Thursday, October 23, 2025

my dad was secretly part of the National Committee for a Free Europe (?!): NCFE, A Nazi CIA collaboration propaganda effort....

 "I occupy a curious relation to him, of a confidential nature. It must suffice to say he is interested in my professional development..."

My dad referring to DeWitt Wallace, in my dad's letter to the Dean of NYU Law School, dated June 30, 1958

From the beginning the National Committee for a Free Europe depended upon the voluntary silence of powerful media personalities in the United States to cloak its true operations in secrecy. "Representatives of some of the nation's most influential media giants were involved early on as members of the corporation [NCFE]," Mickelson notes in a relatively frank history of its activities. This board included "magazine publishers Henry Luce [of Time-Life] and DeWitt Wallace [of Reader's Digest]," he writes, "but not a word of the government involvement appeared in print or on the air."

 https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/BareFists_B_CS.html

My Dad, in 1958, wrote to the dean of the NYU Law School that someone who had funded his alma mater college, half a million dollars in the previous year, could be persuaded to fund NYU if invited to speak or attend a seminar or something. Dad said that he had a "relationship of a confidential nature" with this person who "took a keen interest in the progress of" his career.

So my dad wrote this letter to the NYU Law School specifically to increase his own school funding for his studies in Europe. My dad ended up traveling into the Soviet Union and then my dad wrote a paper on "administrative law in the Soviet Union."

Their work was, as National Committee for a Free Europe President Dewitt Poole noted in one 1950 directive, "to take up the individual Bolshevik rulers and their quislings and tear them apart, exposing their motivations, laying bare their private lives, pointing at their meannesses, pillorying their evil deeds, holding them up to ridicule and contumely."

 DeWitt Clinton Poole was an American intelligence officer. He served as U.S. Consul General in Moscow, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v05/d176

 Members of the Committee, as of June 1, 1949 were: Frank Altschul (Treasurer), Hamilton Fish Armstrong, A. A. Berle, Francis Biddle, Robert Woods Bliss, Hugh A. Drum, Allen W. Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mark Ethridge, James A. Farley, William Green, Joseph C. Grew (Chairman), Charles R. Hook, Arthur Bliss Lane, Henry R. Luce, Arthur W. Page, DeWitt C. Poole (Executive Secretary), Charles M. Spofford, Charles P. Taft, DeWitt Wallace, Mathew Woll.....

In fact, however, the "Document" was a forgery, whose origins can be traced to the wartime Nazi intelligence service. The true source of the "Document" was, according to American psychological warfare expert Paul Blackstock, "one of the Nazi secret police or related terrorist organizations such as the Sicherheitsdienst or one of the notorious SD or SS 'action groups' "

 wow!!!

 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01676R004100040001-4.pdf

 

 

 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01314R000100490006-6.pdf

 

 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-00915R000700130006-4.pdf

Wow so the study of "administrative law in the Soviet Union" was known to be a front group for soviet propaganda! That is precisely what my dad wrote a paper on... that is not in any of his files....

 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-00915R001300070003-7.pdf

 So my dad was also corresponding with Columbia University law professor Harry W. Jones about my dad's Ph.D. in law thesis....https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/664

That is the source of my Dad's Hayek book then... 

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R001300130012-5.pdf 

 So Allen Dulles requested a meeting with Reader's Digest in lieu of their great success abroad.... wow.

1952...

 conquest by Terror by Leland Stowe

that's the archive version - it was published by Reader's Digest after first having the CIA approve....

 

 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP74-00115R000300020033-5.pdf

wow.....

 Birth of Psychological Warfare 2023

 book

 The Kaplan Fund is what funds the Nation Magazine...

following revelations in 1964 when some of these CIA fronts were first accidentally exposed by Congressman Wright Patman during congressional hearings searching for communist infiltrations of American foundations. In these hearings Patman questioned an IRS employee about irregularities in several foundations, and his sworn public testimony was that the Kaplan Fund was being used by the CIA to fund projects and individuals of interest to the Agency. Patman learned from the CIA the names of eight nonprofits that funded the Kaplan Fund: The Gotham Foundation, Michigan Fund, Andrew Hamilton Fund, Borden Trust, The Price Fund, The Edsel Fund, The Beacon Fund, The Kentfield Fund. Though there was some brief news coverage of these disclosures, there was no real effort to trace what happened to the CIA funds passing through these CIA fronts and pass-throughs until Stern’s Ramparts exposé.

It was during Ramparts 1967 revelatory aftermath that the world first learned that the CIA covertly funded the publication of books, when a February 1967 New York Times story revealed that Praeger Press had published an unidentified number of books “at the CIA’s suggestion.” News reports soon revealed the CIA had secretly published other books with other presses.

