THE PERMINDEX PAPERS IV

FREEMASON GEORGES MANTELLO'S MONOPOLY MONEY
 In the two previous posts, we have view a series of Permindex documents from the Louis Bloomfield Archives kept at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). They showed us that, beside Bloomfield, Montreal attorney Stanley Vineberg, from the Phillips, Bloomfield, Vineberg and Goodman law office, and French bankers Edmund Rothschild and François Pereire were related to Permindex real estate deals that took place in 1959. Those papers also gave us the details of this dealing that consist in the acquisition by the Permindex syndicate of lands from Countess Calvi, a member of the Savoy Royal family, who was represented by Carlo d’Amelio, a director of Centro Mondiale Commerciale. Finally, the last post also demonstrated that the relations between Montreal lawyer Louis M. Bloomfield and Italian Georges Mantello, a 33rd degree Freemason that was Permindex’s acting director, weren’t always harmonious.

But, whatever was the gravity of the October 1959 altercation reported in the previous post, Bloomfield and Mantello kept working together on Permindex and other financial deals for the years to come. And, like we will see below, the two men had for project the formation of a Venezuelan corporation with a capital of nothing less than 10 millions dollars, an amount that, in 1959’s dollars, was the equivalent of 75 millions of today’s money..

As we’ve seen earlier, on October 20th 1959 Louis Bloomfield wrote to Joseph Slifka, a New-York businessman interested to buy shares of Permindex, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the way Mantello was conducting business. Two days later, on October 22, Bloomfield cabled to Georges Mantello a message where his dismay is again evident. In a telegraphic formulation, Bloomfield wrote: “Mantello greatly disturbed puzzled tour cable Stop If Seligman not serious pointless my coming Stop cannot understand why telephoning Seligman clarify rendezvous His cable affects your honor.”
The Seligman referred to in this cable was Hans Seligman a Swiss banker head of the Hans Seligman-Schurch & Co investment banking house located in Basel. Seligman and Ferenc Nagy, a former Hungarian premier and a notorious anti-Communist, were among the initiators of the first attempt to found Permindex on Switzerland soil in 1956. Together, they were members of the board of directors of the CMC, Centro Mondiale Commerciale. There would be chapters and chapters to write about Seligman and Nagy and their relations to the anti-communist intelligence network. (Those interested can read a text from researcher Lisa Pease at: http://beyond-the-illusion.com/files/Conspiracy/Assassination/permindex. ) But, to go back to the Bloomfield-Mantello relation, it is interesting to understand the meaning of the phrase “His cable affects your honor” in the above document. In a very diplomatic language, Louis Bloomfield is telling Georges Mantello that information from Seligman’s cable contradict Mantello, and this formulation is just a step before telling flatly to Mantello that he’s a liar. Again, this kind of tense exchange shows that Louis Bloomfield shouldn’t per se be seen as the supreme commander of Permindex, and that Georges Mantello was directing it on its own will.

But whatever tension exists between Bloomfield and Mantello, the two men didn’t stop doing business together. In fact, the day following the above cable, on October 23, Louis Bloomfield sent to the Mantellos a $57,000 USD draft and the following agreement guaranteeing his brothers in law’s participation in Marina Reale, Corporation, a Panamean company that was holding sea front lands sold through Permindex. The brothers in law were Moe and Max Pascal, and according to the agreement, their $57,000 down deposit was representing 40% of a total participation that would totalize $142,500 USD. And this total amount was only a 7 ½ interest in Marina Reale which total capitalization was thus in the amount of 1,9 million US dollars.

It is of some interest to note here that the two Pascals, Bloomfield’s brothers in law, were the owners of Pascal company, a firm that has an hardware chain of stores in Canada that sold firearms in the domestic market for huntsman but that was also listed in government papers as arms trader. It is also of interest to note that Harry Pascal, Louis Bloomfield’s nephew, later worked for Tibor Rosenbaum’s BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) and later for the Rothschilds of London. The Pascals agreement above also gives us more insight on Louis Bloomfield’s parts in those complex real estate dealings. The agreement read: “all such shares to be held in escrow by Mr Bloomfield until full payment has been made by all the participants.”

