James B. Nicholson, Trustee vs. Harmon - Witness Joseph Verner Reed, Jr.

David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE KSC

U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

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DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

JOSEPH VERNER REED, JR.

Address to be determined.

E-mail: reedjv@aol.com

From Bridge between East and West:

Joseph Verner REED has graduated from the World Information Distributed University in 1999. He received the degree of Ph.D in Global Problems. He has the Certificate of Full Professor of the WIDU. Professor Reed is the Under Secretary General of the United Nations.

Joseph Verner Reed was born in New York City and is a graduate of Yale University, Class of 1961. Following his university studies, he joined the World Bank as Private Secretary to the President. From 1963 to 1981 he was Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, Mr. David Rockefeller.

Mr. Reed was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Ambassador of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Morocco in 1981 and in 1985 as the Representative of the United States to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations as Deputy Permanent Representative at the United States Mission.

In 1987, he was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Political and General Assembly Affairs.

In early 1989, President George Bush appointed Ambassador Reed the Chief of Protocol of the United States of America, where he served until late 1991.

In 1992, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, appointed Ambassador Reed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Representative for Public Affairs, concluding his assignment in February 1997.

In June 1997, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi A. Annan, re-appointed Ambassador Reed as Under-Secretary-General and President of the Staff-Management Coordination Committee, the highest internal body of the World Organization.

Staff-Management Coordination Committee S-2494 United Nations New York 10017 Tel: (212) 963-2572/5588 Fax: (212) 963-1203 e-mail: reed@un.org

http://www.bridgeworld.org/alf/alf.htm?l=R

The Hon. Joseph Verner Reed is a Diplomat, currently serving as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations. Ambassador to Morocco, 1981-1985. Former Deputy Permanent U.S. Representative to the U.N. and former Chief of Protocol at the White House. Recipient of the Order of the Throne, Grand Officer, and the Order of the Ouissam Alaouite, Grand Officer. Both awards were presented at the hands of the late King Hassan II in recognition for services rendered to U.S.-Moroccan relations. Donor of an important collection of books, Moroccan rugs and other artifacts to TALM.

http://www.legation.org/public_html/administration.htm

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Joseph Verner Reed served as Chief of Protocol under George H.W. Bush. Reed's parents were friends of Bush's parents, Dorothy and Sen. Prescott Bush.

Brought Martha Stewart and Ken Starr to the 1999 Alfalfa Club dinner. Brought Katherine Harris in 2001.

http://www.nndb.com/people/614/000052458/

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Joseph Verner Reed, Jr. is the grandson of Remington Arms chairman, Samuel Pryor.

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From American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, by Kevin Phillips:

...The power structure that emerged in World War I and reached the height of prestige during the Second World War and the two following decades was obviously far more than just a social phenomenon. Groups like Skull and Bones were a clubby symptom but hardly a driving force. Part of the new establishment came from the organization and hierarchies of national mobilization that had been established during the two wartimes–years that, quite simply, had realigned the world.

These were the broad tracks along which the Walker and Bush families climbed, financially and politically. Over the years they led the family to an involvement with the mainstays of the twentieth-century American national security state: finance, oil and energy, the federal government, the so-called military-industrial complex, and the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the rest of the intelligence community....

The U.S. Justice Department had begun probing German-connected companies and investors in 1941, but Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war against both Germany and Japan put government investigations into overdrive. In early March 1942, a special Senate committee began public hearings on cartel agreements between U.S. and German firms. Before long William S. Farish, the chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, had pleaded no contest to charges of criminal conspiracy between his company and I.G. Farben. In keeping with cartel agreements, Standard had withheld from U.S. authorities information on the production of artificial rubber.

Secretary of War Stimson, a man with strong establishment ties–Andover, Yale, Skull and Bones, and service in both Republican and Democratic cabinets–asked President Roosevelt in March 1942 to stop the investigations because they would interfere with companies engaged in the war effort. However, that didn’t stop the inquiries being made under the Trading with the Enemy Act of December 1941.

None of this would have ben happy news for Prescott Bush at 59 Wall Street. In 1938, the firm had been collaterally involved in a German transaction–shipping tetraethyl lead needed by the Luftwaffe–by the Ethyl Corporation, of which Farish was a director and which was half owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey.

