- Dossier Compiled by Agent Orange (Fri, 08 Aug 1997)

After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious "spoils" of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.

The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.

There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America--and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis.

Data-Points:

Convinced that German scientists could help America's postwar efforts, President Harry Truman agreed in September 1946 to authorize "Project Paperclip," a program to bring selected German scientists to work on America's behalf during the "Cold War"

However, Truman expressly excluded anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Naziism or militarism."

The War Department's Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) conducted background investigations of the scientists. In February 1947, JIOA Director Bosquet Wev submitted the first set of scientists' dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review.

The Dossiers were damning. Samauel Klaus, the State Departments representative on the JIOA board, claimed that all the scientists in this first batch were "ardent Nazis." Their visa requests were denied.

Wev was furious. He wrote a memo warning that "the best interests of the United States have been subjugated to the efforts expended in 'beating a dead Nazi horse.'" He also declared that the return of these scientists to Germany, where they could be exploited by America's enemies, presented a "far greater security threat to this country than any former Nazi affiliations which they may have had or even any Nazi sympathies that they may still have."

When the JIOA formed to investigate the backgrounds and form dossiers on the Nazis, the Nazi Intelligence leader Reinhard Gehlen met with the CIA director Allen Dulles. Dulles and Gehlen hit it off immediatly. Gehlen was a master spy for the Nazis and had infiltrated Russia with his vast Nazi Intelligence network. Dulles promised Gehlen that his Intelligence unit was safe in the CIA.

Apparently, Wev decided to sidestep the problem. Dulles had the scientists dossier's re-written to eliminate incriminating evidence. As promised, Allen Dulles delivered the Nazi Intelligence unit to the CIA, which later opened many umbrella projects stemming from Nazi mad research. (MK-ULTRA / ARTICHOKE, OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX)

Military Intelligence "cleansed" the files of Nazi references. By 1955, more than 760 German scientists had been granted citizenship in the U.S. and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, had used slave labor, and had committed other war crimes.

In a 1985 expose in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Linda Hunt wrote that she had examined more than 130 reports on Project Paperclip subjects--and every one "had been changed to eliminate the security threat classification."

President Truman, who had explicitly ordered no committed Nazis to be admitted under Project Paperclip, was evidently never aware that his directive had been violated. State Department archives and the memoirs of officials from that era confirm this. In fact, according to Clare[nce] Lasby's book [Project] Paperclip, project officials "covered their designs with such secrecy that it bedeviled their own President; at Potsdam he denied their activities and undoubtedly enhanced Russian suspicion and distrust," quite possibly fueling the Cold War even further.

A good example of how these dossiers were changed is the case of Wernher von Braun. A September 18, 1947, report on the German rocket scientist stated, "Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor."

The following February, a new security evaluation of Von Braun said, "No derogatory information is available on the subject...It is the opinion of the Military Governor that he may not constitute a security threat to the United States."

Here are a few of the 700 suspicious characters who were allowed to immigrate through Project Paperclip.

ARTHUR RUDOLPH

During the war, Rudolph was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. Rudolph had been a member of the Nazi party since 1931; a 1945 military file on him said simply: "100% Nazi, dangerous type, security threat..!! Suggest internment."

But the JIOA's final dossier on him said there was "nothing in his records indicating that he was a war criminal or and ardent Nazi or otherwise objectionable." Rudolph became a US citizen and later designed the Saturn 5 rocket used in the Apollo moon landings. In 1984, when his war record was finally investigated, he fled to West Germany.

WERNHER VON BRAUN

From 1937 to 1945, von Braun was the technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center, where the V-2 rocket --which devastated England--was developed. As noted previously, his dossier was rewritten so he didn't appear to have been an enthusiastic Nazi.

Von Braun worked on guided missiles for the U.S. Army and was later director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He became a celebrity in the 1950s and early 1960s, as one of Walt Disney's experts on the "World of Tomorrow." In 1970, he became NASA's associate administrator.

KURT BLOME

A high-ranking Nazi scientist, Blome told U.S. military interrogators in 1945 that he had been ordered 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at Nuremberg in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia (extermination of sick prisoners), and conducting experiments on humans. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments.

Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed at Camp David, Maryland, about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His file neglected to mention Nuremberg.

MAJOR GENERAL WALTER SCHREIBER

According to Linda Hunt's article, the US military tribunal at Nuremberg heard evidence that "Schreiber had assigned doctors to experiment on concentration camp prisoners and had made funds available for such experimentation." The assistant prosecutor said the evidence would have convicted Schreiber if the Soviets, who held him from 1945 to 1948, had made him available for trial.

Again, Schreiber's Paperclip file made no mention of this evidence; the project found work for him at the Air Force School of Medicine at Randolph Field in Texas. When columnist Drew Pearson publicized the Nuremberg evidence in 1952, the negative publicity led the JIOA, says Hunt, to arrange "a visa and a job for Schreiber in Argentina, where his daughter was living." On May 22, 1952, he was flown to Buenos Aires.

HERMANN BECKER-FREYSING and SIEGFRIED RUFF

These two, along with Blome, were among the 23 defendants in the Nuremberg War Trials "Medical Case." Becker-Freysing was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conducting experiments on Dachau inmates, such as starving them, then force-feeding them sea water that had been chemically altered to make it drinkable. Ruff was acquitted (in a close decision) on charges that he had killed as many as 80 Dachau inmates in a low-pressure chamber designed to simulate altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. Before their trial, Becker-Freysing and Ruff were paid by the Army Air Force to write reports about their grotesque experiments.

GENERAL REINHARD GEHLEN

It was five years after the end of WWII but one of Hitler's chief intelligence officers was still on the job. From a walled-in compound in Bavaria, General Reinhard Gehlen oversaw a vast network of intelligence agents spying on Russia. His top aides were Nazi zealots who had committed some of the most notorious crimes of the war. Gehlen and his SS united were hired, and swiftly became agents of the CIA when they revealed their massive records on the Soviet Union to the US.

Gehlen derived much of his information from his role in one of the most terrible atrocities of the war: the torture, interrogation and murder by starvation of some four million Soviet prisoners. Prisoners who refused to cooperate were often tortured or summarily executed. May were executed even after they had given information, while others were simply left to starve to death. As a result, Gehlend and members of his organization maneuvered to make sure they were captured by advancing American troops rather than Russians, who would have executed them immediatly.

Two months before Germany surrendered in 1945, the Gehlen organization made its move. "Gehlen and a small group of his most senior officers carefully microfilmed the vast holding on the USSR in the military section of the German army's general staff. They packed the film in watertight steel drums and secretly buried it in a remote mountain meadow scattered throughout the Austrian Alps.

General William Donovan and Allen Dulles of the CIA were tipped off about Gehlen's surrender and his offer of Russian intelligence in exchange for a job. The CIA was soon jockeying with military intelligence for authority over Gehlen's microfilmed records--and control of the German spymaster. Dulles arranged for a private intelligence facility in West Germany to be established, and named it the Geheln Organization. Gehlen promised not to hire any former SS, SD, or Gestapo members; he hired them anyway, and the CIA did not stop him. Two of Gehlen's early recruits were Emil Augsburg and Dr. Franz Six, who had been part of mobile killing squads, which killed Jews, intellectuals, and Soviet partisans wherever they found them. Other early recruits included Willi Krichbaum, senior Gestapo leader for southeastern Europe, and the Gestapo chiefs of Paris and Kiel, Germany.

With the encouragement of the CIA, Gehlen Org (Licio Gelli) set up "rat lines" to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe so they wouldn't be prosecuted. By setting up transit camps and issuing phony passports, the Gehlen Org helped more than 5,000 Nazis leave Europe and relocate around the world, especially in South and Central America. There, mass murderers like Klaus Barbie (the butcher of Lyons) helped governments set up death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and elsewhere.

KLAUS BARBIE

Known as the Nazi butcher of Lyons, France during World War II, Barbie was part of the SS which was responsible for the and death of thousands of French people under the Germany occupation.