 With most of these publications the CIA sought to strengthen the moderate left, bolstering liberal ideology as a way of keeping thinking people from pursuing socialism or communism.

 Chaneles used the example of Random House’s 1951 publication of Reader’s Digest author, Leland Stowe’s book, The Story of Satellite Europe: Conquest by Terror to show how the CIA bypassed the usual market forces governing books publications to guarantee sales and distribution of a book that likely would not have found a market to support its survival. He argued that “many thousands of copies of the book were purchased by CIA coordinated agencies for low cost and free distribution in the US and in those areas of the English-speaking world subject to the conspiracies in violation of the Sherman Act.”

.................. 

 As Sharp (2001) has shown, the American journal Reader’s Digest was an
important medium for narrating the Cold War to American audiences, but the
OWI’s use of the digest format presaged its Cold War use, including the digest
Choix (Choice) in France and Il Mese (The month) in Italy. The digests in particular
were part of a larger Anglo-American project – the International Review Digest
(Koutsopanagou 2017) – which originated with a British editorial unit working
with the OWI’s Publications Division. The digests were edited jointly by Americans,
British, and in most cases representatives of the targeted nation. In the OWI’s own
estimation, the value of these publications was in ‘impressing their readers with the
global nature of the war, stressing the harmony of the United Nations toward victory,
and acquainting the European peoples to the customs, culture and basic democratic
principles of the United States’ (OWI 1944, 16). The promotional language was a pre-
view of US public diplomacy during the Cold War, including what it omitted, namely
issues surrounding race and class conflict in the United States.

 Sharp, J. (2001). Condensing the Cold War: Reader’s Digest and American identity.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

  First, and most obviously, the unitary communist threat of
world domination was delivered a significant blow with the breakdown
in Sino-Soviet relations. As tensions mounted along the Chinese-Soviet
border, the specter of communism clearly fractured and visibly weak-
ened. Second, and more subtly, the Digest faced a more insidious threat
to its binary scripting of international political praxis: the threat of
détente. The “weakening” of American opposition to communism—
backing down from the threat of “total war” to accept the possibility of
peaceful coexistence—represented a movement of great significance to
the magazine. The dis-order that communism had inflicted on interna-
tional society was not to be eliminated, but to be allowed to exist, albeit
in a contained state. The triumphalism of American Manifest Destiny
overcoming the Soviet threat to the onward march of freedom and
democracy was seen to weaken into an acknowledgment of communism,
contained within the sphere of influence of the Soviet state. Both of these
themes are central to the narrative of international politics during the
period of détente from the mid-1960s to 1979.

Birth of Psychological warfare 

 , the Crusade was launched in a national radio address by presi-
dential hopeful Dwight Eisenhower, then-president of Columbia University. The
context of Labor Day was significant, as Eisenhower again stressed that under
Communism ‘one third of the human race works in virtual bondage’ (New York
Times, 5 September 1950a). On its surface, the Crusade for Freedom’s debut there-
fore appeared as a campaign to publicise the NCFE and its effort to fund and
operate Radio Free Europe in Eastern Europe.
Within the framework of funding Radio Free Europe, however, the NCFE
advanced a geopolitical imaginary in which ordinary Americans could partici-
pate in a kind of ‘spiritual warfare’ against the Soviet Union, what the New York
Times supportively called a ‘world-wide battle for men’s minds’ (New York Times,
4 July 1950). The Times barely altered NCFE press releases in framing the Crusade
as filling ‘the need for a large-scale democratic truth offensive … in the most
important battle of all, the battle of ideas’ (New York Times, 28 July 1950).

  I started digging through my dad's NYU law school file (from 1956-1960) - as my dad got a Ford Foundation grant to study in Sweden as the 2nd half of a Ph.D. in Law. My dad wrote a letter to the Dean of NYU Law saying my dad had a "confidential occupational relationship" with DeWitt Wallace (on the board of the Committee for a Free Europe and founder of Reader's Digest)... see the above link for the precise quote... 

In 1956, the Ford Foundation awarded a grant of $375,000 to New York University (NYU) Law School for a program in international legal studies
....

A US Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA (Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders, Granta Books, 1999, pp. 134-135).”

