Bill de Blasio and New York City's Clintongate Scandal: A Tale of Three Phonies--Part 5

(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of the Lower East Side underground/alternative newspaper, “The Shadow”)

Bill de Blasio’s Hillary Clinton Connection

In his 2000 book Rogue State, anti-war writer William Blum indicated some of the reasons the husband of Hillary Clinton was considered responsible for war crimes by many anti-war activists on the Lower East Side in 1999: “for his merciless bombing of the people of Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights, taking the lives of many hundreds of civilians and producing one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in history; for his relentless continuation of the sanctions and rocket attacks upon the people of Iraq; and for his illegal and lethal bombing of Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan and Afghanistan.”

And most anti-corporate activists on the Lower East Side in 1999 also opposed the pro-NAFTA, pro-WTO and pro-IMF economic policies that both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton promoted, which helped create a larger growth in economic inequality in the USA during the Democratic Clinton administration of the 1990s than in any previous U.S. administration.

Yet Bill de Blasio still agreed in late 1999 to serve the Clintons as Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign manager when the wife of Arkansas’s former governor (and then-Democratic Party Boss Bill Clinton) wanted to “carpetbag” into New York State from the White House and grab a third seat in the U.S. Senate for Arkansas’s political establishment; and wanted to also use one of New York State’s seats in the U.S. Senate as a stepping stone for a future U.S. presidential campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and as a way to authorize a 2003 Pentagon attack on Iraq that most people in New York City opposed. As the New York Times observed in a Dec. 4, 1999 article, titled “Clinton Senate Campaign Gets A Full-Time Director:”

“Hillary Rodham Clinton began to lay the groundwork for…her United States Senate campaign yesterday, selecting Bill de Blasio…to serve as her full-time campaign manager.

“Mr. de Blasio, 38, has held a series of political and governmental jobs in New York… He took a desk and phone at Mrs. Clinton's Midtown campaign headquarters yesterday and will formally begin work on Monday.

“With his appointment, Mr. de Blasio joins a small full-time campaign staff,…

''`I am very excited to do this,’' Mr. de Blasio said. `'I think she's a great candidate.’…'

“Mr. de Blasio…has ties to City Hall, through Mr. Vallone…and, perhaps most important, to Harold M. Ickes, Mrs. Clinton's senior political strategist. Mr. Ickes also works as Mr. Vallone's paid lobbyist in Washington….”

In an Aug. 25, 2013 article, the New York Times also indicated how de Blasio contributed to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign to grab one of New York’s seats in the U.S. Senate for U.S. presidential campaign stepping-stone reasons:

“Mr. de Blasio, a former official in the Clinton administration...joined the campaign in late 1999, after being recommended by several people close to the Clintons, including Harold Ickes, a former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton….His primary objectives…included serving as a liaison to New York’s power brokers, in the city and upstate…Never was he more instrumental, his colleagues say, than when he soothed the feelings of Jewish leaders…Indeed, Mr. de Blasio stayed in close contact with Assemblyman Dov Hikind ... And Patti Solis Doyle, a longtime adviser to Mrs. Clinton, said that the former first lady `would not have been senator without him’ because `he paved the way for her with many of the prickly political factions in New York State.’”

And in her 2003 autobiography, Hillary Clinton also recalled that in 2000 “Patti Solis Doyle…coordinated my White House and campaign schedules,…overseeing logistics and helping to run campaign strategy” and “Patti joined an experienced team led by my campaign manager, Bill de Blasio, who proved to be an outstanding strategist and trusted emissary among the…communities of New York…”

Coincidentally, the Clinton White House Chief of Staff who recommended de Blasio as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Tiber Creek Group-Ickes & Enright Group lobbyist Harold Ickes, has, in recent years, also been the president of the tax-exempt Fund for the Public Advocate, which “was formed by the Office of the New York City Public Advocate and incorporated in 2002 as a…tax exempt corporation” and “seeks to partner with foundations, corporations, individuals and community organizations,” according to its website.

