The Three Barons

by J. W Lateer

  Cited as Ostrowski in the text is: James Ostrowski,2-2015, [www.jfkassassinationforum.com/indexphp?topic=9161;wap2)].

  On Timothy Leary, see: Timothy Leary: A Biography, Robert Greenfield.

  Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, Hunter S. Thompson.

  Boating, Jan-June 1976.

  The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrell Politics Endangered a Little Fish and Killed a River, Zygmunt Jan Broel Platter.

  Chapter 35

  General Julius Klein

  In the interest of objectivity, our discussion of General Julius Klein begins with some excellent objective biographical information about him written by author Shlomo Shafir in his book Ambiguous Relations: The American Jewish Community and Germany Since 1945. Shafir is an expert on American-Jewish-German-Israeli relations post WWII. His writing is devoid of any sensational information on either side of this controversial topic. He describes General Julius Klein and his activities as beginning in the mid-1950s.

  Per Shafir, Klein was hired by West Germany (FRG) in an effort to improve the image of the FRG in the eyes of Jewish-Americans. Klein began in 1953 to work for the return of assets confiscated from Germany due to the war. He was involved in these issues for the next 15 years.

  Klein had contacts among Democrats and Republicans, although his personal affiliation was Republican. He quickly gained the support of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and remained a permanent proponent of the leadership of Adenauer. In 1954 Klein served as a consultant for a committee of the Senate on military issues. Next he became a lobbyist for German industrial concerns. Israeli leaders were grateful for the benefits he tried to obtain for Israel although not all American Jews liked him.

  Klein’s family came to the U.S. from Germany in 1848. Although Klein was born 53 years later in 1901, he attended school in Berlin before World War I. In 1917, he volunteered to join the U.S. Army and after the war, he served as a menial member of the U.S. German military mission. Like so many other figures associated with the JFK assassination, there is a question as to why his family would send him to school in Berlin and did this represent divided loyalties between Germany and the U.S.? Or did his family have a special pipeline to business interests in Germany after 53 years in America?

  According to Shafir, Klein was involved in spying on pro-Nazi groups in the U.S., which would be odd for a Jew given the principles of the Nazi party ever since at least 1923. Did he have business contacts in Germany that he used for this? Was he one of those Jews who for some reason assisted Hitler and the Nazis (or pretended to) for profit? The answers to these questions are unknown.

  Klein served in the Army again in WWII in the Pacific and after the war, took charge of the Jewish War Veterans, an organization started in 1896 by Jewish veterans of the Civil War. Immediately after the war, he opposed leniency for Nazi war criminals but later reversed his opinion.

  Klein started out defending a Nazi sympathizer named Friedrich Middelhauve. Klein arranged for Middlehauve to meet prominent American Jews on a trip to the U.S. in 1955. As of 1955, Klein was making frequent trips to Germany and meeting not only regularly with Adenauer but also Secretary of State Hans Globke, draftsman of the Nazi-era Nuremberg Laws which sealed the fate of German Jews.

  Klein performed a valuable service for Israel in arranging for Adenauer to meet with Israeli diplomats and in 1965, helping arrange for then-Chancellor Ludwig Erhard to extend diplomatic relations to Israel. At this time, Klein admitted that he was working for the CIA but he claimed he didn’t tell the CIA anything that he learned about Israel.

  There were a number of things about Klein that some American Jews did not appreciate. Klein arranged for a change to the Trading With The Enemy Act which allowed the return of frozen assets to Germany. He represented a company named Rheinmetal, which had used Jewish slave labor under Hitler and refused compensation, reparations or indemnification.

  Klein, a Republican, was disliked by both the Truman and the Kennedy Administrations. Kennedy especially disliked Klein because of his extremely close relationship to Adenauer. Adenauer opposed JFK’s attempts to achieve a better relationship with the U.S.S.R. It is at this point that author Shafir breaks off his discussion of Klein. This was when Klein’s pro-German activities almost certainly involved him in the plot to murder Kennedy, which is a topic that Shafir would never touch in his wildest dreams because of his policy of neutrality on German-American-Jewish issues.

