The Finders - Sources

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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:33 pm

Those VISUP comments are a great find. The defense of Marion Pettie (without a shred of evidence) is remarkable and potentially revealing.

Someone - a private individual probably - was paying Pettie to investigate the whereabouts of children who had vanished into the lydia rayner and faye yager fronted "children's underground", although it is not an impossibility that a goverment agency such as the CIA could also have been paying Pettie to look into the possible involvement of foreign 'extremist' - 'terrorist' (i.e left-radical, Weather Underground connected) groups facilitating the accomodating & hiding of these children in other countries. This is the primary motivation for the setting-up & "take down" of Pettie's group, to disrupt Pettie's investigation of the "children's underground".

[...]

So what's with the vanfull of kids in Florida? Not likely going to any school as Pettie claimed. More likely being taken far away from HQ, to be looked after in some obscure place of safety by trustworthy members of the group, because Pettie has some kind of forewarning that his operation is going to suffer a bogus investigatory "hit". Send their kids far away so they won't get hurt, won't get caught up in whatever shit goes down, won't be confiscated by child welfare agencies if all the adults end up incarcerated. But they were tracked to Florida by their enemies, who take advantage of the circumstances to initiate the take-down with a complaint about possibly kidnapped "wild" children living in a van.


Stunningly naive, verging on purposely deceitful. Is fantasypopper actually Amazon arch-reviewer Vindalf, or perhaps one of his friends? I know that person is still actively monitoring these sorts of topics.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:47 pm

http://davefromqueens2.blogspot.com/201 ... ed-to.html
http://davefromqueens2.blogspot.com/201 ... -fake.html

Reading through some of the comments on these pages again for the first time in years, I'm struck by two things:

Yes, Vindalf could very well be that commenter on VISUP and wikispooks. And yes, he is probably reading this right now :lol:

You've been busted as a troll at every forum you've ever posted on. Your shrill denials make it all the funnier. All the mods on forums that ban you for being such an obvious sock-puppet are mentally ill, as is everybody that happens to disagree with you. Interesting that you talk so much about mental illness.

Ever hear of Freudian Projection? No, probably not, your reading comprehension skills being what they are.

Everyone is on to you and have been for years.

While RI may post a lot of crap, they have never turned the forum over to sick-fuck goons from the Process and NAMBLA, like Mesner and Canadian Bob/Vindalf/edmontonguy or whatever sock puppet he's currently using.

Radio Free Satan--nice going Useful Idiot...
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:18 pm

The Martinez report is actually less disturbing to me than the curious details that emerge from piecing together all the 1987 coverage. The story does not hang solely on a Customs document.

Yeah, the Marion Pettie story is bizarre and incriminating from top to bottom. Great work on finding all of these contemporaneous articles, I've definitely never seen some of these before.

Don't remember hearing the detail about Robert Terrell wearing a Ronald Reagan mask before, but I may be wrong. Here's another reference to his book on the Finders:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/07/ ... -you-pick/

There’s a book called “Finding God in the Garden”, by Balfour Brickner…

You can read (I like it) or you can go outside and discover a few things yourself. What’s a You Pick farm? It’s a farm where you visit and pick your own fruit. There’s a new hostel in Gainesville called “The Zen Hostel”. Owner Tobe Terrell gave me a book he wrote called “The Game Caller”. I’ll write more about these two books another time. “The Game Caller” talks about a visit to a Hare Krishna home. My takeaway is his thought that “Krishna’s name may change from one religion to another”. I believe there’s spirituality out on the farm.


And from there I happened to notice that "The Gamecaller" is listed on Google Books, which somehow escaped my attention up until now.

http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... DCbwAACAAJ

Tobe Terrell
Snow Lion Productions, Jan 1, 2009 - 333 pages

0 Reviews

The "Gamecaller"- a unique name for a unique occupation given by a unique character himself. M.D. Pettie was the gamecaller, "calling games" for a group of dropout professionals who roamed the world playing a series of consciousness-expanding games... Zen master... cult leader.. a CIA operative... con man... saint... [and] storyteller. He never claimed to be anything more than a student and a bemused observer of human folly... This is the personal story of some of the games that he invented, told by one of his players.


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snow-Lio ... 1697778229

There's a copy right here:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-gam ... 0979627187

http://www.thriftbooks.com/viewdetails. ... 0979627184

http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/gamecall ... GGFREESHIP

Gamecaller 1st edition

ISBN:
0979627184
ISBN-13:
9780979627187

Authors:
Tobe Terrell, Ian Schleifer, Stuart Silverstone
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:20 pm

Searching for the name Stuart Silverstone opened up a whole lot of interesting avenues...

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Zet ... opics/2219

A page from Dave's Diary
(2)

BoOfSwell@aol.com
Message 1 of 2 , Aug 10, 2007
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006.

This past weekend I made the acquaintance of two people who, it turns out, have a strange history: Kristen Knauth (who sometimes writes under the name Kristen K. Nauth and currently goes by Kay Nauth) and Douglas Ammerman. During the late 1980s they were members of a communal group known as the Finders. The Finders began as a loose association in the late 1960s under the guidance of Marion David Pettie; although Pettie died in 2003, the group probably persists today as a web of acquaintances.

One can find quite a lot of material on the Internet about the Finders, but almost all of it consists of reprints and rehashes of a series of news articles dating from 1988, when the Finders had their only run-in with the police. Starting with the McMartin preschool case in the early 1980s, many people have posited and researched a supposed conspiracy of Satanists who sexually abuse, torture, and murder young children as a part of their rituals. A few details in the original stories about the Finders seemed to fit that template, and an article in 1993 in U.S. News and World Report added reasons for suspecting that some of the group had worked with or for the CIA in some capacity, and had been protected by them in the 1988 police investigation. The news stories were posted and reposted around the Internet; when paraphrased, the stories were sensationalized and exaggerated to suggest that Pettie, the leader of the group, was a "homosexual pedophile" and that the group kidnapped children around the world as part of a CIA program to acquire subjects for its mind-control experiments. I discount most of this, but I am certain that the Finders were still active in the 1990s; moreover, I have an idea that they’re not people to trifle with -- they waged a small harassment campaign against a journalist who was investigating them in the 1990s and have been accused of harassing behavior by several ex-members and their attorneys.

I met Nauth and Ammerman during the first three days of the week of December 10, 2006. My fiancee and I had moved to Floyd, VA in February, and we were trying to convince my son to move to Floyd. He was visiting with us to look at houses for rent. Nauth had placed an ad in the Floyd Press for some property she was just finishing purchasing. My son and I met her at the property and he was inclined to rent the place. We had Nauth and Ammerman over to our house the next evening and gave them a check for the first month's rent and deposit. But there were several unusual details about the arrangements that bothered us. (Oddest was that they insisted that there be no written rental agreement, that all business be conducted on the basis of mutual trust.)

I had trouble sleeping that night, and, out of curiosity, began googling Nauth and Ammerman. With only a little effort, I found an abundance of discomfiting news reports and lurid speculation. I didn't know what to make of any of it, but, being leery of getting involved in an open-end rental in what could, at the very least, have been a scam, we decided to cancel the arrangement. (I was concerned about identity theft, since they had information from my son's credit report -- SSN, birthdate, creditors, etc. I was probably unfair to suspect this, but at the time, I knew next to nothing about Nauth or Ammerman other than they were apparently unconventional people who had excited a lot of speculation on the Internet.) I called Nauth the next day with a concocted story about my son's changing his mind about moving to Floyd, returned the keys to the property, and got my son's checks back.

This was my only personal contact with anyone connected to the Finders. I started making detailed notes of my meeting with Nauth and Ammerman, in case additional complexity should arise, and I include those notes at the end of this memo.

I decided to collect all that I could about the Pettie and the Finders without getting into contact with anyone connected to them. This material follows. I've mostly stuck with listing and linking to primary sources. In some cases I excerpt whole articles, in other cases, selectively quote and supply URLs to the source. I've steered clear of other peoples' speculations, especially those dealing with Satanism and ritual abuse. Anyone interested in that can find plenty on the Internet by googling "the finders" or “marion david pettie“.

I've broken the material down into three major sections. The first part deals with the spate of investigations and articles concerning the Finders that appeared in 1987 and then again in 1993. The second part deals with Pettie's background, mostly up until the police investigation of 1987. The third part gives a little more information about Nauth that I was able to pull off the Internet.

If you’re wondering at this point why I bothered to do all this -- well, while my son and I were looking over the rental property, Kay Nauth mentioned that she and her boyfriend wanted to buy two or three goats. And goats figure prominently in the next section.

1. The Finders

Here is the article that first started me looking into the Finders. I stumbled on it when I googled "k. nauth". It‘s as good a place to start as any.

http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuit ... ID=4.topic

The first section of the article contains links to three articles that Knath/Nauth has published on the Internet:

http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action ... set&id=257

http://www.topsecretnet.com/knowmag.htm

http://www.kmmag.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=512

The first of these describes the house in Culpeper where Pettie and the remaining members of the Finders lived in the 1990s; apparently Nauth was interested in keeping the communal arrangement active. References to the same house also appear in the Pettie interview by Eddie Dean, linked to in section 2.

