September 10, 2013
by Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen Report dot com
President Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, the woman who actually raised the future President of the United States, served as the vice president and chief escrow account officer for the bank of Hawaii at an interesting time for the CIA’s murky operations in the 50th state. Dunham retired from the Bank of Hawaii in 1986 but not before a massive financial network was exposed in 1983 as a result of the financial failure and Internal Revenue Service investigation of a major CIA proprietary headquartered in Honolulu, Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham and Wong (BBRDW), the Bishop being a member of one of Hawaii’s landed gentry families and one that both Madelyn Dunham and her husband Stanley, as well as their daughter, Stanley Ann, had past interactions.
New York businessman Charles Reed Bishop married Bernice Pauahi Paki of the royal House of Kamehameha in 1850. Their descendants would play a major role in Hawaii to the present day. Charles Bishop, through the Bishop Trust, built a number of buildings at the elite Punahou School, where Obama attended. The Bishop Trust also funded the Bishop Museum for whom Obama’s mother briefly worked as a Javanese history specialist.
For an agency that disavowed any connection to BBRDW, the CIA curiously maintains detailed files on the failed corporation that was involved, according to the editor’s book, The Manufacturing of a President, in making pay-offs to Asian dictators who were allies of the United States. These payments were made via the escrow accounts overseen at the Bank of Hawaii by Obama’s grandmother.
Among the CIA files is an obscure article on BBRDW written by John Kelly for the June-August 1984 issue of CounterSpy, a now-defunct magazine. BBRDW was an investment advisory firm on the surface but underneath its charade, it was a facilitator for various CIA clandestine operations.
Although the CIA vehemently denied that BBRDW belonged to them, One of the company’s consultants and investors was John “Jack” Kindschi, the former CIA station chief in Hawaii who previously served in clandestine positions in Stockholm and Mexico City. More interesting, Kindschi’s cover in Mexico City was the Robert Mullin Company, a public relations firm that employed one E. Howard Hunt, who would later emerge as one of conspirators in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Kindschi would most certainly have been known to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and CIA veterans Stanley and Madelyn Dunham who arrived in Hawaii from Seattle just as Hawaii became a state in 1960. The CIA had cleverly provided Stanley cover as a “furniture salesman.” In fact, Pratt Furniture of Honolulu, Dunham’s alleged employer, never existed save for a filing in the business records held by the State of Hawaii.
When BBRDW founder Ron Rewald, CIA code name “WINTERDOG” and “R,” attempted to commit suicide in a room at the Waikiki Sheraton in 1983, after BBRDW’s financial collapse, the CIA’s “plausible denial” machine went into full gear. CIA general counsel Robert Laprade stated in a sworn statement:
“the CIA did not cause Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham & Wong to be created nor has the agency at any time owned, operated, controlled or invested in Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham & Wong.”
End of the story?
Not quite.
While denying any CIA connection to BBRDW, Laprade asked that defense documents filed by Rewald in the government’s fraud case against the firm be sealed. Not only did U.S. Judge Martin Spence seal all the defense documents but he ordered sealed all documents mentioning the CIA and all attorneys, parties, and their agents were placed under a court gag order. Not coincidentally, one of the federal prosecutors, John Peyton, previously worked for the CIA’s general counsel’s office.
Rewald’s court affidavit stated that BBRDW was used by the CIA to “shelter monies of highly placed foreign diplomats and businessmen, who wished to ‘export’ cash to the United States, where it would be available to them in the event of emergency.” The CIA’s man in Cambodia, Marshal Lon Nol, availed himself of the accounts after he fled Cambodia to Hawaii after the takeover by the Khmer Rouge. Rewald bought a house form Lon Nol in Hawaii, an address that was later used for CIA cover companies.
The accounts held by BBRDW for foreign officials were held in “negotiable securities, wire transfers, or checks, many from the Chase Manhattan Bank.” Chase Manhattan was owned by David Rockefeller.
