I am working on a new Political Party to rival The Vicar of Billionaire’s party, that used to be the Socialist Party of John Fremont. I am forming a Religious Television Station Party. I will air – many visions!
Seer Jon
With President Zelensky’s direct appeal to the United States, coupled with Herbert Armstrongs predictions about the coming war with Russia, there can be no doubt….I am the last prophet standing.
FLASH! I just discovered this lawsuit! Study the Council of National Policy that was c0-founded by Tim LaHaye who Gini Thomas was close to. How about Clarence?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy
John Presco
“Weblog: Tim LaHaye Loses Left Behind Lawsuit, Worldwide Church of God Settles” | Christianity Today
God, Trump and the Closed-Door World of the Council for National Policy – The Washington Post
Left Behind lawsuit dismissed
A federal judge has dismissed Left Behind coauthor Tim LaHaye’s lawsuit against Cloud Ten Pictures, which created film versions of the first two books in the popular series, the film company says in a press release.
“Obviously the Federal Court has vindicated Cloud Ten,” says Cloud Ten president Edwin Ng. “We are extremely pleased with the result and continue to look forward to making future Left Behind films, television programming and films based on the Left Behind: The Kid’s Series.”
LaHaye sued Cloud Ten and Namesake Entertainment in July 1999, saying the companies breached their contract by making a film of lower quality than promised. According to Publishers Weekly, he had promised to drop the suit if Cloud Ten released the rights to the children’s series. The company is currently developing Left Behind: The Series, which will air only in Canada.
Tim LaHaye has not posted a response either on his website or on the Left Behind site, nor have other media outlets picked up the story. If he responds, we’ll note it in a later weblog.
Worldwide Church of God settles, will allow Armstrong books to be published
In another book-related lawsuit, the Worldwide Church of God has settled its legal battle with the Philadelphia Church of God over works written by the group’s founder, Herbert W. Armstrong.
The Worldwide Church of God (WCG) has repudiated Armstrong’s teachings and has joined the National Association of Evangelicals, but splinter groups like the Philadelphia Church of God, which broke away when the WCG began becoming more orthodox, fought to keep the WCG from suppressing the works.
n October 2015, Donald Trump was still a laugh line for right-wing Christian activists. By their lights he was a failed casino owner and thrice-married playboy. He had no apparent principles, no policy blueprint and no grasp of the Bible. He didn’t even understand free-market theory, something they consider to be a fountainhead of American liberty. Yet here he was in a conference room at the Ritz-Carlton in McLean, Va., soliciting support from a closed-door group of conservative leaders called the Council for National Policy.
Trump looked the part. He wore a blue suit, white shirt and shiny blue tie. But he seemed to lose his way during the pitch and began riffing about his hair. He turned his head to various angles for the crowd. “It looks pretty good back here,” Trump said, as CNP’s president, Bill Walton, would later recall during a confidential talk captured on video.
It was too much for Marjorie Dannenfelser, an antiabortion activist also in the crowd. “This is insulting,” Dannenfelser said, according to her recorded recollection. She pulled on Walton’s sleeve. “Can you believe what is happening here?” she asked.
For months after the event, Dannenfelser and some other CNP members were determined to stop Trump. While he solidified his lead as GOP front-runner, they denounced him as a “charlatan” in the conservative magazine National Review, blasted his prior support of abortion rights and implored Republican voters to choose another candidate.
“America will only be a great nation when we have leaders of strong character who will defend both unborn children and the dignity of women,” Dannenfelser and other women wrote in an open letter to Iowa voters in January 2016. “We cannot trust Donald Trump to do either.”
Then came a great swerve that would upend politics in America: Millions of conservatives — Dannenfelser and other CNP members among them — got firmly behind Trump. Today, the Republican Party has been transformed, and Trump or one of his ideological heirs is likely to be the GOP nominee in 2024.
[As Trump hints at 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario’ for the country]
Much has been written about this turn of conservatives toward Trump. But I wanted to learn more about the political and communications infrastructure that converted this support into votes and influence. How did these leaders and activists — once so critical of Trump — end up helping shape and advocate for his agenda? And now that he is almost a year removed from the White House, how are they continuing to serve him and his cause?
Working with fellow Washington Post reporter Shawn Boburg, I started gathering documents and cultivating sources. We zeroed in on key figures and groups, making charts of their ties and timelines of their actions. We identified networks of groups that served as a kind of nerve system for conservative influence campaigns.
cc
In the video below, Herbert Armstrong, challenges his listeners to find reference to anyone going to heaven in the Bible. Did my late friend, Ben Toney hear Herbert’s word, but, he was not really listening? Herbert Armstrong gave London Radio $50,000 dollars a year to air his half hour show. It appears Radio London, and other Pirate Radio Stations, received money from the CIA. The co-founder of the European Union, Denis de Rougemont, was President of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, that was funded by the CIA who was in Cold War with the Soviety Union, the N0.1 enemy of Armstrong. President Trump and Boris Johnson see the European Union as their enemy.
I am going to go before the Springfield City Council and ask for funding. I may own the only images of KORE. If it was still standing, I would hold classes insider about The Church owning World Ambitions. It is very suspect that Tim LaHaye came up with Nicolae Carpathian. I suspect he followed Armstrong.
Was Mueller questioned about the CIA?
John Presco
Radio Church – Gone!
https://rosamondpress.com/2019/07/26/senate-intel-report-with-satan-seal/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Carpathia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_for_Cultural_Freedom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thief_in_the_Night_(film_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_LaHaye
The overseas broadcasts seemed to follow the strange establishment of CIA client stations such as “Radio Swan” (later called “Radio Americas”) which played a key role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. This station has a well documented history tied to the CIA. The same is true of stations like “Radio Tangier International” in Africa, and his Russian language broadcasts from “Radio Monte Carlo”.
Yet it is the “Radio Luxembourg” and “Radio Caroline North”, “Radio 270”, “Radio Scotland”, “Radio 390” and “Wonderful Radio London” broadcasts that are most interesting because they represented the US interests in developing Europe as a single entity. The French under de Gaulle advanced the idea of a United States of Europe” having similar powers to the United States of America, while the USA and the UK advanced the idea of a United Europe as a single trading block that would be tied to the USA. Armstrong’s broadcasts and supporting literature had a history dating back to pre-WWII in which he warned that a United States of Europe would eventually defeat both the UK and USA with a person similar to Adolph Hitler as its leader. This is thoroughly documented in both the recordings of his broadcasts and his literature. In fact before WWII ended Armstrong thought that the USA would lose and when it actually won, he immediately began predicting that a USE would arise from the ashes and try again. His dire warnings predate even the earliest of the Benelux agreements for trade in iron, steel and coal.
-From Wiki Talk on “Herbert W. Armstrong”
In April 1966, The New York Times ran a series of five articles on the purposes and methods of the CIA.[15][16][17][18][19]
The third of these 1966 articles began to detail false-front organizations and the secret transfer of CIA funds to, for example, the US State Department or to the United States Information Agency (USIA) which “may help finance a scholarly inquiry and publication, or the agency may channel research money through foundations – legitimate ones or dummy fronts.”[20] The New York Times cited, amongst others, the CIA’s funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, Encounter magazine, ‘several American book publishers’, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s Center for International Studies,[21] and a foreign-aid project in South Vietnam run by Michigan State University.[22]
In 1967, the US magazines Ramparts and The Saturday Evening Post reported on the CIA’s funding of a number of anti-communist cultural organizations aimed at winning the support of supposedly Soviet-sympathizing liberals worldwide.[23] These reports were lent credence by a statement made by a former CIA covert operations director admitting to CIA financing and operation of the CCF.[24] The CIA website states that “the Congress for Cultural Freedom is widely considered one of the CIA’s more daring and effective Cold War covert operations.”[6]
That same year in May, Thomas Braden, head of the CCF’s parent body the International Organizations Division, responded to the Ramparts report in an article entitled “I’m Glad the CIA is ‘Immoral’”, in the Saturday Evening Post, defending the activities of his unit within the CIA. For more than ten years, Braden admitted, the CIA had subsidized Encounter through the CCF, which it also funded; one of the magazine’s staff, he added, was a CIA agent.[25]
Worldwide Church of God settles, will allow Armstrong books to be published
In another book-related lawsuit, the Worldwide Church of God has settled its legal battle with the Philadelphia Church of God over works written by the group’s founder, Herbert W. Armstrong.
The Worldwide Church of God (WCG) has repudiated Armstrong’s teachings and has joined the National Association of Evangelicals, but splinter groups like the Philadelphia Church of God, which broke away when the WCG began becoming more orthodox, fought to keep the WCG from suppressing the works.
Joseph Tkach Jr., pastor general of the WCG, had said it was the church’s “Christian duty [to keep the book out of …
Restoring the Congress of Cultural Freedom
Denis de Rougemont headed the Congress of Cultural Freedom that was funded by the CIA. Artist and Writers in the West were covertly employed to keep leftist intellectuals from adopting the hegemony of the Soviet Union, and use Communism as a weapon of empowerment. Putin was surely aware of it – eventually. Did he found his Troll Farms on the ideas of Rougemont, he employing a reverse move?
Denis Rougemont had Christianity in mind as making the difference. With Putin embracing the Russian Orthodox church against The U.S. and the European Union, a ‘Think Tank’ needs to be established that employs the philosophy of Rougemont who co-founded the European Union. I suspect Rougemont is kin to the Habsburgs.
The Trumpites are tying to establish a Evangelical Vatican in Jerusalem with the move of our Secular Embassy there. I am going to compose a letter to Congressman Peter DeFazio and ask him to stop this covert operation by the John Darby Cult. Trump’s evangelical handlers want what Putin has. What is that bird on the wall in back of Putin? It’s the cote of arms of the Russian Empire. This is why I declare myself ‘King of the Habsburg’ and Emperor of the revived Byzantine Empire.
