters in attendance was also noted by Guardian writer Charlie Skelton in his reports on the 2009 conference held in Athens, Greece. Skelton himself was detained by police on three occasions for taking photographs in the vicinity of the conference resort.
        According to the investigative journalist 
        Chip Berlet, the origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly. In Berlet's 1994 report Right Woos Left, published by Political Research Associates, he writes
        Recent meetings: 2005 (5–8 May) at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern, Germany

        Ford Foundation

        The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford.
        The foundation makes grants through its New York headquarters and through twelve international field offices. In fiscal year 2007, it reported assets of $13.7 billion and approved $530 million in grants for projects that focused on strengthening democratic values, community and economic development, education, media, arts and culture, and human rights.

        History The Ford Foundation was chartered on January 15, 1936 in Michigan byEdsel Ford and two Ford Motor Company executives "to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare". During its early years, the foundation operated in Michigan under the leadership of Ford family members and their associates, and supported such organizations as the Henry Ford HospitalGreenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, among others.

           After the deaths of Edsel Ford in 1943 and Henry Ford in 1947, the presidency of the Ford Foundation fell to Edsel's eldest son, Henry Ford II. Under Henry Ford II's leadership, the Ford Foundation board of trustees commissioned a report to determine how the foundation should continue. The committee, headed by California attorney H. Rowan Gaither, recommended that the foundation should commit to promoting peace, freedom, and education throughout the world. It provided funding for various projects, including the pre-existing network,National Educational Television, which went on the air in 1952. However, the Ford Foundation, with the help of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shut it down and replaced it with the Public Broadcasting Service in October 1970. The board of directors decided to diversify the foundation's portfolio and gradually divested itself of its substantial Ford Motor Company stock between 1956 and 1974. Through this divestiture, the Ford Motor Company became a public company in 1956.





        And yet more signs pointing to CIA connections ot Assange:

        Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group

        December 5, 2010 
        by legitgov

        Ah, then came the dawn. Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group By Kirk James Murphy, M.D. 04 Dec 2010 [As reported by Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett in Counterpunch in September]

        Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he [Luis Posada Carilles] was involved in blowing up... Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden? She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University -- who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.  She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana -- whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras.

        http://www.legitgov.org/Assange-Accuser-Worked-US-Funded-CIA-Tied-Anti-Castro-Group


        Julian Assange is Controlled Opposition Under Mind Control
        http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194294.0

        NSA nexus: former Google security boss Ben Laurie on Wikileaks' advisory board!!
        http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194274.0

        Assange literally in bed with CIA asset/operative: his Swedish accuser is CIA op
        http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=194293.0


        « on: August 21, 2010, 09:04:27 am »

        Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape

        Swedish authorities issue an arrest warrant for the founder of whistleblowers' website on suspicion of rape and molestation

            * David Batty and agencies
            * guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 August 2010 13.20 BST 


        Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

        Swedish authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on suspicion of molestation and rape.

        The warrant was issued late yesterday, said a spokeswoman at Sweden's prosecutors' office in Stockholm.

        She said Assange should contact the Swedish police for questioning about the accusations of molestation and rape in two separate cases "so that he can be confronted with the suspicions".

        Assange has denied the charges, which were first reported by the Swedish tabloid Expressen, on Wikileaks' Twitter account.

        He implied that they were linked to the release by the whistleblowers' website of a huge cache of US military records on the Afghan war, which were published in collaboration with the Guardian and two other newspapers.

        Assange wrote: "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

        Earlier postings on the Twitter account implied the accusations were part of a dirty tricks campaign against the Wikileaks founder, who has been strongly criticised by the Pentagon.

        "Expressen is a tabloid; No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say, this will prove hugely distracting.

        "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one."

        Last month Wikileaks released around 77,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

        US authorities criticised the leak, saying it could put the lives of Nato troops and Afghan informants at risk.

        Assange has said that Wikileaks intends to release a further 15,000 documents in the coming weeks - a pledge condemned by the Pentagon, which has demanded the deletion of the files from the website.

        Assange, an Australian citizen, was in Sweden last week to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistleblowers.

        He also gave a talk about his work and defended the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.
        « Last Edit: December 06, 2010, 09:36:30 am by Route

        sex crimes charges against him in Sweden are a smear campaign

        Swedish prosecutor resurrects Wikileaks sex case

        A Swedish prosecutor says she has enough evidence to continue investigating a molestation allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, days after deciding not to open a rape probe against him.

        "The suspicion against him remains," chief prosecutor Eva Finne said following days of deliberation.

        Swedish prosecutors on Friday night issued an arrest warrant for Assange over an allegation of rape, but Ms Finne abruptly withdrew it on Saturday, saying new information had come to light.

        "Assange is no longer suspected of rape but the charges against him concerning the crime of molesting (sic) is still a fact," she said.

        Ms Finne said she had looked into whether the discarded rape charges should be reduced to suspicion of a lesser crime, but had decided that in that particular case "there are no grounds to suspect a crime".

        Mr Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has said the claims are part of a "smear campaign" aimed at discrediting his whistleblowing website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of secret US documents about the war in Afghanistan.

        WikiLeaks published nearly 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on July 23 and has said it will publish another 15,000 within the next couple of weeks.

        The site, which has also previously leaked information leading to shocking revelations in places ranging from Iraq to Iceland, has also said it will release a leaked CIA paper, without providing further details.

        Mr Assange has hired one of Sweden's top defence attorneys, Leif Silbersky, who has described the whole case as "scandalous".

        "He has been stigmatised around the whole world as a rapist and then, when a competent prosecutor looks into the case, it is boiled down to the lowest level of criminality," he told the TT news agency.

        - AFP

        Assange says 'enemies' to blame for rape claim

        Wikileaks founder Julian Assange resurfaced yesterday to dismiss as a smear a false rape claim that led to a warrant for his arrest being issued over the weekend then dropped just hours later. But as he remained under investigation in Sweden over a separate allegation of sexual molestation, one of his accusers gave her side of the story to a Swedish newspaper.

        The man behind the controversial website that last month released more than 76,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan – and plans to release a further 15,000 in the coming weeks – had been visiting Sweden in an effort to secure legal protection for WikiLeaks.

        The alleged sexual assault is claimed to have been committed in a Stockholm apartment on the night of 13 August; the discredited rape accusation centred around the nearby city of Enköping. A warrant for Mr Assange's arrest was issued on Friday, and Swedish police are understood to have been searching for him for some 18 hours before the charge was dropped on Saturday afternoon.

        After becoming the public face of WikiLeaks in recent months, Mr Assange had admitted he was expecting personal attacks as part of an effort by the political establishment to discredit him. He said he had been warned about "sex traps" and believed the allegations would do "great harm".

        He told the Aftonbladet newspaper: "There have been headlines all over the world about my being accused of rape. They won't just disappear. And I know by experience that WikiLeaks' enemies will continue to bandy around things even after they have been renounced. I don't know who's behind this but we have been warned that, for example, the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for us."

        Mr Assange refused to clarify whether he had in fact had sex during his stay in Sweden, saying he did not want to "drag people's private lives through the dirt". But he said he had "never, whether in Sweden or in any other country, had sex with anyone in a way that is not founded on mutual consent."

        The anonymous woman accusing Mr Assange of molestation – a term that covers a broad range of offences involving inappropriate physical contact under Swedish law, and can result in fines or up to one year in prison – denied that she was part of a conspiracy. "The charges against Assange are of course neither staged by the Pentagon nor someone else," she said. "The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a skewed perception of women and who has problems taking no for an answer."

        Yet she seemed to contradict this by adding: "It is completely wrong to say that we would be afraid of Assange and therefore did not want to report him. He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him."

        The woman told Aftonbladet that both cases had involved mutually consensual sex which had escalated into assaults. "The other woman wanted to report rape," she said. "I gave my story as testimony to her story and to support her. I immediately believed her story, since it was very similar to the experiences I had myself."

        A spokesperson for the Swedish prosecuter, Karin Rosander, told The Independent: "I'm not surprised that these rumours come up regarding this very well-known person." But she defended the move to place Mr Assange under arrest, saying the warrant was issued late on Friday by an on-call prosecutor. "The prosecutor who took over the case had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor."

        http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/assange-says-enemies-to-blame-for-rape-claim-2059354.html

        Wikileaks man says Pentagon may be behind rape claims



        STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview published on Sunday that he believes the Pentagon could be behind a rape accusation against him that was later dropped by Swedish prosecutors.

        The country's prosecution service meanwhile justified the chaotic situation when authorities first issued an arrest warrant for the Australian whistleblower late on Friday night but then withdrew it the following day.

        The Aftonbladet newspaper quoted Assange, 39, as saying he did not know who was "hiding behind" the claims, which came amid a stand-off with Washington over the website's publication of secret Afghan war documents.

        Assange said he was shocked by the allegations against him and that he had never had sexual relations with anybody in a way that was not consensual, the tabloid said.

        But he said that he had been warned previously that groups such as the Pentagon "could use dirty tricks" to destroy Wikileaks -- adding that he had been particularly warned against being entrapped by sexual scandals.

        Assange told Aftonbladet that despite the lifting of the warrant, his enemies would still use the claims to damage Wikileaks, which is set to publish thousands more secret papers about the war in Afghanistan in coming weeks.

        He refused to give more details about the two women whose claims sparked the furore, saying that it would impinge on their privacy.

        Prosecutors said Saturday that Assange was now "not suspected of rape" and was no longer wanted for questioning on the charge, but added that an investigation into a separate molestation charge remained open.

        Assange, Wikileaks website and his aides have strongly denied all the claims.

        He had been in Sweden earlier this month giving a press conference on the upcoming release of the last batch of Afghanistan documents, but he generally remains on the move around the world staying with supporters.

        The Swedish prosecutor's office issued a statement on Sunday defending its actions.

        It said that chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who was responsible for withdrawing the arrest warrant, had "more information available to decide on Saturday than the duty prosecutor on Friday evening."

        "A decision regarding restrictive measures, such as this, must always be reevaluated in a preliminary inquiry," the statement added.

        The spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Karin Rosander, told AFP late Saturday that the procedure followed was normal and would have been launched automatically by the duty prosecutor in serious cases such as rape.

        In an interview in the Expressen newspaper, which broke the story, duty prosecutor Maria Haljebo Kjellstrand said that she "did not regret her decision".

        The two women who originally made the claims did not make an official complaint and it was the police who took the decision to inform the prosecutors office, she said.

        "I received a report from the police which seemed to me to be sufficient to arrest him. On Friday evening I got a call from the police describing what the women said. The information I received was convincing enough for me to take my decision," Hljebo Kjellstrand was quoted as saying.

        WikiLeaks has already released nearly 77,000 secret papers about the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, sparking charges that it had endangered the lives of informants and others named therein.

        The website says it had repeatedly asked the Pentagon for help analysing the remaining documents, and Assange has said he wants to avoid publishing the "names of innocent parties that are under reasonable threat".

        http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100822/en_afp/swedencrimeintelligenceinternetwikileaks_11


        in related news:

        Prosecutors Eye WikiLeaks Charges 

        WASHINGTON—Pentagon lawyers believe that online whistleblower group WikiLeaks acted illegally in disclosing thousands of classified Afghanistan war reports and other material, and federal prosecutors are exploring possible criminal charges, officials familiar with the matter said.

        A joint investigation by the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still in its early stages and it is unclear what course the Department of Justice will decide to take, according to a U.S. law-enforcement official. 

        He said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had not been identified by the FBI as a target of the probe.

        WikiLeaks in late July posted on its website some 76,000 classified military documents, the largest such disclosure since the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. It has promised to publish another 15,000 documents from the cache it obtained. The disclosure infuriated the Pentagon, which warned that the release could endanger allies in Afghanistan and undercut the war effort.

        Several officials said the Defense and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property.

        Bringing a case against WikiLeaks would be controversial and complicated, and would expose the Obama administration to criticism for pursuing not just government leakers, but organizations that disseminate their information.

        The increasingly confrontational tone could be part of Pentagon efforts to dissuade WikiLeaks from posting online the yet-to-be-published documents in its possession.

        "It is the view of the Department of Defense that WikiLeaks obtained this material in circumstances that constitute a violation of United States law, and that as long as WikiLeaks holds this material, the violation of the law is ongoing," Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson wrote in a letter this week to a WikiLeaks lawyer.

        The letter did not spell out what those circumstances were.

        People familiar with the matter said investigators and government lawyers were looking at whether WikiLeaks pressed or encouraged army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning to leak the Afghan war logs after the army private provided the group with a classified Iraq video.

        Such a finding could increase the chances that prosecutors will pursue charges against WikiLeaks, legal experts said.

        Steven Aftergood, head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said U.S. law gives prosecutors a number of tools they could use to prosecute WikiLeaks, such as alleging the group was an accessory to a crime or had unlawfully taken possession of stolen property. If WikiLeaks actively encouraged the transfer of classified documents, the government could allege the group was part of a conspiracy, he said.

        At issue is whether WikiLeaks should be afforded the same legal protections as a traditional media outlet.

        Legal experts said the government may view WikiLeaks differently because of the way it gathers and publishes information. Its website actively solicits classified material and promises leaking is "safe, easy and protected by law."

        When established news organizations obtain classified information, they rarely publish it wholesale or without first consulting the government to authenticate the information and to ensure it doesn't compromise national security. WikiLeaks' model eschews that step.

        "If WikiLeaks thought it would make the last move and the government would not respond, they may be mistaken," said Mr. Aftergood. "But it would be a terrible new precedent if these legal options were actually employed against a publisher, even a disreputable one. Once such measures were used against WikiLeaks, it would only be a matter of time until they are used against other media outlets and individuals."

        Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell declined to comment on the investigation but said, "We believe at a minimum that WikiLeaks has behaved in a reckless and irresponsible manner."

        The Army unit conducting the investigation and the FBI declined to comment.

        The lawyer working with WikiLeaks, Timothy Matusheski, said he had been told by a member of the Army Criminal Investigative Division unit investigating the case that Mr. Assange—an Australian national —"was not a subject or target of any investigation."

        The U.S. law-enforcement official said that Mr. Assange was not a target, but Mr. Johnson's letter may signal a shift, at least in terms of the Pentagon's thinking, Mr. Matusheski said. "They accuse him of breaking the law," he said of Mr. Assange. "But they haven't said what law."

        Pfc. Manning, a 22-year-old private, worked in intelligence operations in Baghdad. He was supposed to be examining intelligence relevant to Iraq, but defense officials said Pfc. Manning used his "Top Secret/SCI" clearance to tap into documents around the world.

        Pfc. Manning was charged by the military in July with illegally taking secret State Department files and disseminating the classified video, later released by WikiLeaks, showing a U.S. military helicopter firing on a group of people in Baghdad. Two Reuters journalists and seven other people were killed in the 2007 incident.

        Going after WikiLeaks or Mr. Assange personally would be complicated. Not only is Mr. Assange not an American, but "I don't know WikiLeaks has a presence in the United States except for a website," Mr. Matusheski said.

        The classified documents cover the Afghan war from 2004 through 2009. The Pentagon this week rebuffed a WikiLeaks request for help reviewing the remaining documents, demanding that the group instead return all of the logs to the U.S. government.

        The Pentagon said the 15,000 additional documents, like the initial batch, contained the names of Afghans who have helped the U.S. war effort and who could be targeted by the Taliban if their identities were made public. But officials have played down the impact of the leak on military strategy, saying they revealed little new.

        http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704488404575441673460880204.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news


        i think we all know who is behind it.

        Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
        ~Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981


        Assange told Al Jazeera on Sunday that while he had been forewarned by Australian intelligence on August 11 to expect a campaign against him, it was unclear who was behind it.

        http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010822135529927326.html

        Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
        ~Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

        Assange claims 'smear campaign' 

        Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, has said the now-dropped charge of rape levelled against him in Sweden was "a smear campaign".

        Assange told Al Jazeera on Sunday that while he had been forewarned by Australian intelligence on August 11 to expect a campaign against him, it was unclear who was behind it.

        "It is clearly a smear campaign ... the only question is who was involved.

        "We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence I would not be willing to make a direct allegation."

        'No mistake'

        Swedish authorities had initially issued a warrant for Assange's arrest on Friday night, but dropped the warrant and the rape charge the next day.

        Eva Finne, the country's chief prosecutor, reviewed the evidence and withdrew the warrant for his arrest,deciding there was "no longer reason to believe" Assange had committed rape, Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for Finne, said.

        "You can't call it a mistake because the prosecutor in question has to make a decision based on the information available at the moment of the decision," Rosander told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

        Finne's office has not contacted Assange and is not searching for him and will make a decision whether to pursue the molestation charge later this week, Rosander said.

        The charges against Assange, which come around a month after Wikileaks incensed the US government by releasing a trove of American military informationabout the war in Afghanistan, quickly spread around the internet.

        Leaked US documents

        After the Swedish tabloid Expressen first published reportsthat the arrest warrant had been issued for Assange, Wikileaks responded on Twitter:"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one.

        "No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting."

        Assange's organisation caused controversy in Julywhen it released 75,000 classified US military reports containing information about the Nato war effort in Afghanistan.

        The US government condemned the release of the documents, saying the website had "blood on its hands" for naming people who had helped its military against groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and ordered Wikileaks to return the files.

        Wikileaks, meanwhile, has said it is plans to reveal more of the remaining 15,000 classified documents it holds, possibly this month or next month.

        Two alleged victims

        Two women in their twenties made the allegations against Assange, according to Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, reporting from London.

        One woman claimed Assange raped her last weekend in Stockholm, while another alleged he molested her on Tuesday in a separate town in Sweden, Brennan said.

        "I think it's quite natural that these rumors happen in a very famous case like this, and I'm not surprised at all," Rosander, the prosecutor's spokeswoman, told Al Jazeera.

        She said she could not give any details on the allegations.

        Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to maintain the advantages it receives from the country's whistle-blowing protection laws. Wikileaks also has many of its servers in Sweden.

        http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010822135529927326.html

        Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
        ~Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

        I guess he has learned his lesson and will now tow the NWO line.

        LESSON: "work with us or go to prison"

        Sweden drops arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder

        By Mia Shanley
        STOCKHOLM | Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:34pm EDT

        STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks on Saturday on suspicion of rape, but then swiftly withdrew it.

        Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne determined there were not enough grounds for the warrant for Assange, whose website last month published secret U.S. military files on Afghanistan, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said on its website.

        "... he is no longer suspected of rape. All the charges concerning rape have been lifted," a spokeswoman for the office said. A police investigation continues into another accusation, of molestation.

        Assange, who is Australian by birth, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were "without basis" and that their timing was "deeply disturbing."

        http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67K0ZU20100822

        Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
        ~Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

        Sweden drops arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder

        By Mia Shanley
        STOCKHOLM | Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:34pm EDT

        STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for the founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks on Saturday on suspicion of rape, but then swiftly withdrew it.

        Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne determined there were not enough grounds for the warrant for Assange, whose website last month published secret U.S. military files on Afghanistan, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said on its website.

        "... he is no longer suspected of rape. All the charges concerning rape have been lifted," a spokeswoman for the office said. A police investigation continues into another accusation, of molestation.

        Assange, who is Australian by birth, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were "without basis" and that their timing was "deeply disturbing."

        http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67K0ZU20100822


        Swedish rape warrant for Wikileaks' Assange cancelled


        BBC News

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316

        August 21, 2010

        Sweden has cancelled an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on accusations of rape and molestation.

        The Swedish Prosecution Authority website said the chief prosecutor had come to the decision that Mr Assange was not suspected of rape but did not give any further explanation.

        The warrant was issued late on Friday.

        Wikileaks, which has been criticised for leaking Afghan war documents, had quoted Mr Assange as saying the charges were "without basis".

        That message, which appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Mr Assange, said the appearance of the allegations "at this moment is deeply disturbing".

        In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: "No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police", and that it had been warned to expect "dirty tricks".

        In its "official blog" on Saturday before the warrant was cancelled, Wikileaks said it was "deeply concerned about the seriousness of these allegations. We the people behind Wikileaks think highly of Julian and and he has our full support".

        The current whereabouts of Mr Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, are unclear.
        More documents

        The Swedish Prosecution Authority website said chief prosecutor Eva Finne had come to the decision that Julian Assange was not subject to arrest.

        In a brief statement Eva Finne said: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

        The website said there would be no further immediate comment.

        Earlier, Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden's prosecutors' office, said there were two separate allegations against Mr Assange, one of rape and the other of molestation. She gave no details of the accusations. She said that as far as she knew they related to alleged incidents that took place in Sweden.

        Media reports say Mr Assange was in Sweden last week to talk about his work and defend the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

        Last month, Wikileaks published more than 75,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

        US authorities criticised the leak, saying it could put the lives of coalition soldiers and Afghans, especially informers, at risk.

        Mr Assange has said that Wikileaks is intending to release a further 15,000 documents in the coming weeks.

        Quote
        saying less than a day after the document was issued that it was based on an unfounded accusation of rape.

        by the Pentagon.


        Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.  ~Victor Hugo 

        Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.  ~Victor Hugo



        Prosecutors: Rape Claims against Assange Bogus
        http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/21/world/main6793072.shtml

        Arrest Warrants Withdrawn against WikiLeaks Founder; No Reason to Suspect He Committed Rapes, Official Says

        (AP)   Swedish prosecutors withdrew an arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying less than a day after the document was issued that it was based on an unfounded accusation of rape.

        The accusation had been labeled a dirty trick by Julian Assange and his group, who are preparing to release a fresh batch of classified U.S. documents from the Afghan war.

        Swedish prosecutors had urged Assange - a nomadic 39-year-old Australian whose whereabouts were unclear - to turn himself in to police to face questioning in one case involving suspicions of rape and another based on an accusation of molestation.

        "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," chief prosecutor Eva Finne said, in announcing the withdrawal of the warrant. She did not address the status of the molestation case, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.

        Prosecutors did not answer phone calls seeking further comment.

        Assange had dismissed the rape allegations in a statement on WikiLeaks' Twitter page, saying "the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing." His whereabouts were not immediately known.

        He was in Sweden last week seeking legal protection for the whistle-blower website, which angered the Obama administration for publishing thousands of leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

        The first files in Wikileaks' "Afghan War Diary" revealed classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Assange said Wednesday that WikiLeaks plans to release a new batch of 15,000 documents from the Afghan war within weeks.

        The Pentagon says the information could risk the lives of U.S. troops and their Afghan helpers and have demanded WikiLeaks return all leaked documents and remove them from the Internet.

        Assange has no permanent address and travels frequently - jumping from one friend's place to the next. He disappears from public view for months at a time, only to reappear in the full glare of the cameras at packed news conferences to discuss his site's latest disclosure.

        Assange declined to talk about his background at a news conference in Stockholm a week ago. Equally secretive is the small team behind WikiLeaks, reportedly just a half-dozen people and casual volunteers who offer their services as needed.

        A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iceland that the "extremely serious allegations" came as a complete surprise.

        Apart from the comment from Assange, WikiLeaks' Twitter page had a link to an article in Swedish tabloid Expressen, which first reported the allegations.

        "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," it said.

        Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.

        He also spoke at a seminar hosted by the Christian faction of the opposition Social Democratic party and announced he would write bimonthly columns for a left-wing Swedish newspaper.

        Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.  ~Victor Hugo 

        Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.  ~Victor Hugo

        Assange: Rape Charge 'Without Basis'

        Sweden issues arrest warrant

        http://www.newser.com/story/98613/assange-rape-charge-without-basis.html

          (AP)  – A Swedish tabloid reports today that an arrest warrant has been issued for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on suspicion of rape, and officials said they could confirm "media reports." Assange addressed the report on WikiLeaks' Twitter page, saying "the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

        The prosecutor's office in Stockholm issued a brief statement saying it "confirms media reports that a foreign citizen has been arrested in absentia" but didn't name Assange. "The arrest refers to two separate events, one complaint of molestation and one complaint of rape," the statement said. Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.


        WikiLeaks Founder Suspected of Rape in Sweden

        Authorities Issue Arrest Warrant for Julian Assange in Two Separate Cases; Assange Denies Charges as "Without Basis"

        http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/21/world/main6792668.shtml

        (AP)   Updated at 10:25 a.m. Eastern

        WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was accused of rape and molestation in a Swedish arrest warrant Saturday that turned the spotlight onto the nomadic former hacker who's infuriated governments worldwide with his self-proclaimed mission to put secrets into the public eye.

        The accusation was labeled a dirty trick by the 39-year-old Australian and his group, who are preparing to release the next batch of classified documents from the Afghan war.

        Swedish prosecutors urged Assange - whose whereabouts were unclear - to turn himself in to police to face questioning in two separate cases involving suspicions of rape and molestation, respectively.

        They issued a warrant for his arrest, a move that doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed. Investigators want him in custody because they believe there is a risk he will obstruct the probe by destroying evidence, said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

        "The next step is that we interrogate him," she said. "Then we'll see what happens."

        Assange has no permanent address and travels frequently - jumping from one friend's place to the next. He disappears from public view for months at a time, only to reappear in the full glare of the cameras at packed news conferences to discuss his site's latest disclosure.

        He was in Sweden last week seeking legal protection for the whistle-blower website, which angered the Obama administration for publishing thousands of leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

        Assange dismissed the rape allegations in a statement on WikiLeaks' Twitter page, saying "the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

        The first files in its "Afghan War Diary" laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Assange said Wednesday that WikiLeaks plans to release a new batch of 15,000 documents from the Afghan war within weeks.

        The Pentagon says the information could risk the lives of U.S. troops and their Afghan helpers and have demanded WikiLeaks return all leaked documents and remove them from the Internet.

        Little is known about Assange's private life - he declined to talk about his background at a news conference in Stockholm a week ago. Equally secretive is the small team behind WikiLeaks, reportedly just a half-dozen people and casual volunteers who offer their services as needed.

        A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iceland that the "extremely serious allegations" came as a complete surprise and that efforts to find lawyers for Assange are under way.

        "We are currently looking into the matter," Schmitt said. It will be resolved within the coming weeks and months, he added.

        WikiLeaks also commented on the allegations on its Twitter page. Apart from the comment from Assange, the page had a link to an article in Swedish tabloid Expressen, which first reported the allegations.

        "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," one Tweet said.

        "Expressen is a tabloid; No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting," said another.

        Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.

        He also spoke at a seminar hosted by the Christian faction of the opposition Social Democratic party and announced he would write bimonthly columns for a left-wing Swedish newspaper.

        conveient. 

        "Frame Up"

        « Reply #1 on: August 21, 2010, 09:12:05 am »

        conveient.

         




        I fight for that One Family.

        That one Family who is not next in line for the ravages of New World Order.

        It will stop.  That One Family who was "next" will be FREE !

        Typical setup.  I am sick of how legislation is so corrupt that it is used only for the elite to neutralize whomever they choose.  This is right along with the populace in destroying families and creating chaos.

        Love, e


        Read the documents

        Download the complete set

        As a regular ZIP file
        As a regular Unix / Linux files

        http://ukginger.net/WikiLeaks-CableGate.tar.gz 
        OR
        http://ukginger.net/WikiLeaks-CableGate.tar.bz


        PLEASE MIRROR !

        The Original Wikileaks Set is 7-ZIP and you will need a tool to uncompress this less mainstream file format http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/static/cablegate-201011300718.7z see website for details on 7-ZIP http://www.7-zip.org/

        Now they have issued an international interpol warrant...

        And I'm fed up with just about every interest group making conflicting claims as to what is contained in the WikiLeaks Documents . . .

        Please consider actually reading some of the docs instead of speculation.

         I also want to add that maybe Assange is a leftist hoax. A guy made for satisfying the leftists folks carvings for antiwar news reports in the mainstream media. And at the same time build trust into mainstream media. Making an illusion that the mainstream media is covering controversial stuff.

        Why didn't the mainstream media pick up ambassador Craig Murray story?
        http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4394
        http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4385

        Instead they send "military recruitment videos"* that we all have seen before from the war in Iraq and Bosnia.
        *Many right wing folks seems to get excited by seeing things blown up. The military know, that is why they are using these videos in recruitment videos.

        Operation flicker
        http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/07/23/pentagon_workers_tied_to_child_porn/
        http://cryptome.org/dodi/op-flicker.zip

        Maybe some off these folks are involved in spreading rumors about Assange.

        Anyway I share the same suspicion as John Joung on wikileaks.
        This kind of videos are used in recruitment videos for the military.
        Also the illusion that Assange have to travel around the world to stay out of sight is rather ridiculous. Do he travel by plane? If so, he can't be that hard to catch.

        Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.  ~Victor Hugo 

        Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.  ~Victor Hugo




                                                                         Julian Assange says he could be killed in US jail

        Julian Assange WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside Beccles police station in Suffolk, which he has to visit every day as one of the terms of his bail. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

        The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/23/julian-assa...


        The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/23/julian-assa...

        Julian Assange: my fate will rest in Cameron's hands if US charges me

        WikiLeaks founder says it would be 'politically impossible' for Britain to extradite him to the US

        Luke Harding

        guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010

        Article history

        Julian Assange said today that it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to extradite him to the United States, and that the final word on his fate if he were charged with espionage would rest with David Cameron.

        In an interview with the Guardian in Ellingham Hall, the Norfolk country mansion where he is living under virtual house arrest, the founder of WikiLeaks said it would be difficult for the prime minister to hand him over to the Americans if there was strong support for him from the British people.

        "It's all a matter of politics. We can presume there will be an attempt to influence UK political opinion, and to influence the perception of our standing as a moral actor," he said.

        Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden. He strongly denies allegations of sexual misconduct with two Swedish women. But he believes the biggest threat to his freedom and to WikiLeaks, his whistleblowing website, emanates from a wrathful United States.

        There is no evidence of any imminent US move to indict him. But according to Assange, the Obama administration is "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old intelligence officer and alleged source of the more than a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables embarrassingly leaked last month. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, wants to indict Assange as a co-conspirator and is also examining "computer hacking statutes and support for terrorism", Assange claims.

        Sitting in front of a log fire, his Apple MacBook Pro perched on his lap, Assange said his recent nine-day spell in Wandsworth jail had prepared him for the possibility that he might spend a long period in prison if indicted by the US. He said the prospect of solitary confinement was no longer an "intellectual abstraction" but a reality. The high court bailed him to Norfolk last Thursday, with his extradition hearing scheduled for 6-7 February.

        He said: "Solitary confinement is very difficult. But I know that provided there is some opportunity for correspondence I can withstand it. I'm mentally robust. Of course it would mean the end of my life in the conventional sense."

        If the US succeeded in removing him from the UK or Sweden, Assange said there was a "high chance" of him being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in the US prison system.

        Since moving to Ellingham Hall, a Georgian country house and organic farm owned by his friend and supporter Vaughan Smith, Assange has given numerous media interviews. But he said he was fed up with the press and described an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme – in which John Humphrys grilled him on how many people he had slept with – as "awful".

        Assange also took issue with a lengthy report in Saturday's Guardian setting out the prosecution allegations against him in Sweden. Assange acknowledged that the Guardian had a right to publish the material, dealing with his alleged encounters with the women. But he said it had been "sub-selected" and not placed properly in context. Swedish prosecutors have demanded that he return to Sweden to face further questions about the allegations.

        Assange also said WikiLeaks did not have enough money to pay its legal bills, even though "a lot of generous lawyers have donated their time to us". He said legal costs for WikiLeaks and his own defence were approaching £500,000. The decisions by Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to stop processing donations to WikiLeaks – apparently following US pressure – had robbed the website of a "war chest" of around €500,000, he complained. This would have been enough to fund WikiLeaks' publishing operations for six months. At its peak the organisation was receiving €100,000 a day, he said.

        According to publishing sources, however, Assange can take cheer from the fact that he has secured a seven-figure advance for a book about WikiLeaks and his life story. The sources suggest he is likely to receive £250,000 himself, allowing him to pay off some of his debts and to settle his personal defence fund, currently "paralysed". The book is to be published in the spring by Knopf in the US and Canongate in the UK, the sources suggest.

        Assange – who has to wear his electronic tag in the bath, and report every day to Beccles police station – confessed he has no idea where he will be in a year's time. He described the next chapter in his life as "not yet predictable.

        "Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes. Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that exception."

        He argued that Cameron and Nick Clegg were in a stronger position than the previous, Labour government to resist his extradition by Washington. "There is a new government, which wants to show it hasn't yet been co-opted by the US," he said, claiming that the security services – British and Australian – had a history of spying on and unduly influencing Labour politicians.

        Many WikiLeaks supporters have now gone home for Christmas, leaving Assange with a scaled-down team over the holiday period, on an estate where the pheasant and grouse greatly outnumber the humans.

        His immediate plan, he said, was to rest after a gruelling couple of months and then to continue with the staged global release of redacted US state department cables in the new year. Physically, he appeared somewhat wrung out, although very much composed and in good spirits.

        Assange defended one of WikiLeaks' collaborators, Israel Shamir, following claims Shamir passed sensitive cables to Belarus's dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko has arrested 600 opposition supporters and journalists since Sunday's presidential election. The whereabouts and fate of several of the president's high-profile opponents are unknown.

        Of Shamir, Assange said: "WikiLeaks works with hundreds of journalists from different regions of the world. All are required to sign non-disclosure agreements and are generally only given limited review access to material relating to their region. We have no reason to believe these rumours in relation to Belarus are true."

        Over the past month the Guardian has published more than 200 articles based on the trove of US diplomatic dispatches obtained by WikiLeaks, and 739 of the cables themselves. All cables published by the Guardian and the four other international news organisations who had exclusive early access to the material have been carefully redacted to protect sources who could be placed in danger, and the redacted versions have been passed to WikiLeaks.

        WikiLeaks now plans to begin sharing the cables with a wider group of regional news organisations. Julian Assange says all future cables released by WikiLeaks will either be redacted by other partner news organisations, or by WikiLeaks itself. The Guardian and its partners in the project, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, El Pais and Le Monde, will continue to share redactions with WikiLeaks for any cables they publish in future.



        http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4671950

        Julian Assange says he could be killed in US jail

        Edited on Thu Dec-23-10 10:24 PM by Turborama
        Source: AFP

        WIKILEAKS chief Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on espionage charges.