The Kelly article refers to letters between Kindschi and CIA agent Charles T. Connor that confirmed that BBRDW was providing such financial shelter for foreign officials, not just those in Asia but around the world. One letter from Connor to Kindschi stated that BBRDW provided a scheme for Greek elites to circumvent stringent Greek foreign exchange controls by investing in BBRDW. A CIA intermediary in Greece is named in the letter: Dino Goulos. Dino did not help the CIA because of his love for the agency. The letter states: “. . . if Dino can find investment friends seeking safe haven in dollar denominated investments with BBRD&W, we would be able to pay him a ‘finders fee’ of up to 5 percent . . .”
In other cases, BBRDW used joint business ventures to cultivate contacts with organizations such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). At the same time that Barack Obama was working for the CIA’s premier corporate liaison and contact-development firm, Business International Corporation of New York, BBRDW had signed on as joint venture partners billionaire Philippines banker Enrique Zobel, Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, Crown Prince Saud Mohammed of the United Arab Emirates, and wealthy Indonesian businessmen Indri Gautama. These four provided critical oil price intelligence to the CIA, particularly to major oil investor Bill Casey, the director.
BBRDW established the Hawaiian-Arabian Investment Company and U.S. & United Arab Emirates Investment Company with Saud Mohammed and Gautama and the Ayala-Hawaiian Corporation with Zobel. Zobel, who founded the Ayala Corporation in 1983, was a member of the influential and wealthy Ayala family of the Philippines. All were registered with the State of Hawaii and were as phony as Obama’s grandfather’s furniture company.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser spiked a story by reporter Charles Memminger on Zobel’s ties to the CIA operation. The reason was that Zobel was part of the oligarchical opposition opposed to President Ferdinand Marcos, an opposition that was being groomed by the CIA. The CIA did not want Zobel and his allies burned. Eventually, Marcos, like Lon Nol before him, would flee to Hawaii in 1986 after being ousted. With Marcos came his massive wealth, much of it deposited in Hawaiian banks, including Grandma Toot’s Bank of Hawaii, as the result of wire transfers from the Philippines National Bank.
Before Zobel broke with Marcos, the Philippines businessman helped arrange for BBRDW to obtain information on the purchase of two Hawaii estates by Marcos in 1977 and 1980. The first was an estate at 2338 Maikiki Heights Drive in Honolulu and the second was the Helen Knudsen estate, across the street from the first purchased estate.
Rewald was also a sleuth for the CIA. Court exhibits included information on Rewald filing a report to Langley with Tokyo CIA station chief Eugene Welsch. Rewald obtained the blueprints for Japan Airlines’ top secret High Speed Surface Transport (HSST). Rewald was said to have obtained the prints from a BBRDW’s client’s son who worked for the Japanese Ministry of Railroads. BBRDW also was involved with a covert CIA funding contrivance in Japan called T&B International Co., Ltd.
Before he set up BBRDW, Rewald, through another corporate contrivance, CMI Investment Corporation, fed Welsch economic and political intelligence from CMI clients on China and Japan. On the direction of Welsch, Rewald also set up H&H Enterprises, which served as “message and assignment center” for CIA operatives. H&H Enterprises’ business cards also provided credentials for non-official cover agents in the field. CMI was eventually replaced by BBRDW on the orders of Welsch.
And in what could answer a number of questions about Barack Obama’s academic credentials, Welsch provided Rewald with phony academic credentials as part of his “cover.” They included diplomas in business administration and law from Marquette University and a post-graduate Program of Instructions for Lawyers certificate from Harvard Law School. Official records from Marquette and Harvard confirmed Rewald’s attendance and degrees even though he never set foot on either campus. However, the sheepskins and certificate allowed Rewald tom “meet certain people.” Rewald later stated that within the intelligence community, Harvard is considered as “one of the family.”