The problem I have, is I have been trying to give a warning to secular peoples who shun everything with a religious message in it. This is a perfect holy smoke screen – for many tyrants – who hate the teaching of Jesus. Add to this the profits of the billionaires, and, it looks overwhelming for the little people, who tend to cave-in, forsake the courage they should be given in order to sustain fragile democracies.
Jon Presco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Romanov
http://www.newsweek.com/putins-crimea-chief-calls-restoring-russian-monarchy-568361
Russia should reinstate the monarchy, the regional head of Russia’s internationally unrecognized government in Crimea declared in a television interview on Tuesday night.
Sergey Aksyonov, who was appointed head of the Crimea region after Russia annexed it from Ukraine in 2014, shared his thoughts on Russian Crimean channel Perviy Krimsky.
“We do not need the democracy in the form in which it is presented by the Western media,” Aksyonov said. “We have our own traditional Orthodox spiritual values… Today, in my opinion, Russia needs the monarchy,” said Aksenov.
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/10/08/denis-de-rougemont-lordre-nouveau/
Armstrong of Springfield
“I can’t understand the Government’s attitude over the pirates,” Beatle George Harrison declaimed in an interview. ”Why don’t they make the BBC illegal as well. It doesn’t give the public the service it wants, otherwise the pirates wouldn’t be here to fill the gap.”4
Brian Epstein writes to Ben Toney of pirate radio station Radio London plugging the new Paddy, Klaus, and Gibson release, ‘No Good Without You Baby’.
‘It was on the formation of Pall Mall Music* that Brian Epstein became interested in doing business with us. I met Brian several times to discuss the artists he wanted to promote through Pall Mall. We made several deals for artists in his stable, including Billy J. Kramer; Paddy, Klaus, and Gibson and The Silkie.’ – Radio London programme directorBen Toney (The Amazing Radio London Adventure: The Untold Story of Radio London by Ben Toney) [x]
* a company which published the ‘B’ sides of records for airplays of the ‘A’ sides. The publishing royalties on the sale of a single are split 50-50 between the publishers of the A and B-side of the disc so owning the rights to the B-side of a hit can be financially rewarding, even if it is seldom played.
Herbert Armstrong lived at 1608 N.6th Ave in Eugene Oregon. His radio station was on Linda Street in Springfield. Armstrong and Radio London’s history is the premiere history of Springfield, where I live.
Ben called me ‘The Sage of Oregon’. He knew I was a conflicted theologian. We posted messages about the abuses of the Religious-right. I wondered what Ben and I would be saying about Trump declaring the press the ‘Opposition Party’. Then, a miracle happened. A real miracle! Do you see that radio tower behind me? That tower funded Radio London. That tower belonged to Herbert Armstrong who broadcast a religious program here in Oregon, and later, in Pasadena. These two towers are connected! They are TWINS seperated at birth!
Herbert Armstrong did NOT BELIEVE IN RAPTURE and his theology was labeled a cult. As the new prophet of the Radio Church of God, I appeal to all who are not members of the Rapture Cult invented by John Darby in 1840. I do not believe Jesus came as the son of God, or, as God, to die for human sins. I believe he came as the second Solomon to establish the Lost Kingdom of God that was being seeded all over the world. Armstrong came close to the truth! He and my angel have anointed me to carry on. This is a very liberal mission that will establish a Great World Democracy!
The cost of the station was covered by local and national advertising and the half-hour religious commentary, The World Tomorrow, presented by Herbert W. Armstrong or his son, Garner Ted Armstrong. The Armstrongs’ Worldwide Church of God sponsored the station with £50,000 a year. The World Tomorrow aired at 7pm, outside prime hours.[1]
John Presco
The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited
This book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders, details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts. The CIA also published and translated well-known authors who toed the Washington line, sponsored abstract art to counteract art with any social content and, throughout the world, subsidized journals that criticized Marxism, communism, and revolutionary politics and apologized for, or ignored, violent and destructive imperialist U.S. policies. The CIA was able to harness some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West in service of these policies, to the extent that some intellectuals were directly on the CIA payroll. Many were knowingly involved with CIA “projects,” and others drifted in and out of its orbit, claiming ignorance of the CIA connection after their CIA sponsors were publicly exposed during the late 1960s and the Vietnam war, after the turn of the political tide to the left.
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
The CIA, under the prodding of Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, was instrumental in funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a kind of cultural NATO that grouped together all sorts of “anti-Stalinist” leftists and rightists. They were completely free to defend Western cultural and political values, attack “Stalinist totalitarianism” and to tiptoe gently around U.S. racism and imperialism. Occasionally, a piece marginally critical of U.S. mass society was printed in the CIA-subsidized journals.
What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was not only their political partisanship, but their pretense that they were disinterested seekers of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art’s sake, who counterposed themselves to the corrupted “committed” house “hacks” of the Stalinist apparatus.
It is impossible to believe their claims of ignorance of CIA ties. How could they ignore the absence in the journals of any basic criticism of the numerous lynchings throughout the southern United States during the whole period? How could they ignore the absence, during their cultural congresses, of criticism of U.S. imperialist intervention in Guatemala, Iran, Greece, and Korea that led to millions of deaths? How could they ignore the gross apologies of every imperialist crime of their day in the journals in which they wrote? They were all soldiers: some glib, vitriolic, crude, and polemical, like Hook and Lasky; others elegant essayists like Stephen Spender or self-righteous informers like George Orwell. Saunders portrays the WASP Ivy League elite at the CIA holding the strings, and the vitriolic Jewish ex-leftists snarling at leftist dissidents. When the truth came out in the late 1960s and New York, Paris, and London “intellectuals” feigned indignation at having been used, the CIA retaliated. Tom Braden, who directed the International Organizations Branch of the CIA, blew their cover by detailing how they all had to have known who paid their salaries and stipends (397-404).
According to Braden, the CIA financed their “literary froth,” as CIA hardliner Cord Meyer called the anti-Stalinist intellectual exercises of Hook, Kristol, and Lasky. Regarding the most prestigious and best-known publications of the self-styled “Democratic Left” (Encounter, New Leader, Partisan Review), Braden wrote that the money for them came from the CIA and that “an agent became the editor of Encounter“ (398). By 1953, Braden wrote, “we were operating or influencing international organizations in every field” (398).
Saunders’ book provides useful information about several important questions regarding the ways in which CIA intellectual operatives defended U.S. imperialist interests on cultural fronts. It also initiates an important discussion of the long-term consequences of the ideological and artistic positions defended by CIA intellectuals.
Saunders refutes the claims (made by Hook, Kristol, and Lasky) that the CIA and its friendly foundations provided aid with no strings attached. She demonstrates that “the individuals and institutions subsidized by the CIA were expected to perform as part…of a propaganda war.” The most effective propaganda was defined by the CIA as the kind where “the subject moves in the direction you desire for reasons which he believes to be his own.” While the CIA allowed their assets on the “Democratic Left” to prattle occasionally about social reform, it was the “anti-Stalinist” polemics and literary diatribes against Western Marxists and Soviet writers and artists that they were most interested in, funded most generously, and promoted with the greatest visibility. Braden referred to this as the “convergence” between the CIA and the European “Democratic Left” in the fight against communism. The collaboration between the “Democratic Left” and the CIA included strike-breaking in France, informing on Stalinists (Orwell and Hook), and covert smear campaigns to prevent leftist artists from receiving recognition (including Pablo Neruda’s bid for a Nobel Prize in 1964 [351]).
The CIA, as the arm of the U.S. government most concerned with fighting the cultural Cold War, focused on Europe in the period immediately following the Second World War. Having experienced almost two decades of capitalist war, depression, and postwar occupation, the overwhelming majority of European intellectuals and trade unionists were anticapitalist and particularly critical of the hegemonic pretensions of the United States. To counter the appeal of communism and the growth of the European Communist Parties (particularly in France and Italy), the CIA devised a two-tier program. On the one hand, as Saunders argues, certain European authors were promoted as part of an explicitly “anticommunist program.” The CIA cultural commissar’s criteria for “suitable texts” included “whatever critiques of Soviet foreign policy and Communism as a form of government we find to be objective (sic) and convincingly written and timely.” The CIA was especially keen on publishing disillusioned ex-communists like Silone, Koestler, and Gide. The CIA promoted anticommunist writers by funding lavish conferences in Paris, Berlin, and Bellagio (overlooking Lake Como), where objective social scientists and philosophers like Isaiah Berlin, Daniel Bell, and Czeslow Milosz preached their values (and the virtues of Western freedom and intellectual independence, within the anticommunist and pro-Washington parameters defined by their CIA paymasters). None of these prestigious intellectuals dared to raise any doubts or questions regarding U.S. support of the mass killing in colonial Indochina and Algeria, the witch hunt of U.S. intellectuals or the paramilitary (Ku Klux Klan) lynchings in the southern United States. Such banal concerns would only “play into the hands of the Communists,” according to Sidney Hook, Melvin Lasky, and the Partisan Review crowd, who eagerly sought funds for their quasi-bankrupt literary operation. Many of the so-called prestigious anticommunist literary and political journals would long have gone out of business were it not for CIA subsidies, which bought thousands of copies that it later distributed free.
The second cultural track on which the CIA operated was much more subtle. Here, it promoted symphonies, art exhibits, ballet, theater groups, and well-known jazz and opera performers with the explicit aim of neutralizing anti-imperialist sentiment in Europe and creating an appreciation of U.S. culture and government. The idea behind this policy was to showcase U.S. culture, in order to gain cultural hegemony to support its military-economic empire. The CIA was especially keen on sending black artists to Europe—particularly singers (like Marion Anderson), writers, and musicians (such as Louis Armstrong)—to neutralize European hostility toward Washington’s racist domestic policies. If black intellectuals didn’t stick to the U.S. artistic script and wandered into explicit criticism, they were banished from the list, as was the case with writer Richard Wright.
