THE ORIGINES OF MAURICE STRONG'S PENETRATION OF CANADA AND AFRICA

By Reynald Rouleau
Introduction by the Editor of Canadian Patriot
Due to the existential nature of the role of Canada in world policy, both as a potential linchpin around a Eurasian- USA collaboration, but also as a tool of British geopolitics in sabotaging international development, it is the purpose of this report to showcase one of the most active agents of the British Empire this century. Maurice Strong is a Canadian who has played many roles during his life, from Rockefeller sponsored oil executive, to Liberal party sponsor, Conservation guru, to international political advisor, but the invariant throughout it all has been his adherence to the Fabian Societys logic of World Governance, and population reduction. Strongs influence as an agent of Powercorp in shaping national policy for almost five decades for his masters in the City of London cannot be overstated especially as he now operates as a key agent of influence in China playing a potentially devastating role in undermining the Four Powers Alliance (Russia, China, India, USA) promoted by American Economist Lyndon LaRouche. We now reprint a report written in 1996 which uses as its reference material taken from the Groundbreaking expose Cloak of Green by Elaine Deward. joint venture called Caltex which had paid the Saudi king, through his adviser, Kim Philby's father, a lot of money for these rights. Two months after he arrived at the UN, Strong quit, went back to Winnipeg, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, scrubbed out, and then became a trainee analyst at the brokerage firm of James Richardson & Sons. He then became an "oil analyst" in Calgary. There he met Jack Gallagher who had spent twelve years working for Standard Oil of New Jersey and its Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil. Gallagher had just been hired by Dome Mines to build an oil and gas exploration company called Dome Exploration (Western) Ltd. Dome Mines was control from New York. Henrie Burnie, a close friend of John J. McCloy, was on its board. Dome Explorations raised $7 million through a syndicate led by John Loeb of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb (soon to be Edgar Bronfman's father-in-law). Dome Exploration became one of the largest socalled independent oil exploration companies in Canada. In 1951, Maurice Strong had married, bought a house, and gone to work at Dome as Gallagher's assistant, but in 1952, he sold his house, quit his new job, and went on to travel the world with his new wife. He was in Paris went Joseph Stalin died. He took a ship from Genoa heade to South Africa, but got off instead at the port of Mombassa, Kenya, as the Mau Mau revolt was at its peak. When Strong arrived in Africa, the pre- and post-war colonial governance structure were crumbling and there was a struggle for the power and market share among the major oil companies--British, French and American. In Nairobi, Strong got a job with CalTex, the joint venture between the Texas Company and Socal. His job involved travel. He went to Eritria, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritius, Madagascar, Zaire. He stayed in Africa for a year. Then he and his wife hopped freighter home, passing through India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Hong Kong, the Philippines until they arrived back in Calgary in December 1954. He tried to get a job at the Canadian External Affair Ministry, but he was told that he could even apply without a University Degree. So he went back to work for Dome. He had also volunteered at the YMCA. The YMCA had a worldwide network that crossed Cold War barriers. It was one of the few Western organizations that

What is Maurice Strong?

Maurice Strong got his first job from Britains Hudson Bay Company. He later started to work at the U.N., preparing accreditation cards and passes, on September 15, 1947. He met lots of famous people there, like Andrei Gromyko, for example. When the UN recommended that Palestine be split into Israel, Gaza and Jordan, this was the green light for joint venture oil partners like Socal and the Texas Company, which had exclusive oil concessions in Saudi Arabia. Socal and the Texas Company together owned a

