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Le Cercle
Membership list
Le Cercle is a secret transnational intelligence and direct action group, that, according to all accounts, is funded by the CIA. We only know the dates and places of a handful of Circle meetings (1), which were attended by about a hundred persons at a time. Before the 1990's, it was called Cercle Violet, or initially, Cercle Pinay, in both cases after its (French) chairman. In later times, chairmanship of Le Cercle went on to the British. The Pinay Circle used to fight the spread of communism worldwide, at all costs, even in our own backyard. This threat largely ceased to exist when the USSR collapsed and the role of the Circle had to change. Today, its members are probably talking about "Al-Qaeda infiltration" instead of "communist infiltration", although looking at the people involved with the Circle, one wonders how many actually believe in the 'War on Terror' as a tool to spread "freedom" and "democracy".
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We first heard about the Pinay Circle in 1975, when about 1500 internal pages from the British Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) were leaked to Time Out Magazine. Later, in 1980 and 1982 (#37), Der Spiegel made references to this group and the involvement of Frans Joseph Strauss with it (Der Spiegel and Strauss were sworn enemies ever since the 1962 'Spiegel Affair'). The articles of Der Spiegel were based on internal memos from Hans Langemann, who was chief of security of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior and Director of Security during the 1972 Olympics. Looking at the few papers that have been published, it appears that Langemann was informing persons within the German government about the clandestine efforts of the Circle to get Franz Joseph Strauss elected. How they ended up on the desk of Der Spiegel seems to be unknown. After Der Spiegel published this information, a few intelligence magazines and newsletters like Lobster and 'Intelligence' became interested in this group. Lobster Magazine wrote its first article about this group in 1985, followed by a couple of other articles in the years following. After that, Lobster would sometimes find tidbits of new information they shared with their readers. Since the late 1990's, information about this group has become more accessible due to the introduction of the internet and scandals surrounding Jonathan Aitken and Nadhmi Auchi.
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The other prominent force in Le Cercle is the British throne and the City of London. Undoubtedly, the British played a role in creating the Pinay Circle, but only in more recent years their influence can be seen. Antoine Pinay and Jean Violet have already been named as chairmen, probably the first and second. In different news articles of later years, three other persons have been named as chairmen of Le Cercle. First, Julian Amery (14), followed by his protege Jonathan Aitken (15), and finally Lord Norman Lamont (16), who is still the chairman of Le Cercle today. These three persons have in common that they have all been made members of the Queen's Privy Council (17), which in itself sends a pretty clear message across of who's involved. It also turns out that the father of Julian Amery has been one of the most crucial persons in establishing Israel, while at the same time conceiling his whole life that he was a Jew. Appointed to the War Cabinet by Round Table & Pilgrims Society member Lord Alfred Milner, Leopold Amery was the author of the final draft of the Balfour Declaration, which was sent to Lord Lionel de Rothschild. It committed Britain to the establishment of a Jewish National home in Palestine. Leopold was also a key player in creating the Jewish Legion, the forerunner of the Israeli Defense Force (18). Today's chairman, Lord Lamont has been a long time director of N.M. Rothschild and Rothschild Asset Management. All three men have a very interesting history and you can find more details further down in this article or on the membership page.
In addition, it might also be interesting to note that Queen Elizabeth II is head of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the protestant counterpart of the earlier mentioned Knights of Malta. Both claim to have been descended from the medieval Knights Hospitaller, the organization to which all the Templar assets were transferred, together with a good portion of its members. Queen Elizabeth II is also head of the much more exclusive Order of the Garter and patron of the elite Anglo-American Pilgrims Society. The British royals are leading members of the United Grand Lodge of England, the British Invisibles, the Anglo-Arab Organization, and the 1001 Club. The British Invisibles promote the interests of the 'Square Mile'. The Anglo-Arab Organization supposedly promotes Anglo-Arab friendship, although it's headed by the very questionable Circle member Nadhmi Auchi. The 1001 Club is a fundraising mechanism for the WWF and a secret meeting place for businessmen and politicians from all over the world. So you see, good or bad, there's a lot of activity going on around the British Royals and the business interests of the City of Londen. Naturally, the intelligence part is even more hidden
There might have been a good reason for the creation of the Pinay Circle in 1969. In the midst of the Cold War, on November 13, 1968, Russian leader Leonid Brezhnev told his audience: "When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries." This statement was called the 'Brezhnev Doctrine' and ment that the Soviet Union would openly intervene militarily if any country under its control tried to push off the communist influence. Brezhnev had already made that clear 3 months earlier, when he quashed the rebellion in Prague. From now on, if a western country would convert to communism, it would probably take world war III to ever switch it back to a capitalist economy. These Soviet actions could easily have led to the creation of this covert direct action group. When you reverse Brezhnev's statement you'll find that it matches perfectly with what the Pinay Circle has been doing: "When forces that are hostile to capitalism try to turn the development of some capitalist country towards communism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all capitalist countries."