The degree of CIA political control over the intellectual agenda of these seemingly nonpolitical artistic activities was clearly demonstrated by the reaction of the editors of Encounter (Lasky and Kristol, among others) with regard to an article submitted by Dwight MacDonald. MacDonald, a maverick anarchist intellectual, was a long-time collaborator with the CIA-run Congress for Cultural Freedom and Encounter. In 1958, he wrote an article for Encounter entitled “America America,” in which he expressed his revulsion for U.S. mass culture, its crude materialism, and lack of civility. It was a rebuttal of the American values that were prime propaganda material in the CIA’s and Encounter‘s cultural war against communism. MacDonald’s attack of the “decadent American imperium” was too much for the CIA and its intellectual operatives in Encounter. As Braden, in his guidelines to the intellectuals, stated “organizations receiving CIA funds should not be required to support every aspect of U.S. policy,” but invariably there was a cut-off point—particularly where U.S. foreign policy was concerned (314). Despite the fact that MacDonald was a former editor ofEncounter, the article was rejected. The pious claims of Cold War writers like Nicola Chiaromonte, writing in the second issue of Encounter, that “[t]he duty that no intellectual can shirk without degrading himself is the duty to expose fictions and to refuse to call ‘useful lies,’ truths,” certainly did not apply to Encounter and its distinguished list of contributors when it came to dealing with the ‘useful lies’ of the West.
One of the most important and fascinating discussions in Saunders’ book is about the fact that CIA and its allies in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) poured vast sums of money into promoting Abstract Expressionist (AE) painting and painters as an antidote to art with a social content. In promoting AE, the CIA fought off the right-wing in Congress. What the CIA saw in AE was an “anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise. Non-figurative and politically silent it was the very antithesis of socialist realism” (254). They viewed AE as the true expression of the national will. To bypass right-wing criticism, the CIA turned to the private sector (namely MOMA and its co-founder, Nelson Rockefeller, who referred to AE as “free enterprise painting.”) Many directors at MOMA had longstanding links to the CIA and were more than willing to lend a hand in promoting AE as a weapon in the cultural Cold War. Heavily funded exhibits of AE were organized all over Europe; art critics were mobilized, and art magazines churned out articles full of lavish praise. The combined economic resources of MOMA and the CIA-run Fairfield Foundation ensured the collaboration of Europe’s most prestigious galleries which, in turn, were able to influence aesthetics across Europe.
AE as “free art” ideology (George Kennan, 272) was used to attack politically committed artists in Europe. The Congress for Cultural Freedom (the CIA front) threw its weight behind abstract painting, over representational or realist aesthetics, in an explicit political act. Commenting on the political role of AE, Saunders points out: “One of the extraordinary features of the role that American painting played in the cultural Cold War is not the fact that it became part of the enterprise, but that a movement which so deliberately declared itself to be apolitical could become so intensely politicized” (275). The CIA associated apolitical artists and art with freedom. This was directed toward neutralizing the artists on the European left. The irony, of course, was that the apolitical posturing was only for left-wing consumption.
Nevertheless, the CIA and its cultural organizations were able to profoundly shape the postwar view of art. Many prestigious writers, poets, artists, and musicians proclaimed their independence from politics and declared their belief in art for art’s sake. The dogma of the free artist or intellectual, as someone disconnected from political engagement, gained ascendancy and is pervasive to this day.
While Saunders has presented a superbly detailed account of the links between the CIA and Western artists and intellectuals, she leaves unexplored the structural reasons for the necessity of CIA deception and control over dissent. Her discussion is framed largely in the context of political competition and conflict with Soviet communism. There is no serious attempt to locate the CIA’s cultural Cold War in the context of class warfare, indigenous third world revolutions, and independent Marxist challenges to U.S. imperialist economic domination. This leads Saunders to selectively praise some CIA ventures at the expense of others, some operatives over others. Rather than see the CIA’s cultural war as part of an imperialist system, Saunders tends to be critical of its deceptive and distinct reactive nature. The U.S.-NATO cultural conquest of Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR should quickly dispel any notion that the cultural war was a defensive action.
The very origins of the cultural Cold War were rooted in class warfare. Early on, the CIA and its U.S. AFL-CIO operatives Irving Brown and Jay Lovestone (ex-communists) poured millions of dollars into subverting militant trade unions and breaking strikes through the funding of social democratic unions (94). The Congress for Cultural Freedom and its enlightened intellectuals were funded by the same CIA operatives who hired Marseilles gangsters to break the dockworkers’ strikes in 1948.
After the Second World War, with the discrediting in Western Europe of the old right (compromised by its links to the fascists and a weak capitalist system), the CIA realized that, in order to undermine the anti-NATO trade unionists and intellectuals, it needed to find (or invent) a Democratic Left to engage in ideological warfare. A special sector of the CIA was set up to circumvent right-wing Congressional objections. The Democratic Left was essentially used to combat the radical left and to provide an ideological gloss on U.S. hegemony in Europe. At no point were the ideological pugilists of the democratic left in any position to shape the strategic policies and interests of the United States. Their job was not to question or demand, but to serve the empire in the name of “Western democratic values.” Only when massive opposition to the Vietnam War surfaced in the United States and Europe, and their CIA covers were blown, did many of the CIA-promoted and -financed intellectuals jump ship and begin to criticize U.S. foreign policy. For example, after spending most of his career on the CIA payroll, Stephen Spender became a critic of U.S. Vietnam policy, as did some of the editors of Partisan Review. They all claimed innocence, but few critics believed that a love affair with so many journals and convention junkets, so long and deeply involved, could transpire without some degree of knowledge.
The CIA’s involvement in the cultural life of the United States, Europe, and elsewhere had important long-term consequences. Many intellectuals were rewarded with prestige, public recognition, and research funds precisely for operating within the ideological blinders set by the Agency. Some of the biggest names in philosophy, political ethics, sociology, and art, who gained visibility from CIA-funded conferences and journals, went on to establish the norms and standards for promotion of the new generation, based on the political parameters established by the CIA. Not merit nor skill, but politics—the Washington line—defined “truth” and “excellence” and future chairs in prestigious academic settings, foundations, and museums.
The U.S. and European Democratic Left’s anti-Stalinist rhetorical ejaculations, and their proclamations of faith in democratic values and freedom, were a useful ideological cover for the heinous crimes of the West. Once again, in NATO’s recent war against Yugoslavia, many Democratic Left intellectuals have lined up with the West and the KLA in its bloody purge of tens of thousands of Serbs and the murder of scores of innocent civilians. If anti-Stalinism was the opium of the Democratic Left during the Cold War, human rights interventionism has the same narcotizing effect today, and deludes contemporary Democratic Leftists.
The CIA’s cultural campaigns created the prototype for today’s seemingly apolitical intellectuals, academics, and artists who are divorced from popular struggles and whose worth rises with their distance from the working classes and their proximity to prestigious foundations. The CIA role model of the successful professional is the ideological gatekeeper, excluding critical intellectuals who write about class struggle, class exploitation and U.S. imperialism—“ideological” not “objective” categories, or so they are told.
The singular lasting, damaging influence of the CIA’s Congress of Cultural Freedom crowd was not their specific defenses of U.S. imperialist policies, but their success in imposing on subsequent generations of intellectuals the idea of excluding any sustained discussion of U.S. imperialism from the influential cultural and political media. The issue is not that today’s intellectuals or artists may or may not take a progressive position on this or that issue. The problem is the pervasive belief among writers and artists that anti-imperialist social and political expressions should not appear in their music, paintings, and serious writing if they want their work to be considered of substantial artistic merit. The enduring political victory of the CIA was to convince intellectuals that serious and sustained political engagement on the left is incompatible with serious art and scholarship. Today at the opera, theater, and art galleries, as well as in the professional meetings of academics, the Cold War values of the CIA are visible and pervasive: who dares to undress the emperor?
Senate Intel Report With Satan Seal
Fox News host Sean Hannity said Thursday that the negative reactions to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday are proof the Democratic Party just cannot let go of its 2016 defeat.
“They just seem incapable of accepting, which is I think at the foundation of why they keep going here, they can’t accept the 2016 election results,” Hannity said Thursday night.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/hannity-dems-trump-mueller-2016-election
And, how will this asshole like to see this acceptance, after Trump is crying;
“Lock her up!”
Putin hated Hillary and worked had to be sure she was not elected. Mueller said he would have locked up Trump if he was not the President – and he’s a Republican! Putin is laughing his ass off, because we Americans are living in two opposing worlds – as planned!
For over twenty-five years I have been walking a fence between the secular and religious world. Today, there is no fence, no wall. no border.
There is a shield in the fake seal that depicts five hammer and cycles in the blue field. In 2014 I began to give prophetic warnings wearing an American and Soviet flag. These flags have merged. The U.S. is now part of Putin’s Kingdom, as is Britain. The words on the fake seal say……….”45 is a puppet”.
Herbert Armstrong warned us. I suspect his church was taken over by the Soviet Union. Putin may have been in charge of this operation. Like the Phantom of the Oera, he upstaged Trump after he appear at the end of this very apocalyptic film. I’m talking about the richest man in the world who may have been secretly funding evangelical churches – and colleges – turning out loyal robots.
It all began 500 yards from where I live. I am not sure if KORE is in Eugene or Springfield. I now wonder if there was a conspiracy to prevent me from saving Armstrong’s radio station that should have continued to broadcast out WARNINGS again the Russians. Armstrong did not foresee a Russian Czar who wants to restore the Monarchy. Did Putin listen to Hebert Armstrong’s message being broadcast from Radio London?