maintained its facilities in Eastern Europe and mainland China. Maurice Strong managed to attend the Y's 100th anniversary in Paris in the summer of 1955. He detoured to Geneva and introduced himself to his very distant American cousin Robbins Strong. The Y had just appointed him the professional secretary of its extension and inter-movement aid division which divied up government and private money for aid projects. These moneys were moved discreetly around the world by the Swiss bank of Geneva. Leonard Hentsch of the private bank of Hentsch et Cie. was the division's treasurer that year. Strong met Hentsch, too, and they became friends--and later, partners. Later, in due course, the two Strong formed what Robbins referred to as "a cabal" to reduce U.S. dominance of the Y's international system. As Robbins saw it, there were "problems" with the International Committee of the U.S.A. and Canada. By 1958, at twenty-nine, Maurice Strong had got appointed to that committee. Already by 1956, Strong was a close friend of Paul Martin, who was getting ready to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Martin regularly visited Strong, at his house in Calgary. Strong had quitted his job at Dome, and setup his own company, MF Strong Management. In 1960 Strong was an equity holder in Ajax Petroleum, another "independent" oil company, went Paul Martin's son Paul, Jr., came to work for him during his summer vacation. [General de Gaulle used to refer to Paul Matin as "Paul MARTINE", making it sound English, even though he was a French Canadian--showing how much he had sold out to the Brits.] In 1961, Strong had been appointed chair of Robbins Strong's international division at the Y, which gave Strong a reason to rent a house outside Geneva. Paul Martin Jr., visited Strong there. The same year, Harold Rea, the new president of the Canadian YMCA and a man who ran an oil company control by Power Corporation in Montreal. Rea was looking for a new president for Power Corp. Power Corporation was a network nodal point for Canadian politicians, (and still is), and their arrangements. It had been put together in 1925, when MacKenzie King was Prime Minister, to control the ownership of power generation facilities across the country. Like a junior octopus, it also held control blocks in many other oil and gas companies. Former and future politicians, and political back room boys, worked of the staff or served on the board. Control of Power Corp. had been in the hands of Peter Thomson Sr., head of one of the largest Montreal brokerage firm of Nesbitt Thomson. Power Corporation shares were publicly traded, but voting control rested in a block of special preferred shares each of which carried multiple votes. These preferred shares had just passed to Peter N. Thompson Jr., upon the death of

his father. He was only a year older than Maurice Strong, but already a "bagman" of some note. He was then the treasurer of the Liberal Party of Quebec. (This is from where, and from whom, Rene Levesque, the later founder of the separatist Parti Quebecois, got his start in official politics.) In Quebec, this British-run Anglo-American machine, defeated the Vaticansteered, nationalistic party of Maurice Duplessis, l'Union Nationale, which had been in power in Quebec, since the end of WWII. Canada then had no pesky rules to control campaign expenditures, no rules to force disclosure of campaign contributions and few to forbid certain supportive measures a politician might choose to take before, during, and after public life. (If "the worshipper of the dead" Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King could have his trust fund filled bu his business friends while he was in office and take a large gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., then why shouldn't everyone else?). As John J. McCloy would point out when he later investigated Gulf Oil Corp. for its political payments to politicians abroad, Gulf Canada alone had paid $13 million to Canadian politicians between 1961 and 1973. Power Corporation employed and still employed persons who organize the campaigns of those seeking public office. Prime Minister Jean Chretien's chief leadership aid and the architect of his election victory in 1993, John Rea (Liberal Party MP Bob Rea's brother), is an executive and director at Power Corp. In 1961, the governments of Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia announced their intentions to expropriate the hydro-electric companies, in their provinces, controlled by Power Corporation. Power would thus have much cash at its disposal. Peter N. Thompson didn't want to run the company. Maurice Strong was made executive Vice-President. In 1962, Strong arrived in Montreal, as a senior executive of one of the most important company in the country. he was also a player in the international YMCA network. He described the particular virtues of running Power Corp. "We controlled many companies, controlled political budgets. We influence a lot of appointments. ...Politician got to know you and you them." (Cloak of Green p.270) Strong recruited to Power Corp. more young men intrested in business and politics. He hired James D. Wolfensohn to run the new Australian-based subsidiary called SuperPower International. Wolfensohn went on to a brilliant career on Wall Street, headed the World Bank and then created his own firm, James D. Wolfensohn Co. making Paul Volker its president. Strong also hired William Turner and Paul Martin Jr. (Paul Martin Sr., was a close friend of Quebec liberation theology ideologue, George-Henri Levesque, the founder of the first university in Rwanda).