Pinay Circle is more of an extension of the international intelligence agencies. And not necessarily that part of the intelligence agencies that only gather information, but that part that is more involved with the 'hands on' work. That part that 'stimulates' regime change.
At the moment, we just don't have enough information about the the Circle to reach a conclusion, but when we look at the names we have available, we should be able to get a more detailed picture of what this group is all about. At the moment, we have the names of about 60 people that have visited the Circle at least once. Turns out that at least half of them can be considered controversial. (You can find many more names and details on the full membership list)
Jonathan Aitken
Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Lord Julian Amery
Giulio Andreotti
Nadhmi Auchi
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Anthony Cavendish
Lord Robert Cecil
Paul Channon
Stefano Delle Chiaie
Jacques Chirac
William Colby
Brian Crozier
Nicholas Elliot
Sir James Goldsmith
Otto von Habsburg
Michael Howard
Henry Kissinger
Norman Lamont
Alexandre de Marenches
David Rockefeller
Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.
Tiny Rowland
George Soros
Antonio de Spinola
General Richard Stilwell
Frans Joseph Straus
Geoffrey Tantum
Jean Violet
Paul Volcker
Philippe de Weck
Frank Wisner, Jr.
Most of the Circle members involved with intelligence have already been named. Some that haven't are Sir Dick Franks (director-general of MI6 1979-1982), general Charles Fraser (South-African counterinsurgency expert), Donald Jameson (former chief of the CIA's Soviet Division who was at least aware of the remote viewing projects), colonel Billy Maclean (MI6 officer involved with guerrilla warfare in the Middle-East), Thomas Twetten (CIA Deputy Director of Operations involved with planning an assassination on Hussein), Ion Iliescu (probable KGB spy who helped to topple Ceausescu). Iliescu probably visited the Circle only after the USSR collapsed. He met publicly with Brian Crozier and Donald Jameson during the 1990's. One other person I always like to mention is Edwin J. Feulner, today's president of the extremely influential Heritage Foundation, former chairman of the Institute for European Defense and Strategic Studies in London, and named as nr 45 of the top 50 most influential politicians by George magazine (number one was Alan Greenspan, number two was Dick Cheney). And keep in mind that membership isn't limited to people from Europe and North-America. Besides Prince Al-Faisal of Saudi-Arabia, the Sultan of Oman and the King of Jordan have also attended Circle meetings
A couple of examples of people that have (or had) a close relationship with the Circle are George Ball, Stephen Bechtel, William Buckley, George H.W. Bush, Frank Carlucci, William Casey, Alexander Haig, Fritz Kraemer, Victor Krulak, General Lansdale, Vernon Walters, and John Hay Whitney. These are right wing oriented people involved with known Circle members, the Institute for the Study of Conflict, different intelligence agencies, and / or the Knights of Malta. Then we know of some politicians that had a close relationship with the Circle and have been supported by it:
Richard Nixon
Giscard d'Estaing
Antonio de Spinola
Margaret Thatcher
Frans Joseph Strauss
John Major
Undoubtedly, many politicians have been targets of the Pinay Circle, but in the few documents we have, no specific names have been given. It is also unknown to what extent the Pinay Circle has been involved in discrediting political figures. Also, the role of the Circle in assassinations, arms trafficking, the drug trade, and possibly even conducting terrorism at home or abroad is unknown. Many individual members are heavily involved in this line of business, but it's doubtful that the Circle is used as a platform to discuss these issues. Looking at the 2005 speech made by Prince Al-Faisal, all these people are concerned about is human rights and peace on earth (31). Even though you might like his speech, let me repeat something important; Al-Faisal is the former Bin Laden protege who is accused of meeting with him in July 2001 together with the CIA and several of Bin Laden's family members (32). At the same time, Al-Faisal was accused of having arranged trips to Osama for some of these same family members (33). If that isn't enough, Al-Faisal also decided to leave as 25 year head of Saudi foreign intelligence on September 1, 2001 (34). Al-Faisal by the way, blames terrorism on either the Zionists (35) or the secretive and extremist Muslim Brotherhood (36). On the surface, the Muslim Brotherhood is a friendly charitable and harmless society, not unlike the Knights the Malta or Opus Dei. But even though it publicly denounces every terrorist attack, today it's generally accepted that the Brotherhood is the coordinating secret society for international Islamic terrorism (37). The founders of the PLO, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda were all members of the Brotherhood before they started their own terrorist organizations. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are just the figureheads of the Al-Qaeda branch, just as Arafat was the figurehead of the PLO branch, and Sheikh Yassim of the Hamas branch, that's all. We still don't know very much about the inner workings of the Muslim Brotherhood, although we do know that branches of it are protected by western intelligence agencies (38).
The key to understanding international terrorism and crimes against humanity is to understand the world's secret societies. Le Cercle is probably quite important, but there many more.
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الكاتب