HEINRICH RUPP

Some of Rupp's best work was done for the CIA, after he was imported in Operation Paperclip. Rupp has been convicted of bank fraud. He was an operative for the CIA and is deeply involved in the Savings and Loan scandals. A federal jury has indicated they believe testimony that Rupp, the late CIA Director William Casey - then Reagan's campaign manager, and Donald Gregg, now U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, flew with George Bush to Paris in 1980, during the election in which Bush was on the ticket with Ronald Reagan. The testimony states that three meetings were held on October 19 and 20 at the Hotel Florida and Hotel Crillion. The subject? According to the court testimony, the meetings were to sabotage President Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign by delaying the release of American hostages in Iran. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, right after Reagan and Bush were sworn into office. Iran was promised return of its frozen assets in the United States and the foundation for the Iran- Contra deal was set into motion.

LICIO GELLI

Head of a 2400 member secret Masonic Lodge, P2, a neo-fascist organization, in Italy that catered to only the elite, Gelli had high connections in the Vatican, even though he was not a Catholic. P2's membership is totally secret and not even available to its Mother Lodge in England. Gelli was responsible for providing Argentina with the Exocet missile. He was a double agent for the CIA and the KGB. He assisted many former Nazi high officials in their escape from Europe to Central America. He had close ties with the Italian Mafia. Gelli was a close associate of Benito Mussolini. He was also closely affiliated with Roberto Calvi, head of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank. Calvi was murdered. Gelli's secret lodge consisted of extremely important people, including armed forces commanders, secret service chiefs, head of Italy's financial police, 30 generals, eight admirals, newspaper editors, television and top business executives and key bankers - including Calvi. Licio Gelli and others in P2 were behind the assasination of Pope John Paul I.

The central figure in Europe and South America that linked the CIA, Masonic Lodge, Vatican, ex-Nazis and several South American governments, the Italian government and several international banks was Licio Gelli. He, with Klaus Barbie and Heinrich Rupp, met with Ronald R. Rewald in Uruguay to arrange for the Argentine purchase of the French-made Exocet missile, used in the Falkland Island attack to kill british soldiers.

Who is Gelli and why was he so important?

To understand Gelli, one must understand the complex post war years of Europe. The biggest threat to Europe in pre-war times was Communism - it was the great fear of Communism that gave birth to the Fascists and the Nazis. Though both sides were dreaded, the Fascists represented right-wing government, while the Communist represent left-wing government. It was the right-wing that the United States and the Catholic Church desired over Communism - because Communism would destroy the capitalistic system. This is why the CIA and the Vatican had go through with Operation Paperclip. The Nazis had massive amounts of Soviet intelligence, had infiltrated Communist partisans, and were in no way going to be given up to the Soviet Union.

Gelli worked both sides. He helped to found the Red Brigade, spied on Communist partisans and worked for the Nazis at the same time, a double agent. He helped establish the Rat Line, which assisted the flight of high ranking Nazi officials from Europe to South America, with passports supplied by the Vatican and with the full acknowledgment and blessing of the United States intelligence community. While on one hand, the U.S. participated in the war crime tribunals of key Nazi officials and maintained an alliance with the Communist Soviet Union, secretly, the U.S. was preparing for the cold war and needed the help of Nazis in the eventual struggle the U.S. would have with the Soviet Union. Gelli's agreement with U.S. intelligence to spy on the Communists after the war was instrumental in saving his life. He was responsible for the murder and torture of hundreds of Yugoslavian partisans.

The Vatican provided support to Nazis and Fascists because the Communists were the real threat to the Church's survival. The Italian Communists would have taxed the Church's vast holdings and the Church has had a dismal experience with Communist governments throughout the world - where religious freedom was stamped out.

Gelli was well connected with the Vatican from the days of the Rat Line and he worked for American intelligence, as well. Gelli formed the P-2 Masonic Lodge-which did not follow the direction of any Grand Lodge-and it was supplied with a sum of $10 million a month by the CIA. Its membership was a Who's Who in the intelligence, military and Italian community. So prominent was Gelli's influence, that he was even a guest of honor at the 1981 inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.