All this information is falling from the sky like mana! All the pieces are falling into place. The End of the World may be at hand! I am going to try to gather together some loyal American computer experts to help me broadcast Armstrong’s Last Show.
Today I went to where Marilyn works to go to lunch. 500 hundred yards away, her long time employee’s spirit contacted me. I told Marilyn Joseph spoke to me.
“Didn’t you tell me he died several years ago?”
“He died two months ago.”
“You didn’t tell me!”
Josephs’ spirit is hanging about where he worked since 1999. He loved it there.
John ‘The Second Elijah’
Copyright 2019
“During Tkach’s tenure, the changes that he implemented stirred much controversy and significant dissent among those who continued to follow Armstrong’s theology. The dissenters labeled the changes as heresy and many left to form new church organizations. Within the mainstream Christian community, some have hailed Tkach’s reforms, which brought a church from the fringe to orthodoxy, as unprecedented.[2] “
He was born March 16, 1927, in Chicago, the youngest of five children and the only son of Vassil and Mary Tkach. The name Tkach /təˈkɒtʃ/[3] is of Carpatho-Rusyn (Ukrainian) origin, but his parents were originally from Czechoslovakia.[4] The neighborhood where he grew up was composed mainly of blue-collar working people of Russian origin.[5] He graduated from Tilden High School in southwest Chicago. He then served a short term in the U.S. Navy near the end of World War II and afterward returned to his native Chicago.[6] On March 31, 1951, Tkach married Elaine Apostolos; they had three children: Joseph Jr., Tanya, and Jennifer.[7]
Tkach grew up in the Russian Orthodox faith, but eventually his family, including his parents, became interested in the Radio Church of God through the radio broadcast of Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the church.[6] The Radio Church of God would eventually change its name in 1968 to the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), the church that Tkach would lead. It was a church characterized by the strong influence of its founder and his unique doctrines based on his own interpretation of the Bible. Initially, Tkach was the only member of his family who was not interested in listening to the radio broadcasts. However, a purportedly miraculous event was to change him. At the time, Tkach suffered from severe ulcers and was required to stay on a special diet. His wife then suggested that God would heal him if he were to become a minister in Armstrong’s church. Although skeptical, he accepted the suggestion of becoming a minister and he found himself cured, never again to suffer from the ulcers.[6] He was baptized by Radio Church of God minister, Dean Blackwell, on March 1, 1957. On June 7, 1961, Blackwell ordained him a deacon in the Chicago congregation, and on June 3, 1963, Roderick C. Meredith, who would eventually lead a breakaway church from the WCG, ordained him as an elder.[7]
Rusyns (Rusyn: Русины / Rusynŷ), sometimes referred to as Rusnaks (Rusyn: Руснакы / Rusnakŷ), also known as Carpatho-Ruthenians or Carpatho-Russians (Rusyn: Карпато-Русини / Karpato-Rusyny), are an East Slavic people who speak the Rusyn language. They descend from an East Slavic population that inhabited the Northern regions of the Eastern Carpathians since the Early Middle Ages. Together with other East Slavs from neighboring regions, they were often labeled by the common exonym Ruthenians, or by the regionally more specific designation Carpathian Ruthenians, and sub-group designations Dolinyans, Boykos, Hutsuls and Lemkos. Unlike their Eastern neighbors, who adopted the use of the ethnonym Ukrainians in the early 20th century, Rusyns kept and preserved their original name. As residents of Northeastern regions of the Carpathian Mountains, Rusyns are closely connected to, and also sometimes associated with, other Slavic communities in the region, like the Slovaks highlander community of Gorals (literally, “Highlanders”).
Early Life and Rise to Power[edit]
According to the plot, born in Cluj County, Romania, Carpathia was the product of genetic engineering and artificial insemination. His mother, Marilena, was unwittingly convinced by a group of Luciferians, whose group she joins, to become the mother of a child who, they assured her, would change the face of the world. Marilena stayed with her husband, Sorin, until the baby was born, insisting that her son keep the strong Carpathia name. (In the prequel novels, it is explained that the name “Nicolae”, when translated, means “victory of the people”, although this is far from Carpathia’s actual goals.
Through his parents, Carpathia possessed a unique bloodline dating back to Ancient Rome, so he could actually claim to be a Roman descendant. This references both the early Christian belief that the Antichrist would come in the form of a Roman emperor, as well as the current Pre-Millennialist Christian view[citation needed] that the Antichrist will emerge from a “New Roman Empire”[citation needed].
The Radio Church of God began with Herbert W. Armstrong, who in 1931 was ordained by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God (Seventh-Day), an Adventist group, and began serving a congregation in Eugene, Oregon. On January 7, 1934, Armstrong began hosting a broadcast on a local 100-watt radio station KORE in Eugene. It was essentially a condensed church service on the air, with hymn singing featured along with Armstrong’s message, and it was the launching point for what would become the Radio Church of God. In 1933, the Church of God (Seventh-Day) split. Armstrong, who sided with the faction centered in Salem, West Virginia, fell out with the local congregation over various doctrinal issues, especially his espousal of British Israelism.
Scandal and Conflict[edit]
Many members were disappointed that the events predicted in Biblical prophecy, expounded and preached about by Herbert Armstrong, had not yet come to pass. Most were unaware that Herbert Armstrong had been preaching about Revelation and Bible Prophecy on the radio as far back as World War II, when he had proclaimed Hitler and Mussolini could have filled the roles of the Beast and False Prophet of the Book of Revelation. After the war ended, Armstrong attended a meeting in San Francisco in which a proposal was made to create the United Nations. He had also read a quote from Winston Churchill proposing the creation of a United States of Europe. This was a springboard that the 10 Kings, 10 Horns, 10 Crowns of Revelation reveal a European Union would rise up to become the Beast Power. While the European Union was an idea in the making, the nations of Europe were far from united, as the union itself was still another 20 years in the future. Because church literature such as The Wonderful World Tomorrow, 1975 in Prophecy!, and many others had attempted to pinpoint the date of Christ’s return, members continued to wait anxiously for the Second Coming. Armstrong never predicted a date in his sermons, nor did any of his evangelists. Some (such as Gerald Waterhouse) presented detailed, step-by-step accounts of the Second Coming in their sermons, which included Armstrong himself as one of two witnesses of the Book of Revelation.[13]
Herbert Armstrong began to speak openly and critically of his son. Garner Ted spoke of greatly expanding the church’s media ministry on the model of the Church of Christ, Scientist with its widely read Christian Science Monitor to which Herbert W. Armstrong disagreed.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Communion_International
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Carpathia
The Radio Church of God and Radio London – Remembered
I talked to the people inside the building that replaced KORE about doing a mural on this wall. I collected some earth in remembrance of Ben Toney. I have to put the video on youtube. I put five scoops of dirt in bag that had these words printed on it:
“The perfect blend”
With each scoop I said;
On the land
On the sea
In the air
On the air
Ben Toney
John
Radio Captains Courageous
Church, State and the Pirate Ship Saga
By Neil Earle
(Jingle) “Radio London reminds you: Go to the Church of your choice.”
(Pause)
(Announce, loudly): “THE WORLD TOMORROW! Garner Ted Armstrong brings you the plain truth about today’s world news with the prophecies of the World Tomorrow!
(GTA): “And greetings friends, this is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. World leaders admit that they are frightened, that they are engaged in a fantastic nightmare. They’re scared. They don’t know what to do. They’re wondering what is going to happen in the future and none of them really know.”
This was a typical opener for a “World Tomorrow” radio show beaming down on millions of Englishman in the Greater London area between late 1964 and August 15, 1967. This period is now somewhat notable in British broadcasting circles as the heyday of the Pirate Ships. A fascinating tale, this, of how the Armstrongs, Herbert and Garner Ted (successful radio evangelists based in America) ended up in a curious roundelay involving Her Majesty’s government in London, the BBC, some of Britain’s elite publications and a host of over-the-top radio personalities – some of whom ended up as legends of British popular culture.
This has been a very long day. Let me sign off with this good news.
I took another nap. When I awoke, I realized the suitcase I took out of the dumpster was the history of Armstrong and Radio London. I put it there in my fictional story. I got up and blogged on this connection. I found much. I found blueprints for a New Radio London and a Memorial – to be built in the future. Some say Armstrong, was CIA. They should employ my divine psychic abilities.
John 007
Astwood is today’s Culpeper Manor.
http://www.culpepperconnections.com/archives/uk/places/feckenham.htm
Chapter One
‘The Hammer and the Hand’
John Ambrose could not believe his good fortune. On his way to Safeway in his vintage 1972 Ford Truck, he noticed the gate to the grounds of KORE radio was open. Pulling over, he entered what he considered hallowed ground. It was his dream to own this radio station that had been for sale over a year. His heart began to pound when he saw workman hauling boxes out of Armstrong’s old radio station that was just sold. To John’s dismay, it was being torn down. Taking shaky steps towards the dumpster, John knew he must act. He could not stop himself from climbing the built-in ladder. Looking inside, his eyes instantly spotted the handle of an old suitcase. Before he grabbed it, he knew what this suitcase looked like. Getting a firm grip, John gave a mighty tug, and, there was debris and papers flying about him, when he heard a voice!
“Hey! What are you doing! Get out of there!”
John pretended he did not hear the command. With shaking hands, he clicked the clasps, and lifted the lid of the suitcase.
“Holy shit! John said, as he beheld the title of the manuscript………
“The Last Russian Prophecy of Herbert Armstrong.”
ccc
I am poised to destroy Judaism and Christianity with the publication of my book that exposes the Tribe of Judah as they betrayers of God. Armstrong’s interest in the fate of the Lost Tribes, will remain as the paramount interest of Judeo-Christianity.