        The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

        Mr Assange told The Guardian it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been "co-opted" by Washington. "Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes. Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that exception," he said.

        Mr Assange added that if the United States succeeded in getting him extradited from Britain or Sweden, then there was a "high chance" of him being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in an American prison.

        Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/julian-assange-say...



        The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/23/julian-assa...

        A historical refresher for anyone who might not know what Jack Ruby did...

        On Sunday, November 24 Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters preparatory to his transfer to the county jail when, at 11:21 a.m., Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the abdomen. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. at Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where Kennedy had died two days earlier.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald#Death



        WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
        WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be killed in a US jail.

        http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8188503/assange-says-he-could-be-killed-in-us-jail

        Fri Dec 24 2010

        Assange says he could be killed in jail

        WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on espionage charges.

        The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

        Assange told The Guardian it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been "co-opted" by Washington.

        "Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes. Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that exception," he said.

        He said US authorities were "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the US army soldier suspected of providing WikiLeaks with the cables.

        Assange added that if the United States succeeded in getting him extradited from Britain or Sweden, then there was a "high chance" of him being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in an American prison.

        Ruby, a nightclub owner, shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald at a police station in Dallas, Texas days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963.

        Ruby's alleged links to organised crime sparked conspiracy theories about his involvement in an overall plot surrounding the assassination of Kennedy.

        Assange has previously said that he and other WikiLeaks staff have received death threats since the website began to release a cache of about 250,000 secret US State Department cables in November.

        The 39-year-old has been staying at a friend's country mansion in eastern England since his release from jail last week on strict bail conditions that include reporting to police daily and wearing an electronic tag.

        A court in London is due to hold a full hearing on the Swedish extradition request starting February 7.

        http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/assange-says-he-could-be-killed-in-us-jail-20101224-196z2.html

        AFP

        WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on espionage charges.

        The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

        Assange told The Guardian it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been "co-opted" by Washington.

        Advertisement: Story continues below

        "Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes. Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that exception," he said.

        He said US authorities were "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the US army soldier suspected of providing WikiLeaks with the cables.

        Assange added that if the United States succeeded in getting him extradited from Britain or Sweden, then there was a "high chance" of him being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in an American prison.

        Ruby, a nightclub owner, shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald at a police station in Dallas, Texas days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963.

        Ruby's alleged links to organised crime sparked conspiracy theories about his involvement in an overall plot surrounding the assassination of Kennedy.

        Assange has previously said that he and other WikiLeaks staff have received death threats since the website began to release a cache of about 250,000 secret US State Department cables in November.

        The 39-year-old has been staying at a friend's country mansion in eastern England since his release from jail last week on strict bail conditions that include reporting to police daily and wearing an electronic tag.

        A court in London is due to hold a full hearing on the Swedish extradition request starting February 7.

        http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/assange-says-he-could-be-killed-in-us-jail-20101224-196z2.html

        Assange says he could be killed in US jail

        December 24, 2010

        AFP

        WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange says there is a "high chance" he would be killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on espionage charges.

        The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

        Assange told The Guardian it would be "politically impossible" for Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been "co-opted" by Washington.

        Advertisement: Story continues below

        "Legally the UK has the right to not extradite for political crimes. Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the UK government as to whether to apply to that exception," he said.

        He said US authorities were "trying to strike a plea deal" with Bradley Manning, the US army soldier suspected of providing WikiLeaks with the cables.

        Assange added that if the United States succeeded in getting him extradited from Britain or Sweden, then there was a "high chance" of him being killed "Jack Ruby-style" in an American prison.

        Ruby, a nightclub owner, shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald at a police station in Dallas, Texas days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963.

        Ruby's alleged links to organised crime sparked conspiracy theories about his involvement in an overall plot surrounding the assassination of Kennedy.

        Assange has previously said that he and other WikiLeaks staff have received death threats since the website began to release a cache of about 250,000 secret US State Department cables in November.

        The 39-year-old has been staying at a friend's country mansion in eastern England since his release from jail last week on strict bail conditions that include reporting to police daily and wearing an electronic tag.

        A court in London is due to hold a full hearing on the Swedish extradition request starting February 7.


        WikiLeaks

         is an international new media non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources andnews leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.[4] Within a year of its launch, the site claimed its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.[8] The organisation has described itself as having been founded by Chinesedissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[4] Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director.[9]

        WikiLeaks has received praise as well as criticism. The organization won a number of awards, including The Economist's 2008 New Media Award.[10] In June 2009, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange won Amnesty International's UK Media Award, in the category "New Media", for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances",[11] a report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya.[12] In May 2010, New York City's Daily News listed WikiLeaks as first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news".[13] Julian Assange was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year for 2010.[14] Several U.S. government officials have criticized WikiLeaks for exposing state secrets, harming national security, and compromising international diplomacy.[15][16][17][18][19] Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International criticized WikiLeaks for not adequately redacting the names of civilians working with the U.S. military.[20] Some journalists have criticized the lack of editorial discretion when releasing thousands of documents at once and without sufficient analysis.[21] Negative public reactions in the United States have characterized the organization as irresponsible, immoral, and illegal.[22][23][24]

        In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted video from a 2007 incident in which Iraqi civilians and journalists were killed by US forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.[25] In October 2010, the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations. In November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables.

        WikiLeaks was originally launched as a user-editable wiki site, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model, and no longer accepts either user comments or edits. The site is available on multiple servers and different domain names following a number of denial-of-service attacks and its severance from different Domain Name System(DNS) providers.[26][27]\\

        History

        The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.

        [5] The website was unveiled, and published its first document in December 2006.[28][29] The site claims to have been "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa".[4]

        The creators of WikiLeaks have not been formally identified.[30] It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assangeand others. Assange describes himself as a member of WikiLeaks' advisory board.[31] News reports in The Australian have called Assange the "founder of WikiLeaks".[32] According to Wired magazine, a volunteer said that Assange described himself in a private conversation as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest".[33] As of June 2009, the site had over 1,200 registered volunteers[4] and listed an advisory board comprising Assange,Phillip Adams, Wang Dan, C. J. Hinke, Ben Laurie, Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang, Xiao Qiang, Chico Whitaker and Wang Youcai.[34]Despite appearing on the list, when contacted by Mother Jones magazine in 2010, Khamsitsang said that while he received an e-mail from WikiLeaks, he had never agreed to be an advisor.[35]

        WikiLeaks states that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations."[4][36]

        In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish.[37] An article in The New Yorker said:

        One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, "[w]e have received over one million documents from thirteen countries."[29][38]

        Assange responded to the suggestion that eavesdropping on Chinese hackers played a crucial part in the early days of WikiLeaks by saying "the imputation is incorrect. The facts concern a 2006 investigation into Chinese espionage one of our contacts were involved in. Somewhere between none and handful of those documents were ever released on WikiLeaks. Non-government targets of the Chinese espionage, such as Tibetan associations were informed (by us)".[39] The group has subsequently released a number of other significant documents which have become front-page news items, ranging from documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in theAfghanistan war to corruption in Kenya.[40]

        The organisation's stated goal is to ensure that whistleblowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents, as happened to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.[41]

        The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.[42] In the United States, the leaking of some documents may be legally protected. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees anonymity, at least in the area of political discourse.[42] Author and journalist Whitley Strieber has spoken about the benefits of the WikiLeaks project, noting that "Leaking a government document can mean jail, but jail sentences for this can be fairly short. However, there are many places where it means long incarceration or even death, such as China and parts of Africa and the Middle East."[43]

        On 24 December 2009, WikiLeaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds[44] and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material.[45] Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirrors.[46][47] WikiLeaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were covered.[45] WikiLeaks saw this as a kind of strike "to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue".[48] While the organisation initially planned for funds to be secured by 6 January 2010,[49] it was not until 3 February 2010 that WikiLeaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.[50]

        On 22 January 2010, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks' donation account and froze its assets. WikiLeaks said that this had happened before, and was done for "no obvious reason".[51] The account was restored on 25 January 2010.[52] On 18 May 2010, WikiLeaks announced that its website and archive were back up.[53]

        As of June 2010, WikiLeaks was a finalist for a grant of more than half a million dollars from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation,[29] but did not make the cut.[54] WikiLeaks commented, "WikiLeaks was highest rated project in the Knight challenge, strongly recommended to the board but gets no funding. Go figure”. WikiLeaks said that the Knight foundation announced the award to "'12 Grantees who will impact future of news' – but not WikiLeaks" and questioned whether Knight foundation was "really looking for impact".[54] A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of WikiLeaks' statement, saying "WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board."[55] However, he declined to say whether WikiLeaks was the project rated highest by the Knight advisory panel, which consists of non-staffers, among them journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, who has done PR work for WikiLeaks with the press and on social networking sites.[55]

        On 17 July, Jacob Appelbaum spoke on behalf of WikiLeaks at the 2010 Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City, replacing Assange because of the presence of federal agents at the conference.[56][57] He announced that the WikiLeaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended.[56][58] Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conferenceon 19 July 2010 in Oxford, and confirmed that the site had begun accepting submissions again.[59]

        Upon returning to the US from the Netherlands, on 29 July, Appelbaum was detained for three hours at the airport by US agents, according to anonymous sources.[60] The sources told Cnet that Appelbaum's bag was searched, receipts from his bag were photocopied, his laptop was inspected, although in what manner was unclear.[60] Appelbaum reportedly refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, and was not allowed to make a phone call. His three mobile phones were reportedly taken and not returned.[60]On 31 July, he spoke at a Defcon conference and mentioned his phone being "seized". After speaking, he was approached by two FBIagents and questioned.[60]

        Assange is quoted as acknowledging that his practice of posting largely unfiltered classified information online could one day lead the Web site to have "blood on our hands."[61]

        In 2010, at least a dozen key supporters of WikiLeaks have left the website.[62]

        Administration

        According to a January 2010 interview, the WikiLeaks team then consisted of five people working full-time and about 800 people who worked occasionally, none of whom were compensated.[48] WikiLeaks has no official headquarters. The expenses per year are about €200,000, mainly for servers and bureaucracy, but would reach €600,000 if work currently done by volunteers were paid for.[48]WikiLeaks does not pay for lawyers, as hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal support have been donated by media organisations such as the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association.[48] Its only revenue stream is donations, but WikiLeaks is planning to add an auction model to sell early access to documents.[48] According to the Wau Holland Foundation, WikiLeaks receives no money for personnel costs, only for hardware, travelling and bandwidth.[63] An article in TechEYE.net wrote

        As a charity accountable under German law, donations for WikiLeaks can be made to the foundation. Funds are held in escrow and are given to WikiLeaks after the whistleblower website files an application containing a statement with proof of payment. The foundation does not pay any sort of salary nor give any renumeration [sic] to WikiLeaks' personnel, corroborating the statement of the site's former German representative Daniel Schmitt (real name Daniel Domscheit-Berg)[64] on national television that all personnel works voluntarily, even its speakers.[63]

        Site management issues

        Within WikiLeaks, there has been public disagreement between founder and spokesperson Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the site's former German representative who was suspended by Assange. Domscheit-Berg announced on 28 September 2010 that he was leaving the organisation due to internal conflicts over management of the site.[65][66][64]

        Hosting

        WikiLeaks describes itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking".[67] WikiLeaks is hosted by PRQ, a Sweden-based company providing "highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services". PRQ is said to have "almost no information about its clientele and maintains few if any of its own logs".[68] The servers are spread around the world with the central server located in Sweden.[69] Julian Assange has said that the servers are located in Sweden (and the other countries) "specifically because those nations offer legal protection to the disclosures made on the site". He talks about the Swedish constitution, which gives the information providers total legal protection.[69] It is forbidden according to Swedish law for any administrative authority to make inquiries about the sources of any type of newspaper.[70] These laws, and the hosting by PRQ, make it difficult to take WikiLeaks offline. Furthermore, "Wikileaks maintains its own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption to protect sources and other confidential information." Such arrangements have been called "bulletproof hosting."[68][71]

        On 17 August 2010, it was announced that the Swedish Pirate Party will be hosting and managing many of WikiLeaks' new servers. The party donates servers and bandwidth to WikiLeaks without charge. Technicians of the party will make sure that the servers are maintained and working.[72][73]

        Some servers are hosted in an underground nuclear bunker in Stockholm.[74][75]

        After the site became the target of a denial-of-service attack from a hacker on its old servers, WikiLeaks moved its site to Amazon's servers.[76] Later, however, the website was "ousted"[76] from the Amazon servers, without a public statement from the company.[citation needed] WikiLeaks then decided to install itself on the servers of OVH in France.[77] After criticism from the French government, the company sought two court rulings about the legality of hosting WikiLeaks. While the court in Lille immediately declined to force OVH to shut down the WikiLeaks site, the court in Paris stated it would need more time to examine the highly technical issue.[76][78]

        WikiLeaks is based on several software packages, including 

        MediaWiki, Freenet, Tor, and PGP.[79] WikiLeaks strongly encouraged postings via Tor because of the strong privacy needs of its users.[80]

        On 4 November 2010, Julian Assange told Swiss public television TSR that he is seriously considering seeking political asylum in neutral Switzerland and setting up a WikiLeaks foundation in the country to move the operation there.[81][82] According to Assange, Switzerland and Iceland are the only countries where WikiLeaks would feel safe to operate.[83][84]

        Financing

        WikiLeaks is dependent on public donations since it is a non-profit organisation. Its main financing methods include conventional bank transfers and online payment systems. Wau Holland Foundation, one of the WikiLeaks' main funding channels, stated that they have received more than €900,000 (US$1.2 million) in public donations between October 2009 and December 2010, out of which €370,000 has been passed on to WikiLeaks. Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the Wau Holland Foundation, mentioned that the donations throughPayPal was twice[vague] as through normal banks, before PayPal's decision to suspend WikiLeaks' account. He also noted that donations were never as strong as when WikiLeaks started publishing leaked diplomatic cables.[85][86]

        Name servers

        WikiLeaks had been using EveryDNS's services, which led to DDoS attacks on the host.[clarification needed] The attacks affected the quality of service at EveryDNS, so the company withdrew their service from WikiLeaks. Pro-WikiLeaks supporters retaliated by launching a DDoS attack against EveryDNS. Due to mistakes in the blogosphere, some supporters accidentally mistook EasyDNS for EveryDNS and attacked it. The attacks caused both EveryDNS and EasyDNS to experience outages. Afterwards EasyDNS decided to provide WikiLeaks its name server service.[87]

        Name and policies

        Despite using the name "WikiLeaks", the website is no longer wiki-based as of December 2010. Also, despite some popular confusion[88] due to both having the term "wiki" in their names, WikiLeaks and Wikipedia have no affiliation with each other;[89][90] i.e. "wiki" is not a brand name. Wikia, a for-profit corporation loosely affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, did however purchase several Wikileaks-related domain names (including "wikileaks.com" and "wikileaks.net") as a "protective brand measure" in 2007.[91]

        The "about" page originally read:[92]

        To the user, WikiLeaks will look very much like Wikipedia. Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably. Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background material and context. The political relevance of documents and their verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.

        However, WikiLeaks established an editorial policy that accepted only documents that were "of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest" (and excluded "material that is already publicly available").[93] This coincided with early criticism that having no editorial policy would drive out good material with spam and promote "automated or indiscriminate publication of confidential records."[94] It is no longer possible for anybody to post to it or edit it, as the original FAQ promised. Instead, submissions are regulated by an internal review process and some are published, while documents not fitting the editorial criteria are rejected by anonymous WikiLeaks reviewers. By 2008, the revised FAQ stated that "Anybody can post comments to it. [...] Users can publicly discuss documents and analyse their credibility and veracity."[95] After the 2010 relaunch, posting new comments to leaks was no longer possible.[96]

        Verification of submissions

        WikiLeaks states that it has never released a misattributed document. Documents are assessed before release. In response to concerns about the possibility of misleading or fraudulent leaks, WikiLeaks has stated that misleading leaks "are already well-placed in the mainstream media. WikiLeaks is of no additional assistance."[97] The FAQ states that: "The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinise and discuss leaked documents."[98]

        According to statements by Assange in 2010, submitted documents are vetted by a group of five reviewers, with expertise in different fields such as language or programming, who also investigate the background of the leaker if his or her identity is known.[99] In that group, Assange has the final decision about the assessment of a document.[99]

        Legal status

        Legal background

        The legal status of WikiLeaks is complex. Assange considers WikiLeaks a whistleblower protection intermediary. Rather than leaking directly to the press, and fearing exposure and retribution, whistleblowers can leak to WikiLeaks, which then leaks to the press for them.[100] Its servers are located throughout Europe and are accessible from any uncensored web connection. The group located its headquarters in Sweden because it has one of the world’s strongest shield laws to protect confidential source-journalist relationships.[101][102] WikiLeaks has stated that they "do not solicit any information".[101] However, Assange used his speech during the Hack In The Box conference in Malaysia to ask the crowd of hackers and security researchers to help find documents on its "Most Wanted Leaks of 2009" list.[103]

        Potential criminal prosecution

        The U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal probe of Wikileaks and founder Julian Assange shortly after the leak of diplomatic cables began.[104][105] Attorney General Eric Holder affirmed the probe was  not saber-rattling”, but was "an active, ongoing criminal investigation."[105] The The Washington Post reported that the department was considering charges under the Espionage Act, a move which former prosecutors characterised as "difficult" because of First Amendment protections for the press.[104][106] Several Supreme Court cases have previously established that the American constitution protects the re-publication of illegally gained information provided the publishers did not themselves break any laws in acquiring it.[107] Federal prosecutors have also considered prosecuting Assange for trafficking in stolen government property, but since the diplomatic cables are intellectual rather than physical property, that approach also faces hurdles.[108] Any prosecution of Assange would require extraditing him to the United States, a step made more complicated and potentially delayed by any preceding extradition to Sweden.[109] One of Assange's lawyers, however, says they are fighting extradition to Sweden because it might lead to his extradition to the United States.[110] Assange's attorney, Mark Stephens, has "heard from Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria [Virginia]" meeting to consider criminal charges in the WikiLeaks case.[111]

        In Australia, the government and the Australian Federal Police have not stated what Australian laws may have been broken by WikiLeaks, but Julia Gillard has stated that the foundation of Wikileaks and the stealing of classified documents from the US administration is illegal in foreign countries.[112] Gillard later clarified her statement as referring to "the original theft of the material by a junior US serviceman rather than any action by Mr Assange."[113] Spencer Zifcak, President of Liberty Victoria, an Australian civil liberties group, notes that with no charge, and no trial completed, it is inappropriate to state that WikiLeaks is guilty of illegal activities.[114]

        On threats by various governments toward Assange, legal expert Ben Saul argues that founder Julian Assange is the target of a global smear campaign to demonise him as a criminal or as a terrorist, without any legal basis.[115]

        Insurance file

        On 29 July 2010, WikiLeaks added a 1.4 GB "Insurance File" to the Afghan War Diary page. The file is AES encrypted and has been speculated to serve as insurance in case the WikiLeaks website or its spokesman Julian Assange are incapacitated, upon which thepassphrase could be published, similar to the concept of a dead man's switch.[116][117] Following the first few days' release of the US diplomatic cables starting 28 November 2010, the US television broadcaster CBS predicted that "If anything happens to Assange or the website, a key will go out to unlock the files. There would then be no way to stop the information from spreading like wildfire because so many people already have copies."[118] CBS correspondent Declan McCullagh stated, "What most folks are speculating is that the insurance file contains unreleased information that would be especially embarrassing to the US government if it were released."[118]

        Investigations, censorship, harassment, and surveillance

        According to The Times, WikiLeaks and its members have complained about continuing harassment and surveillance by law enforcement and intelligence organisations, including extended detention, seizure of computers, veiled threats, “covert following and hidden photography.”[119] Two lawyers for Julian Assange in the United Kingdom told The Guardian that they believed they were being watched by the security services after the US cables leak.[120]

        By governments

        Police raid on German WikiLeaks domain holder's home

        The home of Theodor Reppe, registrant of the German WikiLeaks domain name, wikileaks.de, was raided on 24 March 2009 after WikiLeaks released the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) censorship blacklist.[121] The site was not affected.[122][123]

        P.R. China

        Wikileaks's website claims that the government of the People's Republic of China has attempted to block all traffic to web sites with "wikileaks" in the URL since 2007, but that this can be bypassed through encrypted connections or by using one of Wikileaks's many covert URLs.[124]

        Potential future Australian censorship

        On 16 March 2009, the Australian Communications and Media Authority added WikiLeaks to their proposed blacklist of sites that will be blocked for all Australians if the mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented as planned.[125][126] The blacklisting was removed 30 November 2010.[127]

        Thai censorship

        The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) is currently censoring the website WikiLeaks in Thailand[128] and more than 40,000 other webpages[129] because of the emergency decree in Thailand imposed as a result of political instabilities (Emergency decree declared beginning of April 2010[130]).

        United States

        Access to WikiLeaks is currently blocked in the United States Library of Congress.[131] On 3 December 2010 the White House Office of Management and Budget sent a memo forbidding all unauthorised federal government employees and contractors from accessing classified documents publicly available on WikiLeaks and other websites.[132] The U.S. Army, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department are considering criminally prosecuting WikiLeaks and Assange "on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property",[133] although former prosecutors say doing so would be difficult.[106] According to a report on the Daily Beast website, the Obama administration asked Britain, Germany and Australia among others to also consider bringing criminal charges against Assange for the Afghan war leaks and to help limit Assange's travels across international borders.[134]

        Iceland

        After the release of the 2007 airstrikes video and as they prepared to release film of the Granai airstrike, Julian Assange has said that his group of volunteers came under intense surveillance. In an interview and Twitter posts he said that a restaurant in Reykjavík where his group of volunteers met came under surveillance in March; there was "covert following and hidden photography" by police and foreignintelligence services; that an apparent British intelligence agent made thinly veiled threats in a Luxembourg car park; and that one of the volunteers was detained by police for 21 hours. Another volunteer posted that computers were seized, saying "If anything happens to us, you know why ... and you know who is responsible."[119] According to the Columbia Journalism Review, "the Icelandic press took a look at Assange’s charges of being surveilled in Iceland [...] and, at best, have found nothing to substantiate them."[135]

        In August 2009, Kaupthing Bank succeeded in obtaining a court order gagging Iceland’s national broadcaster, RÚV, from broadcasting a risk analysis report showing the bank's substantial exposure to debt default risk. This information had been leaked by a whistleblower to WikiLeaks and remained available on the WikiLeaks site; faced with an injunction minutes before broadcast the channel ran with a screen grab of the WikiLeaks site instead of the scheduled piece on the bank. Citizens of Iceland felt outraged that RÚV was prevented from broadcasting news of relevance.[136] Therefore, WikiLeaks has been credited with inspiring the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a bill meant to reclaim Iceland's 2007 Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) ranking as first in the world for free speech. It aims to enact a range of protections for sources, journalists, and publishers.[137][138] Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former volunteer for WikiLeaks and member of the Icelandic parliament, is the chief sponsor of the proposal.

        By organisations and companies

        Facebook Inc.

        WikiLeaks claimed in April 2010 that Facebook deleted their fan page, which had 30,000 fans.[139][140][141] However, as of 7 December 2010 the group's Facebook fan page was available and had grown by 100,000 fans daily since 1 December,[142] to more than 1,300,000 fans. It is also the largest growth of the week.[143] Regarding the presence of WikiLeaks on Facebook, Andrew Noyes, the company's D.C. based Manager of Public Policy Communications has stated "the Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies."[144]

        Moneybookers Ltd

        In October 2010, it was reported that Moneybookers, which collected donations for WikiLeaks, had ended its relationship with the site. Moneybookers stated that its decision had been made "to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities, agencies or commissions."[145]

        After the US diplomatic cables leak

        Following the US diplomatic cables leak, which started on 28 November 2010, several companies severed ties with WikiLeaks. After providing 24-hour notification, American owned EveryDNS dropped WikiLeaks from its entries on 2 December 2010, citing DDoS attacks that "threatened the stability of its infrastructure".[26][146] The site's 'info' DNS lookup remained operational at alternative addresses for direct access respectively to the WikiLeaks and Cablegate websites.[147] On the same day, Amazon.com severed its ties with WikiLeaks, to which it was providing infrastructure services, after an intervention by an aide of U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman.[7][148][149]Amazon denied acting under political pressure citing a violation of its terms of service.[150] Citing indirect pressure from the U.S. Government, Tableau Software also dropped WikiLeaks' data from its site for people to use for data visualisation.[151][152]

        In the days following, hundreds of (and eventually more than a thousand[153]) mirrors of the WikiLeaks site appeared and the Anonymousgroup of internet activists, called on supporters to attack the websites of companies which do not support WikiLeaks,[154] under the banner of Operation Payback, previously aimed at anti-piracy organisations.[155] AFP reported that attempts to shut down the wikileaks.org address had lead to the site surviving via the so-called Streisand effect, whereby attempts to censor information online leads to it being replicated in many places.[156]

        On 3 December, PayPal, the payment processor owned by eBay, permanently cut off the account of the Wau Holland Foundation that had been redirecting donations to WikiLeaks. PayPal alleged that the account violated its "Acceptable Use Policy", specifically that it was used for "activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."[157][158] The Vice President of PayPal later stated that they stopped accepting payments after the “State Department told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward.” Later the same day, he said that his previous statement was incorrect, and that it was in fact based on a letter from the State Department to WikiLeaks.[159] On 8 December 2010, the Wau Holland Foundation released a press statement, saying it has filed a legal action against PayPal for blocking its account used for WikiLeaks payments and for libel due to PayPal's allegations of "illegal activity".[160]

        On 6 December, the Swiss bank, PostFinance, announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange that it holds, totalling 31,000 euros. In a statement on their website, they stated that this was because Assange "provided false information regarding his place of residence" when opening the account.[161] WikiLeaks released a statement saying this was due to that Assange, "as a homeless refugee attempting to gain residency in Switzerland, had used his lawyer's address in Geneva for the bank's correspondence".[162] On the same day, MasterCard announced that it "is taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products", adding "MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal."[163] The next day, Visa Inc. announced it was suspending payments to WikiLeaks, pending "further investigations".[164] In a move of support for WikiLeaks, XIPWIRE established a way to donate to WikiLeaks, and waived their fees.[165] Datacell, the Swiss-based IT company that enabled WikiLeaks to accept credit card donations, announced that it will take legal action against Visa Europe and Mastercard, in order to resume allowing payments to the website.[166]

        On 7 December 2010, The Guardian stated that people can still donate to WikiLeaks via Commerzbank Kassel in Germany orLandsbanki in Iceland or by post to a post office box at the University of Melbourne or at the wikileaks.ch domain.[167]

        The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has highlighted that Visa, Mastercard and Amazon may be 'violating WikiLeaks' [e pluribus unum] right to freedom of expression' by withdrawing their services.[168]

        Reception

        Support

        In July 2010 Veterans for Peace president Mike Ferner editorialised on the group's website "neither Wikileaks nor the soldier or soldiers who divulged the documents should be prosecuted for revealing this information. We should give them a medal."[171]

        Documentary filmmaker John Pilger wrote an August 2010 editorial in the Australian publication Green Left titled "Wikileaks Must Be Defended." In it, Pilger said WikiLeaks represented the interests of "public accountability" and a new form of journalism at odds with "the dominant section ... devoted merely to taking down what cynical and malign power tells it."[172]

        Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has been a frequent defender of WikiLeaks. Following the November 2010 release of U.S. diplomatic cables, Ellsberg rejected criticism that the site was endangering the lives of U.S. military personnel and intelligence assets stating "not one single soldier or informant has been in danger from any of the WikiLeaks releases. That risk has been largely overblown."[169] Ellsberg went on to note that government claims to the contrary were "a script that they roll out every time there's a leak of any sort."[170] Following the US diplomatic cable release, which a number of media reports sought to differentiate from Ellsberg's whistleblowing,[173] Ellsberg claimed, "EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."[174]

        On 3 December 2010 Republican Congressman of Texas, Ron Paul, spoke out publicly during a Fox Business interview in support of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange; "In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble." Paul went on to state, "Why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?"[175] In another speech at US House of Representatives Paul again defended WikiLeaks against criticism for revealing the truth and warned the US administration that "lying is not patriotic".[176]

        Fellow Republican congressman Connie Mack IV of Florida also praised WikiLeaks, stating that Americans have a right to know the contents of the leaks, “no matter how we acquire that knowledge.”[177]

        Australia’s most senior and high-profile media professionals expressed their support for WikiLeaks in a letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.[178] The letter was initiated by the Walkley Foundation, who present the yearly Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism. The letter was signed by "the ten members of the Walkley Advisory Board as well as editors of major Australian newspapers and news websites and the news directors of the country’s three commercial TV networks and two public broadcasters." Their position (an extract from the letter) is summarized as follows:

        “In essence, WikiLeaks, an organisation that aims to expose official secrets, is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that governments would prefer to keep secret. It is the media’s duty to responsibly report such material if it comes into their possession. To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.”[179]

        Following the November 2010 leak of United States diplomatic cables The Atlantic, in a staff editorial, opined "Wikileaks is a powerful new way for reporters and human rights advocates to leverage global information technology systems to break the heavy veil of government and corporate secrecy that is slowly suffocating the American press." Calling legal and physical threats against WikiLeaks volunteers "shameful" the magazine went on to state, "Not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan ... has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama Administration."[180]

        On 4 December 2010, Reporters Without Borders condemned the "blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure" being directed at WikiLeaks. The organisation is also concerned by some of the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.[181]

        In an article titled "Only WikiLeaks can save US policy" published on the online foreign affairs magazine The Diplomat, former long-time CIA counter-terrorism expert Michael Scheuer said the source of interest in WikiLeaks revelations was in the inherent dishonesty of recent U.S. administrations. "In recent years, the US public has had to hear its leaders repeatedly tell Americans that black was white," Scheuer wrote, referencing the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.[182]

        Evan Hughes, editor-in-chief of wired.com published his support for WikiLeaks in an online editorial titled "Why WikiLeaks is Good for America." Despite an often contentious relationship between Wired and WikiLeaks, with the former having being accused by the latter of complicity in the identification and arrest of Bradley Manning, Hughes argued that "WikiLeaks stands to improve our democracy, not weaken it." He went on to note that "The greatest threat we face right now from WikiLeaks is not the information it has spilled and may spill in the future, but the reactionary response to it that’s building in the United States that promises to repudiate the rule of law and our free speech traditions, if left unchecked."[183]

        The New York Times reported that over 200 WikiLeaks mirror sites sprang up after some hosting companies cut their services to the company.[184] On 5 December, a group of activists and hackers known as "Anonymous" called upon supporters to attack sites of companies that oppose WikiLeaks as part of Operation Avenge Assange.[185] Paypal has been targeted following their decision to stop processing donations for Wikileaks.[186][187]Gregg Housh, who previously worked on other projects with Anonymous, said that he had noticed an organised attempt taking place to attack companies that have not supported WikiLeaks. In reference to the support being shown for Wikileaks, Mr. Housh said; "The reason is amazingly simple, we all believe that information should be free, and the Internet should be free."[154] On 8 December 2010, Paypal website was victim of a Denial-of-service attack by Anonymous.[188][189][190] Later that day, Paypal announced in their blog that they will release all remaining funds in the account to the foundation that was raising funds for WikiLeaks.[191][192] On the same day, the websites of Visa and Mastercard were attacked by WikiLeaks supporters. By then over 1,200 mirror sites had been set up for hosting content no longer accessible at WikiLeaks.com. Anonymous also issued a fresh statement; "While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency, and we counter censorship...This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against, and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."[193]

        The Internet Society (ISOC) stated that despite the international concern about the content released by WikiLeaks, "we nevertheless believe it must be subject to the same laws and policies of availability as all Internet sites" and that “free expression should not be restricted by governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet”. ISOC also called for appropriate action to "pursue and prosecute entities (if any) that acted maliciously to take it [WikiLeaks] off the air” because suppressing communication would merely serve to “undermine the integrity of the global Internet and its operation”.[194]

        On 8 December 2010 the international civic organisation Avaaz launched a petition in support of WikiLeaks, which was signed by over 250 thousand people within the first few hours, the total number went up to 600 thousand by 15 December 2010.[195][196][197]

        In early December 2010, Noam Chomsky offered his support to protesters across Australia planning to take to the streets in defence of WikiLeaks.[198]

        On 14 December 2010, Michael Moore offered $20,000 to help bail Assange out of jail.[199][200]

        Awards received

        In 2008, Index on Censorship presented WikiLeaks with their inaugural Economist New Media Award.