Gelli used blackmail in order to gain prominent members of his P-2 lodge, its membership is estimated at 2400 members, including 300 of the most powerful men in the Western World.. He was a close friend of Pope Paul VI, Juan Peron of Argentina, Libyan Dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and many high officials in the Italian and American governments - he is also reported to have had some financial dealings with the George Bush for President campaign.

Gelli and his P-2 lodge had staggering connections to banking, intelligence and diplomatic passports. The CIA poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Italy in the form of secret subsidies for political parties, labor unions and communications businesses. At the same time the Agency continued its relationship with far- right and violent elements as a back-up should a coup be needed to oust a possible Communist government. This covert financing was exposed by the Prime Minister of Italy in a speech to Parliament. He indicates that more than 600 people in Italy still remain on the payroll of the CIA. Licio Gelli was an ardent Nazi and a perfect asset of the CIA. As part of Reinhard Gehlen's intelligence team, he had excellent contacts. Licio was the go between for the CIA and the Vatican through his P2 Lodge.

Project Paperclip was stopped in 1957, when West Germany protested to the U.S. that these efforts had stripped it of "scientific skills." There was no comment about supporting Nazis. Paperclip may have ended in 1957, but as you can see from Licio Gelli and his international dealings with the CIA in Italy/P2, and Heinrich Rupp with his involvement in October Surprise, the ramifications of Paperclip are world-wide. The Nazis became employed CIA agents, engaging in clandestine work with the likes of George Bush, the CIA, Henry Kissinger, and the Masonic P2 lodge. This is but one of the results of Operation Paperclip. Another umbrella project that was spawned from Paperclip was MK-ULTRA.

A secret laboratory was established and funded by CIA director, Allen Dulles in Montreal, Canada at McGill University in the Allen Memorial Institute headed by psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron. For the next several years Dr. Ewen Cameron waged his private war in Canada. What is ironic about Dr. Cameron is that he served as a member of the Nuremberg tribunal who heard the cases against the Nazi doctors.

When it was at its height in drug experiments, operation MK-ULTRA was formed. This was the brainchild of Richard Helms who later came to be a CIA director. It was designed to defeat the "enemy" in its brain-washing techniques. MK-ULTRA had another arm involved in Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) known as MK-DELTA. The "doctors" who participated in these experiments used some of the same techniques as the Nazi "doctors". Techniques used by Dr. Cameron and previous Nazi scientists include electro shock, sleep deprivation, memory implantation, memory erasure, sensory modification, psychoactive drug experiments, and many more cruel practices.

Project Paperclip brought us MK-ULTRA. Paperclip ultimately brought in key players involved in the Assassination of Pope 1, October Surprise (sabotage of Carter's peace talks), and a great many other things still classified to this day. The results of Project Paperclip were devastating, and very far reaching. I guess that is what you would expect from collaborating with Nazis.

This research shows that the OSS/CIA that was formed in the National Security Act, the same agency that employed hundreds of Nazis, has been in alliance with the Vatican through various Agency connections such as Licio Gelli. The CIA/Vatican alliance that Assassinated Pope John Paul 1, JFK, and hundreds of dictators of 3rd world countries is the Illuminati.

The Bavarian Illuminati has been around for centuries in one way or another. It's presence in the 20th century is the direct result of the Nazis. The Nazi connections to the occult and the Bavarian Thule Society were parallel to the American members of 33rd degree Freemasonry. When the Operation Paperclip was successfully executed, the Nazi element of the Bavarian Thule society was fused with the American members of Freemasonry to create the Illuminati.

Operation Paperclip, MK-ULTRA, October Surprise, and George Bush are all facets of the Illuminati, a group whose ideals are rooted in the occult, and dedicated to world domination.

Soon after the American Revolution, John Robinson, a professor of rural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and member of a Freemason lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After studying the group, he concluded that the purposes of the Illuminati were not compatible with his beliefs.

In 1798, he published a book called Proofs Of A Conspiracy, which states:

“An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments.... The leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors.”

The CIA and the Vatican have rooted out all the religious establishments in the world. The CIA has overthrown and set up dictators under their control all over the world. The CIA and the Vatican have fulfilled the purpose of the Illuminati. The CIA and the Vatican are the Illuminati.