Our enemies are studying the truth that Christian leaders are still backing The Liar of Liars – because they may not have a choice. Religious Gangsterism has led to the creation of The Monster – The Liar of Liars…The Caesar of Caesars!
I warned you!
John
I Am Embodiment of Herbert Armstrong
Posted on July 25, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
With the Spencer connection, it is made CLEAR I am Heir to Herbert Armstrong’s Church and Radio. I ma REVERSING THE FLOW of American Women to Europe, back to America! Consuelo Vanderbilt had to know all about the Legend of Fair Rosamond, whose portrait was painted by the Pre-Raphaelites I turned my sister ‘Rosamond’ on to. King Solomon had many foreign wives. How about his great grandson?
Above is the crypt of ROSAMOND Vanderbilt! I will be ignoring the ignorant remnant of my family. Surely, the late and famous artist CHRISTINE ROSAMOND BENTON – is thrilled with all the wondrous connections I am making – FOR BOTH FAMILY ARTISTS! My attorney will make sure to make this point – over and over and over, and over – again!
Consider Solomon’s gold treasure that is part of the Bible. American Treasure saved many Royal Castles. I am the True Posterity Teacher who found the Rose Grail and Sword.
The Windsor Labyrinth at Belmont | Rosamond Press
Many evangelical ministers encouraged their sheep to not get vaccinated in order to weaken our Commander in Chief – knowing Russia was a real threat! Armstrong lost his followers when the Iron Curtain fell. His warnings about Russia – went unheeded!
John ‘The Artist-Prophet’
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian navy can detect any enemy and launch an “unpreventable strike” if needed, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, weeks after a UK warship angered Moscow by passing the Crimea peninsula.
Putin says Russian navy can carry out ‘unpreventable strike’ if needed (msn.com)
Rosamond Lancaster Vanderbilt (1897-1947) – Find A Grave Memorial
In 1899, Vanderbilt married Virginia Graham Fair (1875–1935), a wealthy heiress whose father, James Graham Fair, had made a fortune in mining the famous Comstock Lode.
William Kissam Vanderbilt II – Wikipedia
The Vanderbilts separated after ten years of marriage but did not formally divorce until 1927 when he wanted to remarry. Divorce proceedings were handled by his New York lawyers while he and Rosamund Lancaster Warburton (1897–1947), a former wife of Barclay Harding Warburton II, an heir to the John Wanamaker department store fortune, waited discreetly away from the media at a home in the Parisian suburb of Passy, France. When the divorce was final, the couple were married at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) in Paris on September 5, 1927. Vanderbilt became a legal stepfather to Barclay Harding Warburton III once they wed.
Consuelo Vanderbilt – Wikipedia
Determined to secure the highest-ranking mate possible for her only daughter, a union that would emphasize the preeminence of the Vanderbilt family in New York society, Alva Vanderbilt engineered a meeting between Consuelo and the indebted, titled Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, chatelain of Blenheim Palace.
1 Kings 10:14 says, “the weight of gold which Solomon received every year was 666 talents of gold, besides what came from tradesmen, from the traffic of the merchants, and from all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the regions.” (Jewish Study Bible).
Rosamond de Clifford (1136 – 1176) – Genealogy (geni.com)
Armstrong and Radio Free London
Posted on April 16, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
In memory of my Friend, Ben Toney, and Herbert Armstrong who broadcast WARNINGS about the Russian Menace. I talked with my man, Spooky Noodles, to get Meg Whitman to put a replica of Radio London offshore of her property in Dogpatch – two years ago!
Seer Jon
(16) Herbert W Armstrong- Proving the TRUTH(via The World Tomorrow Radio Program).wmv – YouTube
Augustus John, Ian Fleming, and Ben Toney | Rosamond Press
“He argued that Russia should retaliate quickly and not rush to accept Biden’s summit offer.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” Kosachev wrote. “I believe the saying is quite adaptable to a situation when we talk not about revenge but a due answer to aggressive action by an opponent.”
(16) The Chantels – Maybe (1958) – YouTube
Church, State and the Pirate Ship Saga
By Neil Earle
Radio Caroline was the first of the offshore “pirate ships” beaming into Britain, though the idea had been tried off California and elsewhere in the 1930’s.
(Jingle) “Radio London reminds you: Go to the Church of your choice.”
(Pause)
(Announce, loudly): “THE WORLD TOMORROW! Garner Ted Armstrong brings you the plain truth about today’s world news with the prophecies of the World Tomorrow!
(GTA): “And greetings friends, this is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. World leaders admit that they are frightened, that they are engaged in a fantastic nightmare. They’re scared. They don’t know what to do. They’re wondering what is going to happen in the future and none of them really know.”
This was a typical opener for a “World Tomorrow” radio show beaming down on millions of Englishman in the Greater London area between late 1964 and August 15, 1967. This period is now somewhat notable in British broadcasting circles as the heyday of the Pirate Ships. A fascinating tale, this, of how the Armstrongs, Herbert and Garner Ted (successful radio evangelists based in America) ended up in a curious roundelay involving Her Majesty’s government in London, the BBC, some of Britain’s elite publications and a host of over-the-top radio personalities – some of whom ended up as legends of British popular culture.
The genius behind the pirate ship idea was the offshore positioning of creaky vessels and the occupation of abandoned World War Two-era sea forts as staging platforms to beam in the music millions in “swinging England” craved. As covered earlier, Radio Luxembourg had represented the first crack in the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) exclusive monopoly over radio broadcasting in Britain. But on March 28, 1964, from a 763-ton vessel propelled by a 1,000 h.p. diesel engine off England’s southeast coast came the jived up sounds of Radio Caroline, broadcasting on 199 metres. Radio Caroline was the first of the offshore “pirate ships” beaming into Britain, though the idea had been tried off California and elsewhere in the 1930’s. 1
This British version of “offshore radio” was the brainchild of Irish entrepreneur Rohan O’Rahilly. O’Rahilly soon had competition from another swashbuckling entrepreneur named Alan Crawford. Both men came to the same conclusion about radio at the same time. An arrangement was made whereby Radio Caroline, now called Radio Caroline North, steamed to a position five miles off the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea while Crawford’s 470-ton Mi Amigo became Radio Caroline South, perched off the Essex coast. A Texas businessman named Don Pierson soon got into the act and set up Wonderful Radio London that Christmas, 1964.2
The assault was on. What tart British journalist Christopher Booker dubbed as “the farce of the pirate radio stations” had begun.3
Farcial only because of the nearly three year battle that soon ensued between the British Government and the “pirate ships,” as they were soon dubbed. Though the official term was “offshore broadcasting” there was just enough “nuts to the Establishment” tone embedded in the talented tonsils of deejays Simon Dee, Robbie Dale, Kenny Everett, and others to bother Harold Wilson’s Labour Government no end. “Some tastes are worse than wild” Lord Sorenson complained in the House of Lords. The House of Lords no less! Pop music and trendy D.J. patter in a pseudo-American style wafted onto an island population seeking relief from some of the BBC’s stuffier productions. “I can’t understand the Government’s attitude over the pirates,” Beatle George Harrison declaimed in an interview. ”Why don’t they make the BBC illegal as well. It doesn’t give the public the service it wants, otherwise the pirates wouldn’t be here to fill the gap.”4
Politics and Religion
Perhaps the “quiet Beatle” had missed the point. Not only had American religious broadcasters rushed in with their programming – from The Lutheran Hour to the Seventh day Adventist’s Voice of Prophecy – but concerns were being raised in parliament about the political nature of the matters being discussed along the blue yonder.5 Though there was never direct evidence in Hansard, the official record of British Parliamentary Debates, the indirect evidence is compelling that Garner Ted Armstrong may have been a particular thorn in the flesh. A December, 1966 Good News article by Charles Hunting, then Business Manager for the RCG’s United Kingdom operation, reported on the tug of war between the pirate ships and Her Majesty’s government, with “The World Tomorrow” often caught in the middle. “The Last Battle for Britain” was the hyperbolic, but not unreasonable in terms of broadcasting, title. Charles Hunting’s centerpiece was a quote from an editorial appearing in The Guardian, one of Britain’s most prestigious dailies. The writer may have got to the nub of the issue:
One reason why the Government got shifting over radio pirates was the threat of new pirate stations pouring out political polemic instead of perpetual pop. That seems to have been forestalled, but MPs are starting to take an interest in the pronouncements of one Garner Ted Armstrong, an American evangelist… who brings “news of the World Tomorrow.” News mostly about fundamentalist religion, but news too of political trends. One recent broadcast said that Britain was about to scuttle out of Gibraltar as a result of American pressure.6
Ouch! Ted was never averse to treading on Whitehall’s toes. In some ways as a red-blooded banjo-playing American he reveled in twisting the lion’s tail. Slightly up-tight Britain was never his favorite place to visit, though he admired the stalwart British character. So it came to pass that he was pleasantly surprised and bemused to hear his own voice coming out of several car radios one evening in the middle of Picadilly Circus. Interestingly, Dr. Scott Lupo, presenting on the Armstrongs at academic conferences in England in the 1990’s, found former British listeners turned academics remembering The Plain Truth’s dire warnings against the Common Market evolving into a future danger for Britain.7 Diverse audiences decode diversely. Broadcast scholar Eric Gilder even suggests on his web site that the Armstrongs received funding from the CIA in order to keep Britain out of Europe and safely pro-American. This is certainly untrue but…in popular culture decodings take place on multiple levels.8 In the event, typical British suspicion of Americans definitely affected the way GTA’s message was being received.
Ted’s days as “Captain Outrageous” in well-targeted Britain would be numbered but not before substantial inroads had been made into British thinking-man’s culture. The faceless bureaucrats across the Channel did make a tempting target for red-blooded Brits fearful of becoming perpetual Little Englanders in Europe’s shadow. The result? Guardian editors in sympathy with an irritating American orator – good heavens!