The most detailed reprise of the 1987 investigations and their aftermath is given here:

http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuit ... =317.topic

It reprints the following articles:

The Washington Times

December 17, 1993, Friday, Final Edition

SECTION: Part A; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: CIA tied to cult accused of abuse; Justice probes links to Finders

BYLINE: Paul M. Rodriguez; THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Post

June 1, 1987, Monday, Final Edition

SECTION: METRO; PAGE D4; UPDATE ON THE NEWS

HEADLINE: Fla. Judge Sends 2 Finders Children To Foster Homes

BYLINE: Marc Fisher

The Washington Post

February 12, 1987, Thursday, Final Edition

SECTION: METRO; PAGE B1

HEADLINE: Officials Weigh Future of Finders' Children; Two Members Plead Not Guilty to Misdemeanor Neglect Charges in Florida

BYLINE: Marc Fisher, Victoria Churchville, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post

February 11, 1987, Wednesday, Final Edition

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

HEADLINE: Finding Truth About Finders Proves to Be No Simple Matter

BYLINE: Marc Fisher, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Washington Post

February 10, 1987, Tuesday, Final Edition

SECTION: METRO; PAGE D1

HEADLINE: D.C. Police: Finders Odd, Not Criminal; FBI, Virginia and Florida Expand Probes

BYLINE: Victoria Churchville, Marc Fisher, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Washington Post

February 8, 1987, Sunday, Final Edition

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

HEADLINE: Cult Member Defends 2 Men in Child Abuse Case

BYLINE: Victoria Churchville, Martin Weil, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post

February 8, 1987, Sunday, Final Edition

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

HEADLINE: Ex-Finders Tell of Games, Complex Beliefs; Group Tried to Raise Children to Be Independent, Tough

BYLINE: John Mintz, Marc Fisher, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post

February 7, 1987, Saturday, Final Edition

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

HEADLINE: Finders Group Has Its Roots In Popular '60s Hippie Refuge

BYLINE: Marc Fisher, John Mintz, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post

February 7, 1987, Saturday, Final Edition

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A1

HEADLINE: Officials Describe 'Cult Rituals' in Child Abuse Case;

BYLINE: Saundra Saperstein, Victoria Churchville, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Washington Post

March 4, 1987, Wednesday, Final Edition

SECTION: METRO; PAGE C3

HEADLINE: Finders to Sell D.C. Property, Move to Florida, Leader Says

Here's another digest of news articles (many overlapping with the previous reprints; reprints from New York Times and St. Petersburg Times are unique):

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... 7d4daef5e7

The New York Times

February 10, 1987, Tuesday, Late City Final Edition

SECTION: Section A; Page 21, Column 1; National Desk

HEADLINE: POLICE SAY UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN IN FLORIDA ARE NOT VICTIMS OF CULT

BYLINE: By PHILIP SHENON, Special to the New York Times

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

February 15, 1987, Sunday, City Edition

SECTION: METRO AND STATE; Pg. 1B

HEADLINE: Finding the Finders // Tangled trail leads to mystery group

BYLINE: LARRY KING

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

February 10, 1987, Tuesday, City Edition

SECTION: METRO AND STATE; Pg. 1B

HEADLINE: Finders group led a private life in Tampa

BYLINE: JEFFREY GOOD; KIMBERLY D. KLEMAN

Various sources on the Internet (including those given here) cite two memos that were written by a U.S. Customs investigator named Ramon J. Martinez. Martinez (who may still work for Customs) owns a martial arts school:

http://www.hmgongfu.com/instructor.html

where he could probably be reached for follow-up questions. In some of the reproductions of the memo, credit is given to Wendell Minnick as the journalist who unearthed them.

Here’s a minor reference to the Finders from the mid-90s. From Wendell Minnick, note.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.news ... 1995-02%3F

Most of the names given there turn up in other places.

Marion Pettie, Kristin Knauth: more below.

Steve Usdin, Jeff Ubois, Robert M. Meyer:

Scroll down to the second story (“Marion Pettie and his Washington DC Finders: Kooks or Spooks?”) at http://www.namebase.org/news05.html. Usdin, as a published author, is linked to in many places on the web. He turns up again in Section 3.

Kris Herbst: writer and webmaster. No other connections to Finders found.

Stuart Silverstone: He was the only Finder present in the building when the police raided the W Street house, according to the first memo by the U.S. Customs agent Ramon J. Martinez. He appears on the Internet as a journalist and consultant in Knowledge Management (a subject also of interest to other Finders such as Nauth).

Ted Reiss: mentioned in the “Investigative Leads” memo reprinted in Section 2.

Another interesting link to a posting by Minnick:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.law- ... fdcb74e9e1

Here’s a copy:

From: wminnick - view profile

Date: Wed, Jun 26 1996 12:00 am

FINDERS

Marion David Pettie, Jr
age 75, born Nethers, VA
Retired Air Force Intelligence in 1956 as Master Sgt.
Wife: Isabell Pettie (Deceased)/CIA Support Sec. COS Germany
Sons: George Pettie (Air America/Vietnam)
David Marion Pettie (member of cult: The Community)

ACTIVE MEMBERS:

Alleman, Ronald L. "Lucky" "Merry Man"
Berns, Stanley
Grogan, Mary
Herbst, Christian (KRIS)
Knauth, Kristin
Reiss, Theodore G. (wife: Ann)
Schoen, Allen
Silverstone, Stuart Miles (aka Steve Learner)
Winn, Randolph
Usdin, Steve

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

OUT OF FINDERS:

Ammerman, Douglas Edward (aka Kenny Rogers, Earnest Angel, I
Betterson)
Arico, Paula M. (children: Mary and John Paul Pope/married
Holwell)
Beltz, Judith Friedman
Cox, John J.
Evans, Judith
Gabriel, Susan E.
Holwell, Michael James (aka Houlihan/children: See Arico)
Lawton, George
Livingstone, Patricia H. (son: Max)
Meyer, Robert M.
Roseberry, Patricia
Said, Carolyn (daughter: Bee Bee)
Sartor, Valerie
Shapiro, Jan
Sherwood, Diane E.
Sylvester, Barbara ("Bonnie"/died Jan 1982/Pettie's girlfriend)
Terrell, Robert Gardner "Toby" (aka Ghingiz K. Plato)
Ubois, Jeff (married Ma Li, from Canton China).
Van Deusen, Thomas R.
Wagg, Terry.

FRONTS:

Dorm:
Finders, 3920 W St NW, 20007-1774 202-337-9814
Finders, J. 3918 W St NW, 20007-1773 202-338-8163 Lucky
Womens Travelers Center:
3918 W St NW, 20007-1773 202-333-9696.

National Press Club:

Global Press, 529 14th St, NW Wash 20045-1000 202-662-7431
Bio World, 529 14th St, NW Wash 20045-1000 202-662-7431
AAA-1 Information Finders, Natl Press Bldg2000 202-347-9200
Emergency Services, Natl Press Bldg, 20004 202-347-9200
Global Press Review, Natl Press Bldg, 20004 202-347-9200
Graphics News Service, Natl Press Bldg, 20004 202-347-9200
Information Bank, Natl Press Bldg, 20004 202-347-9200

RUSSIA:

Global Press and Centre for Information Research
Moscow, Russia
k...@... (Mr. Kirill Tchashchin)
f...@... (Mr. Valery Bardin)
phone: +7 095 195-4573

Culpeper:

Alleman, 311 South Main, 22701-3115, 540-825-1595, 540-825-7404.
Pettie, 409 Macoy Ave., 22701-2916, 540-825-8236.
Usdin, 102 N. Main St. 22701-3053, 540-825-9652

121 W. Locust (CULPEPER):

Finders International, 121 W LOCUST ST, CULPEPER, VA 22701-3146

540-825-5054
International Press Club, 121 W LOCUST ST, CULPEPER, VA
22701-3146 540-825-5054
Swift Services, 121 W LOCUST ST, CULPEPER, VA 22701-3146
540-825-5054
USDIN STEVE, 121 W LOCUST ST, CULPEPER, VA 22701-3146

540-825-2577

Warehouse (warehouse sold in 1994):

Arts and Crafts 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Global Press Review, 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Graphics News Services 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Gung-Ho Traders 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Information Bank 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Invisible Store, 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001
Ourhaus Associates 1307 4th St NE 20002-7001

Internet:

http://www.clark.net/pub/global/home.html
glo...@... (Kris Herbst)
sus...@... (Steve Usdin)
1-202-662-7431 and Fax 662-7433

skept...@... (unknown/but definitely a Finder)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.georgetown.edu/reiss/home.html

http://xville.com/xville/ (now inactive) The Xville home page
was produced by Ted Reiss:

rei...@... (Ted Reiss)
tedre...@... (Ted Reiss)

Now it gets a little weird. Minnick eventually concluded that the Finders were harmless: From

http://www.whale.to/b/alexander.html:

Wendell Minnick, author of Spies and Provocateurs: An Encyclopedia of Espionage and Covert Action, reports he spent two years and over $1,000 in phone bills researching the Finders. There are two somewhat conflicting reports on the Finders from Minnick. In a May, 1996, Washington City Paper, Minnick states "the Finders would love you to think they're a CIA front, but I would say they're really nothing. You're going to hear a lot of bullshit on the Finders because they lie. These are dysfunctional adults, but they're all working their asses off. They're constantly working on some project. If you have a cult, the best way to control people is to keep them busy, to keep their minds occupied." On the internet, Minnicks Winter 1995, article, The Finders: The CIA and the Cult of Marion David Pettie, says something different. The Finders were suspected of abducting children for sale, but never had it proved. Minnick states a 1987 raid resulted in the recovery of one telex ordering "the purchase of two children from Hong Kong to be arranged through a contact in the Chinese embassy there." At the time of the raid, Justice Department agents discovered a Chinese student living with the Finders. Wang Gen-xin was a graduate student in the anatomy department at Georgetown University . His involvement has not been clarified.

Minnick added, "The one line that crucifies the CIA and the Finders on the same cross startles the imagination: "CIA made one contact and admitted to owning the Finders organization as a front for a domestic computer training operation, but that it had gone bad." Was this a leaked bit of info for damage control or connections between the CIA and the Finders? (10] It is known to many that after his retirement from the Air Force in 1956, Pettie's wife. Isabel, joined the CIA as a support secretary serving the station chief in Frankfurt , Germany , from 1957-61. Pettie's son, George, served in the CIA's drug activities in Air America during the Vietnam war. While this may not be conclusive proof of Marion Pettie's direct involvement with the CIA in some kind of child porn, abduction, sacrifice scheme, it draws one much closer to it.

But, from 2004, comes this mysterious posting:

http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/displa ... /index.php

The Finders cult group has moved to Taiwan,the group is suspected to be involved in pedophilia.

The Finders cult group has moved to Taiwan, the Taipei group is run an American Journalist who had researched them in the 1990's and became a convert.The group is expanding in Taipei now.They have affiliated themselves with orphanages.The American journalist tried to set up a branch of the Finders in Korea but was expelled in 1997 by Korean police under a cloud of accusations that he had undressed pre schoolers in his care and photographed them naked.There was no evidence found in his apartment or on his laptop but he was promtly deported and moved to Taipei. He is involved in efforts to smear various anti pedophilia groups using his status as a journalist. He claims that a friend of his,ex New Zealand Police Officer, Graham Cleghorn, was set up by anti pedophila groups in Cambodia.Cleghorn was jailed in Cambodia earlier this year.

