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he Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure -

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The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure [1986]tional News

Gold!
The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure
Part I
From Freedom Magazine, June 1986



According to Freedom’s sources, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of tons of gold were secretly and illegally removed from Victorio Peak on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1964 and 1977.
You are about to read a story that strains the imagination. It is about the disappearance of a fortune of up to $30 billion in gold bullion. When it was first presented as a “tip” to a Freedom Magazine reporter in El Paso, Texas, in 1981, it was discounted as beyond belief. However, when dozens of unrelated, independent sources began to corroborate the story, it could no longer be disregarded, no matter how bizarre. The following story, constructed from personal interviews, documents and confidential reports, is the result of a five-year investigation.

By Thomas G. Whittle

In one of the most closely guarded crimes of recent history, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of gold bullion were secretly and illegally removed from caverns on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the beneficiaries allegedly including former President Lyndon Johnson and individuals connected with the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and organized crime.

The caverns are located in and around Victorio Peak, in a remote, rugged section of south-central New Mexico.

The peak, named after a 19th century Apache war chief, apparently served as a repository for immense quantities of gold mined centuries ago by Spaniards and Indians and smelted into tens of thousands of crudely formed bars.


Between 1937 and 1939, Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss (left) and his wife, Ova (right), working with family members and trusted associates, reportedly removed up to 350 gold bars from the depths of Victorio Peak.
An investigation by Freedom has probed the history of that region, particularly the nearly 49 years since gold bars were first found in that area in November 1937 by a man named Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss, as fascinating a character as ever held a six-gun.

Background research into the enormous wealth contained in the caverns of Victorio Peak revealed many eyewitness reports of the gold.

In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. Its occasional visitors included hunting parties, and Doc Noss and his wife, Ova, were on one such expedition in search of deer. They had trekked in from Hot Springs, New Mexico, a town since renamed Truth or Consequences.

According to accounts from members of the Noss family, Doc bagged no deer, but he found something that whetted his appetite for the area — a shaft near the top of Victorio Peak which led into the bowels of the mountain. Doc mentioned nothing of his find to the group, choosing instead to return to the site a couple of days later with Ova.

Using ropes for support and guided by his flashlight’s wavering beam, Doc Noss descended a series of interconnecting chambers which led downward for 186 feet.

Years later, in 1946, Doc discussed his exploration with Gordon E. Herkenhoff, field representative of the New Mexico State Land Office.1

In a four-page confidential report entitled “Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District,” Herkenhoff recorded a description:

“Dr. Noss claims that beyond the 186-foot depth, there is an incline downward at 45 degrees for 72 feet.... Beyond that there is supposed to be another incline upward at about 30 degrees for some distance (40 feet as I remember it) where entrance is gained to a cave some 2700 feet long which contains many evidences that the cave was occupied as living quarters by a large group of humans for many years.”

The group evidently had some grisly practices, for the first thing Doc Noss encountered was a row of skeletons, 27 in all. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. Doc later brought one of the eerie things out.2

Doc’s object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves — “rooms,” he called them. In one “room” he discovered a large stash of old swords and guns, papers and letters from the 19th century, and a king’s ransom in jewels and coins.

Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides.

After he got back to the surface, Doc told Ova what he had seen, and almost as an afterthought mentioned the long row of metal bars. He also told his wife that there were “enough gold and silver coins to load 60 to 80 mules.”

Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. Begrudgingly, he did so.

After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, “Doc, this is gold!”

Letha Guthrie, Ova’s eldest daughter from a previous marriage, described the next few years as a very happy time for the Noss family, one of simple, hard work with a bright, limitless future. Deferring to Doc’s belief that the gold would all be taken by the government should his find become too broadly known, the work force was confined to the immediate family and a couple of handfuls of trusted associates.

Ova Noss, her two sons, Harold and Marvin, and her two daughters, Letha and Dorothy, helped Doc in the strenuous task of removing the bars, one at a time, from the depths of the peak. Letha told Freedom that she herself handled 12 to 15 of the bars, “and I even put one up and hid it for four days.”

Six men who worked with Doc in removing the gold — C.D. Patterson, Don Breech, Edgar F. Foreman, Leo D. O’Connell, Eppie Montoya and B.D. Lampros — later signed sworn affidavits regarding their experiences.

Lampros, for example, described having his photograph taken with Colonel Willard E. Holt of Lordsburg, New Mexico; each held an end of a bar while it was being sawed in half.

Joe Andregg, an electrician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reflected on the days when he worked with Doc Noss in the late 1930s. “I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old,” he told this writer. Asked about the bars, he said, “I sawed one in two with a hacksaw.”

One person who worked with Doc Noss inside the cave was Jose Serafin Sedillo of Cuchillo, New Mexico. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were “stacked like cordwood.”

The bars that Noss and his crew removed from Victorio Peak were, in general, crudely formed, indicating the use of primitive smelting processes.

Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so.

According to members of the family, there would have been more, but Doc’s work was abruptly and unexpectedly brought to a halt in August 1939 when a dynamite blast, set to enlarge a narrow passage, instead caved the passage in, sealing off the main cavern.

Doc Noss spent the next 10 years in intermittent efforts to regain access to the hoard, in vain. He worked with a succession of partners, the last of whom, Charlie Ryan of Alice, Texas, shot and killed Noss in an altercation in Hatch, New Mexico, on March 5, 1949.

The night before his death, perhaps sensing that a business deal was going sour, Doc enlisted the aid of a cowboy named Tony Jolley to shuffle the locations of various stashes of the bars. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley.

The affidavit states, in part: “In March of 1949 I handled 110 rough [sic] poured bars of gold in the area which is now White Sands Missile Range which is now the area of Victorio Peak. On the night of March 4, 1949, I went with Doc Noss and dug up 20 bars of gold at a windmill in the desert east of Hatch, New Mexico, and reburied them in the basin where Victorio Peak is. We took 90 bars ... stacked by a mine shaft at Victorio Peak and reburied them 10 in a pile scattered throughout the basin with the exception of 30 bars that we buried in a grassy flat near the road we came out on.”

After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. The U.S. Army, which gained control of the area when it was converted to a bombing range during the Second World War, refused her request to bring in an excavation firm and ultimately ordered the Nosses to stay out of the area.

Word of the Doc Noss treasure spread, and keeping people out of the area was no easy chore. In November 1958, a team of four weekend gold seekers rediscovered the hoard.

Led by U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege, the four had done extensive research on Victorio Peak, poring over old documents and records, and even traveling south into Mexico to check stories there regarding a man who has often been linked with the origin of the gold, Padre Philip La Rue.

All four men — Fiege, Thomas Berlett, Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel — were, at the time of their find, employees at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. This writer conducted extensive interviews with Thomas Berlett. According to Berlett, the four men proceeded down a fault into the peak for about 150 feet, at which point their progress was stopped by a large boulder. They dug under it, and Berlett and Fiege moved past it for another 100 to 125 feet, coming eventually to what Berlett described as a small cavern, approximately eight feet wide by 10 or 12 feet long.

In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high.

Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber.

The room had been undisturbed for so long that the dust, according to Berlett, lay several inches thick. The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. Nearly choking, the two men hastily marked their claim and made their exit.

Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. Berlett viewed this as substantiation for the theory that Spaniards had been responsible for stashing the gold.

In September 1961, Berlett and Fiege swore to the specifics of their discovery in detailed affidavits provided to federal officials. They also were given — and passed — lie detector tests.

Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peak’s treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California.

On the night of September 1, 1968, Porter drove to the peak with a friend and a civilian security guard from White Sands Missile Range named Clarence McDonald. The three men had been on a hunting party when McDonald, who reportedly had imbibed several cans of beer, began talking freely about a huge stash of gold. Porter and his friends were amused at his story and McDonald, to prove that what he was saying was true, took the two other hunters on a moonlit drive to Victorio Peak.

A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. He stood guard while McDonald and the other man descended into a large cavern, returning with a crudely formed gold bar roughly 2 1/2 inches wide by 7 inches long.

The gold, Porter’s friend stated breathlessly, ran in a tremendous stack along one side of the cavern — stretching for approximately 200 yards. The two men told Porter they had taken one of the smaller bars from the stack because they felt it would be easier to handle than one of the large bars in moving through the long and sometimes difficult passage.

After some discussion, the men decided that Porter should take the bar to a close friend of his who worked in the provost marshal’s office in nearby Fort Bliss, Texas. Possession of gold was against the law at the time, and the men reasoned that the bar would provide evidence to bring about an authorized, legal expedition to remove the vast quantity of gold. The men believed that Porter’s friend was in a good position to help arrange an official government expedition to claim the gold.

Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major.

The major took the bar and told Porter to check back with him in a few days. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left.

The gold bar had disappeared without a trace. No one in the provost marshal’s office to whom Porter talked would admit to knowing anything about the gold, and he was warned by the provost marshal that any future “trespassing” would be dealt with severely.

There is evidence to indicate that many gold bars were removed from Victorio Peak a short time after Lynn Porter brought the bar to the Fort Bliss provost marshal’s office.

Going public with information about the gold stored in Victorio Peak or removed from it, however, is something that people familiar with the subject are generally reluctant to do. And for good reason.

Chester Stout, for example, a retired Army sergeant, traced the removal of two large truckloads of gold from Victorio Peak, but later had to move out of New Mexico; his life was threatened because, as he was told, he “knew too much.”

In all, eight persons told this writer they had received direct threats against their lives or against the lives of their families. Sam Scott, for example, a retired airline pilot, was warned in 1977 to keep clear of anything regarding Victorio Peak for at least five years under pain of having his home firebombed and his wife and daughter killed.

The sources of this threat, according to the man who relayed the threat to Scott, were two agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The daughter of another man, Harvey Snow, died from a gunshot wound in the head after Snow had disregarded repeated warnings in regard to the peak.

Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. The affidavit states:

“I, Thayer Snipes, first being duly sworn, on my oath state:

“That in the latter part of 1972, I had stopped by the Airport Chevron Station at the corner of Airway Blvd. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station.

“That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird.

“That I had known E.M. Guthrie for about three years prior to this meeting and knew him to be the husband of Letha Guthrie, stepdaughter of Milton Ernest ‘Doc’ Noss.

“That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss.

“That I walked over to E.M. Guthrie on this occasion in 1972, greeted him, and invited him out to dinner with myself and Frank Foss.

“That he seemed very disturbed, nervous and agitated, and refused my invitation to dinner, saying, ‘I’m running for my life.’

“That he also said, ‘The Mob is after me.’

“That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America.

“That about a month after that, I heard E.M. had been beaten to death in California.

“That after he had been beaten to death, according to the information I received, his body was put back into his car, the car was doused with kerosene or gasoline, and then set aflame.”

Another source confirmed the manner and the circumstances of E.M. Guthrie’s death, noting that “it was listed as just a natural death, but he’d been worked over with a baseball bat.” This source said that he had hired a team of experienced investigators to dig into Guthrie’s death and more than 30 other deaths in connection with a massive, continuing cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak.