And among the clients whose special interests have been represented by the Tiber Creek Group-Peck Madigan Jones firm that Fund for the Public Advocate President Ickes’s lobbying firm has been a part of during Bill de Blasio’s term as New York City’s Public Advocate have been the following:  Health Partners, Inc., Hertz Corporation, International Swaps & Derivatives Association, MasterCard International Incorporated; Mid-Sized Bank Coalition of America; NYSE Euronext, Inc.; Pentagon Federal Credit Union; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; US-Russia Business

; Whirlpool Corporation; Wells Fargo Securities, Inc.; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Yet as the New York Times observed in an Aug. 31, 2013 article:

“”One of his first actions was to bring in an old friend and mentor as the fund’s president: Harold M. Ickes, a prominent figure in the Clinton White House. Mr. Ickes, who resides in Washington, was initially skeptical of Mr. de Blasio’s entreaties.

“`I said, “Do you really want a non-New Yorker?’” Mr. Ickes recalled in an interview.

“But Mr. de Blasio was insistent. `He thought it would be an asset,’ said Mr. Ickes, who also advises Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign.”

(end of part 5)

Bill de Blasio and New York City's Clintongate Scandal: A Tale of Three Phonies--Part 4

(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of the Lower East Side underground/alternative newspaper, “The Shadow”)

Bill de Blasio’s Peter Vallone Sr./C and V Connection

During the 1990s, de Blasio also served as a senior aide to a Democratic Speaker of the New York City Council named Peter Vallone, Sr. Coincidentally, de Blasio’s former boss has, in recent years, been a “Principal” in the for-profit lobbying firm of Constantinople and Vallone Consulting LLC [C and V].  As the website of former Speaker of the New York City Council Vallone Sr.’s C and V lobbying firm notes:

“Peter Vallone, Sr. is a New Yorker…Vallone served as Speaker of the New York City Council from 1986 through 2001… As Speaker, Peter was the City’s top legislator… Peter’s ability to reach all levels of New York City…government is unparalleled, and his vast experience results in the achievement of short and long term goals for C and V clients….Peter’s `Safe Streets — Safe City’ rebuilt the police force from 26,000 to 41,000 officers...

“Constantinople and Vallone Consulting LLC is a results oriented government relations… firm with a strong record of success…C and V provides customized, hands on consulting services to a select group of clientele….We at C and V believe that effective government relations is not just who you know, it's knowing who you need to know. C and Vs principals bring a unique combination of experience and expertise in the sectors of government…C and V believes in creating and fostering an open dialogue with government officials...Constantinople and Vallone guides you through the entire governmental process…C and V has vast experience in dealing with both the New York City and State Executive branches and Legislatures…We get you in the door at every level, from staff to principal…We at C and V utilize the same strategy that served Peter Vallone, Sr. so well throughout his tenure at the City Council... For each project that we accept, C and V designs a strategy that touches all the bases necessary for success…”

So, not surprisingly, an article in the Nov. 17, 2006 issue of the New York Sun contained the following reference to Donald Trump and the lobbying firm of De Blasio’s former boss:

“The city is set to grant building permits to developer Donald Trump to construct a 45-story condominium hotel in SoHo...According to land use filings, the owners of the SoHo development site include Bayrock Development, the Sapir Organization, and Zar Realty Management….Over the last year and a half, Zar Realty has paid more than $150,000 to Constantinople Consulting, the lobbying firm of a former speaker of the City Council, Peter Vallone Sr. On behalf of the developer, the firm lobbied the department of buildings, the planning commission, the City Council, the office of the Manhattan president, the office of the attorney general, and the office of the deputy mayor, according to filings with the state….”