        In 2009, Amnesty International awarded WikiLeaks their Media Award for exposing "extra judicial killings and disappearances" in Kenya.[201]

        Praise by governments

         Brazil: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his "solidarity" with Julian Assange following Assange's 2010 arrest in the United Kingdom. Lula went on to state—in reference to WikiLeaks disclosure of classified US diplomatic cables in November and December 2010—WikiLeaks had "exposed a diplomacy that had appeared unreachable."[202][203] He further criticised the arrest of Julian Assange as "an attack on freedom of expression".[204]

         Ecuador: In late November 2010 a representative of the government of Ecuador made what was, apparently, an unsolicited public offer to Julian Assange to establish residency in Ecuador. Deputy Foreign Minister Kinto Lucas stated "we are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just on the Internet, but in various public forums."[205] Lucas went on to state his praise for WikiLeaks and Assange calling them "[people] who are constantly investigating and trying to get light out of the dark corners of [state] information."[206] The following day, however, president Rafael Correadistanced his administration from the offer stating that Lucas had been speaking for himself and not on the government's behalf. Correa then criticised Assange for "breaking the laws of the United States and leaking this type of information."[207]

         Russia: In December 2010 the office of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev issued a statement calling on non-governmental organisations to consider "nominating [Julian] Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate." The announcement followed commentary by Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin who stated that Julian Assange's earlier arrest on Swedish charges demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west.[208]

         Venezuela: Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, stated his support for WikiLeaks following the release of US diplomatic cables in November 2010 that showed the United States had tried to rally support from regional governments to isolate Venezuela. "I have to congratulate the people of WikiLeaks for their bravery and courage," Chávez commented in televised remarks.[209]

         United Nations: In December 2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank LaRue stated he agreed with the idea that Julian Assange was a "martyr for free speech." LaRue went on to say Assange or other WikiLeaks staff should not face legal accountability for any information they disseminated, noting that, "if there is a responsibility by leaking information it is of, exclusively of the person that made the leak and not of the media that publish it. And this is the way that transparency works and that corruption has been confronted in many cases."[210] High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay subsequently voiced concern at the revelation that private companies were being pressured by states to sever their relationships with WikiLeaks.[211]

        Criticism

        WikiLeaks has attracted criticism from a variety of sources.[212]

        In 2007 John Young, operator of Cryptome, left his position on the WikiLeaks Board of Directors accusing the group of being a "CIA conduit". Young subsequently retreated from his assertion but has continued to be critical of the site.[213] In a 2010 interview withCNET.com Young accused the group of a lack of transparency regarding their fundraising and financial management. He went on to state his belief that WikiLeaks could not guarantee whistleblowers the anonymity or confidentiality they claimed and that he "would not trust them with information if it had any value, or if it put me at risk or anyone that I cared about at risk."[214]

        Citing the leaking of the sorority rituals of Alpha Sigma Tau, Steven Aftergood has opined that WikiLeaks "does not respect the rule of law nor does it honour the rights of individuals." Aftergood went on to state that WikiLeaks engages in unrestrained disclosure of non-governmental secrets without compelling public policy reasons and that many anti-corruption activists were opposed to the site's activities.[215]

        In 2010, Amnesty International joined several other human rights groups criticising WikiLeaks for not adequately redacting the names of Afghan civilians working as U.S. military informants from files they had released. Julian Assange responded by offering Amnesty International staff the opportunity to assist in the document vetting process. When Amnesty International appeared to express reservations in accepting the offer, Assange dismissed the group as "people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses." Other groups that joined Amnesty International in criticising WikiLeaks subsequently noted that, despite their displeasure over the issue of civilian name redaction, they generally appreciated WikiLeaks's work.[216]

        In an August 2010 open letter, the non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders praised WikiLeaks' past usefulness in exposing "serious violations of human rights and civil liberties" but criticised the group over a perceived absence of editorial control, stating "indiscriminately publishing 92,000 classified reports reflects a real problem of methodology and, therefore, of credibility. Journalistic work involves the selection of information. The argument with which you defend yourself, namely that WikiLeaks is not made up of journalists, is not convincing."[217] The group subsequently clarified their statement as a criticism of WikiLeaks release procedure and not the organisation itself, stating "we reaffirm our support for Wikileaks, its work and its founding principles."[218]

        On 30 November 2010, former Canadian government adviser Tom Flanagan, while appearing on the CBC television program "Power & Politics", called for Julian Assange to be killed. "I think Assange should be assassinated," Flanagan stated, before noting to host Evan Solomon, "I'm feeling pretty manly today." Flanagan subsequently retracted his call for the death of Assange while reiterating his opposition to WikiLeaks.[219] Dimitri Soudas, spokesman to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, decried Flanagan's comments and said the former Tory strategist's remarks are "simply not acceptable." Ralph Goodale, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, called Flanagan's remarks "clearly contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms."[220]

        Russian investigative reporter Andrei Soldatov has criticised WikiLeaks for disclosing documents "without checking of the facts, without putting them in context, and without analysing them.” Soldatov believes WikiLeaks is "filling the gap" left by the decline of investigative journalism with a sensationalist alternative while journalistic support of WikiLeaks is motivated by anger over declining funding and resources for investigative reporting.[221]

        Contrary Views. A number of authors contend that Wikileaks, contrary to appearances, is actually a charade or intelligence agency disinformation ploy conducting psychological warfare. They point to the effects on mobilizing public opinion against freedom of information and to allegations in the purported leaks which incriminate targets of US foreign policy, such as Iran. Notable critics in this vein include Michel Chossudovsky[222] and F. William Engdahl.[223]

        Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has said: "Speaking as Wikipedia's co-founder, I consider you enemies of the U.S.—not just the government, but the people." [224]

        According to a telephone survey of 1,029 US residents age 18 and older, conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in December 2010, Americans are overwhelmingly critical of WikiLeaks. The poll found that 70 percent of respondents – particularlyRepublicans and older people – think the leaks are doing more harm than good by allowing America's enemies to see confidential and secret information about U.S. foreign policy. Just 22 percent – especially young liberals – think the leaks are doing more good than harm by making the U.S. government more transparent and accountable. A majority of 59 percent also wants to see the people behind WikiLeaks prosecuted, while 31 percent said the publication of secrets is protected under the First Amendment guarantee of a free press.[225]

        Criticism by governments

        Most of the governments and organisations whose files have been leaked by WikiLeaks have been critical of the organisation.

        •  Australia: On 2 December 2010 Prime Minister Julia Gillard made a statement that she 'absolutely condemns' Wikileaks' actions and that the release of information on the site was 'grossly irresponsible' and 'illegal.'[226] Wikileaks founder Julian Assange isAustralian and he responded two days later by accusing his prime minister of betraying him as an Australian citizen.[227] However, on 8 December 2010—after WikiLeaks published U.S. diplomatic cables in which United States diplomats labelled him a "control freak", former Australian Prime Minister and current foreign minister Kevin Rudd said the leak of the US secret cables raised questions about US security. Rudd said, "The core responsibility, and therefore legal liability, goes to those individuals responsible for that initial unauthorised release."[228][229] In an article in The Australian, Assange claimed, "The Australian attorney-general is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US."[230]However, Australian officials later said that Assange has done nothing illegal.[231]
        •  France: The French Industry Minister Éric Besson said in a letter to the CGIET technology agency, WikiLeaks "violates the secret of diplomatic relations and puts people protected by diplomatic secret in danger." Therefore it would be 'unacceptable' that the site was hosted on servers based in France. The minister asked for measures to bar WikiLeaks from France.[232]
        •  Iran: The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also criticised WikiLeaks following the release of United States diplomatic cables. Ahmadinejad claimed that the release of cables purporting to show concern with Iran by Arab states was a planned leak by the United States to discredit his government, though he did not indicate whether he believed WikiLeaks was in collusion with the United States or was simply an unwitting facilitator.[233]
        •  Philippines: President Benigno Aquino III comdemned Wikileaks and leaked documents related to the country, saying that it can lead to massive cases of miscommunication.[234]
        •  United States: Following the November 2010 release of United States diplomatic cables, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clintondenounced the group saying, "this disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests, it is an attack on the international community."[235] Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee of the United States House of Representatives has stated his support for listing Wikileaks as a "foreign terrorist organisation" explaining that "WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States."[236] In a contrary statement, secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said that concerns about the disclosures were "over-wrought" in terms of their likely adverse impact on ordinary diplomatic activities.[237] Philip J. Crowley, United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, stated on 2 December 2010 that the US State Department does not regard WikiLeaks as a media organisation. "WikiLeaks is not a media organization. That is our view." Crowley said and with regard to Assange;"Well, his – I mean he could be considered a political actor. I think he’s an anarchist, but he’s not a journalist."[238]
          US Senator Joe Lieberman, who first called on Amazon to shut down WikiLeaks and then praised the company after doing so called for other companies to follow suit.[149] He also proposed new legislation targeting similar cases—Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination Act,[148] also known as the SHIELD Act,[239] not to be confused with a shield law. Lieberman later said that also The New York Times and other news organisations publishing the US embassy cables being released by WikiLeaks could be investigated for breaking US espionage laws.[240]

        Spin offs

        Following the initial releases of US diplomatic cables, a number of other sites based on the WikiLeaks model were borne.[241]

        • OpenLeaks was created by the former deputy to Assange. Daniel Domscheit-Berg said the intention was to be more transparent than WikiLeaks as "In these last months, the organisation has not been open any more. It lost its open-source promise." It planned to start in early 2011.
        • Brussels Leaks was focused on the European Union as a collaborative effort of media professionals and activists that sought to "pull the shady inner workings of the EU system out into the public domain. This is about getting important information out there, not about Brusselsleaks [or any other 'leaks' for that matter]."
        • TradeLeaks was created to "do to trade and commerce what WikiLeaks has done to politics." It was founded by Ruslan Kogan, a fellow Australian of Assange. Its goal is to ensure ""individuals and businesses should attain values from others through mutually beneficial and fully consensual trade, rather than force, fraud or deception."
        • Balkan Leaks was founded by Bulgarain Atanas Chobanov in order to make the Balkans more transparent and to fight corruption as "There are plenty of people out there that want to change the Balkans for good and are ready to take on the challenge. We're offering them a hand."
        • Indoleaks is an Indonesian that sought to publish classified documents of the Indonesian government, though the Jakarta Globe said "the [Indonesian] government claimed not to be concerned by the website."

        Leaks

        2006–08

        WikiLeaks posted its first document in December 2006, a decision to assassinate government officials signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys."[29] In August 2007, The Guardian published a story about corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moibased on information provided via WikiLeaks.[242] In November 2007, a March 2003 copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta detailing the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was released.[243] The document revealed that some prisoners were off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past repeatedly denied.[244] In February 2008, WikiLeaks released allegations of illegal activities at the Cayman Islands branch of the Swiss Bank Julius Baer which led to the bank suing WikiLeaks and obtaining an injunction which temporarily shut down wikileaks.org.[245] The site was instantly mirrored by supporters and later that month the judge overturned his previous decision citing First Amendmentconcerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.[246][247] In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later received letters threatening to sue them for breach of copyright.[248] In September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on WikiLeaks after being hacked into by members ofAnonymous.[249] In November 2008, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks, after briefly appearing on a blog.[250] A year later, on October 2009, another list of BNP members was leaked.[251]

        2009

        In January 2009, WikiLeaks released 86 telephone intercept recordings of Peruvian politicians and businessmen involved in the 2008 Peru oil scandal.[252] In February, WikiLeaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports[253] follwed in March, by a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaign[254][255] and a set of documents belonging to Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian.[256] In July, they released a report relating to a serious nuclear accident that had occurred at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in 2009.[257] Later media reports have suggested that the accident was related to theStuxnet computer worm.[258][259] In September, internal documents from Kaupthing Bank were leaked, from shortly before the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2010 Icelandic financial crisis. The document shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off.[260] In October, Joint Services Protocol 440, a British document advising the security services on how to avoid documents being leaked was published by WikiLeaks.[261] Later that month, they announced that a super-injunction was being used by the commodities company, Trafigura to gag The Guardian newspaper from reporting on a leaked internal document regarding a toxic dumping incident in the Ivory Coast.[262][263] In November, they hosted copies of e-mail correspondence between climate scientists, although they were not originally leaked to WikiLeaks.[264] They also released 570,000 intercepts of pager messages sent on the day of the 11 September attacks.[265] During 2008 and 2009, WikiLeaks published the alleged lists of forbidden or illegal web addresses for Australia, Denmark and Thailand. These were originally created to prevent access to child pornography and terrorism, but the leaks revealed that other sites covering unrelated subjects were also listed.[266][267][268]

        2010

        In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a secret 32-page U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report written in March 2008 discussing the leaking of material by WikiLeaks and how it could be deterred.[269][270] In April, a classified video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike was released, showing two Reuters employees being fired at, after the pilots mistakenly thought the men were carrying weapons, which were in fact cameras.[271] In the week following the release, "Wikileaks" was the search term with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights.[272] In June 2010, A 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, PFC (formerly SPC) Bradley Manning, was arrested after alleged chat logs were turned in to the authorities by former hacker Adrian Lamo, in whom he had confided. Manning reportedly told Lamo he had leaked the "Collateral Murder" video, in addition to a video of the Granai airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks.[273] In July, WikiLeaks released 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009 to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. The documents detail individual incidents including friendly fire and civilian casualties.[274] At the end of July, a 1.4 GB "insurance file" was added to the Afghan War Diary page, whose decryption details would be released if WikiLeaks or Assange were harmed.[116] About 15,000 of the 92,000 documents have not yet been released on WikiLeaks, as the group is currently reviewing the documents to remove some of the sources of the information. WikiLeaks asked the Pentagon and human-rights groups to help remove names from the documents to reduce the potential harm caused by their release, but did not receive assistance.[275] Following the Love Parade stampede in Duisburg, Germany on 24 July 2010, a local published internal documents of the city administration regarding the planning of Love Parade. The city government reacted by acquiring a court order on 16 August forcing the blog to remove the documents from its blog.[276] On 20 August WikiLeaks released a publication titled Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents, 2007–2010, which comprised 43 internal documents regarding the Love Parade 2010.[277][278] Following on from the leak of information from the Afghan War, in October 2010, around 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War where released in October. The BBC quoted The Pentagonreferring to the Iraq War Logs as "the largest leak of classified documents in its history." Media coverage of the leaked documents focused on claims that the U.S. government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities during the period after the 2003 war.[279]

        Diplomatic cables release

        On 28 November WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from Spain (El País), France (Le Monde), Germany (Der Spiegel), the United Kingdom (The Guardian), and the United States (The New York Times) started to simultaneously publish the first 220[280] of 251,287 leaked confidential—but not top secret—diplomatic cables from 274 embassies dated from 1966–2010.[281] WikiLeaks plans to release the entirety of the cables in phases over several months.[281]

        The contents of the diplomatic cables include numerous unguarded comments and revelations: critiques and praises about the host countries of various US embassies, discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East, efforts and resistance towards nuclear disarmament, actions in the War on Terror, assessments of other threats around the world, dealings between various countries, US intelligence and counterintelligence efforts, and other diplomatic actions. Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak include stark criticism, anticipation, commendation, and quiescence.

        Announcements on upcoming leaks

        In May 2010, WikiLeaks said they had video footage of a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan by the US military which they were preparing to release.[119][282]

        In an interview with Chris Anderson on 19 July 2010, Assange showed a document WikiLeaks had on an Albanian oil well blowout, and said they also had material from inside BP,[283] and that they were "getting enormous quantity of whistle-blower disclosures of a very high calibre"[284] but added that they have not been able to verify and release the material because they do not have enough volunteer journalists.[285]

        In October 2010, Assange told a leading Moscow newspaper that "The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia."[286][287] Assange later clarified: "we have material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia. It’s not right to say there’s going to be a particular focus on Russia".[288]

        In a 2009 Computer World interview, Assange claimed to be in possession of "5GB from Bank of America", and in 2010 told Forbesmagazine that WikiLeaks was planning another "megaleak" for early in 2011, which this time would be from inside the private sector and involve "a big U.S. bank". Bank of America's stock price fell by three percent as a result of this announcement.[289][290] Assange commented on the possible impact of the release that ”it could take down a bank or two.”[291][292]

        In December 2010, Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, told The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC, that WikiLeaks had information it considers to be a "thermo-nuclear device" which it would release if the organisation needs to defend itself.[293]



        The www.wikileaks.org domain is currently redirecting to wikileaks.info, a domain not affiliated with WikiLeaks and not included in the official list of mirrors. The Spamhaus Project has stated that the domain is hosted in a "very dangerous 'neighborhood'"

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        Bilderberg Group


        Bill Clinton when he was young received a Rhodes Scholarship and later attended Bilderberg Group meetings, his wife Hilliary Clinton also was seen attending the 2008 Bilderberg meeting held in Ottowa Canada. Later on Bill Clinotn became president of the USA twice, and his wife Hillary Clinton nearky became President of the USA, but ended up in one of th emlst power positions in USA Politics as Secretary of State and some say Hillary Clinton is the main representative of the Bilderberg Group in the USA White House, ans in fact may may more real power in the running of America than the president Barrack Obama.
        The Rothchild Family...who seem to be healivy involved with the Bilderberg Group and its sister organisations the Trilateral Commission and the Council For Foreign Relations


        Newspaper Article_Elite Are Ever Elusive

        Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group"There need to be places where these people can think about the main challenges ahead, co-ordinate where policies should be going, and find out where there could be a consensus..."....Professor Kees van der Pijl
        "Business influences society and politics influences society - that's purely common sense..."...Will Hutton, an economic analyst and former newspaper editor who attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1997, says people take part in these networks in order to influence the way the world works, to create what he calls "the international common sense" about policy. 



        Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group - BBC News
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm
        Bilderberg's head Viscount Davignon plays down the group's role in setting the international agenda
        Bill Clinton was featured at a Bilderberg meeting while he was governor of Arkansas

        How much influence do private networks of the rich and powerful have on government policies and international relations? One group, the Bilderberg, has often attracted speculation that it forms a shadowy global government. As part of the BBC's Who Runs Your World? series, Bill Hayton tries to find out more. More
        How much influence do private networks of the rich and powerful have on government policies and international relations? One group, the Bilderberg, has often attracted speculation that it forms a shadowy global government. As part of the BBC's Who Runs Your World? series, Bill Hayton tries to find out more

        The chairman of the secretive - he prefers the word private - Bilderberg Group is 73-year-old Viscount Etienne Davignon, corporate director and former European Commissioner.

        In his office, on a private floor above the Brussels office of the Suez conglomerate lined with political cartoons of himself, he told me what he thought of allegations that Bilderberg is a global conspiracy secretly ruling the world.

        "It is unavoidable and it doesn't matter," he says. "There will always be people who believe in conspiracies but things happen in a much more incoherent fashion."

        Lack of publicity

        In an extremely rare interview, he played down the importance of Bilderberg in setting the international agenda. "What can come out of our meetings is that it is wrong not to try to deal with a problem. But a real consensus, an action plan containing points 1, 2 and 3? The answer is no. People are much too sensible to believe they can do that."

        Every year since 1954, a small network of rich and powerful people have held a discussion meeting about the state of the trans-Atlantic alliance and the problems facing Europe and the US.

        Organised by a steering committee of two people from each of about 18 countries, the Bilderberg Group (named after the Dutch hotel in which it held its first meeting) brings together about 120 leading business people and politicians.

        At this year's meeting in Germany, the audience included the heads of the World Bank and European Central Bank, Chairmen or Chief Executives from Nokia, BP, Unilever, DaimlerChrysler and Pepsi - among other multi-national corporations, editors from five major newspapers, members of parliament, ministers, European commissioners, the crown prince of Belgium and the queen of the Netherlands.

        "I don't think (we are) a global ruling class because I don't think a global ruling class exists. I simply think it's people who have influence interested to speak to other people who have influence," Viscount Davignon says.

        "Bilderberg does not try to reach conclusions - it does not try to say 'what we should do'. Everyone goes away with their own feeling and that allows the debate to be completely open, quite frank - and to see what the differences are.

        "Business influences society and politics influences society - that's purely common sense. It's not that business contests the right of democratically-elected leaders to lead".

        For Bilderberg's critics the fact that there is almost no publicity about the annual meetings is proof that they are up to no good. Jim Tucker, editor of a right-wing newspaper, the American Free Press for example, alleges they organise wars and elect and depose political leaders. He describes the group as simply 'evil'. So where does the truth lie?

        Professor Kees van der Pijl of Sussex University in Britain says such private networks of corporate and political leaders play an informal but crucial role in the modern world.

        "There need to be places where these people can think about the main challenges ahead, co-ordinate where policies should be going, and find out where there could be a consensus."

        'Common sense'

        Will Hutton, an economic analyst and former newspaper editor who attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1997, says people take part in these networks in order to influence the way the world works, to create what he calls "the international common sense" about policy.

        "On every issue that might influence your business you will hear at first-hand the people who are actually making those decisions and you will play a part in helping them to make those decisions and formulating the common sense," he says.

        And that "common sense" is one which supports the interests of Bilderberg's main participants - in particular free trade. Viscount Davignon says that at the annual meetings, "automatically around the table you have internationalists" - people who support the work of the World Trade Organisation, trans-Atlantic co-operation and European integration.

        Bilderberg meetings often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names. Bill Clinton went in 1991 while still governor of Arkansas, Tony Blair was there two years later while still an opposition MP. All the recent presidents of the European Commission attended Bilderberg meetings before they were appointed.

        'Secret Government'

        This has led to accusations that the group pushes its favoured politicians into high office. But Viscount Davignon says his steering committee are simply excellent talent spotters. The steering committee "does its best assessment of who are the bright new boys or girls in the beginning phase of their career who would like to get known."

        "It's not a total accident, but it's not a forecast and if they go places it's not because of Bilderberg, it's because of themselves," Viscount Davignon says.

        But its critics say Bilderberg's selection process gives an extra boost to aspiring politicians whose views are friendly to big business. None of this, however, is easy to prove - or disprove.

        Observers like Will Hutton argue that such private networks have both good and bad sides. They are unaccountable to voters but, at the same time, they do keep the international system functioning. And there are limits to their power - a point which Bilderberg chairman was keen to stress, "When people say this is a secret government of the world I say that if we were a secret government of the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves."

        Informal and private networks like Bilderberg have helped to oil the wheels of global politics and globalisation for the past half a century. In the eyes of critics they have undermined democracy, but their supporters believe they are crucial to modern democracy's success. And so long as business and politics remain mutually dependent, they will continue to thrive. 










        noliesradio.org/images/bilderbergBOOK.jpg

        The Bilderberg Group: Rulers of the World _ on Guns & Butter

        By noliesradio
        This show was broadcast August 17, 2009.
         noliesradio.org/archives/4417

        Bilderberg Group
        GUNS AND BUTTER with Bonnie Faulkner

        The Bilderberg Group: Rulers of the World — Daniel Estulin 
        Interview with investigator and author, Daniel Estulin, on his book, “The True Story of the Bilderberg Group“, which describes an annual gathering where the European and American political elite, and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all come together to discuss the economic and political future of humanity. Highly secretive, the press has never been allowed to attend, nor have statements ever been released on the group’s conclusions or discussions, which have great ramifications for all the citizens of the world. The book also includes sections on the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.



        Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup. 
        Directed by Dylan Avery and dramatically narrated by Daniel Sunjata of FX's Rescue Me, this is the latest and most comprehensive version of Loose Change. It covers in depth why the Official 911 story does not hold water. Loaded with powerful, new footage and in-depth interviews with the likes of Steven Earl Jones, an American physicist who has discovered undetonated explosive material in multiple samples of dust from the World Trade Center collapses, this documentary presents a wide array of evidence both known and unknown...until now. On Google alone, the preceding versions ofLoose Change have been viewed nearly 125 million times. On YouTube the film has a combined viewership of over 30 million worldwide. More than two million copies of the DVD have been sold, and thousands more have been given away. The original Loose Change film has been translated into twenty-six languages and has spawned a truth movement around the world. The initial film had a budget of $2,000. This latest version, Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, has an estimated budget of $1,000,000.
        This is a newly released DVD.
        $14.95

         
        http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/7932/bilderberg0mn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://no-for-nwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/bilderberg-group.html&usg=__iC0U0wBF1GOLFZfGAhCH_vDG2cg=&h=379

        no-for-nwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/bilderberg-gr...

        img75.imageshack.us/img75/7932/bilderberg0mn.jpg

        WUTS UP KATIE HERE ;) IF U DISAGREE, DO UR RESEARCH, COME UP WITH THE EVIDENCE TO DISPROVE ME, I BET U WONT BE ABLE TO ;) ANY QUESTIONS, HELP? FEEL FREE TO WRITE, I WILL GET BACK TO YOU..PEACE OUT ;)

        THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2008 The Bilderberg group




        WHO:The bilderberg group. A couple of hundred of worlds elite, who control the worlds banking system, who control when wars happen, who control the food and the oil prices, they control puppets like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain and yes they did already choose , who the next president will be.
        Last years Bilderberg meet which, happened in Istambul, Turkey from May 31 to June 3 the attendees included:
        George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece); Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey); Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK); Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister (Portugal); José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission (Portugal/International); Franco Bernabé, Vice Chariman, Rothschild Europe (Italy); Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France); Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden); Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium); Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France); Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France); Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain): more info on and more attendees:http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/210507_estulin_bilderberg.html


        WHY: World domination they wanna enslave us, they wanna reduce the earth's population, increase the price of gas, and food....http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=endgame+&hl=eN&sitesearch=#
        Even a Portuguese Newspaper admitted Bilderberg Kingmaker power:

        Updates:From Alex Jones and Jim Tucker who are actually covering, the meeting, which the mainstream media is not doing why? Why would they meet in secret if they are the good guys?The Bilderbergs are evil and they are here to destroy us.......will u let them?

        http://www.infowars.com/?p=2545_ Jim tucker onthe scene of Bilderberg

        http://www.infowars.com/?p=2544 Spooks infest Mariot Hotel as bilderberg begins

        http://www.infowars.com/?p=2548 Alex Jones and Jim Ticker report on the meet.

        BILDERBERG: THE SYSTEMIC CONSPIRACY - Daniel Estulin

        //www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-15EjHCzds


        More? Dutch Embassy changes bilderberg 2008 press release.//www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-61ilgFH6U



        Paul Vigay looks into the shady world of global conspiracies and manipulations
        http://www.truefacts.co.uk/articles/a0002.html

        Bilderberg Group - History

        The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem, from May 29 to May 30 in 1954. The meeting was initiated by Polish emigre and political adviser, Joseph Retinger. Concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, he proposed an international conference at which opinion leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures.

        Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one each to represent conservative and liberal points of view.

        The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committe also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity.

        Dutch economist, Ernst van der Beugel took over as permanent secretary in 1960, upon the death of Retinger. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until his own death, in 2004.


        Illuminati Freemason Connection Part One


        Illuminati Freemason Connection Part Two


        Illuminati Freemason Connection Part Three



        Illuminati Freemason Connection Part Four


        Illuminati Freemason Connection Part Five


        Paul Vigay looks into the shady world of global conspiracies and manipulations Bilderberg 
        http://www.truefacts.co.uk/articles/a0002.html
        by Paul Vigay (25th Mar 2000)

        Paul Vigay looks into the shady world of global conspiracies and manipulations.
        His findings are at least eye-opening, at worst downright frightening. Have you ever wondered if there really is a 'global elite'? Some secret group of people who control world events and hide their agenda from public knowledge?

        Could there be a group of people; politicians, heads of multinational companies, directors of world banking organisations and even royalty, who decide what policies will determine the way ordinary people live - and die?

        As David Icke says, it is relatively easy for a small group of people to control the masses when everyday we give our power and freedom away, fearing to step out from the comfort of our 'hassle free zone'. Who perpetrate the 'Problem, Reaction, Solution' events which shape and manipulate our perceived 'democracy and freedom'?

        If you control governments and the media you control the world, or do you? What if a problem so terrible, so grotesque, so 'unbelievable' begins to occur with startling regularity? Do you demand answers? Do you demand what 'the government' is going to do about it? Do you pass the problem to someone else do deal with? What happens if that person you hand the solution to, is the person who created the problem in the first place? So forms the basis for the problem, reaction, solution method of controlling the people with the minimum of effort.

        Imagine a scenario where a lone-gunman walks into a crowded shopping centre and guns down a number of innocent people. Terrible enough, but what if at a later time, some innocent school children in a quiet, peaceful school are the targets? The more outrageous and disgusting an event, the more people will demand something must be done; "Guns must be banned", "Something must be done now!".

        Believe it or not, David Icke predicted just such a scenario in his 1994 book "The Robots' Rebellion", before we witnessed the terrible events at Dunblane.

        Supposing someone, somewhere wanted the end 'solution' to be "to ban guns". Obviously, gun clubs, enthusiasts and legitimate people are going to complain, perhaps with the backing or at least, indifference, of the general public. After all "it doesn't affect us does it". You need to somehow manipulate the public to demand that you offer the solution. You need a public 'reaction', for which you need to stage a perceived 'problem'. The more horrific and unbelievable you can make it, the more the public will demand what you wanted to do in the first place.

        Rising Crime? or Big Brother?

        What if you want to install video cameras and monitoring equipment into towns and villages. Of course, this costs huge amounts of money, which could be spent on hospitals, research into illnesses or saving the environment, so you need the public to demand you do it, or at the minimum, not offer resistance when you propose it. You need the 'problem' of rising crime, which needs to be perpetuated throughout the media and on TV. People will then fear being mugged in the streets and approve the 'safety' offered by cameras and surveillance equipment - even though the need was not high enough in the first place.

        Does such a group of people exist? There is ample evidence to say that there does, and what's more, once you become aware of the facts, you can see their influence in world events - even though seemingly forged by 'opposing factions'.

        Democracy or Denial?

        Why are the public losing interest in government and their right to vote? Is it because people think "it doesn't matter who you vote for, they both end up doing the same old things". How precise this turns out to be, once you dig deep enough.

        No wonder The Sun newspaper decided to back Tony Blair of New Labour (what a joke) in the May 1997 UK general election. The chief executive of News International (the parent of The Sun) is Mr Andrew Knight, a member of the Bilderberg Group.

        Opposite sides, same views:-
        Opposames!

        Mr Tony Blair was a guest of the annual Bilderberg meeting in 1993, together with his colleague Kenneth Clarke. Hang on a minute though..... Aren't those two on opposite sides? What about Bilderberg attendees Margaret Thatcher and Denis Healey - and you thought we lived in a democracy where your vote actually counted.

        Incidentally, this could account for why Margaret Thatcher was one of Tony Blair's first guests at Number Ten, something the independent media were quick to pick up on after New Labour won power.

        The same goes for US presidents. Every one since Jimmy Carter has been a Bilderberg representative. Democrat, Republican - it doesn't matter. They all have the same policies, decided upon at top secret meetings held annually in hidden locations.

        What exactly are 'The Bilderbergers' then? What are their aims? This article, mainly extracts from "The Bilderberg Group... the Trilateral Commission... covert power groups of the West", by Robert Eringer, (Pentacle Books, 1980) tries to expose some of their secret agenda.

        As the concepts and plans behind the global elite could pose such a threat to our freedom, I will periodically return to this subject in order to keep Enigma readers aware of the world around them. If anything in this article, or any keywords on the cover of this issue, strike a chord with you, or if you have further information, please do not hesitate to contact me at the editorial address.