Bibliography:

• It's a Conspiracy! Michael Litchfield, Earthworks Press
• Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War, Clarence Lasby, Scribner (February, 1975) 1975
• Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990, Linda Hunt, St Martins Pr; 1st ed edition (April 1, 1991)
• Acid Dreams, Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain, Grove Press; Rev edition (March 1, 1986)
• Journey Into Madness, Gordon Thomas, Bantam; Reprint edition (May 1, 1990)
• Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, Merle Miller, Berkley Publishing Group; Reissue edition (December 1, 1986)
• Kiss the Boys Goodbye, by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson, E P Dutton (October 1, 1990)
• Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker, Mcgraw-Hill (September 1, 1989)
• In God's Name, An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, by David A.Yallop, Bantam Dell Pub Group (Trd) (June 1, 1984)
• The Crimes of Patriots - A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA by Jonathan Kwitny, W W Norton & Co Inc (August 1, 1987)
• Mengele: The Complete Story, by Gerald L. Posner and John Ware, Cooper Square Press; New Ed edition (October, 2000)
• Blowback, America's Recruitment of Nazis and its Effects on the Cold War, by Christopher Simpson, Grove Pr; 1st edition (March 1, 1988)
• "Jury Says Story of Reagan-Bush Campaign Deal With Iran Is True," San Francisco Chronicle May 5, 1990.
• "Hawaii Scheme Cost Napans $500.000," Napa Register October 3, 1983.
• The Vatican Connection by Richard Hammer, Henry Holt & Co; 1st ed edition (September 1, 1982)
• The Great Heroin Coup, Drug's, Intelligence & International Fascism by Henrik Kruger, Black Rose Books (October 1, 2000)
• The Nazi Legacy: Klaus Barbie and the International Fascist Connection, by Magnus Linklater, Isabel Hilton, Neal Ascherson, Henry Holt & Co; 1st American ed edition (February 1, 1985)
• "The P-2 Time Bomb Goes Off," The Economist, May 1984

The Essential Abraham Lincoln contains a rich storehouse of Lincoln's most important letters, speeches and presidential messages.
Reviewed by John Ross Schroeder

The wisdom of Abraham Lincoln remains at the pinnacle of American presidential understanding. Like Winston Churchill, he had the rare gift of composition and left many hard lessons for our generation to study and ponder. We begin with his early assessment of the dangers that would confront a young country, relatively new to the world scene.

Dangers to America

In an early speech in Springfield, Illinois, in January 1837, Lincoln stated: "At what point is the danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach[es] us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher" (p. 9, emphasis added throughout).

Although enemy nations may be the final instrument in executing a nation's demise, the greatest danger is usually from the moral decay that has already occurred within its own borders.

Nearly 20 years later Lincoln spoke again of internal jeopardies during his speech at the first Republican State Convention of Illinois (May 1856).

He warned: "We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read. Are we in a healthful political state? Are not the tendencies plain? Do not the signs of the time point plainly the way in which we are going?" (p. 101).

Are not those words even more true today, 150 years after Abraham Lincoln spoke them?

Lincoln's awareness of God's purposes and guidance

In a personal letter to Eliza P. Gurney from the Executive Mansion in Washington D.C. (September 1864), Lincoln wrote: "The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war [1861 to 1865] long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom, and our own error therein...Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay" (p. 313).

Lincoln well understood his own dependence on God. In February 1861, just before he traveled from Springfield to Washington D.C. to be sworn in as president, he said in a farewell speech: "Today I leave you. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if the same Almighty Arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me I shall not fail" (p. 203).

Instead of splintering into two separate nations, the United States remained one nation under God—not withstanding all of its moral and spiritual inadequacies, then and now. Lincoln always understood what his basic mission really was: the preservation of the American union.

Thankfulness to God

During his last public address in Washington D.C. in April of 1865, Lincoln stated: "We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart... In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated" (p. 336).