Bill Shriver, an international dealer in precious metals who proved very helpful in the initial stages of this investigation until his death, brought the total still higher. According to a close relative interviewed by Freedom, Shriver was “murdered.” The relative said that Shriver “was beaten up in California, beaten about the kidneys and the head” and subsequently died from his injuries.

The cloud of death shrouding Victorio Peak has reached far.

Edward Atkins of Decatur, Illinois, had been a claimant to the peak’s gold and was vigorously pursuing that claim via attorney Darrell Holmes of Athens, Georgia, when Holmes died under mysterious circumstances.

According to Atkins’ son, John, Holmes possessed key materials which were being used to press the Army into allowing Atkins and Holmes access to Victorio Peak. These materials, including tape-recorded sessions wherein Lyndon Johnson discussed the disposition of some of the gold bars on his ranch, disappeared from Holmes’ office at the time of his death in February 1977.

Edward Atkins himself died, reportedly of a heart attack, in April 1979 while returning to Illinois from El Paso on a matter pertaining to his claim. At least one close relative was convinced that Atkins’ death was not accidental and that it was directly related to his getting too close to the true story of Victorio Peak.

Lyndon Johnson’s name loomed large in the information that Freedom uncovered, with various sources claiming that the president was instrumental in the planning and execution of the removal of the gold. The charges concerning LBJ’s involvement included the following:

# A retired White Sands Missile Range security guard, residing in El Paso, Texas, indicated that he observed Johnson and former Texas Governor John Connally spending about 10 days in the desolate area around Victorio Peak in the late 1960s. According to the security guard, Johnson and Connally headed a team which brought in sophisticated excavation equipment to remove gold from the peak, “the most modern I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They even brought in their own security guards,” he added.

# A retired U.S. Army officer said that while on duty at the provost marshal’s office on White Sands Missile Range during the period of LBJ’s presidency, he was visited by four men in a late model Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham who sought permission to drive to Victorio Peak. One man, a Mr. Moon, said that he was from the White House Secret Service detail and he showed the officer a green, laminated card which stated “Secret Service, Division of the White House.” Another man, an engineer named Dick Richardson, told the officer that he was a boyhood friend of Lyndon Johnson’s and that he had personally counted 18,888 gold bars in one stack in a cavern at Victorio Peak, each bar weighing about 60 pounds.3

# Bill Shriver, before his death, told this writer that he had a copy of a transcribed order from Lyndon Johnson describing in detail how the president wanted a military escort to handle the supply of gold taken out of Victorio Peak and taken to his ranch. Shriver also said that he had copies of other “presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ,” dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold.

# A source interviewed in Mexico stated that it was common knowledge in the towns of Jimenez and Camargo that Johnson’s 110,000-acre ranch in Chihuahua served as a storage area for a very large amount of gold flown in by a four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft in the late 1960s.

# Still another source reported knowledge of aircraft movements of the gold from Chihuahua to Vancouver, British Columbia, during the period of Johnson’s presidency. According to this source, a B-24 was used to transport at least seven loads of the peak’s gold, with up to 20 tons of gold moving in each load.

# Another source, who asked to remain unidentified, stated that he had personally interviewed several men who had brought a large load of the peak’s gold to Johnson’s ranch.

According to this same source, Victorio Peak “was just like a private vault to certain high-ranking people.” They would “go in periodically and get what they wanted. They would have the proper persons on guard duty.”

Possession of gold by private American citizens was illegal under federal law throughout the period of the Johnson presidency. In addition, Victorio Peak lay on land owned by the state of New Mexico, and removal of gold without permission of the state violated New Mexico law.4

A number of sources also independently named Major General John G. Shinkle, the commander of White Sands Missile Range from June 1960 to July 1962, as knowing about the movement of tons of gold from Victorio Peak. Reached for comment in Cocoa Beach, Florida, General Shinkle adamantly denied any knowledge of the gold and refused to comment at all on the story.

Large movements of bullion from the peak went on for nearly a decade, with the largest single removal of gold occurring in 1976, according to Bill Shriver. This was shortly before a much-publicized expedition, entitled Operation Goldfinder, took place at the site in March 1977.

Shriver estimated the total amount of gold removed from Victorio Peak at 25 million troy ounces, of which 10 million came out in 1976. The gold, he said, was removed and “smelted into old Mexican bars, 50-pound bars.” The gold in its new form, he noted, had no marks to identify its origin.

The gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a new form in Zurich. “The buying entity was a Middle Eastern principal,” Shriver said.

The actual movement of the gold in this last, largest shipment, Shriver said, was “done by [U.S.] military aircraft.” Independent of Shriver, another source traced a number of large removals from Victorio Peak. He estimated the total amount of gold coming from the peak at a staggering 96 million troy ounces, worth, at $320 an ounce, nearly $31 billion.

Army spokesmen have consistently dismissed all reports of Victorio Peak gold as “rumors.” An apparent propaganda campaign, in fact, has been conducted for many years by the Army in order to dispel these reports and to keep treasure seekers away from the missile range.

Part II: The bizarre history of Victorio Peak continues to unravel as the Army, the Treasury Department and the Secret Service authorize a top secret operation aimed at locating and bringing out the gold.

Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others don’t listen when they are told to “shut up” — and they pay the price.


References:
1 Freedom Magazine obtained copies of the 1946 New Mexico land office correspondence regarding Doc Noss’ claim.
2 Chester R. Johnson Jr., “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” Division of Research, Museum of New Mexico, 1963. The official version of this report, released after U.S. Army censorship, deleted numerous key references to gold bars and to secret government activities contained in Chester R. Johnson’s original report. The author obtained copies of both the official version and the original, uncensored report.
3 While the purity of the gold cannot be accurately assessed at this time, the mid-1960s value of this stack, which was about one-third of the total amount in that cavern, would be more than $400 million at $32 per troy ounce. At a 1986 value of $320 per troy ounce, that stack alone would be worth more than $4 billion.
4 Those who took the gold were also taking it over what had been claims filed by Doc Noss, members of his family and others who had staked claims to the gold with the state of New Mexico as early as the 1930s. U.S. Army rights to use the land did not include mineral rights, which were retained by the state.
Gold!
The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure
Part II
From Freedom Magazine, July 1986



According to Freedom’s sources, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of tons of gold were secretly and illegally removed from Victorio Peak on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1964 and 1977.
In the first part of this series, Freedom reported the bizarre story of a fabulous hoard of up to $30 billion in gold bullion sequestered in a remote location on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

A large number of sources had reported to Freedom that the gold was secretly and illegally removed from its underground chambers by a combination of interests that allegedly included the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency, organized crime and former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The peak’s modern history began in November 1937 with the discovery by Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss of an immense quantity of gold bars. Over a period of about 21 months, Noss removed a large number of gold bars from one of the caverns, a fact attested to by more than a dozen people who worked directly with him. Estimates on the number of bars removed by Doc Noss and his co-workers range up to approximately 350.

During an attempt to enlarge a passage to the gold in August 1939, the shaft caved in, leading to frenzied and unsuccessful efforts by Doc, his family and a few close associates to regain access to the hoard through hundreds of feet of rocks and rubble.

Nineteen years after the cave-in, in November 1958, U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege led a team of treasure hunters who discovered a second, smaller treasure in another Victorio Peak cavern.

As described in Part I, Fiege and Airman Thomas L. Berlett found three stacks of gold bars that had lain undisturbed for so many years that they were covered by several inches of thick dust.

Freedom also unveiled some of the further history of Victorio Peak, including numerous reports by eyewitnesses and others that a tremendous quantity of gold bars were secretly and illegally removed from the mountain over a period of years, principally from 1964 to 1977.

In this article, Freedom continues the story.


By Thomas G. Whittle

The clandestine removal of tons of gold from Victorio Peak left legitimate claimants to the treasure with no money and little recourse. Principal among these unlucky individuals were Ova Noss and Leonard Fiege.

Ova had been with Doc Noss when he made his 1937 discovery of the tremendous stash of gold bullion inside Victorio Peak.

Fiege, Thomas Berlett and their companions — Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel — were, at the time of their find, employees of Holloman Air Force Base, located just east of White Sands Missile Range.

As leader of the four treasure hunters, Fiege worked within the Air Force chain of command to get permission to legally return to Hembrillo Basin — the large, bowl-shaped area surrounding Victorio Peak — in order to recover the treasure.

In seeking to return to the site of his find, Fiege solicited the assistance of Holloman’s staff judge advocate, Lieutenant Colonel Sigmund I. Gasiewicz.

The aboveboard attempts by Fiege, Berlett and their companions were stymied, however. The White Sands commander, Major General John G. Shinkle, refused all requests for permission to enter the area, including one made by Air Force Major General Monte Canterbury on behalf of Fiege and his companions.

In August 1961, after forming a partnership with three Air Force attorneys, the men were allowed to meet in Washington, D.C., with senior representatives of the Department of the Army, the Department of the Treasury, the Secret Service and the Bureau of the Mint. Chairing the meeting was the director of the Bureau of the Mint. At the meeting, the four treasure hunters and the three lawyers stated their case. And, nearly three years after the discovery, the men were finally allowed to return.

The operation itself, a five-day affair in August 1961, was “carried out as a top secret project,” according to a heavily censored Secret Service report.

Those accompanying the four treasure hunters included General Shinkle and agent Liliburn “Pat” Boggs from the Secret Service’s Albuquerque office.

The passage used by Fiege and Berlett in reaching the gold was found. Unfortunately, as noted in the Secret Service report, the final 40 feet to the gold “was blocked by large boulders that could not be removed by hand or shoveled away.” Although the expedition had General Shinkle as a supervisor and 14 armed military policemen as guards, no equipment heavier than shovels and picks had been brought. It ended fruitlessly.

A heavily deleted August 31, 1961, Secret Service memorandum obtained by Freedom shows that on that date the missile range’s provost marshal met with Pat Boggs in the Albuquerque Secret Service office. The provost marshal stated that he was seeing Boggs at the order of the missile range commander.

According to the memorandum, the commander, General Shinkle, “was anxious to determine the degree of interest” of the Secret Service in the gold.

In the memorandum, Boggs records that the interview with the provost marshal was interrupted by a telephone call from the Holloman commander, who wanted to know whether the Treasury Department would “permit exploration of the tunnel on weekends.”

Boggs resumed his interview with the provost marshal. The provost marshal “stated that should any gold be recovered from the tunnel, he would immediately notify the writer [Boggs] so that possession of the gold could be taken by this Service for delivery to the Federal Reserve Bank Branch at El Paso, Texas.”

After a flurry of additional memos, reports and top secret conferences, work at the site continued, this time with heavier equipment.

In the interim, Fiege and Berlett had authenticated affidavits they had previously written regarding the gold they had found by taking, and passing, lie detector tests. After those tests, the order to dig came — not from General Shinkle, but from Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr Jr.

New Mexico law is quite clear on the point that there can be no mining or treasure troving on any land in the state without approval of the State Land Office. In carrying forward with this top secret project, neither the Army nor the Secret Service had consulted with that office.

On October 28, 1961, word of the digging leaked out after four civilians — friends of Ova Noss — “wandered” into Hembrillo Basin.