In 1941, the New York Herald Tribune had featured a front-page story headlined “Hitler’s Angel Has $3 Million in U.S. Bank,” reporting that steel baron Fritz Thyssen had channeled the money into the Union Banking Corporation, possibly to be held for “Nazi bigwigs.” UBC was the bank, nominally owned by a Dutch intermediary, that Brown Brothers Harriman ran for the German Thyussen steel family. Prescott Bush was a director...

It is almost as if these various German embroilments, despite their potential for scandal, were regarded as unfortunate but in essence business as usual. Or more plausibly, that at a high governmental level, such roles were unofficially reclassified as an intelligence function–a “tell us what you know about Germany” obligation.

Those in the American legal and financial community who had decades of experience with Germany and well-placed connection there doubtless were considered to be important wartime national security assets, however questionable some of their overseas dealings. In any event, a surprising number of the descendants of men who had dealt with Germany–William S. Farish III, William Draper III, and Joseph Verner Reed Jr. (grandson of Remington Arms chairman Samuel Pryor, earlier a director of both UBC and American Ship and Commerce)–turned up as close personal advisers or high-level appointees in the George H. W. Bush administration...

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Rockefeller Aide's Tie to 1980 'October Surprise' Mystery

Some of the most intriguing documents discovered in the House “October Surprise” Task Force files related to Joseph Verner Reed, a longtime aide to Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller.

Starting in early 1979, Reed played a key role in getting the Carter administration to let the Shah of Iran into the United States, the act that sparked the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and 52 American hostages in November 1979.

The Task Force documents suggest that Reed also knew about attempts by the Reagan-Bush campaign to disrupt President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free the hostages before Election 1980, preventing what then-vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush dubbed Carter’s “October Surprise” of a last-minute hostage release.

The first page in this batch of documents consists of notes written by FBI agent Harry A. Penich in fall 1992, after he tried to serve a congressional subpoena on Reed, who had failed to return “numerous telephone calls” over a five-month period. Penich went to Reed’s 50-acre estate in Greenwich, Conn., and handed him the House subpoena. An outraged Reed reacted to the subpoena by claiming to have an in with one of Penich’s Task Force bosses, according to Penich’s notes.

“His [Reed’s] responses could best be characterized as lashing out,” Penich wrote in talking points for an unidentified superior. “He [Reed] did it in such a way as to lead a reasonable person to believe he had influence w/you. The man’s remarks were both inappropriate and improper. ”

Penich added, “I am not going to be his whipping boy because he can't manipulate the system.”

But Reed’s hardball tactics worked. When Reed finally testified in a secret telephone deposition on Dec. 18, 1992, Task Force lawyers just went through the motions. Penich took the interview notes, which cover the final two pages of this first batch of documents. Reed denied knowing what “October Surprise” referred to and added that he “recalls no contact with Casey in 1980.” [....To see a PDF file of the actual notes, click here.]

Clearly, the Task Force lawyers didn’t press Reed very hard. Most strikingly, the lawyers failed to confront Reed with evidence that would have impeached his contention that he had “no contact with Casey in 1980.” Another document in the Task Force files was a sign-in sheet for the Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., which showed Reed, Rockefeller and two other aides checking in for a visit with Casey on Sept. 11, 1980....

The third batch of documents are from a “secret” deposition with former CIA officer Charles Cogan. On Dec. 21, 1992, as the Task Force was wrapping up its work, Cogan described a conversation that he recalled from early 1981 between Joseph Reed and CIA Director William Casey at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Reed, who had just been named U.S. ambassador to Morocco, entered Casey’s office as Cogan was leaving. Knowing Reed, Cogan said he lingered at the door and had a “definite memory” of a comment Reed made to Casey about disrupting Carter's “October Surprise.” But Cogan said he couldn’t recall the precise verb that Reed had used.

“Joseph Reed said, ‘we’ and then the verb [and then] something about Carter’s October Surprise,” Cogan testified. “The implication was we did something about Carter's October Surprise, but I don’t have the exact wording.”

One congressional investigator, who discussed the recollection with Cogan in a less formal setting, concluded that the verb that Cogan chose not to repeat was an expletive for sex – as in “we f--d Carter’s October Surprise.”

During Cogan’s deposition, David Laufman, a Republican lawyer on the Task Force and a former CIA official, asked Cogan if he had since then “had occasion to ask him [Reed] about this” recollection? Yes, Cogan replied, he had asked Reed about it, after Reed moved to a protocol job at the United Nations.