The CIA considers foundations such as Ford “The best and most plausible kind of funding cover” (Ibid, p. 135).... by the late 1950s the Ford Foundation possessed over $3 billion in assets. The leaders of the Foundation were in total agreement with Washington’s post-WWII projection of world power. A noted scholar of the period writes: “At times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of government in the area of international cultural propaganda. The foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects” (Ibid, p.139). This is graphically illustrated by the naming of Richard Bissell as President of the Foundation in 1952. In his two years in office Bissell met often with the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, and other CIA officials in a “mutual search” for new ideas. In 1954 Bissell left Ford to become a special assistant to Allen Dulles in January 1954 (Ibid, p. 139). Under Bissell, the Ford Foundation was the “vanguard of Cold War thinking”...

In 1954 the new president of the Ford Foundation was John McCloy. He epitomized imperial power. Prior to becoming president of the Ford Foundation he had been Assistant Secretary of War, president of the World Bank, High Commissioner of occupied Germany, chairman of Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank, Wall Street attorney for the big seven oil companies and director of numerous corporations. As High Commissioner in Germany, McCloy had provided cover for scores of CIA agents (Ibid, p. 141).

McCloy integrated the Ford Foundation with CIA operations. He created an administrative unit within the Ford Foundation specifically to deal with the CIA. McCloy headed a three person consultation committee with the CIA to facilitate the use of the Ford Foundation for a cover and conduit of funds.

https://bharatabharati.in/2015/04/26/ford-foundation-and-its-cia-connections-d-p-satish/ 

and DeWitt Wallace (founder/owner of Reader's Digest) was "interested in" my dad's career. My dad had graduated from Macalester College as a leader in the Republican cause and DeWitt Wallace was a big Macalester College funder...
So I know from Prof. Christopher Simpson that any international Ford Foundation grant was screened through the CIA Russia Institute at Columbia University. My dad corresponded with a Columbia University law professor who was promoting Hayek (freedom from serfdom, etc.) to be my dad's Ph.D. advisor. My dad did the course work but he never wrote his thesis since his mother-in-law came over to Sweden and then got her daughter to divorce my dad back in the U.S. (that was his first wife).
So then my dad traveled into the Soviet Union to study "administrative law" and then I found a CIA document listing the Soviet Union sponsoring "administrative law" conferences in English as Communist front groups... Also my dad corresponded heavily with NYU law professor Edmond Cahn who was listed by the McCarthy UnAmerican committee as a "member" or "sponsor" of the USA Communist Party....

My dad, as a lawyer in the MN Bar, also administered trusts back in Minnesota where DeWitt Wallace had recently given $500,000 to Macalester College (in 1957 dollars). So my dad was recommending the Dean of NYU invite DeWitt Wallace to entice Wallace to fund NYU Law so that my dad could supplement his Ford Foundation grant monies. My dad did end up taking a summer course at UC-London and also he studied in Paris privately - on law....
My dad was an alumni of Macalester but also was the chairman of their alumni association - working closely with their "director of development." So then around 1967 the Macalester College "director of development" (who obviously was close to DeWitt Wallace since he continued to fund Macalester College) had my dad host a "discussion on the Vietnam War" at my house. I was not born yet but my mom told me the event was held at our house to ensure the students would not get riled up and take action - like occupy a building, etc.  That same "director of development" at Macalester also did "interior design" work on our house - doing our kitchen, breakfast room, basement, etc. So I'm pretty sure there was some Quid Pro Quo going on... via DeWitt Wallace. 

at No comments:

new Farside Comic questions Jane Goodall's Ngogo natural war chimp primate instinct a la R. Brian Ferguson

 https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/363/club-gombe

 I was watching the Netflix "chimp empire" doc and they focus on the "warring chimps" of Ngogo. This got me curious - I had not really dug into the details of R. Brian Ferguson's tome, "War, Chimpanzees and History" - sure enough Ngogo is the central focus of the book. AI summary:

 R. Brian Ferguson is a cultural anthropologist at Rutgers University who has written extensively on human warfare and has also analyzed chimpanzee violence, particularly at the Ngogo research site in Kibale National Park. His work on Ngogo chimpanzees, detailed in his book Chimpanzees, War, and History, argues that the extreme levels of violence are not natural but are instead a result of human-induced habitat loss and resource scarcity, a perspective that challenges common theories about inherent aggression in chimpanzees.

https://academic.oup.com/book/46479/chapter-abstract/407799218?redirectedFrom=fulltext 

So he quotes Goodall and kind of critiques her....

https://academic.oup.com/book/46479/chapter-abstract/407799412?redirectedFrom=fulltext 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/1dhu98f/an_anthropological_approach_to_chimpanzee_warfare/ 

Glad to see his work being discussed online.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1d5wn45/book_that_mentions_how_european_imperialists/ 

 when you go into culture you are ignoring that music and dancing as spiritual healing is the focus of our original human culture. Goto the "radical anthropology" vimeo lectures for details - Professors Chris Knight and Camilla Powers and Jerome Lewis out of UC-London and Ian Watts and Megan Biesele and Dr. Elizabeth Marshall-Thomas. I recommend her book "The Harmless People" that got ignored by the male anthropologists. 