News of the Army’s activities quickly reached Ova, who wasted no time in telling Oscar Jordan, general counsel of the State Land Office in Santa Fe, that her claim was being jumped.

Jordan sent S.A. Floersheim, supervisor of the State Land Office’s Lands and Minerals Division, to investigate. Floersheim, in a memorandum dated November 6, 1961, wrote that he contacted Colonel Jaffe, the White Sands staff judge advocate.

Floersheim told Jaffe that he wanted “to make an investigation of the land down there in question to determine if any activity on the part of unauthorized persons had taken place.”

The colonel, in Floersheim’s words, “was not too cooperative.”

When Floersheim indicated that if necessary he would secure a court order from a U.S. district judge, Colonel Jaffe “attempted to assure me that there was no operation, that it was all a myth.”

The “myth,” however, was quickly shown to be fact. The four men who had visited the peak — Ray Bradley, Bob Bradley, Hugh Moreland and R.B. Gray — had drawn up notarized affidavits of what they saw and heard. The affidavits were specific, down to the serial number on one of the jeeps.

Before Jaffe was confronted with the affidavits, he told essentially the same story to Ova Noss and her attorney, and on a separate occasion to Ova’s son, Harold Beckwith.

According to a later account, “When informed of the affidavits, he [Colonel Jaffe] became quite upset.”

Eventually, Oscar Jordan and S.A. Floersheim got the digging to stop. The Army’s less-than-straightforward practices, however, were not corrected.

A report, for example, entitled “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” was prepared by the Museum of New Mexico in 1963, summarizing the highlights of the peak’s history. This report was heavily censored by the Army. All references to Captain Fiege’s 1958 discovery of gold bars and to the subsequent illegal excavation efforts by the Army — two full pages of material — were removed from the final report.1

Furthermore, the Army misrepresented some important excavation work in 1963 done by the museum and Gaddis Mining Company of Denver, Colorado.

The museum had obtained permission to conduct an expedition to Victorio Peak in 1963. As a key part of the expedition, extensive digging was done by Gaddis Mining Company in an attempt to contact a passage that would lead to one of the caverns.

The Gaddis team ran out of its allotted time and money before it could reach the shaft that would have led to a cavern. The team, therefore, was forced to leave the site before completing its work.

The man who supervised the work for Gaddis on the 1963 expedition, geologist Loren Smith of Denver, was not happy with the results and wanted to return to finish the job. As recently as 1981, Smith wrote a letter to the secretary of the Army requesting permission to conduct a 90-day search.

“We didn’t give up,” Smith told this writer in reference to the 1963 expedition. “We just ran out of money. We had spent $100,000, and when we ran out we were getting close to where Fiege found the bars.”

The Museum of New Mexico also wanted to get back in. In a 1965 application to return to the peak, the museum stated, “The results of the exploration program conducted in 1963 proved the existence of a number of open cavities within Victorio Peak similar to those described by the individual who claimed to have been in the caves and seen the artifacts and treasure.”

And yet, through the 1960s and 1970s, the Army would repeatedly and falsely state that the 1963 expedition had “proved” there were no caves or caverns.

According to Sam Scott, a retired airline pilot who with his brother, Norman, led another expedition into the area in 1977, the Gaddis effort got very close to the fault which led down to the main cavern — the passage which Doc Noss had apparently used to haul up hundreds of bars of gold.

The Army consistently misrepresented what occurred on the Gaddis expedition, citing the “negative results” of the 1963 expedition as a reason all future treasure searches would forever be banned as a matter of official policy.

The reason was never sufficient, however. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, pressure for a bona fide search for the treasure continued to mount.

Among the leaders in the push for a new expedition was nationally known attorney F. Lee Bailey, who represented a group of some 52 claimants to the gold. A search of at least a cursory nature seemed inevitable.

Another expedition to the peak was finally mounted. With a twist of irony, this very limited search was dubbed by the Army “Operation Goldfinder.” Although brief and tightly constrained, it became the ultimate excuse to ban people from Victorio Peak.

The ostensible purpose of Goldfinder, as expressed at the time by expedition leader Norman Scott, was to “validate or not validate” stories about the gold and other treasure.

When contacted, Scott said that he and his company, Expeditions Unlimited Inc. of Pompano Beach, Florida, had been “used” by the Army.

Asked to elaborate, Scott expressed the theory that he had served as a “patsy” to give the appearance of a search in order to release the tremendous pressure that had been brought to bear on the Army by F. Lee Bailey and others.

One of the claimants to the gold who was there during Operation Goldfinder was Joe Newman of El Paso, Texas. Newman told this writer that he had found three piles of gold bars in a small cave within the peak in November 1973. He counted the bars in one pile — there were 600. The other piles were identical. Each bar, he said, weighed up to 60 pounds. They were roughly formed, as though from a primitive smelting process.

Newman provided photographs to Freedom showing extensive activity around Victorio Peak shortly before Operation Goldfinder. According to Newman, the photographs demonstrate that Victorio Peak gold was removed just weeks before the expedition.

By the time of Operation Goldfinder, the entrance Newman used to gain access to the small cavern was covered up by the Army. All possible entrances to the peak, according to Newman, had been sealed with concrete, steel bars, steel plates, mounds of earth, or two or more of those in combination.

“There was no way in hell we could get in there without heavy equipment,” Newman said. “ And then we showed up there without bulldozers, without backhoes, without anything but picks and shovels.”

When heavy equipment finally did arrive at the site, both Newman and Sam Scott charge, its use was restricted to locations where “we knew there wasn’t any gold.”

Attorney F. Lee Bailey had similar words. Bailey acknowledged that his group — one of a half-dozen claimant groups on the expedition — had been stopped in its efforts to dig at Bloody Hands, a site in an arroyo by Victorio Peak so named because of five red hand prints on the arroyo wall.

Because those he represented couldn’t look where they wanted to, Bailey told this writer that the expedition “didn’t really prove anything one way or another.”

There was universal agreement among all of the participants interviewed — except for Army spokesmen — that the 1977 expedition had been poorly executed and had not satisfactorily explored for gold.

Sam Scott charged that the expedition was “conceived to fail.” He continued, “I originally made arrangements for a 60-day expedition. The Army cut that down to 30 and then to 10.”

Nearly 19 years after he had made the dramatic three-stack find, Leonard Fiege crawled down the long passage which led to the same room. In the intervening years, much had changed.

As Fiege told newsmen during Operation Goldfinder, “It’s entirely different. There are timbers in there now. It’s all shored up.” And the gold was gone.


Ova Noss continued to press the family’s claim to the treasure after Doc Noss was shot and killed in 1949. Here she makes a point during Operation Goldfinder in 1977.
Ova Noss climbed to the top of the peak. In the same place she had scraped the crusty covering from the first bar Doc had brought out of the mountain in 1937, 40 years before, the 81-year-old Ova shouted to the wind, “Goddamn Army took the gold!”

While the gold had apparently been removed right from under the claimaints’ noses, Operation Goldfinder was important in that it provided high-tech proof that Victorio Peak harbored a very sizable cave. Using sophisticated ground-penetrating radar, a team from Stanford Research Institute headed by Lambert Dolphin determined that there indeed was a very large cavern situated right at the base of Victorio Peak. “It’s about where Doc Noss said it is,” Dolphin told this writer.

The geological structure of the peak is odd, according to Dolphin. Regarding the cavern, he said that “It’s an unusual geological formation, more or less a freak of nature, but it’s there.”

Dolphin is one of the many Goldfinder participants who sought to return to the site. His scientific interest was not shared by the Army, which summarily turned down his 1977 request for re-entry.

Dolphin would like to reach the big cavern, and he had the idea of lowering a remotely operated television camera through a shaft in order to see what remains in the cave described by Doc Noss as being “big enough for a freight train.”

Expressing a thought echoed by virtually everyone interviewed for this article, outside of military spokesmen, Dolphin said that the Army had been very active in and around the mountain. “Everybody who was there would like to know why the Army dug up the mountain so thoroughly,” said Dolphin. “You could see they went in through the existing openings, explored them, and then covered them over.”

One source familiar with Victorio Peak’s history who asked to remain unidentified described the mountain as being “like a hotel.” There were “five layers of caverns in that mountain,” he said.

The top caverns or rooms held “as little as 10 or 15 tons” of gold, according to this source. The bigger caverns were not all cleared out until the 1970s.

Operation Goldfinder “was all basically a show,” said Sam Scott. “Something the Army could turn around and say — ‘See? This proves there’s no gold!’”

But, at the time, the Victorio Peak show was one of the hottest things around. Scores of reporters from various news media were on hand, including CBS-TV’s Dan Rather.

According to several sources, Lady Byrd Johnson, the widow of former President Lyndon Johnson, reportedly called White Sands every day during the expedition in order to be kept posted.

This writer endeavored to reach Mrs. Johnson but was told that any questions had to be submitted via a staff assistant in Austin, Texas.

The answer that came back was that “Mrs. Johnson has no knowledge about that [the phone calls] at all.” The assistant said that Lady Byrd “was entertaining friends here” at the time of the expedition, and, she asserted, “Mrs. Johnson just doesn’t do things like that. It would be out of character for her.”2

By the last day of Operation Goldfinder, a carefully orchestrated public relations scenario had apparently done its work. Those most closely connected with the treasure had seen their dreams trampled and their claims ridiculed. For them, the 1977 expedition must have represented the end of any hope of confirmation of what they knew to be true.

One of these people was Leonard Fiege.

Sam Scott and Fiege were close friends. According to Scott, “Fiege was threatened. He didn’t like to talk about it. But that’s why he left the 1977 expedition early.”

In an affidavit in the possession of Freedom, Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, confirms the threat and sheds some additional light on the overall situation.

The affidavit states that Snipes first met Dr. Robert Welch of Denver, Colorado, around 1975 or 1976. Welch, according to the affidavit, went to Snipes’ home on several occasions to buy turquoise for jewelry .

On one of these occasions, the affidavit states, Welch gave Snipes his business card. The card identified Welch as a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, although he jokingly referred to himself as a “head shrinker.”

The subject of treasure at Victorio Peak came up on one occasion. On this occasion, according to Snipes’ affidavit, “Dr. Welch stated that a U.S. Air Force captain had been sent to his office by the military.”

Snipes continues, “Dr. Welch stated that ‘the military wanted this man to be put away,’ which he further explained as meaning locked away in an insane asylum.

“ ... Dr. Welch stated that on numerous occasions he hypnotized the captain.

“ ... while under hypnosis, the captain told him he had found gold bars in a cave in Victorio Peak.

“ ... also while under hypnosis, the captain stated he had held gold bars in his hands and had covered up stacks of gold bars with rocks and dirt, intending to return later and retrieve the treasure legally.

“ ... Dr. Welch stated that he felt he could not put this man away because he was telling him the truth about the gold, and that he could not lie while under hypnosis.”

Snipes’ affidavit states that “I later met U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege while on the March 1977 expedition to Victorio Peak.

“ ... while on the expedition, I told Captain Fiege the story in front of several witnesses.

“ ... Captain Fiege’s reaction to the story was one of extreme surprise and shock.