Coincidentally, according to the Office of the Public Advocate website, de Blasio has met at least four times in his public office with lobbyists from the Constantinople and Vallone firm during his term as New York City’s Public Advocate. On Sept. 21, 2010, for example, de Blasio had a meeting with Peter Vallone and Anthony Constantinople; and on July 27, 2011, Aug. 2, 2011 and Mar. 1, 2012, de Blasio had a meeting with C and V lobbyist Anthony Constantinople alone.

(end of part 4)

Bill de Blasio and New York City's Clintongate Scandal: A Tale of Three Phonies--Part 3

(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of the Lower East Side underground/alternative newspaper, “The Shadow”)

Bill de Blasio’s Dinkins Administration Connection

Bill Clinton was not the first Democratic politician who primarily represented the special corporate interests of Wall Street banks and New York City real estate developers-- rather than the economic and political class interests of Lower East Side tenants and activists—that de Blasio served.

Under the name “Bill Wilhelm”, he had been an NYU undergraduate student politico in the early 1980s. But by 1984 “he was calling himself Bill de Blasio;” and he then “joined the 1984 presidential campaign” of the Democratic presidential candidate who opposed Jesse Jackson’s attempt to be the 1984 Democratic Party presidential nominee—former Trilateral Commission member Walter Mondale—serving “as a field organizer in Connecticut,” according to an Oct. 6, 2013 New York Daily News article.

Then--after attending Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and graduating in May 1987—he spent a year at the religious left-oriented Quixote Center (which provided humanitarian aid to people in Nicaragua who were then being victimized by the CIA-organized Contra War to overthrow the anti-imperialist Sandinista government in that country), before agreeing to serve as a campaign coordinator for former Inner City Broadcasting board member and 1989 New York City mayoral candidate David Dinkins.

Following Dinkins’ election, de Blasio served former New York City Democratic Mayor David Dinkins as a mayoral aide/staffperson between 1990 and 1994..

During the period when de Blasio was a member of the Dinkins administration, Mayor Dinkins ordered his police force to violently shove homeless people and their supporters out of Tompkins Square Park, destroy its bandshell and flood the Lower East Side with police. And after the Dinkins administration obtained a court injunction that denied the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization [ILGO] its democratic right to march up Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day to protest against homophobia in March 1993, Dinkins ordered his police force to block the ILGO marchers and arrest 170 of the 1,500 ILGO protesters.

According to Trump by Wayne Barrett, during the 1989 New York City mayoral campaign, Donald Trump “had Tony Gliedman, an old tennis buddy of David Dinkins, heading a real estate fund-raising committee for the Dinkins campaign;” and, according to Donald Axelrod’s Shadow Government, in July 1990 the Dinkins administration “selected 5 underwriters from a field of 53 companies to sell $6 billion in bonds: Bear, Stearns; Goldman Sachs; First Boston’ Shearing Lehman Hutton; and Merrill Lynch. To no one’s surprise, the New York Times revealed that all five had contributed $233,000 to the campaign of Mayor David N. Dinkins and Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman.”

So, not surprisingly, the pro-corporate and pro-real estate developer policies of the Democratic Dinkins administration--that de Blasio was a part of between 1990 and 1994—failed to provide apartments for the homeless in New York City, failed to rollback rents for tenants in New York City to pre-1971 levels and failed to create more jobs at union wages for New York City’s unemployed workers. In 1992, for example, “the number of homeless families pouring into city shelters and welfare hotels…reached an all-time high of 5,238,” according to Newsday (7/15/92); and by January 1993 the official unemployment rate in New York City under the Dinkins administration—that de Blasio was a part of—had jumped to 13.4 percent. The record of the Democratic “Dinkins-de Blasio” administration between 1990 and 1994 was also summarized in the following way by the publication of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, Tenant, in May 1993:

“Dinkins’ record on the homeless is `long on rhetoric and short on achievement,’ says Steve Banks, coordinator of the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Family Rights Project. There are more and more homeless instead of fewer, with the administration equally unable to stem the tide of recession-rooted evictions or help those who find themselves without a home. The number of homeless families in the city’s shelter system has nearly doubled from 3,200 in July 1990 to a record 5,600 in January of this year.”

