Chapter 59: The Whole Deal

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

Mikado,

I agree with what you have just said. Perhaps there are some who DON"T have an "agenda" as most of us would understand. The person who gets hit by that wonderful flash of inventiveness and intuition. No amount of " agenda making or protecting" can create that. That just is part of the wonder of nature. As is love too I suspect. Both gifts which require no proof or action. They just ARE. So I do agree with you. To say EVERYONE HAS AN AGENDA is a fairly cynical viewpoint of the world and you are right, absolutist in its nature and I suspect not what Morgans true message would have been. I try to remember the context that phrase came to us. Probably in the form of a message to Paul and perhaps it was more insructional in nature. As I recall during the first flurry of communications Paul had set up a whole bunch of questions. And he was hoping for answers to them all. Perhaps the phrase " Everyone has an agenda" was directed as more of a warning for what he would discover ahead of him than a philosophical viewpoint meant to be shared. Perhaps he was just saying .... watch out ... many people in the military have thier own bones to pick and their own territories to protect. Maybe thats what he meant. Paul will be up and running again on Tuesday so maybe then we can get his slant on that initial message.

And he could probably answer the question about who sent that first E mail too ... though that is up to him and that person to disclose.

We are stepping off here into a world where nothing is what it seems and the best of the Cold War is being fought over information and new developments in technologies. Spies are everywhere. Some of them are Russian. Some from other countries. Some of them are other intelligence agencies spying on each other, each trying to get the edge in funding or whatever political favors they could gain. And the " national security" guidelines were just then being drawn up and assigned to different entities . Bound to be an exciting time! And here we have our sweet scientist, as someone on the forum once said .... just looking for his decoder ring. Or ..... so it seems ...... Elizabeth

[Gewis]

I strongly agree with Mikado. In the context as Morgan said, "Everyone has an agenda," it smacked of paranoia. The example Twigsnapper gave about the B-36 helps things not at all. The fellow had a hidden agenda. And an agenda for other people's lives. That's what grates against me, is the assumption that, if I'm smart, I've got some sort of hidden motive that only needs to be discovered. That sort of thinking infests counter-intel. They're notorious for it, and I've got a pretty good guess that's a lot of what Morgan was doing. It's no wonder that was his point of view, but not everybody is like that.

I spent six years as an intel analyst for a special ops unit, and I was very good at it, at least by their standards. Military sometimes isn't picky enough. I know how to be paranoid, at least. I've had plenty of training to always be looking over my shoulder, keep my gas tank at least half-full, where to request rooms in hotels for optimum safety and quick escape, what to do for this or that. And while I understand that some people live that way, not everybody's got some agenda. It's not how the normal world works.

It's the people who see plots and agendas everywhere they look you have to be most worried about. They're the ones who are hatching plots of their own to counter some plot you aren't even cooking up. Gadianton robbers, indeed.

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

Gewis,

Maybe things were different for everyone a hundred years ago. In 1907 I think the level of what we might call paranoia ( that feeling of someone out there "trying to affect our lives negatively" ) might have been reduced. Maybe I would worry about hitching a novice harness horse to the family wagon but .....

I am not sure that I would sit in a restaurant with my back to the wall as I do now so that I can keep track of what is happening toward the door ...

or double check what is going on at a gas station before going in to buy a soda ..... Always regarding carefully the surroundings around an ATM ....

Or have my key out and in my hand while walking up to my car in a parking lot, remembering all the time that a key can be an unexpected weapon .......

Always keeping supplies (food, water, extra cash stashed somewhere) and I agree, a nearly full tank of gas all the time ......

Always pick an overnight motel room with safety in mind. absolutely

And I have to tell you ... The gates are locked to our property at night and we have dogs that would wake the dead if an intruder came in this direction.

And thats just normal day to day life in Southern California and in my life! I'll bet some of my neighbors are even more careful than I am!

I certainly am not high up on someones radar in the intelligence world I can ONLY IMAGINE what trying to maintain security might be for someone like that! You would have all the normal worries ...... and then be wondering too if someone perhaps had penetrated whatever security you had in place. THAT would be scarey. Elizabeth

[Chris Knight]

Grinder,

I actually received a copy of Townsend's FBI file through the FOIA probably in the very early 90's and gave Paul my copy. Paul was told when he tried to get a copy through the same channel within the past few years that the file was unavailable, or lost, or some such.

Paul is the one who needs it, and it's nice that one of the few copies out there made its way to him. It's nice when things work out so conveniently.