        The Global Manipulators: In Search of Answers
        It is indeed intriguing when a prestigious collection of internationally powerful men lock themselves away for a weekend in some remote town far away from the Press to talk about world problems.
        Since the late 1950s, the Bilderberg Group has been the subject of a variety of conspiracy theories. For the most part, conspiracy theories emanate from political extremist organisations, Right and Left. The 'Radical Right' view Bilderberg as an integral part of the 'international Zionist-communist conspiracy'.
        At the other end of the political spectrum, the radical Left perceive Bilderberg to be a branch of the 'Rockefeller-Rothschild grand design to rule the world'. For many it is less frightening to believe in hostile conspirators than it is to face the fact that no one is in control. And after all, isn't conspiracy the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means?
        Conspiracy or not, the Bilderberg Group is a fascinating example of behind-the-scenes 'invisible' influence-peddling in action.
        Bilderbergers represent the elite and wealthy establishment of every Western nation. They include bankers, industrialists, politicians and leaders of giant multinational corporations. Their annual meetings, which take place at a different location each year, go unannounced, their debates unreported, their decisions unknown.
        The group certainly fits C.Wright Mills's definition of a Power Elite: 'A group of men, similar in interest and outlook, shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes.'
        The New World Order
        I began my investigation of Bilderberg while in Washington, D.C. in the autumn of 1975. I had read bits and pieces on Bilderberg in right-wing literature and so I went directly to its source, the Liberty Lobby, an ultra-conservative political pressure group located a stone's throw from Capitol Hill. There I interviewed one E.Stanley Rittenhouse, Liberty Lobby's legislative aide. Rittenhouse solemnly explained the existence of a Jewish-communist conspiracy to rule the world by way of a 'New World Order', whose eventual goal is one world government. To prove this point Rittenhouse incessantly recited passages from his handy pocket Bible and explained the evolution of this great conspiracy.
        The Illuminati
        It all goes back to the Illuminati, a secret society/fraternity formed in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, based on the philosophical ideals of Plato. John Ruskin, 'a secret disciple of the Illuminati' and a professor of art and philosophy at Oxford University in the 1870s, revived these ideals in his teachings.
        A Privileged Ruling Class
        The late Dr. Carroll Quigley, a distinguished professor at Georgetown University for many years, wrote in "Tragedy and Hope" that 'Ruskin spoke to the Oxford undergraduates as members of the privileged ruling class ... that they were possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved, and indeed did not deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England and to the non-English masses throughout the world'.
        Diamond Mining
        Cecil Rhodes, a student and devoted fan of Ruskin, 'Feverishly exploited the diamond and gold fields of South Africa. With financial support from Lord Rothschild he was able to monopolise the diamond mines of South Africa as De Beers Consolidated Mines.
        'In the middle of the 1890s Rhodes had a personal income of a least a million pounds a year which he spent so freely for his mysterious purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. These purposes centred on his desire to federate the English-speaking peoples and to bring all habitable portions of the world under their control.'
        The founding of The Round Table
        To this end, Rhodes, along with other disciples of Ruskin, formed a secret society in association with a group of Cambridge men who shared the same ideals. This society, which was later to become the original Round Table Group (better known in the 1920s as the 'Cliveden Set') was formed on February 5th 1881.
        According to Dr. Quigley, "This group was able to get access to Rhodes's money after his death in 1902. Under the trusteeship of Alfred (later Lord) Milner, They sought to extend and execute the ideals that Rhodes had obtained from Ruskin."
        "As governor-general of South Africa in the period 1897-1905, Milner recruited a group of young men, chiefly from Oxford and from Toynbee Hall, to assist him in organising his administration. Through this influence these men were able to win influential posts in government and international finance and became the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs up to 1939. Under Milner in South Africa, they were known as Milner's Kindergarten until 1910. In 1909-1903 they organised semi-secret groups, known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and in the United States."
        The CFR and RIIA
        It was at the Majestic Hotel in Paris in 1919 that the Round Table Groups of the United States and Britain emerged out from under a cloak of secrecy and officially became the (American) Council on Foreign Relations and the (British) Royal Institute for International Affairs.
        To Mr Rittenhouse and his breed of religious isolationists at Liberty Lobby, Bilderberg evolved directly from the 'satanic-communist' Illuminati, and the Council on Foreign Relations - Royal Institute of International Affairs relationship.
        I phoned Dr. Quigley at his office in Georgetown University's elite School of Foreign Service. A man of impeccable credentials, Quigley used "Tragedy and Hope" as a text for his courses on Western Civilisation.
        Published in 1966, "Tragedy and Hope" has become a rare book to locate. Quigley apparently had trouble with his publisher over the book's distribution. The publisher claimed demand was poor. When Quigley sought and acquired the necessary demand, the publisher responded by saying that the plates had been destroyed.
        In his book, 1310 pages in all, Quigley detailed how the intricate financial and commercial patterns of the West prior to 1914 influenced the development of today's world. It has been suggested that these revelations, especially in coming from a respected historian, did not amuse the higher echelons of big banking; hence a form of censorship resulted.
        It is for this reason that "Tragedy and Hope", much to Quigley's annoyance, has become the Bible of conspiracy theorists and may be found for sale only through mail order book clubs which specialise in conspiracy literature.
        Quigley, in his best Boston accent, dismissed the Radical-Right inter-pretation as 'garbage'. But he was quick to add, "To be perfectly blunt, you could find yourself in trouble dealing with this subject." He explained that his career as a lecturer in the government institution circuit was all but ruined because of the twenty or so pages he had written about the existence of Round Table Groups. I recently studied the late Dr. Quigley's private files on the Round Table Groups at the Georgetown University library. There I discovered great substance to his findings in the form of personal correspondence and notes of interviews and conversations.
        Exhausted with right-wing cries of communist conspiracy, I wrote to the embassies in Washington of each one of the countries whose citizens are involved with Bilderberg. I received only three replies. A letter from the Royal Swedish Embassy states: 'Prominent Swedish businessmen in their private capacities are and have been members of the group. Swedish politicians have also - mostly as invited guests as I understand it - participated in meetings with the group. I may add that I am not aware of any official Swedish view on the Bilderberg Group.' The Canadian Embassy wrote: 'To our knowledge, the Canadian Government has no position with regard to this group.'
        Official Denials
        I telephoned all of the embassies. Out of twenty, the only one which had any information of Bilderberg was that of the Netherlands. The official I spoke with knew very little about the group but he speculated that its purpose was to make this 'a more liveable world'. A diplomat at the Embassy of West Germany exclaimed, 'Bilder What?', and he refuse to believe the existence of such a group. This was a familiar response, even from many university professors of politics whom I questioned.
        Mark Felt, the former Assistant Director of the FBI, had never heard of Bilderberg. Neither had Michael Moffitt of the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of Global Reach.
        After spotting his Name on a poster advertising a seminar on the power elite, I phoned Dr. Peter David Beter, a former Counsel to the Import-Export Bank. Beter contends that Bilderberg Conferences are nothing more than social occasions where prostitutes and large amounts of alcohol are enjoyed. But these days, Dr. Beter's full-time profession consists of peddling a monthly 'Audio Letter' to a very gullible public. Beter was last heard by this author proclaiming that the Russians have secretly implanted nuclear missiles in the Mississippi River.
        White House Enquiries
        I wrote to President Gerald Ford at the White House to enquire about Bilderberg when I heard of his one-time involvement. His 'Director of Correspondence' replied and stated: 'The Conference does not intend that its program be secret, although in the interest of a free and open discussion, no records are kept of the meetings.' (I later learned that records are indeed kept of the meetings, although they are marked 'Strictly Confidential'.)
        I wrote to David Rockefeller, Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, to enquire about Bilderberg. An assistant wrote back and he suggested I write to 'Mr. Charles Muller, a Vice President at Muden and Company, the organisation which assists with the administration of American Friend of Bilderberg, Incorporated'
        I wrote to Mr. Muller and was sent the following printed message: "In the early 1950s a number of people in both sides of the Atlantic sought a means of bringing together leading citizens both in and out of government, for informal discussions of problems facing the Western world. Such meetings, they felt, would create a better understanding of the forces and trends affecting Western nations."
        The first meeting that brought Americans and Europeans together took place under the chairmanship of H.R.H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeck, Holland, from 29th May to 31st May, 1954. Ever since, the meetings have been called Bilderberg Meetings.

        The first Bilderberg Meeting, in Oosterbeck, Holland, May 1954
        Each year since its inception, Prince Bernhard has been the Bilderberg chairman. There are no members' of Bilderberg. Each year an invitation list is compiled by Prince Bernhard in consultation with an informal international steering committee; individuals are chosen in the light of their knowledge and standing. To ensure full discussion an attempt is made to include participants representing many political and economic points of view. Of the 80 to 100 participant, approximately one-third are from government and politics, the other are from many fields - finance, industry, labour, education and journalism. They attend in a personal and not in an official capacity. from the beginning participants have come from North America and Western Europe, and from various international organisations. The official languages are English and French.
        'The meetings take place in a different county each year. Since 1957, they have been held in many Western European countries and in North America as well.
        The discussion at each meeting is centred upon topics of current concern in the broad fields of foreign policy, world economy, and other contemporary issues. Basic groundwork for the symposium is laid by means of working papers and general discussion follows. In order to assure freedom of speech and opinion, the gatherings are closed and off the record. No resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued during or after the meetings.
        In short, Bilderberg is a high-ranking and flexibly international forum in which opposing viewpoints can be brought closer together and mutual understanding furthered.'
        I wrote to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and received a reply from the Bureau of European Affairs at the State Department: 'In the early 1950s a number of people on both sides of the Atlantic sought a means of bringing together leading citizens ' And so on.
        Official Business or Not?
        I went to see Charles Muller at his Murden and Company office in New York City. He appeared to know little about Bilderberg and merely repeated information available on the printed message. It is claimed that "Government officials attend in a personal and not an official capacity". Mr. Muller was surprised to learn from me that the State Department acknowledged in a letter to Liberty Lobby that department officials Helmut Sonnenfeldt and Winston Lord attended a Bilderberg Conference at government expense in their official capacities. (as did Kenneth Clarke and Tony Blair in 1993)
        I tried to obtain interviews with both Sonnenfeldt and Lord. Their secretaries channelled me through to many different offices. Finally, Francis Seidner, a public affairs advisor, advised me to mind my own business.
        Back in London and armed with a list of Bilderberg participants (available on request - Ed.), I sought out and conducted an interview with Lord Roll, chairman of the S.G. Warburg Bank. Roll gave little away and he stated outright that records of Bilderberg Conferences do not exist. (Little did he realise that I had one in my briefcase?)
        I wrote to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and they replied: 'Thank you for your letter enquiring about the Bilderberg Group. Unfortunately, we can find no trace of the Bilderberg Group in any of our reference works on international organisations.' (Much later, I learned that the Foreign Office has on occasion paid the way for British members to attend Bilderberg Conferences.)
        A letter to one-time member Sir Paul Chambers brought this response: 'I am under obligation not to disclose anything about the Bilderberg Group to anybody who is not a member of that Group, I am very sorry that I cannot help, but I am clearly powerless to do so and it would be wrong in the circumstances to say anything to you about Bilderberg.' Sir Paul suggested I write to the Bilderberg secretariat at an address in the Hague. I did so and was again sent a copy of the standard printed message.
        I had eagerly looked forward to the next Bilderberg Conference, which in 1976 was to be held in Hot Springs, Virginia. For the first time since 1954, the meeting was cancelled. The international steering committee felt it inappropriate to conduct a conference that year because permanent chairman Prince Bernhard was under such heavy public scrutiny after having been publicly disgraced for taking a bribe from the Lockheed Aircraft Company.
        UK Meeting in 1977
        So my first Bilderberg Conference took place a year later, in April 1977, at the serene Devon resort of Torquay.
        It is the Bilderberg custom to book a whole hotel for the weekend conference. The five-star Imperial Hotel was no exception and it, too, was emptied to accommodate over 100 Bilderberg participants. Even the Imperials permanent guests were told to find lodging elsewhere for the weekend.
        I managed a booking at the Imperial for three nights before the Bilderbergers moved in. On Thursday, two days before the conference was due to begin, heavy lorries and workmen unloaded large wooden file cabinets and sealed crates. I was not allowed access to the conference hall, despite assurances from a Bilderberg secretary that 'We have nothing to hide'.
        At 2 am Friday morning with the night club finally closed and the Imperial asleep, I tiptoed down five flights of stairs from my room to the conference hall. To my surprise, the doors were unlocked and unguarded. I slipped into the darkened hall and inspected the locked file cabinets, glass translation booth and electronic equipment for tape-recording and translation. Having already consumed a half-dozen whiskies, I could not repulse an urge to purloin a mahogany and brass-plated Bilderberg gavel. It now sits atop my desk, a trophy of my research.
        Like all others, I was thrown out of the hotel on the Friday to make way for American Secret Servicemen and Special Branch bodyguards. The Bilderbergers arrived later, mostly by way of a quiet entry through Exeter Airport 10 miles form Torquay. They held their hush-hush meetings and then, just as quietly, disappeared back to their respective banks, multinational corporations and government jobs, perhaps a little more the wiser than when they arrived.

        ----

        As you can see from the article above, people 'in the know' seem intent on keeping the purpose and attendees to each Bilderberg meeting top secret.

        The meetings still continue annually with the 1998 meeting having occurred only a few weeks ago at the remote Turnberry Hotel in Ayreshire, Scotland. Not long afterwards, I managed to obtain a list of attendees to this, most recent, meeting. The full list appears on the following page, for the benefit of, and to aid the personal research of, Enigmareaders.

        One noticeable omission from the list, is British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair. Does this mean that he is on the way out? It's interesting to note that William Hague (leader of the Opposition) and Tony Blair's own Secretary of State for Defence, Mr George Robertson were both present, as were (as usual) international media moguls.

        Other resources on this site
        • Linking the people.... - Our ongoing project to connect the dots and cross-reference all the attendees of Bilderberg meetings.
        • 1999 attendees - A list of attendees at the Bilderberg meeting 1999.
        Other sites you may be interested in visiting
        Other Famous Masons:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Freemasons

        Part of a series of articles on
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        This is a list of notable Freemasons. Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation which exists in a number of forms worldwide. Throughout history some members of the fraternity have made no secret of their involvement, while others have not made their membership public. In some cases, membership can only be proven by searching through the fraternity's records. Such records are most often kept at the individual Lodge level, and may be lost due to fire, flood, deterioration, or simple carelessness. Grand Lodge governance may have shifted or reorganized, resulting in further loss of records on the member or the name, number, location or even existence of the Lodge in question. In areas of the world where Masonry has been suppressed by governments, records of entire Grand Lodges have been destroyed. Because of this, masonic membership can sometimes be difficult to verify.

        Standards of "proof" for those on this list may vary widely; some figures with no verified Lodge affiliation are claimed as Masons if reliable sources give anecdotal evidence suggesting they were familiar with the "secret" signs and passes, but other figures are rejected over technical questions of irregularity in the Lodge that initiated them. Where available, specific Lodge membership information is provided; where serious questions of verification have been noted by other sources, this is indicated as well.

        A

        B

        C

        D

        E

        F

        G

        H

        I

        • Burl Ives, American actor and singer,[26] Magnolia (now Magnolia-La Cumbre) Lodge No. 242, California

        J

        K

        L

        M

        N

        O

        P

        Q

        • Manuel L. Quezon, First president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines under U.S. occupation rule in the early period of the 20th century. Raised March 17, 1908 at Sinukuan Lodge No. 272 (renamed Sinukuan Lodge No. 16). first Filipino Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands that was established in 1917.[188]

        R

        S

        T

        V

        W

        X

        Y

        • John Yarker - English occultist - 1° Lodge of Integrity No. 189 (later 163) Manchester, October 25, 1854, affiliated with Fidelity Lodge No. 623 April 27, 1855 - Expelled from the Ancient and Accepted Rite and Demitted (from all regular Freemasonry), 1862[244]

        Z

        • Duiliu Zamfirescu Romanian novelist, poet, short story writer, lawyer, nationalist politician, journalist, diplomat and memoirist.[11]

        References

        1. ^ Filipino Famous Mason - Jose Abad Santos
        2. ^ 1864 (one on-line source says 1867, contemporary sources say 1864), member Henri IV, Paris, but degree work conducted at Lodge of the Pyramids, Alexandria, Egypt
        3. ^ Page 7
        4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Famous Canadian Freemasons". Retrieved 2008-01-04.
        5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Famous Masons A-L
        6. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Nicanor Abelardo
        7. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Bishop G. Aglipay
        8. ^ a b Pages 202-203 The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society, by Jasper Ridley
        9. ^ a b c d Famous Freemasons Masonic Presidents
        10. ^ "Mrs. Elizabeth Aldworth". Biography/Aldworth. Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A.M.. 2002-02-25. Retrieved 2007-04-25. "upon secretly observing the first two degrees of a lodge at labour in her father's home, she was discovered and, after discussion, initiated in the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft Degree. A champion of Freemasonry"
        11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Stoica, Stan (coordinator). Dictionar de Istorie a României, p. 153-5. Bucharest: Editura Merona, 2007.
        12. ^ FACTS ABOUT MASONRY
        13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Famous Belgian freemasons, Grand Orient of Belgium
        14. ^ a b John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 226 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        15. ^ Filipino Famous Mason - Galicano Apacible
        16. ^ Atlas Pythagoras Lodge website
        17. ^ a b c d e f g h i Gettysburg
        18. ^ Masoniclibrary.com
        19. ^ a b c http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/nine.html Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon's "La Loge des Neufs Soeurs" page
        20. ^ Rose, Gerry (November 29, 1993). "The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation of Freemasonry". The American Almanac. [Conference Address by Gerald Rose, Schiller Institute Conference, September, 1993 Lay summary] – The New Federalist (September 5, 1993).
        21. ^ a b c Bicentenial Commemorative Volume of Holland Lodge No. 8, Published by the Lodge, New York, 1988
        22. ^ Hamill, John and , Gilbert, R. A., Freemasonry: A Celebration of the Craft?, Page 226. Paul & Company, 1992, ISBN 0951635522
        23. ^ Freemasonry in Turkey - Address given to Palestine Lodge 189 by Kaya Pasakay, Former Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Turkey
        24. ^ List of famous Masons compiled by Abbey Lodge, Abingdon, UK
        25. ^ Can Dundar webpage
        26. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o AASR hall of fame
        27. ^ Johann Christian Bach
        28. ^ About us page from Freemasonry Today
        29. ^ Bakunin and the Italians, T. R.Ravindranathan,, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988
        30. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj http://bessel.org/sctfmy.htm Paul M. Bessel's Supreme Court page
        31. ^ Neamtu, Gelu. A fost sau nu Simion Barnutiu un francmason (Simion Barnutiu franc-maçon). In: Inorogul. Caiete masonice. Bucuresti, 2001, p.121-146.
        32. ^ 1863-1923[dead link], Brief History of the Spanish Masonry
        33. ^ Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
        34. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/textfiles/famous.html Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon's "A few famous freemasons" page
        35. ^ Exsequi Lodge History: Famous Freemasons
        36. ^ Irving Berlin
        37. ^ Berlusconi: The power of personality, BBC, 14 May, 2001
        38. ^ Dávila del Valle. Oscar G., Presencia del ideario masónico en el proyecto revolucionario antillano de Ramón Emeterio Betances, available at the Grande Loja Carbonária do Brasil's website, [1]
        39. ^ "Bischof, Francis Erich (Frank) (1904 - 1979), Australian Dictionary of Biography".
        40. ^ Simon Bolivar
        41. ^ "The History of Illinois Freemasonry". Accessed September 25, 2007.
        42. ^ Andres Bonifacio Lodge No. 199
        43. ^ a b c d Wauthier, Claude. Africa's Freemasons - A strange inheritance, Le Monde Diplomatique, September 1997. Retrieved 15 August 2008.
        44. ^ "Borden at GL of BC".
        45. ^ a b John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 227 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        46. ^ John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 228 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        47. ^ Welcome to the George Washington National Masonic Memorial
        48. ^ The Cause of Humanity’: Charles Bradlaugh and Freemasonry (PDF), The Centre for Research into Freemasonry, Sheffield University
        49. ^ Famous Australian Freemasons
        50. ^ Inventory of the Archives of the Secretary, Lodge De Goede Hoop, Cape Town, 1772-1963 (inventory 5/4/6) in the TANAP Collection.
        51. ^ "In the Index of the Regius Manuscript: Section VII, Anglo-Saxon Masonry and the Constitution"]
        52. ^ http://www.srmason-sj.org/web/temple-files/hall-of-honor/hallofhonor.html AASR-SJ's "Hall of Honor" page
        53. ^ *Reid, Robie L. Historical Notes and Biographical Sketches 1848 - 1935 "Bio of Robert Burnaby" at Grand Lodge BC & Yukon website
        54. ^ Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne
        55. ^ http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/esoterica/cagliostro_a/cagliostro_a.html
        56. ^ Denslow, William R. 10,000 Famous Freemasons p. 171 (2004 Kessinger Publishing)ISBN 1417975784
        57. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Manuel Camus
        58. ^ Carrera, José Miguel, Encyclopedia Britannica, Guide to Hispanic Heritage
        59. ^ a b Poinsett - A revolutionary diplomat
        60. ^ Paul Foster Case
        61. ^ a b c d e f John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 229 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        62. ^ Plummer, Charles W.. "General and Brother Joshua L. Chamberlain". MasonicWorld.com. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
        63. ^ "Letters". The Churchill Society. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
        64. ^ a b Pa Freemason May 03 - Treasures of the Temple
        65. ^ Bicentennial Commemorative Volume of Holland Lodge No. 8, Published by the Lodge, New York, 1988
        66. ^ a b c d e f g h i j John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 230 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        67. ^ Masonic references in the works of Charles Williams Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon 2007
        68. ^ Burke, Peter The New Cambridge Modern History p. 304 (1979 Cambridge University)
        69. ^ Bigots united
        70. ^ UGLE Accessed 13 Jun 07
        71. ^ Freemason Film Celebrities
        72. ^ South Australian Freemasonry page
        73. ^ Francesco Crispi
        74. ^ Crispi to be Expelled by Freemasons, New York Times, October 10, 1894, Page 2
        75. ^ Aleister Crowley: freemason!, Martin Starr, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
        76. ^ Our "Black Sheep"
        77. ^ a b c d e f g h http://web.archive.org/web/20070510084204/http://www.ugle.org.uk/masonry/famous-masons.htm UGLE's "Famous" page
        78. ^ Historical Marker placed by Grand Lodge of Georgia
        79. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Marcelo H Del Pilar
        80. ^ Famous Mason - Isabelo delos Reyes
        81. ^ a b The Hystory Of Freemasonry In Turkey
        82. ^ ADDRESS TO THE 2002 CALIFORNIA MASONIC SYMPOSIUM
        83. ^ Time Magazine, Letters, Monday, Aug. 21, 1939
        84. ^ Blaise Diagne, député
        85. ^ MEXICAN MASONRY- POLITICS & RELIGION Oscar J. Salinas
        86. ^ Referenced at the US National Masonic Memorial, Alexandira, Virginia.
        87. ^ Freemasonry Today Issue 8, Spring 1999
        88. ^ "James H. Douglas, Governor of Vermont". Vermont Masonry in Action. Grand Lodge of Vermont. Archived from the original on 2007-06-22. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
        89. ^ [2] Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
        90. ^ a b c d e f g h i John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 231 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        91. ^ Freemasonry and the Labour Party in London: Some Approaches, Andrew Prescott, 2002
        92. ^ a b A few famous freemasons
        93. ^ a b Entry Giuseppe Mazzini in Volume III K - P, 10,000 FAMOUS FREEMASONS, By WILLIAM R. DENSLOW], 1957, Macoy Publishing & Masonic Supply Co., Inc.
        94. ^ The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, The Complete Restored Text, Garth Rosell and Richard Dupuis, eds, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI (1989). Page 629.
        95. ^ The Political Graveyard: Freemasons, politicians, New York, E-F
        96. ^ Morris, Robert (Summer 2000). "Alexander Fleming, Mason And Discoverer of Penicillin". The Scottish Rite Journal. Scottish Rite S.J. USA. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
        97. ^ a b c John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft p. 232 (J.G. Press, 1998)
        98. ^ The History of Masonry in Brazil – Bibliography: Menezes, Manuel Joaquim de, Exposição Histórica da Maçonaria no Brasil (1857); Mello, Mário Carneiro do Rego, A Maçonaria e a Revolução Republicana de 1817 (1912); Amaral, Braz do, A Conspiração Republicana da Bahia de 1798 (1926); Barros, F. Borges de, Primórdios das Sociedades Secretas na Bahia (1928); Kloppenburg, Boaventura, A Maçonaria no Brasil (Orientação para os Católicos) (1961)
        99. ^ Christopher Hodapp, Freemasons for Dummies (2005, pg. 290).
        100. ^ Denslow, 10,000 Famous Freemasons, Volume 2
        101. ^ History of Midland Lodge
        102. ^ "In Mozart's Vienna, Freemasonry had flourished under the Habsburgs mainly due to the influence of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, who, himself, was a Freemason." Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart - Master Mason.
        103. ^ The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania
        104. ^ http://www.grandlodge-nc.org/nc-mason/archives/2001/NCM_126_1.pdf
        105. ^ Garibaldi — the mason Translated from Giuseppe Garibaldi Massone by the Grand Orient of Italy
        106. ^ Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania's presidents pages.
        107. ^ 5. What was the P2 Lodge?, Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
        108. ^ a b Beresiner, Yasha. "Musical Masons". MQ Magazine, Issue 8 (January 2004). Retrieved 18 July 2007.
        109. ^ A Few Famous Freemasons
        110. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
        111. ^ Sources disagree as to whether he was [3] or wasn't: [4] a member
        112. ^ Americas Astronauts FDCs
        113. ^ Denslow, William R. (1958). 10,000 Famous Freemasons, vol. ii. [Trenton, Missouri. : Missouri Lodge of Research / Educational Bureau, Royal Arch Mason Magazine]. p. 165.
        114. ^ Cox, Joseph (2002). Great Black Men of Masonry. iUniverse. p. 176. ISBN 0595227295.
        115. ^ What Are the Facts About National Treasure? - Beliefnet.com
        116. ^ List of signers of the Declaration of Independence who were Masons on the Grand Lodge of BC&Y website
        117. ^ Masonic Magicians
        118. ^ Freemasonry in Bristol, Powell & Littlejohn, privately published.
        119. ^ See also the Freemasons' Review, June 1844 edition - Howley's masonry was a well known contemporary fact.
        120. ^ See also the Freemasons' Quarterly Review, first quarter, 1835 - a survey of the Archbishop's masonic career.
        121. ^ Famous British Freemasons, United Grand Lodge of England
        122. ^ sources "The Phylaxis Society Public Affairs Office and Masonic Information Center"
        123. ^ McElligot, Willam; R Theron Dunn, GL of CA. "A Few Good Men" (PDF). Lodge Room International Magazine 2 (1): 7.
        124. ^ Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia A.F. & A.M
        125. ^ Rudyard Kipling
        126. ^ a b A Bavarian Illuminati primer
        127. ^ [5] Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, 32° (2007, July-August) “Grateful, stunned, inspired,” The Scottish Rite Journal, vol. 115, no. 4, pp. 18-19 (link is to on-line edition); his Blue Lodge status is mentioned in the author note.
        128. ^ [6]Frank S. Land entry in 10,000 Famous Freemasons
        129. ^ Cooper, A. A. 1986. The Freemasons of South Africa. p178. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau
        130. ^ Grand Lodge of South Africa
        131. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Jose Laurel
        132. ^ 10,000 Famous Freemasons from K to Z, William R. Denslow, Harry S. Truman, Kessinger Publishing's Rare Reprints, 2004 ISBN 9781417975792
        133. ^ The Political Graveyard - Freemasons in Rhode Island
        134. ^ Rouget de Lisle, Grand Lodge of British Columbia
        135. ^ Scottish Rite Journal
        136. ^ "ORLEANS, DUKE OF", Letter O, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES, by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.
        137. ^ Ill. Trent Lott, 33°, Grand Cross
        138. ^ "Harold LLoyd" "In 1949, Harold’s face graced the cover of TIME Magazine as the Imperial Potentate of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, their highest-ranking position. He devoted an entire year to visiting 130 temples across the country giving speeches for over 700,000 Shriners. The last twenty years of his life he worked tirelessly for the twenty-two Shriner Hospitals for Children and in the 1960’s, he was named President and Chairman of the Board.
        139. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Graciano Lopez Jaena
        140. ^ Famous Filipino Masons - Juan Luna
        141. ^ Famous Filipino Masons - Apolinario Mabini
        142. ^ history of Macoy Masonic Publishing house
        143. ^ mastermason.com
        144. ^ Mabberley, D. J. (1985) William Theobald (1829-1908): Unwitting Reformer of Botanical Nomenclature? Taxon 34(1):152-156.
        145. ^ 10,000 Famous Freemasons from K to Z Part Two By William R. Denslow, Contributor Harry S. Truman (available via google book search)
        146. ^ Voice of Freemasonry, Volume 24, Number 2, 2007, Pg 9[dead link] DC Lodge newsletter
        147. ^ a b History
        148. ^ Ullrich, Dieter C. "Ned Ray McWherter (1930- )." Special Collections and Archive. Paul Meek Library. University of Tennessee at Martin. 3 Apr. 2000.
        149. ^ Portugal People
        150. ^ Note 3[dead link], Brief History of the Spanish Masonry, Grand Lodge of Spain]
        151. ^ a b Freemasons NSW & ACT
        152. ^ Biography of Mendizábal (in Spanish)
        153. ^ Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
        154. ^ Foreman, Grant. Jesse Bartley Milam. Chronicles of Oklahoma. . Retrieved 23 June 2009.
        155. ^ Famous Prince Hall Freemasons, Grand Lodge BC&Y website
        156. ^ Famous Freemasons from around the world
        157. ^ a b MQ magazine on-line.
        158. ^ Masonic US Presidents
        159. ^ Freemasonry Today on-line.
        160. ^ a b Jacques and Joseph Montgolfier
        161. ^ Rose, Gerry (November 29, 1993). "The Venetian Takeover of England and Its Creation of Freemasonry". The American Almanac. [Conference Address by Gerald Rose, Schiller Institute Conference, September, 1993 Lay summary] – The New Federalist (September 5, 1993).
        162. ^ Smith, Dwight L. Goodly Heritage (Grand Lodge of Indiana, 1968) pg.124
        163. ^ "Famous Freemasons, M through Z". Retrieved 2007-08-01.
        164. ^ a b Article on Mozart at www.freedomdomain.com
        165. ^ Ernesto Nathan, 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
        166. ^ Noye's tangled web of corruption, Independent on Sunday, 14 April 2000
        167. ^ John Hamill and Robert Gilert (Eds.), Freemasonry, A Celebration Of The Craft (J.G. Press, 1998), p. 239
        168. ^ O'Higgins, Bernardo, Encyclopedia Britannica, Guide to Hispanic Heritage
        169. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Sen. Camilo Osias
        170. ^ Scottish Rite Goes a Little Country
        171. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Rafael Palma
        172. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Quintin Paredes
        173. ^ Richard Parsons 1st Earl of Rosse
        174. ^ Wasatch Lodge webpage
        175. ^ Hamill, John et al.. Freemasonry : A Celebration of the Craft. JG Press 1998. ISBN 1572152672
        176. ^ [7]
        177. ^ The Times Saturday 16th Nov 1985 Issue 62,297 Page 10 Col G
        178. ^ Famous Freemasons M-Z
        179. ^ PA GL
        180. ^ http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/leplongeon_a/leplongeon.jpg
        181. ^ Famous Filipino Masons - Mariano Ponce
        182. ^ Ridley, Jasper. The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society. p. 46.
        183. ^ mb.com.ph/, Hail to the Chief[dead link]
        184. ^ hiramlodge88.org, Hiram Lodge # 88
        185. ^ jacquesdemolay305.org, CHARTER MEMBERS
        186. ^ Preston Illust. Masonry
        187. ^ Richard Pryor
        188. ^ Famous Masons - Manuel L. Quezon
        189. ^ In search of the Hill's Freemasons - Eamon Javers - POLITICO.com
        190. ^ a b Well Known Freemasons
        191. ^ freemasonry.org
        192. ^ Video about Philly Freemason
        193. ^ http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/esoterica/reuss_t/reuss_t.html GL of BC&Y article on Reuss
        194. ^ a b The Scottish Rite Journal
        195. ^ http://www.srmason-sj.org/council/journal/sep00/marsellos.html AASR-SJ article 2
        196. ^ Masonry in Spain. II. 1808-1868[dead link]
        197. ^ Christopher Hodapp, Freemasons for Dummies (2005, Wiley), pg. 291.
        198. ^ Famous Filipino Masons - Jose Rizal
        199. ^ http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110403b.htm Australian Dictionary of Biography
        200. ^ Scottish Rite Journal
        201. ^ Robert Farnon Society
        202. ^ Famous Filipino Mason - Pres. Manuel Roxas
        203. ^ Rumford, William Byron, interviewee; Joyce Henderson, Amelia R. Fry, and Edward France, interviewers (1973). Legislator for fair employment, fair housing and public health : oral history transcript. Berkeley: Bancroft Library. Regional Oral History Office. p. 3. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
        204. ^ New York Times, October 18, 1887
        205. ^ Biographical Notes, sandino.org
        206. ^ José de San Martín (1778-1850) - Southern Cone Historical Manuscripts
        207. ^ "At twenty-six he joined the Grand Orient Masonic Lodge at Leiria." OPPOSITION TO FATIMA (Part I), The Fatima Crusader, Issue 7 Page 12, Spring 1981
        208. ^ Famous Filipino Masons - Lope K. Santos
        209. ^ Sir Ernest Shackleton
        210. ^ SCHAFFGOTSCH, Philipp Gotthard
        211. ^ Seddon, Richard John An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966 edited by A. H. McLintock
        212. ^ Mr. Seddon as Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of New Zealand photograph
        213. ^ Jean Sibelius
        214. ^ The North Carolina Mason, Volume 133, Number 3, 2008.
        215. ^ Congressman Heath Shuler to be raised!
        216. ^ http://twtmag.ning.com/group/northcarolinamasons/forum/topic/show?id=1698387%3ATopic%3A29708 The Working Tools Masonic Magazine] March 30, 2008
        217. ^ History of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree of Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
        218. ^ a b "James Wilson and James Sloan, who along with 'Diamond' Dan Winter, issued the first Orange lodge warrants from Sloan's Loughgall inn, were masons." The Men of no Popery, The Origins Of The Orange Order, by Jim Smyth, from History Ireland Vol 3 No 3 Autumn 1995
        219. ^ a b The Morman Church and Freemasonry
        220. ^ lds-mormon.com
        221. ^ Grand Lodge of Scotland
        222. ^ Wolnomularz Polski
        223. ^ A Concise History of Freemasonry OLD EPSOMIAN LODGE
        224. ^ Beresiner, Yasha. Gilbert and Sullivan: Musical Masons
        225. ^ William Stukeley
        226. ^ http://yeni.mason.org.tr/en_history.htm
        227. ^ Gizeh Shriners of British Columbia and the Yukon
        228. ^ ON SENATE CONFIRMATION OF MEN AND MASONS, Masonicworld
        229. ^ History of Jackson Lodge
        230. ^ Harry S Truman
        231. ^ Burnworth, Gerald. "Brother Samuel Langhorne Clemens: A Missouri Freemason". Paper read September 28, 1999 at the 178th Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of Missouri. Retrieved July 2, 2007.
        232. ^ Grand Lodge of India
        233. ^ History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio, Volume 1 By Joseph Green Butler, pg. 390
        234. ^ Sir Charles Warren
        235. ^ George Washington Masonic Memoria
        236. ^ GL BC&Y
        237. ^ Biography of Thomas Smith Webb, on the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon website.
        238. ^ Philip, Duke of Wharton,
        239. ^ The Wilde Oxford Freemason
        240. ^ John Wilkes, Freemasonry Today
        241. ^ Jeff Winter
        242. ^ Sir Christopher Wren
        243. ^ Sir Christopher Wren adoption
        244. ^ http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/esoterica/yarker_j/yarker_j.html GL of BC&Y


        http://www.calodges.org/no406/FAMASONS.HTM

        Welcome to Burbank Masonic Lodge No. 406


        Famous Masons
        U.S. Presidents Presidential Candidates Declaration of Independence Signers Foreign Leaders
        Supreme Court Justices U.S. Senators U.S. Military Leaders U.S. Pioneers
        Civic Leaders Medical Leaders Sports Authors, Publishers and Poets
        Entertainers Religeous Leaders Industry and Commerce Other Famous Freemasons