This detail clarifies the reason why Louis Bloomfield, at the time of the Garrison investigation, was described as “the major shareholder of Permindex for parties unknown”. As an intermediate between real estate sellers and buyers, and as the architect of complex corporate structures extending from Italy to Panama and Venezuela and passing through France, Canada and United States, Bloomfield was also acting as a clearing house holding in escrow Permindex and Marina Reale’s shares up to the closing of transaction, that is up to the moment when the full payments and documentations of those deals are completed.

Another document, a November 26th 1959 letter from Louis Bloomfield to Hans Seligman gives more precision on the Montreal lawyer’s relation to Permindex. In it, Bloomfield wrote: “I did not purchase, for my group, the 10% or Permindex shares referred to in your letter. These were to be placed at my disposal on behalf of my clients against future acquisition.”

It is somewhat interesting to note that even Hans Seligman, the Swiss banker, had trouble to understand who was owning what part of Permindex. But this letter also gives us a hint that Bloomfield himself didn’t possess a definitive perception of what was happening. He wrote: “Therefore, pending further clarification of the entire Permindex picture, I cannot recognize the statement set out in your letter.”

Another Bloomfield’s letter, sent one week before the one sent to Seligman, illustrates how much the Montreal lawyer is kept in the dark about details of the businesses conducted in Italy by Georges Mantello. Four months after the July 17 letter in which he asked if he should go ahead with the formation of a Canadian corporation issuing for 26 millions Bolivars of debentures and when they will go to Venezuela (see previous post for the original letter), on November 19th, 1959, Louis Bloomfield wrote Mantello to “confirm our telephone conversation that you want the debentures issued in United States Dollars instead of in Bolivars.” The headline of this letter refers to a “Canada Venezitalo Realty Investments Limited” company, that is in all evidence the name of the Canadian corporation that Bloomfield created for Mantello, but there exist no trace of this society in the Canadian government registers or on the internet.

This letter also demonstrates that this change of mind about the currency to use is a last minute one and that it occurred after Bloomfield had the Bolivars debentures printed and that he now need to have them destroyed. What is most interesting is to read the listing of the debentures to be printed. As mentioned by Bloomfield, they add up to a total of 2200 certificates and, even if Bloomfield didn’t gave this precision, their combined value totalizes 10 millions US dollars, an amount that in 1959 dollars would represent 75 millions in 2010 money.

Well, it is not only quite surprising to see that a corporation issuing for such an important amount of debentures could be created from scratches, but there is some questions to be asked about the seriousness of its director who, overnight, decided to have this amount of certificates issued in US dollars instead of Bolivars. One of the questions to ask is the following: “Is Mantello, the 33rd degree Freemason behind Permindex, really at the head of a financial empire and he is really in the capacity to make such important last minute decision? Or is he only a conman?” Since, through the work of eminent lawyers like Louis Bloomfield and Stanley Vineberg, he was able to associate in his deals bankers like Edmund Rothschild, François Pereire and Hans Seligman and many businessmen like New Yorker Joseph Slifka, and that on a long period of time, we can exclude the possibility that Mantello’s dealing were just fraud. But still, since there subsist no tangible trace of Mantello’s financial empire, --that is no public trail of an organisation that reunite corporations with such ambitious names as Centro Mondiale Commerciale and Permindex (Permanent Industrial Exhibition), along with Marina Reale, that had a capitalization of 1,9 million USD (in 1959), and this last intercontinental corporation named Venezitalo Realty Investments Limited with its 10 millions US dollars debentures-- one has to wonder if Mantello’s multinational empire wasn’t of an underground type, more related to secret intelligence or organized crime than to official international business. Again, we should keep in mind that if it wasn’t for the accusations linking Permindex and CMC to the JFK assassination, those two international corporations would today be non-entities unknown from the public.