  Shafir does mention, however, that Klein was called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which, among other reasons, caused the German ambassador and Foreign Secretary to distance themselves somewhat from Klein, at least in official situations.

  The perception of General Julius Klein varies dramatically depending on the perspective one takes on the issues at stake in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The biographer of Senator Thomas J. Dodd, James Boyd, presents Klein in a negative light, but in the end dismisses him as a hapless and harmless con man.

  As presented by author Shafir, Klein was disliked by the Truman and Kennedy administration. By omission, Shafir implies that Klein was fine with the Eisenhower administration. This would not be surprising since Klein was an active Republican.

  In Above The Law, Boyd also explores the background of Julius Klein from his own close-up perspective. Boyd, however, treats Klein in an enigmatic fashion. According to Boyd, Klein was surrounded by evidence of possible connections to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the German High Command. Klein had on display pictures of himself with Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur. His chief American public relations client was the whiskey baron Lou Rosenstiel.

  Boyd described Klein as being served by a staff of military men. But what exactly was the role of these military men? It is an established fact that the P.R. firm partner of Klein was General Kenneth Buchanan, also of the Illinois National Guard. In Senate hearings Klein also divulged a relationship with retired Army General John B. Medaris. Boyd does provide names, however, of the military men to whom he refers. Boyd describes how Klein directed an important public relations firm which had offices in Frankfurt, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.

  But was this an actual firm with real clients? Boyd treats Klein as a phony and a buffoon. From other sources we can learn that Klein was anything but a buffoon. It seems very unlikely that Ethics Committee chairman John Stennis, a veteran and high-ranking member of the Senate would focus the proceedings in the Dodd investigation on General Julius Klein if he were merely a buffoon. This would be a complete waste of time and we know that for Senators, their time is precious because of all the demands of their office.

  Boyd claims that Klein was a very lowly employee in relations with the U.S. Army, the General Staff, the movie industry, and had a minor role in the Illinois Republican party. Boyd also reports that Klein was booted out of the Illinois National Guard, with his commanding officer explaining that he considered Klein a “dangerous man.”

  Boyd relates that each time Julius Klein crossed the Atlantic, it was aboard the liner United States, and he occupied the stateroom reserved for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It seems from circumstances, that Klein was averse to air travel. Did Boyd mean to imply anything special by his mention of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (since they were felt to be Nazi-sympathetic by some historians)?

  Could the income from a public relations firm with five offices produce enough income for Julius Klein to be spending like this? Boyd continues, recounting the background and resumé of Klein as put forth by Klein and his associates. According to that narrative, General Klein had various and sundry positions and accomplishments, dating from World War I and forward.

  According to Klein, he began as a thirteen year-old war correspondent in Germany. At seventeen, Klein was a soldier in World War I. At age eighteen, he had been part of the entourage of Colonel Edward M. House, who was almost the one and only advisor to Woodrow Wilson at the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. Then he wa
s part of the United States Military Commission in Berlin. During the Capone era in Chicago, he was an editor for the Hearst newspapers. Then he became a Washington correspondent. In the 1930’s he became a Hollywood executive, earning as much as $75,000 annually. In World War II, he commanded troops in the Pacific Theater. He originated the Defense Department’s first anti-subversion program. Then he was an officer on the General Staff, and an advisor to Congress on the subject of the Cold War. Then he became an author of important books and a Republican Candidate for the Senate from Illinois in 1950. Finally, as mentioned by author Shlomo Shafir, Klein was chosen as the National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans organization, which boasted 100,000 members and commanded a great deal of political leverage.

