He also drew inspiration from the story of James Jesus Angleton, a famous U.S. intelligence officer who during World War II ran an operation to penetrate the Vatican for the Office of Strategic Services, the Central Intelligence Agency’s predecessor.
Source: The astonishing secret history of the Pope who fought Hitler
Also note the Peter Dale Scott story related in David Talbot’s book “the Devil’s Chessboard” of a Rusdian Orthodox priest in California expressing foreknowledge of President Kennedy’s impending tragedy.
Von Staufenberg was a Catholic military family and had no qualms of Catholic conscience – it was his moral responsibility to try to kill Hitler – on a day when Hitler was scheduled to meet with a resident of Rome – Mussolini – and kept the appointment.
As the Valkyrie plot is mentioned and is the theme of my recent blog post article, I call your attention to Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza at http;//JFKCountercoup.blogspot.
And thanks to Photon for calling attention to the KGB control of the Russian Orthodox Church as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia was as equally controlled by the CIA – financially by the CIA front Catherwood Foundation, and was the center of the White Russian community in Dallas – including those who assisted the Oswalds on their return from the USSR. Oswald’s daughters were baptized in this parish, possibly without Oswald’s knowledge.
I’m drawn to Washington Depot, CT. Home of John Train’s sister, Mrs. Boris Samsonoff.
The obituaries of two Princeton ’29 classmates appear consecutively, on the same page.:
https://books.google.com/books?id=AxNbAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA13-PA20&lpg=RA13-PA20&dq=ashcraft+%22washington+depot%22&source=bl&ots=WD4NrobE4D&sig=20H11BJNUMSMcGb7ojFvJYildaY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbofqXgP3KAhUE9R4KHSlrAsYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=ashcraft%20%22washington%20depot%22&f=false
Edwin “Squirrel” Ashcraft, Chief of Office of Domestic Contacts, CIA, and Dalton “Duke” Knight Gray. I wrote this in reaction to learning of Ashcraft’s career and his classmate Gray’s footprint in Washington Depot.:
The central tenet of the article is that archived records support the premise that the Vatican was infiltrated by the OSS, and that Pius XII was persuaded (by news of Pius XII’s planned Nazi kidnapping, assassination) to aid and abet conspiratorial plans to remove Hitler. Photon, the religious views or denominational adherence of plotters secondary to the Pope’s supportive involvement, although indirectly. It would not be the first time the Holy See was embroiled in continental subterfuge. The people of Europe barely yawned at this revelation; for them, such intrigues are part of their evolutionary political history. Oh well, Photon, so much for yet another outed conspiracy that you can’t seem to accept! Perhaps Pope Francis can give you a personal accounting in several languages from the United Nations in New York?
How credible is the source? To claim that Catholicc clergymen, specifically Jesuits were intimately ( or even peripherally) involved with the plots to kill Hitler ignores that the plots were driven by a clique of Army officers who were largely Protestant ; the most prominent non-military conspirators also tended to be active Lutherans.
However much Pius was opposed to Hitler his real concern was Stalin’s Soviet Union, which persecuted religion and basically destroyed the Catholic Church in the USSR and specifically tried to merge the Ukrainian Catholic Church into the Russian Orthodox Church, which was heavily infiltrated and influenced by the NKVD. While initial post-war perceptions of Pius were probably unfair( eg, “The Deputy”) the Vatican appears to have been more involved in secret attempts to protect Jews and vulnerable anti-Nazi dissidents,not to actively remove the Nazi government. Indeed, the Vatican activities allowing diplomatic cover for escaping Nazi fugitives makes any active measures against the Hitler government unlikely.
Riebling’s first book, WEDGE (FBI/CIA turf wars), received moderate attention for its first edition with amazon.com recording 3 editorial reviews and 10 from readers (9 positive). CHURCH OF SPIES has 35(!) editorial reviews and 55 from readers (5 star=45, 4 star=9, and one three star). Note that reviews tend to be from the conservative spectrum. Michael Burleigh, author of THE THIRD REICH: A NEW HISTORY, is among those favorably disposed. I wonder how COS fares with his peers in that specialized field?
Curious how this directly follows posting of “Why too much information can be a bad thing.”
My goodness Paul, you’ve finally posted something I agree with!
The only thing you left out was the Vatican supported Rat Line that managed to get Nazis out of Europe to fascist friendly countries in Latin America, via a chain of Italian monastaries. Also not to be forgotten was Pius’s despicable refusal to try to save the lives of Italian Jews who were rounded up and deported from Rome under his substantial nose.
BTW, please state why you think “The Deputy” was unfair. The future Pope John XXIII (who actually did a lot to save Jews from the extermination camps) thought it was all too accurate.
Anyone interested in seeing a version of this controversial work would be well-advised to check out this filmed version:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen.
It’s available on Netflix. And if you’ve ever seen the magnificent film “The Lives Of Others,” you’ll probably notice that 3 actors in that film are also in “Amen.”, with the heroes of the former film playing villains in the latter, and one of the former film’s primary villains playing the hero in “Amen.”