Shortly afterwards an assassin's bullet ended the life of this great man. He was prevented from carrying out the kind of reconstruction he had envisaged for the nation. But he had done the job! WNP

 

http://www.foxnews.com

High-energy electric pulses from the sun could surge to Earth and cripple our electrical grid for years, causing billions in damages, government officials and scientists worry.

The House is so concerned that the Energy and Commerce committee voted unanimously 47 to 0 to approve a bill allocating $100 million to protect the energy grid from this rare but potentially devastating occurrence.

The Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act, or H.R. 5026, aims "to amend the Federal Power Act to protect the bulk-power system and electric infrastructure critical to the defense of the United States against cybersecurity and other threats and vulnerabilities."

It cites electromagnetic pulses from geomagnetic or solar storms as the big threat to our energy distribution grid, and demands "an order directing the Electric Reliability Organization to submit … reliability standards adequate to protect the bulk-power system from any reasonably foreseeable geomagnetic storm event."

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun's activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," said Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division. "At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms."

Fisher and other experts met Tuesday at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum to discuss the intersection of these two issues, and ways to protect society from nature's wrath.

A major solar storm could cause 20 times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina, the National Academy of Sciences warned in a 2008 report, "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts."

And the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, while pointing out that "these risks are rare, and in some cases have never occurred," is nonetheless very concerned about the reality of geomagnetic events.

It a recently released report, NERC cited recent analysis by Metatech and Storm Analysis Consultants that suggests "the potential extremes of the geomagnetic threat environment may be much greater than previously anticipated. Geomagnetically induced currents on system infrastructure have the potential to result in widespread tripping of key transmission lines and irreversible physical damage to large transformers."

It's the fear of an EMP, specifically a high-altitude pulse caused by a solar event, that has Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) worried.

“It would cost about $100 million to protect the grid from EMP," he said in a speech at the House. "The consequences of inaction are dire. If our grid is destroyed by EMP, the National Academies warn it would cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages and take four to 10 years to recover.”

Next week National Geographic Explorer will air a special on the topic, which warns that the risk also comes from terrorists. In "Electronic Armageddon," Explorer asks the viewer to "picture an instantaneous deathblow to the vital engines that power our society -- delivered by a weapon specifically designed NOT to kill humans, but to kill electronics."

While predicting the odds of a nuclear HEMP attack from terrorist groups are less certain, most experts agree that another source of an EMP, the sun, is imminent,” the show warns.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Boy Spies of America was a children's group organized during World War I. It was one of many private patriotic organizations dedicated to volunteer spying which arose during that war. Members reinforced a climate of anti-German sentiment and stopped young men on the street, demanding to see their draft cards. The organization did not successfully identify any German spies.

References

1.  "The 'Savage Peace' of 1919", NPR interview with Ann Hagadorn
2.  Hagedorn, Ann (2007). Savage Peace. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 25. 
3.  Conlin, Joseph (2010). The American Past: A Survey of American History, Volume II: Ninth Edition. Boston: Wadsworth.  Capozzola, Christopher Joseph Nicodemus. Uncle Sam wants you: World War I and the making of the modern American citizen. 

See also

• American Protective League
• American Defense Society
• National Security League

This World War I article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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The 'Savage Peace' of 1919, Relevant Today

 

The year 1919 resonates today. Among the issues: immigration, spying on citizens, racial tensions and freedom of speech. Ann Hagedorn's book on the subject is Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919.

Copyright © 2007 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

LIANE HANSEN, host:

The press release for a new book begins with these phrases: terrorist-generated paranoia, immigration raids, government intrusion into private lives of citizen, controversial forms of marriage and a contested U.S. intervention abroad. Now given that description, it would be easy to conclude that "Savage Peace" is a book about contemporary politics. It's not. The subtitle of the book is "Hope and Fear in America, 1919." The author is Ann Hagedorn and she's in the studios of member station WGUC in Cincinnati, Ohio. Welcome to the program, Ann.

Ms. ANN HAGEDORN (Author, "Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919"): Oh, thank you, Liane.

HANSEN: Before we talk about some of the issues that made the year 1919 so important, what was the mood of the country at that time? I mean, after all, World War I was over and so was the flu epidemic.