BBRDW was also instructed by Jack Rardin, Kindschi’s replacement as CIA station chief in Hawaii, to provide military hardware to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India. The interlocutors for the deal were named as Sunny Wong and Dave Baldwin, both of BBRDW, and Shauna and Chan Pasrich, the latter reportedly a close friend of Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son. Rajiv was in the market for AWACS and L-1011 aircraft. Rewald maintained that the arms deal with India personally involved General Arnold W. Brasswell, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Air Force. A letter on CINCPACAF stationery was provided as an exhibit in the court case involving BBRDW. On it are the names and private telephone numbers of CINCPACAF officers, including General Jack Cotton and Lt. Gen. J.J. Burns, and vice presidents for international marketing Charles Conrad, Jr. of McDonnell Douglas (the former astronaut), Chuck de Bedts of Lockheed, and G.E. Todd of Hughes. Brasswell also had a personal interest in the Indian deal going through. He was to join BBRDW upon his retirement from the Air Force.
Calvin Gunderson, president of Hawaii’s Legal Investigations, which provided security for BBRDW, told NBC’s KITV 4 in Honolulu:
“And when big arms deals are being made, Bishop Baldwin at times acted as middleman. For one instance, India. They were looking to buy arms from the United States. Bishop Baldwin would be the middleman working through the Agency. And, when the deal went through, Bishop Baldwin would get a commission off it. You know we’re talking millions of dollars.” Gunderson also told the NBC station that the FBI cleared all of BBRDW’s arms deals and other covert transactions.
BBRDW was instructed by the CIA to join a “Fund for India” which would facilitate direct investments in India. Among the BBRDW employees listed on the prospectus for the Fund for India was the name of Gaylord Nelson, a former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.
And Toot just happened to be sitting in the middle of the CIA’s Hawaiian financial scheme that handled hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, for the world’s “haves.”
Furthemore, Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann, would have undoubtedly have had to deal with the Indonesian Consulate in Hawaii while extending and reapplying for her Indonesian visa on trips back to Hawaii. It turns out that BBRDW affidavits filed in the fraud case state that Mr. Gardell Simpson, the Indonesian Vice Consul General in Honolulu was being paid by the CIA through BBRDW. Rewald stated, “I think we were covering his [Simpson’s] car payments. He was to name me Honorary Consul General this Fall [1983], which would have further opened the door for high level Indonesian intelligence.” Moreover, Simpson maintained his Consulate General office for Indonesia at BBRDW’s Honolulu office. There is also every reason to believe that Obama’s mother had visited this office for visa purposes. A letter dated March 8, 1983 from Simpson to Rewald that upon Mr. Rehberg’s retirement and resignation as Honorary Consul in Honolulu, Rewald’s name would be “presented for the honorarium to President Soeharto.” Anyone requesting a visa for Indonesia at the Honolulu consulate was effectively vetted by the CIA before their entry into Indonesia was approved.
Meet the CIA’s answer to “Hawaii Five O” — BBRDW ran everything from phony companies to the Indonesian Consulate that issued visas for travel to Indonesia.
Pushing for Rewald to be named Honorary Consul was Sadjiar Sastrohandojo, a counselor of the Indonesian embassy in Washington. Rewald had another ace-in-the-hole in Indonesia in Gautama, his wealthy Indonesian business partner in the United Arab Emirates Investment Company and Hawaiian-Arabian Investment.
Rewald’s attorney, Robert Smith, wrote that another arms deal with Taiwan was brought to the attention of Casey at the CIA. Smith stated that Casey was told:
“Information has now been received from more than one source indicating that after July 29, 1983 — when events commenced here in Hawaii to unravel the affairs of Bishop Baldwin, CIA agent Ned Avary, who had earlier been negotiating the arms transaction with the Taiwan government through Russell D. C. Kim, was able to conclude that transaction and earned a commission of not less than $10 million dollars. Information received indicates that this commission was received by Avary, not for Bishop Baldwin’s account, but rather for the account of some other company to which all Bishop Baldwin/CIA operations have been transferred.”
Kim was another BBRDW asset who apparently sent confidential electronic data from Samsung’s computers in South Korea to BBRDW and onward to the CIA.
BBRDW did not only hire CIA agents but Sue Wilson of the National Security Agency was also brought on staff in Hawaii. Her hiring was personally approved by Welsch and there is a belief that she was brought into BBRDW to establish an NSA presence in the CIA operation in Honolulu.