“ ... Captain Fiege said he remembered being sent to a psychiatrist named Robert Welch by the military, but that he did not realize that he had been hypnotized.”

According to the affidavit, “Captain Fiege said he had been shipped overseas after finding gold in Victorio Peak, and that he had been ‘harassed ever since’ by the military.”

The affidavit states that Fiege “said he was going to investigate the matter of his visits to the psychiatrist and see what had happened during those visits.”

The affidavit closes with the statement that “Captain Fiege left the expedition a couple of days later, saying that he and his family had been threatened with death if he continued his efforts to prove gold had been in Victorio Peak.”

Fiege did leave the expedition, but, as described by Sam Scott and others, threats did not shut him up.

Scott signed a sworn affidavit regarding the harassment and intimidation leveled at Fiege which only ended with his death in 1979.

According to this affidavit, “I can recall many occasions (probably 10) that Leonard told me about his harassments and the threats to his and his children’s lives. For example, the time that Leonard spoke to a Lion’s Club luncheon in Milwaukee, only to be threatened that night on the telephone. Then there was the time that he was told at supper time what his kids had for lunch in the school cafeteria, their route to and from school, times, etc. Again, a nasty voice on the telephone — a threat on their lives.”

In a personal interview, Fiege’s daughter, Jan, confirmed for this writer the fact of the threats which plagued the family. In 1971 or 1972, for example, shortly after moving to Denton, Texas, she received a phone call from her father telling her that he had just received a call threatening all three of his children if he did not keep his mouth shut about Victorio Peak. Fiege had called her to see if she was all right. The caller knew where all three of his children were, Fiege told his daughter. He even knew that Jan had just taken a job at a diner in Denton. The bewildered Fiege told his daughter that with the operator’s help he had been able to trace the call to Kansas City, Missouri — hundreds of miles from himself in Wisconsin and from his daughter in Texas.

According to Jan, she returned to the family home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, not too long after that and heard a threatening voice on the phone there herself. The male caller told her that unless her father shut up about Victorio Peak, someone was “going to die.”

Similar threats were made to others. Harvey Snow, for example, was told over the phone where each of his five children were by geographic coordinates — including a son who was on a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific at the time. Snow was told to stay away from White Sands Missile Range or his children would be killed. Snow disregarded the warning, and his youngest daughter was found shot to death shortly thereafter.

A grandson of Ova Noss described an apparent attempt on Ova’s life to Freedom. Shortly after the expedition, someone entered her house at night by forcing a window. The intruder turned on the gas on the stove. “If we hadn’t gotten there,” the grandson said, “in 10 or 15 minutes, she would have had it.”

As it was, Ova had to be hospitalized. The grandson mentioned that after the expedition, Ova’s home was broken into two or three more times. Various items connected to Doc Noss’ treasure were stolen.

By the end of 1979, both Leonard Fiege and Ova Noss — the two major living claimants to the gold — were dead.

While it cannot be proven that their names should join the roster of people who died in connection with an apparently violent cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak, their deaths did mark the end of vigorous pursuit of the gold by active claimants.

Nearly 10 years after Operation Goldfinder failed to answer the many questions about Victorio Peak, the mystery surrounding the treasure has deepened and darkened.


References:
1 “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” by Chester R. Johnson Jr., Division of Research, Museum of New Mexico, 1963. Freedom Magazine obtained copies of both the censored and uncensored reports, as well as copies of the affidavits mentioned above from the four men.
2 For the role that President Johnson played in the removal of tons of gold bullion from Victorio Peak, see Part 1.


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Monday, February 9, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 5)
(A view of Hatch, NM from the other side of the Rio Grande.)

"Chili Capital of the World"

I want to mention Hatch, NM and its relative importance to the Victorio Peak Treasure legend. Why is little Hatch an interesting subset to this treasure tale? Let's take a look. Both Doc and Babe were in Hatch on multiple occasions over the years and I believe they may have lived there for a time as well. Other people who figure prominently in this tale of 100 tons of gold, including some Cheyenne Mining Company investors, also lived in the Hatch area.

Costplustools

Thus, anyone who wants to seriously research the Victorio Peak Treasure needs to take (at the very least) a cursory look at Hatch and perhaps city records dealing with any persons or incidents relating to this treasure legend. Oh, and one more thing. They don't call Hatch the "Chili Capital of the World" for nothing. Some of the best red and green chilis you've ever tasted are grown in and around Hatch, and each year the community holds a very popular Chili Festival for all comers.

Babe Carries On

Many say that Doc and Babe had patched things up between themselves just before Doc's murder. Tue or not, Babe did not give up her quest for the Peak's treasure trove after Doc's untimely demise. Plucky to the core, Babe took on all comers with a fierce stubbornness and a "take no prisoners mentality" when it came to her and Doc's treasure.

It wasn't long after Doc's death that the word really got out on the possibility of there being a huge treasure trove buried inside Victorio Peak. Suddenly, claimants began appearing from the woodwork and Babe fought back as best she could against these interlopers, one of which was (yes, you guessed it) Violet Boles, Doc's "other" wife from Arkansas.

Two New Claimants

Two other claimants were the State of New Mexico and the Federal Government. Both the State and the Feds laid claim to the Hembrillo Basin and Victorio Peak, ostensibly wrangling over who the land should belong to, but making no mention of the possible treasure trove cached inside Victorio Peak. Hmmmmmm. Of course the State and the Feds (U.S. Army) wouldn't be interested in the possibility of getting their greedy little hands on millions and millions of dollars' worth of treasure. Nope, not at all....

So the State and the Feds duked it out in the courts of law for 6 years, finally ending their dispute in 1955 with the Feds the obvious winners. During this entire time Babe was busy filing claims of her own and sneaking onto Victorio Peak whenever she could scrape up enough money and help to keep digging her way to the "treasure room." But with the Army's victory over the State came yet another eviction notice for Babe and she was banned from the Peak for good.
Gold Prospecting Books
Gold Concentrators
Metal Detectors

So this treasure tale continues its multitude of twists and turns. In Part 6 of this series, I'll bring to light another "discovery" atop Victorio Peak. Until then keep smiling.

I
Friday, February 6, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 4)
The Cheyenne Mining Company

After their failed attempt to enlarge the main access tunnel to the
"treasure room" deep inside Victorio Peak, Doc and Babe were in a quandary. The amount of work necessary to once again gain access to the treasure seemed insurmountable.

But the gears were whirling inside Doc's mind and the brainstorm he came up with was something called the Cheyenne Mining Company. Using his considerable persuasive talents and the treasure as a lure, Doc managed to recruit a group of cash investors to join the Company and help finance excavation of the tons of rock and dirt that had blocked the access tunnel.

This is interesting in and of itself because most Americans at the time (late 1930s, early 1940s) had little in the way of spare cash to toss at a chimera like the one Doc conjured up for them. But the pull of gold is strong, and the pull of greed even stronger. Thus, by December 1941 the Cheyenne Mining Company was not only up and running, but had held its first "shareholder" meeting and had enough money in its coffers to begin the necessary excavation work.





More Bad Luck

But bad luck dogged Doc and Babe yet again, not to mention the investor membership of the Cheyenne Mining Company. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and America found itself a World War II combatant.

Not long after Pearl Harbor U.S. Army officials showed up in Southern New Mexico to announce that the White Sands and Hembrillo Basin areas were now part of a new military test range and were "off limits" to all comers, including Doc, Babe, and the forlorn members of the Cheyenne Mining Company. Since Victorio Peak and its immense treasure trove lay within the restricted area, all bets were off. At least until the war ended.

Doc Finds Himself a New Wife

By the end of WWII not all was well with Doc and Babe both personally and in terms of their intent to remove the bulk of Victorio Peak's well-guarded treasure. The U.S. Army was still recalcitrant about allowing "outsiders" into the Hembrillo Basin area, although there is evidence that Doc and Babe may have snuck in and attempted to try their hand at a little excavation work on a number of occasions.

Worse yet, Doc and Babe had a falling out which led to his departure for "greener fields" (in this case Arkansas) where, in 1947, he hooked up with another woman, eventually marrying her. Doc's new wife, Viola Boles, would figure prominently down they road in this convoluted treasure tale.

A Deadly "Shell Game"

Sometime in 1949 Doc hatched a plan (a con game?) to sell a number of gold bars he said he'd removed from Victorio Peak before the access tunnel collapse. He said he'd stashed these in a secret desert location and this was ostensibly verified in later years by a local cowboy named Tony Jolley who stated under oath that he himself had helped Doc bury those same gold bars.

One person who was attracted to Doc's tale of gold bars for sale "under the table" was a Texas oil man of moderate substance named Charley Ryan. Ryan fronted Doc with cash and a pick up truck to help finance the gold recovery. Time dragged on and Doc returned to hit Ryan up again and again for more cash, citing more excuses as to why Doc couldn't recover the gold right now. This proved to be a deadly "shell game" for Doc.

Ryan was no fool and was at least as big a hot head as Doc himself was. During a heated argument late one afternoon voices were raised, threats made, and physical confrontation followed. Doc tried to beat a hasty retreat to his pick up truck down the street but Ryan stalked after him, gun in hand. "Shoot the son of a bitch!" screamed Ryan's wife and the oil man did just that, killing Doc with a shot to the upper cheek and leaving him slumped deader than a doornail over the right front fender of the pick up truck.

No, this is not the end of the Victorio Peak Treasure tale my friend. There is much, much more. So stay tuned....

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 3)"

http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak_27.html

(c) J.R. 2009
At the end of my previous post on New Mexico's Victorio Peak Treasure ("Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure [Part 1]" http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak.html) I mentioned that I'd continue with the legend's history and significant events in the next post. So here goes (please note that all quotes by the parties involved are in italics):

"Something Unusual"

In 1937 the protagonist of our story, Milton "Doc" Noss, was illegally practicing foot medicine as a podiatrist in Hot Springs, New Mexico (now Truth or Consequences). In November of that same year he, his wife Ova "Babe" Noss, and another couple (who remain unnamed) were on a combined hunting and camping excursion in the Hembrillo Basin, not far from Victorio Peak.




At some point Doc slipped away from the others to hunt deer on his own. He returned to the campsite quite late in the evening and pulled Babe aside in their tent, swearing her to secrecy and whispering to her that he had "found something unusual" near the top of the mountain that included a small opening covered by a rock that led into a "cave-like" room.

"That Was the First of the Treasure"

To ensure that no undue suspicions regarding their activities were raised, Doc and Babe waited for a month or two before to returning to Victorio Peak with lengths of rope, digging tools, lanterns, and other supplies. Over the course of 3 or 4 visits, Doc expanded his initial discovery by venturing deeper and deeper into the mountain, squeezing himself through narrow passages and at one point, crossing an underground stream.

Finally, one fateful evening, after being inside the bowels of Victorio Peak for hours, Doc climbed his way back to the surface to confront a very worried Babe. Without saying a word Doc motioned Babe over to the campfire she had built and with shaking hands reached inside his vest and pulled out an old leather bag.

"It looked like a horse's feed bag" and was filled with "old foreign money" quoted Babe in later years. "That was the first of the treasure," said Babe. Over the next few months Doc would recover a number of other treasure items from inside Victorio Peak, including jewels, an old sword, and a gold crown.