        MASONIC PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES

              George Washington, 1st President, 1789 - 1797, Commanding General during American Revolution, made a Mason August 4, 1753, in Fredericksburg Lodge (now No. 4), A. F. & A. M., Fredericksburg, Virginia.
        James Monroe, 5th President, 1817 - 1825, made a Mason November 9, 1775, in Williamsburg Lodge (now No. 6), A.F. & A.M., Williamsburg, Virginia.
        Andrew Jackson, 7th President, 1829 - 1837 Harmony Lodge No. 1, Nashville, Tennessee, an Honorary Member of Federal Lodge No. 1, F. & A.M., Washington, D.C., and Jackson Lodge No. 1, F. & A.M., Tallahassee, Florida. In 1822 and 1823 he served as the Grand Master of Masons in Tennessee.
        James Knox Polk, 11th President, 1845 - 1849, made a Mason September 4, 1820, in Columbia Lodge No. 31, F. & A.M., Columbia, Tennessee.
        James Buchanan, 15th President, 1857 - 1861, made a Mason January 24, 1817, in Lodge No. 43 (it has no name), F. & A.M., Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
        Andrew Johnson, 17th President, 1865 - 1869, made a Mason during May, 1851, in Greeneville Lodge No. 119 (now No. 3), F. & A.M., Greeneville, Tennessee.
        James Abram Garfield, 20th President. 1881, made a Mason November 22, 1864, in Columbus Lodge No. 30 F. & A.M., Columbus, Ohio.
        William McKinley, 25th President, 1897 - 1901, made a Mason May 3, 1865, in Hiram Lodge No. 21, A.F. & A.M., Winchester, Virginia.
        Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President, 1901 - 1909, made a Mason April 24, 1901, in Matinecock Lodge No. 806, F. & A.M., Oyster Bay, New York.
        William Howard Taft, 27th President, 1909 - 1913 - Chief Justice Supreme Court 1921 - 1930, made a "Mason at Sight" in an "Occassional Lodge" called for that purpose on February 18, 1909, in the Scottish Rite Cathedral, Cincinnati, Ohio, by Charles S. Hoskinson, Grand Master of Masons in Ohio.
        Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th President, 1921 - 1923, made a Mason August 27, 1920, in Marion Lodge No. 70, F. & A.M., Marion, Ohio.
        Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President, 1933 - 1945, made a Mason November 28, 1911, in Holland Lodge No. 8, F. & A.M., New York, New York, the same Lodge in which George Washington, the Nation's first President, held Honorary membership.
        Harry S. Truman, 33rd President, 1945 - 1951, made a Mason March 18, 1909, in Belton Lodge No. 450, A.F. & A.M., Belton, Missouri. He served as the Grand Master of Masons of Missouri in 1940.
        Initiated: February 9, 1909, Belton Lodge No. 450, Belton, Missouri.
        In 1911, several Members of Belton Lodge separated to establish Grandview Lodge No. 618, Grandview, Missouri, and Brother Truman served as its first Worshipful Master. At the Annual Session of the Grand Lodge of Missouri, September 24-25, 1940, Brother Truman was elected (by a landslide) the ninety-seventh Grand Master of Masons of Missouri, and served until October 1, 1941. Brother and President Truman was made a Sovereign Grand Inspector General, 33º, and Honorary Member, Supreme Council on October 19,1945 at the Supreme Council A.A.S.R. Southern Jurisdiction Headquarters in Washington D.C., upon which occasion he served as Exemplar (Representative) for his Class. He was also elected an Honorary Grand Master of the International Supreme Council, Order of DeMolay. On May 18, 1959, Brother and Former President Truman was presented with a fifty-year award, the only U.S. President to reach that golden anniversary in Freemasonry.
        Gerald R. Ford, Jr. 38th President, 1974 - 1977. He was raised to the Sublime degree of Master Mason on May 18, 1951 in Columbia Lodge No. 3, F. &.A.M., of Washington, D.C., as a courtesy for Malta Lodge No. 465, F. & A.M. of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
        Lyndon Baines Johnson 1908-1973. 36th President, 1963 - 1969. Entered Apprentice degree Johnson City Lodge No. 561, Johnson City, Texas October 30, 1937. Did not advance.
        Return to Top

        Presidential Candidates:

              Dewey, Thomas E. - New York Governor
        Dole, Bob - former U.S. Senator/Majority Leader, Kansas; Russell Lodge No. 177, Kansas
        Goldwater, Barry - Former Senator from Arizona
        Humphrey, Hubert H. - Vice President of the United States
        McGovern, George - Senator from South Dakota
        Stassen, Harrold E. - Minnesota Governor &emdash; Fellowship Shekinah Lodge No. 257, St. Paul, MN; 33º, Grand Cross A.A.S.R., S.J.
        Wallace, Governor George C. - Presidential Candidate who was nearly assasinated
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        Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, the following were known to be members of a Masonic lodge:

              Benjamin Franklin - 1 of 13 Masonic signers of Constitution of the U.S. member of St. John's Lodge, Tun Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Past Provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania
        Elbridge Gerry, member of Philanthropic Lodge, Marblehead, Massachusetts.
        John Hancock, made a Master Mason, at the age of 23, in 1760, in Merchants Lodge No. 1, Quebec City, the first civilian Lodge established in Canada after the Conquest. In 1763, he went to Boston, Massachusetts, where he affiliated with St. Andrew's Lodge.
        William Hooper, member of Hanover Lodge, Masonborough, North Carolina.
        Richard Stockton, charter member, and first Master of St. John's Lodge, Princeton, New Jersey.
        Matthew Thornton, made a Mason in a Lodge attached to a British Regiment of Foot during the Siege of Louisburg, Canada, in 1745, serving in a New Hampshire Colonial Regiment as a surgeon. Baron Von Steuben, while at Valley Forge, is said to have conferred the higher Degrees on him and to have been the only Signer who attained the 32nd Degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite.
        George Walton, member of Solomons Lodge No. 1, Savannah, Georgia.
        William Whipple, member of St. Johnþs Lodge No. 1, Portsmouth, New Jersey.
        The following named Signers have been referred to as members of the Fraternity by various Masonic writers, and in Masonic publications, but their Lodge affiliation is not known:
        Roger Sherman, claimed to have been made a Mason prior to the American Revolution. A Masonic Apron said to be worn by him is in the collection at Yale University.
        Josiah Bartlett, one so named is listed as a charter member of King Solomon's Lodge, Charlestown, Massachusetts. Descendants, however, say he was not a member of the Craft. There is doubt that this Bartlett is the signer, and records of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts do not show his Lodge affiliation.
        Philip Livingston, often referred to as a Mason, but this is open to debate. Records of the Grand Lodge of New York do not disclose his name. Several members, named Livingston, are noted in the records of Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City, New York.
        Joseph Hewes. Records of Unanimity Lodge No. 7, Edenton, North Carolina, show his name as a visitor on St. John's Day, December, 1776.
        Robert Treat Paine, member of a Massachusetts Lodge. The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts records do not show his affiliation He was said to be present at the celebration of St. John's Day, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in June, 1759.
        Thomas McKean, noted as a frequent visitor to Perseverance Lodge No. 2l, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The McKean genealogy has stated he was a Mason, although his name is not found on the records of the Grand Lodge of Delaware, which was not organized until the close of the American Revolution. A brother, Samuel McKean, was a member of the Fraternity.
        John Penn, known to have attended Lodges in North Carolina, but his Masonic affiliation is not known.
        Lyman Hall, claimed to have been a member of Solomons Lodge No. 1, Savannah, Georgia.
        William Ellery, claimed as a member of a Lodge in Boston, Massachusetts.
        Thomas Nelson, Jr., claimed to have visited Lodge No. 9, Yorktown, Virginia, after the Siege of that place was lifted in the Revolutionary War, accompanied by Lafayette and Washington.
        Absence of definite proof of the Masonic affiliation of the Signers named in the foregoing paragraphs, precludes the possibility of knowing. This is also the case with Thomas Jefferson; John Adams; Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris; John Witherspoon; George Wythe; Francis Lightfoot Lee; Richard Henry Lee, and others. Caesar Rodney, of Delaware fame, had a son Caesar Augustus Rodney - a member of the Craft. George Read, another Signer from Delaware, had a son - George M. Read - who was Grand Master of Pennsylvania. Samuel Huntington had a son who was Grand Master of Ohio.
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        Foreign Leaders:

              Abbott, Sir John J.C. - Prime Minister of Canada 1891-92
        Miguel Aleman (Mexican President 1947-52)
        Allende, Salvador - Former President of Chile, Lodge Progresso No. 4, Valpariso
        Emilio Aguinaldo (Phillippine Patriot and General)
        Ataturk, Mustapha Kemal, Former President of Turkey 1923-1938
        Barclay, E-J. - President of Liberia in 1930 - 1941. Depute-Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Liberia in 1930
        Barrientos, Rene. - 1925-1969. President of Bolivie 1964
        Batista, Mariano. 1832-1907. - President of Bolivia in 1892.
        Benes, Eduard - President of Czechoslovakia 1935-1938. Lodge Ian Amos Komensky No. 1, Prague and Lodge Pravda Vitezi
        Bennett, Viscount R.B. - Prime Minister of Canada 1930-35
        Bertrand, Francisco - 1870-1926 President of Honduras.
        Sveinn Bjornsson (1st President of Iceland)
        Bolivar, Simon. 1783-1830 - Hero of the Independence of South American countries from Spain. Known as the George Washington of South America.
        Bonaparte, Napolean - Military Leader, Emperor of France (and his four brothers)
        There is serious doubt about Napoleon Bonapart being a Mason among Masonic researchers. His four brothers memberships are well documented.
        Bonaparte, Joseph 1768-1844. - King of Naples
        Borden, Sir Robert L. - Prime Minister of Canada 1911-1920
        Botha, Pik - Former Foreign Minister of South Africa
        Bowell, Sir Mackenzie - Prime Minister of Canada 1894-96
        Brant, Joseph - Chief of the Mohawks 1742 - 1807
        King Charles XIII (King of Sweden 1748-1818)
        Churchill, Winston, Sir. 1874-1965. - Former Prime Minister Member of the Studholme Lodge 1591, of London.
        Diefenbaker, John G. - Prime Minister of Canada 1957-63
        Doumer, Paul - President of France
        Doumergue, Gaston - President of France
        Edward VIII - King of England who abdicated the throne in less than 1 year
        Edward VII - King of England
        Frederic II - King of Prussia
        Frederick the Great, King of Prussia 1740-86
        Francis I Holy Roman Emperor, 1745-65.
        Francis II Holy Roman Emperor, 1768-1806.
        Frederic VII - King of Denmark. 1806-1863.
        Garibaldi, Giuseppe. 1807-1882. - Deputy of Rome.
        George VI - King of England during W.W. II 
        MORE
        Georges II 1895-1952. - King of Greece
        Gustave V - King of Sweden 1907 - 1950.
        Gustavus VI Adolphus (King of Sweden 1792-1809)
        Joffre 1852-1931 - Marshall of France.
        Kamehemeha IV King of Hawaii (1854-63).
        Kemehemeha V King of Hawaii (1863-72).
        Lafayette, Marquis de - French Supporter of Amerian Freedom
        Leopold I - King of Belgium (1831-65)
        MacDonald, Sir John A. - Prime Minister of Canada 1867-73 and 1878-91
        Mitterand, Alexandre - President of France
        Peter the Great (Emperor of Russia 1689-1725)
        Tirpitz, Alfred Von 1849-1930 - German Naval officer responsible for submarine warfare
        William I (King of Prussia 1861- 88)
        William II (King of the Netherlands (1792-1849)
        William IV (King of England (1830-37)
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        United States Supreme Court Justices:

              Baldwin, Henry 
        Black, Hugo L. 
        Blair, John Jr.,
        Blatchford, Samuel
        Burton, Harold H. 
        Byrnes, James F.
        Catton, John
        Clark, Thomas C.
        Clarke, John H.
        Cushing, William 
        Devanter, Willis Van
        Douglas, William O. 
        Ellsworth, Oliver
        Field, Stephen J. 
        Harlan, John M. 
        Jackson, Robert H.
        Lamar, Joseph E. 
        Marshall, Thurgood 
        Marshall, John - Chief Justice 1801 - 1835
        Mathews, Stanley
        Minton, Sherman
        Moody, William H.
        Nelson, Samuel
        Paterson, William - Signer US Constitution 
        Pitney, Mahlon
        Reed, Stanley F.
        Rutledge, Wiley B. 
        Stewart, Potter
        Swayne, Noah H.
        Todd, Thomas 
        Trimble, Robert 
        Vinson, Frederick M. - Chief Justice 1946 - 1953
        Warren, Earl - Chief Justice 1953 - 197?, Governor of California, Grand Master of California
        Woodbury, Levi 
        Woods, William B. 
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        United States Senators:

              Bryan, Richard
        Burns, Conrad
        Byrd, Robert
        Dirksen, Everett
        Douglas, Stephen
        Ervin Samual J. Jr, who headed "Watergate" Committee
        Glenn, John H. - First American to orbit the earth in a space craft. Member of Concord #688 Concord, Ohio.
        Grassley, Charles
        Hatfield, Mark
        Helms, Jesse
        Hollings, Ernest
        Johnston, Bennett Jr.
        Kemp, Jack - Secretary of HUD, New York; Fraternal Lodge No. 625 in Hamburg, NY, Quarterback for Buffalo Bills
        Lott, Trent
        Nunn, Sam
        Simpson, Alan
        Thomas, Craig
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        United States Military Leaders:

              Aldrin, Edwin E. "Buzz" Astronaut; second man on the moon, Montclair Lodge No. 144 New Jersey.
        Allen, Ethan - General, Revolutionary War; Windsor, Vermont
        Arnold, Gen. Henry "Hap" - Commander of the Army Air Force during World War II
        Bradley, Omar N. - Five Star General of the Army, World War II, U.S.
        Byrd, Richard E. Admiral - Arctic & Anarctic explorer, 1st to fly over North Pole
        Cooper, Gordon "Gordo" - Astronaut
        Chenault, Claire L. - World War II General
        Clark, Mark - World War II General, European Theater
        Doolittle, James - General, famous World War II Air Force Pilot
        Farragut, Admiral David G. (First Admiral of the U.S. Navy)
        Grissom, Virgil (Gus) - Astronaut
        Irwin, Jim - Astronaut
        James, Daniel "Chappie" - General, U.S. Air Force
        Jones, John Paul - Founder and First Admiral of the U.S. Navy - St. Bernard Lodge No. 122 (now St. Cuthbert No. 41)
        King, Ernest J. - World War II Five Star Admiral, Comander of Pacific Theater
        Knox, Henry - Revolutionary War General
        LaMay, Curtis E. - Air Force General, Commander of Strategic Air Command
        MacArthur, Douglas - Five Star General, Allied Commander in the Pacific in World War II,
        “Duty, Honor, Country” Speech
        Marshall, George C. - Five Star General, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff World War II, Post war Secretary of State and Architect of the Marshall Plan.
        McClellan, George B. - General, Union Army
        Murphy, Audie - Most decorated American Soldier of World War II
        Peary, Robert E. Admiral - First man to reach the North Pole (1909) - Kane Lodge No. 451, NY
        Perry, Matthew Calbraith - Commodore; responsible for opening relations with Japan; Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City
        Pershing, John Joseph "Blackjack" - General of the Armies, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I
        Pickett, George E. - Maj. Gen. (CSA), led "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg
        Pike, Zebulon - Military explorer who discovered Pike's Peak, which is named for him
        Rickenbacker, Eddie - Great American Air Force Ace
        Ridgeway, Matthew B. - US Military Leader, General who succeeded MacArthur in Korea
        Schirra, Wally - Astronaut
        Schwartzkopf, Norman - Former U.S. General, Desert Storm commander
        Stillwell, Joseph - World War II General
        Wainwright, Johnathon - World War II General, survived Battan Death March
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        Pioneers who helped settle the United States:

              Astor, John Jacob - Fur trader and financier
        Austin, Stephen F. - Father of Texas, Louisiana Lodge No. 109, St. Genevieve, Missouri.
        Blair, John - Signer US Constitution
        Bougainville, Louis-Antoine - Navigator.1729-1811
        Bowie, James - Died at the Alamo
        Brearley, David - Signer US Constitution
        Burbank, Luther - Pioneering botanist
        Burnett, David G. - 1st President of the Republic of Texas
        Carson, Christopher "Kit" - Frontiersman, scout and explorer; Montezuma Lodge No. 109, 
        New Mexico.
        Clark, William - Explorer (Lewis and Clark)
        Clemens, Samuel L. - Mark Twain - writer
        Cody, William F. "Buffalo Bill" - Indian fighter, Wild West Show
        Colt, Samuel - Firearms inventor
        Crockett, David - American Frontiersman and Alamo fame
        Dayton, Jonathan - Signer US Constitution
        Dubois, W.E.B. - Educator/Author/Historian
        Ellery, William - One of nine Masonic signers of the Declaration of Independence
        Fitch, John - Inventor of the Steamboat
        Fuller, Alfred (Fuller Brush)
        Fulton, Robert - Inventor of 1st Submarine and Steam powered warship
        Gatling, Richard J. - Built the "Gatling Gun"
        Hall, Prince - Founded African Lodge in U.S. African Lodge is the Grandfather of Prince Hall Masonry.
        Henry, Patrick - Patriot
        Henson, Mathew - Explorer
        Henson, Josiah - Inspired the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
        Houston, Sam - 2nd and 4th President of the Republic of Texas
        Jones, Anson - 5th President of the Republic of Texas
        Key, Francis Scott - Wrote U.S. National Anthem
        Lewis, Meriwether - Explorer (Lewis and Clark)
        Lamar, Mirabeau B. - 3rd President of the Republic of Texas
        Lindbergh, Charles - Aviator. First solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean - member of Keystone Lodge No. 243, St. Louis, MO
        Marshall, James W. - Discovered Gold at Sutter's Mill California 1848
        McHenry, James - Signer of the U.S. Constitution - Spiritual Lodge No. 23, Maryland
        Revere, Paul - Famous Midnight Ride - Grand Master of Massachusetts
        Rush, Benjamin - one of nine Masonic signers of the Declaration of Independence.
        Stanford, Leland - California pioneer - Drove the golden spike linking the intercontinetal railroad and founded Stanford University
        Travis, Colonel William B. - died at Alamo
        Wright, Orville and Wilber - Inventors of Airplane
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        Other Civic Leaders:

              Bradley, Thomas - Mayor of Las Angeles, CA
        Carnahan, Melvin - Governor of Missouri
        Clinton, DeWitt - Governor of New York
        Freeman, Orville - Former Governor of Minnesota and Secretary of Agriculture.
        Hawkins, Augustus F. - US Congressman from California
        Hoover, J. Edgar - Director of FBI
        La Guardia, Fiorella H. - La Guardia Airport, Mayor of New York 1930's and 40's
        New, Harry S. - Postmaster General who established Airmail
        Poinsett, Joel R. - U.S. Minister to Mexico who developed the Poinsettia
        Rangal, Charles B. - U.S. Congressman from New York
        Stassen, Harold - Statesman, signer of U.N. Charter
        Stokes, Louis - U.S. Congressman from Ohio
        Stokes, Carl B. - First Black elected Mayor, Cleveland, Ohio
        Thompson, Tommy - Governor of Wisconsin, Secretary of Health and Human Services 2001 -
        Young, Andrew - Former Mayor of Atlanta
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        Medical Leaders:

              Desaguliers, Jean-Theophile - Physician. Inventor of the planetarium. 1683-1744.
        Jenner, Edward - Inventor - Vaccination
        Mayo, Drs. William and Charles - Founded the Mayo Clinic
        Menninger, Karl A. - Psychiatrist famous for treating mental illness
        Mesmer, Franz Anton 1734-1815 - practiced Mesmerism which led to Hypnotism
        Still, Andrew T. - American Physician who devised treatment of Osteopathy
        Wootton, Percy, MD - President American Medical Association (1997- )
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        Sports Heroes:

              Alexander, Grover C.
        Ballard, Harold Owner Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team. Corinthian No. 481, Toronto, ON.
        Brown, Mordecai P.C.
        Chandler, Albert “Happy”
        Cobb, Tyrus R. “Ty” - Baseball Hall of Fame Player
        Combs, Earle Bryan - Baseball Hall of Fame
        Corchran, Gordon “Mickey”
        Dempsey, Jack - Heavyweight boxing champion
        Hornsby, Rogers - An original member of the Baseball Hall of Fame
        Hubbel, Carl - Baseball; Meeker Lodge No. 479, Oklahoma
        Johnson, John A 'Jack' - Heavyweight boxing title holder
        Mathewson, Christopher “Christy”
        Palmer, Arnold - Golf Pro
        Rickey, Branch - Baseball Legend, Signed Jackie Robinson (first black in major league).
        Robinson, Sugar Ray - World Champion Boxer
        Starr, Bart - Football Quarterback - Green Bay Packers.
        Wagner, Honus - Baseball batting legend
        Young, Cy - Famous baseball pitcher for whom the Cy Young Award is named
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        Authors, Publishers and Poets:

              Abbott, Robert Sengstacke - Founder/publisher Chicago Defender
        Burns, Robert - National Poet of Scotland; St. David's Lodge No. 174, Tarbolton, Scotland.
        Chagall, Marc - Artist, painter.
        Collodi, Carlo - Author of Pinocchio
        Conan Doyle, Arthur - 1859-1930. Member of Phoenix Lodge 257, Portsmouth, in 1886. Author of Sherlock Holmes
        Dac, Pierre. 1895-1975 - Humorist
        Doyle, Sir Author Conan - Writer - Sherlock Holmes
        Fleming, Sir Alexander - USA. Invented penicillin. 1881-1955.
        Fortune, Timpothy Thomas - Journalist
        Gannett, Frank E. - Hobosco Lodge No. 716, Ithaca, NY - media empire
        Gibbon, Edward - Author of "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
        Gray, Harold Lincoln - Creator of "Little Orphan Annie"
        Guest, Edgar A. - Poet; "The Lambskin Apron"
        Haley, Alex - Author
        Harvey, Paul - Radio personality
        Johnson, John H. - Publisher EBONY and Jet magazines
        Kipling, Rudyard - Author.  Nobel Prize in 1907.
        Lemon, Mark - Founder of Punch, humorous British magazine
        Pushkin, Aleksander - Russian Poet
        Salten, Felix - Creator of Bambi
        Scott, Sir Walter - Writer
        Service, Robert, Poet of the Klondike Gold Rush
        Swift, Johathan - Wrote Gulliver's Travels
        Tolstoi, Leo - Russian Author
        Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 1694-1778. - French writer and philosopher
        Wallace, Lewis - Wrote "Ben Hur"
        Wilde, Oscar. 1854-1900. - Writer
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        Entertainment Industry:

              Accuff, Roy - Country Western Singer 
        Armstrong, Louis - Jazz Musician.  Montgomery Lodge No. 18, PHA, New York.
        Arnold, Eddy - Country Western Singer 
        Atkins, Chet - Musician, Guitar
        Autry, Gene - Singer — Actor - Western Heritage Museum, Catoosa Lodge No. 185, Catoosa, Oklahoma
        Bach, Jahann Christian - Composer
        Bassie, William "Count" - Orchestra leader/composer, Wisdom Lodge No. 102 PHA, Chicago and Shriner, New York.
        Beethoven, Ludwig Van. - 1770-1827. Composer
        Berlin, Irving - Composer/Entertainer
        Borgnine, Ernest - Actor
        Brown, Joe E.
        Burns, Bob
        Cantor, Eddie
        Caine, Michael - Actor
        Cervi, Gino 1901-1974. - Italian Actor, famous for his roles in films as "Don Camillo"
        Clark, Roy - Country western singer; Jenks Lodge No. 497, Oklahoma
        Coburn, Charles D.
        Cohan, George M. - Composer/Broadway star
        Cole, Nat 'King' - Great ballad singer
        Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill”
        Costello, Lou - Comedian
        Crisp, Donald
        Crosby, Norm - Entertainer
        DeMille, Cecil B. - Epic Film Director
        Dix, Richard
        Eastwold, Scott - Musician,
        Ellington, Duke - Jazz composer, arranger and stylist
        Fairbanks, Douglas, Sr. - Silent film actor
        Fields, W.C. - Actor
        Gable, Clark - Actor
        Gibson, Hoot - Cowboy actor; Truth Lodge No. 628, Los Angeles, CA
        Gilbert, Sir William S. - Was the librettis for "Pirates of Penzance"
        Gilbert and Sullivan - Composers and playwrights
        Godfrey, Arthur - Actor
        Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 1749-1832.
        Griffith, David W.
        Grock - Swiss Circus Clown
        Hampton, Lionel - Orchestra Leader/Composer
        Handel, George Fredrick - Composer
        Handy, William C. - Composer "Father of the Blues"
        Hardy, Oliver - Actor - Comedian (Laurrel & Hardy)
        Hayden, Franz Josef F. 1732-1809 - Composer
        Hershfield, Harry - Radio entertainer
        Hersholt, Jean
        Houdini, Harry - Magician
        Ives, Burl - Entertainer
        Jolson, Al - Fame as the first 'talking picture' the Jazz Singer. St. Cecile Lodge No. 568, New York
        Jones, Charles “Buck”
        Keaton, Buster - Movies, Comedian
        Kellar, Harry
        Kern, Jerome - Composer
        Lincoln, Elmo - First actor to play Tarzan of the Apes (1918)
        Lizt, Franz. Composer
        Lloyd, Harold C. - Silent movie comedian
        Mayer, Louis B. - Film producer who merged to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
        Meichior, Lauritz
        Miller, Glenn - Musician, Band Leader
        Mix, Tom - U.S. Marshal turned actor. Stared in over 400 western films
        Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus - Child musical genius - composer
        Mozart's Magic Flute is the background music for this page
              Powell, Dick
        Ringling Brothers - All 7 brothers and their father were Masons.
        Rogers, Roy - American cowboy and screen star, Hollywood Lodge No. 355, California
        Rogers, Will - Actor; Claremore Lodge No. 53, Oklahoma
        Sellers, Peter 1925-1980 - Actor, Chelsea Lodge # 3098.
        Sibelius, Jean 1865-1957 - Composer (Finland)
        Skelton, Richard B. “Red” - Comedian/Entertainer
        Smith, John Stafford - Wrote the music that became the US National Anthem.
        Sousa, John Philip - Composer - Led the U.S. Marine Band from 1880 - 1892
        Stratton, Charles "Tom Thumb" - Entertainer
        Thomas, Danny - Actor, Entertainer
        Thurston, Howard - Last of the great vauderville magicians.
        Tillis, Mel - Country Singer
        Warner, Jack - Warner Brothers Studio fame
        Wayne, John - Actor; Marion McDaniel Lodge No. 56, Tucson, AZ
        Wagner, Richard
        Whiteman, Paul - "King of Jazz"
        Wyler, William - Director of "Ben Hur"
        Wynn, Ed
        Zanuck, Darryl F. - Co-founder of 20th Century Productions in 1933
        Ziegfeld, Florenz - His Ziegfeld's Follies began in 1907
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        Religious Leaders:

              Allen, Richard Founder/First Bishop AME Church
        Baker, James C. (Bishop, Methodist Church, organized first Wesley Foundation in U.S.)
        Baylor, Robert E. B. (Baptist clergyman, founder of Baylor University)
        Ballou, Hosea (Founder, Universalist Church)
        Booth, Rev. William - Founder of the Salvation Army
        Bradley, Preston (founder of the Peoples Church)
        Calvo, Father Francisco - Catholic Priest who started Freemasonry in Costa Rica 1865
        Evans, Hugh I. (National head of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.)
        Fisher, Geoffrey - Archbishop of Canterbury 1945 - 1961
        Frank, Eugene M. (Methodist Bishop)
        Jackson, Reverend Jesse - Minister and founder of the Rainbow Coalition
        Low, Titus (President of Methodist Council of Bishops)
        Newton, Joseph Fort - Christian Minister
        Peale, Norman Vincent - Minister and Founder of "Guidepost"
        Sanders, Bishop Carl J. - United Methodist Church
        Sexson, Mark - Minister and Founder: Intl. Order of Rainbow for Girls
        Wesberry, Dr. James P. - Former Exec. Dir./Editor Southern Baptist Publication Sunday
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        Industrialists and Entrepreneurs:

              Balfour, Lloyd - Jewelry
        Bell, Lawrence - Bell Aircraft Corp
        Carson, Curtis L. - Entrepreneur
        Chrysler, Walter P. - Founded Chrysler Corporation
        Citroen, Andre - French Engineer and motor car manufacturer 1878-1935
        Dow, William H. - Dow Chemical Co.
        Drake, Edwin L - American Pioneer of the Oil industry
        Dunlop, John Boyd - Tire Manufacturer
        Faber, Eberhard - Head of the Eberhard Fabor Pencil Company
        Ford, Henry - Pioneer Automobile Manufacturer
        Forten, James - Abolitionist/Manufacturer
        Gillette, King C. - Gillette Razor Co.
        Hilton, Charles C. - is listed as a mason on many lists as founder of Hilton Hotels, but the hotel chain was founded by Conrad Hilton, who was a staunch Catholic who left most of his estate to support Catholic charities. It is doubtful if he was a Mason, to say the least.
        Hoe, Richard M. - Invented the rotory press, revolutinizing newspaper printing
        Hoover, Frank - Vacuum cleaner fame
        Lake, Simon - Built first submarine successfull in open sea.
        Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent 1743-1794 - Chemist
        Lipton, Sir Thomas - Famous Yachtsman, Founder Lipton Tea Company
        MacAdam, John - Invented "blacktop pavement"
        Maytag, Fredrick - Maytag appliances
        Mecherle, George Jacob - Founder, State Farm Insurance
        Mellon, Andrew - American industrialist, banker and philanthropist.
        Nash, Charles - Automotive industry
        Olds, Ransom E. - American automobile pioneer
        Penney, James C. - Retailer (J.C. Penney)
        Sanders, Harland "Colonel" - Founder Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants
        Sarnoff, David - Father of T.V. (RCA)
        Teets, John W. - Chairman and President of Dial Corporation
        Thomas, Dave - Founder of Wendy's Restaurant
        Watson, Thomas - Founder of IBM


        OTHRT FREEMASONS
              Agha Khan. 1877-1957.
        Appleton, Sir Edward Victor - English physicist. Nobel prize 1947. Isaac Newton Lodge, No. 859, Cambridge.
        Arnold, Benedict - Major General and early American Revolution war hero. Changed allegiance and sided with British, being named a traitor ever since. Affiliated member of Hiram Lodge No. 1, New Haven, CT.
        Ashmole, Elias - Founder member of the Royal Society, first known English speculative Mason at Warrington, Lancashire, in 1646.
        Bartholdi, Frederic A. - Designed the Statue of Liberty
        Baylor, Robert E. B. - Founder Baylor University
        Beard, Daniel Carter - Founder Boy Scouts movement in United States, Mariners Lodge No. 67, New York City.
        Bellamy, Rev. Francis - Authored U.S. Pledge of Allegiance
        Benitez, Conrado, 1889-1971. Philippines.
        Borglum, Gutzon and Lincoln, - Father and son who carved Mt. Rushmore
        Brundage, Avery - Olympic Committee
        Campbell, Sir Malcolm - Land speed record holder
        Casanova - Italian Adventurer, writer and entertainer
        Chagrin, Jean Francious - Designer of The Arc De Triomphe in Paris, France
        DuBois, W.E.B. - Educator/scholar
        Dunant, Jean Henri 1828-1910 - Founder of the Red Cross
        Evers, Medger Wiley - Civil Rights Leader
        Gompers, Samuel - Founder of American Federation of Labor (AFL of AFL-CIO)
        Gris, Juan - Spanish Artist - Synthetic Cubism
        Guillotin, Joseph Ignace - Inventor of the "Guillotin"
        Hedges, Cornelius - "Father" of Yellowstone National Park
        Hoban, James - Architect for the U.S. Captial
        Hooks, Benjamin L. - Former Executive Director, NAACP
        Houdon, Jean-antoine 1741-1828 - Sculptor
        Jones, Melvin - One of the founders of the Lions International
        Khan III, Aga - Statesman
        Lafontaine, Henri - Nobel Prize in 1913.
        Land, Frank S. - Founder Order of DeMolay
        Leazer, Gary - Investigated Freemasonry for Southern Baptist Convention and later joined Freemasonry
        Lewis, John L. - Long time leader of The United Mine Workers
        Livingston, Robert - Co-Negotiator for purchase of Louisiana Territory
        Madison, James - Hiram Lodge, Westmoreland County, Virginia
        Mays, Benjamin - Educator/former President Atlanta University
        Metcalfe, Ralph H. - Olympic Champion
        Michelson, Albert Abraham - Successfully measured the speed of light in 1882
        Montgolfier, Jacques and Joseph - Co-developers of the first practical hot-air balloon
        Morris, Dr. Robert - Poet and Founder of the Order of Eastern Star
        Naismith, James - Inventor of Basketball
        Otis, James - Famous for "Taxations without Representation is Tyranny"
        Papst, Charles F. - Coined the term "Athletes Foot"
        Pound, Roscoe - Former Dean Harvard Law School
        Pullman, George - Built first sleeping car on train.
        Randolph, A. Phillip - Founder - first president, International Brotherhood Sleeping Car Porters.
        Retief, Piet - Afrikaans leader and one of the founders of the South African nation.
        Rhodes, Cecil - Rhodes Scholarship
        Sax, Antoine Joseph - Invented the Saxophone (1846)
        Schoonover, George - Founder of "The Builder"
        William Mark Sexton (International Order of Rainbow for Girls)
        Schadow, Johann G. (Prussian Court Sculptor)
        Schweizer, J. Otto
        Thomas, Lowell - Brought Lawrence of Arabia to public notice. radio announcer/newsman
        Wadlow, Robert Pershing - Tallest human on record being almost 9 feet tall
        Washington, Booker T. - Educator/Founder Tuskegee Institute
        Webb, Matthew - First man to swim the English Channel (1875
        King George VI, 1895-1952 
        Past Grand Master, United Grand Lodge of England. 
        Past Grand Master Mason, Grand Lodge of Scotland. 
        The late King's full name was Albert Frederick Arthur George of the house of Windsor (formerly Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). He studied in Trinity College at Cambridge and served in WWI. He was created Duke of York in 1920. 
        A son of George V, he reigned from the time his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936, until his death in 1952. 
        He was initiated in Naval Lodge No. 2612 in December 1919, the ceremony being conducted by Lord Ampthill. In 1922 he was appointed Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of England, and in 1924 was made Provincial Grand Master for Middlesex. He was invested and installed by his great uncle, H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught. He held the latter position until he ascended the throne in 1938. 
        As king, he accepted the rank of Past Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, and was ceremonially installed at the Albert Hall in London before an audience of Masons from all parts of the world. 
        In 1935 he accepted and was installed Grand Master Mason of Scotland, and affiliated with the Lodge of Glamis, No. 99, Scotland, where his father-in-law, the Earl of Strathmore, was a Past Master. 
        He created the precedent of the English Sovereign's active participation in Masonic ceremonies, and personally conducted the installation of three Grand Masters (of the United Grand Lodge of England) - the Duke of Kent at Olympia in 1939, the Earl of Harewood in Freemason's Hall in 1943 and the Duke of Devonshire in Albert Hall in 1948. Only his last illness prevented his installing the Earl of Scarbrough in 1951. 
        Toward the end of his reign, he stated that he had always regarded Masonry as one of the strongest influences of his life. He was a Royal Arch Mason and was a First Principal. He was a Past Grand Master of the Mark Lodge and former Ruler of the Mark Province of Middlesex (1931-37). He held the rank of Past Grand Master, and of Knight Commander of the Temple, was a 33rd Degree, and Grand Inspector General in the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Rose Croix. 
        Said he of Masonry: "The world today does require spiritual and moral regeneration. I have no doubt, after many years as a member of our Order, that Freemasonry can play a most important part in this vital need" 
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        FREEMASONRY
        THE FOUNDATION FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

        http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/uspresidentasmasons.htm

        United States Presidents
        and The Illuminati / Masonic Power Structure.