(end of part 3)

Bill de Blasio and New York City's Clintongate Scandal: A Tale of Three Phonies--Part 2

(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of the Lower East Side underground/alternative newspaper, “The Shadow”)

Bill de Blasio’s Bill Clinton Connection

In 1996 most anti-war and anti-corporate activists on the Lower East Side pretty much agreed with how Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity characterized former Arkansas governor and then-U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife—former Wal-Mart corporate board member and Rose corporate law firm partner and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton—in the 1996 book The Buying of The President:

“There is probably no case more instructive of the intersection of private and public interest and the incestuousness of Arkansas business and political elites than that somewhat complicated affair known as Whitewater…The point of Whitewater and Bill Clinton’s public service career in Arkansas is that long before the presidential election of 1992, his political identity as an accommodator of the largest most powerful monied interests was well established. While he was governor, millions of dollars in private favors at public expenses accrued to various companies and individuals, and Clinton’s professional career as a politician was supported by the Arkansas financial and political elites…

“…From 1983 until he resigned as governor in order to seek his party’s nomination for president, Clinton never really threatened the interests of the business elite, in some cases directly servicing them…Tyson Foods received roughly $12 million in tax breaks during the years Clinton was governor.

“In 1984 and in subsequent races, Tyson backed Clinton, not only at election time, but by allowing the governor to travel frequently on the Tyson corporate jet, picking up the tab on expensive meals, among other favors.

“For her part, Hillary Rodham Clinton was ensconced in the old, established Little Rock Rose law firm, which represented Tyson and other important corporate and financial interests in the state, including Stephens Inc., and Wal-Mart, among others. It was Tyson’s attorney, James Blair, who helped her make close to a 10,000 percent return on a $1,000 play in commodities training…Clinton and his inner circle of advisers…exempted themselves from…conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements…Meanwhile, he and his administration were notably laggard and unaggressive in halting Tyson’s polluting of rivers and streams…

“In 1991, a year after promising he would serve a full four-year term as governor if reelected, Clinton announced his candidacy for president of the United States…

“Banking and financial interests were not bashful about supporting the Arkansas governor. In 1992, candidate Clinton received at least $853,295 in campaign contributions from the financial sector…And the company that produced more than $100,000 and the largest number of individual contributors was the New York-based securities firm Goldman Sachs…The Clinton administration has pursued and served the American business community more aggressively and more systematically than any previous administration…”

Yet Bill de Blasio—who, along with former Clinton White House Senior Advisor George Stephanapoulos, was chosen to be a Truman Scholar by the secretive Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation in the early 1980s--still agreed to serve the Clintons as Bill Clinton’s New York campaign director during Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential re-election campaign; and during Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, “the Democratic Party accepted so many contributions of questionable origin that it ultimately was forced to return at least $2.8 million in illegal or improper donations,” according to Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity’s book The Buying of The President 2000. But—apparently as a reward for being Bill Clinton’s New York campaign director in 1996—de Blasio was then given a high-salaried, publicly-funded job as Regional Director for the Clinton Administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], which uses federal funds to provide lucrative corporate welfare subsidies to big private real estate developers and landlords who agree to build or rent privately-owned, but federally-subsidized, housing units for “moderate”-income, elderly and—sometimes--low-income tenants—on a generally for-profit basis.

So, not surprisingly, as recently as late September 2013, when asked by The New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick to indicate “what sort of mayor” of the Big Apple he would be, de Blasio “pointed to Bill Clinton, in whose administration he served, pointing out that the former president had…governed effectively,” according an article by John Cassidy that appeared in the Sept. 27, 2013 issue of The New Yorker.

