Joseph Cannon
Cannonfire
August 30, 2009
Editor’s note: Cannon mentions the Lobster Magazine article documenting the relationship between Business International Corporation and the CIA. An additional resource on this link was provided by the New York Times: ‘CIA Established Many Links To Journalists in US and Abroad’, New York Times, 27.12.1977. The co-founder of the company told the newspaper that “Eldridge Haynes [the other founder] had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960.”
Of all the outside-the mainstream notions I’ve posited on this blog, the one that annoys the most people is my suggestion that the CIA recruited young Barack Obama during his days at Occidental College. I would further suggest that the Agency link runs in the family. I believe that, at an earlier time, the Agency (or some other branch of the intelligence community) may have recruited his mother, Ann Dunham.
For earlier posts in this series — may I call it a series? — see here, here, here and here.
And now we have this intriguing shard of additional data:
The eye-opener here concerns Obama’s first job out of college. He was recruited by Business International Corporation, accused of functioning as a CIA front company.
You don’t have to take the word of John Pilger, the man in the video. Here’s Wikipedia:
The company has been identified as cover organization for the Central Intelligence Agency, e.g. see Lobster Magazine, issue 14 in 1987. According to a lengthy article in the New York Times in 1977, the co-founder of the company told the newspaper that “Eldridge Haynes [the other founder] had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries between 1955 and 1960″.
I see no reason to presume that the CIA/BIC relationship ended in 1960. Lobster is a quirky but reliable publication.
William Blum, a left-wing CIA expert, made the same catch:
In his autobiography, “Dreams From My Fathers”, Barack Obama writes of taking a job at some point after graduating from Columbia University in 1983. He describes his employer as “a consulting house to multinational corporations” in New York City, and his functions as a “research assistant” and “financial writer”.
The odd part of Obama’s story is that he doesn’t mention the name of his employer. However, a New York Times story of 2007 identifies the company as Business International Corporation.
Obama’s bios are as important for what they leave out as for what they reveal. I first became suspicious of his now-infamous trip to Pakistan (which he took in the summer between Occidental and Columbia) because he refused to mention this adventure in his books.In his book, not only doesn’t Obama mention his employer’s name; he fails to say when he worked there, or why he left the job.
Think of it: We are talking about a man who compiled not one but two autobiographical works before the age of 46. We are talking about an ambitious politician intent on establishing his foreign policy cred. Yet he refused to mention a dangerous trip to Pakistan which he made at a time when travel to that country was discouraged by the State Department. That country was then the focus of the CIA’s largest covert operation, the supplying of the Afghan mujahadeen. While there, this callow college kid met with one of the most powerful men in Pakistan — a meeting arranged by an unnamed personage with the American Embassy. (Spook-watchers know what that means.)
If the trip was a pleasure jaunt, why did Obama keep it a secret? And how did he pay for the journey?
This site encapsulates a series of points which I had earlier made at greater length:
Adding to the mix is the fact that Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, had visited at least 13 countries in her lifetime, and had worked for companies that required travel to Pakistan. Her employers appear to have included the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, Women’s World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Note that USAID and the Ford Foundation have (allegedly) been used as covers for CIA agents. . . .
Like mother, like son. Ann worked for at least two organizations notorious for providing CIA cover. Barack went straight from college to an organization known to provide CIA cover. Coincidence?
Let’s put it this way: How often do such things happen in your family?
Supposedly, Ann was a leftist. Yet she married Lolo Sotero, a key intermediary between the American oil companies and Indonesian strongman Suharto, installed by the CIA in an extremely bloody coup. (Obama admits the CIA connection in his book.) No genuine lefty would have had anything to do with Suharto or his cronies.
I do not claim to have conclusive evidence. Then again, one must ask: When we try to sort out who’s who and what’s what in the clandestine world, what constitutes hard evidence? If you are emotionally invested in Obama, then no amount of proof will ever suffice — except, perhaps, for a signed note by CIA director Panetta, saying “Yes, he worked for us.”
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