SELLING THE ROPE TO HANG US

Against the current backdrop of President Ronald Reagan and his wife
Nancy being lavishly welcomed and entertained in Moscow by Soviet
Dictator Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa, all of them beaming and
outwardly elated over the now "improved superpower relations", the
following eye-opening articles from The Mindszenty Report (May 1988)
should help dispel some of the extraordinary euphoria surrounding the
event and provide clearer insight as to what is actually behind Soviet
and even U.S. eagerness to "get together".
Contrary to the propaganda served up by America's mass-media, the U.S.
Government is not promoting trade with the USSR for the sake of benefiting the
U.S. economy and improving U.S.-Soviet relations. Our trade relationship with
the Russians has contributed to the weakening of our economy and increasing
our debt, while subsidizing the Soviet defense industry at the expense of the
U.S. taxpayer.
The following report, taken from the Mindszenty Report of May 1988, examines
some of the sinister dealing that has taken place in the name of U.S.-Soviet
trade. After one reads this article it becomes ever more clear that our only hope
to avoid enslavement or annihilation by Soviet Russia is to listen to and obey
Our Lady of Fatima immediately, before it is too late for all of us.
On September 25, 1921, a twenty-three-year-old American physician, recently
graduated at the top of his class from Columbia University medical school,
arrived in the bleak town of Alapayevsk in the USSR. He would soon make
history.
Lenin, the founding father of Soviet Communism, had just initiated his New
Economic Policy, thus acknowledging the failure of collectivism and allowing
foreign capitalists to help rebuild the Soviet economy and industry. The young
American had expressed interest in a grain deal and also the huge Alapayevsk
asbestos mine that now stood idle but, in its dark underground shafts, held the
bodies of six Romanovs murdered by the Bolsheviks and dumped there on July
17, 1918. Ironically, years later the confiscated possessions of the last Tsar of
Russia and his family . . jewels, precious works of art and priceless heirlooms . .
. would make the young American immensely wealthy.
Lenin was obsessed with this man who managed an American pharmaceutical
firm well-known as the only U.S. firm to have circumvented a Western trade
blockade to sell medicine and war supplies on credit to Lenin's struggling new
Communist regime. He was also familiar with the young man's father, president
of the drug firm, who was then serving time on a manslaughter conviction at
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Sing Sing prison for performing an abortion on a woman who died four days
later. The father was a major benefactor of the U.S. Communist Party.
Lenin met with the young American, telling him if he did not want the asbestos
mine perhaps he could sign a contract to export grain from America to the
USSR. Such a deal, Lenin said, could be widely publicized around the world and
help convince Western capitalists that there was money to be made in trading
with the Bolsheviks. As it turns out, not only was the young American granted
20-year mining rights for asbestos . . . now outlawed in the U.S. as an extreme
lung cancer-causing fiber . . . but he was also named purchasing agent for
agricultural machinery Lenin also needed from America.
On November 17, 1921, the first of many shipments of American wheat arrived
in Russia as a result of agreements signed by Lenin and the young American.
After the steamer was unloaded it was packed full with Russian precious works
of art and priceless heirlooms as well as sable and mink and other expensive
furs. Before setting sail in December, a ton of Russian caviar in fifty-pound
wooden kegs was added prior to cast off. On board, heading home to America,
was Lenin's young friend, Dr. Armand Hammer who . . . today . . . makes
appearances on the popular Johnny Carson "Tonight Show" still extolling the
benefits of U.S.-Soviet trade.
On December 10, a private, unannounced mini-conference was held behind-thescenes during the 1987 U.S.-Soviet Summit, reportedly without the knowledge
of President Reagan but attended by his counterpart in summitry, Soviet Party
Boss Mikhail Gorbachev. In attendance to discuss increasing trade with the
Kremlin were:

Dr. Armand Hammer, president of Occidental Petroleum, who had just announced
that his company would soon invest between $5 and $6 billion to build, in Hammer's
words, "one of the largest petrochemical complexes in the world" in the USSR and
then sell at least 50 per cent of products produced there on the world market . . .
raising badly needed hard currency for the Soviets.

Dwayne Andreas of the Archer-Daniels Midland grain firm, a company which runs
newspaper ads promoting U.S.-Soviet trade by depicting the East Coast of the
United States connected to the western border of the Soviet Union.

James Giffen, president of the mysterious U.S.-USSR Trade and Economic Council
(USTEC), purportedly a private organization of "American and Soviet businessmen"
sponsored by the U.S. Commerce Department during the Nixon Administration . . .
its protocols signed by then Treasury Secretary, now Secretary of State George
Shultz . . . but known to be heavily staffed on the Soviet side by important KGB
operatives.