"The Treasure Room"

Doc told Babe that the interior of the mountain was riddled with tunnels and caverns including a huge central chamber that Doc called "the treasure room." According to Doc inside this large, central cavern were several large stacks of "pig iron" which later turned out to be various-sized bars of gold (again, according to Doc) with a black oxidation coating on them. Also in the treasure room were wooden crates filled to the brim with jewels, old weapons and armor, trunks filled with lace and velvet, religious statues, gold crosses, and even old documents and letters.

To prove his point Doc handed Babe a gold crown. Later, while they were at home, Babe cleaned the crown at her kitchen sink, still unable to fully comprehend the treasure trove that Doc had found inside Victorio Peak. In later years Babe stated that "I took it to a jewelerman in El Paso and when he seen it he starting talking to us real polite. The crown had 243 diamonds and one big pigeon-blood ruby."

We'll continue with this fascinating treasure legend in my next post on the Victorio Peak Treasure. Until then be safe and good hunting to you!

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "$230,000 in Buried Gold"
(Perry County, Mississippi and the New Augusta area.)


The Southern "Land Pirate"

James Copeland, often called the Southern "Land Pirate," and his gang of criminal associates plagued Perry County (now Lamar County), Mississippi for nearly 18 years from 1839-1857. Copeland began his criminal career as a small-time thief and hog rustler, but after aligning himself with other local "ne'r do wells" like Gale Wages and Charles McGrath, his depredations and crimes increased both in number and in significance.

The Copeland Gang ranged far and wide in Perry County (and outside the county's environs as well) stealing anything that wasn't tied down, including stock and tools. During numerous home intrusions Copeland and his boys also absconded with silver and gold coin, jewelry, and family heirlooms including silver flatware. After Copeland was actually jailed for a brief period in 1843, he and the gang retaliated by burning down the Perry County courthouse.

Murder, Buried Loot, and Nearly a Quarter Million in Gold

In the early years of its reign of terror the Copeland Gang ran wild because local law enforcement was essentially non-existent and the vigilantes who tried to bring the gang to justice early on were disorganized and incompetent. This allowed Copeland and his minions to increase their criminal activities to the point they actually committed murder. The 2 unfortunates in question were Robbert Lott and Thomas Sumrall, well-respected Perry County citizens.

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The murders were the turning point for the Copeland Gang as the vigilantes grew both in numbers and in proficiency. Since Copeland was always on the move and literally "one step ahead of the law," he began burying caches of his stolen loot in various parts of Perry County. According to one of his men who was later captured, one of Copeland's caches which was buried in or near Catahoula Swamp contained nearly $230,000 in gold coin and jewelry. This informant, after disclosing the nature and size of the treasure cache, refused to cough up its exact location and was subsequently hung by vigilantes.

Copeland and His Gang Meet Justice

By 1857 all of the "Land Pirate's" gang of thieves, murderers, and thugs had met their fate, most by hanging at the hands of vigilante groups who had hunted each and every one of them down with dogged persistence and vengeful hearts. Copeland himself was hung on October 30, 1857. Here are a few of his final words:

"It is often I have meditated upon this subject since my imprisonment and often now I remember my father's advice to me when I was young, and repented a thousand times over with sorrow and regret that I failed to receive his good advice. Much I have suffered, but after tomorrow (his execution date, J.R.) my troubles will be over or worse than at present. I bid you a long farewell."

A Treasure Tale of Substance and Credibility

Copeland went to the gallows without revealing a single location of any of his buried treasure caches, including the big one containing nearly a quarter million dollars worth of gold. Although many have searched for Copeland Gang treasure caches over the intervening years, I can find no record of any of them being located or recovered.

Since the Copeland Gang and its movements and depredations in today's Lamar County, Mississippi are reasonably well documented, this tale of lost treasure contains a great deal of substance and credibility. If anyone out there decides to get down to it and perform additional research on the Copeland Gang treasures, remember that the historical records concern Perry County, not Lamar County (which did not exist at the time).

Good luck to you!

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "5 Famous Lost Mines and Treasures"Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 3)
A Pressing Need for Secrecy

In my previous post on the Victorio Peak Treasure, I alluded to the fact that Doc had sworn Babe to secrecy regarding his finds, including the gold crown Babe said she had shown to a "jewelerman" in El Paso. Most modern treasure hunters fully realize the need for being silent and circumspect about treasure finds. (I'm sure you, the reader, understand why.)

Gold Panning Kits
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But Doc and Babe had even more reason to be secretive about their finds in Hembrillo Basin, thanks to a little piece of Federal legislation known as the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. The Act prohibited private citizens in the United States from owning gold in any form other than coins or jewelry.

It was now 1939 and the repression inherent in the Gold Act had been in place for nearly 5 years. Doc rightfully feared that if he reported his finds at Victorio Peak, the Feds would step in and take all that treasure away from him. In this assumption he was pretty much correct. So he and Babe carried on their work to more easily reach the mountain's "treasure room" on their own, silently and away from prying eyes (at least initially).

Bottlenecks, an Engineer, and Too Much Dynamite

Doc's frustration level mounted with each day's work trying to improve access to the tunnels that honeycombed the Peak and led to the main treasure cave. Try as they might, work on these bottlenecks proved beyond the capabilities of Doc and Babe, and their cheap hand tools. Seeing no other alternative, Doc hired a mining engineer to help solve the problem.

Whether the engineer was apprised of the true reason for his hiring is suspect, but if Doc was the hustler many made him out to be, I'm sure he made up a good cover story. The mining engineer's approach to the access issue was dynamite. One good blast with properly set charges was all it would take he told Doc. Famous last words...

According to what Babe later told family members, the engineer screwed things up royally. The dynamite charge was too strong and instead of opening up the access tunnels, the huge explosion collapsed them, including the main passageway to the "treasure room." Doc, understandably, was furious.

An Alternate Scenario

However, some Victorio Peak treasure hunters and researchers believe in an alternate scenario. They think there never was a mining engineer and that Doc deliberately collapsed the main passageway to keep others from finding the vast treasure storehouse deep within the bowels of Victorio Peak.

Who truly knows? Doc and Babe are both long dead and like most treasure legends, the Victorio Peak tale has as many gaps in it as it does solid leads. Again, Doc's reputation as a con man preceded him, and perhaps he was working an angle to hustle "investors" for capital outlay money to recover a treasure that was, after all was said and done, non-existent.

I'll continue on with this great treasure legend in Part 4 of my Victorio Peak posts. See you next time.

If you liked this post, you may want to read: Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 2)"

http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak_27.html

(c) J.R. 2009

Monday, July 20, 2020

Johnny Camp Bernay=Kessel Johnny-Jazz Camp Bernays Hatfield Arkansas ]Jack Paar Art Carney Bob Hope Dragnet The Shadow JFK

Barney Kessel


1923-2004
Memories of Barney Kessel
The World's Greatest Jazz Guitarist

My Memories of Barney Kessel
Jerry Pippin, 6/12/04

Approximately, in the year of 1982, Barney Kessel visited his hometown of Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1981, I saw Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd, and Herb Ellis...three unbelievably talented jazz guitarists...together in concert, in Oklahoma City. It was a magical evening for many reasons. Not only were these three talents almost God-like to a Jazz fan, but Kessel walked the streets and went to the same dives that I had while growing up in Muskogee.

Shortly after that concert, Kessel left the West coast and moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. He had some sort of arrangement with what was then Central State University, which was part of the Oklahoma University System. He evidently taught at the college, and appeared every Sunday morning on the Central State University radio station and played Jazz.

Barney Kessel was born October 17, 1923 and died May 7, 2004. He was 80 years old.

Join me in listening to a rare recording of Kessel, made during one of his visits to Muskogee in 1982. It was recorded in a local restaurant. In the recording, Kessel explains and demonstrates to friends and fellow musicians, not only the techniques, but the concepts of his music.




Cut 1 - Brazil (ASCAP), Cut 2 - Laura (ASCAP), Cut 3 - Misty (ASCAP), Cut 4 - Old Devil Moon (ASCAP), Cut 5 - Yesterday (BMI).





Interviews about Barney Kessel and his Music
bullet In a near six-decade career, Barney Kessel was rated the #1 guitarist in Esquire, Downbeat, and Playboy magazine polls between 1947 and 1960. Jerry talks in studio with Bill Carter about Barney Kessel. This was recorded off the air in the Spring of 2001 at KBIX.

Bill Carter (left) was a frequent guest on my KBIX Radio Show. Carter graduated from Central High School a year after me, and immediately went on the road playing drums for several groups. He is still active in the music scene.









Barney Kessel, a pioneer of the electric guitar and a master of harmonic improvisations, also recorded over fifty albums, including a number of innovative albums with drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Ray Brown that were remarkable for the lack of a pianist. He also performed with the Oscar Peterson Trio and ensembles with Charlie Parker, Charlie Barnet, Art Tatum and Artie Shaw, and with performers Elvis Presley, Liberace and the Beach Boys. Leaving the jazz world for studio work, between 1967 and 1970 he operated Barney Kessel's Music World in Hollywood, but in 1972 he returned to fulltime stage work. A stroke in 1992 curtailed his career.






Songs: Tennessee Ernie Ford and Kay Starr - I'll Never Be Free ( Capital records- BMI)
and Gramarcy Five featuring Barney Kessel on guitar - Scuttlebut -( RCA - ASCAP)


bullet

Jerry and Bill Carter talk about the rare recording presented in its entirety on this web site (above). If you are a jazz fan or a musician, you need to take time and give this collector's item tape a listen. This particular segment was an air check ( recorded off the air and the music is edited out automatically at the radio station, so unfortunately, some great Kessel music is missing. However, we have links for you to order Kessel, CDs, DVDs, etc. You will find them at the bottom of this page dedicated to Barney Kessel. Our Thanks to BIll Carter for special material and coming by KBIX to tell us about this SUPER PICKER from Muskogee.







Barney Kessel Links

bullet An interesting biography of Kessel from Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame
bullet A tribute to Barney Kessel -- Reviewed by Cindy Benedetto
bullet Dave Gould's Barney Kessel pages
bullet Sound Clips from CD Now
bullet Great information about the man and his music
bullet Photo Album of Barney Kessel
bullet The Jazz Professional Site



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Monday, March 16, 2020

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The Front Porch Forums > FPR Forums: > National & World Politics > HUD marks/chips Homeless



ElijahRadioProphet



Posted: May 02 2004,10:32

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--- John Bernay wrote:
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 05:135 -0800 (PST)
From: John Bernay
Subject: Homeless/Jewish Extermination: then & now
To: finalsolution@yahoo.groups.com,
freighttraindomain@yahoo.groups.com

Hi John,
It was funny to receive your e-mail just as I am at work on a book about anti-Semitism (though I'm writing about anti-Semitism on the left). I do believe you are right that there is a connection between homelessness and Nazi genocide. Someone once showed me a translation of a speech by Goering, I think it was, in which he touted the first concentration camp as a jobs program in much the same way that prisons bring jobs to American communities now. Someone called in to one of the marathons and said that the first rationale for why the camps were "needed" was to house homeless people, but I have not seen any documentation of that with my own eyes. In any case, my brother has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. I don't think he's as coherant as you seem to be, but I'm
not a big believer in labels either. It's just a shame when you can't talk to someone you
love, no matter what the diagnosis.
Good luck in your travels and your research.