…[rehash of 1988 stories]]

At first, I was inclined to think that the unnamed American journalist was Minnick: He investigated the Finders in the 1990s, and the following link (http://www.taiwanho.com/print.php?sid=172) notes “Since 2000 he has served as Taipei correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly“. Had Minnick been turned by the Finders? More likely, though, this posting was submitted as disinformation or harassment by one of the Finders. They engaged in this kind of behavior on the usenet groups when Minnick was originally investigating them. See the thread at

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.jour ... 2a316bbf95

The poster skeptics has as his email address skeptics@... -- apparently Ted Reiss’s company, according to another post:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.wire ... 774442907b

(Search on that page for Reiss.)

Anyway, here are three links to Minnick’s articles posted on usenet. He apparently did considerable primary research.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.cult ... e7f74314d4

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.soci ... d617ca38fc

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.soci ... 3a6aaa1ee0

They contain a few new names, and, among other things, confirm something I suspected, that Knauth and Usdin were married for a period during the 1990s (see Section 3).

2. Marion David Pettie

Outside of the material related to the police investigation, I found only three primary sources concerning Pettie. The first is an interview from 1996 by Eddie Dean, originally printed in the Washington City Paper.

The link to the original requires a paid membership, but the interview is transcribed here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@.../msg04133.html

The person who cut and pasted the interview at this link is apparently suspicious that it's disinformation. But Dean is a legitimate reporter -- he's worked for Vanity Fair and the Village Voice. The interview’s not very informative. Note the word Ataraxia that appears on the movie marquee -- it's a word that Kristin K. Nauth is apparently fond of, as well -- she uses it in her article at

http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action ... set&id=257

Nauth describes the same Culpeper house in this essay. Here's the house -- apparently it was bought about a year ago, remodelled, and is now being flipped:

http://www.trulia.com/property/16564867 ... r-VA-22701

The second and third primary sources have been copied and posted on various sites around the Internet; here’s one link:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@.../msg00344.html

The link contains an interview with Pettie from 1998, followed by an anonymous memorandum (“Investigative Leads”, said to date from the 1980s) concerning his connections to intelligence. Again, the interview is not very revelatory. But the memorandum provides a wealth of connections that seem plausible. To save skipping back and forth, I’ve quoted the entire text of the memorandum here.

STEAMSHOVEL DEBRIS, The Finders

Pettie met Joseph Chiang, a chinese agent operating under Journalistic cover, in 1939 and remained in close contact with him throughout the war. Around this time Pettie also made Connections with the OSS, through George Varga, Earl D. Brodie and (John Von Neumann's brother) -- all lowlevel OSS offciers. Sometime near the end of the war, Chiang introduced Pettie to Charles E. marsh, at the National Press Club. Marsh, who ran the best private intelligence network of his era and was an intimate of FDR, Henry Wallace and later Lyndon Johnson, became, Pettie's mentor and role model, shapiong[sic] his career. (Marsh's mentor and role model was Colonel Edward M. House, who was a personal advisor to President Wilson, circa 1919, often mentioned in connection to the Council on Foreign relations). Marsh died in December 1964. His last known address was Austin, Texas.

In the 1950s and 60s Marsh provided funds for Pettie to purchase hundreds of acres of farmland in Madison and Rappahannock Counties, near his estate in Culpeper County. Later Pettie arranged for William Yandell Elliott (1896- ) of Harvard University to purchase a property adjacent to him, in" Madison County.Elliott was a government professor at Harvard University who was on the

National Security Council's planning board and a trustee of Radio Liberty (sponsored by the CIA). As of 1984 Elliott was a board member of Accuracy in media. Wrote numerous books.

In 1946 Pettie, acting as chauffeur to General Ira Eaker, Marsh arranged for him to be trained in counterintelligence in Baltimore, Maryland. Around this time Pettie established close ties to two guards of atom bomb secrets, Captain Michael Altier (?) and Major Harry Wolanin, both retired. In 1954 Pettie recruited Eric Heiberg who lost his NSA clearance at about this time. Heiberg

was redeployed as a private investigator and subsequently as a talent spotter at Georgetown University (now retired). Pettie received intelligence training at Georgetown University in 1956 and was sent to USAF intelligence training school in Frankfurt, Germany in 1956-1957. Through Marsh, Pettie got his wife a job with the CIA from 1957 to early 1961, working in Washington as secretary and in Germany for the Chief of Station, Frankfurt- Colonel Leonard Weigner, USAF (deceased 1990) trained Pettie and advised Pettie retire from active military service and surround himself with kooks, recruiting agents from youth hostels and universities. Major George Varga became Pettie's case officer, relaying Weigner's instructions until Varga died in the 1970s,

Under Varga's instructions, Pettie recruited a network of agents in Europe, including Dr. Keith Arnold (recruited in Paris in 1958) who he accompanied to Moscow in 1959 or 1960. Arnold, currently based in Hong Kong with the Roche Foundation, has made over 40 trips to mainland China and has stayed in contact with Pettie. In the 1960s Pettie established connections with the 'beat' movement. Norman Mailer and Dick Dabney (died in November 1981) frequented his

Virginia farm. Dabney's widow Dana has extensive files on Pettie. Peter Gillingham (intermediate Technology. Palo Alto, CA) and Christopher Sonne(currently Goldman saches, NY) met Pettie in Moscow in 1961. In the early 60sPettie allowed Ralph Borsodi and Mildred Loomis to use his Virginia property for the School of Living, a 'decentralist' one-world government front organization. Around 1964 Pettie recruited Bosco Nedelcovic and deployed him to penetrate the Institute for Policy Studies (he is currently an interpreter at the war College in Washington). In 1967 or 1968 Pettie established a 'futurist, network, assisting Edward S. Cornish in founding the World Future Society and working through Roy Mason and John Naisbitt. At this time Pettie also penetrated the hippy drug culture through retired naval intelligence officers Wait Schneider (Timothy Leary and Billy Hitchcock's private pilot) and Willard Poulsen (cut out bewtween[sic] Pettie activities and those of Leary at millbrook), In 1971 Pettie infiltrated the 'human potential'

movement, setting up Ken Kesey (Living Love) as a prominent guru and working through Dr. Stephen Beltz (related to Judith Beltz, a behavior modification specialist more recently deployed to the Institute of Cultural Affairs and the Meta Network cult.

Christopher Bird, former CIA officer who served in Japan and a psych warfare specialist in the Army, and author of New Age and occult books has also been associated with Pettie. Bird wrote The Secret Life of Plants with Peter Tompkins, New York: Avon, 1974, Tompkins wrote on new age subjects like the pyramids, and once served in the OSS (now anti-CIA).

Pettie's activities took a different turn in 1979 when he recruited John J. Cox. founder of general Scientific (a computer firm specializing in classified defense, contracts). Cox trained several of Pettie's Finders in computer programming and communications technologies and took two or more Of them to Costa Rica and Panama in 1980-81. Cox worked through Miguel Barzuna, a

prominent Costa Rican money launderer, the Vienna, Virginia-based Institute for International Development and Cuban exile Emilio Rivera in Costa Rica and Panama. Through Cox, Pettie and the Finders linked up with several Washington area computer-oriented groups, including Community Computers, a front organziation[sic] for The Community, a cult run by Michael Rios (aka MichaelVersacc). (Pettie's son, David Pettie, is a member of the Community, Pettie's other son, George, may be the one who was in Air America) Cox also recruited Theordore[sic] G. reiss (wife; Ann), 4 reston-based computer programmer and highly active member of Werner Erhard Seminars (EST). Cox also recruited Susan Gabriel and Judith Beltz as couriers. Pettie and Cox have simulated a failing out and pretend to be enemies...

Pps 2-10

from:STEAMSHOVEL PRESS, POB 23715, St. Louis, MO 63121

Some of the names in the memo check out. Here are a few links I found.

Charles E. Marsh: apparently Pettie's mentor and the man who initially funded him, was a well-known wheeler-dealer in the twenties, thirties, and forties. He started out as a reporter, became an editor, then a publisher, before branching out into oil and real-estate. He was an early backer of Lyndon Johnson in Texas in the thirties. His mistress and subsequent wife, Alice Glass, had a long affair with LBJ. In 1947, Glass divorced Marsh, who then remarried and gave away most of his money to a foundation he set up called the Public Welfare Foundation. Here are some links about Marsh:

The folks who got Marsh's money: there's no obvious intelligence connection, and, perusing their website, I’d say one is unlikely.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/fund ... ategory=79

http://www.publicwelfare.org/index.asp

Marsh owned two estates in the area around Culpeper, where he helped Pettie acquire his farm. Marsh's first estate was at Longlea (1931 - 1947) -- he lost it to Alice Glass when he divorced her; she sold it to a think-tank interested in global security issues.

http://www.zwire.com/site/tab4.cfm?news ... 6086&rfi=6

http://www.starexponent.com/servlet/Sat ... 7833894983

http://www.starexponent.com/servlet/Sat ... path=!news

Marsh purchased his second estate (Jessamine Hill) after he lost Longlea. Note the error in the article, which claims he bought Longlea after this one.

http://www.zwire.com/site/tab4.cfm?news ... 6086&rfi=6

A quickie bio of Alice Glass:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onl ... print.html

As best I can tell about Marsh, he was both a shrewd businessman and a generous philanthropist; I haven’t discovered anything particularly sinister about him. He preferred to give his money away anonymously, mostly to individuals rather than causes. The only connection to the intelligence agencies I can find is his friendship with Roald Dahl, who worked for British intelligence while he was in Washington during the early 1940s. Marsh liked the idea of being a man behind the scenes and was involved in Democratic politics all his life. His politics were somewhat liberal by 1930s standards, but hardly radical. His “private intelligence network” mostly aimed at gathering economic data about the U.S.’s readiness on the eve of Pearl Harbor, which he shared with the U.S. government. During the war he was a confidant of Henry Wallace, but he broke with Wallace in 1948 when Wallace bolted the Democratic party. It seems to me likely that he funded Pettie -- somebody had to have -- but I can’t guess why, other than as another instance of his idiosyncratic generosity.

