This is Part 3 in a series of articles written by me, Mike Sylwester, based on a new book, Nemesis, written by Peter Evans. (Part 1, Part 2)
In January 1968 David Karr arranged for Mahmoud Hamshari, also known as Dr. Michel Hassner, to be introduced to Aristotle Onassis. Karr introduced Dr. Michel Hassner to Onassisâs circle as an expert in aviation finance who would propose a restructuring of the debt of Onassisâs Olympic Airline. Eventually, Hamshari/Hassner, using money provided by Onassis, arranged for Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate Robert Kennedy.
David Karr had known Onassis since 1956. Karr worked in many varied jobs during his life, but at that time he managed a public relations company that specialized in helping companies that were involved in proxy fights in corporate takeovers. It might be more accurate to say that Karr was specialized in performing dirty tricks for his clients. He collected and distributed (or threatened to distribute) scandalous information about his clientsâ opponents. By 1967 Onassis was using Karr for a variety of secret tasks; in that year, for example, he asked Karr to ask Soviet officials about possibly supplying crude oil for a refinery he considered building near Athens. Onassisâs closest associates wondered about that assignment, because Karr had no expertise related to the petroleum business or to the Soviet Union. Onasssisâ trust in Karr was a mystery.
At some point in his own past, while working as a movie producer in Hollywood, Karr had become acquainted with William Joseph Bryan, Jr., a local hypnotist. Bryanâs American Institute of Hypnosis treated people in the film industry for alcohol and drug additions, and he had served as the technical adviser on the filming of the movie The Manchurian Candidate. Karr gave Bryanâs phone number to Hamshari and advised him to visit Bryan. Karr later said he referred Hamshari to Bryan because Hamshari complained that he suffered headaches whenever he visited Los Angeles, which he did frequently during 1967 and 1968.
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In the summer of 1979 Karr contacted Leslie Linder, a former movie agent, whom Karr had known while he worked in the movie business. Karr wanted Linder to represent his proposed memoirs, which would include a revelation that Onassis had played a key role in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Linder was interested and scheduled another discussion of the proposal again with the added participation of Oscar Beuselinck, a London lawyer.
In the meantime, Karr departed for a business meeting in Moscow, where he planned to open a big hotel. He remarked that he had all the evidence of the Onassis story in Paris, and he promised to call Linder and Beuselinck as soon as he returned from Moscow.
Karr was found dead in his Paris apartment on the morning of July 7, 1979. He had a fractured larynx, and blood was found on his pillow. A forensic examination concluded he had died of a heart attack, but his widow Evia Karr and his business partner Ronnie Driver insist that Karr was murdered by agents of the Palestine Liberation Organization. To be continued.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/10/2004 9:43:40 PM ||
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Pious? He is a raving lunatic!
The only family member to talk openly about Osama bin Laden describes him as pious and merciless, a man so driven by his beliefs that he once denied a water bottle to his own infant son in the heat of the Saudi desert. Carmen Binladin, the terrorist leaderâs sister-in-law, says bin Ladenâs religious conviction was so admired by his family that she refuses to believe his relatives have stopped supporting him, as they claim.
In a new book and during an extensive interview with The Associated Press, she said a turning point in her life was a bin Laden family gathering in Taef, Saudi Arabia, one sweltering day in the mid-1970s. Bin Ladenâs son began crying for water, she said, but the elder bin Laden refused to allow the baby to be given a water bottle, saying the boy should be fed water with a spoon because of Muslim teachings. "It was not as if he didnât care about the child. But to him, the babyâs suffering was less important than a principle which he probably imagined stemmed from some seventh-century verse in the Quran," Binladin said in her book, "Inside the Kingdom." The respect her husband and Osamaâs 23 other brothers accorded him by accepting his decision helped persuade her to leave Saudi Arabia, Binladin says.
"From what I have seen and what I have read, I cannot believe that they have cut off Osama completely," Binladin said on the eve of a visit to the United States to promote her book, to be published in English on Wednesday. She said some of Osamaâs sons are still in Saudi Arabia, working for the Bin Laden Group construction company, which the 25 brothers inherited from their father, Mohammed bin Laden. "Osama is not the only religious (bin Laden) brother in Saudi Arabia," Binladin said. "And I cannot believe that some of the sisters (donât support him.) They are very close to Osama."
She said there may also be ties between Osama and the royal family, despite his criticism of the royals for their support of the United States and alleged corruption within the government. "The bin Ladens and the princes work together, very closely," Binladen wrote. "They are secretive, and they are united. They have been inextricably linked for many decades through close friendships and business ventures."