So as Professor Michael Corballis emphasizes - as primates we used hands for language for gesturing but as tool use increased this meant the right hand could no longer gesture as communication since it was using a tool. So left-brain dominant language developed. But music as frequency is right brain dominant based on left-hand dominance of the hand. So as Michael Corballis points out when you make rhythm with your hands the left hand keeps a steady beat - why? Because timing is based on the corpus callosum - not the prefrontal cortex. 

So Dr. Daniel Levitin has emphasized how the corpus callosum is not just for timing but also emotional processing of our subconscious. What the spiritual healing training does - as detailed in the ancient science of yoga and meditation - is consciously control what is otherwise subconscious, thereby making a direct access to our spiritual or biophoton "body" as it were. Quantum biology is just now starting to study this interaction. So ancient DNA science has now proven the San Bushmen and "pygmies" split over 225,000 years ago - and so they maintained the same focus of singing and dancing as spiritual healing in both cultures - the radical anthropology group studies this but only Professor Brad Keeney trained in this from the inside. 

So Keeney started out studying shamanism worldwide as a systems theory psychology professsor but then he focused on the San Bushmen as the original human origin of this spiritual healing culture. So Keeney is the only outsider accepted as a spiritual healer in the San Bushmen culture - he goes there every year to hang out. His YT channel "Keeney Center" has interviews with the older female spiritual healers of the San Bushmen culture. So when you go into "ecosystem engineering" and use the beaver as an analogy - the problem is that modern humans with farming created abrupt global warming - this was detailed in William Ruddiman's book "Plows, Plagues and Petroleum." 

So the irony of your focus on evolution is that we currently face "biological annihilation" through accelerating destruction of ecology. I got a certificate in conservation biology and sustainable development in 1992 in Costa Rica, from a semester at the School for Field Studies. It's one thing to study evolution but it's entirely different to change policies of our petro-dollar imperial destruction of ecology from "free trade zones" etc. In fact actually doing sustainable policy work is a quick route to civil disobedience and begging for donations door to door or on the phone while not making enough money to pay rent, etc. 

I did get a few policy changes in my time but I also saw people get fired, etc. And thus the norm now is for academics to chase after research funding by ignoring the details of our "biological annihilation" - for example the research group of Natalia Shakhova gets ignored even though she got published in Nature and top science journals - there is a 1200 gigaton pressurized methane subsea permafrost "abrupt eruption" that has the taliks melted down already to release 50 gigatons (triggered already) in the next ten years. This will soon double atmospheric temps yet this "tipping point" is ignored by mainstream science - unless you go to oceanographer Jim Massa's yt channel (he worked with Shakhova at UA-Fairbanks).

at No comments:

The Cult of Force: My dad's close correspondence with NYU Law Professor Edmond Cahn as potential NYU J.S.D. advisor

It is a pleasure to recommend you for anything you desire....While Professor Sweeney has not shown me the draft outline to which you refer, I am confident the undertaking will be a very creditable one, if only because it is yours. You may rest assured that, to the extent you desire my informal comments and advice at any stage, you need only arrange to see me and I shall be glad to evince the hearty interest that I feel.

Edmond Cahn to my dad in a letter from New York University Law School, 14th March 1960... 

At the time in 1959 Cahn had already declined being my dad's advisor, as Cahn said his health was being pushed to the limits in his efforts of converting his seminars to books, etc. but Professor Cahn still was very complimentary and considerate:

"I am particularly pleased by the request because there is no doctoral candidate during my years of teaching whom I should prefer to supervise."

My dad took the coursework for his Ph.D. in law in Sweden - William J. Hempel '58. (LL.M. '59) at NYU Law....he had to return back to the U.S. to write his thesis but apparently his mother-in-law had visited Sweden and all hell broke loose, ending in divorce via the mother-in-law once back in the U.S. hahaha. 

Edmond Cahn wrote kind words to encourage my dad's work after my dad's divorce to his first wife but Cahn himself was too overwhelmed in work to take on my dad's advising project. 

 "Meanwhile, be assured that I remain deeply interested in your welfare and progress."

13th December, 1960. 