Other names that crop up in the "Investigative Leads" memo:

Joseph Chiang was a reporter for the Chinese News Service (a Taiwanese outfit); I found records of a couple of news conferences that Eisenhower held in the 50s, where Chiang asked questions.

Edward M. House was a well-known historical figure -- eminence gris of Woodrow Wilson, stringpuller afterwards in the Democratic Party.

William Yandell Elliott was similarly well-known. He was Henry Kissinger's mentor at Harvard and a prominent national security advisor to a succession of presidents. He retired to an estate in the Blue Ridge (near Pettie's, apparently) and died there. (He died in 1979. Note the error in the memo, which states "As of 1984 Elliott was a board member of Accuracy in media." I think Elliott was with them in the late 1970s, though.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Yandell_Elliott

http://govt.mckenna.edu/welliott/teachers/elliott.htm

Lyndon Larouche drops Elliott's name frequently -- e.g.,

http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2002/290 ... ynote.html

Keith Arnold: Head of the Roche Foundation in Hong Kong. There are a lot of references to him on the Internet, as an author of or a referenced author in medical journal articles. Here's a bio of Arnold that really doesn't mention any intelligence ties (other than special forces parachute training). Scroll down or search for Arnold.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:w82 ... clnk&cd=18

It looks to me as though he finished an internship at the Cleveland Clinic. If it were two years long, he woud have graduated from med school around 1965; so he would have finished college around 1961. I don't know how this squares with the memo's statement that "Pettie recruited a network of agents in Europe, including Dr. Keith Arnold (recruited in Paris in 1958) who he accompanied to Moscow in 1959 or 1960." An Internet petition he signed in 2005 (http://www.fas.org/butler/letter0305.pdf) gives his email address as arnold389@....

Captain Michael Altier, Major Harry Wolanin, Eric Heiberg, George Varga -- no references on the Internet, that I could find.

Leonard Weigner -- the full text of his obituary in the Washington Post confirms he was connected with the CIA:

Copyright The Washington Post Company Sep 9, 1990

Leonard N. Weigner, 73, a retired Air Force colonel who spent much of his career in intelligence work, died Sept. 7 at Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base after a heart attack. He lived in Falls Church.

He enlisted in the Army in 1941 and flew bombers with the Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II. He later served in Germany and flew in the Berlin Airlift. He also had been stationed in Athens.

Over the years, Col. Weigner worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. His last assignment, before retiring from active duty in 1972, was with the Defense Intelligence Agency at Fort Belvoir.

His decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals.

Col. Weigner, who had maintained a home here since 1958, was born in Russia. He came to this country about 1930 and grew up in New York City. He attended the Pratt Institute.

Survivors include his wife, Anastasia, of Falls Church; two daughters, Valentina Vizi of Virginia Beach and Nina Weigner of Falls Church; a son, Nicholas, of Flanders, N.J.; and six grandchildren.

Ira Eaker, Norman Mailer, Dick Dabney, Ralph Borsodi and Mildred Loomis, Bosco Nedelcovic, Timothy Leary, Edward S. Cornish, Roy Mason and John Naisbitt, Ken Kesey -- all public figures.

Peter Gillingham, Christopher Sonne -- no relevant hits. Gillingham is apparently a follower of E.F.Schumacher, the Small Is Beautiful guy.

"Billy Hitchcock": William Mellon Hitchcock; wealthy heir who bankrolled Leary's commune in the mid-1960s.

Wait Schneider and Willard Poulsen: No hits yet. They may turn up in a book (Acid Dreams) I have on order, though, since they would be connected to Leary.

Dr. Stephen Beltz (related to Judith Beltz): see Minnick’s material cited in Section 1.

Christopher Bird -- interesting obituary:

http://www.ralphmoss.com/CBird.html

CIA connection; no mention of Pettie connections.

John J. Cox, Miguel Barzuna, Emilio Rivera -- need to research these.

Michael Rios (aka Michael Versacc) -- “Versacc” is a misprint, apparently. The person in question appears to be Michael Versace Rios, who sometimes goes by the name Michael Rios, and other times by Michael Versace. He is the son of Humbart Joseph Versace (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hjversace.htm) and Marie Teresa Rios Versace (Tere Rios) (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mtrversace.htm), and the brother of Humbert Roque Versace, (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hrversace.htm) who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Versace’s organization was named “the Church of the Community”. As the owner of Community Computers, he also retailed Kaypro computers in the ‘80s:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/doc.asp?c=148

He apparently runs an “intentional community” in Arlington, VA today:

http://directory.ic.org/records/?action ... d_id=20351

Theordore[sic] G. reiss (wife; Ann) -- Ann Reiss was interviewed in one of the St. Petersburg Times articles about the Finders (February 15, 1987) but was not identified in the article as a Finder. “Ted” Reiss was still active in the Finders in 1995; see section 1. He also posted on a usenet group where Minnick was requesting information about the Finders.

One more link to Pettie -- apparently a friend of Patch Adams, who defends him. Well, I never did like Robin Williams: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@.../msg00271.html

3. Kristin Nauth

In Section 1, I gave links to three articles by Kristin K. Nauth:

http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action ... set&id=257

http://www.topsecretnet.com/knowmag.htm

http://www.kmmag.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=512

From casting about on the Internet, I’ve been able to find out a bit more:

1. Her mother’s name was Courtney Knauth (DOB 12/08/1926). She is described and quoted in the article in the St. Petersburg Times ( February 15, 1987) linked to above (http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... 7d4daef5e7). Here’s the relevant extract:

Courtney Knauth, a Washington bank employee, doesn't think the Finders are all fun and games.

She says her granddaughter is one of the children in state custody.

And she says she has lost her daughter Kristin, the child's mother, to the Finders.

"Kristin is not only bright, but she is a very good artist. She is very good at music, and she writes like an angel," Knauth says of her daughter. "I guess my daughter was just a little depressed and was trying to figure out what she wanted to do in life."

Kristin was 21, and had just dropped out of college when she joined the Finders, Knauth says. "Nobody knew then that it was a cult. She said, 'Mom, I'm moving out. And I'll miss you.' " Gradually, Knauth says, Kristin stopped visiting or telephoning.

After three years with the Finders, Kristin cut off all communication.

Mother and daughter haven't spoken for two years.

Toward the end of their contact, Kristin was always accompanied by another Finders member who took notes of their conversations, Knauth says. They explained that they discussed their conversations with the group.

"If you want me to say that she had a vague, vacant, Zombie-like look in her eyes, I can't say that," Knauth says. "In some ways she was like herself, in some ways not. She seemed unable to synthesize new information."

Knauth says she visited the Finders' Washington duplex last week.

She was told that she might not hear from Kristin for 20 years.

"I don't think they abuse their kids, and I don't think they worship the devil," Knauth says of the group. "But the Finders aren't harmless, and we who have been in contact with them know that...

"I don't think the bottom line of the Finders, whatever it is, is love."

Courtney Knauth went on to work at the Department of Agriculture, apparently as an editor or writer:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:LX ... =clnk&cd=1

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err7/err7.pdf

http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/er ... Report.pdf

A Courtney Knauth graduated from the Hamlin School in San Francisco in 1944:

http://static.namesdatabase.com/schools ... chool.html

This would tally with Kay Nauth’s statement to me that she grew up in the Bay Area. (Note that the Hamlin School offers instruction up through the eighth grade. That would suggest that Courtney Knauth would have been born around 1931.)

2. Her father was apparently Felix Kunhardt Knauth (DOB 9/25/1929) , with various addresses in California (Berkeley, Richmond, Fairfax, Loyalton, Point Reyes Station, Marshall), Montana (Missoula), and Washington, D.C. He may also have gone by (or goes by) the name Felix K. Hand in Missoula.

3. A Kristen Nauth graduated from the School Without Walls in Washington, D.C. in 1978:

http://static.namesdatabase.com/schools ... Walls.html

Note that the surname is spelled without a leading “K”. That is a bit odd, if the person referenced is the one of interest to us, given that her birth name was probably Knauth; but the probability of finding both a Kristin Nauth and a Kristin Knauth in Washington, D.C. at the same time, seems a little remote.

4. In 2000, Nauth was seeking a position as a house sitter:

http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2000/00-08-16.htm

Note the email address …. It shows up elsewhere.

5. Using the “address” utility at www.peoplefinders.com, and entering “409 Macoy Ave, Culpeper, VA”,

I found that the following people had resided there at some time; the utility provides a list of “possible relatives”. Here are some interesting results:



Names


Possible relatives

Winn, Randolph A.


Usdin, Steve T.


Knauth, Kristin (age 47)

Pettie, Marion D.


Pettie, Marion

Pettie, William M. (age 63)

Berns, Stan


Nauth, Kristn [sic]


Nauth, Kristin


Silverstone, Stanley




Winn, Usdin, and Silverstone were all active in the Finders in the 80s and 90s. (See references elsewhere.) Berns is mentioned by Eddie Dean in his interview with Pettie. Interestingly, Knauth shows up as a relative of Usdin.

William M.Pettie -- the age would suggest that he’s MDP’s son. But I haven’t found any other reference to this third son. (Estranged son: George; Air America pilot: David.)

Using a name search at people finders.com for “Knauth, Kristin”, I got the following:

Names


Possible relatives

Knauth, Kristin

Associated names:

Nauth, Kristin

Usdin, Kristin


Usdin, Steve T (age 46)

If Knauth was going by the name of “Kristin Usdin”, then she and Steve T. Usdin were probably married at the time. A similar search on Usdin lists Knauth as a relative.

6. Here are pictures of Usdin (from Google Image search):

With longer hair and a beard, this might look very much like the man who was introduced to me as “Douglas Ammerman”. I can’t find anything on the Internet about Ammerman, except that someone of that name and of the correct birthdate lived in San Ysidro, CA, at some point.

A few more details about Nauth are given in Appendix I -- address, phone, email, etc.

7. Kristin’s son, Benjamin Frankin Knauth (DOB: 01/29/1983) at some point shared an address with Felix and Courtney Knauth.





Appendix I. The Finders, In Person.