Binladin married Yeslam, one of Osamaâs brothers, in 1974 and lived in Saudi Arabia for nine years. She said she wrote the book mainly to explain to her daughters why she had returned with them to Switzerland. Her divorce from Yeslam is still unresolved after 14 years. The daughter of a Swiss father and an aristocratic Iranian mother, Binladin - dressed stylishly in a black leather jacket and jeans - spoke intensely with a French accent, smoking an occasional long, thin cigarette. Her book has already appeared in 16 languages and 18 countries. But she said she had held off publishing it in the original English because of fears about how it would be received in the United States, where she lived for a time in the 1970s.
She and her estranged husband intentionally spell their name differently than the rest of the family and Osama. But she has been reluctant to revert to her Swiss name since leaving Yeslam, saying she does not want to appear like she is trying to cover up her past. Her U.S. publisher is releasing the book under the name Bin Ladin, apparently to help readers recognize the name. She said her time in Saudi Arabia gave her an understanding of the closeness of the bin Laden family, which lived in the 1970s clustered in a group of houses on the outskirts of Jeddah. Women were required to wear a robe covering their faces and bodies whenever they went outside the home or encountered any males outside their immediate family. "One day, Yeslamâs younger brother Osama came to visit," she said in the book. "When the doorbell rang, I stupidly, automatically, answered it myself, instead of calling for the houseboy." She said she recognized Osama and asked him in. "But Osama snapped his head away when he saw me, and glared back toward the gate," she said. He made rapid back-off gestures and waved her aside, muttering something in Arabic, "but I truly didnât understand what he meant." A nephew with Osama explained that he was forbidden to look at her face.
She said she doubted accounts that Osama had been a playboy as a teenager in Beirut and thinks the story may have been about another brother. "I never heard such tales about Osama," she said. "As far as I know, Osama was always devout. His family revered him for his piety." Osama started putting his beliefs into action during the guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. "According to his sisters, who spoke of him with awe, Osama was becoming a key figure in the struggle against the Soviet monolith," Binladen said. "He imported heavy machinery, and manned earth-moving equipment to blast out tunnels through Afghanistan to house field hospitals for the fighters, and stocks of weaponry. He built dugouts to shield advancing Afghan warriors as they attacked Soviet bases. We heard that Osama had even taken up arms in man-to-man combat. Osama was making a name for himself." When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Osama was outraged at the idea that U.S. forces might use Saudi Arabia as a base. He then started making "incendiary statements" against alleged corruption of the Saudi ruling family, and he was forced to leave the country.
She said none of the bin Laden sons measured up to their father, Mohammed bin Laden, who built a construction empire from the ground up. She said she still keeps Mohammed bin Ladenâs photograph in her living room because she thinks her daughters deserve to know about their background.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/10/2004 07:14 ||
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#1
"Inspired by Fanon, such figures as Lin Piao...and Pol Pot, justified revolution as a therapeutic act by non-Western peoples. Violence exposes the egoism and hedonism of bourgeois societies, and facilitates the creation of a new world based upon collective self-sacrifice. By destroying existing power structures they will regain the dignity lost due to Western oppression and materialism, selfishness, and immorality."
Excellent article, Mike. When I read "collective self-sacrifice", I got a chill. That is the grade of hate these folks run on.
#2
Until the theocratic revolution that put Khomenei in power in Iran, most of the terrorism that had been perpetrated was done in the name of Marxist support for the "Palestinian" cause.
I remember vividly a video from back in the early 70s showing Vanessa Redgrave doing some sort of war dance with a band of raghead revolutionaries from the PLO (or PFLP, or whichever "liberation front" organization it was), whooping it up and waving an AK-47 around).
The only thing different today is that instead of Karl Marx leading the struggle for the ascendency of the poor, helpless proletarian victims of evil capitalist hegemonic oppression, the struggle is being led by "Allah" and his acolytes.
No change, really; it's still the ideology of poorhelplessvictimism: "We're not responsible for the fact that our culture sucks, YOU are!"
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/10/2004 10:03 Comments ||
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#3
Rudyard Kipling wrote about crazy, murderous Wahabbis, well before Marx became fashionable.
#4
Paul Berman's book Terror and Liberalism addresses some of the same issues in more detail. I reviewed it last year. He finds that communists and fascists are united in measuring the importance of a cause by how much horror you are willing to commit on its behalf; and plausibly finds their influence on the current crop of Islamists.
He also found english editions of part of In the Shade of the Qur'an if you want to know what Qutb is about (also see Ideofact's series on Qutb if you haven't already).
I grant you that Islam doesn't need Western influence to generate murderous sects: it seems to have a history of doing that.
Posted by: James ||
07/10/2004 20:59 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