Everyone said my dad's book was too ambitious and my dad was translating Swedish legal articles at the time. I didn't realize my Dad had taken "advanced Swedish" in Stockholm and my dad had done well - achieving an A or A-minus in his Swedish classes! Considering my grandfather gave a sermon in Swedish...Professor Cahn asked me dad to help translate some legal work of another....

 After an LL.M. (Master of Laws), the next step for further academic study is typically a doctoral degree like the Doctor of Juridical Science...A Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D. or J.S.D.) is a terminal research doctorate in law, equivalent to a Ph.D., designed for those who want to become legal scholars or academics

Professor Cahn mentions...

"since I have soon to undergo a minor operation...." 

May 1960.... was that in relation to what followed just four years later?

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/10/archives/edmond-cahn-58-a-jurist-is-dead-professor-at-nyu-was-a-noted-legal.html 

EDMOND CAHN, 58, A JURIST, IS DEAD; Professor at N.Y.U. Was a Noted Legal Philosopher

 


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Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Only Certified Organic apple juice works to make hard cider!? Or just not enough sugar in Haralson?

 I just tried Integrated Pest Management apples and it did not work - two days of bubbles but hardly any bubbles. So the yeast growth was inhibited by whatever chemicals they sprayed on the apples. Tragic - there's only ONE certified organic apple orchard in my state that I know of. I worked at a business that delivered fresh certified organic fruit for two years - I feel even better now to know the difference between certified organic and IPM apples....

I'll drink the cider but I can't feel hardly any buzz. The organic apple hard cider had a nice buzz to it and TONS of bubbles from co2 production. I realize I used Haralson which has less sugar but I added honey - not a lot of honey - but there is still some sugar in Haralson. It should have more yeast growth and more ethanol. Oh well....

I can try it one more time with a sweeter variety to see if that makes the difference...I know people make cider from just Haralson apples and nothing more - for hard cider that is 6% ABV....

So I don't think it was the apple variety.... but then again maybe baking yeast needs MORE sugar to work then a wine yeast or whatever the brewers use for hard cider....

 

 

at No comments:

How much did Hellenistic culture contribute to creating Judaism via Yahwism?

 should the Early Hellenistic period be regarded as an era of cultural continuity with the Yahwism of the past, or should it be viewed as one of cultural rupture signaling the emergence of nascent Judaism as it later came to be known?

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/between-yahwism-and-judaism/DF4B36DC1118F3DDAF3A060C7B4878CC 

 the central role of the Judean high priest that emerged in the Persian period continued to play a dominant role throughout Ptolemaic and early Seleucid rule. If Judeans were adjudicating themselves under their own sets of laws, however, we lack the data to be able to identify or characterize any such bodies of regulations. Crucially, there is little reason to assume that the Torah, predicated on Pentateuchal legislation, had already come to be widely known and recognized as authoritative at this early stage. Like the Persian period, the Early Hellenistic period has produced none of the material or textual evidence indicating widespread Torah observance as we have from the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods.......

  clearly inherited from their forebears the longstanding tradition of venerating YHWH as their primary deity, a tradition that reaches as far back as the Iron Age (if not earlier). The same YHWH temple in Jerusalem which had apparently been established in the Persian period (probably on Iron Age foundations) appears to have continued to function uninterruptedly throughout the Hellenistic period and into the start of the Roman period....

 In Egypt, by contrast, Judeans began to replace Aramaic with Greek, and began to adopt Greek names alongside traditional Hebrew and Aramaic names. However, as the trigger for both these developments in Egypt was likely the very practical need to facilitate social and commercial contacts in an increasingly Greek-speaking environment, we should probably not regard these shifts as a fundamental rejection of traditional Judean culture in favor of Greek....

 there is little if any reason to regard the Early Hellenistic period as one of cultural rupture. If it is preferable to speak of “Yahwism” rather than “Judaism” when discussing the Persian period, we should probably retain this preference when discussing the Early Hellenistic period as well.Footnote............

 The development of Jerusalem’s status as cultic center is clearly manifest in the rebuilding of its temple compound by Herod the Great toward the end of the first century BCE,...

it began to act as a player on the stage of the larger Hellenistic world, Greek language, naming conventions, and material culture began to make significant inroads even in the ancestral homeland. And during this time, texts and traditions associated with what eventually became our Hebrew Bible came to achieve widespread reception among Judean communities virtually everywhere they were found......

 In these ways, while the Early Hellenistic period certainly appears to mark a strong degree of continuity with the Yahwism of the past, in some senses it may also be thought to have paved the way for the subsequent transition into the Judaism of the future.

 

 

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Tuesday, October 21, 2025

70 years ago my dad, as a "Roots," worked his first summer of Law school at the top-ranked law firm in the U.S.