C. William Verity, former head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an executive
of USTEC from 1979 to 1985, during which time he worked closely with fellow
USTEC executive-committee member Yevgeny Pitrovranov, an identified KGB
lieutenant general. Verity also was a special economic advisor of President Jimmy

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Carter on U.S.-Soviet trade and was chairman of the board of Armco Steel which
was on the verge of building a huge turnkey steel-making plant in the USSR - using
sophisticated U.S. technology - when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and all U.S.Kremlin trade deals were cancelled. A long-time advocate of "if we don't sell to the
Communists, someone else will", Verity is now U.S. Secretary of the Department of
Commerce where he is aggressively implementing USTEC's trade-at-any-cost-withthe Soviets agenda.
What was discussed at the cozy secret mini-conference among the Kremlin's
Gorbachev, U.S. Commerce Secretary Verity and representatives of USTEC,
whom Verity took along for good measure? From subsequent news reports
leaked to the media, Gorbachev's chief economist Abel Agbanbegyan was on
hand to list some $10 billion worth of trade projects the Soviets hoped would
entice U.S. interest, including telecommunication, computers, machine tools, oil
equipment and engineering. The morning after the meeting with Gorbachev,
USTEC's James Giffen appeared on the "Today" show telling host Jane Pauley:
"We had a very good conversation about future trade with the Soviet Union . . .
the level of trade could go from a billion dollars . . . up to four or five billion per
year and maybe even higher . . ."
How would the Soviets finance their part of new trade deals with the U.S. is a
question seldom raised by the USTEC crowd, although they know perfectly well
how it might be achieved. Although the Kremlin's gross indebtedness to the U.S.
rose from $21.8 billion in 1984 to $35.8 billion in 1986, and the Soviets are
currently borrowing $700 million a month from Western credit markets,
according to the December 7, 1987 Wall Street Journal, there could be other
sources of financial aid as yet untapped. For example, the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) which are funded by the American taxpayer.
"We would like to see the Soviet Union become members of all these
international bodies," said George Shultz's Deputy Secretary of State, John
Whitehead, last March. Whitehead has been instrumental in easing restrictions
on the shipment of sensitive defense technology to Eastern Europe which
somehow ends up in the USSR and saves the Kremlin big bucks in research. In
1980 alone, according to intelligence experts, the Soviets saved $800 million in
research costs by acquiring, legally and illegally, advanced Western technology.
Granting Most Favored Nation status would also aid the promoters of increased
U.S.-Soviet trade. MFN means no strings attached to trade, such as linking
human rights abuses by the Soviets to ommercial dealings with the Kremlin.
Writing on the "OpEd" page of the New York Times on anuary 2, 1979, USTEC's
co-chairman William Verity said "a policy of holding trade hostage or political
ends is self-defeating . . . however admirable our desire to persuade Soviet
leaders to how greater concern for human rights they view such efforts as an
interference with domestic afairs." In a March 7, 1984 interview on Radio
Moscow, the later-to-be U.S. Commerce secretary Verity called the JacksonVanik amendment to trade Act of 1974 - making U.S. trade benefits dependent
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on the Kremlin's willingness to allow emigration by Jews and others from the
USSR - "one of the terrible mistakes that was made by American politicians." In
the same interview he called for Most Favored Nation status for the Soviet
Union.
April 1988 found former USTEC executive - now U.S. Secretary of Commerce C. William Verity packing his bags to fly to Moscow. His mission: negotiating a
new U.S.-Soviet trade agreement de-linking Soviet human rights violations from
trade with the Communists and, at the same time, easing high-tech export
restrictions to the USSR.
Just by coincidence, at the same time some 500 American business executives
and officials of the Commerce Department were in the Soviet capital attending
the 11th annual meeting of USTEC and being wined and dined by the
Gorbachevs. In addition to silver platters heaped with caviar, the menu included
galantine of zander, smoked salmon, pheasant stuffed with prunes, hazel grouse
and the finest vodkas and Georgian wines. It was the same lavish setting used
many times before to impress the Americans. Former president Richard Nixon,
for example, had sat in the same room on his first trip to Moscow. Joseph
Finder, in his remarkable book on the U.S.-Soviet trade lobby, RED CARPET, lets
Nixon describe his feelings at that meeting:
"Sitting next to each other at the head table, Brezhnev and I looked directly
across the room at a several-times-life-size-mural of Christ and the Apostles at
the Last Supper. Brezhnev said, 'That was the Politburo of those days.' I
responded, 'That must mean that the General Secretary and the Pope have
much in common.' Brezhnev laughed and reached over and shook my hand."
One of Nixon's closest friends and advisers was Pepsi-Cola's Donald Kendall, like
Commerce Secretary Verity, a former executive of USTEC. How much influence
he exerted on Nixon in favor of U.S.-Soviet trade is an open question. It should
be noted, however, that Lenin's friend Armand Hammer once donated $20,000
to Nancy Reagan to buy new china for the White House. The U.S.-Soviet trade
lobbyists are free with their dollars to the right people in the right places.
GORBACHEV ENCOURAGES U.S. TIES the New York Times announced in
headlines on April 14, 1988. "New thinking should at long last enter the sphere
of our economic relations," the Times quoted "the Soviet leader" addressing the
11th annual meeting of USTEC.
Only hours before, executives of seven American corporations gave notice that
they had formed the American Trade Consortium, Inc. to "serve as a gateway
and guidepost for expanded American participation in joint venture projects with
the Soviet Union." The seven big businesses: Dwayne Andreas's Archer-DanielMidland grain company; the Chevron Corporation; RJR Nabisco Inc.; the
Eastman Kodak Company; the Ford Motor Company; Johnson & Johnson and
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the Mercator Corporation. Their president: James Giffen who was one of the
select few to meet in secret with Gorbachev and Commerce Secretary Verity
during the December Summit. "This is not aid; this is trade and we're after
profits," Giffen told the Times, which noted that Giffen and other executives in
Moscow were "unresponsive to questions on how they would obtain hard
currency profits from their agreements" with the Soviets. Russian rubles are
worthless outside the USSR.
According to R. Cort Kirkwood, writing in the April 29 National Review (''Inside
the Red-Trade Lobby") one former Reagan administration official in-the-know
told him that "new working groups", such as the American Trade Consortium,
Inc., will be "a major watershed of change in the way we do business - resulting
in the formal integration of whole sectors of the U.S. and Soviet economies."
Red Carpet author Joseph Finder explains the new rush of U.S. business
executives to Moscow this way:
"This is an exact replication of Lenin's New Economic Policy. Have them set up
everything and kick them out. It's not risky for the Soviets. Americans put up
the investment. A lot of companies see the Soviet Union as a giant unexploited
market. They had the same feeling in the 1920s." On the other side, American
Trade Consortium's James Giffen says it's a great idea for the U.S. to help the
USSR become an economic superpower and calls anyone opposing greater U.S.
trade with the Soviets "a bunch of ideologues" and "mental midgets" out to get
headlines.
Lenin reportedly once remarked that capitalists will sell Russia the rope it needs
to hang them. In Red Carpet, Joseph Finder quotes Lenin further:
"The capitalists of the world and their governments, in pursuit of conquest of
the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the indicated higher reality and thus
will turn into deaf-mute blind men. They will extend credits, which will
strengthen for us the Communist party in their countries and giving us the
materials and technology we lack, they will restore our military industry,
indispensable for our future victorious attack on our suppliers. In other words,
they will labor for the preparation for their own suicide."
A brief look at some past U.S.-Soviet trade undertakings will show how accurate
Lenin was in his predictions:

