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.)