Aug 15, 2012

Above and Below Public Knowledge

Recently I shared in my blog Understanding & Healing from Dissociation that I was led to a clearly conscious memory of someone in my past linked to the world of international espionage. I lived in Iran from mid-1964 (turned 12 later that year) until mid-1967 (14 almost 15). I've spoken before of memory that connects Russian and U.S. programs as well as a U.S./Russian/British connection. However, the world news of that "Cold War" era was spy vs. spy vs. spy with a nuclear power struggle between the U.S. and Russia.

With all my research of Iran in the mid-60s, I came to understand that the U.S. agreed to support the Shah, who came into power in 1963 with the help of U.S. CIA undercover operatives, with military advisors and other support supposedly to prevent the Shah from allying with the Russians. It became clear to me that all Americans sent there were in support of the CIA and the "puppet" Shah. It was a community of intelligence and secrets. The children of the spies or those with at least covert missions attended the American School in Tehran. My friends had parents who were part of that mission. Of course we were clueless children.

I had several close friends from 1964 until I left in 1967. We went to grades 7 through 9 together. We had sleepovers and parties. One of my friends was the Ambassador to the U.S.'s daughter. I was at the Embassy for a party I think twice...one is a clear memory. Iran was quiet and boring and we mostly spent time with each other. Summers for children of military officers were spent at the Officer's Club. We were literally dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening, often after the movie theater had closed. I did read that it was believed a CIA office was located within the Officer's Club.

While I don't know if my other friends were like me, I'm fairly certain my one best friend, also the daughter of an officer, was. She has surfaced in many of my nightmares. I recall consciously that one summer she decided to learn Russian which was completely uninteresting to me at the time.

Having processed all of what I know of that life, including my memory of being in Russia validated by the huge time gap on my 7th grade report card, I was still plagued with nightmares connecting Iran to my adult working life. By "coincidence", I googled the name of my friend's father because I knew he had worked for Gulf Oil in 1974 when I had last visited him in Reston, VA; and I had just researched the CIA undercover operative who led the coup to place the Shah in power in 1963. He had retired from the CIA and gone to work for Gulf Oil. I just wondered at that moment if Gulf Oil was a retirement ground for the CIA. It would not have surprised me to learn my friend's father was CIA given Iran's history. But it did shock me to learn he was a notorious KGB agent known only by his codename since the 1950s. His identity became known in the early 2000s. He had been recruited by Julius Rosenberg who was executed with his wife for selling secrets about our atomic bomb to the Russians in the early 50s. Several others were also arrested but not executed and no one gave up the man I knew and adored as my friend's father. He had been part of The Manhattan Project.

His identity became known by authors of the book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the K.G.B. in America through Freedom of Information Act documents and released KGB documents that finally connected the name with the codename. The authors contacted my father's friend in 2007 but he declined to be interviewed. He died in 2008 living his life out as a wealthy retiree with a large and loving family.

I do remember him frequently being in London in those years I was there but he lived in Iran long after we left. Iran has a nuclear power plant and the man I loved as my friend's father had expertise in processing plutonium.

Where else does a child become exposed to people so deeply entrenched in the world of espionage if not in a place where many others are also engaging in espionage? What hasn't been found or supported or denied is whether he was a double agent or part of the tri-loyal world I knew.

My memories are of what we now call the one percent...the very wealthy...providing funds to develop the programs where all nations (or at least the wealthiest in those nations) worked toward a common goal. If one nation was going to destroy the other with nuclear weapons, the one percent was going to be in control and on the winning side regardless of the outcome.

Apparently I learned a skill that was carried into adulthood to be used in my workplaces. I do know without a doubt I was being used in an alter state for at least one reason related to foreign currency and stock trading at my last place of employment before my amnesia broke. It was a health insurance company. I was a mind control "asset" actively being used by a Vice President of the company. That was 15 years ago.

Without a Cold War, I believe the one percent does make much of it's wealth off of the war machine, wherever there might be a war. How many times has it been uncovered that the U.S. was supplying arms to one or both sides of two countries fighting with each other? We fuel those wars.

In public view we see blame. In the underworld, there is cooperation working toward control and wealth. The sex slave trade and pornography trade are proof of activities that are fueled in large part by the U.S. even though we have organizations rallying to put an end to such activities. The side with the most money is always going to win.

So while I was shocked about learning of having a close encounter numerous times with a known KGB agent, I've also had time now to put my life into perspective. I was born into it and had no choice about my path or future until I came undone in 1997. I still see it going on and see how wealth and power continue to tear us down. Imagine if the evil could be reversed...the problems of the world that could be solved if that wealth and power were somehow able to be used for the betterment of society. It makes me sad to know the truth.

When the past floats up...memories.

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