 The partner mentioned in that CIA link is the same partner who gave my dad a letter of recommendation for his work. In the CIA link that Cravath, Swaine and & Moore partner wrote a memo about someone in 1951 that was then forwarded onto the CIA Allen Dulles! Wow....

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R003000220118-9.pdf 

 Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP is a prestigious American "white-shoe" law firm founded in 1819, headquartered in New York City with offices in London and Washington, D.C. The firm is known for its top-tier corporate, litigation, and antitrust practices and is considered one of the most prestigious law firms, ranking No. 1 on the Vault Law 100 list for ten consecutive years.

 https://www.cravath.com/news-insights/cravath-tops-2026-vault-law-100-ranking-of-most-prestigious-law-firms.html

That was back in 1956!! Wow.

70 years ago....

 let's see how much CIA interaction is in the open records - 

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86B00269R000300010058-4.pdf 

CIA calls one of their lawyers....John D. Calhoun

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01676R003900010074-0.pdf 

The CIA director Allen Dulles thanks one of their lawyers, Cecil E. Goode, for recommending a book to read...

 Well there's regular interaction by the CIA with the top law firm in the U.S. - not surprisingly since the CIA was formed out by elite lawyers....

 $27,803.91

That was the financial value of my dad's scholarship for one year at NYU Law School - in 1955 it was $2300 but in today's value it is the above. Pretty pricey! Wow.

Nevertheless education costs have increased significantly since then! Below are the average yearly costs:

  • Public four-year, out-of-state: $30,780
  • Private non-profit four-year: $43,350
    •  That includes Room and Board... but my dad's scholarship was expected to cover those costs and even clothing and book costs....

     An IQ of 133 is considered very superior or moderately gifted, placing you in the top percentile of the population. Specifically, it's in the 98.6th percentile, meaning you have a score higher than approximately 98.6% of people your age

     My guess is my Dad's IQ score on his undergraduate transmission record probably was the key factor in achieving the scholarship to NYU. He told me he was accepted to Harvard Law School but didn't get any scholarship....

      Literally half of Mensa-eligibles are 133 or below. 

     Personally I don't believe in IQ tests and I would never take one. The San Bushmen score the lowest on IQ tests....but my dad was ranked 7th out of 209 of the NYU law school students in terms of his GPA. So that is what enabled him to score that swanky "Number 1" ranked law firm summer job after his first year of law school!

     The scholarship was founded and funded by Elihu Root.

    https://ballsandstrikes.org/legal-culture/elihu-root-imperialist-legacy/ 

      The man in charge of subjugating the United States’ colonial possessions wasn’t a soldier at all, but a lawyer: New York City’s leading corporate attorney, Secretary of War Elihu Root. From his early years as a Manhattan trial lawyer to his time in the McKinley and Roosevelt Cabinets, Root zealously advocated for the interests of America’s Gilded Age Elites. He oppressed entire nations in the name of profit, with ramifications that linger to this day.  

    In 1873, Root joined the defense team of Boss Tweed, Tammany Hall kingmaker and New York City’s leading Democrat, who was on trial for embezzling public funds. The media frenzy surrounding the trial raised Root’s public profile, but his association with Tweed, whom the jury found guilty, tarnished his professional reputation. Ever mindful of his public image, Root distanced himself from Tweed and began aligning himself with the Republican Party instead.

     Root fell in with the city’s elite commercial class and joined them in solving that most vexing of problems: competition. Gilded Age elites believed in free-market capitalism right up until it became a nuisance. They assessed that by cooperating rather than competing—either by merging their corporations or bundling them into trusts—they could dominate workers, streamline supply chains, and make more money with fewer headaches. 

     ...............

    and his efforts to professionalize the army’s officer corps did nothing to stop American forces from committing horrific atrocities, such as the infamous “water cure.” American soldiers would force Filipino prisoners to drink water until their bellies swelled, then expel the water by beating the prisoners’ stomachs with the butts of their rifles.

    Philip C. Jessup, Root’s close friend and biographer, stressed that Root never explicitly commanded American forces to kill civilians, and ordered an end to the “water cure.” But according to the anti-imperialist lawyer Julian Codman, a contemporary of Root’s, the Secretary of War deliberately misled the public about the scale and nature of American atrocities, never meaningfully enforced his anti-torture orders, and tacitly approved of his forces’ ruthless conduct. 

     Root negotiated arbitration treaties with 24 nations, for which he eventually received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912—a stupendously absurd honor considering his record as Secretary of War just a decade earlier. Later, he served as president of the American Bar Association, and briefly in the U.S. Senate, where he continued to oppose Philippine independence. 