What follows is as detailed a description as I can make of my meetings with Kay Nauth and Doug Ammerman. There's a lot of tedious detail, but I think it best to set down everything I recall about the past few days. Some of it only makes sense in light of the information I picked up on the Internet; I've bolded some of these details that might otherwise seem obscure or pointless.

Laura and I moved to Floyd in February 2006. My son Walter lives in San Diego, but we've been trying to persuade him to move to Floyd. Our landlord recently bought the property next door to the place that we rent,and we asked Walter to fly out for a visit, to see whether he'd like to take out a lease and move in there. Walter arrived on Monday, December 4, planning to stay until Tuesday, December 12.

Walt has several respiratory allergies -- smoke, exhaust, animal hair, pollen -- and the house next door had been sealed up and vacant for most of the past year; there was a strong musty smell that Walt was afraid would linger, so he preferred not to take the place. We decided to spend his last few days here looking for other places he might be able to rent. The Floyd Press is published once a week on Thursdays. In the December 7 issue, there were three rental properties listed. One of these was for a three-bedroom house near Willis, located on the corner of a farm. I called and asked whether we could come by and see the place. Kay (the woman who had placed the ad) said that she lived in Charlottesville, but that she would be in Floyd over the weekend, so that we could come by Sunday.

The house to be rented sits on the corner of a larger parcel of land that includes a much larger house, as well as a number of farm structures. The rental is an unfurnished mobile home, but rather large, considering (I'd guess 1400 sq ft), nicely appointed inside, with quarter-log panelling, a cast-iron wood stove, largish bedrooms and baths. We didn't go up to the main house, but from a distance, I'd guess it would easily exceed 3000 sq ft. It's a two-story white clapboarded building with a large front porch whose columns rise to the height of the house. The rental sits close to the highway, but the larger house is well back, about a thousand feet.

Kay is fortyish and small-built -- slender, slightly shorter than the average woman, with blonde hair of middling length and pale skin. She wears large glasses and was dressed, as I recall, in something like women's business attire, even though it was a weekend. She enunciates carefully, with no apparent regional accent; speaks in a rather deliberate, paced fashion; gives an impression of good manners and education. She's guarded in her speech as well, giving away no more information than she means to. She said that she was a writer and journalist by trade, but didn't volunteer the genres in which she worked; that she had recently taken a job as an "analyst" to bring in some extra money, but didn't name the organization for which she worked; that she originally came from the Bay area, and that she had lived in Washington, D.C. for some time before moving to Charlottesville, from where she worked remotely for the job in Washington. She said that she and her boyfriend had bought the property in May, but that the sale wouldn't close till the next day (Monday). (This should have struck me as odd, but I didn't note it at the time: if the sale hadn't closed, how could she have access to the place, showing it to renters? My only experience with house sales was in San Diego, when we bought one place and then later sold it, but, as I recall, one doesn't surrender possession of the premises till all the ink has dried. Oh well, perhaps the previous owner was willing to allow it.)

Kay said that she and her boyfriend would be living at the larger house, but only intermittently. They wanted to make enough in rent from the mobile home to cover their mortgage payment. (I speculate that the mobile home may have been on a separate but adjacent parcel of land from the larger house. This would explain their reference to buying "the place" in May, but only closing on the mobile home in December.)

I asked whether she'd require a year's lease. She said, no, she'd prefer that there be no lease, and that she wanted to rent to people she trusted, that that was very important to her and her boyfriend. I took this to mean simply a month-to-month arrangement, and assumed that there would still be some sort of written rental contract.

At some point (maybe as a follow-up to this exchange), Kay mentioned that she was looking to rent the house to someone who wouldn't draw attention; I think she may have added "of the police", but that may have been only my interpretation. I said that she didn't need to worry, that Walter didn't use drugs. (I took that to be the thrust of her remark -- a reasonable concern for a landlord.)

When I asked Kay about mold problems, she volunteered that a section of roof had been damaged, and there was some mold there; also, on the northern outside walls. She was forthcoming about all this, and said that as a condition of the sale the previous owner would have to repair the roof and clean the mold.

We asked whether she would be keeping any farm animals, since there were several sheds on the property close to the house. She said that she and her boyfriend were thinking of buying two or three goats, but that they'd keep them in the paddock across the driveway, well away from the house. Walter was willing to accept this.

Otherwise, the place suited Walter very well; his only remaining concern was that the house was only a hundred feet or so from the highway (Rte 221). We asked whether we could come by the next afternoon (Monday) so that Walter could check the air quality on a week day. She agreed. On Monday afternoon, we went back and Walt decided that the air was good enough; we phoned Kay (who was away from the house -- her number is a cell phone) and said we wanted to take the place. She said that we could meet that evening in town at a coffee shop and finalize everything. (They planned to be in town till evening, and the house was about 14 miles out of town, so it would be more convenient for all of us.)

It turned out that the shop had closed by the time we got there, so they followed us back to our place. They drove a gold Saturn (license KAZ 6619, I later noted; not sure of the state, but probably Virginia; the man was driving, as I recall). We sat down and exchanged a few pleasantries. Kay's boyfriend's name was Doug Ammerman. He was a little shorter than average, I'd say, but sturdy (I'd guess about 160 -170 lb); middlingly long, wavy brown hair; a not very well-trimmed beard. He wore a visored cap (I think with some sort of Bluegrass music motif) that he kept on throughout their visit. Otherwise, I'd say that he was dressed in a casual way -- acually, indifferently; I noticed a small tear in his canvas trousers. He had a slight rural/Southern accent and spoke in a less-mannered way than Kay. Kay had said earlier that he was a musician, apparently interested in Bluegrass and old-time country music; it was he who had discovered Floyd and was pushing for the two of them to move there. He said that he ran across Floyd on his way back from the Galax Fiddlers' Convention (which is held each summer in Galax, VA, about 50 miles from Floyd). Kay also mentioned that he was interested in Brazilian music, and that he travelled a lot to Brazil. I tried to draw him out on the subject but he wouldn't talk about it. I can't quite say why, I don't think he had any real interest in or knowledge of Brazilian music, but that's just an impression I got. I do believe that he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about old-time music, though. He said that he lived in western Loudoun County, near Furnace Mountain.

We got down to business. I gave Kay a copy of Walt's credit report (which I had unwisely printed out with his full SSN, which fact later came back to bother me). Kay gave me the following information about herself. Her last name was Nauth; she had the following email addresses: knauth@... and knauth@.... Her current mailing address was 712 Monticello Avenue, Charlottesville, VA 22902. I already had her cellular number, which was her only number: (434) 989 -6287. The rental property actually had two different addresses, one for the post office and another for the County government. The postal address was 7561 Floyd Highway South, the name of the highway that the property fronted; but to the County Clerk, the address was 163 Lemon Lane. Lemon Lane is a gravel road -- probably a private drive -- off of the highway, and the only two houses on it are the two I've described here. (There is another mobile home situated behind the larger house, but I don't know how it is reached from the road. Kay didn't mention it in any of our discussions.) The address of the large house was 7559 Floyd Highway South. Kay wasn't sure about the zip code.

Kay stated that they had worked out the last details of the mortgage with the bank and that the rent would be $450 a month. They preferred to keep the electric bill in their own name, and that we reimburse them each month for electricity used. Walt wrote them a check for the first month's rent plus a month' security deposit, and a second check against electricity usage. Kay seemed to think that was the end of business for the night, so I asked about signing the rental agreement. Kay and Doug appeared taken aback. Kay said that she thought that she had been clear, earlier, that there was to be nothing in writing, that they preferred that their relationships be based on trust. I was surprised in turn, but the property was so desirable that Walter and I agreed. I asked about proper terms of notice if either they wanted Walt to move, or if Walt wanted to move, and they said that, of course, everyone would be well-behaved about such things. They were willing to agree orally to 30-days' notice.

As I walked them out to their car, I had an odd feeling, and I mentally noted their license number -- license KAZ 6619. (It was too dark, and happening too fast, for me to notice the state issuing the plates.) We parted cordially. When I came back in, I noticed Laura washing the dishes we had used. I joked that it was too bad, she had just destroyed the only copies of their fingerprints that we had. She and I and Walter talked for a bit about the meeting; Laura and I had misgivings about the commitment that we had just made -- the lack of a written agreement, the cash deposit for electricity, the body-language and guarded speech of Kay and Doug, and so forth. We couldn't quite put a finger on why we were so uneasy, so we decided to sleep on it.

I woke up around three A.M., and, unable to go back to sleep, I started searching for information about the two on the Internet. Laura kept me company. I was worried about an identity-theft scam, because I had given them a copy of Walt's credit report that included his full Social Security Number. I wanted to see whether either Kay or Doug were known scam-artists. Instead, I ran across the first references to the Finders that I had ever read. I wasn't sure how much of it to take at face-value, but, by morning, Laura and Walter had decided it would be imprudent, at the least, to rent from them. I think the fact that they were planning to raise goats was what most disturbed us. (There was also an ad that Kay had placed on the Internet a few years earlier, advertising their willingness to house-sit. Laura thought this might be part of a scam where Doug and Kay would get access to a house while its owners were away, then pass themselves off as owners to collect rent money from tenants. Such a scam would fit neatly with their desire to keep the electric bill in their own name, and not commit themselves to a written rental agreement.)

We decided not to tell Walter or Laura's sons any of what we had read: Kay and Doug would be moving to Floyd regardless of whether we rented from them, and Floyd is such a small town that any gossip would probably get back to them. We had no evidence of anything criminal or even objectionable about the pair, only misgivings about a business relationship. In the morning, we gave Walter our feelings about being uneasy -- the lack of a rental agreement, the possibility of a scam, and so forth -- and persuaded him to pass on the rental. I called up Kay and told her Walter had had an asthma attack and had decided not to move to Floyd. She agreed to drop the rental; she was working at an Internet cafe that morning, so I drove into town and dropped off the keys she had given us the night before. I asked whether I could get Walt's checks back. She said that Doug had them, but they could drop them off later that day on the way out of town. Later that day, I had a call from her that they couldn't make it by, but that I could meet Doug in Floyd and pick up the checks. That's what happened, and that's the last that I saw of them.