        By: Robert Howard

          Hard Truth/Wake Up America

         

        Ezekiel, 33:6

        Updated 09/28/2001

        Introduction

        I have always seen list's of famous Masons. To just look at the name means very little. When you date and place those names in the proper time line and placement of power you begin to see the deception and vastness of this power elite. What will shock you even more is to learn who the powers are behind the Freemasons. Notice the death's of non Masonic presidents or those who lost favor, and the shuffling of the vice presidents to get them in the position of takeover before the presidents were killed or removed. Note also the number of presidential running mates who lost the race for presidency were Masons also. A win win situation regardless of the outcome of the election. The Mason's have controlled this country from the beginning. Another interesting fact to consider is that of the 37 Presidents of the United States before Jimmy Carter, at least 18 or 21 (depending on which source you believe) were close relatives. That comes to somewhere between 48.6 percent and 56.7 percent-far to much to be coincidence, as any conspiritologist (or mathematician) would tell you. Of the 224 ancestors in the family tree of 21 Presidents, we find 13 Roosevelt's, 16 Coolidge's, and 14 Tyler's. Another source manages to relate 60 percent of the Presidents and link most of them to the super-rich Astor family. This data does not include genealogies of the five most recent President. Psychologist G. William Domhoff claims that a large part of America's Ruling elite, just like that of Europe, are related by marriage. (Everything is Under Control. Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups by Robert Anton Wilson pg 39-40)

        This article is not intended to defame this country's forefathers. See Secret Societies All I am doing here is listing the facts. I will list other authors articles for you to refer to as corroboration. These names were compiled from the Masons own list of famous names posted on there websites. (See Links Below), along with other reputable sources. The names used in this document have been used from that list along with a brief summary of who they were,(*Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition.) and the role they played in our history.
        Keep in mind, you can not be a Christian and a practicing Mason, its an oxymoron. There are those who would write history in a form to hide its true meaning and agenda's.Rewriting U.S. History So it has been from the beginning.  (The Masons write most of American History, for example the Mason's own Encyclopedia Britannica). The red dates are confirmed Mason Power years over this country as far as the Presidency, or Vice Presidency is concerned. This Page will be updated often. Please revisit.

        Legend: (A) American; (AI) American Independent; (D) Democrat. (F) Federalist. (DR) Democrat-Republican. (Ind) Independent. (IR) Independent -Republican (NR) National Republican. (P) People's; (Pr) Progressive; (R) Republican. (S) Socialist; (SR) States Rights (W) Whig. (U) Union.

        (S.C.J) Supreme Court Judge

        I will let the facts speak for themselves.

        As a Mason goes through the 32 degrees of the Scottish rite, he ends up giving worship to every Egyptian pagan god, the gods of Persia, gods of India, Greek gods, Babylonian gods, and others.  As you come to the 17th degree, the Masons claim that they will give you the password that will give him entrance at the judgment day to the Masonic deity, the great architect of the universe.  It is very interesting that this secret password is "Abaddon"

        Revelation 9:11 They had a king over them, the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon" The 'angel' of the Abyss (Hell) is really the chief demon whose name is Abaddon.  Masons claim then, that the deity they worship is Abaddon! 

        Abaddon and Apollyon both mean Destroyer. See: Destruction of the Trade Centers: Occult Symbolism Indicates Enemies Within Our Own Government

         

         "The world is governed by people far different from those imagined by the public." 
         Benjamin Disraeli, Victorian-era Prime Minister of Britain,

        Mat 21:42] Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders (aka Freemasons) rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes'?
        [Mat 21:43] Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

        "The great strength of our Order lies in its concealment; let it never appear in any place in its own name, but always concealed by another name, and another occupation. None is fitter than the lower degrees of Freemasonry; the public is accustomed to it, expects little from it, and therefore takes little notice of it. Next to this, the form of a learned or literary society is best suited to our purpose, and had Freemasonry not existed, this cover would have been employed; and it may be much more than a cover, it may be a powerful engine in our hands... A Literary Society is the most proper form for the introduction of our Order into any state where we are yet strangers." (as quoted in John Robinson's "Proofs of a Conspiracy" 1798, re- printed by Western Islands, Boston, 1967, p. 112)

        1534 Church of Jesu. ( aka Society of Jesus, Jesuits the power behind Freemasonry) Also headquarters of the Knights of Malta.

        Founded in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola founder of the Illuminati, to combat the reformation and propagate the faith. (Reformation being salvation thru grace instead of the Catholic Church.) The Jesuit General, and the other high Jesuit Generals, they are sorcerers. They are LUCIFERIAN, and they worship what they would call Lucifer. They do not believe in Satan. They believe in Lucifer. This society is the power behind the Presidents, and the rest of the world.. The Jesuits obviously wrote the Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion, because they have carried out every protocol in that little handbook. They have carried everything out. The Black Pope

        1590's - Sir Francis Bacon, beginning in the early 1590's, began the detailed plans by which North America would be colonized.  He was the supreme adept in the Rosicrucian Society, and established the super secret Knights of the Helmet [Ibid., p. 123-129], a society established along the lines of Rosicrucianism.  And, finally, Bacon was responsible for the modern birth of Freemasonry, as detailed by Masonic author, George V. Tudhope, in his book, Bacon Masonry , ISBN 1-56459-108-5, reprinted by Kessinger's Publishing. Thus, we can see that the occult activities of our original occult Forefathers mentioned above was merely the outworking of an occult plan originally conceived "thousands of years before Columbus ever sailed"!  Our Masonic forefathers were merely following the details of the occult plan as envisioned specifically by Sir Francis Bacon in the 1590's, operating according to the vision provided him by his Guiding Spirit. Masonic Forefathers

        1733 - In the United States, the first Masonic circles began to appear in 1733; by the time of the American Revolution, nearly 150 lodges existed throughout the colonies.

        1761 - James Otis, born in Mass. Known for his famous challenge to the British -imposed writs of assistance- general search warrants designed to enforce more strictly the trade and navigation laws in North America. At this time he also reportedly coined the euphonious, oft-quoted phrase, " Taxation without representation is tyranny." He was chosen as speaker of the house in 1766. Confirmed Mason.

        1764 - Samuel Adams, born in Boston. A major propagandist, opposing British officials and policies, as well as British taxation in the colonies. In 1773 he participated in the planning of the Boston Tea Party. Adams also signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Served as delegate to the Continental Congress until 1781, and became governor of Massachusetts from 1794-97. Confirmed Mason and Illuminatist.

        Other Parts of the World England. 1765-1795 Edmund Burke, born Dublin Ireland. Entered the House of Commons in 1765. As a member of Parliament he became known as a Political thinker and important in the history of political theory. Confirmed Mason.

        1773 It’s just like Freemasonry. The lower Freemasons have no idea that the High Shriner Freemasons are working for the Jesuit General. They think that they’re just doing works and being good people. But the bottom line is that the high-level Freemasons are subject, also, to the Jesuit General because the Jesuit General, with Fredrick the Great, wrote the High Degrees, the last 8 Degrees, of the Scottish Rite Freemasonry when Fredrick protected them when they were suppressed by the Pope in 1773.So, you have the alignment with the Jesuit Order and the most powerful Freemason they had in the craft, Fredrick the Great, during their suppression. That is an irrefutable conclusion. And then, when you see the Napoleonic Wars, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars carried out by Freemasonry, everything Napoleon did, and the Jacobins, whatever they did, completely benefited the Jesuit Order. The Black Pope

        1775 - Joseph Warren, born Roxbury, Mass. Solder and leader in the American Revolution who sent Paul Revere and William Dawes to Lexington and Concord on their famous ride to warn local patriots that British troops were being sent against them. Helped draft a group of protests to Parliament known as the "Suffolk Resolves. "Confirmed Mason. In December 1769 Warren, received commission for the Earl of Dalhousie, Grand Master of Masons in Scotland, appointing him Provincial Grand Master of Masons in Boston and within 100 miles of the same. The commission was dated May 30,1769. When the Earl of Dumfries succeeded Dalhousie as Grand Master of Scotland he issued another appointment to Warren, dated March 7,1772, constituting Warren "Grand Master of Masons for the Continent of America," thus extending his original limits.

        1775 - Paul Revere, born in Boston. Hero of the American Revolution whose dramatic horseback ride on the night of April 18, warning Boston-area residents that the British were coming. Confirmed Mason. GRAND MASTER GRAND LODGE OF MASSACHUSETTS A.F. & A.M. 1795 - 1797

        1776 - John Hancock, born in Mass. Wrote and the first to sign the Declaration of Independence, and served nine terms as the Governor of Mass. Confirmed Mason.

        1776 - Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston. Was one of the diplomats chosen to negotiate peace with Great Britain, and who helped draft the Declaration of Independence, one of the 56 who signed this document, and was instrumental in achieving the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Was also a Mason. Franklin was the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and published the first Masonic book in America. Was also a member of Sir Francis Dashwood's Hell Fire Club, along with the Collins family of Satanists. Both Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were members of this purely Satanic group who practiced satanic sexual occult rituals. (The Illuminati Bloodlines, Fritz Springmeier)

         

        "Remains of ten bodies at Ben Franklin's home"

        Workmen have dug up the remains of ten bodies hidden beneath the former London home of Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of American Independence.

        The remains of four adults and six children were discovered during the 31.9 million restoration of Franklin's home at 36 Craven Street, close to Trafalgar Square. Researchers believe that there could be more bodies buried beneath the basement kitchens.

        Initial estimates are that the bones are about 200 years old and were buried at the time Franklin was living in the house, which was his home from 1757 to 1762, and from 1764 to 1775. Most of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been drilled with several holes. Paul Knapman, the Westminster coroner, said yesterday: "One cannot totally discount the possibility of a crime. There is still a possibility that I may have to hold an inquest." Ten Bodies Found Under Ben Franklin's Home

        1776 The Illuminati formed a committee entitled the Biblical Destruction Group. This committee disbanded 50 years later. To Eliminate the Opiate" (out of print) by Rabbi Antelman. The APOCRYPHA

        1776 "From the Jesuit College of Ingolstadt is said to have issued the sect known as ‘the Illuminati of Bavaria’ founded by Adam Weishaupt. Its nominal founder, however, seems to have played a subordinate though conspicuous role in the organization of this sect." [Occult Theocracy, Lady Queenborough, originally published in 1933] On May 1, 1776, the Order of the Illuminati was officially founded in the old Jesuit stronghold of Bavaria. The Company would now use the Jewish House of Rothschild to finance the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon the Freemason with his Jesuit-trained advisor, Abbe Sieyes. In spite of the historical writings of the Jesuit Abbe Barruel, who blamed the Rothschild's and Freemasonry for the Revolution, it was the Society of Jesus that used these very tools to carry out the Revolution and punish the monarchs who dared to expel the Jesuits from their dominions. The Jesuits, having been expelled from the Spanish Empire, found refuge in Corsica. From there they raised up their great avenger, Napoleon Bonaparte. The Black Pope

        1776, Adam Weishaupt, a famous Mason, had developed the Illuminati, a secret society within a secret society. One Masonic historian himself has stated that the goals include "found[ing] a new Hierarchy, to overturn all authority, and to press down all the Social Order under the level of Equality." Another Masonic historian stated "the express aim of the Order was to abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government." In Weishaupt's own words, the Illuminati "will by degrees, and in silence, possess themselves of the government of the States, and make use of those means for this purpose...." illuminati_faq.htm

        1777 - Baron Von Steuben, born in Magdeburg, Prussia. German officer who proved indispensable to the cause of U.S. independence by converting the Revolutionary Army into a disciplined fighting force. While in France as agents of the newly formed U.S. government, Benjamin Franklin, and Silas Deane, learned of Steuben's plight that he had been obliged to leave for unsavory conduct, from Hohenzollern Hechingen, where he was made a knight of the Order of Fidelity in the neighboring margravate of Baden and Durlach, which brought about his availability. This prompted a letter of introduction, from Benjamin Franklin, and Silas Deane on his behalf, introducing him to Gen. George Washington as a "Lieut Genl. in the King of Prussia's service," who was fired with " Zeal for our cause. Confirmed Mason.

        1777 - Lafayette. French noble who fought with the American colonist against the British in the American Revolution. Confirmed Mason and a member of the Illuminati. Appointed a major general by the colonist, he quickly struck up a lasting friendship with the American commander in chief, George Washington, also a Confirmed Mason. Charles Taze Russell (founder of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society), also a Confirmed Mason. His stepmother who was executor of his will. His mother was the one chosen to dance with famous Mason and Illuminati Lafayette when he was in Philadelphia. 1.(Nevin, Adelaide Mellier. The Social Mirror A Character Sketch of the Women of Pittsburgh) 2. (Vicinity during the first Century of the County’s existence. Society of to-day. Pittsburgh, PA: T.A. Nevin Publisher, 1888, p. 19.; b. The Pittsburgh Directory) 3. (1878-79 showing Elizabeth the widow of John, and c. John Russell in the 1850 Census, and John Russell’s Will.) Secrets Of The Watchtower Bible And Tract Society

        1779 - John Paul Jones, Scottish- born navel hero in the U.S. War of Independence, renowned for his victory over British ships of war off the east coast of England (Sept. 23 1779).Confirmed Mason.

        1782, On July 16, the year after the British surrendered to the Americans, representatives of the world's secret societies convened the Congress of Wilhelmsbad in Europe and formally joined Masonry and the Illuminati. In the next four years the Order was able to secretly establish several lodges in America. In 1785, for example, the Columbian Lodge of the Order of the Illuminati was established in New York City. Its members included Governor DeWitt Clinton, Clinton Roosevelt ...(p.92 New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies, William T. Still, 1990)

        "When the Mason learns that the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly handle energy." (Manly P. Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, p. 124; )

        The question of precisely what fires the will of the wealthy supranational elites seeking to manipulate and control world events, has not escaped the attention of serious students of conspiracies and cover-ups. The late American Professor Revilo P. Oliver, a confirmed atheist, was forced to conclude: "A theory that a conspiracy has been working consciously for many centuries is not very plausible unless one attributes to them a religious unity. That is tantamount to regarding them as Satanists engaged in the worship and service of supernatural evil. The directors of the conspiracy must see or otherwise directly perceive manifestations which convince them of the existence and power of Lucifer. And since subtle conspirators must be very shrewd men, not likely to be deceived by auto-suggestion, hypnosis, or drugs, we should have to conclude that they probably are in contact with a force of pure evil." (Prof. Revilo P. Oliver, Conspiracy or Degeneracy?, USA)

        "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
        (President Franklin D. Roosevelt)

        WE NAME PRESIDENTS

        In order that our scheme may produce this result we shall arrange elections in favor of such presidents as have in their past some dark, undiscovered stain, some "Panama"or other - then they will be trustworthy agents for the accomplishment of our plans out of fear of revelations and from the natural desire of everyone who has attained power, namely, the retention of the privileges, advantages and honor connected with the office of president. The chamber of deputies will provide cover for, will protect, will elect presidents, but we shall take from it the right to propose new, or make changes in existing laws, for this right will be given by us to the responsible president, a puppet in our hands. The Illuminati Protocols

        1783 The Revolutionary War was fought and concluded when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown. As Americans we have been taught that we defeated the king and won our freedom. The Treaty of 1783, which totally contradicts our having won the Revolutionary War. This Treaty was signed in 1783, the war was over in 1781. If the United States defeated England, how is the king granting rights to America, when we were now his equal in status? We supposedly defeated him in the Revolutionary War! So why would these supposed patriot Americans sign such a Treaty, when they knew that this would void any sovereignty gained by the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War? The United States is still a British Colony

        By the way, Prince Charles Coat of Arms has another symbol--The Order of the Garter. The Order of the Garter is the parent organization over Free Masonry, world-wide. When a man becomes a 33rd Degree Mason, he swears allegiance to that organization, and thereby to Prince Charles. The Bible gives us 42 signs of the Antichrist

        1785 President George Washington, in a letter written to the Reverend G. W. Snyder: "Reverend, Sir, it was not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati -- the principles of Jacobinism -- had not spread in the United States.  On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am."  Shortly before he died, President Washington was well aware that the Adam Weishaupt radical brand of Freemasonry, the Illuminati, had spread its poison to America.

        "It doesn't matter who the people voted for; they always vote for us".

                                                  - Illuminati Statement -

         

        United States Presidents Who Were and Are Freemasons

        The United States of America was actually formed on March 1, 1781 with the adoption of The Articles of Confederation by Maryland whose delegates delayed its ratification over a western border dispute with Virginia and New York. Upon the March 1 ratification the President of the Continental Congress officially became President of the United States in Congress Assembled.
        To make matters even more perplexing some historians claim that John Hanson was the first President of the United States as he was the first person to serve the full one-year term (1781-82), under the ratified Articles of Confederation. This again is incorrect.
        The ratification occurred during the term of Samuel Huntington who served as President from September 28, 1779 to July 6, 1781. Consequently, Samuel Huntingtonwas the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled. The 1st President of the United States

        1789-1797 George Washington, 1st. President of the United States? (F) Confirmed Mason. Initiated: November 4, 1752, Fredericksburgh (Fredericksburg) Lodge No. 4, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Brother Washington became Worshipful Master on December 20, 1788, and was inaugurated President of the United States on April 30, 1789, thus becoming the first, and so far the only, Brother to be simultaneously President and Master of his Lodge. Washington took his oath of office as President, April 30, 1789, on the bible belonging to St. johns Lodge No. 1 of New York City. (The New Age Magazine, January 1953, pg. 44) The New Age Magazine is a Masonic publication. Also a member of the Knights Of The Garter. Order of the Garter is the core leader of the Committee Of 300. Washington was a member of the Scottish rite, performed the 'Rite of the Mystic Tie' in a cave-complex near Winchester Virginia during the French and Indian war. (Masonic Assassination, Michael Anthony Hoffman pg. 4) "The United States is in no manner founded on Christian principle." (George Washington Treaty of Tripoli) No Vice Presidents at this time. George Washington Nominated 11 Supreme Court Justices. 6 out of 11 were Confirmed Masons.  Washington wearing his Masonic Apron Washington was related to the following Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, maybe Grant, Van Buren, and Taft's. (Everything is Under Control. Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups by Robert Anton Wilson pg 39-40)

        Note: In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey extermination was officially promoted by a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians. "Indeed, in many areas murdering Indians became an outright business," ( Historian Ward Churchill, A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE; HOLOCAUST AND DENIAL IN THE AMERICAS, 1492 TO THE PRESENT (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997). ISBN 0-87286-323-9. pg.182) Indians were defined as subhuman, lower than animals. George Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction.( David E. Stannard, AMERICAN HOLOCAUST; COLUMBUS AND THE CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-507581-1. pages 119-120)

        Note: Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew Cannabis sativa (marijuana) on their plantations. (2201 Fascinating Facts by David Lewis, Greenwich House pg. 46) See Also: The Hemp Conspiracy

        Washington, the Freemason who did not go into that Masonic Lodge that last 30 years of his life—in his own words—who was a Baptist and a Calvinist. He was baptized in the First Baptist Church of New York by one of his captains, Pastor Gano, all surrounded by Calvinists. That’s why they didn’t surrender at Valley Forge; that’s why, when they were naked, when they went through the snow, barefoot, they endured that because they were Bible-believing Calvinists and they refused to submit to the tyranny of King George, who was controlled by the Jesuits. The Black Pope

        1789 John Robison warned all Masonic leaders in America that the Illuminati had infiltrated into their lodges and on July 19, 1789; David Papen, President of Harvard University, issued the same warning to the graduating-class and lectured them on how the influence of Illuminism was acquitting on American politics and religion, and to top it off; John Quincy Adams, who had organized the New England Masonic Lodges, issued his warnings. He wrote three letters to Colonel William L. Stone, a top Mason, in which he exposed how Jefferson was using Masonic lodges for subversive Illuministic purposes. Those three letters are at this very time in Whittenburg Square Library in Philadelphia. In short; Jefferson, founder of the Democratic Party, was a member of the Illuminati which at least partly accounts for the condition of the party at this time and through infiltration of the Republican Party; we have exactly nothing of loyal Americanism today. THE ILLUMINATI AND THE COUNSEL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

        1789-1795 John Jay, S.C.J. (Supreme Court Judge) Chief Justice. Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Unknown Mason Status.

        1790-1791 John Rutledge, S.C.J. Associate Justice. Chief Justice 1795. Nominated by Mason President George Washington.  Confirmed Mason.

        1789-1810 William Cushing, S.C.J. Associate Justice. Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Confirmed Mason.

        1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies.. Some say murdered by the masons for revealing Masonic secrets in his opera The Magic Flute. Confirmed Mason (Born In Blood, John J. Robinson, pg. 177)

        1795 John Rutledge, S.C.J. Chief Justice. Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Rutledge became Chief Justice while the Senate was not in session, and when they reconvened he was rejected. Still, he did serve for a time in that position. Masonic Trivia and Facts and The MSA 1940s study say he was a Mason, without identifying his lodge, but 10,000 Famous Freemasons does not list him. Confirmed Mason.

        1796-1800 Oliver Ellsworth, S.C.J. Chief Justice. Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Confirmed Mason.

        1789-1798 James Wilson, S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Unknown Mason Status.

        1789-1796 John Blair Jr. S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Previously he was Grand Master of Virginia from 1778 to 1784.

        1790-1799 James Iredell. S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Unknown Mason Status.

        1792-1793 Thomas Johnson. S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Unknown Mason Status. Non Mason Replaced by Mason William Patterson.

        1793-1806 William Paterson. S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Confirmed Mason.

        1796-1811 Samuel Chase. S.C.J. Associate Justice, Nominated by Mason President George Washington. Unknown Mason Status. This is the only Justice ever impeached, acquitted in 1805.

        1796 Thomas Jefferson, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (DR) Confirmed Illuminati.

        1797-1801 John Adams, 2nd. President of the United States (F) Unknown Mason Status. Vice President, Thomas Jefferson "Democratic-Republican."1797-1801. Confirmed Illuminati. Adams helped in the design of the Great Seal. Was related to F. D. Roosevelt, who put the seal on the dollar bill.(Everything is Under Control. Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups by Robert Anton Wilson pg 39-40)

        1798 Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was initiated into Army Philadelphia Lodge in 1798. His brothers, Joseph, Lucian, Louis and Jerome, were also Freemasons. Five of the six members of Napoleon's Grand Council of the Empire were Freemasons, as were six of the nine Imperial Officers and 22 of the 30 Marshals of France. Confirmed Mason.

        1798 Soon after the American Revolution, John Robinson, a professor of rural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and member of a Freemason lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After studying the group, he concluded that the purposes of the Illuminati were not compatible with his beliefs. In 1798, he published a book called "Proofs Of A Conspiracy," which states: "An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments.... The leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors." Operation Paper Clip

        1799-1829 Bushrod Washington, S.C.J.  Associate Justice. Nominated by President John Adams. Unknown Mason Status.

        1800-1804 Alfred Moore, S.C.J. Associate Justice. Nominated by President John Adams. Unknown Mason Status.

        1800 John Quincy Adams opposed Thomas Jefferson for the presidency and wrote three letters to Colonel William L. Stone, exposing how Jefferson was using Masonic Lodges for subversive Illuminati purposes.  The information contained in those letters is credited with winning Adams the election.  The letters were held in the Rittenburg Square Library, in Philadelphia.

        1800 Aaron Burr, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (DR) Confirmed Mason.

        1800 John Adams, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (F) Confirmed Illuminati.

        1800s The Collins family had a branch that shot off from it during the early 1800s which was the Todd family. The Todd family branch remained an important part of the Illuminati. (The Illuminati Bloodlines, Fritz Springmeier)

        1801-1809 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd. President of the United States (DR) Confirmed Illuminati & Mason. (Masonic Edition, Holy Bible 1951 Edition) Poor records kept by the Colonial Lodges, the destruction of records by fire and war, make it impossible to consult original Lodge records. Jefferson may have been a Member of Charlottesville Lodge No. 90, Charlottesville, Va., since his name appears on the Minutes of this Lodge on September 20, 1817. Jefferson was also a member of the Lodge of the Nine Muses in Paris and the Beenan Order (Order of the Bees) known outside Bavaria as the Illuminati. Vice President, Aaron Burr (DR), 1801-1805. Confirmed Mason. Was also a member of the Collins family of Satanists who called themselves the Hell Fire Club. Thomas Jefferson was one of the members of this purely Satanic group who practiced satanic sexual occult rituals. (The Illuminati Bloodlines, Fritz Springmeier) Vice President George Clinton, 1805-1809. Confirmed Mason and Illuminati. De Witt Clinton N.Y. Gov. was Georges nephew. Confirmed Mason. Albert (Abraham Alfonse) Gallatin. 4th. Secretary of the treasury. Confirmed IlluminatiJefferson was related to the following Presidents: William Henry Harrison, Jackson, Tyler, Benjamin Harrison, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. (Everything is Under Control. Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups by Robert Anton Wilson pg 39-40)

        Thomas Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemings. One of his slaves who it is said was his mistress for thirty six years, but after the death of his wife. Recent scientific DNA evidence strongly suggests he was the father of her youngest son, Eston Hemings. Presidents and their reputed Affairs External Link

        Note: Andrew Jackson, whose portrait appears on the U.S. $20 bill today, in 1814 supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses, the bodies of men, women and children that his troops had massacred, cutting off their noses to count and preserve a record of the dead, slicing long strips of flesh from their bodies to tan and turn into bridle reins. ( Historian Ward Churchill, A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE; HOLOCAUST AND DENIAL IN THE AMERICAS, 1492 TO THE PRESENT (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997). ISBN 0-87286-323-9. pg.186) The issue in these days were Indians. The issue of our day is Gun Control, militia, and according to Janet Reno Christians. Janet Reno reflects the issue's of the Clinton administration. Cultist Definition by Janet Reno, Attorney General USA

        1801-1835 John Marshall, S.C.J. Chief Justice. Nominated by President John Adams. Previously he was Grand Master of Virginia, from 1793-1795. (However, there is evidence that John Marshall was not proud or enthusiastic about being a Freemason, at least later in his life.) Confirmed Mason.

        July 11, 1804: Gun-barrel Politics
        Vice President Aaron Burr confirmed Mason, mortally wounds former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, New Jersey.

        1804-1834 William Johnson, S.C.J.  Associate Justice. Nominated by President Thomas Jefferson. Unknown Mason Status.

        1807-1823 Henry Brockhoist Livingston, S.C.J. Associate Justice. Nominated by President Thomas Jefferson. Unknown Mason Status.

        1807-1826 Thomas Todd, S.C.J. Nominated by President Thomas Jefferson. Confirmed Mason.

        1801-1814 Albert Abraham Alfonse Gallatin. Fourth U.S. Secretary of the treasure. Instrumental in negotiating an end to the war of 1812. Confirmed Mason.

        1804 Charles Pickney, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (F) Unknown Mason Status.

        1808 Charles Pickney, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (F) Unknown Mason Status.

        1809-1817 James Madison, 4th. President of the United States (DR) Confirmed Mason. (New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies, William T. Still, pg. 21)Madison is said to have been a Member of Hiram Lodge No. 59, Westmoreland County, Virginia, a Lodge which had only a short existence, and whose records are lost. (Was married to a Todd, of the Satanic Collins according to The Illuminati Bloodlines, Fritz Springmeier) Vice President George Clinton, 1809-1812. Confirmed Mason andIlluminati. Vice President, Elbridge Gerry 1813-1814. Unknown Mason Status.

        1811-1835 Gabriel Duvall, S.C.J. Associate Justice. Nominated by President James Madison. Unknown Mason Status.

        1811-1845 Joseph Story, S.C.J. Nominated by President James Madison. Story is listed as a member of Philanthropic Lodge in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 10,000 Famous Freemasons and the MSA 1940s study, but not in Masonic Trivia and Facts.

        Other parts of the world during this presidency: 1811-1821 Jose de San Martin. Soldier and Statesman. An officer in the Spanish army for 20 years. Led South America's independence movement for confirmed Mason President Simon Bolivar. Confirmed Mason.

        1812 De Wit Clinton, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (F) DeWitt Clinton, who was assoc. with the Illuminati very early in the history of the United States. George Clinton, vice president to Thomas Jefferson, was De Wit Clintons Uncle.

        1812 Winfield Scott. Grad from West Point. Fought in the war of 1812 and rose to the rank of major general .Fought in the battle of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in 1814.Supervised the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Southern state to reservations west of the Mississippi River. Unsuccessful Whig candidate for President in 1853. Confirmed Mason.

        1814 Francis Scott Key, lawyer and the author of the U.S. national anthem. Confirmed Mason. Officially adopted in 1931. 

        The Federal 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week in a 30-page decision, stated that references to God are not permissible because they are clearly Christian. The state of Ohio wanted to use the motto "With God, All Things Are Possible" on its official seal or anywhere else. The US Circuit Court said, "In God We Trust" comes from "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key and is not a reference to a specific faith.  (C-span 4.20.2000)

        1816 Rufus King, served in the state legislature, and in the Continental Congress, where he introduced the resolution calling for a convention at Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution. Was elected as New York's first U.S. senator. Was also the loosing (F) party running against James Monroe for the Presidency. Confirmed Mason.

        1817-1825 James Monroe, 5th. President of the United states (DR) Confirmed Mason. (The New Age Magazine, January 1953, pg. 44) Initiated: November 9, 1775, St. John's Regimental Lodge in the Continental Army. Monroe was not yet eighteen, but "lawful age" had not yet been universally fixed at twenty-one. Later, Brother Monroe took Membership in Williamsburg Lodge No. 6, Williamsburg, Virginia. Also a member of the Knights Of The Garter. Order of the Garter is the core leader of theCommittee Of 300. Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins 1817-1825. Unknown Mason Status. President Monroe was related to President Richard Nixon. (Everything is Under Control. Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups by Robert Anton Wilson pg 39-40)

        1823-1843 Smith Thompson, S.C.J. Associate justice. Nominated by Mason President James Monroe. Unknown Mason Status.

        Other Parts of the world During this Presidency: Argentina. 1819-1830 Simon Bolivar, President of, New Granada, 1819, Venezuela, 1821, Ecuador, 1822, until finally with the liberation of upper Peru, which became Bolivia after Bolivar, already President of Columbia, his rule on the continent became complete. Confirmed Mason.

        1820 John Quincy Adams, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (IR) Unknown Mason Status.

        1824 Albert (Abraham Alfonse) Gallatin. 4th. Secretary of the treasury 1801 -1814. Nominated for vice presidency. Withdrew in fear of weakening ticket due to foreign birth. Confirmed Illuminati.

        1824 Andrew Jackson, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (D) Confirmed Mason.

        1824 Henry Clay, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (DR) Confirmed Mason. Henry Clay was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky and Grand Orator for the G.L. 1806-09. Very good friends to the Illuminati Dupont's. The Dupont's were already one of the primary top families, it is rumored that Clay was coming to them for guidance on how to steer the nation. The Dupont's played a role in the building of the American capital, which was laid out and constructed with numerous occult patterns. Clay also became the leader of the Whig Party. It is from this info the Presidents who were on the Whig Party are in question.


        According to occultists/Satanic doctrine, the upper four points of the Goat head (left) represent the four elements of the world, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.  The bottom fifth point represents the spirit of Lucifer.  In the above photocopy of the Goat head Pentagram, the fifth point extends down into the mind of the goat, who represents Lucifer. Notice the above pentagram of the Washington Streets layout in which the south part of the pentagram falls on the White House. Where the Spirit of Satan is to dwell. 


        The demon goddess Lilith is represented throughout history as an owl.


        Notice the owl on the dollar bill. 

        The Beast of the Apocalypse: 666 a gigantic self programming computer!

        WWW=World Wide Web. Web=net, trap. World Wide Web=World Wide Trap External Link

        The System they are working towards is called LILITH External Link

        1824 William H. Crawford, loosing Presidential candidate for Presidency (DR) Unknown Mason Status.


        The Illuminati

        Exclusive Interview with an Ex-Illuminati Programmer/Trainer

        Part 4: The Illuminati - Freemason Connection

        http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/svali/2000/12/svali04.html


        Q: Svali, one of the more important points, which I am sure a lot of readers would like to know more about, is, what is the Illuminati /Freemason connection, as far as you are aware of, given your previous position in the Illuminati?

        Q: Was - and is - there an infiltration of the Masonic Order?

        A: The Freemasons and the Illuminati are hand in glove. I don't care if this steps on any toes, it's a fact. The Masonic temple at Alexandria, Virginia (the city itself was named after Alexandria, Egypt, and is a hotbed of Illuminati activity) is a center in the Washington DC area for Illuminati scholarship and teaching. I was taken there at intervals for testing, to step up a level, for scholarship, and high ceremonies. The leaders in this Masonic group were also Illuminists.

