-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/#todnews Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/#todnews">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Sex, Violence, and Money Secrets of Rockefeller Trust to be Revealed A notebook around her neck; lips around his. THE Rockefeller family, heir to what was once America's greatest fortune, is to have its closest secrets made public in a divorce case. Amy O'Neill, the daughter of one of President Reagan's closest aides, is accusing her husband, George O'Neill, of sexual perversion, violence and repeated adultery. In order to defend himself, Mr O'Neill, a great-grandson of John D Rockefeller Jr, the founder of Standard Oil and once the richest man in history, is expected to have to disclose the terms of his family's vast trust, kept secret from the public since they were laid down in 1934. The Rockefellers have produced businessmen, politicians, academics and philanthropists on a gigantic scale. They also have a reputation for eccentricity that will be reinforced by O'Neill v O'Neill. Mrs O'Neill has disclosed how psychologists were flown in to lecture the Rockefellers on coping with their inheritance emotionally. A sacred Indian stone, she says, was passed around and whoever held it had to explain their vision for the family and themselves. Mrs O'Neill, 32, has alleged that her husband had many affairs, including one with the local funeral director's wife. All the while, he was a committed activist in Right-wing Republican politics, advocating "family values". She has also accused him of violent behaviour, trying to get her to join in sexual threesomes and an unhealthy obsession with hard core pornography and guns. Now, in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, she has given a taste of what else might be aired in court if her husband does not comply with her financial demands. Mr O'Neill, 49, a failed sculptor and businessman who stands to inherit more than £120 million from his family trust, has denied having had any adulterous affairs. Within his circle, his wife is accused of being unstable, with a father who committed suicide and a brother who is schizophrenic. The couple have five children. No decisions have been reached in the past 18 months at the Florida court on custody and child support but a trial date has been fixed for March, so as not to coincide with the Rockefeller family's social season. Mrs O'Neill's mother, Faith Whittlesey, worked in President Reagan's White House and served two terms as American ambassador to Switzerland. She met Mr O'Neill through Republican contacts and introduced him to her daughter. The couple married when he was 38 and she was 22. Mrs O'Neill was immediately admitted to the family meetings at the vast Rockefeller estate north of New York, Pocantico, built by the oil baron for his children. She tells Vanity Fair: "We'd spend infinite amounts of time at these meetings discussing what it is to be a Rockefeller and what a tremendous burden it is." She says the family is depressed over the way computer tycoons have overtaken it on the rich lists. In 1992, Mr O'Neill campaigned for Pat Buchanan, the television pundit turned presidential candidate, admiring his conservative views on morality and the family. The couple, by this stage, were living in a dilapidated mansion on another heavily-guarded family estate in central Florida. As Mrs O'Neill sank into a depression, she claims that her husband's behaviour became increasingly erratic. She testified that he made her beg for housekeeping money and wear a notebook around her neck to record what she was doing. He said the notebook was her idea. She says she found him groping babysitters and once receiving oral sex from a local funeral director's wife. When he set up a company at home to republish children's classics, he employed a number of young women to work for him. His physical preference was for women with big breasts. Mrs O'Neill attempted suicide. She is asking for a lump sum payment of £480,000 ($775,000) to buy a house, a new "family van" every five years for her children, the children's education costs, wedding costs for her two young daughters and monthly alimony of £4,700 ($7,500). Mr O'Neill, who has not received his full share of the trust as his mother is still alive, says he cannot pay. His stubbornness is going down badly with his highly secretive family. In 1974, during confirmation hearings for Nelson Rockefeller, Mr O'Neill's uncle, to be Gerald Ford's Vice-President, many in the family told him they would rather he were not Vice-President than have to disclose his net worth. The London Telegraph, December 6, 1999 High Finance Safra Could Have Saved Himself? Those curious aberrations in security. MONTE CARLO - The banker Edmond Safra was alive when firefighters entered his burning luxury apartment, but he refused to emerge from a bathroom where he had sought refuge from knife-wielding intruders and eventually died of asphyxia, Monaco's prosecutor said. In the thick smoke of the Friday morning