“I called him up,” Cogan said. “He was at his farm in Connecticut, as I recall, and I just told him that, look, this is what sticks in my mind and what I am going to say [to Congress], and he [Reed] didn't have any comment on it and continued on to other matters.”

And so did the Task Force lawyers at this remarkable deposition. The lawyers even failed to ask Cogan the obvious follow-up: What did Casey say and how did Casey react when Reed allegedly told Reagan’s ex-campaign chief something to the effect that “we f--d Carter’s October Surprise.”...

Penich, now an FBI agent in San Diego, Calif., did not return our telephone calls over the past couple of weeks seeking comment.

Reed, who is now a deputy to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, didn’t respond to phone or e-mail messages.

Cogan, who became a Harvard professor, declined to discuss his testimony because it remains classified.

[For the most recent account of the October Surprise mystery and the role of the Rockefeller group, see Robert Parry’s new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. For a 1995 article about Reed and the October Surprise case, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Follow the Money.”]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/reeddocs.html

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December 3, 1995

THE HOLY TERROR

BY JOHN TIERNEY, The New York Times

Like the impassioned zealots of Italian opera and like Fiorello La Guardia, his role model, Rudolph Giuliani pushes forward righteously- and with dramatic impact....

1:45 P.M. Back in his office, Giuliani poses for photos with six visiting teen-agers from Israel and makes small talk. ("Tel Aviv, that's a teeming city.") Joseph Verner Reed, an under secretary general at the United Nations, comes into lobby him to attend the world leaders' speeches at the United Nations on Sunday.

"I have the two best seats in the house for you," Reed says. "You can listen to President Clinton, and when Castro gets up to speak you can walk out."

"I can bang my shoe," Giuliani says. "I'll bring my spikes."

http://www.uhb.fr/faulkner/ny/terror.htm

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April 13, 1992

Why the Right Loves the U.N.

Ian Williams, The Nation

The right has spent many years attacking the United Nations. Indeed, for years the Heritage Foundation had a special section with no other task than to calumniate the U.N. and all its works. Now, in the Bushian new world order, conservatives see hiterto hidden attractions in the organization....

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's ratifications of Bush's patronage appointment of the man Pennsylvania disappointed was followed by Boutros-Ghali's appointment of Joseph Verner Reed to an unspecified portfolio.

Once described as a "14-carat nitwit" by Senator Thomas Eagleton, Reed, a former Chase Manhattan vice president, was made Ambassaor to Morocco by Reagan in 1981, and now has the job of organizing the U.N.'s fiftieth-anniversary celebrations.

Reed has also joined Burton Pines on the executive committee of the Institute of East-West Dynamics, which in its own way encapsulates the new relationship between the U.N. and Washington. A nonprofit organization set up to promote profit, it offers training in free-market economic principles to the "economies in transition" in Eastern Europe. The institute seems to have secured an initial $250,000 grant from the United Nations Development Program, having been referred there by the State Department....

John Bolton, an Ed Meese disciple who led the campaign to withdraw U.S. membership from UNESCO, had no problem with the request. He approached U.N.D.P. in late November and suggested that it pay the institute the $2 million. A week later he congratulated U.N.D.P.'s administrator William Draper 3d for making the "initial contribution" of $250,000 to the institute, adding that "I trust UNDP will make the funds available to the Institute as soon as possible so as not to delay the implementation of this worthwhile endeavor."

Draper is a clubbable conservative, a friend of George Bush and generally well regarded in the U.N.D.P. Both he and U.N.D.P. were put in a difficult positions by this letter. U.N.D.P. is funded by voluntary contributions, and 10 percent of its cash comes from the U.S. government -- through Bolton. A U.N.D.P. spokesperson confirmed that the request had been made, but said that the quarter-million "for management training programs in Eastern Europe had not yet been approved. It is going through the regular appraisal process."

That institute director Reed makes no secret of his desire to inherit Draper's job as head of the U.N.D.P. may help lubricate the appraisal machinery....

http://www.globalpolicy.org/reform/williams.htm

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December 1, 2006

Annual Lecture Luncheon at the United Nations:
Prospects for Peace IV

U Thant Institute celebrated its fourth annual lecture luncheon commemorating U Thant’s "Vision for Peace". UTI founder-president, Daw Aye Aye Thant was joined by her advisory trustees, directors, executive officers, Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps and other distinguished guests in the Private Delegates’ Dining Room at the United Nations.