        This has been true of every large city I have lived in. The top Freemasons were also top Illuminists. My maternal grandparents were both high ranking Masons in the city of Pittsburgh, Pa. (president of the Eastern Star and 33rd degree Mason) and they both were also leaders in the Illuminati in that area.

        Are all Masons Illuminati? No, especially at the lower levels, I believe they know nothing of the practices that occur in the middle of the night in the larger temples. Many are probably fine businessmen and Christians. But I have never known a 32 degree or above who wasn't Illuminati, and the group helped create Freemasonry as a "front" for their activities.

        Q: What exactly is the meaning of the pyramid on the back of the $1 U.S. note? I'm talking about the pyramid with the capstone detached and hovering above the rest of the pyramid, containing the 'All-Seeing-Eye'. Is this a Masonic or Illuminati symbol?

        A: The pyramid and the "eye of Horus" on the back of the dollar bill are Illuminati symbology. The pyramid is an ancient form based on the holiness of the number 3 to the ancient mystery religions (it, not 6, is considered the most spiritual number), and a pyramid was a structure used specifically to call up the demonic, or occult, a point of psychic activity.

        The eye is the all seeing eye of Horus (remember the emphasis on Egyptian magical religious practices? The book of the undead, etc.?) and the fact that no one can escape his magical reach. This eye is considered a demonic eye in the group, or the eye of the deity, and in Illuminati mythology is either open or closed, depending upon the spiritual time of year and the state of the person psychically. Young children are given "psychic surgery" where the eye is placed inside, and they are told that Horus will snatch their soul if they ever try to leave, or if they tell, or that the eye will explode. The symbol on the dollar is reinforcement for every Illuminati child who sees one, and the reminder that they are being watched.

        The saying on the dollar, 'Novus Ordo Seclorum' also means "bringing in the new order", which is the Illuminati stated agenda. Just think, in the early 1800's, our forefathers already were looking forward to when the new order would be ushered in. Have I mentioned that this is a patient, forward looking group of intellectuals? That Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, FDR, and others were Illuminati leaders? Our country may have been founded on freedom from taxation, but it was also founded on the New World Order just as surely. see also: United States Presidents and the Masonic Power Structure  Link added by Robert Howard, Wake Up America.

        Q: How far back in time does the concept / cult of the Illuminati go? It seems to me that they have been around quite some time, possibly since antiquity, guiding, steering and using humanity for their own purposes, operating under different names? Can you elaborate?

        A: I was taught that the Illuminati had its roots in the ancient practices that reach into the beginning of recorded time; that the Babylonians on the plains created ziggurats to their deities, whom the Illuminati worship. They were proud of the fact that it was supposedly an unbroken occult line from then until now. The names changed, the basic group was the same.

        The ancient mystery religions of Egypt, heart of dark magic were another forerunner, with adherents of Set, Osiris, Horus and Ra; and the Illuminists also believe their bloodlines have come down from the ancient kings of Egypt.

        It's hard for me to know how much was cult propaganda, and how much truth is in the claims. The Templar Knights were definitely a forerunner during medieval times, as well as the Rosicrucian's and ancient celts and druids (you know, the ones who built Stonehenge).

        "Illuminati, Greek illumination, name given to those who submitted to Christian baptism. Those who were baptized were called "illuminati" or "illuminated ones" by the Ante-Nicene clergy, on the assumption that those who were instructed for baptism in the Apostolic faith had an enlightened understanding.

        The Alumbrados, a mystical 16th-century Spanish sect, were among the societies that subsequently adopted the name illuminati. Later, the title of illuminati was used by a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt that aimed to combat religious thinking and encourage rationalism."
                                   ---Microsoft Encarta2000

        And in 2006 a reader wrote to advise that Microsoft was wrong and that the word actually comes from the Latin. Microsoft wrong? Perish the thought! It must be a Conspiracy!

        Do they still exist? Apparently for some....

        When creating this web site, we were under the belief that no one with any degree of education would believe there was a secret organization plotting for some 200+ years to control the world - and that the Masons were somehow a part of it. Boy, were we wrong!

        Whenever conspiracy theory is spouted, the mysterious "Illuminati" (along with the Bilderburgers, The Trilateral Commission, the Council of Foreign Relations, and a plethora of others) are most often named as being responsible. Ironically, however, while many, many people can name those ostensibly belonging to the other conspiracy groups, the "Illuminati" is always left hanging as some secret, shadowy entity which no one can quite describe. Interestingly too, no one can quite identify what specific acts can be attributed to them - everybody's got their own lists. And no one in 225 years seems to have left the organization to reveal its secrets. Pretty powerful stuff.....  (If you're not hearing the theme music for the X-Files right now, it's a CONSPIRACY!!!)

        Not one single defector in 5 or 6 generations: think about that! That'd be your great, great, great grandfather. I wonder how many people reading this page can actually name someone from their family who lived in the 1700s. Those who want to persuade us that a secret Illuminati cabal did lead the world from the Renaissance to the 19th century, and/or that it continues to do so today have a very difficult burden of proof and have never come close to producing documents or actual evidence that such is the case.

        Illuminati history

        The Illuminati was a movement founded on May 1, 1776. Much is, retrospectively, made of both the May 1st date later used by the Russian Revolution as well as the 1776 date tying in to the American Revolution. In fact, since there are only 365 days in a year, the Russian Revolution was bound to occur on one date or another which would/could have a connection to some devious scheme. By 1776, the American Revolution was well along in its planning stages and there's no credible link to a group founded in what is today near Munich, Germany. It was begun by Adam Weishaupt who was educated by the Jesuits, not unlike many who sought an education in those days and in that place. His organization was composed of those who were then espousing the ideals of the Enlightenment: freedom of thought and equality amongst classes of people, ideas that were considered by the authorities as being heretical and treacherous, particularly since logical outcome of equality would preclude the continued existence of monarchy. They were ideas which today, anyone reading this website likely espouses: the right to think as one wishes and to exercise - within the bounds of law - their freedom of choice. At that time, though, freethinking was an anathema to those in power and subjected those who would think such heretical thoughts to imprisonment.

        While some have suggested that the Illuminati was created to overthrow government and/or that they were behind the American Revolution, such ideas are without any real merit. Augustin Barruel and John Robison, even claimed that the Illuminati were behind the French revolution, a claim that Jean-Joseph Mounier dismissed in his 1801 book On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Free-Masons, and to the Illuminati on the Revolution of France. Barruel and Robison also wrote - essentially copying each other - trying to tie in Freemasonry to the plot. It is important to note, however, that both writers recognized that it was ONLY the 'Grand Orient'-type of Freemasonry being practiced in parts of France and Germany that was involved: never what we now term 'regular/recognized' Freemasonry stemming from the Grand Lodge of England! Robison, who had joined Freemasonry in his youth, was roundly criticized for his work, even by the Encyclopedia Brittanica for whom he had written articles!

        In 1777, Karl Theodor became ruler of Bavaria. He was a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and, in 1784, his government banned all secret societies, including the Illuminati. They had, by then, included the overthrow of political rulers in their goals and it's easy to understand how that could be a tad upsetting to those in charge. How many people were involved in the organization at that point is difficult to say. Some estimates are as high as 2000 but the simple fact is that once it was outlawed, the organization died - as would ANY organization where involvement could lead to a life in wretched prison confinement.

        Weishaupt had modeled his group to some extent on Freemasonry and Illiminati chapters drew some of their  membership from existing Masonic lodges.

        Illuminati conspiracies

        It is well established that by the end of the eighteenth century, the Illuminati had been effectively disbanded. That will surely burst the bubble of those who've come here seeking to find some buried bit of proof that they still exist and are today controlling the world.

        Because of Freemasonry's inadvertent involvement and the misuse of Freemasonry by the Illuminati's founder who had become a Mason, the legends of its continued existence (and influence) persist into the twenty-first century tying the organizations somehow together. In fact, Weishaupt founded the organization and then tried to get the Freemasons involved. He achieved a very limited success in a couple of lodges but was soon seen as a 'user' and his group removed - not unlike the 'fake Masonry' of today, actually!

        In the 1950s and 1960s, members of the John Birch Society made much of this supposed 'shadow' organization, using it as an effective substitute for their anti-Semitism. Perhaps some of the confusion regarding the organization is due to the fact that over time, the word illuminati came to be used more expansively for many enthusiasts of Enlightenment, including but not limited to the followers of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Nevertheless, the Illuminati's connection with Freemasonry was date-specific (the late 1700s) and place-specific (what is now Germany); it had NO involvement in Freemasonry elsewhere despite fanciful claims. Even the oft-mentioned 'Proofs of A Conspiracy' written in 1797 by Robison (and the root cause of so much furor in the United States as a result of one Boston Minister's fanciful claims made based on that book) notes that the Illuminati's brand of Freemasonry was NOT the same Freemasonry as found in England and from which all other legitimate Masonic lodges today can trace their ancestry.

        Robert Anton Wilson

        A HUGE amount of interest in the Illuminati stems, for those today, from Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007). A self-described agnostic mystic, he was also an author, philosopher and, some would say, a comedian. Many endow Wilson with all-seeing power while others read his works as poking fun at society and those who would blindly read his writings as fact.

        Because of his professed agnostic beliefs, the claim from the conspiracy-minded religious intolerants has even more fuel than someone else might have given it.

        Wilson wrote some 35 books and many other works. His best-known work is the cult classic The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan (1975) which he co-authored with Robert Shea and advertised as "a fairy tale for paranoids". In it, he humorously examined American paranoia about conspiracies. Many, though, have accepted this as NON-fiction and have succumbed to even more paranoia - always, it seems, involving the Freemasons.

        In 1977, Wilson published "Cosmic Trigger I : Final Secret of the Illuminati " in which he wrote on pages 3-4:

        Briefly, the background of the Bavarian Illuminati puzzle is this. On May 1, 1776, in Bavaria, Dr. Adam Weishaupt, a professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt University and a former Jesuit, formed a secret society called the Order of the Illuminati within the existing Masonic lodges of Germany. Since Masonry is itself a secret society, the Illuminati was a secret society within a secret society, a mystery inside a mystery, so to say. In 1785 the Illuminati were suppressed by the Bavarian government for allegedly plotting to overthrow all the kings in Europe and the Pope to boot. This much is generally agreed upon by all historians. 1 Everything else is a matter of heated, and sometimes fetid, controversy.

        It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.) The Illuminati have also been credited with managing the French and American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over the world, being the brains behind Communism, continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the Order actually was (or is . . .). There is endless room for spooky speculation, and for pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the literature of the subject; and there has been a wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati every generation since 1776. If you were to believe all this sensational literature, the damned Bavarian conspirators were responsible for everything wrong with the world, including the energy crises and the fact that you can't even get a plumber on weekends.

        Wilson then goes on to create a broad expansion of fantasy which - just as with Dan Brown novels in the early years of 2000 - are accepted as fact. It's a sad state on our ability to think that so many in society can't separate fact from fiction and today blather on with great fear and loathing about the evil Freemason/Illuminati treachery without a single provable example. In fact, some - in order to keep the bubble of fantasy from popping - suggested that RAW was the Grand Master (or inner head) of the Illuminati himself. Wilson always toyed with the accusations, and in typical RAW fashion, he's never denied it outright - finding the whole concept enormously amusing as well as helpful for book sales.

        One cannot read any of RAW's material without a healthy sense of humor although many, many do. We've noted from the outset of this very website that those with beliefs stemming from white-hot religious fervor or extreme paranoid conspiracy have ZERO sense of humor and wouldn't recognize satire if it were a sausage that hit them in the head. Thus, the internet has a zillion and a half websites all postulating on the existence of an organization that no one has ever seen and which all rational explanations say simply couldn't exist, with or without the all-powerful Freemasons.

        Illuminati reading

        For a couple of centuries, there's been nothing truly factual about the 18th Century Barvarian Order of the Illuminati except the sometimes hard to find book The Bavarian Illuminati in America: The New England Conspiracy Scare, 1798 by Vernon Stauffer.

         

        In 2009, however, a new work arrived on the scene - and truthfully, it was one that had all the trappings of 'nut case' on it. Its publisher was a very minor one, noted for sensationalist titles. The author - Terry Melanson - is the owner and developer of the "Illuminati Conspiracy Archive" where paranoia and absurdity reign supreme. He is also a noted anti-Mason, having 'foreseen' an occult revival with Freemasonry leading the way. A clear waste of money, I'd concluded at the outset.

        However, despite my pre-judged conclusions, Perfectibilists is actually pretty good. The author has set aside all of the foolishness usually found on his website and has done what appears to be some great detective work. He notes that the Order of the Illuminati (the name to which the Perfectibilists was changed almost immediately) had approximately 2000-3000 members at its peak and he provides the biographies for hundreds of them. In addition, Melanson has sidebar 'excursions' into related topics, some an entire page, discussing things like the difference between the ACTUAL emblem of the Illuminati (the OWL!) and what we today think of as their emblem, that pyramid with the eye.

        The book is interesting in that the primary text is less than 170 pages but then there are 'supplements' totaling another 300 pages along with an exhaustive table of contents. Footnotes are scrupulously provided and the professionalism with which this work was created is really quite impressive. Unfortunately, this may be similar to the way Mr. Melanson has provided footnotes about Freemasonry in his various online screeds so one should consider the material with a jaundice eye unless/until validations are made by trained historians - something that Mr. Melanson isn't.

         

         

        What others say

        Online we found an excellent summary of the entire Illuminati Conspiracy theory. We've placed it here with permission of the site owner. Perhaps you'll find it interesting....

        The Illuminati Freemason Conspiracy

        From Public Eye and Political Research Associates:

        The Freemasons began as members of craft guilds who united into lodges in England in the early 1700's. They stressed religious tolerance, the equality of their male peers, and the themes of classic liberalism and the Enlightenment. Today they are a worldwide fraternal order that still educates its members about philosophical ideas, and engages in harmless rituals, but also offers networking for business and political leaders, and carries out charitable activities.

        The idea of a widespread freemason conspiracy originated in the late 1700's and flourished in the US in the 1800's. Persons who embrace this theory often point to purported Masonic symbols such as the pyramid and the eye on the back of the dollar bill as evidence of the conspiracy. Allegations of a freemason conspiracy trace back to British author John Robison who wrote the 1798 book Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, collected from good authorities. Robison influenced French author Abbé Augustin Barruel, whose first two volumes of his eventual four volume study, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, beat Robison's book to the printer. Both Robison and Barruel discuss the attempt by Bavarian intellectual Adam Weishaupt to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment through his secretive society, the Order of the Illuminati.

        Weishaupt was appointed a professor at the University of Ingolstadt in Germany around 1772 and elevated to the post of professor of Canon Law in 1773 or 1775 (sources conflict), the first secularist to hold that position previously held by clergy.  Weishaupt began planning a group to challenge authoritarian Catholic actions in 1775, the group (under a different name) was announced on May 1, 1776. This group evolved into the Illuminati. The Enlightenment rationalist ideas of the Illuminati were, in fact, brought into Masonic lodges where they played a role in a factional fight against occultist philosophy. The Illuminati was suppressed in a series of edicts between 1784 and 1787, and Weishaupt himself was banished in 1785.

        Weishaupt, his Illuminati society, the Freemasons, and other secret societies are portrayed by Robison and Barruel as bent on despotic world domination through a secret conspiracy using front groups to spread their influence.

        Barruel claimed the conspirators "had sworn hatred to the altar and the throne, had sworn to crush the God of the Christians, and utterly to extirpate the Kings of the Earth." For Barruel the grand plot hinges on how Illuminati "adepts of revolutionary Equality and Liberty had buried themselves in the Lodges of Masonry" where they caused the French revolution, and then ordered "all the adepts in their public prints to cry up the revolution and its principles." Soon, every nation had its "apostle of Equality, Liberty, and Sovereignty of the People."

        Robison, a professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, argued that the Illuminati evolved out of Freemasonry, and called the Illuminati philosophy "Cosmo-politism." According to Robison:

        "Their first and immediate aim is to get the possession of riches, power, and influence, without industry; and, to accomplish this, they want to abolish Christianity; and then dissolute manners and universal profligacy will procure them the adherents of all the wicked, and enable them to overturn all the civil governments of Europe; after which they will think of farther conquests, and extend their operations to the other quarters of the globe, till they have reduced mankind to the state of one indistinguishable chaotic mass."
        Robert Alan Goldberg, in his book Enemies Within, summarizes the basic themes of the books by Barruel and Robison:
        "Writing in the aftermath of the French Revolution, these monarchists had created a counterhistory in defense of the aristocracy. Winning the hearts and minds of present and future readers would assuage some of the pain of recent defeat and mobilize defenses. The Revolution, they argued, was not rooted in poverty and despotism. Rather than a rising of the masses, it was the work of Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati, a secret society that plotted to destroy all civil and religious authority and abolish marriage, the family, and private property. It was the Illuminati who schemed to turn contented peasants 'from Religion to Atheism, from decency to dissoluteness, from loyalty to rebellion.' "
        The major immediate political effect of allegations of an Illuminati Freemason conspiracy in Europe was to mobilize support for national oligarchies traditionally supported by the Catholic Church hierarchy. Across Europe authoritarian governing elites were coming under attack by reformist and revolutionary movements demanding increased political rights under secular laws. The ideas of the Enlightenment were incorporated by the leaders of both the French and American revolutions, and in a sense, these Enlightenment notions were indeed subversive to the established social order, although they were hardly a secret conspiracy. The special status of the Catholic Church in European nation-states was actually threatened by the ideas being discussed by the Illuminati and the rationalist wing of the Freemasons.

        Several common conspiracist themes emerge from these two books. The Enlightenment themes of equality and liberty are designed to destroy respect for property and the natural social hierarchy. Orthodox Christianity is to be destroyed and replaced with universalism, deism...or worse. Persons with a cosmopolitan outlook--encouraging free-thinking and international cooperation--are to be suspect as disloyal subversive traitors out to undermine national sovereignty and promote anarchy.

        Shortly after the Barruel book was published, conspiracy theories about the Illuminati Freemasons were mixed with antisemitism in Europe. This confluence took place much later in the US.

        Adapted from Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.

        Bibliography

        Abbé Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, second edition revised and corrected, English translation by Robert Clifford,  (originally published 1797-1798, reprinted in one volume, Fraser, MI: Real-View-Books, 1995).

        John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy—against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies, fourth edition with postscript, (originally published 1798, reprinted Boston: Western Islands, 1967)

        Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” in The paranoid style in American politics: And other essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965).

        Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy And the Protocols of the Elders Of Zion, (London: Serif, 1967 [1996].

        George Johnson, Architects Of Fear, (Los Angeles: Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin, 1983).

        Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, (New York: Guilford Publications, 2000)

        Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

        Herm. Gruber, "Illuminati," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII,  (New York, NY: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).

        Our thanks to Public Eye for this material.

        Other sites worth noting:

        The Grand Lodge of British Columbia has some excellent in-depth material on this subject right here.

        The Skeptic's Dictionary has an excellent article on this topic with many links to the leading conspiracists right here.

        The Straight Dope responds to the bizarre charge that somehow the Masons picked May 1st as the day to celebrate Communism. We found their summary quite well done.

        Professor Jack Lynch now of Rutgers has an excellent timeline of the 18th century. We also like his essay on judging websites by their covers. <grin>

        Anti-Masons and Illuminati fantasies

        Some Masonophobes are absolutely 'over the moon' about the Illuminati. Karen Trenouth whose attempts to solve the 'Jack the Ripper' murders are hysterically funny doesn't seem capable of ending a paragraph without having included the word. Leo Zagami pretends he's actually a member - which leads one to wonder why those who most fear this ostensible organization don't wrestle him to the ground and make him provide some proof of all those he claims are members. Jew-hater Texe Marrs obsesses about sex and the Illuminati. You've got to wonder where HIS mind is at these days.


        http://letsrollforums.com/connection-between-illuminati-freemasonry-t18242.html

         

         

         

         

         

         

        Mr.x Reader

         

        What is the the connection between illuminati, freemasonry, and the Jesuits ?

        Can somone tell me what is the the connection between illuminati, freemasonry, and the jesuits , because im little confused who controlls who.

        trueblue Moderator

        That's a big question, Mr. X. In my opinion, the connection is CONTROL. Not the organization Maxwell Smart works for, but the need to control other people's thoughts and actions.
        In this world, it is most easily accomplished with lies, which all of the organizations you mention use with great effect. Most of the big lies that the modern world suffers under, were spread thick by members of the Illuminati, which is not as organized as some believe, but a loose coalition of like minded people. Universities, Newspapers and mass media have shaped our view of the world, and in most cases, can be traced to the influence of people who want to control the thoughts of others. this is the battleground of the Illuminati.
        Freemasonry,as it is understood by the masses, is a recruiting tool of the Illuminati. Masons who display the right thinking are advanced to a high enough rank in the organization to where they are informed of the true goals, and the "god" they worship, Lucifer. Until the 31st degree, they are lied to about these, and many other things. "Morals and Dogma", by Albert Pike, is a must read for anyone serious about learning of the true motives and methods of freemasonry.
        The Jesuits, Society Of Jesus, is the military arm of the Roman Catholic Church. They were formed to force "heretics", which are any who don't believe the Catholic doctrine and worship the pope as God's representative on Earth, to enter the fold, or die. They are a perfect example of a "terrorist organization". They use lies, stealth, secrecy, assassination and bribery to achieve their goals.
        One thing these organizations have in common, is a false front that looks like a humanitarian, caring group with only the "good" of mankind as their goal. Beware of any person or group that wants to force "good" on anyone else!! Will

        A LIE BELIEVED BY EVERYBODY IS NOT THE TRUTH

         

         

         

         




        George Washington

        George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731][1][2][3]– December 14, 1799) was the commander of theContinental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the first President of the United States of America (1789–1797).[4] For his central role in the formation of the United States, he is often referred to as the father of his country.[5][6]

        The Continental Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces in 1775. The following year, he forced the British out of Boston, lost New York City, and crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey, defeating the surprised enemy units later that year. As a result of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured the two main British combat armies at Saratoga and Yorktown. Negotiating with Congress, the colonial states, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, King George IIIasked what Washington would do next and was told of rumors that he'd return to his farm; this prompted the king to state, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Washington did return to private life and retired to his plantation at Mount Vernon.[7]

        He presided over the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the United States Constitution in 1787 because of general dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation. Washington became President of the United States in 1789 and established many of the customs and usages of the new government's executive department. He sought to create a nation capable of surviving in a world torn asunder by war between Britain and France. His unilateral Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793 provided a basis for avoiding any involvement in foreign conflicts. He supported plans to build a strong central government by funding thenational debt, implementing an effective tax system, and creating a national bank. Washington avoided the temptation of war and a decade of peace with Britain began with the Jay Treaty in 1795; he used his prestige to get it ratified over intense opposition from the Jeffersonians. Although never officially joining the Federalist Party, he supported its programs and was its inspirational leader. Washington's farewell address was a primer on republican virtue and a stern warning against partisanship, sectionalism, and involvement in foreign wars.

        Washington was awarded the very first Congressional Gold Medal with the Thanks of Congress.[8]

        Washington died in 1799, and the funeral oration delivered by Henry Lee stated that of all Americans, he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen".[9] Washington has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of thegreatest U.S. Presidents.

        Early life and education

        George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731][1][2][3] the first child of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, on their Pope's Creek Estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father had four children by his first wife, Jane Butler: two died young, but two sons survived (Lawrence, born circa 1718, and Augustine, born circa 1720), making George the third son, but very much younger. Moving to Ferry Farm in Stafford County at age six, George was educated in the home by his father and eldest brother.[10] The growth of tobacco as a commodity in Virginia could be measured by the number of slaves imported to cultivate it. When Washington was born, the population of the colony was 50 percent black, mostly enslaved Africans and African Americans.[11]

        In his youth, Washington worked as a surveyor, and acquired what would become invaluable knowledge of the terrain around his native Colony of Virginia.[12] His eldest brother's marriage into the powerful Fairfax family gained young George the patronage ofThomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, the Proprietor of the Northern Neck, which encompassed some five million acres. In late July 1749, immediately following the establishment of the town of Alexandria, Virginia along the Potomac River, 17-year old George was commissioned as the first Surveyor of the newly created Culpeper County, Virginia in the interior of the colony. This appointment was undoubtedly secured at the behest of Lord Fairfax and his cousin (and resident land agent) William Fairfax of Belvoir, who sat on the Governor's Council.[13]

        Career

        Washington embarked upon a career as a planter, which historians defined as those who held 20 or more slaves. In 1748 he was invited to help survey Lord Fairfax's lands west of the Blue Ridge. In 1749, he was appointed to his first public office, surveyor of newly created Culpeper County.[10][14] Through his half-brother, Lawrence Washington, he became interested in theOhio Company, which aimed to exploit Western lands. In 1751, George and his half-brother traveled to Barbados, staying at Bush Hill House,[15] hoping for an improvement in Lawrence's tuberculosis. This was the only time George Washington traveled outside what is now the United States.[16] After Lawrence's death in 1752, George inherited part of his estate and took over some of Lawrence's duties as adjutant of the colony.[17]

        In late 1752, Virginia's newly arrived Governor, Robert Dinwiddie, divided command of the militia into four regions and George applied for one of the commands, his only qualifications being his zeal and being the younger brother of the former adjutant. Washington was appointed a district adjutant general in the Virginia militia in 1752,[10] which appointed him Major Washington at the age of 20. He was charged with training the militia in the quarter assigned to him.[18] At age 21, inFredericksburg, Washington became 

        The Illuminati

        Exclusive Interview with an Ex-Illuminati Programmer/Trainer

        Part 4: The Illuminati - Freemason Connection

        http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/svali/2000/12/svali04.html


        Q: Svali, one of the more important points, which I am sure a lot of readers would like to know more about, is, what is the Illuminati /Freemason connection, as far as you are aware of, given your previous position in the Illuminati?

        Q: Was - and is - there an infiltration of the Masonic Order?

        A: The Freemasons and the Illuminati are hand in glove. I don't care if this steps on any toes, it's a fact. The Masonic temple at Alexandria, Virginia (the city itself was named after Alexandria, Egypt, and is a hotbed of Illuminati activity) is a center in the Washington DC area for Illuminati scholarship and teaching. I was taken there at intervals for testing, to step up a level, for scholarship, and high ceremonies. The leaders in this Masonic group were also Illuminists.

        This has been true of every large city I have lived in. The top Freemasons were also top Illuminists. My maternal grandparents were both high ranking Masons in the city of Pittsburgh, Pa. (president of the Eastern Star and 33rd degree Mason) and they both were also leaders in the Illuminati in that area.

        Are all Masons Illuminati? No, especially at the lower levels, I believe they know nothing of the practices that occur in the middle of the night in the larger temples. Many are probably fine businessmen and Christians. But I have never known a 32 degree or above who wasn't Illuminati, and the group helped create Freemasonry as a "front" for their activities.

        Q: What exactly is the meaning of the pyramid on the back of the $1 U.S. note? I'm talking about the pyramid with the capstone detached and hovering above the rest of the pyramid, containing the 'All-Seeing-Eye'. Is this a Masonic or Illuminati symbol?

        A: The pyramid and the "eye of Horus" on the back of the dollar bill are Illuminati symbology. The pyramid is an ancient form based on the holiness of the number 3 to the ancient mystery religions (it, not 6, is considered the most spiritual number), and a pyramid was a structure used specifically to call up the demonic, or occult, a point of psychic activity.

        The eye is the all seeing eye of Horus (remember the emphasis on Egyptian magical religious practices? The book of the undead, etc.?) and the fact that no one can escape his magical reach. This eye is considered a demonic eye in the group, or the eye of the deity, and in Illuminati mythology is either open or closed, depending upon the spiritual time of year and the state of the person psychically. Young children are given "psychic surgery" where the eye is placed inside, and they are told that Horus will snatch their soul if they ever try to leave, or if they tell, or that the eye will explode. The symbol on the dollar is reinforcement for every Illuminati child who sees one, and the reminder that they are being watched.

        The saying on the dollar, 'Novus Ordo Seclorum' also means "bringing in the new order", which is the Illuminati stated agenda. Just think, in the early 1800's, our forefathers already were looking forward to when the new order would be ushered in. Have I mentioned that this is a patient, forward looking group of intellectuals? That Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, FDR, and others were Illuminati leaders? Our country may have been founded on freedom from taxation, but it was also founded on the New World Order just as surely. see also: United States Presidents and the Masonic Power Structure  Link added by Robert Howard, Wake Up America.

        Q: How far back in time does the concept / cult of the Illuminati go? It seems to me that they have been around quite some time, possibly since antiquity, guiding, steering and using humanity for their own purposes, operating under different names? Can you elaborate?

        A: I was taught that the Illuminati had its roots in the ancient practices that reach into the beginning of recorded time; that the Babylonians on the plains created ziggurats to their deities, whom the Illuminati worship. They were proud of the fact that it was supposedly an unbroken occult line from then until now. The names changed, the basic group was the same.

        The ancient mystery religions of Egypt, heart of dark magic were another forerunner, with adherents of Set, Osiris, Horus and Ra; and the Illuminists also believe their bloodlines have come down from the ancient kings of Egypt.

        It's hard for me to know how much was cult propaganda, and how much truth is in the claims. The Templar Knights were definitely a forerunner during medieval times, as well as the Rosicrucian's and ancient celts and druids (you know, the ones who built Stonehenge).

        "Illuminati, Greek illumination, name given to those who submitted to Christian baptism. Those who were baptized were called "illuminati" or "illuminated ones" by the Ante-Nicene clergy, on the assumption that those who were instructed for baptism in the Apostolic faith had an enlightened understanding.

        The Alumbrados, a mystical 16th-century Spanish sect, were among the societies that subsequently adopted the name illuminati. Later, the title of illuminati was used by a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt that aimed to combat religious thinking and encourage rationalism."
                                   ---Microsoft Encarta2000

        And in 2006 a reader wrote to advise that Microsoft was wrong and that the word actually comes from the Latin. Microsoft wrong? Perish the thought! It must be a Conspiracy!

        Do they still exist? Apparently for some....

        When creating this web site, we were under the belief that no one with any degree of education would believe there was a secret organization plotting for some 200+ years to control the world - and that the Masons were somehow a part of it. Boy, were we wrong!

        Whenever conspiracy theory is spouted, the mysterious "Illuminati" (along with the Bilderburgers, The Trilateral Commission, the Council of Foreign Relations, and a plethora of others) are most often named as being responsible. Ironically, however, while many, many people can name those ostensibly belonging to the other conspiracy groups, the "Illuminati" is always left hanging as some secret, shadowy entity which no one can quite describe. Interestingly too, no one can quite identify what specific acts can be attributed to them - everybody's got their own lists. And no one in 225 years seems to have left the organization to reveal its secrets. Pretty powerful stuff.....  (If you're not hearing the theme music for the X-Files right now, it's a CONSPIRACY!!!)

        Not one single defector in 5 or 6 generations: think about that! That'd be your great, great, great grandfather. I wonder how many people reading this page can actually name someone from their family who lived in the 1700s. Those who want to persuade us that a secret Illuminati cabal did lead the world from the Renaissance to the 19th century, and/or that it continues to do so today have a very difficult burden of proof and have never come close to producing documents or actual evidence that such is the case.

        Illuminati history

        The Illuminati was a movement founded on May 1, 1776. Much is, retrospectively, made of both the May 1st date later used by the Russian Revolution as well as the 1776 date tying in to the American Revolution. In fact, since there are only 365 days in a year, the Russian Revolution was bound to occur on one date or another which would/could have a connection to some devious scheme. By 1776, the American Revolution was well along in its planning stages and there's no credible link to a group founded in what is today near Munich, Germany. It was begun by Adam Weishaupt who was educated by the Jesuits, not unlike many who sought an education in those days and in that place. His organization was composed of those who were then espousing the ideals of the Enlightenment: freedom of thought and equality amongst classes of people, ideas that were considered by the authorities as being heretical and treacherous, particularly since logical outcome of equality would preclude the continued existence of monarchy. They were ideas which today, anyone reading this website likely espouses: the right to think as one wishes and to exercise - within the bounds of law - their freedom of choice. At that time, though, freethinking was an anathema to those in power and subjected those who would think such heretical thoughts to imprisonment.

        While some have suggested that the Illuminati was created to overthrow government and/or that they were behind the American Revolution, such ideas are without any real merit. Augustin Barruel and John Robison, even claimed that the Illuminati were behind the French revolution, a claim that Jean-Joseph Mounier dismissed in his 1801 book On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Free-Masons, and to the Illuminati on the Revolution of France. Barruel and Robison also wrote - essentially copying each other - trying to tie in Freemasonry to the plot. It is important to note, however, that both writers recognized that it was ONLY the 'Grand Orient'-type of Freemasonry being practiced in parts of France and Germany that was involved: never what we now term 'regular/recognized' Freemasonry stemming from the Grand Lodge of England! Robison, who had joined Freemasonry in his youth, was roundly criticized for his work, even by the Encyclopedia Brittanica for whom he had written articles!

        In 1777, Karl Theodor became ruler of Bavaria. He was a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and, in 1784, his government banned all secret societies, including the Illuminati. They had, by then, included the overthrow of political rulers in their goals and it's easy to understand how that could be a tad upsetting to those in charge. How many people were involved in the organization at that point is difficult to say. Some estimates are as high as 2000 but the simple fact is that once it was outlawed, the organization died - as would ANY organization where involvement could lead to a life in wretched prison confinement.

        Weishaupt had modeled his group to some extent on Freemasonry and Illiminati chapters drew some of their  membership from existing Masonic lodges.

        Illuminati conspiracies

        It is well established that by the end of the eighteenth century, the Illuminati had been effectively disbanded. That will surely burst the bubble of those who've come here seeking to find some buried bit of proof that they still exist and are today controlling the world.

        Because of Freemasonry's inadvertent involvement and the misuse of Freemasonry by the Illuminati's founder who had become a Mason, the legends of its continued existence (and influence) persist into the twenty-first century tying the organizations somehow together. In fact, Weishaupt founded the organization and then tried to get the Freemasons involved. He achieved a very limited success in a couple of lodges but was soon seen as a 'user' and his group removed - not unlike the 'fake Masonry' of today, actually!