Thus tweaked, the British lion turned this challenge from the ether into a minor comic opera of sorts. The BBC’s supporters in parliament tried to turn the screws:
April 27, 1967: M.P Mr. Faulds asked the Secretary of State: “Will he amend the ‘Representation of the People Acts’ to give him power to proceed against persons who broadcast political propaganda from illegal radio stations.” Answer: “The Postmaster General has already done so.”
May 11, 1967: Faulds was back: “This is the first time that this country has been subjected to a stream of misleading propaganda from outside our territorial waters. I do not think that this is a matter for jokes.”
June 1, 1967: Sir C. Osborne counters: “Why should pirate radio stations be denied free speech on political matters?”9
Official harassment began. The Government Post Office (GPO) cut off Caroline’s ship-to-shore telephone. The Foreign Office lodged a protest with the government of Panama, where the Caroline was registered. The Times was suitably indignant. M.P.s fulminated. British audiences, however, were distinctly unamused. They rallied to the pirates from the beginning, especially the youth. “Within weeks,” wrote Booker, “a Gallup Poll provided the evidence – the Caroline was already rivaling Radio Luxembourg in popularity with around 7 million radio listeners.” Radio Caroline spawned a host of imitators – Radio 270, Radio Scotland, Radio 370, and five others. Roger Lippross, now a California resident after serving as the church’s publishing representative, was enchanted. He had remembered the distinctive Armstrong voice from Radio Luxemburg in the 1950’s when his father had forced him to burn RCG (Radio Church of God) booklets and other “American propaganda.” Now Radio Caroline North beamed into his home between Blackpool and Liverpool and the young pre-press expert was hooked.
Today he looks back and reminds us: “It was actually illegal to be listening to pirate radio!”
Tuned-in Britain
The struggling Radio Church of God in Britain was quick to eye this strategic opportunity. With the appearance of off-shore radio, Ambassador College executives in England could dream of saturating the British Isles with “The World Tomorrow.” A fascinating spin-off is the fact that for all the Armstrong media dominance in the United States and Canada, some of the most insightful appraisals as to their impact on 1960’s culture would come from irreligious, slightly-jaded Great Britain. Great Britain – where radio broadcasting was state-controlled even down to the 1980’s.
How did it happen?
Charles Hunting’s article traced it to the chance meeting of two old friends on a London street in late 1964. One of them was the advertising representative for “The World Tomorrow” in England. His friend was selling radio time on a new radio station due to soon start broadcasting off shore. The Good News reported:
A hurried conference was arranged with the station manager and Mr. Herbert Armstrong flew in from the United States. It was a difficult and tense situation! Although The World Tomorrow was one of the world’s largest buyers of radio time…a very sensitive situation developed. The station wanted to get away from the staid, rather dreary broadcasting format that was the normal bill of fare for British listeners. They wanted to project a new radio image – alive, fast-moving, totally musical-type programming. Talking programs were “out!” Educational-type programs were “out!” Religious programs were totally unacceptable!10
But HWA with his blood well up was hard to refuse, as Charles Hunting reported. “After two conferences with Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong and four-and-a-half hours of conversation, they were ‘in’ and probably the most costly single commercial radio contract in history was signed. Now, all stations have accepted The World Tomorrow program.” This was not an exaggeration. Robert Chapman and other sources mention “The World Tomorrow” and “Herbert W. Armstrong’s Radio Church of God” as the largest advertiser on the pirate ships.11 Edward Smith’s detailed notes of Bricket Wood Bible Studies and Church Services are eloquent on that score. Church leaders of that era were worried about cost overruns, as much of the money was coming from the United States churches.12 The Pirate Ship venture was proving expensive but, just as in America, the radio broadcast was a tremendous boon to the Work in Britain. Charles Hunting measured the sweep of that dramatic surge. “Just twenty short months ago [writing in 1966] there was no broadcasting of the World Tomorrow in England, and no possible hope of any,” he intoned,” Today, with the exception of a very few areas, the entire nation has access to the program.”
Access indeed!
Throughout 1965 and 1966 responses to the pirate ships dramatically pushed the WCG’s work ahead in Britain. The Bricket Wood office received about 135,000 letters in 1965 alone. This meant the addition of some 53,000 people to The Plain Truth mailing list – the church’s life blood. The 1966 Envoy reported that British Mail staggered away with sixty-five tons of PT subscriptions! By the end of 1965 there had emerged a total of nine WCG churches across the British Isles, servicing some 900 people. Festival attendance figures were always a primary index of church growth. It was thus exhilarating to report that Britain’s festival attendance zoomed from 1532 in 1965 to 3350 in 1972. As early as the June, 1965 Plain Truth editor Herman Hoeh was suitably ecstatic if a little hyperbolic about potential audience:
From the estuary of the Thames River “The World Tomorrow” can now be heard on Radio London by millions all over southern England at 8 o’clock in the evening. It booms in over London as a local station. And from the Irish Sea, Radio Caroline North beams the gospel over the British Isles daily at the same time – 8 p.m. Never in all history has there been anything like it. The potential listening audience of these two superpower stations broadcasting from ships at sea, is a condensed, concentrated 55 million people! The British Isles are, in area, only about the size of the southern half of California…yet more than 55,000,000 people are condensed in that little area.13
“Rare Sincerity”
By 1967, the growth of the British churches, fueled by the phenomenon of nationwide broadcasting, was impressive. Even more encouraging was the obvious impact of the radio program on the British Isles as a whole. Even faster than in the United States, Garner Ted Armstrong became virtually a household name almost overnight. Charles Hunting’s December, 1966 Good News report recorded a high-profile evaluation of “The World Tomorrow” from a leading medical journal. A letter to the editor penned in elegant style the listener’s pique at the seemingly indecent haste of the British Postmaster General (PMG) to ban the pirate ships:
The sudden urgency on the part of the PMG to ban “pirate” radio stations interests me. Is it because of the threat of an extra recruit allegedly about to broadcast political propaganda?…A type of propaganda is already being broadcast from private radios. Every day a remarkably attractive and compelling American orator, one Garner Ted Armstrong, puts over some extraordinarily healthy views to millions of listeners. His “plain truth” doctrine, under the generic title The World Tomorrow, always delivered with rare humor and sincerity, contains material which may well vex certain MPs [Members of Parliament] of all parties.
“Rare humor and sincerity” – a telling phrase. Garner Ted’s dramatic flair and yen for rhetorical “cut and thrust” could be quite appealing to the British temperament, American accent and all! “Heavy irony is always appreciated more in England than America,” says Roger Lippross “and Ted was almost fatally addicted to good sarcasm.” Some of his irreverent one-liners – “You could get yourself killed in a peace march,” “We can destroy the world fifty times over when once would be quite enough,” “What’s Lent? Something that sticks in your navel?” – took on legs. More highbrow listeners enjoyed the RCG’s tweaking of the accepted liberal myths of the 1960’s. That was one level. On another, worried Anglican parishioners could enjoy Ted’s witty sallies against evolution. Scoffing at evolution was particularly controversial in England, the home of Charles Darwin. Ted’s verbal Molotov cocktails were embedded even in the booklet titles he advertised over the air – the irresistible “A Theory for the Birds,” “Some Fishy Stories.” Then he would pause dramatically as a staged afterthought: “I think they call it evil-ution in England.” Or he might ask coyly: “Is it significant that the most popular idea for the origin of the universe is described as a huge cloud of gas?”
Rare humor had always been a Ted Armstrong stock in trade. But what were those “extraordinarily healthy views”? This phrase underscores just how much of a “broad text” of the popular culture the Armstrong radio insurgency had become. The upscale British listener continued his analysis:
For example, he advocates proper and reasonable discipline for children; deplores the “new morality;” is saddened by Britain’s decline as a world power; does not care for “weirdoes;” assaults sentimental Christianity as being against Bible teaching; is horrified by Britain’s obsession with gambling; considers that granting independence to unready countries is a mistake – and so on. Is this the real reason for the new drive to stop that voice as well as less attractive sounds?14
There was even subdued comedy “in house.” Herbert Armstrong with his dander up was often entertaining to watch, especially if you were well out of range. He decoded the controversy in an altogether different way. His Midwestern law and order proclivities were outraged at the mention of the phrase “pirate ships.” Pirate ships? “Pirate ships?” HWA was always ready to fulminate on the subject even years later: “They were not pirate ships!” he would protest to no-one in particular. Years later in the USBC booklet he was still settling scores. “They were not illegal! They violated no law of man,” he wrote. “But the British authorities called them ‘pirate’ ships. They were not pirates. They were not marauders…They harmed no one. But most governments of man would like to control what their people hear or do not hear.” As was not unusual, HWA’s hearers would glance down politely at the floor to hide slightly concealed smiles. In some ways this predictable Amstrong pique at Whitehall and its ways would be a rhetorical dress rehearsal for the far greater strife with the state of California in the next decade. In 1967, however, the British government was indeed able to bring pressure to bear to squelch the offshore broadcasting in the form of the Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act, to go into effect August 14, 1967. This was not, it turned out, a happy moment for the British churches. But for a while the Armstrong radio onslaught had thrown sedate Britain for a loop.
A Frenetic Summer
The implementation of the Marine Offenses Bill effectively ended the Worldwide Church of God’s radio insurgency in the British Isles. Bricket Wood Bible Studies and Sabbath services were replete with updates on this last-ditch “Battle for Britain” as the intensely mission-driven WCG put it. Elder Ed Smith’s detailed notes from the messages delivered to the headquarters congregation give some of the flavor of that frenetic summer with Pirate Ships, the Six Day War, WCG expansion into the Middle East and “end-time fever” all jumping around in the hopper:
May 5, 1967 – Good comments about HWA’s broadcast about sex. Many letters from teenagers. John Butterfield (head of Ambassador College Press) visited a printing seminar and spoke to groups of young people who had heard “The World Tomorrow” broadcast. An amendment is under way in parliament to suspend the Marine Offences Bill until BBC offers some suitable replacement. Radio Caroline vows to carry on regardless (Charles Hunting).