     New York University Law School rewards top public interest students with Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarships. The school affectionately refers to recipients as “Roots.”  

     And Samuel J. Tilden?

    A War Democrat who opposed slavery, Tilden opposed Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election, but later supported him and the Union during the Civil War. Afterward, he became the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee and managed Horatio Seymour's campaign in the 1868 presidential election.

    Tilden initially cooperated with the state party's Tammany Hall faction, but he broke with them in 1871 due to boss William M. Tweed's rampant corruption.........

      In the Compromise of 1877, Democratic leaders agreed to accept Hayes as the victor in return for the end of Reconstruction.[2] Tilden is the only presidential candidate to win an absolute majority of the popular vote while losing the election.[a]

     So the Chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party helped my dad apply for the Root-Tilden scholarship - his name was Bernhard LeVander:

    • He was a lawyer and served as chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party from 1946 to 1950.

     He was brother to another lawyer...Harold LeVander who had connections to Eisenhower!

    Although unsuccessful in his bid for President, Stassen became a member of the Executive Cabinet as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Secretary of Peace.”

    Along come LeVander, Gillen and Miller ~ In 1935, Harold LeVander and Fallon Kelly joined the firm. Due to the obligations of the public offices held by Ryan and Stassen, LeVander and Kelly purchased the firm and changed its name to Kelly & LeVander.

    Wow - fascinating. So Bernie LeVander (as my dad called him) secured a recommendation from "assistant attorney general Warren Burger" - who eventually became a Supreme Court Justice!

     Warren E. Burger was from Minnesota; he was born in Saint Paul and spent his early years there. He attended local schools, including Johnson High School, and graduated from the St. Paul College of Law, now known as William Mitchell College of Law. After a successful career in Minnesota's legal and political scene, he later became the 15th Chief Justice of the United States

     Wow!!

    He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1955 and later nominated by President Nixon to become the Chief Justice of the United States in 1969. 

    OK so my dad was chairmen of the Minnesota College Republicans at the time - quite a nice connection to have.... his LSAT score was in the 88th percentile as he wrote down.  It was a score of 603 out of 800. It must have been weighed somewhat since AI says that's 84th percentile...

    The LSAT was scored on a 200–800 point scale from its inception in 1948 until 1981

     Warren E. Burger was a key figure in Minnesota politics who organized the Minnesota Young Republicans in 1934, leading to his involvement in the Young Republican League of Ramsey County.

     OK so Dad was attending that same group.

     so my dad's first big campaign was getting a resolution passed when he was chairman of the Minnesota Federation of College Republican clubs - "opposing any further legislation regulating obscene literature." And this upset my grandfather, a minister.

     "Charles Johnson of Watertown, S.D., a junior at Macalester college here, was elected chairman to success William Hempel of Hallock, Minn."

    College GOP Clubs Rap Book Bans 

     College Republican Clubs, Minnesota Federation of, 1950-1958. 7 folders.

     MN Historical Society:

    LocationBox
    144.G.15.4F5 

    NYU Law is ranked #8 overall, with #1 in Criminal and International Law, #2 in Business/Corporate Law,...The University of Michigan Law School is ranked #8 (tie) overall...Harvard Law is ranked #6 overall, with #1 in Business/Corporate Law, #2 in Constitutional Law, and #1 in Contracts/Commercial Law.

    My dad was accepted to Harvard Law School (I just saw the acceptance letter from 1955!!) and University of Michigan Law School. But Harvard did not offer him a scholarship yet U of Michigan did offer him a full scholarship for the first year. He rejected both offers since he got the Root-Tilden NYU scholarship that covered all years of law school.

    My dad was in close correspondence with NYU comparative law professor Edmund Cahn.... who praised my dad greatly. My dad was trying to set up his Ph.D. research with Cahn as his advisor in 1960... My dad then praised the work of the International Committee of Jurists....
    Ex-CIA officer Philip Agee considered that the ICJ was "set up and controlled by the CIA for propaganda operations."[3] The CIA funding became public in 1967, but the organization survived the revelations after a period of reform under Secretary General Seán MacBride, and through Ford Foundation funding.[1][2] MacBride himself was involved in CIA funding, according to information the US government reported.[4] 

     So the Ford Foundation was funding my dad's study in Sweden and they were used as a CIA front via Columbia University with my dad corresponding with a prominent Columbia University Professor also.

