MORE PERMINDEX DOCUMENTS

BLOOMFIELD AND HIS PERMINDEX’S PARTNERS:A VERY TENSE RELATION

Previously, we have seen, in many Permindex documents originating from the Bloomfield papers held at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), that during the year 1959 the relation between Louis M. Bloomfield and Georges Mantello, the acting director of Permindex in Italy, wasn’t always harmonious.

New documents from November 1959 and January 1960, show that Louis Bloomfield had also some tense relations with others peoples interested in Permindex such as Swiss banker Hans Seligman. Again, the documents in the Canadian archives tend to counter the hypothesis that Louis Bloomfield was the acting head of Permindex and the engineer of the JFK assassination, ever if this shadowy company was really associated to it.

In a November 25th, 1959 letter, Bloomfield wrote to Seligman, the head of the Hans Seligman-Schurch & Co bank in Basel, Switzerland to clarify his position and to complain about Seligman’s attitude. The Montreal attorney was upset to the point of menacing to retire from Permindex. Bloomfield wrote:

“I at no time made any arrangement with you covering banking arrangements with your firms for Permindex. Everything we discuss, as you rightly know, was subject to confirmation by my clients and they and I resent being presented with your faits accomplis without having had an opportunity of coming to a final arrangement.”

More specifically, Bloomfield reproached to Seligman the fact that he hid information about Parkhof, Permindex first Swiss real estate deal that was facing bankruptcy. He wrote: “Your failure to disclose to me the Parkof situation and your general attitude has caused me no end of trouble and embarrassment and I am now on the point of reconsidering my entire position vis-à-vis the Permindex complex.”

A NAZI COLLABORATOR  INSIDE PERMINDEX
Bloomfield, who acted as representative of clients having invested in the capital of the Italian Permindex company, seems genuinely anxious that this capital was not engulfed in the failure of the previous Parkhof Swiss project. His concerns are echoed few weeks later, in a January 13th, 1960 letter to Dr E. W. Imfeld, a Swiss lawyer that had relations with SS having loot goods from Jews during the war.

Indeed, Dr Imfeld was a very strange associate for Bloomfield, who was himself an ardent Sionist. In its final Report, the 1996 Swiss Independant Commission of Experts to investigate Switzerland’s role in the Nazi period did identify Dr Ernst W. Imfeld as an associate of SS Friedrich Kadgien, a lawyer at the Nazi Public Economy Department during the Second World War. According to the report, “Kadgien had been heavily involved un criminal methods for acquiring currency, securities and diamonds stolen from Jewish victims playing a major role. (…) Kadgien and his colleagues had certainly put aside assets, and were able as early as 1947/1948 to set up a company using Swiss middlemen, thus preparing the way for their departure to South America soon afterwards. Imhauka AG, whose name records the initials of its three founders – Imfeld, Haupt, Kadgien—set up its domicile in Sarnen, in Central Switzerland (…) A Zurich lawyer, Dr. Ernst Imfeld, who had worked for Petrola during the war, ran the business from Zurich, while the Germans involve moved to Bogotà and Rio de Janeiro.” (References: Report, the 1996 Swiss Independant Commission of Experts to investigate Switzerland’s role in the Nazi period and Dodis (Diplomatische Dokumente des Schweiz) )

In a January 13th letter, Bloomfield, who familiarly call Imfeld “Dear Peter”, contest the validity of amounts figuring in Permindex’s budget as guarantees toward Parkhof and ask Imfeld, who act as Permindex’s verificator to explain the presence of those amount in the budget.

The same day, in a letter to Georges Mantello, Permindex Italian director, Bloomfield asked clarification on the same matter. He wrote: “You were told by Metzger and I was told by Imfeld that these guarantees did not exist. What is the story?”

  If the tone of this letter to Georges Mantello, the 33rd degree Freemason that Bloomfield considered the “Genius behind Permindex”, was only politely interrogative, we can’t say the same about the letter that he sent eight days later to Enrico Mantello, Georges’ son. In this letter, Bloomfield vehemently reproached Enrico not to keep him up to date. “I asked you, on several occasions, to cable me the results of your discussions in Milan. (…) You did not bother to keep me posted and I want you to know that I resent this cavalier attitude on your part (…) I would never have undertaken this job if I had not been assured of your cooperation. The result of putting my faith in you is that I have to get my own information through secondary sources.”
One part of this letter, really suggest that, far from being the supreme head of Permindex, Montreal lawyer Bloomfield has been the object of the Mantellos’ lack of personal respect. Bloomfield wrote: “While I forgive the incident at the airport where you did not bother to send someone to meet me, as this was only a personal question involving loss of time, I cannot forgive your failure to keep your promise to me to keep me posted as to what has been happening in Permindex.” 

Once again, the documents that Louis Bloomfield have donated to the Canadian National Archives, allow us to understand that Bloomfield’s role in Permindex wasn’t one invested with supreme executive authority.

Even if those documents indicate for the first time that Permindex was a corporation more complex and suspect than previously known –that is an organisation that included in its outside circle peoples like Baron Edmund de Rothschild and, in its inner sanctum, 33rd degree Freemason Georges Mantello and Dr Imfeld, an associate of former SS German State official having looted Jewish values— the Bloomfield Archives constitute a strong testimony that rebuke the unfounded accusation according to which he was the executive head of Permindex and, consequently, the engineer of the JFK assassination. Louis Bloomfield, that was aware of those slanders, first published in 1968 and more widely disseminated around 1977-1978, in all likelihood, had, at this time, decided to give his papers to the Canadian Public Archives in order to straighten the record about his association with Permindex.

At his death, in 1984, Bloomfield couldn’t imagine that, 20 years later, the development of Internet and of the World Wide Web would catapult what were then slanders only printed in hardly accessible underground publications to millions of computers around the earth. If he had any intuition that those rumours about him would spread with the years, Louis Bloomfield would have certainly found some comfort in the fact that he donated his papers to a governmental archival institution to the condition that it makes them public 20 years after his death. Regrettably, there is another thing that Bloomfield couldn’t imagine: that the public institution that accepted his donation would deny its obligation and keep secret an important part of the papers relating to Permindex.

If, from his grave, Bloomfield had the possibility to write a protest to Library and Archives Canada, he would certainly find pertinent many phrases that appeared in his letter to Enrico Mantello. Thus, he could certainly complain about “The result of putting my faith in you” and tell LAC: “I want you to know that I resent this cavalier attitude on your part” and “I cannot forgive your failure to keep your promise to me.” Perhaps he could conclude like he did with Enrico, by saying: “You do not seem to realise the seriousness of the situation.”