Over the next few days, I tried to find out a few things about the property, as discreetly as I could. I went to the County clerk's office to check out the deed, but it proved too difficult to ask about the ownership of the property without naming the owners. I checked the online MLS for house sales, but none of the addresses was listed. I checked out the addresses in the USPS zip-code service ( http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp). Entering the following three addresses,

7561 FLOYD HWY S

WILLIS VA

7559 FLOYD HWY S

WILLIS VA

164 LEMON LANE

WILLIS VA

I got the following message (for each of the three):

This is a non-deliverable address. Mail sent to this address will be returned.

This address is NON-DELIVERABLE

Clicking on the help button ("What is non-deliverable?"), I got the following explanation:

Non-Deliverable Examples of non-deliverable addresses include buildings that no longer exist, addresses that do not accept mail, etc. First Class Mail® sent to a non-deliverable address will be returned to the sender

For each address, I was given a real zip-code; for the Lemon Lane address, the utility filled in the correct suffix "SW" to the street address -- so I was entering valid addresses, I think. But each of the addresses produced this warning. Later, driving by the property, I noticed there were no mailboxes, either along the highway or further back up off the driveway. I wondered how they got their utility bills -- from a post office box? It seemed very strange, but not dispositive -- like everything I've discovered about the Finders to date.


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SCANDAL at National Press Club

1 post by 1 author

Wendell Minnick
2/5/95
According to National Press Club membership files a cult group called
the Finders has established membership and offices at NPC building. The
two companies are Global Press and Information Bank.
The NPC has been notified this week of the relationships between the
Finders and Global Press/Information Bank. Finders who are NPC members include
Marion Pettie (leader), Steve Usdin, and Kris Herbst. Other former and present
Finder members include Stuart Silverstone, Robert M. Meyer, Ted Reiss, Jeff
Ubois, and Kristin Knauth. Other Finders companies and associates are
CommSel, Invisible Store, Ourhaus Associates, and Global Press Review.
The Finders are a techno-cyber group who dabble in the international
arena. They have been accused of everything from child molesting to ties
with the CIA. Customs documents detailing CIA interference in the criminal
investigation involving the Finders treatment of children helped reopen a
Justice Dept investigation recently.
I have the Customs docs. If anyone would like me to fax them to you,
please e-mail me.

Information Bank
2106 National Press Building

Global Press
630 National Press Building

URL=http://www.clark.net/pub/global/home.html

See the following articles:

Rodriguez, Paul. "CIA Tied to Cult Accused of Abuse." Washington
Times, 12/17/93 A1,A21.

Witkin, Gordon. "Through a Glass Very Darkly." US News World Report
December 27, 1993, p. 30.

According to representatives at the National Press Club, the
investigation is being handled by the NPC President.


http://thecambridgechronicles.blogspot. ... calls.html

From out of my past, ten years or more, comes Stuart Silverstone. He was in the architecture department at MIT. He had some connection with Warren Brodey and others. Somehow he got connected with the AAO when Otmar and Brooke were here in 1977. I don't remember seeing him at the time, but he was around. He and his wife Diane, and their daughter, Rebecca, eventually went to FH for three months. She had their second child there. I remember how she was criticized for being so lazy and acting like a queen. And finally they left because of difficulties living in the group and giving up their couple relationship. They have ended it now. I don't know for how long. Stuart lives with the Finders group in Washington.


http://www.wap.org/journal/showcase/was ... 198702.pdf

The Tempest "in a tea pot" Macintosh
What is a "Tempest Macintosh" you ask? According to a
recent article by Stuart Silverstone in the Government
Computer News (October, 1986), the term "tempest" has no
special meaning but was coined to refer to secure electronic
equipment. Such equipment must be free of electronic emis­
sions that eould be intercepted by individuals outside the
intended organization. The requirement for tempest computer
equipment is largely limited to certain organizations of the
U.S. Government, such as the Central Intelligence Agency,
National Security Agency, and government' contractors with
classifIed government contracts. For some time, there have
been tempest IBM's, Zeniths, and other MS-DOS computers
available at higher prices than their non-tempest counterparts.
The large increase in price is due largely to shielding require­
ments and modified electronics.
Apple computers have been late getting into the tempest
market, but a tempest 512K Macintosh is now on the
National Security Agency's Preferred Products List, which
means it complies with tempest specifications. The tempest
Mac is produced by Systematics General of Sterling, VA, and
marketed by Falcon Microsystems of Landover, MD, which is
Apple's marketing and distribution channel in the federal
government. The computer weighs 26.7 lbs, costs $5,945,
and differs from the normal 512K Mac by the addition of
another 400K disk drive mounted in the side of the case and a
shielded movable keyboard. A retrofit of an existing 512K
Macintosh is available for $4,360, while a tempest Image­
writer-compatible printer lists for $2,835. Tempest local area
networks use fiber optic cable to prevent emissions. The
other alternative to the purchase of tempest equipment is to
shield the entire building. This was done at one of National
Security Agency's new buildings by encasing it in copper to
ground it to prevent spurious electronic emissions. There is
currently no tempest Macintosh Plus or LascrWriter, although
the laser printer is expected to be on the market by the end of
the year.


http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/ ... tra11.html

NeXT pitches feds with support for POSIX, GOSIP
by Stuart Silverstone

Washington, DC Ð With a recent technology seminar for government executives as the backdrop, NeXT made a strong pitch to the federal market by announcing support for the POSIX and GOSIP interoperability standards for NeXTSTEP 3.0. NeXT also announced support for the C2 government security specification.

Technology to make NeXTSTEP 3.0 compliant with these standards will be available in the fourth quarter.

POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface), based on UNIX, provides a common ground for software, so that any application developed under POSIX can run on any compliant platform, including UNIX, IBM PC, or Macintosh systems. GOSIP (Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile) is a cross-platform network protocol that provides interconnectivity between all government installations.

While some federal agencies buy noncompliant hardware, most require support for POSIX and GOSIP. NeXT's support for the standards should help boost government sales, which accounted for about 20 percent of the company's North American revenues in the last fiscal year, according to NeXT CEO Steve Jobs.

Responding to questions about government uses of NeXT, Jobs commented that "intelligence gathering is apolitical. We're creating information tools."

The technology seminars attracted about 350 federal agency executives, computer developers, and systems integrators.

"I'm grappling with where the technology fits into our organization," said Charles Fletcher, director of information systems at Airbus Industrie, the European airplane manufacturer. "At the right price, it could displace personal computers."


Can't find a copy of this yet:

http://brookmanville.com/publications/

”An Anthropologist at Work” (profile of PBM, by Stuart Silverstone). Knowledge Management. August 2000, 44-48.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:20 pm

Yeah, the Dave's Diary / Minnick material set my head spinning, I'll be parsing that mess for awhile.

From Mark Riebling's boring and great "Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA" pg 451

...Woolsey himself had been the first to admit "we need to do better in the future." Just before Christmas 1993, for instance, both agencies were embarrassed by a Justice Department investigation into whether CIA had improperly used the FBI to cover up its connections to a computer-training cult called Finders, which had been accused but acquitted of child abuse.

But if the Agency was faulted for freezing out law enforcement, in the Finders probe as in the Ames affair, Woolsey was also attacked, especially by the right...


Clearly I need to dig into that 1993 flap more, I bet there's a lot of parallel coverage that got passed over by the first wave of conspiracy circuit raiders...
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Tyler Rabbit » Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:34 am

Hey all, just found this thread via my bi-monthly google search for "the Finders" and "Marion Pettie" etc..
Have been working on an independent documentary about the group, slowly but surely, for the past 3 years... very informative thread. Couple things I wasn't hip to.
So is there a consensus among RI about what the Finders were all about? I've interviewed 4 different conspiracy theorists, all with different takes..

elfismiles » Tue Mar 25, 2014 10:06 am wrote:Briefly touched on this case in my interview with Len Bracken who was with Kenn during the Steamshovel press interview...

http://bluerosereport.com/media/BRR080827aa.mp3

not sure where in the audio ... need to re-listen.



Very cool. I also interviewed Len. Can I use a few excerpts from that audio in my doc? Will give full onscreen credit as it's playing.. PM me if you'd like.


Wombaticus Rex » Tue Mar 25, 2014 1:17 pm wrote:Hmmmm.... "In search of the Finders" City Paper, Aug. 12, 1988

13 page article I would like to secure a copy of: https://www.ire.org/resource-center/stories/7085/

I remember Dreams End was in touch with Jon Cohen and stated that Cohen was pretty dismissive of the case.

Via: http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... 141#p45141

While we're on it, let me tell you why I called this article a "limited hangout". I don't know how else to explain it. The author did a great job in getting lots of details. But there was nothing about the Customs Agent's memo about acquiring children from Hong Kong...and all that stuff (I can reprint it, but I'm sure you are familiar with it.) So I sent Cohen a copy of this memo to see if he thought it was real and he said it looked real to him. He said he'd seen "some" of the pictures and they were "no big deal." So he had no interest in the trafficking angle or any of that. It was just kinda strange.


Am I understanding the term "limited hangout" to mean Dream's End thinks the article was commissioned by intelligence agencies etc? If so, not trying to start trouble in my first post here, but I have kind of a hard time with that idea. Have interviewed Jon Cohen and spent some time with him and his family. I know the background of the article, who funded it and who City Paper's editor in chief was at the time. The idea of either of those two helping, even unwittingly, with a snow job, is pretty hard for me to fathom.
Here's a link to a poorly scanned (actually photographed), but readable copy. I have the original newspaper and will eventually scan it properly...
http://www.disruptives.net/misc/finders ... e_1988.zip
It's not as colorful as the Eddie Dean piece, but it goes pretty deep into the mechanics of the investigation and media circus.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:11 am

Putting together the local stories, day to day, left me with a completely different picture of the Florida incident.

Surprised that the "Conspiracy Canon" version of this story omits some of the strangest details, especially the phoned threats to the children.

Pettie makes it very clear in every interview that most of the inner circle didn't even know what he was doing. I wish you the best in piecing something coherent out of his soliphism.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Tyler Rabbit » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:19 am

Interesting. Can you point me to a good source where the phoned threats to the children are discussed/mentioned? The children are adults now, the older ones remember the FL incident, but none mentioned threats to me and they didn't seem scared or under duress in anyway.. I do know that the Finders were in the habit of messing with people who'd left the group.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:26 pm

From the previous page:

Then this pause-worthy kicker from the day before's AP report...