(end of part 2)

Bill de Blasio and New York City's Clintongate Scandal: A Tale of Three Phonies--Part 1

(A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of the Lower East Side underground/alternative newspaper, “The Shadow”)

“Mr. de Blasio becomes Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager during an uneasy period for her campaign…, Mrs. Clinton, who has never lived in New York, came to New York City to announce that she was indeed going to run for office...In Mr. de Blasio, Mrs. Clinton chose someone who…grew up in New York -- a point that was prominently mentioned in the single-page news release announcing the appointment…”

--the New York Times on Dec. 4, 1999

“…De Blasio is the leading candidate for mayor of New York,…poised to become the city’s second consecutive mayor with Massachusetts roots, succeeding Michael R. Bloomberg, a Medford native….De Blasio, 52, said growing up in Cambridge gave him a `very progressive grounding.’….De Blasio moved to Cambridge in 1966, when he was 5. His mother, Maria, was a public relations manager at Polaroid…De Blasio’s name then was Warren Wilhelm Jr….De Blasio rarely mentions his youth in Cambridge…His roots in the city are a potential sore spot…`I am very much a Red Sox fan,’ de Blasio said in the interview this month….”

--the Boston Globe on Sept. 30, 2013

“What does Bill de Blasio…have to do with Polaroidland?...The Boston Globe today revealed that his connection is sturdier than most: His mother, Maria Wilhelm, worked in Polaroid’s public-relations department for nearly twenty years. A quick search of newspaper databases reveals plenty of quotes (and a few `no comment’s) that she offered the press down through the years…I asked Donald Dery and Sam Yanes, each of whom ran Polaroid’s PR operation (Don until 1980, Sam thereafter), and they remember her well. (She died in 2007.) Sam offered this:`…Maria Wilhelm would just plow ahead, like a pro, working from 9 to 5, always on deadline, always on point.  Her main job was to place `Amazing Things Are Happening Here’ stories everywhere…When I was out of town, she looked after our financial and corporate communications concerns…’”

--from a Polaroidland blog post of Sept. 30, 2013

“…In 1970, a union tried to organize workers at the company. [Polaroid President and Chairman Edwin] Land regarded the attempt as an intrusion. The union organizing effort failed…”

--from Victor McElheny’s Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land in 1998

“Over 100 people rallied in front of Polaroid's main office building in Tech Square yesterday and demanded that the Cambridge-based corporation immediately terminate its activities in South Africa.

“Speakers at the rally, held to commemorate the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, continued to level their charge that Polaroid's ID-2 identification system is instrumental in the maintenance of apartheid…Chris Nteta, a black South African, noted that the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid met earlier this month to discuss the firing of Polarold employees who had organized a boycott of Polaroid products to protest the company's continuing involvement in South Africa…Polaroid equipment…was responsible for 20 per cent of all pictures taken for passbooks in 1970, according to Polaroid statistics.

“Towards the close of the rally, Caroline Hunter, a member of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement who was fired by Polaroid for organizing a boycott of Polaroid products, issued a `People's Warrant’ against Edwin H. Land, president and chairman of the board of Polaroid, for `Mass Murder.’ Hunter then set fire to four Polaroid cameras to dramatize the protest….”


--the Harvard Crimson on Mar. 23, 1971

Columbia University's CIA Connection In 2014--Part 1

"The Central Intelligence Agency has become a killing machine, an organization consumed with man hunting...After President Bush signed a secret order to escalate the CIA's war in Pakistan, Abu Khabib al-Masri was killed in a CIA drone strike, just 12 miles from the CIA base...During his first year in office, President Obama ordered a review of the roughly one dozen covert-action programs the CIA was carrying out at the time, from the drone strikes to a campaign to sabotage Iran's nuclear work...The summer 2009 meetings effectively rubber-stamped all of the CIA's secret ventures...By the time a `principals committee' meeting was scheduled for the fall, when President Obama's top national security advisers would make final decisions on the covert-action programs, not one of them was under consideration for cancellation...The Obama administration approved every one of the covert-action programs that had been handed down by President Bush...

