tungsten carbide

[Eric Rosenbloom]

Please o please excuse this long posting it's not me just the excerpted
material quoted so to sum up before you start: 1) a citation concerning
GE-Krupp fixing tungsten carbide supplies and the betrayal of labor who
thought they were fighting WWII against fascism but were only being used
for the forging of a new fascism. 2) relevant quotes on the same subject
from Gravity's Rainbow. and 3) the Bush family's ties to it all. So here
we go . . . !

----------------------------------
First, from Labor's Untold Story, Richard O Boyer and Herbert M Morais,
1955, 3rd edition published 1974 by United Electrical, Radio & Machine
Workers of America:

    While the working people of America were giving everything to the
anti-fascist war effort, that effort was being hindered by international
cartel agreements of big business. Not only did these trade alliances
result in "the transmission of strategically important industrial
information to German citizens and presumably to the German government
to the detriment of the military security of other nations." We are
further told by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Military
Affairs that the "effect of [these] various cartel agreements in
strategic industries was also to prevent the development outside of
Germany of a substantial production of some of the most important new
materials of war."
    For example, there was the agreement between General Electric and
German Krupp with respect to tungsten carbide, an agreement which
created a bottleneck in the production of this hard-metal composition so
important in cutting tools and dies. According to testimony before the
Senate Committee on Patents, "In contrast with the situation in Germany,
the present drastic shortage of this essential material in this country
is notorious . . . [and] has constituted one of the principal
bottlenecks in our present production program." That was in 1942. Six
years later, after the war was over, General Electric, International
General Electric, Krupp, and several General Electric and Carboloy
officials were found guilty of conspiracy and fined $53,000, a mere
bagatelle for a billion-dollar corporation whose loyalty to monetary
gain transcended loyalty to country.
    Yet, in spite of facts such as these as well as soaring prices,
frozen wages, speed-up, and long hours, the American worker persisted in
his course. He saw not only victory over the enemy ahead but a bright
new world of peace and prosperity which labor would have an
ever-increasing share in building.
    ...
[f.n.] See Handbook of Labor Statistics, 1947, Bulletin No. 916, U.S.
Bureaus of Labor Statistics, p. 164: [The] total of 11,200,000 workers 
killed and injured in major manufacturing and non-manufacturing
industries from 1941 to 1945 inclusive was approximately eleven times as
large as total United States casualties of 1,058,000 sustained in World
War II.

----------------------------------
Gravity's Rainbow, page 682:
Poppy and I heard your [Amabassador Kennedy] wonderful speech at the GE
plant over in Pittsfield the other week. You're in the groove, Mister K!
... They're supposed to be taking a strike vote here next week. Wasn't
the WLB set up to prevent just that? ... [And Nalline goes on, seeking
reassurance that there is a Plan.]


Gravity's Rainbow, page 654:
Too many tungsten filaments would eat into available stockpilesof the
metal ... and disturb the arrangement between General Electric and Krupp
about how much tungsten carbide would be produced, where and when and
what the prices would be. The guidelines settled on were $37-$90 a pound
in Germany, $200-$400 a pound in the U.S. ...When the War came, some
people thought it unpatriotic of GE to have given Germany an edge like
that. But nobody with any power. Don't worry.

----------------------------------
And speaking of "Poppy," for the truly paranoid out there . . .

"Nazis and Bush family history: Government investigated Bush family's
financing of Hitler,"  By Carla Binion
<http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Binion122100/binion122100.html>

   [In Christopher Simpson's] book, "The Splendid Blonde Beast," the
author wrote about George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his
maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker.  Both Bert Walker and
Prescott Bush were powerful financial supporters of Adolf Hitler.  
    Walker was president of Union Banking Corporation, a firm that
traded with Germany and helped German industrialists consolidate
Hitler's political power.  Simpson says Union Banking became a Nazi
money-laundering machine.
    Walker helped take over North American operations of Hamburg-Amerika
Line, a shipping line and cover for I. G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit
in the U. S.  Hamburg-Amerika smuggled in German agents, and brought in
money for bribing American politicians to support Hitler.  A 1934
congressional investigation showed Hamburg-Amerika subsidized Nazi
propaganda efforts in the U. S.
    George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, was a board member of Union
Banking and a senior partner in a Union Banking affiliate -- the
investment firm Brown Brothers, Harriman.  The U. S. government
investigated both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush, and under the Trading
with the Enemy Act seized all shares of Union Banking, including shares
held by Prescott Bush.  The government held that "huge sections of
Prescott Bush's empire had been operated on behalf of Nazi Germany and
had greatly assisted the German war effort."
    Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in [his earlier
book] "Blowback" that after World War II, Nazi emigres were given CIA
subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U. S. These Nazis
assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach
committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to
America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist
political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler.
It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of
the Republican Party.
    Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking
Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and
psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi
employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern
front military intelligence officer. After Germany's defeat became
certain, Gehlen offered the U. S. certain concessions in exchange for
his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped-up cold war propaganda on
behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S.
perceptions of the cold war. 

[George H.W. Bush ("Poppy"), the current USA President's father, was an
organizer of the CIA invasion of Cuba in 1961. It was called Operation
Zapata after Poppy's oil company. John Kennedy (Tyrone Slothrop's
classmate at Harvard) backed off from crucial air support for the
operation, ensuring failure and the USA's embarrassment. He was soon
assassinated. . . . Did Al Gore give up the election out of fear?]

I need an aspirin. Thank you, Felix Hoffmann of Bayer (one of the main
companies that set up to use slave labor at Birkenau.

Yours,
Eric R



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