For its part, Louis Bloomfield had his own questions to ask. In his letter, he wrote: “Why so many certificates? Would it not be easier to have them, say, in denominations of $100,000. $50,000. $25,000. $10,000. $5,000. and $1,000 as we had agreed upon for the Bolivars debentures?” There is no trace of Mantello answer to this question in the available Bloomfield archives. But what comes in mind when we consider Bloomfield’s question is that Mantello’s debentures look more like an exchange currency, some kind of convenient Monopoly money, than certificates of investment. So one has to ask: if it is not to play Monopoly, for what game is intended this new discreet currency put at the disposition of an Italian 33rd degree Freemason? Secret intelligence operations financing? Contraband deals, including arms or drug deals?
Well for now, we don’t know a lot about the Mantello’s activities and intentions. And —what is the most important thing—we can clearly see that Louis Bloomfield neither is aware of Georges Mantello’s plan. Again, this kind of information should be remember to those who concluded that Bloomfield was the chief of Permindex and the engineer of the JFK assassination just because he was holding a majority of Permindex’s shares on behalf of others.

Whatever was the role of Permindex in regard of JFK assassination, and whatever was the part Bloomfield played in CMC and Permindex, the Louis M. Bloomfield archives, held at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, clearly show that the characterisation of the Montreal lawyer as the chief master of the JFK assassination was a false conclusion and an exaggeration. It is, in all evidence, to clear his name in this matter and establish the historic facts that Louis Bloomfield donated his papers to the Canadian Public Archives. And again, Library and Archives Canada not only affects the honour of its donator but is dishonouring itself by refusing to fulfill its commitment toward him and by keeping secret part of those archives against Bloomfield’s will.

THE PERMINDEX PAPERS III

THE INTERNATIONAL REAL ESTATE DEAL

In the previous post, we have seen four Permindex documents originating from the Bloomfield Archives kept at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). They allowed us to learn that Montreal attorney Stanley Vineberg, from the Phillips, Bloomfield, Vineberg and Goodman law office, and French bankers Edmund Rothschild and François Pereire were participants in one of the earliest Permindex real estate deal that took place in 1959.

The next series of Permindex papers reproduced below will help us understand the nature of this secretive organisation and the part that each actor was playing in it. Principally, they demonstrate that, at least in one Permindex 1959 real estate deal, Montreal lawyer Stanley Vineberg played a prominent role and was consulted by his law associate Louis Bloomfield at every stage of the transaction. The documents also allow us to understand that, in 1959, Georges Mantello, a 33rd degree Freemason, was using Permindex to mount financial transactions. In the real estate deal referred to in those documents, Mantello appears as a realtor whose function is to find buyers for a property sold by Countess Calvi who is represented by Carlo d’Amelio, an Italian count who is also acting as president for Centro Mondiale Comerciale, Permindex’s parent corporation. For his part, Louis Bloomfield appears to be the representative of a syndicate of buyers ready to pay to take possession of the Countess Calvi’s property. For those buyers, the main interest was to invest in real estate whose value was supposed to skyrocket, but, as we will see later, those buyers didn’t acquire lot of land but shares in Permindex or in others corporation like the Panamean Marina Reale corporation, that were the registered owners of the properties.

It is interesting to note that some of those documents, like the three next cables sent by Louis Bloomfield to Georges Mantello between April 6 and April 10 1959, put together and viewed with other brusque letters in the archives, allow us to understand that the communications between the Canadian lawyer Bloomfield and Georges Mantello, the Italian Permindex’s director, aren’t perfect and that their relations are a little tense. Again, this knowledge tends to make us review the fast and too hurried conclusion, made by some authors, of seeing lawyer Louis Bloomfield as the supreme head of Permindex, and thus as the engineer of the JFK assassination; a line of thought that have for starting hypothesis the assumption that Permindex is somehow related to this historical crime. Remember that those, in JFK assassination literature, who view Bloomfield as a potential participant in the Dallas conspiracy, have done so because he was described as the “main shareholder of Permindex for parties unknown”.
The first cable, dated April 6 1959, by itself seems innocuous. Its only contains a line with the question: “When are you coming?”, and an imperative demand: “Cable immediately!” But, and it will become evident in view of other documents, this communication is a sign of the impatience and irritation that Bloomfield resent toward Mantello.

