Hmmm, one of those Google links was to a TPM Cafe comment:
Cafe Talk | Talking Points Memo | Data Mining DOJ For Alleged War …
0225.0145.01.040 — Octal Representation for DOJ OLC. 149.101.1.32/olc — DOJ OLC IP number Op. O.L.C. at — Legal opinion format: An entire file for all …

So, using the translation provided to iv4p: http://149.101.1.32/olc/opfinal.htm, I got the page without problem.

BMAZ – Great post. BTW, I looked for the old conflict of interest stuff and couldn’t find it – sorry.

Just another thought or two on the “Rent a General” program by OSD. I don’t think that most people on the “outside” know how important access is in the Military-Industrial Complex. For a retired General or SES, that is the primary thing you are hired for – get in the door of your former colleagues and find out where the potential business/contracts are hidden. BTW, I refused to play this game, and my consulting was mostly done with civil agencies and/or commercial entities.

For the people that were invited to briefings with Rumsfeld, this was golden manna to put on the resume. Most Generals, even 4 stars, never get into the SecDef’s inner sanction. The $500 or $1000 bucks that the media paid them was peanuts compared to the value to whatever company they were working for at the moment (many work for multiple companies – file the same report and get paid multiple times!!).

The smarter ones make sure there are Firewalls built in for their contact on procurement items. However, with the general loosening of the rules for retired senior people, some may have stepped over the Firewall.

Again, great post. Keep it up; there must be a pony in there somewhere.

bmaz and ew — as you know, I am not a lawyer, but sometimes I can root the social-political-cultural context of law, and this is one where I can.

The prohibition in the 1951 law regarding using any appropriations for propaganda purposes inside the US is not the original law. In fact, the original law was passed about 1938 in response to certain WPA projects, which Martin Dies, among others, viewed as propaganda in support of the New Deal and it’s socialistic objectives. Dies, who was a principle in the newly formed House Committee on UnAmerican Activities held hearings in 38 regarding the WPA Theatre Project, and an offshoot of that, a film project. The focus was on “The Plow that Broke the Plains” and “The River” both films by Pare Lorentz, the first dealing with the causes of the dust bowl, the second with major Mississippi River flooding. Dies also attacked Orson Welles FTA production of Marc Blitzstein’s “The Cradle Will Rock” — an opera about a steel strike. Anyhow, out of these early HUAC hearings came the first legislation prohibiting any use of Government funds for propagandizing any Government Program.

In 1941, when FDR organized the OWI, the Office of War Information, the provisions of Dies earlier legislation were suspended for the duration, because OWI did produce considerable material for the American Public about World War II. The Disney series, Why We Fight, could not have been shown to the American Public without the suspension, nor could all those glorious documentaries on the heroic work of Rosie the Riveter. I have always been particularly partial to “Nightshift” a film about the glories of making tank and jeep parts in the middle of the night. Anyhow OWI was set up as a publicly identifiable source that had to be cited when using the materials — but which was available on an equal basis to Radio, Film, and the Print Press. Elmer Davis headed the operation, and did some of the broadcast reports. The suspension was “for the duration” — so post war they had to go back in and restore with a few revisions, the 1930’s legislation — and it was always seen in 1951 as a curbing of Truman’s powers by the HUAC crowd, because there would not be a peace treaty with Germany till 1990 — and Japan still had not finished its treaty when this restoration took place. (Formally a state of war with all its presidential powers exists till you sign a treaty — but presidential powers can be modified, as they were in 1951.) Richard Nixon was kicking up his heals on HUAC when this was initiated. Putting the ban on Federally produced documentaries of this sort back in place in 51 is why, for instance, it would not be till the Carter Administration that Film Historians would get released John Houston’s work on things like “Battle Fatigue” or Shell shock, or what we now call PTSD. And it is why for many years you had to use pretty bad and “illegal” copies of the Disney “Why We Fight” series, if you were interested in using it in teaching. But it all started with Martin Dies not having much of a taste for the causes of floods, the dust bowl, and opera about Steel Strikes where the workers eventually won.

There is so much Irony in the origins of this set of laws, and the actual legislative history behind them, that I am actually enjoying dishing this all up — big broad smile thinking about Dies and Nixon. And oh yea, the film for the series “Victory at Sea” was OWI produced, and liberated by Richard Rodgers and Hammerstein who wrote the score for it, edited it, and got it into TV before the ban came back into force. Orson Welles and Leonard Bernstein liberated Marc Blitzstein’s “Airborne Symphony” and got it produced by the NBC Symphony before the ban came back into force. The Airborne, which was commissioned and supervised by Bill Paley and Eisenhower was intended as the American high art response to Shostakovich’s “Leningrad Symphony” — the Airborne being a quite heroic treatment of the mission of the 8th Airforce in destroying Germany. And yes, all these artistic commissions were to some extent Propaganda created to influence Americans opinion of the mission of Government, including the War Department. The difference seems to be that FDR and Truman were able to attract leading artists to create, not grouchy old retired Generals.

Anyhow, if FDR could suspend in 1941 for OWI — Did Bush formally take the same route? And does the 1951 law have any provisions for suspension? I doubt it.

Now how one goes about handling the stuff churned out by those retire military “analysts”, that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

Delivery of propaganda by 3rd parties doesn’t seem as amenable to simple legislation.

I think disclosure would work here as well, analysts must disclose both financial interests (as in who is actually paying them), as well as business ties. For example, an analyst would have to disclose that they work for such and such consulting firm, which has ties to Pentagon contracts (or whatever the case may be). Failure to disclose such information should be subject to massive fines (given the deep pockets of lobbyists and their corporate clients).