blaze, firefighters did not initially see the door to the bathroom where Mr. Safra and a nurse were hiding, the prosecutor Daniel Serdet said Saturday. As firefighters made their way through the apartment, pounding on walls, Mr. Safra's wife, Lily, begged her husband on a cell phone to come out. ''He was worried. He did not feel secure,'' Mr. Serdet said. ''He refused to open the door.'' Mr. Serdet said Mr. Safra also would not open a window that might have let the smoke escape. When rescuers finally reached the bathroom 45 minutes later, Mr. Safra and the nurse, Viviane Torrent, were dead. New details of the harrowing events, disclosed by Mr. Serdet and other sources, suggest there were significant delays and confusion after the initial calls to the police from Mr. Safra's seafront building, the Belle Epoque. Sunday, investigators were interrogating a male nurse of Mr. Safra's who first alerted authorities to the fire and apparently is the only person who saw the intruders, Mr. Serdet said. The nurse, whom Mr. Serdet would not identify but who he said may be American, had worked for Mr. Safra for five months. Two guests at a nearby hotel also were questioned, but they were released. No arrests have been made, and officials shed no light on a possible motive. Mr. Safra, who was 67, was suffering from Parkinson's disease. He founded the Republic National Bank of New York and recently completed negotiations to sell his 29 percent share to the London-based banking company HSBC Holdings PLC for $9.9 billion Mr. Safra reportedly had told acquaintances he had received threats. Much of the speculation here and in world financial centers has revolved around the possibility of a contract killing initiated by Russian underworld figures angry about Mr. Safra's cooperation with U.S. investigations into Russian money-laundering, some of it possibly through banks in which Mr. Safra owned shares. The police were alerted to the attack at Mr. Safra's apartment at about 5 A.M. by the male nurse, who, according to Mr. Serdet, said he had encountered two hooded intruders carrying knives in the home infirmary down the hall from Mr. Safra's bedroom. Mr. Serdet said the nurse reported that he passed out after the intruders stabbed him in the abdomen and left thigh and woke up to find a fire in the infirmary wastebasket. He made his way to the lobby of the building and told the concierge to call the police. The police arrived minutes later, but in their preoccupation with the wounded nurse - ''They didn't know if he was a malefactor or a victim,'' Mr. Serdet said - they failed to call firefighters until 5:15. The Monaco fire department said the call did not come until 5:27. It was the wounded nurse, Mr. Serdet said, who first informed Miss Torrent about an attack by intruders, urging her to lock herself and Safra in the bathroom where they later died. Also acting on the nurse's warning, Mr. Serdet said, Mr. Safra had told his wife to lock herself and a visiting granddaughter in her bedroom down the hall. They were rescued. The Belle Epoque, which houses Republic National Bank of New York offices as well as those of two other banks, is highly secure. There was no forced entry to the apartment, and Mr. Serdet said the intruders could only have penetrated the sixth-floor infirmary via a back staircase accessible only with keys. Mr. Safra, normally well-protected, had about 10 local security guards on his payroll. But apparently there was none on duty at the apartment at the time of the intrusion and fire. A source at Securite Monaco, a private company that also worked for Mr. Safra, said Sunday that 5 A.M. was precisely the time when Mr. Safra's security detail changed shifts. Mr. Serdet said Mr. Safra had decided, in consultation with his personal security chief, Samuel Cohen, not to bother with a security guard the night of the incident. The heavily fortified apartment had been remodeled recently and a new security alarm system installed, but a source said it was not usually activated because it had not been working. The extensive construction and decoration work on the 900-square-meter (10,000-square-foot) apartment, completed less than two months ago, meant that at least 100 people - some of them very well-informed about the security system - had been inside recently, the source said. International Herald Tribune, December 6, 1999 World Trade Organization Politicians Play Down Failure of WTO Talks Seattle: another Clinton legacy. World political leaders were this weekend playing down the consequences of the collapse in Seattle of World Trade Organisation talks to launch a trade liberalisation round for the new millennium, as anti- globalisation groups pledged to continue campaigns of protest and disruption. "I remain optimistic that we can use the coming months to narrow our differences and launch a successful new round of global trade talks," US President Bill Clinton said in a statement. The ministerial-level meeting was suspended without agreement in the early hours of Saturday, after four days of acrimonious talks