    Strangely though Professor Cahn who praised my dad highly was then targeted by the McCarthy UnAmerican Committee as Cahn being a sponsor of the USA Communist Party.... and listed as a 

    List of Communist Party USA members

     Regarding some case  Professor Cahn gives his own opinion of what is right. He believes it is wrong to kill another even to save your own life (p. 71); that private fornication is morally right since contraceptives are now available (pp. 92-93); and that the fault concept has no place in the law of annulment of marriage and divorce.

     National Committee on Taxation of the National Lawyers Guild was chaired by Edmond Cahn also....

     I was going through my dad's letters from his NYU Law School Ford Foundation study for his Ph.D. in Sweden in 1959-60 

    My dad was corresponding with a Columbia law professor but my dad was hoping to have an  NYU law professor Edmond Cahn  as his advisor - the same Cahn that the McCarthy investigation had outed as having "supported" or being a "member" of the USA Communist Party (this was in 1959 for my dad so long past that McCarthy outing)... https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/10/archives/edmond-cahn-58-a-jurist-is-dead-professor-at-nyu-was-a-noted-legal.html 
    This law professor asked my dad to translate into Swedish or vice versa as my dad had taken advanced Swedish and had been going other translations of Swedish legal documents....
    Anyway then my dad sends a cryptic leader to the NYU Law School dean with my dad saying he "occupied a relationship of a confidential nature" with Dewitt Wallace, founder of Reader's Digest, who, "let's just say takes an interest in [my dad's] professional development." 
    Dewitt Wallace, as Christopher Simpson points out, was on the Board of the Committee for a Free Europe with Reader's Digest (founded by Dewitt Wallace) as a close collaborator of the CIA. 
    So, based on the above direct quote from my dad, Douglas Valentine, do you think my dad had been recruited by Dewitt Wallace as a CIA asset or something? 
    The National Committee for a Free Europe, later known as Free Europe Committee, was an anti-communist Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front organization.
    My dad also - what was I going to say - he was high up in the Republican party in Minnesota and so he was appointed Chief Deputy Officer for Attorney General here in 1967. My dad had been a Root-Tilden full scholarship NYU law student....oh yeah then my dad worked at literally the top ranked law firm on Wall Street - and the person who fired my dad then had someone recommended to be interviewed by Allen Dulles for a CIA career - it's in the CIA archives.
    And so Dewitt Wallace was the main funder of Macalester college in Saint Paul Minnesota where my dad had been for his undergrad - and then my dad remained president of the Macalester Alumni association, in close association with their "development officer" at Macalester (obviously also close to Dewitt Wallace) - and they organized a meeting of Macalester students to discuss the Vietnam War. This meeting was held at my parents' house (before I was born) as my mom explained they wanted to make sure the students would not get riled up and thus storm a building or occupy some place. 
    Anyway then my dad was close buddies with another NYU law grad who went into the State Department - and his last name was Heinzen. They were both connected to Warren Burger who became Supreme Court Judge. Ben Heinzen went by "Skip" but his first name was Ben. Then I noticed that Cord Meyer had married Barb Heinzen and Cord Meyer was born in Saint Paul, MN where Macalester college is located (probably just a coincidence as I could find no connection between Barbara Heinzen and Ben Heinzen).....
    Meanwhile - I actually did a FOIA to the CIA if they had anything about my dad's Ford Foundation grant since it was an international grant and thus screened through the CIA but their response said there was no "declassified" information. hahaha.
    OH yeah - my dad wrote in his letter about Dewitt Wallace that my dad had to "get back to his trusts" - so maybe he was actually overseeing the Dewitt Wallace trust!? Anyway... I have no other reason to think my dad was connected to the CIA but he did mention he had been offered a job at the Hudson Institute....when it formed in 1961 but my dad wanted to return to Minnesota....
    The Institute was founded in 1961 by strategist Herman Kahn and colleagues, including Max Singer and Oscar Ruebhausen.
    • The founders came from the RAND Corporation, a non-profit think tank that works on research and analysis related to national security.Initial focus: Hudson's initial focus was on national security issues, nuclear strategy, and long-range planning, reflecting Kahn's background.Relationship with CIA: While not a CIA creation, there is a clear connection through shared areas of interest and the background of its founders. Some sources indicate a historical emphasis on themes relevant to the CIA's mission, such as national security, defense, and nuclear strategy
      Jesse Ventura said when he was elected Governor of Minnesota he was then called into a meeting with several CIA officers - in the basement of the state capitol - demanding to know what he was going to do as an independent governor....

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    Monday, October 20, 2025

    Carl Wilhelm Hempel were well-to-do Sheep farmers in 1870 Sweden, immigrants from Dresden, as detailed in J.E. Andersson 1958 Swedish history book

     




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