As I understand it, when the British Historian, David Cannadine took up his project of writing a social history of the Mellon Family, “An American Life: Mellon” he got a total rejection from Richard Mellon Scaife, probably with a threat to sue if anything about “him” ended up getting probed in the process. But Cannadine is a very clever historian, so if you read his book which I have muchly enjoyed, you will see he left some nice big holes in quite obvious places that should have dealt with RMS, but didn’t. Something like having the city come to do the potholes in your street, but leaving one big obvious hole unattended. On the other hand Paul Mellon was totally cooperative until he died in 1999.

But just to sketch this out, The Founding Mellon was Andrew, (1785-1856), and he had five children, but only one is particularly relevant to the Business side of the family line, Thomas Mellon, (1813-1908). Thomas had eight children, some died quite young, others (the girls) were not all that critical to business — but two of the sons, Andrew (1855-1937) and Richard Beatty Mellon, (1858-1933)are critical. It was Thomas Mellon who put the family fortune together, based on Real Estate, Coal Mining, Aluminum, Oil — not PA Oil, that was Rockefeller turf, but Gulf Oil down in LA and off shore, and a whole range of businesses involved with steel, ownership of tram systems in Pittsburgh and other PA cities, Railroads, and ultimately of course Banking and Finance. From the time Thomas died in 1908 until about the time of World War One, the family fortune was managed by Andrew and Richard from a Partners desk in the family bank, but their interests divided about the time the US got into WWI, with Andrew moving into Republic Party Orbits, much more involved with Finance as opposed to starting businesses in PA and all. Andrew eventually became Secretary of the Treasury in Republican Administrations in the 1920’s, and after the depression began, and Hoover needed to disappear him, Ambassador to the Court of St. James. While Sec of the Treasury, he furthered his interest in Art Collecting, eventually buying much of the French Impressionist wealth of the Tzar’s collection in the Hermitage in Leningrad from Stalin’s agents — so much that he actually financed the first Soviet Five Year Plan as it needed hard currency. This, plus much else eventually became the foundation collection for the National Gallery in DC, with Mellon financing the museum on the mall. FDR accepted the deed to all this from Andrew Mellon a few weeks before Mellon died in 1937. He left one son, Paul, who also made huge contributions from the Mellon fortune to the National Gallery of Art. Paul’s second wife was Bunny Mellon, who, if you have read New Frontier and Kennedy stuff you will know was Jacqui’s best friend during the WH years. Bunny Mellon designed the Rose Garden.

The other brother, Richard, stayed home and stuck to the banking business in Pittsburgh when Andrew exited from day to day management of the family partnership during WWI. Eventually Richard had two children, Richard King Mellon (1899-1970), and Sarah Cordelia, (1903-1965). It is Sarah who Married Alan Magee Scaife, resulting in the current Richard Mellon Scaife, who, as I said, is not in the Mellon Family Book, nor in the Index.

Butttttt — you can get an idea of what he (the unnamed Mellon) might be worth by looking at what his mum inherited when her dad, Richard died in 1933. The Richard Mellon estate was administered by Andrew, and was divided three ways, his wife got a third, Richard King got a third, and Sarah got a third — that is one third of the Richard & Andrew Partnership — with Richard’s estate including the Mellon National Bank, Alcoa, Gulf Oil, and a number of other investments including transit, railroads, coal mines, and other odd things. The estimated value in 1933, (highly depressed dollars) was 200 million. (the convention is to multiply depression dollars by 7 to get a 1990 sense of value — thus in 1990 dollars, 1.4 billion.) And one has to assume that between 33 and today, this kind of Capital would have significantly increased, especially considering it was based in stock in the Mellon Bank, Alcoa, Gulf Oil and the like.

During World War II both the Andrew and the Richard side of the Mellon Family were involved in OSS. Aside from Paul’s going into Omaha Beach, and eventually participating in OSS activity in both France and Germany behind the lines — not much else is known in specific terms. Alan Magee Scaife’s involvement is vague, but apparently RMS’s dad was involved with the financial side of OSS, and immediate post-war reorganization of French and German politics. Cannadine also tells us that the Richard Mellon side of the family in the post war era, was massively invested in South American projects — oil and mining. But he also tells us that in the 60’s and 70’s some of the Richard Mellon’s side assets lost money pretty big time, particularly the Bank. After Richard King’s death in 1970, professional non-family management was brought in to reorganize.

The Andrew and Richard sides of the Mellon Family split politically after WWII, with Paul identified more with Democrats, and Richard an early and strong supporter of Eisenhower and particularly Nixon. We know this carried on, as RMS gave over a million dollars altogether to Nixon Campaign Funds in 68 and 72, and then got the favor of a dirt cheap price on those “cultural” CIA Assets in 1974. Perhaps the clear picture would be RMS moving into playing in covert politics just as he was being edged out of Mellon Asset Management, because of loss of money on investments — in otherwords, he wasn’t a particularly good businessman. At least one of the questions I would ask would be about this.

I actually have another bag of factual evidence about Scaife, but I still cannot reconstruct dates. You see, I have actually met the guy. My Uncle who was President of a small investment bank in the 60’s, merged that bank with Mellon Bank, and during the merger negotiations, I was visiting Aunt, Uncle and Cousin, and RMS came for a visit. (more like an inspection tour), I am sure it was before his first divorce, because it was the first wife that I met. Once I confirm some dates — I’ll post my insight.

So why is he endorsing Hillary? I don’t think it is a conversion. I think it is his version of Business. The first act was not Hillary, it was lunch with Bill to talk about Africa, resulting in a nice big check to Bill’s African AIDS projects. What is it all about? Don’t know. Angolian Oil, Nigerian Oil, mining interests in several countries, problems recovering from earlier support for Apartheid Regimes in S. Africa? Maybe all of the above?