May 6, 1967 – Our new office being furnished in Jerusalem. The Marine Offences Bill to be raised in the House of Lords on Monday for its third reading before it goes back to the House of Commons to become law (Ronald Dart).
May 12, 1967 – Last night the first “World Tomorrow” television program broadcasted since 1955 – in USA on Channel 22; meanwhile new mail from radio ships up to 892 letters this week – third highest total ever. Radio London has the best reception; Radio Scotland heard in Glasgow… and coming through loud and clear (Charles Hunting).
May 20, 1967 – John Jewell, Mail Receiving Department head, will be going to Nicosia to assist in establishing a new office in Cyprus (Raymond McNair).
May 26, 1967 – Now nearly six weeks since Mrs. Armstrong died. New mail from radio ships now reached 897 letters this week. Only Radio 390 broadcasts once a day – all other ships twice daily (Raymond McNair).
May 27, 1967 – Middle East situation could blow up very soon, foul up God’s Work there. Remember Radio 390 and the ship situation in prayers (Raymond McNair).
June 2, 1967 – This week in U.K. the new mail from radio ships was above 1000 letters – the second highest response. Breakdown was: Radio London, 253 letters; Radio Caroline, 225; Radio 355, 190; Radio 390, 189, etc. There are only a few years left. Time has come for Israelis to take over the Temple site (Raymond McNair).
June 3, 1967 – Exciting news: entire Bricket Wood Chorale (the college choir) to be sent to Pasadena next January. Troubled situation in the Middle East – our advertising man, Milt Scott, has backed out; Stanley Rader also. We have perhaps four and a half years to go (before January, 1972); this world reeling in its corruption won’t be here in ten years; London won’t be here unless saved by God’s mercy (Herbert Armstrong).
June 10, 1967 – HWA has received many letters about Mrs. Loma Armstrong’s good example; Israelis will be building a temple very soon; perhaps only four more Ambassador graduations to go (Hebert Armstrong).
June 16, 1967 – Ship stations being allowed to carry on until BBC introduces a replacement; God had TV, radio and the press invented for the use of his church and no other purpose; God has warned the people through HWA and GTA (Hebert Armstrong).
June 23, 1967 – GTA in Texas; wife Shirley just had a still birth with normal labor but lost this little girl at five and a half months; they had hoped for a little daughter. HWA conferred today with Jordanian government representative Adli Muhktadi – “World Tomorrow” will now begin on Amman radio on July 1 (short wave and medium wave); HWA fells sympathy for King Hussein and the Jordanians; every penny they receive (from WCG) will be allocated to help Palestinian refugees; Jordanians look with favor on the Work of God (Herbert Armstrong).
July 1, 1967 – Pray for situation in Palestine; our broadcast due today on radio Amman; don’t get careless because of the Postmaster General’s latest dictum – a reprieve from banning the ship stations till September (Raymond McNair).
July 7, 1967 – The WCG’s broadcast named in the Sunday Sun newspaper; the article suggested that religion could save the North Sea radio pirates since their people could survive on “Church of God” revenues; “The World Tomorrow” has been the big financial backing behind these ships (John Portune).
July 15, 1967 – The ship stations due to be thrown off the air on August 15; all expect to end their transmissions by midnight, August 14. God can continue to hear our prayers and keep these stations open. Two new offices now established (Cyprus and Jerusalem); pray for safety of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Dick and family; new office opening in Mexico City.
July 22, 1967 – Mr. Robert Boraker (Letter Answering Department, U.K.) back from seven months in Pasadena; speaks on crisis of Mrs. Armstrong’s sickness yet Mr. Armstrong very concerned about Mrs. Boraker’s health battles; Mr. Armstrong very lonesome in the evenings without his wife; a call for a further church day of fasting (re. pirate ship legislation) this week (Robert Boraker).
July 28, 1967 – Radio 390 off the air for good; their last message goes out tonight at 5:10 PM, closing with the national anthem; Radio London is also through; Radio Caroline will be on until August 15; feel a sense of loss as a part of the Work is shut down (Charles Hunting).15
A Bang Not a Whimper
The WCG’s pirate ship venture expired in fighting style. Edward Smith was in Belfast for the Sabbath of August 5, 1967 to hear local pastor James Wells report that Radio Manx on the Isle of Man will keep broadcasting. The next week, in Glasgow church, pastor Colin Adair passed on the news that the previous week was a record week for mail in the WCG’s British operation. People sough frantically to receive a Plain Truth subscription before the doors closed and 1119 of them wrote to the Bricket Wood office. The official tally went as follows:
Radio 355 – 367 letters
Radio London – 282 letters
Radio Caroline – 271 letters
Radio Scotland – 97 letters
Radio 270 – 63 letters
Radio 390 – 32 letters
Radio Manx – 6 letters
“People are hoping for an alternative to the pirate ships,“ Colin Adair commented to his congregation. “They will feel lost without the broadcast. People are very sorry at the loss of the stations. They are pleading for us to stay on.” The next week at the weekly Bricket Wood Bible Study, Raymond McNair cited a London Daily Mail headline, “Ban Silences Radio God,” a direct slap at “The World Tomorrow.” This echoed the previous week’s article in the London Observer referencing the “Pirate Radio Church of God.” As had and would occur in the United States, Herbert Armstrong’s media efforts were often underscored in counterpoint. Nevertheless, the Daily Mail and the Observer were respected British institutions. In their apparent glee at the Armstrong’s demise they were perhaps pointing up the impact the church was having in those tumultuous years. Meanwhile, one Letter to the Editor in the Daily Mail, lamenting the broadcast’s disappearance was headlined: “Final Link With Sanity Has Been Broken.”
Echoes of the pirate ship insurgency did remain, even four decades later. On September 28, 2003, a tongue-in-cheek obituary in the London Sunday Times satirized a BBC Radio 4 report announcing the passing of “one of religion’s best-known and best-loved voices.” Writer Paul Donovan asked: “What? Was Radio 4 going to say something nice about Garner Ted Armstrong, the American evangelist who believed Anglo-Saxons were one of the lost tribes of Israel and whose apocalyptic sermons on ‘The World Tomorrow’ went out for years on the North Sea pirate ships and another 300 stations worldwide?” The answer was, as expected, in the negative but a reflection, nevertheless, of one writer’s cultural memory. The February 5, 2005 Liverpool Echo Flashback, taking a look back at popular radio’s history of abundant variety, opined: “Religion was not forgotten either. At 11:30 P.M. each night the strident voice of American evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong would ring out telling us he was ‘bringing Christ to the nations.’”
Popular culture artifacts sometimes achieve a kind of lasting notoriety, as the fascination over Elvis Presley attests. As broadcasters, the Armstrongs were, in their way, unforgettable. The pirate ship era is remembered in WCG (now GCI) folk memory as one of the seminal periods of church growth in Great Britain. The ghost of the pirate ships themselves still haunt the air waves through the continuing adventures of Radio Caroline and the teasing suggestion on pirate web sites that the Labour Party’s defeat in the 1970 U.K. election could be traced to the loss of precious 18-year-old votes. These new teen voters chose to protest their government’s shut-down of one of the symbols of the Swinging Sixties. “God moves in mysterious ways” the British poet Edward Cowper had written. Thus, even in 1967, Charles Hunting could be philosophical about it all. As the WCG (U.K.) CFO he mentioned in the August 25 Bricket Wood Bible Study that the bill for the radio broadcasts in just one month came in at $65,000 – “a considerable sum: in Edward Smith’s phrase for the Britain of 1967. But one the church was more than willing to pay at the time.
(ED. – Excerpted from an unpublished manuscript “Blow the Dust Off Your Bible: Herbert Armstrong and American Popular Religion” by Neil Earle.)
1 “Radio Caroline,” Wikipeida.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline (5/3/2007)
2 “Wonderful Radio London,” Wikepdia.org/Wonderful_Radio_London (5/4/2007)
3 Christopher Booker, The Neophiliacs, page 236.
4 George Harrison quoted in “Disc” magazine, Ray Coleman interview, August 6, 1966.
5 Robert Chapman, Selling the sixties: the pirates and pop music radio (London: Routledge, 1992), page 189.
6 Charles F. Hunting, “The Last Battle for Britain,” The Good News (December, 1966), pages 8, 21.
7 Scott Lupow, personal communication, January, 2006. The teaching of a United Europe as allegedly foreshadowed in Revelation 17 and becoming the instrument of Britain’s demise was an Armstrong standard.
8 Eugene Michel, the WCG’s “Mr. Accounting” for many years, cheerfully dismisses this suggestion as he does the theories of support from Howard Hughes or H.L. Hunt (personal interview, May 8, 2007).
9 Hansard, General Index, Sessions 1966-67 (April 18, 1966-October 27, 1967).
10 Charles Hunting, The Good News (December, 1966), pages 8, 21. Most WCG details flow from this article.
11 Robert Chapman, Selling the sixties, page 188; “The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame,” http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/djse2h.htm (5/3/2007).