Threats Force Move

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Feb. 7 (AP) - The six children were moved from a shelter after officials there received telephone calls threatening to the children, the police said today.

The children were moved to a site that was undisclosed and were being protected by armed guards after a half-dozen threats were telephoned Friday night to a temporary shelter in Tallahassee, according to a police spokesman, Scott Hunt.


Mr. Hunt said the Finders cult might have been accustomed to selling or smuggling the children of its members out of the country.

The two men found with the children at a playground remained in the Leon County Jail today, charged with one count each of felony child abuse and held in lieu of $100,000 bond each.

The children, who had not been bathed in several days when they were found, had insect bites and had not been fed in more than a day. Investigators said the children appeared to be ignorant of such daily conveniences as hot water and electricity.


Weird, yeah? Early Sentinel stories mentioned that detail in passing. Combined with the WDC computer being called from Tallahassee...


Also, from a Sentinel article I didn't post here - Feb 10, 1987...

The children were moved to a secret location over the weekend after telephone calls threatening their lives were made to a shelter where they were housed temporarily. Police do not know who made the calls.

Police said physical examinations showed at least one of the children, who at first were uncommunicative, had been sexually abused.


EDIT: Emailed you my PDF -- here's a link for anyone else interested. Assembled primary sources into a day-by-day chronology, all text verbatim: http://www.mediafire.com/view/oma09npq2 ... nology.pdf
Last edited by Wombaticus Rex on Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: PDF link added
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Tyler Rabbit » Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:00 pm

Oh hey man. Ha I should have put the Vermontistan thing together lol.
Ok thanks. Very interesting. I need to get with both Tallahassee PD and try to also track down Det. Bradley (I think that's his name) of DC Metro Police. Will also ask the adult kids and former Finders am in contact with about it. So much of the initial news was garbled, LE wires crossed etc. Been challenging sorting it out, but am digging deep into every lead. Thanks again!
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:14 am

Reading through that PDF, one bit caught my attention. I'd seen Carl Shapley's comments on the Finders before, but never bothered to look him up. Here's a collection of quotes from him about this case, the first one sourced from an article in the PDF:

In an affadavit supporting the search, Virginia authorities included photographs showing three white-robed Finders men and several children dismembering two goats. The photographs were in a scrapbook entitled ''The Execution of Henrietta and Igor.'' In one picture, a crying child looked at a decapitated goat. Another photo was captioned ''Ben finds Henrietta's Womb.'' Three pictures showed children playing with goat fetuses.

Carl Shapley, a Washington educator who said he worked closely with Finders leader Marion Pettie over the past year, said the group's ceremonies involved the slaughter of goats, but he warned against associating such activities with satanism or pagan rites.


http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... 8&start=15

On the door of their Georgetown duplex, members pasted newspaper clippings that portrayed them as satanists.

"There is a lot of practical joking, a kind of poking fun at the majority, if you will," says Carl Shapley, a Maryland educator who says he used to visit the Finders about once a month. "These are generous, wonderful people who are very benevolent. They've gotten such weird press, it needs to be turned around as to who they really are."


Members have meetings led by an appointed "Game Caller," where they decide what to do for the coming day or week. Sometimes it amounts to just that - a game.

"For instance, sometimes they may say, 'The children are in charge today,"' Carl Shapley says. "And the adults get down and crawl around on their hands and knees and do what the children say."

Most of the time, Shapley says, Marion Pettie acts as Game Caller.

He has not been available for comment since the arrests.

"He is one of the eccentrics of our time, a totally benevolent and benign man," Shapley says. "He's like a character out of Alice in Wonderland. I think he can be the Mad Hatter sometimes, and I think he can be the Rabbit sometimes, and sometimes the Red Queen. He has kind of a twinkle in his eye all the time."


http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1987/Finde ... d43651571e

Neighbors said children were brought to the Pettie farm in vans and usually were crying.

''They'd be hollering and crying all the time, like they wanted something or something was hurting them,'' said Wilma Richards, who lives adjacent to the Pettie farm.

In a memorandum Terrell sent authorities over the weekend, he said the children spent a week at a planned ''New Hope'' retirement community in Berea, Ky., and then were taken south for a ''vacation-camping trip.''

The memo said the children's mothers ''had fully authorized these men, in writing, to care for their children and expressed full confidence in them. Letters giving the authorization were placed in the glove compartment of the blue van currently being held by the Tallahassee authorities.''

He later added, ''All of the mothers are now in San Francisco working in business offices, earning money to help pay for 'New Hope.'''

[...]

Carl Shapley, named in Terrell's letter as the financial developer for ''New Hope,'' said Sunday he was trying to correct what he calls, ''this wild, imaginative thing along the lines of a cult.'' He described members of the group as ''gentle people'' searching for ''new dimensions in lifestyles.''

Shapley said he had heard about the slaughter of animals on the Virginia properties, but denied the acts were connected to any rituals.

''It's simply like any farm, they slaughter animals. The fact that they made a game out of it, I thought was in poor taste. That's been picked up by the police that that's something 'satanic.' That's not the case. Rather, it's in poor taste, but it's not cultish.''


http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 86,2484794

Carl Shapley, who is named in Mr. Terrell's letter as the financial developer for "New Hope," said yesterday that he is trying to correct what he calls "this wild imaginative thing along the lines of a cult." He described members of the group as "gentle people" searching for "new dimensions in life-styles."

He said he is angry at reports that the children on their Virginia properties were frequently heard by neighbors screaming. "Anyone who knows children, knows that they are delighted when they scream."

Shapley said he had heard about the slaughter of animals on the Virginia properties, but denied the acts were connected to any rituals.


Beyond all of that, there are some other interesting things about Shapley that a cursory Google search turns up.

http://www.definingmoment.eu/euro-defin ... x-128.html

Image

That site is an obvious Sun Myung Moon front. See also:

http://www.uk.upf.org/index.php?option= ... temid=191#

Ambassador for Peace Dr Carl Shapley, (Carlo), passed away. His funeral was held in Moldova on August 17th at 14.00 British Summer Time. For an insight into his life please see this interview about Albert Einstein (Link) and the Defining Moment interview by Ajay Rai. He has been a longtime supporter of UPF and preceding organisations with the uncanny ability of turning up in the UK at the right times to support our major activities.


Universal Peace Federation – UK

Universal Peace Federation Founders: Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Mrs Hak Ja Han Moon


And lastly, here's a post from the year 2000 on the newsgroup "alt.illuminati" - with a number of bizarre accusations against Shapley. I include it here because this is the Data Dump forum, after all. Though I won't paste the whole thing.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... IpEd6rUxRg

Carl Shapley is a slight, sixty-something, American male, with a grey/straw-colored goatee beard and side parted limp hair. He is fond of wearing a beret and a bow-tie. He affects an educated accent, claiming to be the son of a famous astronomer, who we have been told, led a scientific witch-hunt against Immanuel Velikovsky, a colleague Albert Einstein. Shapley, is occasionally joined by his wife Gemma.

For over a decade, Shapley has been claiming that he has founded a complex international educational organisation in twelve major cities called the 'New World Academy'. He claimed to be on the verge of signing contracts for two adjacent properties in London's predigious Berkley Sq. One building was to be a school with a fancy French name, and the other a dormitory for stduents and VIPs like the elusive musician and suspected pedophile Michael Jackson, in return for being the NWA's in-house music teacher.

However, Shapley, who enjoys declares he must enjoy the fine things in life, like attending the opera, has pleaded poverty to his creditors. An educational charity which he proudly boasts being involved in, has been defunct for years. He did claim to have a NWA centre in Delhi but in effect simply had a correspondence address near the central bus depot.

In London, Shapley has used the English Speaking Union to hold meetings and pick up mail. He moves through New Age communities looking for victims and moves upon getting discovered. Shapley has been sighted at Alternatives in Picadilly, the Mind Body Spirit Festival, The Flowing Gold Club (run by ex-friend, small time prosperity guru Brenda Brett) and recently, at the dance venue 'Expressions'.

Carl Shapley, claims to channel Saint Germain who has been claimed by several groups.

[...]

Shapley has spoken of trading in Old Masters (the painted kind), gold bullion and, interestingly, Chinese military helicopters. Customs and Excise and MoD officers may wish to pay him a visit if he does start trading.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby cptmarginal » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:33 am

Here's something:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 14,1292283

Finders group 'harmless experimenters,' says visitor

by Mike Allen, Staff Reporter

A formerly prominent political activist who tells of visiting the Finders compound in Madison County 100 times in a period of 10 years says it is an informal think tank whose members are harmless experimenters, and describes police and press scrutiny of the group as a lynching.

"Being a member of the Finders is about the same order of danger as being a member of the Moose - it's not even as formal," Karl Hess III said yesterday from his home near Kearneysville, W.Va.

"There was no drugs... no organized religious activity... no wild sex - there was nothing but just people talking."

Hess, 63, was a top aide during Sen. Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign who drew national attention when he switched to the New Left and later became a key spokesman for the emerging libertarian movement.

"Communists don't get treated like this, ax murderers don't get treated like this," said Hess, a former Newsweek editor. "I've never known of such breathless, unfounded harassment of a group."

Police in Florida and Washington raced yesterday to back away from previous characterizations of the group, which had been described in court documents as a satanic cult after two members were charged last week with misdemeanor abuse of six children from the Washington area.


Hess, who said he became a close friend of Finders founder G. Marion Pettie in the mid-1960s, said members "lived like hippies but were rich because they earned a lot of money and did a lot of work."

He said he visited the group's Washington property about 60 times in addition to his Madison trips, and last went on a Finders retreat about 10 years ago. He said he has not spoken to Pettie in a couple of years because of the gamut of aides who now control access to him.

No children were present during any of his visits, Hess said, but the group had unorthodox ideas about many subjects, including child-raising. He added it is probably true that Finders tried separating children from their parents, as Israelis do on kibbutzes.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby elfismiles » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:39 am



FWIW...

Justin Zalewski interviews Dr Carl Shapley about Albert Einstein part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzVB5tmLA4I
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Tyler Rabbit » Sat Aug 30, 2014 3:54 am

I've come across his name in articles and believe he's mentioned in Tobe Terrell's book but he isn't mentioned prominently.