We don’t know exactly what answer Bloomfield received from Mantello because the part of the Bloomfield Archives containing most of the Permindex documents consists of books of outgoing correspondence from the Montreal lawyer to his correspondents. But the next day, on April 7, 1959, Bloomfield cabled Mantello his instructions. In clear, Bloomfield asked Mantello to transfer his participation of 100 000 $ in the real estate deal to the account of Stanley Vineberg at Montreal Royal bank. When this amount will be received, Bloomfield, through the Royal Bank, will cable a total of 350 000$ to the Bank Lavoro in Roma as a deposit for the payment to be made at the conclusion of the deal.

Then, three days later, on April 10, Bloomfield, who probably had receive the money, sent a direct message to Mantello, telling the Italian director that he didn’t respect his promise of cabling some documents for examination prior to Mantello visit to Miami, the following week. This information about a Miami meeting is quite intriguing. After learning in previous cables that Bloomfield and Mantello projected a trip to Venezuela related to Permindex, we now discover that, in order to complete the Permindex deal, they considered going to Florida. Further cables will teach us the reason of this trip.

Bloomfield had to be patient with the Italian director, because his archives only shows echoes of their dealing 17 days later on April 27. At that date, Bloomfield sent a cable and a letter to his law associate Stanley Vineberg who is in Miami Beach on the Don Quixote boat.

In the cable, Bloomfield announced that the Mantellos (Georges and his son Enrique) and Carlo d’Amelio will arrive Friday night, the first of May; then he asked Vineberg if he can meet them in New York. To his letter, Bloomfield joined a copy of a Contract of Sale.

Since it is a normal occurrence for Canadian businessmen to spend part of the cold winter in Florida, and since some Montreal newspapers mentioned that Stanley Vineberg was doing so in 1959, we can deduct that the Miami trip had for primary purpose a meeting with him. But, the fact that both Bloomfield and Mantello would consider such a displacement in relation to the Permindex real estate deal, reveal that Vineberg was playing a prominent part in this business.

Stanley Vineberg’s importance is confirmed in the following May 8th letter from Louis Bloomfield to Carlo d’Amelio in which Bloomfield wrote that “Mr Vineberg and I will make arrangement to come to Rome toward the end of this month in order to work out a physical division of the property mutually satisfactory to both parties.”

Five days later, on May 13th, 1959, another letter from the same correspondents confirms that Louis Bloomfield had to consult Stanley Vineberg on details of the real estate deal such as the bank to use in the money transfer.

In all evidence, the transfer of money was done and real estate deal that was the object of the above communications was closed; at least, for a few months the Bloomfield Archives contain no document referring to this deal.

Then, in July 17th we find echoes of the Venezuelan project for which Bloomfield and Mantello were contemplating a trip to South America. In a July 17th letter, Bloomfield ask Mantello if he should form a Canadian corporation that should issue debentures for an amount of 26 millions Bolivars. And ask: “When are we going to Venezuela?”

For those who think that this new project and future trip is a sign of good relationship between Bloomfield and Mantello, the next document will prove that the honeymoon, if there was one, wasn’t very long.

We have no trace of an actual trip to Venezuela, but three months later a Bloomfield letter to Joseph Slifka, a New York businessman, shows that the Montreal lawyer and the Italian Freemason had a serious confrontation. In this October 20th. 1959 letter, Bloomfield relate: “I still have not recovered from the shock of your telephone conversation today when you told me that I should have arranged to see that the cheque which you issued to Mantello personally was made out to the Banco Nazionale del Lavoro.”

“To refresh your memory, Bernard (Bloomfield) was in the room at the time, I completely lost my temper with Mantello and wanted to walk out of the room when he refused to treat the affair in an orderly manner and have the cheques made out to the bank.”

Reading about such friction between Bloomfield and Mantello, Permindex’s Italian director, really made one doubt that the Montreal lawyer was in control of Permindex. Thus, even if we accept the possibility that this company was used to finance the JFK assassination, we should consider that others then Bloomfield were the true controllers behind the shadowy firm.
Again, such findings make us understand the reasons why Louis Bloomfield, whose name was associated with Permindex and the JFK assassination in literature published first in 1968 and most largely in 1978, gave his archives to what was then named the Canadian Public Archives. They also make us understand how much Library and Archives Canada, who still refuse to open part of Bloomfield Archives against its donator’s will, is making itself an obstacle to the knowledge of historical truth and to the reestablishment of Louis Bloomfield’s reputation.

(To be continued.)