After Strong and Power Corp. got the Liberal government elected --having as its head Lester Pearson (the man who got the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the first UN Peacekeeping operation during the Suez Canal Crisis) -- Strong directed all his attention at stopping Charles de Gaulle's economic development of Africa, and making sure that no France-USA alliance would develop. Lester Pearson chose Paul Martin Sr. as his Foreign Minister. In the same month, Maurice Strong became President of YMCA Canada and also joined the External Aid section of the Foreign Affair Canadian Ministry, overseeing all foreign aid to third world country. As the head of YMCA, he pulled the Canadian Y out of its special relationship with the U.S. on the International Committee. Canada had no embassies in French Africa, and de Gaulle was pushing French Africa to create direct contacts with the government of Quebec, by-passing the Canadian government. Pearson's Liberal Party needed a flexible solution. A layered solution was found. Both could be done through development aid programs for France's former colonies. The use of "aid" in this fashion fitted with the new American foreign policy toward Africa. The killing of Kennedy opened the door to the Rockefeller interest to run U.S. foreign "aid" programs in Africa. So, the British-run Canadian and American policy, both converged as far as Africa was concern: Stop de Gaulle's development programs, and go for a malthusian grab of their raw materials. As Rockefeller used to say about WWII, it was hard to get rubber out of the Amazon for the Allies from people who were too hungry or sick to work. So, the impulse that created USAID in 1962, was a good idea, but it immediately died with Kennedy in 1963. USAID from then on, a strong arm, or "Strong arm" for malthusian work against de Gaulle's France anti-colonial development programs. Maurice Strong was a close friend of triple agent Lester Pearson. As head of Canada external aid, Strong sent Pierre-Elliott Trudeau to scout possibilities in Africa. Trudeau's report back, lead to a larger mission headed by Lionel Chevrier, who's order were to go out there and say yes to whatever French African leaders wanted, and Strong would somehow arrange the deliveries. Since he had almost no staff at External Aid, he made a deal with SNC (now SNC-Lavalin), a Quebec-based engineering company, to offer technical facilities. SNC acted as a go-between the government, and the actual on-the-ground contractors. Any of these "contractors" had to have been approved by Strong. One of the most successful projects was the construction of a series of microwave towers across northern Africa. These towers permitted African countries to phone each other directly, instead of having to run their communications through France (where they could be listen to).

These arrangements between External Aid and SNC were the base for the government agency CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, which Maurice Strong created in 1968, to replace External Aid. At the same time, Canadian Prime Minister Pearson, just before retiring, put together the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a parallel organization to CIDA, but not created by an "Order-in-Council" of the Queen's Canadian Privy Council, so it could received "tax-deductable private funds". IDRC was to be in appearance at least, a non-government organization. It is run by a board of governors, which is composed of different persons: government, business and private individuals, from different countries. Like a company-run union, it is a front, created to implement the government policy, without attracting attention. Canada itself, represent the same thing. It is a tool of the British Empire, to implement Britain's foreign policy, with the advantage of not having their name attached to it. Maurice Strong became the Chairman of IDRC in October 1970, replacing Lester Pearson. In the same way as USAID does, CIDA operates a tied-aid program, which means that when CIDA gives aid to, for example, Zaire, in return Zaire may have to purchase its "goods and services" from Canada, or Britain... Strong's hand-picked people in Africa got private companies to hide behind. While the public works done abroad may not have given much benefit to the poor, they certainly made foreign political actors very happy. Through his contacts in the YMCA, he ended up becoming secretary general of the U.N. Stockholm Conference on global environment in 1972. As a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1971-77, he was handed the writing service of Barbara Ward, a British political theorist who promoted the virtues of the one-party states of Africa, and Rene Dubos, a French ecologist who had spent his life at Rockefeller University. One of the by-product of the Stockholm Conference was the creation of a new British intelligence and malthusian front, as part of the U.N. structure: The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). In 1974, the UNEP rose out of the underdeveloped soil of Nairobi, Kenya, Strong's old stomping ground. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Nairobi became the spy capital of Africa. Strong became UNEP's first executive director. The price of oil went up. Pierre Eliot Trudeau's government announced its intention to create a national oil company. When it came time to actually create the oil company, Petro-Canada, Maurice Strong was the man. Already a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, he had just been given an award by the Mellon Foundation, a philanthropy of the family that started Gulf Oil. So, January 1, 1976, Strong became the first chairman and CEO of Petro-Canada. He also