Nobody

(Here is REVIEW of Mr. Nobody's Book= I CALL THESE LEFT WING JEW HATERS: NAZIS with VEGITARIAN MANNERS! Wasn't A. HITLER a VEGITARIAN??

The Growing Menace of Left Wing Anti-Semitism is the kind of CD you
will want to share. You will be shocked to learn the history of
treachery perpetrated against the Jews by the liberal left, including
Jewish leftists! Jeremy Weir Alderson offers an inside look into the
reasons the left works so hard to discredit Israel, ignoring and even
distorting the liberal values of many of its policies.

To get your copy, click here.

ABOUT

JEREMY WEIR ALDERSON:
Jeremy Weir Alderson was a lifelong leftist until his growing concern
and disgust with left-wing anti-Semitism caused him to publicly
renounce his connection to the left. During the Vietnam War he was a
conscientious objector. He has written for Dissent, The
Progressive,Mother Jones, Covert Action Quarterly, The Columbia
Journalism Review, Parents Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and more. He
produced "The Nobody Show --Your Unabashed Voice of the Left and Left
Out" on a NPR and Pacifica affiliate, which was a controversial
success. Mr. Alderson's liberal ideals and dedication to pursuing
universal human rights and equality are inspirational, especially in
today's politically correct climate that often stifles the rights of
select groups. Mr. Alderson exposes double standards, and decries
moral relativism. Mr. Alderson's passion for truth compelling,
fearless, and even life-changing. To find out more about booking Jeremy
Weir Alderson e-mail crs@meetnet.org. ]

John Bernay wrote:
Well, that was the Email that Zach Dryden in Arkansas sent me...so it must have been heard in Arkansas.
He still hasn't answered my quirey as to what show, what station, etc. I saw in a short google search you were going to( or has) done the MARATHON from TORONTO.(?) well, I was homeless in Toronto- 2000, I loved Toronto.
I have to get on the road- just got $90.00
Gasoline Vouchers from St. Vincent dePaul here
(phoenix) to get to Springfield, Missouri (where I
have work waiting.) $90.00 will not get me 400 miles,
BUT it's a HELP!
I still maintain, adamantly with absolute
certitude, based upon study of TORAH, HISTORY &
HUMAN
BEHAVIOUR ...the GENOCIDE of the HOMELESS/HOBOES
and other "useless eaters" shall be a REAL PART of the
"War on Terrorism," under Geo. W. Bush. After all
HE (Bush-Geo.Bush, )
is A BLOODLINE NAZI, his Grandfather, PRESCOTT BUSH,
was indited for TRADING WITH THE ENEMY in 1943 or 4,
BUSH was a MAJOR FACILITATOR in MONEY LAUNDRYING
for the Nazi Regiem. Henry Ford, Standard Oil, FDR
among others took ACTIVE MONETARY ROLES in the
Holocaust, FDR dragged his feet on D-Day until his cohersion caused the first ATOMIC BOMB to be created, by
JEWISH SCIENTISTS, Albert Einstien, et al: they SOUGHT TO SAVE OUR PEOPLE( Beth Israel!, but Truman USED it on "non-whites:" to wit: the Japaneese. 6,000,000 million Jews COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED had ROOSEVELT not wanted "the Manhatten project" finished. He would HAVE HIS WAY ...damn the collaterial damage, full speed ahead." The POINT? The Anti-Semite mind can NOT flinch
at GENOCIDE, and YOU can see the HATRED now DIRECTED against the POOR, HOMELESS, and RailRoad Riders.
WE, the PITIFULLY IMPROVISHED POOR will be used to
GEAR UP & SMOOTH OUT THE SYSTEM of DEATH CAMPS (FEMA) already in existance & CALLED FOR in the GLOBAL 2000
REPORT, in
Rio, 1989, SIGNED by JIMMY CARTER then president of
USA. Calling for ELIMINATION of USELESS EATERS to the
tune of 80% of World Population, BY 2035.
Yahweh has GIVEN ME this OFFICE & raison d'ete
for LIVING. To spread this MONSTERIOUS REALITY. Every> now & then I find ASSONANCE, I find RECEPTIVE EARS and ENLIGHTENED EYES. Usually I am called bad names, or worse, a fool. (God shall judge such) BUT MY
BELIEFS were HONED by Dr. John Hirshburg.MD a
Psychiatrist, MY Rebbe, a SURVIVOUR of the CAMPS. HE HELPED ME
OVERCOME the STIGMA of "schizophrenia." He called
diagnostic labels "bullshit."
Gotta go, Shalom. John


UPDATE FROM THE FIELD
Homeless Marathon Sends Message from the Cold
The Seventh Annual Homelessness Marathon will take to the airwaves for 14 hours of talk and information about homelessness starting at 7 pm EST on February 12. Originating from Cleveland, OH, the Marathon will be broadcast on stations around the country and on the web until 9 am EST on February 13.

The brainchild and continuing project of Jeremy Weir Alderson, a radio show host known as “Nobody,” the Homelessness Marathon has crisscrossed the country since its inception. The first Marathon was broadcast from Geneva, NY, in 1998. Since then, Marathons have been broadcast from Philadelphia; Champaign, IL; Cambridge, MA; Portland, OR; and Portland, ME. The participating stations have grown from seven for the Philadelphia broadcast to approximately 80 stations this year. A parallel Canadian marathon will be heard on 30 stations in that country, with an hour of joint broadcast with the American show.

The Marathon has some trademark elements that have carried through from year to year. It is broadcast from out of doors, during the winter, to emphasize the experience of people without homes. The Marathon is a national call-in show with a toll-free number. There are no financial solicitations during the broadcast, the show is offered free of charge to non-commercial radio stations around the country, and the organizers are all volunteers.

The hosts of the Marathon, including Mr. Alderson, are joined over the course of the broadcast by several cohosts. This year, cohosts will include Cheri Honkala of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, Donald Whitehead of the National Coalition for the Homeless, and Walter Schmid, a social welfare activist in Switzerland. There will be a discussion of NIMYBism with Rebecca Troth of National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and Sister Donna Hawk, who runs a transitional housing program. In addition, the Marathon will include panel discussions with homeless veterans and with homeless mothers from the Cleveland area.

Mr. Alderson says he began the Marathon out of personal concern about homelessness and the belief that the American people want to see the problem solved. “I really think we have to change the entire way we look at the issue of homelessness,” he said. “We are not asking for enough, because we need tens of billions of dollars. After 20 years of cuts and people sleeping on the street, we should realize that the situation is unacceptable and we need to take a different approach.”

For more information: Jeremy Weir Alderson, 877-NOBODY-8 (662-6398), radio@lightlink.com, www.homelessnessmarathon.org.

Acclaim for the
Homelessness Marathon
A FEW WORDS ABOUT PAST HOMELESSNESS MARATHONS
2nd Annual (1999) • 3rd Annual (2000) • 4th Annual (2001) • 5th Annual (2002) • 6th Annual (2003) • 7th Annual (2004)
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE 7th ANNUAL (2004) HOMELESSNESS MARATHON
broadcast from Cleveland, Ohio

"I really enjoyed your marathon. It kept me awake all through the night, not because I was afraid the sound would cut off and I'd have dead air but because you had so much great information and interviews set-up on this issue of homelessness. I wondered how you were going to fill 14 hours but it turned out there are so many connections to other things you could have probably gone another 14. What you put together is greatly appreciated and so important."
Marianne Knorzer, GM, KRBS, Oroville, CA

"Thank you for your efforts in bringing greater awareness to the general public regarding homelessness issues. This is the first I have ever heard of the Marathon, and I was BLOWN AWAY to hear it on the radio. You have no idea... to really hear myself represented in such an honest way was like a re-birth of some kind. I felt validated as a human being, and that's something that occurs very seldom among the homeless. Again, THANK YOU.
"You repeated several times that one of the goals of the Marathon was to open up a dialogue about homeless issues. I guess I felt like it was more of a conversation, and I was wanting to participate in it in more ofIf you enjoyed this site, please consider donating $3. Any amount is appreciated. Thanks!
∑ Back to Classical Literature.
What Desires Are Politically Important?
an ongoing fashion, so I called several times. Thank you for not silencing me, even as a repeat caller. Each guest you presented brought a unique perspective to the issues, and I could identify with every one of them. Not only did my cloak of invisibility drop for a time, but I felt a part of something... a movement, a step in the right direction.
" No one is going to solve the problem in one night, but you gave us a voice. And that's an important thing. Keep the fire burning. I'll be listening for you next year."
Carrie (in California)

"I thought it was great - it provided an opportunity for homeless and formerly homeless people to discuss the experience and as important, for housed people to hear and better understand this phenomenon -- ultimately building awareness and political will to deal with the shortage of affordable housing and the imperative to meet the housing needs of all people."
Ruth Gillett, Program Manager Cleveland/Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services

"The Marathon generated more interest and conversation than I would ever have imagined. I think that it got folks thinking about the issue in renewed ways. Locally it helped to put a face on the generic" homelessness." There was also a great deal of spark from hearing from other parts of the country. Blessings on your work."
Sister Donna Hawk, director Transitional Housing, Inc., Cleveland, OH

The Growing Menace of Left Wing Anti-Semitism
If you enjoyed this site, please consider donating $3. Any amount is appreciated. Thanks!
∑ Back to Classical Literature.
What Desires Are Politically Important?

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ElijahRadioProphet



Group: Members
Posts: 14
Joined: June 19 2003
Posted: May 02 2004,9:56

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hobojoanna · elijahradioprophet@yahoo.com My Groups
finalsolutionforum · the FINAL SOLUTION group. Group Owner
Description Category: Homelessness
THE MURDER TRAIN


Every year, tens of thousands jump train boxcars to catch a free ride
along the rails inside an empty car. But while the freedom of the rails
may carry its thrills, it also caters to killers on the run.

Over the past two decades, a gang known as the Freight Train Riders
of America has emerged from the boxcars and freight yards
crisscrossing the country. Police suspect the gang, which is
concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, may be responsible for hundreds
of assaults, thefts and murders along rail lines in the past 20 years.
With the NEW OUTLOOK to SURVIVAL, we as 'street-people', 'hoboes,' 'homeless' or whatever, must realise, THE NEW WORLD ORDER is DETERMINED to DEMONISE us, MAKE US APPEAR to be MURDERIOUS PSYCHOPATHS and , then; "the FINAL SOLUTION"= Social Cleansing, or EXTERMINATION of PARASITES from the human race; the GLOBAL 200 REPORT called us "USELESS EATERS!" I am POSTING EVERY ITEM I CAN LOCATE TO ACCUSE THOSE WHO PLAN WHOLESALE GENOCIDE against HUMAN BEINGS! And, you will be surprised, OUR OWN GOVERNMENT IS THE MOST ADAMANT proponent of this 4th. Reich Programme!





the FINAL SOLUTION group at YAHOO

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ElijahRadioProphet



Group: Members
Posts: 14
Joined: June 19 2003
Posted: May 02 2004,9:44

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I have been PREACHING this for 20+ years!!!!You ALL have HEARD me, on the air, WITH LEE, at 1420KCs & at 1340KCs before! YOU SAID I WAS CRAZY! Well, HERE IS MY VINDICATION!
I ain't happy....