Here's a lesser know peripheral figure in The Finders saga:
http://www.vesuvius-investigations.com/athena.htm
She's the FBI agent (now retired) who investigated the group in '87. She is very familiar with the infamous customs report and has some strong opinions about it. In 2012 I flew to South Carolina and interviewed her. Very interesting, tough but sweet lady. Trivia: she was Thomas Harris' inspiration for his Clarice Starling character in Silence of the Lambs. When researching the book, he asked the FBI to put him in touch with a female agent he could spend time with and interview to help flesh out his protagonist.
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Re: The Finders - Sources

Postby Tyler Rabbit » Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:47 am

Heading to St. Louis this weekend to interview Kenn Thomas who, with Len Bracken, interviewed Marion Pettie for Thomas' Steamshovel Press, the results of which were posted on the first page of this thread by Wombat. Really looking forward to talking with Kenn and am sure he'll have some great insights. Anyone who's read The Octopus knows the dude is perceptive and meticulous as hell so am hoping he can help me with is this, now very familiar, bit o' business:

STEAMSHOVEL DEBRIS, The Finders

Readers will find the most interesting material that circulates
about the Finders below. It comes from a memo entitled "Investigative Leads"
with the attribution that It was "produced sometime during the
1980s/authorship unknown."

Pettie met Joseph Chiang, a chinese agent operating under Journalistic cover,
in 1939 and remained in close contact with him throughout the war. Around this
time Pettie also made Connections with the OSS, through George Varga, Earl D.
Brodie and Nick Von Neuman (John Von Neumann's brother) -- all lowlevel OSS
offciers. Sometime near the end of the war, Chiang introduced Pettie to
Charles E. marsh, at the National Press Club. Marsh, who ran the best private
intelligence network of his era and was an intimate of FDR, Henry Wallace and
later Lyndon Johnson, became, Pettie's mentor and role model, shapiong[sic]
his career. (Marsh's mentor and role model was Colonel Edward M. House, who
was a personal advisor to President Wilson, circa 1919, often mentioned in
connection to the Council on Foreign relations). Marsh died in December 1964.
His last known address was Austin, Texas.

In the 1950s and 60s Marsh provided funds for Pettie to purchase hundreds of
acres of farmland in Madison and Rappahannock Counties, near his estate in
Culpeper County. Later Petty arranged for William Yandell Elliott (1896- ) of
Harvard University to purchase a property adjacent to him, in" Madison County.
Elliott was a government professor at Harvard University who was on the
National Security Council's planning board and a trustee of Radio Liberty
(sponsored by the CIA). As of 1984 Elliott was a board member of Accuracy in
media. Wrote numerous books.


In 1946 Pettie, acting as chauffeur to General Ira Eaker, Marsh arranged for
him to be trained in counterintelligence in Baltimore, Maryland. Around this
time Pettie established close ties to two guards of atom bomb secrets, Captain
Michael Altier (?) and Major Harry Wolanin, both retired. In 1954 Pettie
recruited Eric Heiberg who lost his NSA clearance at about this time. Heiberg
was redeployed as a private investigator and subsequently as a talent spotter
at Georgetown University (now retired). Pettie received intelligence training
at Georgetown University in 1956 and was sent to USAF intelligence training
school in Frankfurt, Germany in 1956-1957. Through Marsh, Pettie got his wife
a job with the CIA from 1957 to early 1961, working in Washington as secretary
and in Germany for the Chief of Station, Frankfurt- Colonel Leonard Weigner,
USAF (deceased 1990) trained Pettie and advised Pettie retire from active
military service and surround himself with kooks, recruiting agents from youth
hostels and universities. Major George Varga became Pettie's case officer,
relaying Weigner's instructions until Varga died in the 1970s,

Under Varga's instructions, Pettie recruited a network of agents in Europe,
including Dr. Keith Arnold (recruited in Paris in 1958) who he accompanied to
Moscow in 1959 or 1960. Arnold, currently based in Hong Kong with the Roche
Foundation, has made over 40 trips to mainland China and has stayed in contact
with Pettie. In the 1960s Pettie established connections with the 'beat'
movement. Norman Mailer and Dick Dabney (died in November 1981) frequented his
Virginia farm. Dabney's widow Dana has extensive files on Pettie. Peter
Gillingham (intermediate Technology. Palo Alto, CA) and Christopher Sonne
(currently Goldman saches, NY) met Pettie in Moscow in 1961. In the early 60s
Pettie allowed Ralph Borsodi and Mildred Loomis to use his Virginia property
for the School of Living, a 'decentralist' one-world government front
organization. Around 1964 Pettie recruited Bosco Nedelcovic and deployed him
to penetrate the Institute for Policy Studies (he is currently an interpreter
at the war College in Washington). In 1967 or 1968 Pettie established a
'futurist, network, assisting Edward S. Cornish in founding the World Future
Society and working through Roy Mason and John Naisbitt. At this time Pettie
also penetrated the hippy drug culture through retired naval intelligence
officers Wait Schneider (Timothy Leary and Billy Hitchcock's private pilot)
and Willard Poulsen (cut out bewtween[sic] Pettie activities and those of
Leary at millbrook), In 1971 Pettie infiltrated the 'human potential'
movement, setting up Ken Kesey (Living Love) as a prominent guru and working
through Dr. Stephen Beltz (related to Judith Beltz, a behavior modification
specialist more recently deployed to the Institute of Cultural Affairs and the
Meta Network cult.

Christopher Bird, former CIA officer who served in Japan and a psych warfare
specialist in the Army, and author of New Age and occult books has also been
associated with Pettie. Bird wrote The Secret Life of Plants with Peter
Tompkins, New York: Avon, 1974, Tompkins wrote on new age subjects like the
pyramids, and once served in the OSS (now anti-CIA).

Pettie's activities took a different turn in 1979 when he recruited John J.
Cox. founder of general Scientific (a computer firm specializing in classified
defense, contracts). Cox trained several of Pettie's Finders in computer
programming and communications technologies and took two or more Of them to
Costa Rica and Panama in 1980-81. Cox worked through Miguel Barzuna, a
prominent Costa Rican money launderer, the Vienna, Virginia-based Institute
for International Development and Cuban exile Emilio Rivera in Costa Rica and
Panama. Through Cox, Pettie and the Finders linked up with several Washington
area computer-oriented groups, including Community Computers, a front
organziation[sic] for The Community, a cult run by Michael Rios (aka Michael
Versacc). (Pettie's son, David Pettie, is a member of the Community, Pettie's
other son, George, may be the one who was in Air America) Cox also recruited
Theordore[sic] G. reiss (wife; Ann), 4 reston-based computer programmer and
highly active member of Werner Erhard Seminars (EST). Cox also recruited Susan
Gabriel and Judith Beltz as couriers. Pettie and Cox have simulated a failing
out and pretend to be enemies...


It sounds like the above dossier came to Kenn and Len via Daniel Brandt:
Excerpt from Marion Pettie and his Washington DC "Finders": Kooks or Spooks?
by Daniel Brandt
Three years later I obtained a three-page nongovernment memo of undetermined origin that summarizes Pettie's intelligence links. Most of it seems to check out. According to this memo, Pettie began his career with assorted OSS contacts, served as a chauffeur to General Ira Eaker, became a protege of Charles Marsh (an intimate of FDR and LBJ who ran his own private intelligence network), and was trained in counterintelligence in Baltimore and Frankfurt, Germany. His wife worked for the CIA, and Pettie himself was run by Col. Leonard N. Weigner (whose September 1990 Washington Post obituary confirms that his career was spent in air force intelligence and the CIA). Pettie's case officer was Major George Varga, who relayed Weigner's instructions until Varga died in the 1970s. The memo says that on Weigner's advice Pettie resigned from the military and surrounded himself with "kooks" so that he could infiltrate the "beat," human potential, and now the New Age movements.


I still need to contact Brandt, but everyone I've shown it to, from George Pettie to George Varga's son, says it a weird mix of fact and fiction. For instance Marion Pettie and George Varga were indeed friends and ran in some of the same intelligence circles in the 40s, but Varga was apparently not Pettie's case officer. The two met at a dance where Pettie convinced Varga to dance with a buxom woman for a minute so Pettie could cut in. She was seated and when she stood up it was clear she was more than a foot taller than the short Varga who, after an awkward amount of time dancing with her, looked around for his new nowhere-to-be-found friend Marion Pettie. My research points to more of a non-professional friendship between the two. The connection between the two men is there and verifiable, but the details and context both seem off. Same with Joseph Chiang..

Also, it seems Charles Marsh and Pettie each owned property in the same county but had little to no contact, ran in totally different circles, and the idea of Marsh providing Pettie funds "to purchase hundreds of acres of farmland in Madison and Rappahannock Counties." doesn't seem to check out, or make much sense to me.. And of course the bigger question is what " nongovernment" group would have that much info on the people Pettie knew or lived relatively near? and then hook up Daniel Brandt with it?

Again, I need to get with Brandt, but my hunch is that the "Investigative Leads" were provided to Brandt either anonymously or overtly by Pettie himself.. It would certainly fit the portrait I'm starting to see emerge of a trickster who enjoyed confusing people and maintaining something of a secret agent mystique. It's interesting that the two most repeated CIA-related factoids on Pettie (his son George worked for Air America, and his wife Isabelle worked for the OSS in Germany) come from the mouth of man himself in the Steamshovel interview.. Based on interviews and FOIAs am convinced these two factoids are true, but the rest of the "Investigative Lead" are a bit more tangled up in one of those messy hybrid knots of truth and something else..

Also, there's way more to the overall Finders story.. My initial goal was to try to figure out what they were doing in the 30 years they weren't busy being in the middle of a legal/media shitstorm and I want to concentrate more on that for a while. Kinda got caught up in the conspiracy angle over the past year, and I think interviewing Kenn will be a great conclusion to that angle- for the time being..

If anyone has anything they'd like me to ask him about his experience with Pettie and the Finders please post away..

Oh also, I was to interview John Judge at Len Bracken's suggestion when I was in DC last year but our schedules didn't line up. Sadly, he passed away this year. Does anyone have a link to any of Mr. Judge's work on the Finders? Cheers.
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