The BUSH Cabal Part II

The League of THIEVES

This period saw the first real establishment of the "military-industrial complex" President Dwight D. Eisenhower was later to warn against. In his 1961 farewell address to the American people, perhaps after reflecting sombrely on what was casually revealed during his many golf matches with Samuel Bush's son Prescott, Eisenhower cautioned: " we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."

What he meant was a network of arms makers, politicians, military officers, bankers, media owners and compliant journalists who together could distort the whole policy of a nation for their own selfish advantage. Of course the USA was not unique in such corruption - in "Mother England" things were equally as bad in the run-up to the Great War.

In Britain, after arms manufacturers successfully fooled the public with the "big Navy Scare " of 1909, rampant behind- the-scenes corruption burst into the public view for the first time when Vickers Ltd. was caught out bribing Rear Admiral Fujii of the Imperial Japanese Navy, to place an order with their company for the construction of warships. Visiting Canadian Government ministers Sir Frederick Borden and Louis Brodeur were also shocked by a Vickers official who told them "the Empire is going to the dogs for lack of a war and, worst of all, there is not even one small war in prospect". Vickers's roving salesman, the sinister Sir Basil Zaharoff, received extraordinary "expenses" and "special commissions", enabling him to bribe foreign officials with considerable success.

An analysis in 19l1 by a financial paper found 13 members of Parliament, 43 military/naval officers and 17 newspaper owners and journalists on the boards of directors of three leading arms makers. The highly respected retired Civil Service and Treasury head, Lord Welby of Allington, was so angered by all this that he declared "We are in the hands of an organisation of crooks. They are the politicians, generals, manufacturers of armaments and journalists. All of them are anxious for unlimited expenditure and go on inventing scares to terrify the public...".

The situation he spoke of bears an uncanny resemblance to the present Washington government of George W. Bush, where both politicians and military personnel move freely back and forth from public employ to highly paid positions with defence contractors, under the cover of enthusiastic media endorsements, all with the inevitable -and to them welcome -consequences** (see Part Two).

In 1913 the great arms cartel fell apart, and the arms makers began competing open slather with each other. Within a year Europe was at war.

The "Great War" - gas masks, trench slaughter , misery and - money for jam

World War I was enormously beneficial for the rich of America. Twenty-one thousand new millionaires were created. Du Pont stock became fifty times more valuable, and the banker J.P. Morgan became rich beyond his wildest imaginings. In 1917 Bethlehem Steel paid a dividend of an astounding 200% of its stock (share) value.

Selling munitions to Europe was a major part of this earnings boom. Under war conditions the opportunities to engage in profiteering were far greater than usual, and were eagerly seized upon. European munitions purchases from the USA rose from $40 million in 1914 to $2,340 million in 1918, for a war total of over four billion dollars (worth many times more in today's values). US entry into the war in April 1917 also created a home-grown bonanza for the arms makers.

In his new official position Samuel Bush helped organise munitions for the US Government's war effort, and channeled Government assistance to needy weapon makers (though why they needed it was a profound mystery to outsiders). Although only a relative 'small fry' in business himself, he was now perfectly placed to give the nod to particularly profitable contracts for others and receive "kickbacks" in return, from transactions that were handily shrouded in wartime secrecy. And sure enough, fat war contracts now flowed to Buckeye Steel. It was Samuel Prescott Bush, then, who began the long tradition of the" patriotic" Bushes, the proud American family who just happen to be always making money from war.



The aftermath

After World War I there were enquiries into the huge and senseless slaughter during that monstrous conflict, and into those who benefited by it. In one such, people such as Samuel Bush were labeled Merchants of Death when it became clear both that large armaments companies had deliberately fostered an arms race to stimulate their business and that some officials had conspired to assist their wholesale profiteering.

Strangely, most (but fortunately not all) of the detailed US records of the Samuel Bush wartime transactions later disappeared from the relevant Archives and have never been recovered. This pattern was not to be unique. The present President has busily censored damaging reports, tried to block enquiries, and sealed off many records from public scrutiny, some permanently. Wherever the Bushes have been, "cleaners" seem to follow them.

In 1944 Samuel Bush's Buckeye Steel was to be awarded a huge government arms contract, to make armor casings for shells. For a second time this Bush was to profit from" fighting the Germans", this time a Nazi state that his own son had been instrumental in founding and nourishing.

The revulsion that followed World War I led to attempts to regulate the arms trade, and prevent arms dealers from ever again entering into corrupt alliances with politicians and military personnel. Today, however, under the Presidency of George W. Bush the appalling situation that existed prior to W.W.I now prevails again in America. A Government of "war from business and business from war" now controls the world's only superpower. And once more the Bush family thrives as others suffer and die. Let's continue the full story with the next generation of the Bush family.