Final solution to the hobo question?

All of this concern for about safety rhetoric is being used to rationalize an extremely cruel attack on the homeless by another powerful element involved in this issue. There are some very greedy people who own land near train yards that want to rid their areas of the homeless so they can increase property values. Businesses that think that if there were no tramps to be seen on the streets that more yuppies would shop at their stores. We are talking about mean, cruel, hateful, greedy, selfish people who sue homeless shelters that feed starving homeless people as a nuisance. These are the same people who want to portray all homeless transient as dangerous racist serial killers. They don't like it when anyone puts up a true picture of this population on the internet. Greedy hobophobic types call this "romanticizing".

They are so afraid that people might feel sorry for the friendly fun loving homeless hobos once pictured on North Bank Fred's and Sahara George's now defunked web pages. They don't want any one to think that the people they want to root out are human beings. The only image that they want to allow is one of dangerous sub human monsters.

Tramps don't need or want main stream publicity. People who are asking for even more government money to combat the problems they themselves are unwittingly causing are the ones that need publicity.

Even worse tramp-hating people are not above creating publicity about train hopping web pages, to lure children who would never have suspected that this sort of information existed with out their publicity.

Then when some of these kids, that are lured by the tramp haters get killed, they will say, see we need tougher laws so that we can #### with the homeless more effectively. We don't really care that tougher laws will endanger kids who will take chances not to get caught, we want tougher laws to vigorously enforce our anti-hobo polices.

So the railroads wanting to be "good neighbors" sign letters of understanding with these evil tramp haters to work with the city cops to rid their city of homeless, but with almost every city doing this what is really happening is that we are simply putting more and more of these "homeless mentally ill", people into jails and prisons for made up petty crimes. They have no place else to go. So we put them into jail because we are concerned with their safety and well being?



You know what else, I think that the rail roads are going to be real sorry that they worked with these evil "neighbors" to drive the homeless from their former refuge on rail road property.

Property values will go up and these yuppies who don't want to live around tramps will move in right next door to the rail roads replacing the old friendly care free fun loving hobos who used to live by the tracks, that never complained about anything.

So next the rail roads want to haul some sulfuric acid, nuclear waste, or Napalm. Back when tramps used to live down by the tracks and people who did not want to live where tramps lived, stayed some where else, there was little or no protest. None of the care free fun loving hobos never complained.

Hey UP and BNSF listen up! You are getting into bed with some really greedy and selfish yuppies, and no matter what you do for them they will never be your friends or love you the way the tramps loved the old SP and Great Northern.

Think that these assholes that are suing the rescue missions as a nuisance are going to be grateful when you exterminate the transients for them? #### no, they will not be greatful, more and more of them are gong to move in right next door to you.

They are going to constantly bitch and moan!

I can almost hear it now!

"On can you please not switch cars at night it makes to much noise?"

"Can you please put emission controls on those locomotives they smell bad?"

"Can you please run the hasmat stuff through a different town, our nice clean yuppie infested city does not want that in our back yards?"

"Heck" I can hear the yuppies say, "we would not even live in an area that was crawling with rail road tramps. What, you think were going to put up with a train with Nukes or hasmats on it going through our nice clean little Yuppie high rent district?"

"How could you think that, when we would not even put up with a train with tramps on it?"

Yup when all the tramps are gone you will be hearing this sad song.

"We only moved in when the fun loving hobos were driven away.

If we will not put up with living some place where we might see an unsightly tramp, why should we put up with a operating rail road in out back yard?"


FINAL SOLUTION: EXTERMINATION of HOMELESS
a JEWISH HOBO & PROPHET reveals the NAZI 4th. REICH/NEW WORLD ORDER plans to GEAR UP the 21st. Century HOLOCAUST with WE, THE HOMELESS, under the control of FEMA, +++DEATH CAMPS have ALREADY BEEN CONSTUCTED+++50+ Years of STUDY/Yeshiva Educated/Rabbi Jochannan ben Israel Bernays, the Railroad Rabbi, the Hebrew Hobo, +++the ELIJAH RADIO PROPHET+++Licensed Radio Operator {KD5MPM}****REVEALS THE ILLUMANITI PLAN TO EXTERMINATE HOMELESS FOLKS****!!!!!WE CAN FIGHT!!!! My Webpage: HOMELESS ANNIHILATION!



TYPOLOGY=Gypsies; asocials; hoboes; etc....NOW called Homeless, et al

MY several websites (finalsolutionforum.yahoogroups.) (finalsolution:extermination of homeless. ) and others I am trying to build, but having no computer makes it tough...

THE MAIN THING, ++++++NO ONE REALLY CARES!+++++++++++

America is in WORSE moral decay than 1934 Germany was- AMERICA is in the pre-Constintinian HEDONISTIC-WORSHIPPING of GOREY,BLOODY, ROMAN GAMES (cf. Daniel Mannix: Those Who are about to Die Salute You. " the CRITICAL EXAMINATION of the GAMES of ROME, etc.)

Being ON THE STREETS daily, traveling ALL AMERICA, I can tell you: AMERICA HAS NO COMPASSION. The SOUL has be ANNIHILATED through the TELEVISION PROGRAMMING. THE CULT OF CRUELITY & DEATH for FUN has DESTROYED this nation.

Of course, as HaShem told EZEKIEL: "You shall SPEAK the words I tell you to unto them, wether they hear or weather they forbear, yet they shall know their has been a prophet anong them>ME"

Yahweh Elohim told me to say THUSLY: "I sent you ABRAHAM, ISAAC & JACOB, Daniel, Isaiah, and the Others, MEN OF UPSTANDING MORALITY, you Killed them, I then sent MINE OWN SON & you CURSED, TORTURED & KILLED Him in HORRIBLE AGONY...So, THIS TIME I send unto you EVIL HUMANS a TATTOOED TRANSVESTITE RAILROAD HOBO FOLK SINGER EX-CONVICT JEWISH ZEALOT, and He/She KNOWS you will NOT accept Him/Her, BUT THE "I AM" Has Sent THIS JOHN/MALICHIAH/ELIJAH Prophet of DOOM, and WHEN YOU STAND IN THE JUDGEMENT, and see Yahshua on my RIGHT HAND & the ELIJAH RADIO PROPHET on my LEFT, and YOU ARE CONDEMNED to HELL FIRE of ETERNAL ANGUISH,....THEN ye shall KNOW that THE MOST HIGH GOD is "NO RESPECTOR of PERSONS!!!!!"

I AM the LAST DAY PROPHET....Joanna d'Arc.....ELIJAH RADIO PROPHET.
Very good! You are one of those people that we could just agree to disagree with and in the end be friends. However I do think you run with the wrong crowd.

"Young enough not to care too much,
about the way things used to be.
I'm young enough to remember the future,
the past has no claim on me.
I'm old enough not to care too much,
about what you think of me.
But I'm young enough to remember the future,
the way things ought to be!"

--------------
You know we're havin' good days - and hope they're gonna last. Our future still looks brighter than our past! Feel no need to worry, or reason to be sad. Our memories remind us - maybe road lifes not so bad.

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teachorr



Group: Members
Posts: 97
Joined: Mar. 15 2004
Posted: April 29 2004,7:10

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Lord,
Remove the evil veil that blinds those who rush in and cry from the hangups in their corrupted minds.
Amen

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rushguy1



Group: Members
Posts: 299
Joined: Nov. 18 2002
Posted: April 29 2004,12:52

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You know we're havin' good days - and hope they're gonna last. Our future still looks brighter than our past! Feel no need to worry, or reason to be sad. Our memories remind us - maybe road lifes not so bad.

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Town cry er



Group: Members
Posts: 76
Joined: Mar. 31 2003
Posted: April 29 2004,12:25

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After I posted this I got to thinking about how many people I know (myself included) that are 3-4 paychecks away from being homeless. With the price of everything going up and salaries staying the same I can see things getting a lot worse. We have four children to feed and keep a roof over their heads. After all is said and done we don't have a dime saved . It seems to me that there will be alot more homeless people in our future.....Oh by the way Hang,God did not gave us a spirit of fear(1chr.28:20,Psalms27:3, psalms 118:6,Matthew 10:26-28&31) and I can go on and on . I still believe the truth will set me free and I will not be silenced by anyone! I'm not getting on the truck! Bring it on!! Give me liberty or give me death! I do not fear death because to me it means life everlasting.....

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The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.... : Albert Einstein

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hangman


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Spreading truth could get you in trouble, girlfriend. The ministry of truth is on patrol here. The 3 stooges are trying to help the goobermint in locating me for the same thing. Boy, I always thought the truth will set you free. These chips, how long before they demand everybody gets at least one? I don't think I'll be waiting for it. I think they can tweak these things until they can control a person like the radio operated toys and gadgets of today. Imagine the evil behind the desire to control at this level.



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And they'll still call us paranoid....



http://indybay.org/news/2004/04/1676374.php
HUD Marks/Chips Homeless
by posted by LPJ Tuesday, Apr. 06, 2004 at 3:39 PM
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said
Thursday that it was about to begin testing a new technology designed to
help more closely monitor and assist the nation's homeless population.Under
the pilot program, which grew out of a series of policy academies held in
the last two years, homeless people in participating cities will be
implanted with mandatory Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that
social workers and police can use track their movements.

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said
Thursday that it was about to begin testing a new technology designed to
help more closely monitor and assist the nation's homeless population.Under
the pilot program, which grew out of a series of policy academies held in
the last two years, homeless people in participating cities will be
implanted with mandatory Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that
social workers and police can use track their movements.

The RFID technology was developed by HHS' Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA) in partnership with five states, including California
and New York. "This is a rare opportunity to use advanced technology to
meet society's dual objectives of better serving our homeless population
while making our cities safer," HRSA Administrator Betty James Duke said.

The miniscule RFID tags are no larger than a matchstick and will be
implanted subdermally, meaning under the skin. Data from RFID tracking
stations mounted on telephone poles will be transmitted to police and
social service workers, who will use custom Windows NT software to track
movements of the homeless in real time.In what has become a chronic social
problem, people living in shelters and on the streets do not seek adequate
medical care and frequently contribute to the rising crime rate in major
cities.

Supporters of subdermal RFID tracking say the technology will discourage
implanted homeless men and women from committing crimes, while making it
easier for government workers to provide social services such as delivering
food and medicine.Duke called the RFID tagging pilot program "a high-tech,
minimally-intrusive way for the government to lift our citizens away from
the twin perils of poverty and crime." Participating cities include New
York City, San Francisco, Washington, and Bethlehem, Penn.