overshadowed by sometimes violent anti-WTO demonstrations and complaints by many developing countries that their views were ignored. Environmental, labour and consumer groups were quick to claim victory, but Charlene Barshefsky, US trade representative who chaired the ministerial talks, said responsibility lay with governments that "were not ready to take the lead" in laying the groundwork for a new trade round. Ms Barshefsky said that the WTO's expansion to 135 mostly poor members had made the negotiating process "exceptionally difficult to manage". Mike Moore, WTO director-general, whose role in Seattle was criticised by delegates, said progress would not be lost. However, no date has been set for resuming the meeting in Geneva. Some countries want it reconvened quickly, but others see little hope of progress before the US presidential election next November. Ms Barshefsky said WTO members would press ahead with already-mandated negotiations to liberalise trade further in agriculture and services. But trade envoys said the talks will now start next month with no timetable or agreed set of objectives. Events in Seattle have boosted labour and environmental groups who claimed victory over the WTO in disrupting the meeting and highlighting their causes. "The politics of trade, in America and across the globe, will never be the same," said Scott Nova, director of the US-based Citizens' Trade Campaign. The US Teamsters Union president, James Hoffa, said labour would use its new strength to oppose future trade initiatives. Other anti-trade forces are focusing on the next big target: the Clinton administration's market-opening agreement with China. John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said yesterday that his organisation, the biggest trade union group in the US, would oppose granting normal trade relations with China when the issue comes before Congress next year, "until there are some rules the Chinese are going to play by". The Financial Times, December 6, 1999 Inserting US Fingers into a Meat-grinder Iran Said to be Financing Terrorists Once More Time to again support Iraq as a buffer state? WASHINGTON - More than two years after the election of a new Iranian president raised hopes of a thaw between Washington and Tehran, the Clinton administration has reluctantly concluded that Iran is increasing the flow of arms and money to terrorist groups in an effort to thwart the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace process. According to U.S. and foreign officials with access to classified intelligence, Iran has stepped up shipments of guns and explosives to the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, has coordinated activities among terrorist organizations that traditionally have operated independently and may be plotting attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets abroad. Iran also is believed by U.S. and Israeli officials to have accelerated its deliveries of arms, including long-range Katyusha rockets, and training assistance to Hezbollah, or Party of God, whose military arm is fighting to oust Israeli forces from the strip of south Lebanon that they occupy as a buffer against the attacks on northern Israel. The intelligence reports, coupled with the inflammatory public statements of Iranian and Hezbollah leaders who met two months ago in Tehran, have raised fears that Hezbollah intends to continue its war against Israel even in the event of a peace agreement between Israel and Syria, which controls Lebanon and permits Hezbollah to operate there as a means of maintaining pressure on Israel. That apprehension is shared by European allies, U.S. officials said, and was the central topic of discussion during a meeting in Berlin two weeks ago of counterterrorism officials from the seven leading industrial democracies plus Russia - the so-called G-8. On Sunday, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright left for the Middle East, where Iranian threats to the peace process are likely to be an issue in her discussions with officials from Saudi Arabia and Israel, a senior official said. The growing body of evidence against Iran is a source of disappointment among Clinton administration officials, who had hoped for a new beginning in U.S.-Iranian relations after the May 1997 election of Mohammed Khatami, a Shiite Muslim cleric and former culture minister who has promoted democratic values and better relations with the West. ''Iranian support for the violent opponents of the peace process has not slackened in the last couple years, and in the last couple of months it has intensified,'' said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''For a long time, the peace process has been dormant, and they did not feel that their interests have been threatened,'' added another senior official. ''Now, with talk of achieving a comprehensive peace in the next year, I think there is a real concern in some quarters in Tehran that this will affect their interests, particularly in Lebanon.'' Administration officials continue to believe