--from New York Times National Security Correspondent Mark Mazzetti's 2013 book, The Way of The Knife

"Peter Clement, who recently began a two-year term as a visiting professor, joins SIPA from the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, where he spent the last eight years as deputy director for intelligence for analytic programs..."

--from a Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] website article on September 9, 2013

Columbia University's CIA Connection In 2014--Part 1

Most people who live in Manhattan opposed both the Bush-Cheney Administration's decision to attack Iraq in 2003 and the Obama Administration's decision to escalate the CIA's covert drone war in Pakistan and other foreign countries after 2009.

Yet in 2013 the Columbia University administration's School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] hired a 35-year veteran of the CIA--CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Peter Clement--to be Columbia University's CIA Officer In Residence between 2013 and 2015.

In an interview that was posted on the Columbia University SIPA website on September 9, 2013, CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Clement indicated how he came to be Columbia University's CIA Officer In Residence in 2014:

"The Agency's Officers in Residence program goes back several decades. Over the years the CIA has had people teach at different schools around the country--including Georgetown, MIT, Harvard, and Princeton--in departments of international affairs and related subjects...

"...Coming to SIPA was largely my idea...I knew Professors [Robert] Jervis and [Richard] Betts. I broached the OIR idea with Jervis, who consults for the CIA and he and Betts were both positive. And then, as I understand it, the appointment was reviewed and finalized...There are a healthy number of SIPA graduates in our workforce...I've spent much of my career at the nexus [of intelligence and foreign policy]. Attending White House meetings, you can see firsthand how senior policymakers use the product...If anyone has questions about the intelligence business, my door is open. I'm just really excited to be here, it's a great opportunity..."

According to New York Times National Security Correspondent Michael Mazzetti's 2013 book The Way Of The Knife, "targeted killings have made the CIA the indispensable  agency for the Obama administration."

Columbia University's Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems' Connection: Trilateral Commission's Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean--Conclusion

“In his 1976 book, The Control of Oil, the former Chief Economist of the Senate Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly, John Blair, noted that in 1938 the Rockefeller family held directly or indirectly, 20 percent of Exxon’s stock, 16 percent of Mobil’s stock, 11 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco’s stock and 12 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron’s stock. In 1974, according to the book Everybody’s Business, the Rockefeller family still owned 1 percent of all Exxon stock (worth $156.7 million), 1.7 percent of Mobil’s stock (worth $63.6 million), .2 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco stock (worth $11.7 million) and 2 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron stock (worth $$85.3 million). In addition, Trilateral Commission Founder David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank owned 1.5 percent of SOCAL/Chevron’s stock in 1980.”
--Downtown (l2/12/90)

“…The Rockefeller clan – there are 242 of them, including spouses and minors – has endured as a powerful force…ExxonMobil stock is the single biggest holding of some family members…”

--from a May 2, 2008 Financial Times article by Chrystia Freeland

“One area of Rockefeller & Co. know-how has been built out of the Rockefeller family's 50-year record of integrating environmental, social, and governance concerns into its portfolio and investment decisions...Rockefeller targets families with $30 million; new clients are generally subject to a minimum $100,000 annual fee…”