return to the chair of Lester Pearson's IRDC. Strong started the Canadian government oil company, with four new recruits. Wilbert Hopper, from the federal department of Energy, Mines and Resources, became the President of Petro-Canada. (Hopper's brother David had been a Rockefeller Foundation economist before he was made president of IRDC. By 1993, he too was on the Rockefeller Foundation board of trustees.) Strong hired John Ralston Saul, a Canadian expert on the French military/industrial complex, after he was introduced to him by a former protege of S.G. Warburg, New York banker David Mitchell. They bought oil companies from a Calgary hotel room. The first one was Arco. Arco and Exxon were partner in the Alaska oil pine line. Within a month of start up, Strong hired Doug Bowie, a Mormon who's done his missionary stint in France and then worked as a political aide to Liberal cabinet minister Gerard Pelletier. (Pelletier is a friend of Trudeau, was a friend of Rene Levesque, and was or still is a friend of Jean-Louis Roux, the Lt-Gov. of Quebec who just resigned Nov. 5, amid a scandal about his pro-nazi past).

In May of 1980, Strong joined the board of a publicly traded Swiss company known by the acronym Sogener. It was chaired by Leonard Hentsch, Strong's banker friend from the YMCA network. Strong became Sogener's executive committee chairman. He moved control of AZL to Sogener, and thus Sogener became the dominant but unseen partner in IEDC. Most of the contracts of Sogener's engineering division were in Angola and Libya. Sogener had just sold this division to a Greek shipping magnate named Latsis, a friend of the Saudi king, Fahd. Sogener had done this transaction under the direction of Michel LeGoc. LeGoc has a complicated pedigree. Formerly a high French defence official, he left in 1960, and formed a company called Interfinexa with backing from important banks in Paris and Geneva. Sogener had cash on hand when Strong joined its board. By then, LeGoc had already found a take over target for Sogerner--Credit Immobilier. On its board was Francois Mitterand's lawyer Roland Dumas, and Jean-Pierre Francois, both knew each other from the Resistance network in Lyon. Strong had "almost been shut out of the Rio Summit job in 1992 because some people at the U.S. State Department didn't like him. [But] he said they had been overruled by the White House. George Bush knew him, he said. He's been in Bush's home. In fact, he said, he had donated some $100,000 to the U.S. Democratic Party and a slightly lesser amount to the Republicans in 1988." [Dewar's book p. 285] Maurice Strong has a green card (U.S. permanent resident status), which was suggested he get, from the Governor of Colorado. In 1982, Pierre-Elliott Trudeau appointed Maurice Strong vice-chairman of Canada Development Corporation (CDC). CDC held the crown interest in a number of corporations. When disagreement occurred with its president over the buying of Massey Ferguson from Argus Corp. the Queen's Privy Council, of Canada, created a bigger company called, Canadian Development Investment Corporation (CDIC), which took control over CDC, and Strong became chairman of it. On the board of Director was Trevor Eyton, Paul Marshall, Patrick Keenan, Antoine Turmel, Frank Stronach, John Grant, Lucien Bouchard. [to be continued]

The Strong-Bush connection

Maurice Strong had business relations with Scott Spangler, a George Bush appointee to the USAID Africa desk, and both of them, with Adnan Khashoggi, through the Arizona-Colorado Land and Cattle Company (AZL). Khashoggi had been the biggest shareholder of AZL since 1974. AZL had entered into a number of deals in Iraq, Egypt, and Sudan, often through the head of state of those countries. Strong and his future wife Hanne Marstrand first met with Khashoggi at Khashoggi's brother house in London. Strong was the World Wildlife Fund International's vice-president from 1978 to 1981. In the summer of 1979, as a rolling wave of panic drove the price of oil from $13 to $34 a barrel, Strong had started a new international energy company, International Energy Development Corporation S.A., or IEDC. He said it was designed to help the Third World cope with these new energy conditions by searching for oil and gas in their own territories. He based the company in Switzerland, which required and act of the Swiss parliament since he is not a Swiss citizen. The Partners in IEDC were AZL, Sulpetro, Volvo, Energi, Sheikh Al Sabah, who was Kuwait's finance minister and head of the Kuwait petroleum corporation; the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation. IEDC paid licence fees to explore for oil and gas in places like Angola, Mozambique, Chad, the Sudan--and even in Australia.