[grinder]

One of the very few comments I remember my Dad making about Americans in general was not very complimentary to them. (Told you first, no hate mail please) but I think he had a valid point really . He said that most of the American public was " Fat , dumb, and happy"

I always took exception to that when I was younger but sometimes you really wonder. grinder

[Mikado14]

He said that most of the American public was " Fat , dumb, and happy"

I always took exception to that when I was younger but sometimes you really wonder.

You Father was an intuitive individual for he is/was correct. But I assure you my "Fat, dumb and happy" persona is mostly self inflicted as a defensive posture from those who do employ "PERSONAL AGENDAS" but then the truth is no further away than my crystal ball and I allow them that perception and it is not a delusion of "now that I have them where they want me".

Mikado

[twigsnapper]

No, you don't want to be like Bull Trickfox.

Your friends then would be still wondering who did you in. The three quick shots in succession looked familiar, but then the other two .... not at all the standard stuff and points more to other entities. A world where you REALLY don't know who your friends are. twigsnapper

[Langley]

Geez, as the title says.

Paul changes his name to "Langley".

"Langley" gets a hello from Mr. Twigsnapper, now if he wasn't saying hello to the CIA he must have been saying it to Paul from Australia which means.....

Langley,

If your summation of the situation is correct, and I seriously would like to know, and my little tongue in cheek above is in the correct field of play thennnnnnnn. ........aren't these the people that Ike warned about?

Just being the devil here...and then maybe not.

Mikado

ABOSLUTELY.

But within the Caroline group there was or appears to me from Paul's book, a fundamental humanism expressed in the way things were done, and why things wee done.

The alternative system at the time, USSR, would have just kept Brown as prisoner somewhere and tied him to a post when they finished with him.

Ike's famous speech was a description about how the I/M complex came about, and warned that it was then powerful enough to direct government.

ie it was seen by him to be a threat to the will of the people.

I dont see as the Carolline Group, as part of the Military Industrial complex, which is a necessity, was a threat in the sense that Ike was talking about.

There days there are heaps of example ie Halliburton and its carrying on,

But back in the days of Brown, I dont think Skunkworks for example did anything antidemocratic in producing the SR71, or that Brown and the Caroline Group did anything wrong in relation to Brown's work.

But that said, self interest is a valid driver. Ike was I guess saying it needs to be balanced against what the people of the US actually want.

And that generation of the Caroline Group embodied the values of their time. The group today might be headed by Gordon Gecko. "Greed is Good".

Self interest being a valid driver, a powerful group takes on an eccentric inventor. the point where the cost benefit ratio swings against the inventor, is the point where the formal support of the group tappers of or completely shuts down. And that point might be where the group and other interested parties gain enough from the data to do without the inventor. Unless he is hand picked and stays on board as a subordinate. For he is in fact, not like them, he is not in fact in their league, and in fact the agendas are different.

National Interest is blind. And government, as a perpetual instrument, doesnt NEED individuals. It needs mechanisms of projection, ie groups. Individuals who compose the groups, have to be compliant. Like networking . One remains in a network so long was one is useful.

I think at some point the benefit of Brown's work and the cost of keeping him fully in the loop resulted in him loosing control of his work and his place in the group. And that might have to do with competing groups and the National Interest at the time. (ie oil vs alternatives, 7 sisters, geopolitics)

Do people who actually know Morgan apart from Paul?

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

Langley,

You have hit upon some important points, I believe.

In all of this reading we do have to remember what the world was actually like then. On one thread Paul is just at the year 1945. The first few months directly after the war.

The rest of Europe is in relative rubble and the United States is finding an ecomomy that is booming. Many of the developments brought home and translated by the TICOM units that were scooping up new technology (hopefully ahead of the Russians) were just now being put into the private sector. Plastics began to boom. Building was booming ... babies were booming ....

But in Europe ... i according to what I have learned from Mr. Twigsnapper, it was one of the coldest and worst winters ever. Many of the people in different areas captured or surrendered to the Allies were being "sent home" and sometimes that meant "into the hands of the Russians" Many of those were sent immediately to death camps, or shot on the spot.

And you are absolutely right Langley, those useful to the Russians were used until they were no longer. Soon the "friendly vodka sharing face" of the Russians disappeared behind what was called the "Iron Curtain". Human rights as we knew it and took for granted, was non existant. And THAT Russia was looking for information anywhere she could find it, because as anyone in the spy game knows .... information is what its all about.

So good to remember what that world was like in 1945-1955. Thanks Langely
Elizabeth

[Langley]

Langley,

You bring up some very interesting points and I like the word you used " Interface"

So perhaps this is what the Caroline Group has always acted as, sort of an "interfacing agency" between the military and the industrial complex.