--from a September 15, 2012 Barron’s.com article by Richard C. Morais

“In 1978, the year Charles Trimble founded Trimble Navigation, the original NAVSTAR satellite was launched, giving the U.S. government its first reference point for a worldwide radio-navigation system that became known as GPS, or Global Positioning System…GPS was developed to meet military needs…The U.S. government invested $12 billion in the project...GPS first earned its admirers during the Persian Gulf War, a time when, not coincidentally, Trimble Navigation captured the interest of industry observers….During Operation Desert Storm, Trimble Navigation provided troops with Trimpacks, devices that enabled soldiers to pinpoint their location. The hand-held receivers performed admirably, earning praise from military commanders and making Trimble Navigation an attractive prospect for investors...When sales in 1990 reached $63.3 million, the announcement fanned investor interest in the company. The figure exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations by roughly 25 percent, prompting investors to look closer at the Sunnyvale, California-based enterprise. What they saw was a company controlling 60 percent of a market whose revenue volume was more than doubling annually….They saw a company whose orders for Trimpack receivers totaled $40 million between October 1990 and March 1991. Trimble Navigation's stock value soared as a result...Military sales…had fueled the company's meteoric rise in 1990 and 1991…”

--from the Gale Directory of Company Histories

“GPS…is a crucial wartime technology for U.S. forces in Iraq.

“The military relies on the Global Positioning System to direct the kind of precision-guided "smart bombs" that were used in the opening air assault on Iraq…GPS receivers also are widely deployed among ground forces, allowing them to better navigate the desert terrain and track their precise locations, even during blinding sandstorms.

“…Before the full GPS system was operational, the United States used laser-guided bombs that were affected by rain, clouds and sandstorms. But in Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2002, the United States deployed a new generation of GPS-guided bombs…”

--from a March 20, 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article

“Trimble Military and Advanced Systems Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., (FA8807-13-D-0017) is being awarded a $6,712,500 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for acquisition of Trimble GPS receivers. The location of the performance is Sunnyvale, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by December 2017. The contracting activity is SMC/GPK, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif. Contract involves Foreign Military Sales. (Air Force Contract).”

– from a Dec. 10, 2012 U.S. Department of Defense press release

“The School of International Affairs (SIA) has become, in the space of a. few years, one of Columbia's largest, and most important divisions….In 1967, the School listed a Faculty and staff of over 150 members, which included some of the most prestigious -- and powerful -- figures in the Columbia community….. The purpose of the SIA has never been in doubt: to train experts in international affairs and foreign areas for administrative positions in America's expanding overseas empire…. “

--from NACLA’s 1968 pamphlet, Who Rules Columbia?

Columbia University’s Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems’ Connection: Trilateral Commission’s Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean—Conclusion

For nearly 100 years, Trilateral Commission founder David Rockefeller Sr. and other members of the Rockefeller Dynasty have obtained and retained much wealth and special influence in the world of U.S. business, politics, culture and higher education as a result of their family ownership—or control via their various “non-profit” foundations, banks or family investment firms—of stock in U.S.-based transnational oil/energy corporations like ExxonMobil and Chevron/Texaco/Unocal.

And according to a 13 FHR filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC] for the period ending March 31, 2013 made by the Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services firm on whose board of directors the new Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] dean—Trilateral Commission member Merit Janow—has sat in recent years, over $173 million worth of Chevron/Texaco/Unocal stock and over $92 million worth of ExxonMobil stock are currently owned or controlled by Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services.


In addition, the stock portfolio of Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services includes large chunks of stock in corporations such as Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, Apache Corporation, Apple, Boeing, BP, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Con Edison, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, IBM, Merck, Royal Dutch Shell, Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart and Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems (on whose board of directors Columbia SIPA Dean Janow has also sat in recent years).

Coincidentally, Trimble Military and Advanced Systems has apparently manufactured weapons that were used by the U.S. military to wage war overseas since 2001 on behalf of the special corporate interests of transnational oil/energy corporations such as Chevron/Texaco/Unocal and ExxonMobil, in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. On May 13, 2002, for example, Trimble Navigation/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems was awarded a $2.1 million military development contract to supply GPS technology for Raytheon’s Miniature Airborne GPS Receiver MAGR 2000 for use in a variety of U.S. and Allied military aircraft including the MG-53E Sea Dragon, F016 Fighting Falcon, and E-2c Hawkeye. And on September 26, 2002, Trimble was also awarded a contract from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), Special Missions Branch. (end of article)