Welsch was replaced as CIA station chief by Kindschi. Another CIA front company, Canadian Far East Trading Company, was set up by Kindschi and Rewald. A separate phone was maintained in Rewald’s office for the new firm and CIA operatives James T. Edwards (aka James T. Bishop) and Jack Porter (aka Thomas Thompson) officially operated out of the office as Canadian Far Eastern employees. A third agent, Charles H. Richardson (aka Richard P. Cavanaugh) operated under CMI cover in California and was involved in special projects in the Far East and Middle East. Another covert agent was Wilfred K. Dorociak (aka Thomas Tom Song) who was said to be a U.S.-born Chinese-American who was investigating “trading opportunities” with the People’s Republic of China.
Eventually, Rewald claimed he was sent to Argentina and Mexico to acquire financial intelligence on both nations. He claimed a CIA “hit list” provided the names of officials to be “assessed and cultivated.” They included:
ARGENTINA:
Guillermo Walter KLEIN, Economist and Attorney
Adalberto Kreiger VAS [sic] [VASENA], Former Minister of Economy
Alvary Carlos ALSOGARAY, Economist
Domingo CAVALLO, Former Central Bank President
Juan OCAMPT, Banker
MEXICO:
Manuel CLOUTHIER, President of the Businessmens’ Coordinating Council
Emilio Goicoecea LUNA, President of the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce
Alfonso Pandal GRAF, President of the Confederation of National Chambers of Industry
Jose Maria Basagioti, President of the Board of the Alfa Industrial Group
Ernesto Fernandez HURTADO, Chairman of RAMSA and uncle of DE LA MADRID
Rewald was directed to collect personality assessment and biographic information. From Argentine “main financial contacts” MARTINEZ HOZ, Rewald was to obtain information on the credit status of Argentine banks, contingency plans for war with Britain over the Falkland Islands, exposure of British banks in Argentina, effects on the peso in black markets, etc.
Rewald also visited Chile with the assistance of BBRDW consultant Michael Dailey, who was fluent in Spanish. Rewald is said to have attended a briefing on the Falklands situation at the British embassy in Chile and met with a CIA-installed member of General Augusto Pinochet’s military government.
BBRDW also had a relationship with Jon Lodeesen, the deputy director for Soviet broadcast analysys at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Germany. Lodeseen had been expelled from the U.S. embassy in Moscow on the suspicion that he was a CIA spy. Another BBRDW contact in Germany was General Adolfo (Dolfo) Galland, the Supreme Commander of German Luftwaffe fighter forces in World War II. Galland’s interest to BBRDW and the CIA was his status as German representative for General Electric, Sikorsky, Hamilton Standard, and Pratt & Whitney.
At a time when the CIA was instrumental in establishing off-shore banking industries in Nevis in the Caribbean and the Cook Islands in the Pacific, BBRDW was tasked with turning Guam into a “Netherlands Antilles-like” tax haven of the Pacific. BBRDW’s office in Guam consisted of Allen and Mary Pelletier and “consultants” Dan Clement and Robert W. Jinks. Guam was seen by the CIA as a replacement banking haven after the reversion of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. A CIA operative named “John C. Edwards” prepared a report on how Hong Kong capital would be lured to Guam.
Another BBRDW employee was John Sager, Soviet and Middle East Affairs specialist for the CIA who had been a senior CIA officer at the U.S. embassy in Moscow and fluent in Russian.
The nexus of Obama’s CIA-connected family and BBRDW and its associated companies in Honolulu, stories of bogus academic degrees and certifications from Harvard, and the Bank of Hawaii banking activities of Madelyn Dunham begs some important questions. Is there also a significant Hawaii connection to Obama’s family and the CIA to match the connections that have previously been documented in Indonesia and New York?
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Wayne Madsen is author of “Manufacturing of a President: The CIA’s Insertion of Barack H. Obama Jr. Into the White House” as well as several other books on the NSA and the Patreaus Affair. He is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. He has written for several renowned papers and blogs. Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen has taken on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity on their television shows. He has been invited to testifty as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation. Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers …
Other Madsen Reports –
Fascists of the ‘Left’ ~ http://www.t-room.us/2013/05/fascists-of-the-left/
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