There was not a mention from beginning to end of the discussions
of the questionable activities of RCA and ITT chiefs. Yet, in
a curious series of exchanges between Wheeler and Rear Admiral
Joseph R. Redman, who had been in charge of Naval Communications
during the early part of the war, the cat leaped out of the bag
in no uncertain manner. Apparently under the impression that the
hearings would never be published, Wheeler seriously sat and talked
of some of the reasons that such events had taken place. He asked
Redman the question, already knowing the answer, "To what
extent has American ownership of communications manufacturing
companies in foreign countries, such as Germany, Sweden, and Spain,
been of advantage, if any, to this country?" Redman replied,
"Of course, from an economic point of view, I am not qualified to say,
but I would say this from possibly a technical or research
point of view, you get a cross-exchange of information in the
research laboratories."
This amazing revelation by a high personage won the response
from Wheeler, "And what about the disadvantages to us?''
Redman replied blandly, "While you are working on things
here that are developed for military reasons, there may be a certain
amount of leakage back to foreign fields."
Wheeler asked, "How could you keep a manufacturing plant
in Germany or in Spain or in Sweden, even though controlled by
Western Electric from exchanging information as to what they were
doing?''
Redman replied, "Well, we have had to rely a great deal
upon the integrity of our commercial activities. Of course, if
a man is a crook, he is going to be a crook regardless of whether
you set up restrictions or not.''
Wheeler said, "Let us suppose that you have a manufacturing
company in Germany and also one here, and they are owned by the
same company, aren't they exchanging information with reference
to patents and everything else? . . . Admiral Redman, you are
not naive enough to believe, if a company has an establishment
in Germany and another in America, they are not both working to
improve their patents, are they?''
Redman admitted, ''No, sir."
Warming to his theme, Wheeler said, "Consequently, if
there are private companies that have factories over there and
also here, they're bound to exchange information. It seems to
me this has been going on in all kinds of industry. And that would
be true of the electronics industry, or any other manufacturing
industry, and whether they have a medium for such exchange in
the nature of cartels or something else, they exchange information.
What check has the Navy made to find out whether or not information
is exchanged in that manner?"
Redman said, ''We get a certain amount of information from
captured equipment, captured documents, and things like that,
and can find out if there is a leakage.... Of course we have depended
somewhat on our foreign attaches to get us some information on
these things.... I do not like here to get into a discussion of
intelligence because I fear we might get ourselves into trouble."
Wheeler said, "You might, but some of us don't feel that
way about it."
"Perhaps not," Redman replied.
Wheeler continued, "We might get into trouble in the
Senate, but they cannot do anything about it. They cannot chop
our heads off at the moment."
Senator Homer Capehart added, "For at least six years."
On February 16, 1946, Major General Harry C. Ingles, Chief
Signal Officer of the U.S. Army, acting on behalf of President
Truman, presented the Medal of Merit, the nation's highest award
to a civilian, to Behn at 67 Broad Street, New York. As he pinned
the medal on Colonel Behn, Ingles said, "You are honored
for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding
service to the United States.'' A few years later Behn received
millions of dollars in compensation for war damage to his German
plants in 1944. Westrick had obtained an equivalent amount from
the Nazi government.
***

The Car Connection (on a separate page)
***
The Fraternity Runs for Cover

p210
The Nuremberg Trials successfully buried the truth of The Fraternity
connections. Schacht, who was more privy to the financial connections
than most German leaders, gave an extraordinary performance, mocking,
hectoring, and pouring contempt upon his chief prosecutor-Biddle's
predecessor, Robert H. Jackson. Charged with engineering the war
when he had only wanted to serve the neutralist policies of Fraternity
associates, he was understandably acquitted. Had he chosen to
do so, he could have stripped bare the details of the conspiracy,
but only once in his entire cross-examination, when he admitted
to complicity in the shipment to Berlin of the Austrian gold did he
indicate any knowledge of such matters. Never in those days
on the witness stand was he asked about the Bank for International
Settlements or Thomas H. McKittrick. Not even in his memoirs was
there an inkling of what he knew.
Conveniently for The Fraternity, Goring and Himmler committed suicide,
carrying with them the secrets that Charles Bedaux, William Rhodes Davis,
William Weiss of Sterling, and William S. Farish
had carried to their graves. James V. Forrestal also ended his
life by suicide. In 1949 he hanged himself from the window of
the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was
suffering from advanced paranoid schizophrenia. Newspapers reported
him screaming that the Jews and the communists were crawling on
the floor of his room seeking to destroy him.
The rest of the conspirators lived out full life-spans.

p223
Those who had opposed The Fraternity were not so fortunate. In
| 1948 the House Un-American Activities Committee, in one of its
l unbridled smear campaigns, named Morgenthau's trusted associates
Harry Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie as communist agents. Based
on the uncorroborated testimony of one Elizabeth Bentley, a self-confessed
Soviet spy who was turning state's evidence, the Morgenthau Treasury administration
was smeared in the eyes of the public. White and
Currie, those deeply loyal enemies of fascism, those investigators
of the Bank for International Settlements, of Standard, the Chase,
the National City Bank, the Morgans, William Rhodes Davis, the
Texas Company, ITT, RCA, SKF, GAF, Ford, and General Motors, were
effectively destroyed by the hearings. Currie disappeared into
Colombia, his U.S. citizenship canceled in 1956, and White died
of a heart attack on August 16, 1948, aged fifty-six, after returning
home from an investigative session. While the surviving Fraternity
figures flourished again, helping to form the texture of postwar
technology, those who had dared to expose them were finished.
The Fraternity leaders who had died could sleep comfortably in
their graves-their dark purpose accomplished.
 
 
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