  At this point in our narrative, it should be noted that the name Julius Klein prominently appears in the iconic journal article in the Executive Intelligence Review entitled “Permindex: Britain’s International Assassination Bureau, by Jeffrey Steinberg and David Goldman. As mentioned in the discussion of Lyndon LaRouche, Steinberg and Goldman were security officers for LaRouche. They researched and wrote articles for EIR, and those on the subject of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in particular. Although Julius Klein is not mentioned in the Torbitt Document, he is featured prominently by EIR and assigned major blame for the JFK assassination.

  The problem with that fact is that there was a policy on the part of LaRouche to blame Jews whenever and wherever possible. On top of that, the EIR and LaRouche also falsely blame Britain for everything under the sun. In the article in EIR, Julius Klein is described as serving at some time prior to 1981 and prior to his retirement as the manager of the Swiss-Israel Trade Bank and as such was involved with British-Israeli-Mossad activities.

  The above article also claims that Julius Klein was involved after 1922 with British Intelligence operations in the U.S. under Sir William Wiseman. Wiseman was a partner in the Jewish investment bank Kuhn, Loeb in New York. Next the EIR links Klein to the British spy agency the S.O.E., which was the equivalent of the American CIA. The above article also links Klein to FBI Division Five (the counter-intelligence department of the FBI). This Division Five connection is named by the above article as well as by the infamous “Torbitt Document” as being at the middle of the JFK assassination plot although Torbitt does not mention Klein.

  Further, the article claims that Julius Klein created the Jewish War Veterans organization and that the same organization would be used as a front for the intelligence activities of Sir William Stephenson, the top British spy in the United States and Canada during and following World War II. As mentioned in a prior paragraph, the Jewish War Veterans organization was actually created in 1896 by veterans of the Civil War.

  The article in EIR quoted above also says that, in 1948, Klein along with a group of right-wing American Jews, founded an organization called the American Jewish League Against Communism. The authors cite “strong circumstantial evidence” that the League was from the very beginning, a mere front for the combined FBI Division 5-British SOE (special operations) activities of the period. It is a fact that records of both FBI division five and the British SOE have by some co-incidence been sealed ever since World War II and remain so at the date of this writing.

  The EIR also cites as further proof of their theory of the assassination, the involvement of a long-term crony of J. Edgar Hoover named Lewis Rosensteil. The EIR authors describe Rosenstiel as a “famous bootlegger” and that Rosenstiel provided a part of the funds to set up the organization.

  EIR reports that, as if all the above were not enough, Julius Klein was credited as being the recruiter for the Permindex organization, of which Clay Shaw was an officer and board member. Clay Shaw was, of course, the defendant in the New Orleans prosecution by Jim Garrison in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. Garrison did not mention Permindex in his 1970 book but did mention it five times in his second book written in 1988.

  So this is a capsule summary of the career and activities of General Julius Klein.

  Notes:

  Ambiguous Relations: The American Jewish Community and Germany Since 1945 (1999) by Schlomo Shafir.

  Above The Law: The rise and fall of Senator Thomas J. Dodd (1968) by James Boyd.

  Executive Intelligence Review entitled “Permindex: Britain’s International Assassination Bureau,” by Jeffrey Steinberg and David Goldman dated 11-14-81.

  Chapter 36

  General Julius Klein Appears Before The Fulbright

  Foreign Relations Committee

  In mid-1963, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began hearings on “The Activities Of Nondiplomatic Representatives Of Foreign Principals In The United States.” According to the official version the Foreign Relations Committee under J. William Fulbright decided to issue a report on the work of 411 companies that were affiliated as “foreign agents” with foreign governments in the U.S.A. Ostensibly, the biggest problem with these agents involved the “Sugar Lobby,” which arranged for increases in price supports on sugar to the detriment of the U.S. national interest.

  But in an important article in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel on October 4, 1963, the hearings were discussed from the perspective of the West German Government. This article states that General Julius Klein’s enemies in the Foreign Office “created the impression” that the hearings were directed at him. Based on the retrospective importance of these hearings as they applied to Klein, it would have been very easy to create such an impression, given the crucial situation with U.S.-German relations and the role played in this situation by General Klein.