Yeah, but thats got to be a tough situation. You have to have top men in all of those fields, strongly in your corner and I just don't know how that would happen.

BUT... historically .... I guess it has happened ... if you read about Sir William Stephensons connections in the past. He and his group were strongly influential in producing the spitfires that were needed and I believe that they had a strong hand in the early radar stations too in England in World War II .

Economically most of the men on that yacht " The Caroline" were extremely wealthy and the circle that Dr. Brown seems to have at least been friends with, in his later "impoverished " years (especially Floyd Odlum .... now there was a mover and a shaker. You know how I know that he was influential? You don't see him mentioned. You have to REALLY dig to discover that at one time he was one of the most wealthy men in the United States.)

) So I agree with you Langley, I am anxious to see what happens in the next chapters because there are alot of REALLY unanswered questions!

Is there a chance that the Caroline Group would be powerful and engrained enough in both the military AND the economic and political structures to remain unseen? Just like Odlum? Just ask around a little bit and nobody knows his name. grinder

It is interesting to me that in the era of the flying boat, the range limit of the British planes was the Bahamas. And the US Flying boats stopped there too I think before preceding across the Atlantic. So an ideal spot to place facilities for joint US/UK meetings held quickly and regularly.

And of course the Bahamas feature in the James Bond movies. Though how much credibility that gives the idea, I dont know.

In Paul's book there are lots of people I havent hear of before. Its all very interesting. Government can issue as many procurement orders as it likes, but if there isnt the industrial base to fulfill the requirement, the orders are just bits of paper. So the ability to project power depends very much the coordinate the industrial and (particularly in this case) the research base.

Its the reason why the US was able to produce the A bomb first. Fission only being first discovered and performed in 1939. The Japanese equivalent of the MP was the Ni Project and it came to nought because of insufficient coordination and insufficient industrial base.

The other thing is re Ike's speech, WW2 was over, but during, millions died. And so the moral question was if the death of a few saved 100,000s, was that not the for the greater good.

Fact is the way the West did such things proved superior to any command economic model, Stalinist, Japanese Fascist or German Fascist. Did Hiensenberg obstruct the German a bomb project? probably? Had Oppy, he simply would have been replaced. Will have to read up on Stephenson et al.

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

You are entirely right Langley. The flying boat service to the Bahamas and to Bermuda became a strong link to what was going on in the rest of the world and thats exactly what Stephensons group did right off, he set up a situation where he was reading other peoples mail before it was sent on to its final destination.

https://www.ttbrown.com/defying_gravity ... repid.html


And the reason that James Bond was set in the Bahamas so many times? You will understand when you read the history of Ian Fleming, his association with an Admiral by the name of Godfrey and his association also with people he called his "commandos". Mr. Twigsnapper might have something to say about his earlier desk jobs but I think he has said what he intends to say

But if you haven't had a chance to read it yet, please read this chapter
https://www.ttbrown.com/defying_gravity ... esson.html

And in this section you will find hints to questions you have expressed




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s all pretty much history,â€

[Langley]

[quote="Elizabeth Helen Drake"]You are entirely right Langley. The flying boat service to the Bahamas and to Bermuda became a strong link to what was going on in the rest of the world and thats exactly what Stephensons group did right off, he set up a situation where he was reading other peoples mail before it was sent on to its final destination.

https://www.ttbrown.com/defying_gravity ... repid.html


And the reason that James Bond was set in the Bahamas so many times? You will understand when you read the history of Ian Fleming, his association with an Admiral by the name of Godfrey and his association also with people he called his "commandos". Mr. Twigsnapper might have something to say about his earlier desk jobs but I think he has said what he intends to say

But if you haven't had a chance to read it yet, please read this chapter
https://www.ttbrown.com/defying_gravity ... esson.html

And in this section you will find hints to questions you have expressed




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s all pretty much history,â€

[Mikado14]

A bit behind I am.

Paul

Let's see, I doubt your Amish so,

What planet are you from? you sound a little like Yoda

Mikado

<G>

[Langley]

A bit behind I am.

Paul

Let's see, I doubt your Amish so,

What planet are you from? you sound a little like Yoda

Mikado

<G>

Yea, that was my Yoda voice.

[grinder]

Thanking you I am.

Thats my Yoda voice <g> but Thanks Langley and Mikado and Elizabeth, of course, for spending time on the details and possibilities of this part of the story. I think that there is information out there that maybe needs to be seen and mentioned and so each one of our comments could be enormously helpful.

You can probably tell that I am on my own sort of quest and your insights are helping me big time and I can imagine that the same goes for PaulS. Its not a one person operation. So from my end of it " Thanking you I am" for the time and effort that you are spending. grinder