Master of Ceremonies was Anthony Fouracre, UTI's vice president for UN Affairs. A warm welcome was offered by UTI trustee, Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed and UTI board chairman, Dr. George J. Delaney.

In her opening remarks, UTI president Daw Aye Aye Thant noted the significance of the lecture luncheon coinciding with World Aids Day and highlighted the institute’s work in health education.

The president also used the occasion to unveil the institute’s launch plans for a water irrigation project in Pantanaw, Myanmar to be completed by the centenary of her father’s birth in 2009....

http://www.uthantinstitute.org/

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August 29, 2004

Stratford Journal; An Encore Effort to Bring
Shakespeare Back to Stratford

By ALISON LEIGH COWAN, New York Times

Long before Indian-sponsored casinos became the biggest reason people traveled to Connecticut, the state's biggest draws were Mystic Seaport and Shakespeare, as performed here.

From its perch overlooking the Housatonic River and the Long Island Sound, the Shakespeare theater in Stratford offered world-class productions in a grand setting. Schoolchildren came by the busload to see their first serious play and experience small pleasures like a garden featuring 81 plants mentioned in Shakespeare's work. Wealthy patrons came by yacht. Wandering minstrels serenaded the crowd, and picnic blankets were as inescapable as coolers at a tailgate party.

But the theater's finances were always shaky, even when Katharine Hepburn and James Earl Jones were filling all 1,500 seats, and the place has been dark for 15 years.

The Stratford Festival Theater Inc., has controlled the theater since 1995. It received money from the state, including a $500,000 grant and a $1.5 million loan guarantee, to restore the theater in 1999, but it ran out of money before the work was done....

Now, renovation is at a standstill and theater supporters are pinning their hopes on Connecticut's new governor, M. Jodi Rell, asking her to invoke the state's legal right to seize the property. Many believe that unless the state acts, and then sets aside $5 million to $7 million for restoration, there is little chance of bringing Shakespeare back here any time soon. The town is angling to gain control of the property if the state seizes it, but officials are having trouble persuading the state to give it to the town free of liens and with few restrictions on future use....

Despite the star-studded productions, the theater nearly always lost money. Joseph Verner Reed, a businessman and diplomat who supported the arts, covered the deficits until his death in 1973. Unable to pay its bills after that, it went dark once, reopened and then filed for bankruptcy protection in 1982.

To keep the bank from foreclosing in 1983, the state used about $1 million in funds dedicated to the preservation of open space. That turned the theater into a public park under the stewardship of the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Save for a brief last-gasp season in 1989, the theater has been under wraps ever since.

But there are memories and mementos. Lucille Nichols, historian for the theater, has assembled a multivolume history of the theater from old programs, photographs and other artifacts. State Senator George Gunther of Stratford said state officials told him not to expect much financial support from the state, given his opposition to former Gov. John G. Rowland's dashed efforts to lure the Patriots to Hartford with the promise of a new football stadium.

But officials with the state's economic development office pointed out the state's contribution in 1999, during the second of Governor Rowland's three terms.

''People might question us putting more money into something that has not been working,'' said Richard J. LoPresti, director of the state's office of business and industry development. ''Thus far, there's been no return on our investment.''

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Joseph Verner Reed, Jr. is expected to testify regarding his business, professional, political and personal relationships with Daniel Case, Ray Fuqua, Judith Neustadter Fuqua, Aloha Petroleum, James Ahloy, Steve Case, AOL, Jeffrey Case, Aon, Stephanie Case, The Nature Conservancy, Faye Kurren, Tesoro Petroleum, John Marshall, Linda Lingle, Bob Awana, John McCain, George Wackenhut, Richard Helms, Barack Obama, Henry Paulson, James Nicholson, David Farmer, James Cribley, Honolulu Academy of Arts, The Rosenkranz Foundation, Samuel Pryor, Ken Starr, Ron Rewald, John Waihee, Paul Alston, Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove, The World Bank, William Simon, Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs, The Global Fund, Dee Jay Mailer, Lyn Anzai, Earl Anzai, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Evan Dobelle, Hamilton McCubbin, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Giuliani, Judge David Ezra, Governor John G. Rowland, Barron Hilton, and other entities to be named upon discovery.