In 1972 and again in 1977 the Soviets took advantage of bountiful U.S. harvests to
secretly buy millions of tons of grain at low prices on easy credit. This sent wheat
and corn prices to record highs and the price of food to American consumers
soaring.

High grade U.S. technology was used to build the Soviets' ZIL plant which became
central to Soviet military efforts against American soldiers and marines in Vietnam.
ZIL also produced missile launchers and a whole range of Soviet military equipment.

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For pointing out that it makes no sense at all for the U.S. to spend billions on
defense while also underwriting the Soviet military, Carter Administration Commerce
Department official Lawrence J. Brady's appointment as assistant secretary for
import and export - a key position governing Red trade policy - was shot down by
none other than C. William Verity who led a campaign against Brady's confirmation.

In 1974 the Rockefellers' Chase Manhattan Bank (where Commerce Secretary Verity
served on the board of directors) loaned the Soviets millions of dollars to build the
world's largest truck plant (Kama River) 550 miles east of Moscow. Moscow
promised it wouldn't, but soon after completion the Kama River plant began turning
out trucks and other military vehicles used in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

If a consortium of bankers, big business executives and Commerce Department

officials are busy selling the rope with which the Soviets plan to hang
America, don't we have "the right to know" who is doing the selling? The answer
is positively not!We have the right to know more than we want to know or care
about Watergate and Iran-Contra, but the identities of those trading with the
Communists is a classified secret.
All efforts, for example, to find out who belongs to USTEC are blocked by the
Department of Commerce which withholds all data about corporations trading
with the Soviets and the dollar value and impact of such trade. Four hundred
pages of official documentation about USTEC are locked in the files of the
Justice Department which refuses to release any information contained therein
to the public.
As far back as 1979, the Washington based National Journalism Center filed suit
in federal court seeking to compel disclosure of relevant data about USTEC and
U.S.-Soviet trade. Results: zero. Why the secrecy? Columnist William Rusher
contemplates:
"The (Commerce) department vehemently protests. It insists that such
disclosure would violate trade secrets and run counter to the 'national interest'
all of which is so much twaddle. What trade secrets? As Mr. Evans (M. Stanton
Evans, chairman of the National Journalism Center) notes: 'competitive firms in
the computer business, for example, have a pretty good idea of who is selling
what to whom . . . It is the public that is being denied this information."
Evans himself has written in an April 30, 1988 column: "Whatever the truth of
such assertion, the common factor in all these cases is apparent: Officials of our
government are fighting hammer and tongs to make sure the American people
know little or nothing of this traffic with the enemy - including the identities of
the people engaged in it and the activities of such promoters as USTEC,
entwined as it is with the officials themselves. We are confronted in sum, with a
systematic cover-up of mind-boggling dimensions. Where, one wonders, are our
crusading media and their vaunted interest in the public's 'right to know'?"

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Write to your Senators and Congressmen. Ask them why those Red traders who
are selling rope to the Communists to hang Americans are being protected from
exposure and public scrutiny of their activities.

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