that Mr. Khatemi is a genuine reformer with enormous popular support, particularly among young people. They say that even if he is aware of Iran's involvement in terrorism, he is probably powerless to stop it. And they note that Iran's principal security services, including its Revolutionary Guards, remain under the control of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a conservative who favors continued confrontation with Israel and the West. Against that backdrop, administration officials say they have no plans to change their policy of ''containing'' Iran through economic sanctions while seeking a dialogue with the Iranian government _- an overture Tehran has so far rejected - and promoting ''people-to-people exchanges'' among academics, athletes and the like. After a series of setbacks for Mr. Khatemi, including last month's conviction of a liberal cleric, Abdullah Nouri, on sedition charges, administration officials regard the parliamentary elections scheduled for February as a key test of the reformers' ability to wrest power from the hard-liners. One wild card in their calculations is a classified FBI report, completed last spring, that advances long-held U.S. suspicions of Iranian involvement in the June 1996 bombing of a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded hundreds of others, according to people familiar with its contents. Although officials describe the case against Iran as inconclusive, further evidence of Iranian involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing could intensify pressure on the administration to take legal, economic or military action against Tehran. One of the most disturbing developments in recent months, U.S. officials said, is the growing evidence of active Iranian support for Hamas, the Palestinian group that has carried out numerous suicide attacks against Israel, including a series of bus bombings in early 1996. ''Although they may have had common objectives in the past, there wasn't a direct relationship between Hamas terrorism and Iran, and this seems to have changed over the last 18 months,'' a U.S. official said. U.S. officials and their counterparts in the region also have been disturbed by signs that Iran is encouraging the growth of alliances between terrorist groups that traditionally have shunned one another. For example, officials said, there is evidence that Hamas and Hezbollah members are training in Lebanon, under Iranian supervision, in coordination with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which is headquartered in Damascus and run by Ahmed Jibril, a former Syrian Army captain. Two weeks ago, Israeli intelligence reported that artillery specialists from Iran's Revolutionary Guards had been dispatched to Hezbollah training camps, sparking fears that Hezbollah might be planning to train long-range guns on Israeli forces, even though Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel has said that he wants to withdraw them from south Lebanon by next July. Hezbollah's lightly armed fighters have customarily used portable Katyusha rockets, rather than artillery pieces, whose use would mark an escalation. In another worrisome development, a senior U.S. official said, Hezbollah fighters have acquired from Iran longer-range Katyushas that could allow them to strike the suburbs of Haifa, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from their southernmost positions. ''As long as the Palestinian people exist, so will the fight against the usurpers,'' Mr. Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said during an October meeting in Tehran with the Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, according to the official Iranian news agency. Hezbollah is a major political party in Lebanon, and U.S. officials make a distinction between terrorism and the struggle against the occupying Israeli forces by Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon. But they are worried by intelligence reports suggesting that elements of the group may be gearing up for terrorist attacks abroad, possibly in coordination with Hamas. Last week, Mr. Barak took the unusual step of warning publicly that Israeli and Jewish targets abroad may be in danger. ''The nightmare scenario for Israel is, you could have a couple car bombs inside Israel at the same time there's an attack on Singapore,'' a senior U.S. official said. During the counterterrorism meeting in Berlin two weeks ago, U.S. envoys arrived with briefcases full of intelligence data aimed at persuading European allies that the threat from Iran is growing, according to two State Department officials. As it happened, however, they need not have worried: British and German counterterrorism officials gave presentations on Iran that were at least as incriminating as the American briefing. ''We were pleased that they had assessed the situation as we had,'' a State Department official said. International Herald Tribune, December 6, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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