  In fact, the hearings were conducted, in the opinion of this researcher, in an attempt to derail what was known to Fulbright as an ongoing plot to murder the President. Many of the sessions were chaired by committee member Frank Church, who twelve years later would become an arch-enemy of the CIA and the intelligence community in general. This investigation looks in hindsight to be a foretaste of that 1975 confrontation between Church and the CIA.

  Another excellent source on the Fulbright investigation of General Klein is a master’s thesis in 1967 by Louis J. Haugh.

  Although the biographer of Senator Thomas Dodd, James Boyd, describes General Klein as a small-time con artist, this characterization is patently absurd. The article in Der Spiegel describes Klein as the West German “shadow ambassador.” He was also known in Germany as “foreign agent 975.” He was, according to Der Spiegel, “the long-serving Shadow Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in the United States.”

  As mentioned above, author Shlomo Shafir does mention that Klein was called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shafir, like other writers, admits that these hearings affected Klein and his relations with West Germany. It caused the German ambassador and Foreign Secretary to distance themselves somewhat from Klein, at least in official situations.

  So exactly what was Klein’s relationship with West Germany and what was Fulbright seeking in his investigation? In registering as a foreign agent, Klein identified his foreign client as Deutsch-Americanische Ausammerarbeit (German-American Cooperation), a group formed to promote the common cause of German-American cooperation. Klein claimed that he did not know who was contributing the $125,000 to $150,000 per year which his contract required.

  Klein, in fact, had another German client, The Cologne Society. (Haugh, p. 101). For this society, Klein lobbied for the recovery of property seized by the United States in World War II.

  The Fulbright Committee pressed Klein to reveal the names of the group members who were promoting German-American relations, which was also called the Foerderkreis (Society for the Promotion...). It was discovered that Klein wrote speeches for members of Congress that were delivered on the floor of the House without disclosure that Klein had written them.

  In his testimony regarding his activities, Klein said “we also arrange proper reception for important German political, civic or business leaders who visit the U.S. and vice-versa.”
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  When asked by the Chairman, “Who do you represent?” Klein responded “the Foerderkreis fur Deutsch-Americanische Zusammenarbeit.” Klein stated that most of the members of the Cologne Society were members of the Society for the Protection of Foreign Investments. The Chairman said that on April 6, 1960, “you [Klein] filed as representing German industrialist and civic leaders. Correct?” Ans: ”Yes”

  Per the Chairman, “Your filing stated that the identity of your foreign principals would be provided at a later date. That was two years ago. Were they?” Ans: “I dealt with only two people – Dr. Hempel and the Frankfurter Bank. The head of the Frankfurter Bank was head of the Foerderkreis.”

  Klein: “the names of some [of the industrialists who Klein represented] are Brentano, Mende, Erhard, Altmeier, Social Democrats…”

  Author T.H. Tetens, in The New Germany and the Old Nazis states “Large sections of the German press, stirred by the propaganda in the SS paper, Wiking-Ruf, and the Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung, launched an attack against the allies. Roosevelt and Churchill were almost daily branded as the real war criminals. Bundestag member Dr. Erich Mende, an influential politician in the Adenauer coalition, demanded the ultimate ‘release of all war criminals…whose acts were in no way different from those committed by the U.N. troops in Korea.’”

  Chairman: “Who is Mende?” Klein: “He is chairman of the present Free Democratic Party in Germany and a former top industrialist, attorney for some industrial clients we have…I know Dr. Mende quite well, I know him many, many years, he was one of my close friends when I was still on active duty in Germany, and I gave Dr. Mende a reception and a dinner in my own home in Chicago, and I was here when he was in Washington. He was the official guests of – I mean he came here officially in behalf of his party which is the coalition party of Chancellor Adenauer.”

  Chairman: In a memo dated 7/24/62, it says “General Klein suggested to ask Senators Humphrey and Javits to invite Erhard to make speeches.”