Ms. HAGEDORN: Well, I think there was a great expectation and hope, and at that time - you have to remember that Americans fought in World War I because their president had told them that they were fighting to make the world safe for democracy - I think the single best word would be expectations, high expectations for what that peace would bring people in America.

HANSEN: It sounds to me that that didn't happen.

Ms. HAGEDORN: No, it didn't. The aftermath of war is a time of great instability and adjustment, and it's not very peaceful.

HANSEN: Let's talk about one of the issues that was an issue then and is an issue now: domestic spying. But in 1919, the spies weren't employed by the government, they were volunteers. They were groups: seditions, slammers, you write about the boy spies of America, the American Protective League. How did these groups evolve?

Ms. HAGEDORN: Well these groups began during World War I. And some of them disbanded after the armistice. But there were also quite a domestic intelligence unit - several units - in the government.

HANSEN: What was the Negro Subversion Unit?

Ms. HAGEDORN: Well, the Negro Subversion Unit came out of military intelligence. There were many agents who were shadowing African-American leaders. W.E.B. DuBois had several agents following him. And their job was to report back the activities of African-Americans and with the concern that they might be influenced by the Germans.

Then in 1919, when there was a good deal of unrest in African-American communities, the fear was, oh all of this unrest is because of Bolshevism. Bolshevism was the -ism that is what we call Communism today. And what they discovered was there were race riots because of discrimination, because black soldiers were coming home and in uniform being lynched.

There was unrest in black communities because there were very serious problems and there was no Bolshevik influence and they had fought. And so those agents actually sent in their reports. A man named Major Walter Loving wrote up a report, but that report, which came out in August of 1919, never ended up on the front pages of newspapers. And ironically or interestingly, in the same week, J. Edgar Hoover assumed his new job, 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, and within two months he was telling newspapers that the problem in the black community was Bolshevism.

HANSEN: Oliver Wendell Holmes was a Supreme Court justice during that time.

Ms. HAGEDORN: Yes. Oh, yes.

HANSEN: He used the phrase "a clear and present danger."

Ms. HAGEDORN: That's right.

HANSEN: What was his role when it came to the issue of free speech?

Ms. HAGEDORN: He wrote three opinions in the spring of 1919 and that's where you get the clear and present danger. And that's effectively the concept that if free speech creates a clear and present danger, you know, to the security of a nation, then it has to be repressed.

Well, after March of 1919, which is when he issued that opinion, legal minds of the time - Zachariah Chafee, Harold Lasky, Felix Frankfurter - came to him and asked him to rethink what he had done in the name of free speech for the future of the nation. And he did.

And I just - I call that chapter "Greatness," the one in November of 1919, when he has another case and he writes a dissent. In that dissent, he says, we have to have the free trade of ideas above all else, because if we repress it to the extreme that they were repressing it through the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, then we do not hear the voice of the people. And the voice of the people might be telling us something that's really important to keep the democracy alive. So he wrote the most beautifully written dissent, and it established the notion of civil liberties in this country.

HANSEN: Woodrow Wilson was president...

Ms. HAGEDORN: Yes.

HANSEN: ...during this year. What's your take on his successes and failures during that time?

Ms. HAGEDORN: He himself, I suppose, personified the shift from the 19th century to the 20th century in some respects. And he was a scholar and he was an intellect. But he had a major blind spot: he could not see the problems in his own country and he was a 19th-century mind. I mean, I feel that 1919 is effectively the first year of the 20th century. I think when you look at the foundations of attitudes, I think it had so much to do with how we and our generation in the American century thought about war and peace and how to deal with race relations.

And so - I mean, it's just a stunningly important year. And Woodrow Wilson was focused on one thing and one thing only, which is how to achieve world peace. And he was so focused that he missed some of the most important details of his country's survival and identity. And so he's far more complicated and far more interesting than I ever thought he would be.

HANSEN: Ann Hagedorn is the author of "Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919." It's published by Simon & Schuster. She joined us from the studio of WGUC in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thanks very much.

Ms. HAGEDORN: Oh, thank you.

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