        In the 1950s and 1960s, members of the John Birch Society made much of this supposed 'shadow' organization, using it as an effective substitute for their anti-Semitism. Perhaps some of the confusion regarding the organization is due to the fact that over time, the word illuminati came to be used more expansively for many enthusiasts of Enlightenment, including but not limited to the followers of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Nevertheless, the Illuminati's connection with Freemasonry was date-specific (the late 1700s) and place-specific (what is now Germany); it had NO involvement in Freemasonry elsewhere despite fanciful claims. Even the oft-mentioned 'Proofs of A Conspiracy' written in 1797 by Robison (and the root cause of so much furor in the United States as a result of one Boston Minister's fanciful claims made based on that book) notes that the Illuminati's brand of Freemasonry was NOT the same Freemasonry as found in England and from which all other legitimate Masonic lodges today can trace their ancestry.

        Robert Anton Wilson

        A HUGE amount of interest in the Illuminati stems, for those today, from Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007). A self-described agnostic mystic, he was also an author, philosopher and, some would say, a comedian. Many endow Wilson with all-seeing power while others read his works as poking fun at society and those who would blindly read his writings as fact.

        Because of his professed agnostic beliefs, the claim from the conspiracy-minded religious intolerants has even more fuel than someone else might have given it.

        Wilson wrote some 35 books and many other works. His best-known work is the cult classic The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan (1975) which he co-authored with Robert Shea and advertised as "a fairy tale for paranoids". In it, he humorously examined American paranoia about conspiracies. Many, though, have accepted this as NON-fiction and have succumbed to even more paranoia - always, it seems, involving the Freemasons.

        In 1977, Wilson published "
        Cosmic Trigger I : Final Secret of the Illuminati " in which he wrote on pages 3-4:

        Briefly, the background of the Bavarian Illuminati puzzle is this. On May 1, 1776, in Bavaria, Dr. Adam Weishaupt, a professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt University and a former Jesuit, formed a secret society called the Order of the Illuminati within the existing Masonic lodges of Germany. Since Masonry is itself a secret society, the Illuminati was a secret society within a secret society, a mystery inside a mystery, so to say. In 1785 the Illuminati were suppressed by the Bavarian government for allegedly plotting to overthrow all the kings in Europe and the Pope to boot. This much is generally agreed upon by all historians. 1 Everything else is a matter of heated, and sometimes fetid, controversy.

        It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.) The Illuminati have also been credited with managing the French and American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over the world, being the brains behind Communism, continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the Order actually was (or is . . .). There is endless room for spooky speculation, and for pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the literature of the subject; and there has been a wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati every generation since 1776. If you were to believe all this sensational literature, the damned Bavarian conspirators were responsible for everything wrong with the world, including the energy crises and the fact that you can't even get a plumber on weekends.

        Wilson then goes on to create a broad expansion of fantasy which - just as with Dan Brown novels in the early years of 2000 - are accepted as fact. It's a sad state on our ability to think that so many in society can't separate fact from fiction and today blather on with great fear and loathing about the evil Freemason/Illuminati treachery without a single provable example. In fact, some - in order to keep the bubble of fantasy from popping - suggested that RAW was the Grand Master (or inner head) of the Illuminati himself. Wilson always toyed with the accusations, and in typical RAW fashion, he's never denied it outright - finding the whole concept enormously amusing as well as helpful for book sales.

        One cannot read any of RAW's material without a healthy sense of humor although many, many do. We've noted from the outset of this very website that those with beliefs stemming from white-hot religious fervor or extreme paranoid conspiracy have ZERO sense of humor and wouldn't recognize satire if it were a sausage that hit them in the head. Thus, the internet has a zillion and a half websites all postulating on the existence of an organization that no one has ever seen and which all rational explanations say simply couldn't exist, with or without the all-powerful Freemasons.

        Illuminati reading

        For a couple of centuries, there's been nothing truly factual about the 18th Century Barvarian Order of the Illuminati except the sometimes hard to find book The Bavarian Illuminati in America: The New England Conspiracy Scare, 1798 by Vernon Stauffer.a Master Mason in the organization of Freemasons, afraternal organization that was a lifelong influence.[19][20]

        In December 1753, Washington was asked by Governor Dinwiddie to carry a British ultimatum to the French Canadians on the Ohio frontier.[10] Washington assessed French military strength and intentions, and delivered the message to the French Canadians at Fort Le Boeuf in present dayWaterford, Pennsylvania. The message, which went unheeded, called for the French Canadians to abandon their development of the Ohio country. The two colonial powers were heading toward worldwide conflict. Washington's report on the affair was widely read on both sides of the Atlantic.

        French and Indian War (Seven Years War)

        In 1754, Dinwiddie commissioned Washington a Lieutenant Colonel and ordered him to lead an expedition to Fort Duquesne to drive out the French Canadians.[10] With his American Indian allies led by Tanacharison, Washington and his troops ambushed a French Canadian scouting party of some 30 men, led by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville.[21] Washington and his troops were subsequently overwhelmed at Fort Necessity by a larger and better positioned French Canadian and Indian force, in what was Washington's only military surrender. The terms of surrender included a statement that Washington had assassinated Jumonville after the ambush. Washington could not read French, and, unaware of what it said, signed his name.[22] Released by the French Canadians, Washington returned to Virginia, where he was cleared of blame for the defeat, but resigned because he did not like the new arrangement of the Virginia Militia.[22]

        In 1755, Washington was an aide to British General Edward Braddock on the ill-fated Monongahela expedition.[10] This was a major effort to retake the Ohio Country. While Braddock was killed and the expedition ended in disaster, Washington distinguished himself as the Hero of the Monongahela.[23] While Washington's role during the battle has been debated, biographer Joseph Ellis asserts that Washington rode back and forth across the battlefield, rallying the remnant of the British and Virginian forces to a retreat.[24]Subsequent to this action, Washington was given a difficult frontier command in the Virginia mountains, and was rewarded by being promoted to colonel and named commander of all Virginia forces.[10]

        In 1758, Washington participated as a Brigadier General in the Forbes expedition that prompted French evacuation of Fort Duquesne, and British establishment of Pittsburgh.[10]Later that year, Washington resigned from active military service and spent the next sixteen years as a Virginia planter and politician.[25]

         Militia versus regular army

        As a colonial militia officer, albeit a high ranking one, Washington was acutely conscious of the disparity between officers in the militia and the regular British Army establishment. His eldest brother Lawrence had been fortunate to be awarded a commission in the British Army, as "Captain in a Regiment of Foot", in summer 1740, when the British Army raised a new regiment (the 61st Foot, known as Gooch's American Regiment) in the colonies, for service in the West Indies during the War of Jenkins' Ear.[26][27] Each colony was allowed to appoint its own company officers—the captains and lieutenants—and signed commissions were distributed by Colonel William Blakeney to the various governors.[28]Fifteen years later, when General Braddock arrived in Virginia in 1755 with two regiments of regulars (the 44th and 48th Foot), Washington sought to obtain a commission, but none were available for purchase.[29] Rather than serve as a militia lieutenant colonel, where he would be outranked by more junior officers in the regulars, Washington chose to serve in a private capacity as aide-de-camp to the general; as an aide, he could command British regulars.[30] Following Braddock's defeat, the British Parliament decided in November 1755 to create a new Royal American Regiment of Foot—later renamed King's Royal Rifle Corps. Unlike the earlier "American Regiment" of 1740–42, all of the officers were recruited in England and Europe in early 1756.

         Between the wars

        On January 6, 1759, Washington married the widow Martha Dandridge Custis. Surviving letters suggest that he may have been in love at the time with Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend. Some historians believe George and Martha were distantly related.

        Nevertheless, George and Martha made a good marriage, and together raised her two children from her previous marriage, John Parke Custisand Martha Parke Custis, affectionately called "Jackie" and "Patsy" by the family. Later the Washingtons raised two of Mrs. Washington's grandchildren, Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis. George and Martha never had any children together—his earlier bout with smallpox followed, possibly, by tuberculosis may have made him sterile. The newlywed couple moved to Mount Vernon, where he took up the life of a planter and political figure.[31]

        Washington's marriage to Martha, a wealthy widow, greatly increased his property holdings and social standing. He acquired one-third of the 18,000 acre (73 km²) Custis estate upon his marriage, and managed the remainder on behalf of Martha's children. He frequently bought additional land in his own name. In addition, he was granted land in what is now West Virginia as a bounty for his service in the French and Indian War. By 1775, Washington had doubled the size of Mount Vernon to 6,500 acres (26 km2), and had increased the slave population there to more than 100 persons. As a respected military hero and large landowner, he held local office and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, the House of Burgesses, beginning in 1758.[32]

        Washington lived an aristocratic lifestyle—fox hunting was a favorite leisure activity. Like most Virginia planters, he imported luxuries and other goods from England and paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop. Extravagant spending and the unpredictability of the tobacco market meant that many Virginia planters of Washington's day were losing money. (Thomas Jefferson, for example, would die deeply in debt.)

        Washington began to pull himself out of debt by diversification. By 1766, he had switched Mount Vernon's primary cash crop from tobacco to wheat, a crop which could be sold in America, and diversified operations to include flour milling, fishing, horse breeding, spinning, and weaving. Patsy Custis's death in 1773 from epilepsy enabled Washington to pay off his British creditors, since half of her inheritance passed to him.[33]

        During these years, Washington concentrated on his business activities and remained somewhat aloof from politics. Although he expressed opposition to the 1765 Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the colonies, he did not take a leading role in the growing colonial resistance until after protests of the Townshend Acts (enacted in 1767) had become widespread. In May 1769, Washington introduced a proposal drafted by his friend George Mason, which called for Virginia to boycott English goods until the Acts were repealed. Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts in 1770, and, for Washington at least, the crisis had passed. However, Washington regarded the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 as "an Invasion of our Rights and Privileges." In July 1774, he chaired the meeting at which the "Fairfax Resolves" were adopted, which called for, among other things, the convening of a Continental Congress. In August, Washington attended theFirst Virginia Convention, where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.[34]

        American Revolution

        After fighting broke out in April 1775, Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war. Washington had the prestige, the military experience, the charisma and military bearing, the reputation of being a strong patriot, and he was supported by the South, especially Virginia. Although he did not explicitly seek the office of commander and even claimed that he was not equal to it, there was no serious competition. Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. Nominated by John Adams of Massachusetts, Washington was then appointed Major General and elected by Congress to be Commander-in-chief.[10]

        Washington assumed command of the Continental Army in the field at Cambridge, Massachusetts in July 1775,[10] during the ongoing siege of Boston. Realizing his army's desperate shortage of gunpowder, Washington asked for new sources. British arsenals were raided (including some in the Caribbean) and some manufacturing was attempted; a barely adequate supply (about 2.5 million pounds) was obtained by the end of 1776, mostly from France.[35] Washington reorganized the army during the long standoff, and forced the British to withdraw by putting artillery on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city. The British evacuated Boston and Washington moved his army to New York City.

        Although negative toward the patriots in the Continental Congress, British newspapers routinely praised Washington's personal character and qualities as a military commander. These were bold articles about an enemy general who commanded an army in a cause that many Britons believed would ruin the empire.[36] Washington's refusal to become involved in politics buttressed his reputation as a man fully committed to the military mission at hand and above the factional fray.

        In August 1776, British General William Howe launched a massive naval and land campaign designed to seize New York and offer a negotiated settlement. The Continental Army under Washington engaged the enemy for the first time as an army of the newly declared independent United States at the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the entire war. His army's subsequent nighttime retreat across the East River without the loss of a single life or materiel has been seen by some historians as one of Washington's greatest military feats.[37] This and several other British victories sent Washington scrambling out of New York and across New Jersey, which left the future of the Continental Army in doubt. On the night of December 25, 1776, Washington staged a counterattack, leading the American forces across the Delaware River to capture nearly 1,000 Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey. Washington followed up his victory at Trenton with another one at Princeton in early January. These victories alone were not enough to ensure ultimate victory, however, as many did not reenlist or deserted during the harsh winter. Washington reorganized the army with increased rewards for staying and punishment for desertion, which raised troop numbers effectively for subsequent battles.[38]


        British forces defeated Washington's troops in the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. Howe outmaneuvered Washington and marched into Philadelphia unopposed on September 26. Washington's army unsuccessfully attacked the British garrison at Germantown in early October. Meanwhile, Burgoyne, out of reach from help from Howe, was trapped and forced to surrender his entire army at Saratoga, New York. France responded to Burgoyne's defeat by entering the war, openly allying with America and turning the Revolutionary War into a major worldwide war. Washington's loss of Philadelphia prompted some members of Congress to discuss removing Washington from command. Thisattempt failed after Washington's supporters rallied behind him.



        Julian Assange
        Enemy of the State Hero of the People
        By Lucy Carne LONDON
        SEEDS OF CHANGE: Julian Assange the boy and the thorn in the side of governments, and a rally by his Brisbane supporters this week
        In front of an adoring crowd at the Frontline journalist’s club in London last month, Australia Julian Assange explained why he’s risking the wrath of the world’s most powerful governments.
        In his face could still be seen traces of the sweet natured, sensitive little boy his Sunshine Coast-based mother has described and, smiling, the Queensland born 39 year old leaned into the microphone.
        “They say I enjoy crushing bastards and. Yes, that’s part of my motivation,” Assange said.
        “For some reason, the White House finds that offensive.”
        Today, the founder if whistle blowing website WikiLeaks and the man on whom the world’s spotlight is focused, sits is a grey tracksuit in one of western Europe’s biggest prsions.
        This week he was remanded in custody of rape, sexual assault and unlawful coercion stemming from alleged  non-consensual sex without a condom with two women in Sweden.
        Assange’s imprisonment, after he handed himself in, was met with relief in the US, where authorities were angered by his website’s release of embarrassing diplomatic cables last week.
        The man who kicked the hornets’ nest had been silences they thought.
        “I hadn’t heard that but it sounds like good news to me,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on being told of Assange’s arrest.
        But while Assange grows restless behind bars – he has already complained about the “boring” daytime television and his request to be reunited with his own laptop has been denied – a global groundswell of support has grown.
        The strongest act of revenge is coming from a group of ”hacktivists”  known as Anomymous, which temporariiy shut down the websites of US and Swedish corporations this week.
        The group also froze the websites of credit-card companies Visa and Mastercard,n which had cancelled financial donations to WikiLeaks.
        Post Finance – the Swiss bank that froze Assange’s private account – was disabled too, as was the Swedish prosecution office and the Swedish lawyers representing the two  women who claim  to have been sexually assaulted by Assange.
        The Anonymous group’s spokesman, known only as Coldblood, told reports they had not met Assange and were not connected to his organization but felt the need to defend him.
        “If we let WikiLeaks fall without a fight then government will think they can just take down any sites they wish or disagree with,” Coldblood said.
        In Brisbane on Thursday, some 300 protestors took to the streets in anger at Assange’s imprisonment.
        Protests in London were due to be held today.
        More than 35,000 people have joined a Facebook group to support Assange, with calls for all members to donate to his legal fund, while around 28,000 Australians have signed a letter to US President BARACK Obama supporting him.
        In an open letter published yesterday, prominent supports, including Australia documentary film maker John Pilger, Minty Python member Terry Jones, English actress Miriam Margolyes and author Iain Banks, call for his immediate release from jail
        Assange’s unusually harsh imprisonment for allegedly ignoring two women’s  requests to use contraception has caused this sudden swell of skepticism and fury.
        Many believe it is a flimsy excuse to keep Assange, who was placed on Interpol’s most wanted list, within reach of the US Justice Department so it can prosecute him under the Espionage Act.
        Even while he is hailed by the public as a champion of transparency, to the governments of Australia and the US he remains a menace. To them he is not an innocent messenger but an anti-government terrorist who wants to harm the US and governments across the world.
        Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard labeled WikiLeaks’s activities illegal but, despite calls for her to do so, has failed to outline any Australian law that Assange has broken.
        Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland also has stood by his condemnation of Assange, while arch-conservative US politician Sarah Palin called him an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”
        How did the tousled-haired boy in overalls grow up to become an Andy Warhol-esque hero of the people.
        “Hr can seem – with his spectral white hair, pa8iled skin, cool eyes, and expansive forehead – like a rail thin being who has rocketed to Earth to deliver humanity some hidden truth,” The New Yorker wrote in June.
        Born in Townsville in 1971, Assange has described his childhood as “pretty Tom Sawyer”’ filled with horseriding, building rafts and fishing.
        I was, however, far from Idyllic. By the age od 14, his family had moved 37 times, living everywhere from Magnetic Island to Byron Bay. It set the scene for his future nomadic life.
        The young boy was home schooled, sporadically educated by university professors and even taught himself in hours spent alone in council libraries.
        But his life changed when his mother’s abusive boyfriend tried to gain custody of Assange’s half brother in order to submit him to religious sect The Family.
        His mother and her young family “disappeared”, constantly moving, never leaving a trail.
        But at the age of 16, in 1987, Assange got a computer and modem and his life was suddenly transformed.
        He embraced the random problem-solving and solace if life as a computer hacker.
        “We were bright sensitive kinds who didn’t fit the dominant subculture and fiercely castigated those who did as irredeemable boneheads,” he wrote of himself and a teenage friend.
        He was arrested in the early 1990’sw for hacking into the computer system of a major Canadian telecommunications company, but avoided a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
        A brief spell in hospital for depression soon followed, as well as time spent living rough in the Dandenong Ranges National Park in Victoria and a stint motorcycling across Vietnam.
        While working towards a physics degree at the University of Melbourne in 2006, He founded WikiLeaks.
        It was a site for anyone wishing to “reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations” he wrote at the time of the site’s launch.
        “ I am the one who9 takes that risk,” he said prophetically, explaining his role at WikiLeaks while addressing the Frontline club last monthly. “As a consequence, I also get a lot of undue credit. I also get all the criticism.”
        His original WikiLeaks mandate was to9 “make the news, not be the news”.
        But that seems to have backfired, with Assange now a household name around the world.
        “Is is weird?” an audience member asked him of his new celebrity status.
        “No,” Assange shrugged.” Actually, I find it quite boring.”
        Lucy Marne is The Courier-Mail’s European correspondent

        Dear Friend,

        Sarah Palin wants Julian Assange hunted as a terrorist.1 She's among a swelling chorus of American politicians calling for the arrest - and even the death - of the Australian citizen who runs WikiLeaks. It's a shame that real terrorists, the kind we should be focusing our attention on, don't show up at British Police stations with their lawyers, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did yesterday.

        Here in Australia, Prime Minister Gillard pre-emptively judged Mr. Assange "illegal," even as the Attorney General confirmed that no Australian nor international crime by WikiLeaks has been identified.2

        The death penalty? Judgment before trial? This isn't the kind of justice system we have in Australia. If our Government won't stand up for the rights of Australian citizens, let's do it ourselves.

        We're printing ads in The Washington Times and The New York Times with the statement our Government should have made, signed by as many Australians as possible. Will you add your name to the signatories, and invite your friends to join too?

        http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Wikileaks

        The statement:Dear President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder:

        We, as Australians, condemn calls for violence, including assassination, against Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or for him to be labeled a terrorist, enemy combatant or be treated outside the ordinary course of justice in any way.

        As Thomas Jefferson said, "information is the currency of democracy."3 Publishing leaked information in collaboration with major news outlets, as Wikileaks and Mr. Assange have done, is not a terrorist act.

        Australia and the United States are the strongest of allies. Our soldiers serve side by side and we've experienced, and condemned, the consequences of terrorism together. To label WikiLeaks a terrorist organisation is an insult to those Australians and Americans who have lost their lives to acts of terrorism and to terrorist forces.

        If WikiLeaks or their staff have broken international or national laws, let that case be heard in a just and fair court of law. At the moment, no such charges have been brought.

        We are writing as Australians to say what our Government should have said: that all Australian citizens deserve to be free from persecution, threats of violence and detention without charge, especially from our friend and ally, the United States.

        We call upon you to stand up for our shared democratic principles of the presumption of innocence and freedom of information.We're printing this statement in The Washington Times and The New York Times early next week - and the more Australians sign, the more powerful the message will be. Please add your name by clicking below, and forward this message to friends and family:

        http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/WikiLeaks

        What has started with WikiLeaks being branded as terrorists won't end there.

        In fact, just yesterday U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chair of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee, said thatThe New York Times should also be investigated under the U.S. Espionage Act for publishing a number of the diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks.4 We can help stop such plans in their tracks, by showing how they are affecting the image of the US in the eyes of their staunchest friends and allies.

        Click here to sign the statement before it's published in The New York Times and Washington Times.

        Thanks for being part of this,
        The GetUp team

        ---

        1 Beckford, M., 'Sarah Palin: hunt WikiLeaks founder like al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders', The Telegraph, 30 November 2010.

        2 Oakes, L., 'Oakes: Gillard gushes over US leaks', Perth Now, 4 December 2010.

        3 The quote is widely attributed to Jefferson, but some now dispute whether he actually said it. We know, at least, that he said "knowledge is power," even if Francis Bacon did say it first.

        4 Savage, C., 'U.S. prosecuters study WikiLeaks prosecution', The New York Times, 7 December 2010.



        Julian Assange from Jail to Masion






        Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

         \

        Assange gets bail but still locked up (01:12)
        British judge grants bail to WikiLeaks founder under strict monitoring conditions, but he remains in jail as Sweden appeals the ruling.

        Assange will never receive a fair trial: Hicks
        Cameron Atfield
        December 15, 2010

        Hicks answers the tough questions
        Former terrorism suspect David Hicks has come out in support of jailed freedom-of-speech campaigner Julian Assange, saying he feared for Mr Assange's safety should he end up in American hands.
        Mr Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, has been returned to London's notorious Wandsworth prison despite winning bail from a British Court.
        He will be held there for another 48 hours while Swedish prosecutors, who want to extradite him to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, mount a High Court appeal against the decision.
        Supporters of Mr Assange, including his lawyer, have claimed the charges are politically motivated after the release of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, causing embarrassment for several governments.
        Yesterday, Mr Hicks told Fairfax Radio he was concerned about what might happen to Mr Assange if he was extradited to the United States.
        "He will never receive a fair trial," he said.
        "We have already established that it's a political decision rather than a legal one. It's important that our governments are held to account for any war crimes they may be involved in and that is why the work of WikiLeaks is so important."
        Mr Hicks spent six years at Guantanamo Bay, the US-run prison camp in Cuba, before he returned home to Australia to serve nine months at Adelaide's Yatala jail.
        He was convicted by a US military commission of "providing material support for terrorism".
        Mr Hicks said he believed future WikiLeaks releases could contain information about his incarceration.
        "I will watch with interest in more leaks released because I have heard that they might contain information about my treatment in Guantanamo and the political interference in my case," he said.
        "I just hope the Australian government doesn't abandon him like they did to me."
        WikiLeaks: Julian Assange sex assault court case branded a 'show trial'
        The Swedish authorities are turning the sexual assault case against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, into a "show trial", his lawyers claimed.

        Mark Stephens attacked the decision by the Swedish authorities to appeal against a judge's ruling to grant the 39 year-old Australian bail.
        He said their decision was now a "'persecution" rather than a prosecution and was politically motivated.
        He accused the authorities of stopping at nothing to have the Wikileaks founder behind bars, a claim they denied.

         

        WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is refused bail
        15 Dec 2010
        WikiLeaks: summary of the latest disclosures
        15 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: is 'Wikileaker' on a crusade or an ego trip?
        15 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: Jemima Khan comes to aid of Wikileaks founder in Swedish extradition fight
        15 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
        15 Dec 2010

        Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
        Governments around the world must not "shoot the messenger" by attacking disclosures by WikiLeaks, Julian Assange said on Tuesday.
        Julian Assange says his whistle-blowing website deserves protection and has not cost a single life despite the claims of critics

        The former computer hacker said his whistle-blowing website deserves protection and has not cost a single life despite the claims of critics.
        Writing for The Australian newspaper, Mr Assange quoted its founder, Rupert Murdoch, as once saying the truth will inevitably win over secrecy.
        He said: "Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public."
        Mr Assange said WikiLeaks has coined "scientific journalism" that allows readers to study the original evidence for themselves.
        He added: "Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest.
        "WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption."
        The campaigner denied he is anti-war, but said Governments must tell the truth about their reasons for fighting.
        He claimed the United States, supported by its "acolytes", has attacked WikiLeaks instead of other media groups because it is "young and small".
        Branding the website "underdogs", he accused Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard of "disgraceful pandering" to the Americans.
        He said: "The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings."
        Mr Assange highlighted some of the most high-profile revelations made by his website over the last week.
        He added: "The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth."

        In news
          
        The WikiLeaks bunker
          
        WikiLeaks: 10 greatest scoops
          
        WikiLeaks: do they have a right to privacy?
          
        The key WikiLeaks revelations
          
        Why law is powerless to stop WikiLeaks

         

        WikiLeaks 'will continue releasing documents'
        15 Dec 2010

         
        Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is driven into Westminster Magistrates Court in London Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA
        WikiLeaks 'will continue releasing documents'
        WikiLeaks has pledged to continue releasing confidential documents after Julian Assange, the website's founder and chief, arrived at court for an extradition hearing.
        Wednesday 15 December 2010

        Richard Edwards and Nick Collins 2:53PM GMT 07 Dec 2010
        Mr Assange handed himself over to police in central London on Tuesday morning after a warrant was issued for his arrest on rape charges.
        But ahead of his first court appearance a spokesman for the website insisted the arrest would not prevent the planned release of further cables on Tuesday evening.
        The spokesman wrote on Twitter: "Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal."

        The 39-year-old Australian was due to appear before a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday afternoon, where his lawyers were expected to fight extradition proceedings.
        A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Officers from the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit have this morning arrested Julian Assange on behalf of the Swedish authorities on suspicion of rape.
        "Assange is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today."
        Supporters of Assange were told to protest against censorship outside the Horseferry Road court house on several websites.
        His arrest came after an Australian newspaper published an editorial written by Assange, in which he urged governments around the world not to "shoot the messenger".
        He wrote: "Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest."
        He accused the Australian government and prime minister Julia Gillard of "disgraceful pandering" to the Americans, adding: "The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings."
        Mr Assange has not been seen publicly for 31 days, since an appearance in Geneva, and was believed to have been in hiding in the south-east of England as the latest tranche of WikiLeaks material was released.
        A European Arrest Warrant was issued by the Swedish last month but could not be acted upon because it did not contain sufficient information for the British authorities. A spokesman for Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor, said the extra details were sent last week.
        Police processed the warrant yesterday and arrangements were made with Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s British lawyer, for the Wikileaks founder to attend a central London police station.
        Mr Stephens said his client was keen to discover what allegations he was facing so he could clear his name.
        "It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law," he said.
        "Julian Assange has been the one in hot pursuit to vindicate himself to clear his good name.
        "He has been trying to meet with her (the Swedish prosecutor) to find out what the allegations are he has to face and also the evidence against him, which he still hasn't seen."
        The 39-year-old Australian has been under intense pressure since the release of thousands of secret documents in recent weeks.
        Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for WikiLeaks, said Mr Assange had been forced to keep a low profile after several threats on his life.
        Sweden’s Supreme Court upheld a court order to detain Mr Assange for questioning on suspicion of “rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion” after he appealed against two lower court rulings. He denies the allegations.
        His details were also added to Interpol’s most wanted website, alerting police forces around the world.
        Mr Stephens said he would fight any bid to extradite his client. He added that Mr Assange “has been trying to meet with the Swedish prosecutor since August this year”.
        Mr Assange’s troubles deepened when his Swiss bank account was shut down after it was found he had given a false address. Postfinance, the financial arm of Swiss Post, said: “The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process.”
        Mr Assange had allegedly told Postfinance he lived in Geneva but could offer no proof that he was a Swiss resident.
        News of his potential arrest came as WikiLeaks was criticised for publishing details of hundreds of sites around the world that could be targeted in terrorist attacks.
        Among the British sites listed are a transatlantic undersea cable landing in Cornwall; naval and motoring engineering firm MacTaggart Scott, based in the small Scottish town of Loanhead; and BAE Systems sites, including one in Preston, Lancashire.
        The revelations prompted Sir Peter Ricketts, David Cameron’s national security adviser, to order a review of computer security across all government departments.
        Julian Assange: Jemima Khan comes to aid of Wikileaks founder in Swedish extradition fight
        Jemima Khan appeared in court to lend her support to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as he was put behind bars over sexual allegations originating from Sweden.
        By Andrew Hough, and Caroline Gammell  07 Dec 2010

        Khan, the socialite and charity worker, offered to provide a £20,000 surety to prevent the 39-year-old Australian from being remanded in custody in Britain over the claims.
        Swedish officials want him extradited to answer questions over the alleged rape of one woman and molestation of another while he was in Stockholm this summer.
        Mr Assange, who was also supported in court by film director Ken Loach and four others, has repeatedly denied the claims.

        The 36-year-old former wife of Imran Khan said she would pay “whatever sum was required” to ensure he was granted bail.
        However, a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court decided he was too much of risk as it emerged that there was no record him ever arriving in Britain.
        During Tuesday's hearing he was accompanied by officials from the Australian High Commission after asking for consular assistance.
        Outside court, Khan said: “I am not here to make any kind of judgement on the Julian Assange as an individual as I do not know him and I have never met him.
        “I am here because I believe in the principle of the human right to freedom of information and our right to be told the truth.”
        Mr Assange’s supporters believe his arrest is a political stunt to detract from the revelations being made on a daily basis on the Wikileaks website.
        Geoffrey Robertson QC, a prominent Australian human rights barrister who was a defending lawyer at the Brighton Bombing trial in the mid 1980s, has reportedly agreed to act for Mr Assange in future hearings.
        The former computer hacker claims he had received several death threats since the secret documents were published and that someone had called for the kidnap of his 20-year-old son in Australia.

        Julian Assange in British prison on rape charge
        08 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: Extradition case involving Wikileaks founder could last many months
        08 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: question of consent
        08 Dec 2010
        Julian Assange: 'don't shoot the messenger'
        07 Dec 2010
        The Scarlet Pimpernel of cyberspace
        07 Dec 2010
        US Attorney General taking 'significant' action
        07 Dec 2010

         

        Julian Assange: is 'Wikileaker' on a crusade or an ego trip?
        Julian Assange, the man who published the Afghan war files on his Wikileaks website, is unlikely to be chastened by Admiral Mike Mullen’s claims that he might now have “blood on his hands”.
        Julian Assange outside court in Melbourne in 1995, where he was later convicted of hacking offences.

        Julian Assange, pictured in London this week, relies on donations and the hospitality of wellwishers as he travels the globe.

        WikiLeaks: summary of the latest disclosures
        The latest round of WikiLeaks releases disclose more detail about the US's relationships with allies and foes across the globe. Here is a round-up of today’s headlines.

        Britain
        Prince Andrew criticised a variety of governments, including those of Britain and America, as corrupt, stupid and backward in a conversation with a US diplomat.
        In his wave of “almost neuralgic patriotism”, the Duke also made the bizarre claim that British geography teachers are the best in the world.

        Families of British servicemen killed in Sangin, Afghanistan have reacted furiously after it was claimed WikiLeaks would disclose dismissive remarks by US commanders on British efforts to secure the town.
        The Welsh family of Bradley Manning, the US soldier suspected of handing the classified documents to WikiLeaks, have flown to America but been prevented from visiting him in prison.
        The internet has been rife with speculation about which former Labour minister was labelled “a bit of a hound dog” with women by an American official.
        David Cameron was seen as “lightweight” by Barack Obama after the first meeting between the two leaders, leaked files will show.
        Prince Charles does not command the same respect as the Queen, according to a senior Commonwealth official.
        International
        Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, dismissed claims that Arab countries had asked the US to attack his country as a deliberate attempt by the US to destabilise the Middle East.
        Released Guantánamo Bay prisoners should have electronic tagging devices implanted so that they can be followed by security officials, the King of Saudi Arabia suggested to a White House official.
        Silvio Berlusconi responded to leaked claims by American diplomats that he has a penchant for “wild parties” by claiming he only throws parties in a “proper, dignified and elegant way”.
        One of the more unlikely stories to surface from the leaked documents was that of a 77-year-old American dentist who fled Iran on horseback after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
        American officials suspect that North Korea has been secretly aiding Iran in its attempts to build nuclear weapons under the auspices of the Chinese government.
        Colonel Gaddafi was believed to be very close to a “voluptuous” Ukrainian nurse who followed him everywhere he went, a US cable claimed.
        An exile from Iran was living in London when he was targeted in an assassination plot by an Iranian agent, who was later arrested in America.
        Hillary Clinton asked US diplomats in Argentina about the mental health of President Cristina Kirchner and questioned whether she was using medication to help her “calm down”.
        The White House has told federal agencies to tighten security around the US military computer network following the leaking of classified information.
        China would support a unified Korea controlled from Seoul because it believes the North is behaving like a “spoiled child”, documents show.
        Sarah Palin has accused Barack Obama of taking insufficient action to prevent the release of the latest batch of WikiLeaks files.
        The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, could die within months from terminal cancer, an Iranian informant told American officials.
        Angela Merkel is the only leader “man” enough to lead the European Union, according to American cables.
        The United Nations has angrily hit back at American “interference” after learning that Hillary Clinton ordered what amounted to an espionage campaign on its senior officials.
        Julian Assange
        The WikiLeaks founder is in hiding after an international warrant was issued for his arrest on rape allegations.
        Assange’s next target will be the banking sector, with one American bank in particular to suffer from his next revelations, which he compared to the Enron scandal.
        Assange has accused Barack Obama of attempting to smother the freedom of the press.
        A criminal investigation is underway into how the latest batch of documents was made public, and Barack Obama could take legal action against Mr Assange.

        Kazakh defence minister 'was openly drunk'
        01 Dec 2010
        WikiLeaks: Best quotes from Duke of York's Kyrgyzstan breakfast with US ambassador
        30 Nov 2010
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