12 Edward Smith, private communication, October 26, 2006.
13 Herman L. Hoeh, “And Now ‘The World Tomorrow’ Broadcast Bla
Fermor, Bond, and Fleming
Posted on April 16, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
The Real Royal Janitor
Last night I came upon an article about the love letters written between Ian Fleming and his wife, and was reminded of the fiery relationship I and Rena Easton nee’ Christensen, had. I lamented that we had not continued our LETTER EXCHANGE so that there would be such history available to me, the only living human being authoring a James Bond book – because I am related to Ian Flaming, and his tragic son, who was name after his uncle, who is the son of the artist Augustus John, who allowed Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor’s uncle, Howard Young, to sell his artwork in America. Around 9:00 A.M. on April 16th. 2021, I discovered that Fleming and his family were friendly with the Fermor family, who married into the Hesketh family, who married into the Sharon family of Belmont. This gives me the credentials – I deserve! I am a REAL AGENT FOR FREEDOM!
A week ago I was going to blog on a reunion at the Palace Hotel with fundraiser for ‘The Royal Janitor’. There would be a train trip to Belmont where a Celebrity Labyrinth would be made in Twin Pines Park. I would invite my Star, Lara Roozemond, and, my Muse, Rena Easton, whose grandmother was so grateful I rescued her, a Beautiful Damsel in Distress. I am so grateful to the World Wide Web for making my dream come true. I have not let my women down.
John Presco 007
Copyright 2021
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Ann Fleming, née Charteris, was born into the aristocracy and married wealthy men. Her first husband was Shane O’Neill, the 3rd Baron O’Neill. After his death in military action in 1944, she married the newspaper magnate Esmond Harmsworth, the 2nd Viscount Rothermere.
Ian Fleming’s Love Letters at Sotheby’s | The Book Collector
During both marriages she and Fleming were lovers, an intense relationship that had sado-masochistic elements. “I long for you even if you whip me because I love being hurt by you and kissed afterwards,” Ann once wrote to Fleming.
From: Anne Farmer y@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: SHARON To: “John Ambrose” Date: Thursday, December 23, 2010, 3:34 AM Hi John- I will call Patrick Sharon after Christmas when I return to Seattle. Today I take mother to Portland on Amtrak for Chrustmas to see some friends. Please send me your mailing address as I am sending out my New Year’s cards- thank you. Have a great Holiday and a very Happy New Year. Kindest Regards- Anne —
On Sun, 12/5/10, John Ambrose wrote: From: John Ambrose Subject: SHARON To: @yahoo.com Date: Sunday, December 5, 2010, 5:03 PM Anne; Here is the number John, Thanks for all of your information. I am still trying to find the list of the California Sharon Family Reuniun. This will help me establish family connections for all of us. As I mentioned my Great grandparents were the last of our family who received the invite.Their names are Samuel and Stella Sharon of Kansas City. Lets stay in contact. Patrick Sharon II
From: Anne Farmer y@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Withersppon To: “John Ambrose” Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010, 1:41 PM Hi Jon- These I know- the Heskeths married into my side- the Fermors so they are distant cousins of mine. The Quakers, Methodists were the Fermor side- they never owned slaves like Witherspoon did.I had heard about the Presbyterian strong influence- and how the Calvinists were more fighters. On my side we have the lovers, not fighters. Anne PS- I was just connected via a mutual friend to look up Theresa-Mary Morton while in London, who is Queen’s librarian.
James Cecil Baring, 6th Baron Revelstoke (born 16 August 1938) is a British peer. A son of Rupert Baring, the 4th Baron, and Flora Fermor-Hesketh, daughter of the 1st Baron Hesketh, he was educated at Eton College. He married Aneta Laline Dennis Fisher in 1968. They had two sons, Alexander Rupert Baring, born 9 April 1970, and Thomas James Baring, born 4 December 1971. He married Sarah Stubbs in 1983. They had two daughters, Flora Aksinia Baring, born 17 July 1983, and Miranda Louise Baring, born 1 May 1987. He succeeded his brother, John Baring, 5th Baron Revelstoke, born 2 December 1934, in 2003. His half-sisters, by a later marriage of his mother to Lt.-Cdr. Derek Lawson, are Arabella Ann Spurrier (née Lawson), born 14 August 1946, and Caroline Flora Turner (née Lawson), born 23 September 1953.
Sharon-Hesketh Family of Piedmont | Rosamond Press
“I have put on pause my homework of family relations. I do know some of the California Sharons and I am familiar with the reunion that use to take place in San Francisco, but I have been swamped. I would love to refresh the reunion for our family. I am not familiar with the names on your email yet. I don’t know if you sent email to Philip or had misplaced my name. I will start more family connections with the Sharon clan soon.
Patrick Sharon
Hi Jon- Get ready- much info coming now- please go ASAP to tatler.com- June issue page 102- big article on the new owner of Easton Neston- Leon Max- I’m headed there with James Baring and Bob and Joanne Fermor tomorrow.
Anne
Le Royale Rouge Dragon | Rosamond Press
Teresa Rozemond Bond La Draco | Rosamond Press
Bringing Bond to book | Patrick Leigh Fermor
Researching details of voodoo rites in Live and Let Die, Bond consults The Traveller’s Tree by Fleming’s friend Patrick Leigh Fermor. Appropriately enough, 007 also likes a good thriller and purchases the latest Raymond Chandler at the close of Goldfinger, and in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service displays a ready familiarity with the Nero Wolfe series, written by the equally well-read Rex Stout. It turns out that M too knows of Wolfe. En route to Istanbul in From Russia with Love, Bond enjoys a literary busman’s holiday by reading Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has died aged 96, was an intrepid traveller, a heroic soldier and a writer with a unique prose style. His books, most of which were autobiographical, made surprisingly scant mention of his military exploits, drawing instead on remarkable geographical and scholarly explorations. To Paddy, as he was universally known, an acre of land in almost any corner of Europe was fertile ground for the study of language, history, song, dress, heraldry, military custom – anything to stimulate his momentous urge to speculate and extrapolate. If there is ever room for a patron saint of autodidacts, it has to be Paddy Leigh Fermor.
Rather than go to university in 1933, at the age of “18 and three-quarters”, he set out in December that year to walk from the Hook of Holland to what he insisted on calling Constantinople, or even Byzantium [Istanbul]. There was no hurry, he wrote 65 years later in an article for the London Magazine. His journey took him “south-east through the snow into Germany, then up the Rhine and eastwards down the Danube … in Hungary I borrowed a horse, then plunged into Transylvania; from Romania, on into Bulgaria”. At New Year, 1935, he crossed the Turkish border at Adrianople and reached his destination.
Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh – Wikipedia
The Creative Royal Fleet Sets Sail
Posted on April 16, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here are the vessels that Sir Caspar John served upon. He was born into a artistic family. I would like see the College of Defence Studies founded by the Artist, Sir Winston Churchill, expanded to include Creative People in Britain and the U.S. As a rule artists, writers, and musicians do not take slaves, gas people, and loot other people’s art. Hitler did all three. He was a bad artist who cost the world many lives, and a trillion dollars to put him down. We took back the art he stole and put it in sacred public places. I support Theresa May’s strike against Assad, who gassed his own people.
Below are the warships that Sir Ian Easton served on.
Jon Presco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_John
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Easton
China’s interpretation of the law of the sea within what it claims to be its own waters has long clashed with that of maritime powers and the majority of members of the international community. The United States regularly asserts maritime rights and freedoms under its “freedom of navigation” program, much to Beijing’s chagrin.
Author
Lynn Kuok
Former Brookings Expert
Senior Research Fellow – University of Cambridge
But as other maritime powers join the United States in taking steps to defend maritime rights—a British Royal Navy warship makes its way through the South China Sea this month—it is in China’s interests to learn from the Soviet example. As the Soviet navy transitioned from a “reactive coastal fleet” to a “proactive, expansionist, blue-water navy,” the Soviet attitude towards the law of the sea changed. It moved from one that sought to limit maritime freedoms to one that joined hands with naval powers, including its Cold War foe, the United States, to push for protection of such freedoms. A similar shift would help boost China’s international reputation, as well as protect and advance its interests across the globe.
Maritime powers join hands
British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed last month that a Royal Navy warship would sail through the South China Sea in March on its way back from Australia to the United Kingdom to assert navigation rights in waters Beijing claims. The HMS Sutherland left Sydney for the South China Sea on March 15, undertaking training with the Australian navy in the meantime. It is not clear what rights, exactly, the United Kingdom will assert—Williamson declined to say whether it would exercise rights to innocent passage within 12-nautical miles of disputed land territories or wider freedoms outside of territorial seas.
What is clear, however, is that in taking steps to assert rights vested under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the South China Sea, the United Kingdom joins other maritime powers in guarding against their erosion. In June 2016, the French minister of defense underscored his country’s commitment to the principles of freedom of navigation and overflight and the navy’s intention to continue to pass through the waters of the region several times a year. In the first half of 2016, French navy vessels deployed to the region three times.
U.S. Freedom of Navigation program
The United States, for its part, regularly asserts maritime rights vested under UNCLOS under its “freedom of navigation” program. The program’s name is a bit of a misnomer since it protects more than the right to navigate from point A to point B. It defends a whole basket of rights and freedoms, including the right of warships to exercise innocent passage within territorial seas without prior notification or authorization, and the freedom to conduct military activities, including surveillance and reconnaissance, outside of territorial seas. The U.S. freedom of navigation program also pushes back against excessive maritime claims that limit rights and freedoms of warships and warplanes. In the past year, U.S. forces under the freedom of navigation program challenged China’s claims to a territorial sea from offshore features not entitled to one under UNCLOS.
Given its wide scope, it is more accurate to describe the program as a “freedoms of the seas” or “excessive maritime claims” program. More accurate terminology would make it more difficult for China to sidestep real disagreements over legitimate rights and freedoms under UNCLOS. Beijing suggests that the United States and others invent concerns over “freedom of navigation,” but its argument only has superficial validity if we take “freedom of navigation” in its narrowest sense. Still, the term “freedom of navigation” operations, or “FONOPS,” has stuck. From October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017, the United States conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge the excessive maritime claims of 22 countries around the world.
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