Participating states will receive grants of $14 million to $58 million from
the federal Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH)
program, which was created under the McKinney Act to fund support services
for the homeless. A second phase of the project, scheduled to be completed
in early 2005, will wirelessly transmit live information on the locations
of homeless people to handheld computers running the Windows CE operating
system.A spokesman for the National Coalition for the Homeless, which
estimates that there are between 2.3 million and 3.5 million people
experiencing homelessness nationwide, said the pilot program could be
easily abused.

"We have expressed our tentative support for the idea to HRSA, but only if
it includes privacy safeguards," the spokesman said. "So far it's unclear
whether those safeguards will actually be in place by roll-out."Chris
Hoofnagle, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
said the mandatory RFID program would be vulnerable to a legal challenge.
"It is a glaring violation of the Tenth Amendment, which says that powers
not awarded to the government are reserved to the people, and homeless
people have just as many Tenth Amendment rights as everyone else," said
Hoofnagle, who is speaking about homeless privacy at this month's Computers
Freedom and Privacy conference in Berkeley, Calif. If you enjoyed this site, please consider donating $3. Any amount is appreciated. Thanks!
∑ Back to Classical Literature.
What Desires Are Politically Important?


UD Marks/Chips Homeless
by posted by LPJ Tuesday, Apr. 06, 2004 at 3:39 PM
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said
Thursday that it was about to begin testing a new technology designed to
help more closely monitor and assist the nation's homeless population.Under
the pilot program, which grew out of a series of policy academies held in
the last two years, homeless people in participating cities will be
implanted with mandatory Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that
social workers and police can use track their movements.

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said
Thursday that it was about to begin testing a new technology designed to
help more closely monitor and assist the nation's homeless population.Under
the pilot program, which grew out of a series of policy academies held in
the last two years, homeless people in participating cities will be
implanted with mandatory Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that
social workers and police can use track their movements.

The RFID technology was developed by HHS' Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA) in partnership with five states, including California
and New York. "This is a rare opportunity to use advanced technology to
meet society's dual objectives of better serving our homeless population
while making our cities safer," HRSA Administrator Betty James Duke said.

The miniscule RFID tags are no larger than a matchstick and will be
implanted subdermally, meaning under the skin. Data from RFID tracking
stations mounted on telephone poles will be transmitted to police and
social service workers, who will use custom Windows NT software to track
movements of the homeless in real time.In what has become a chronic social
problem, people living in shelters and on the streets do not seek adequate
medical care and frequently contribute to the rising crime rate in major
cities.

Supporters of subdermal RFID tracking say the technology will discourage
implanted homeless men and women from committing crimes, while making it
easier for government workers to provide social services such as delivering
food and medicine.Duke called the RFID tagging pilot program "a high-tech,
minimally-intrusive way for the government to lift our citizens away from
the twin perils of poverty and crime." Participating cities include New
York City, San Francisco, Washington, and Bethlehem, Penn.

Participating states will receive grants of $14 million to $58 million from
the federal Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH)
program, which was created under the McKinney Act to fund support services
for the homeless. A second phase of the project, scheduled to be completed
in early 2005, will wirelessly transmit live information on the locations
of homeless people to handheld computers running the Windows CE operating
system.A spokesman for the National Coalition for the Homeless, which
estimates that there are between 2.3 million and 3.5 million people
experiencing homelessness nationwide, said the pilot program could be
easily abused.

"We have expressed our tentative support for the idea to HRSA, but only if
it includes privacy safeguards," the spokesman said. "So far it's unclear
whether those safeguards will actually be in place by roll-out."Chris
Hoofnagle, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
said the mandatory RFID program would be vulnerable to a legal challenge.
"It is a glaring violation of the Tenth Amendment, which says that powers
not awarded to the government are reserved to the people, and homeless
people have just as many Tenth Amendment rights as everyone else," said
Hoofnagle, who is speaking about homeless privacy at this month's Computers
Freedom and Privacy conference in Berkeley, Calif.

While HRSA's program appears to be the first to forcibly implant humans
with RFID tags, the technology is becoming more widely adopted as retailers
use it to track goods. Wal-Mart Stores said last year that it will require
its top 100 suppliers to place RFID tags on shipping crates and pallets by
January 2005.Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International

Saturday, March 14, 2020

he Outsider Art Pages: 77x7's anathemic culture


























Interesting Ideas




Rap singers rant 12/39K JPGFurama rant 9/27K JPGFurama rant 2 9/28K JPG
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<a href = "http://www.spinnwebe.com/stories/word/">Another view of 77x7</a></strong></font>

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Yes, the sheer weirdness of this stuff is part of what makes it interesting -- it's plenty funny bizarre -- but there is more to it than that.
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It's clear the intention in these missives wasn't to make art, yet the compulsion to communicate, the determination to express no matter what, would well serve any artist. The spiritual fury that powers these visions -- however bizarre the messages and however seriously one may refuse to take them -- achieves a kind of transcendence that few artists attain.
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77x7 uses magic marker to write his messages on the back of nightclub posters, then he staples and tapes them to light poles up and down Chicago's Western Avenue and nearby streets. The US Beings PTL man handed out his message in a thick sheaf of Xeroxes several years ago on Michigan Avenue.
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Their visions touch ordinary life only incidentally, as raw material for a higher message (which in itself would seem to be part of the definition of significant art). Each in his own way makes a formal statement -- 77x7's work is testimony to the supremacy and transformative power of words. For Us Beings PTL's apocalyptic history, words seem more incantatory than imperative, and he adds drawings to illustrate his words; his combination of typewriter text and simple drawings embody a pure, raw form of strangeness.
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It remains easy, of course, to laugh them off, to ignore the substance of these expressions (or to reduce them to generic oddness) while enjoying their aesthetic merits. But there is a way in which, despite the skepticism the messages merit, their pure moral rage compels attention to what the artist is saying. One may remain unconvinced, but perhaps not unmoved, when faced with this awful fury over the deadness of TV or the bland decadence of nightlife.
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That most of us consider something perfectly comfortable does not make it right, and to see ourselves or our culture or our society from a totally different perspective, even if a bizarre one, is an opportunity for self-criticism that our common sense usually precludes.

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Monday, July 22, 2019

Manifest Destiny


[BTW; I was born in 1939,] I Was Borned in 1949, Wichita Kansas, BITCH!+++++++++++++ liar: re: x3 A word for the utterly predictable Obama bashing part (USF / panhandle)
"BTW; I was born in 1939, I have a lot more Education & Expatriate in Real Life Living Skills than you." So that means you are 75 years old.

I don't believe you.Your rant is clearly partisan and you are in fact the poster berkeley.

Go away you old man! ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOUR HATRED IS TYPICALLY AMERICAN? UGLY FILTHY SELF AGGRANDIZING UNWHOLESOME MANIFEST DESTINY DELUSION; I shan't go away, I am MORE American than You, please! I Believe People Such as Yourself Have a Term...STFU.....

BTW, I am 47 years old. I lived in 3 countries in my life, Germany, Russia and China and I speak 4 languages. I also have a PH.D from Oxford in political science and worked for the US state department for 7 years in Russia.


The US and the Crime of Genocide Against Native Americans

SAN FRANCISCO WILL SOON SHIP ALL THE HOMELESS TO "CAMPS" FOR EXTERMINATION! THE NAZIS ARE THE TECHNOCRATS! THE HOMELESS & SENIORS ARE THE GYPSIES & JEWS! HISTORY IS REPEATING ITS SELF!




Zbigniew Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard" said that Americans would only support the military plans of the US neocons "in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat", another example of a US motive for carrying out the 9/11 attacks.



EVEN NOAM CHOMSKY RECENTLY AGREED WITH CHRIS HEDGES & MORRIS BERMAN, HATE AGAINST THE POOR & HOMELESS IS NOW BEING REVEALED AS REPEAT OF NATIONAL SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA of the 1930's.


German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema, and theater.

In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler into power.

His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization.

As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture. Goebbels placed his undeniable intelligence and his brilliant insight into mass psychology entirely at the service of his party. His most virulent propaganda was against the Jews. As a hypnotic orator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed. Utterly cynical, he seems to have believed only in the self-justification of power. He remained loyal to Hitler until the end. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide.

Listed below are the principles purported to summarize what made Goebbels tick or fail to tick. They may be thought of as his intellectual legacy. Whether the legacy has been reliably deduced is a methodological question. Whether it is valid is a psychological matter. Whether or when parts of it should be utilized in a democratic society are profound and disturbing problems of a political and ethical nature.


GOEBBELS' PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA

Based upon Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.

2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.

a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.

b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.

c. It must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences

3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.

4. Propaganda must affect the enemy's policy and action.

a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence

b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions

c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself

d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity

5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign

6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.

7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.

8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.

9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.

10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.

11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.

12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.

13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.

a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.

b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment

c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness

14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.

a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses

b. They must be capable of being easily learned

c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations

d. They must be boomerang-proof

15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.

16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat

b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves

17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.

a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated

b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective

18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.



excerpted from: Lindsay Glauner, The Need for Accountability and Reparation: 1830-1976 the United States Government's Role in the Promotion, Implementation, and Execution of the Crime of Genocide Against Native Americans , 51 DePaul Law Review 911-961, 911-917 (Spring 2002)(349 Footnotes)



The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness; it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy; it's indifference.
The opposite of life is not death; it's indifference.
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
Elie Wiesel.



On September 8, 2000, the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) formally apologized for the agency's participation in the "ethnic cleansing" of Western tribes. From the forced relocation and assimilation of the "sauvage" to the white man's way of life to the forced sterilization of Native Americans, the BIA set out to "destroy all things Indian." Through the exploration of the United States' Federal Indian policy, it is evident that this policy intended to "destroy, in whole or in part," the Native American population. The extreme disparity in the number of Native American people living within the United States' borders at the time Columbus arrived, approximately ten million compared to the approximate 2.4 million Indians and Eskimos alive in the United States today, is but one factor that illustrates the success of the government's plan of "Manifest Destiny."

No longer can we remain indifferent and justify these acts of genocide committed by the United States government, its agencies, and its personnel against Native Americans as a result of colonization or the need to establish a prosperous union. Instead, the United States government, its agencies, and those involved with carrying out the measures designed to inflict genocidal acts against the Native American population must be held in violation of customary international law, as well as conventional international law, as proscribed in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention).

The term "genocide" was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 and was derived from the Greek word genos, which means tribe or race, and the Latin word cide, which is commonly found in words such as homicide, infanticide, and fratricide. In his first enunciation of "genocide," Lemkin defined the term in two different ways: (1) "the practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups as carried out by invaders" and (2) "[the] destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor." Currently, "genocide" is commonly defined as "acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

The crime of "genocide" is recognized as one of the most heinous international crimes under customary international law. A practice is proscribed as a crime under customary international law through the existence of the following: (1) uniformity of state practice, (2) generality of state practice, and (3) the opinion that state practice is required by law. Customary international law also recognizes any crime that is universally condemned by the international community as a jus cogens international crime, which gives rise to obligations erga omnes. In accordance with customary international law, an obligation erga omnes requires a state party to extradite or prosecute perpetrators of these crimes found within its territory. Because the international community has universally condemned genocide, as evidenced in part by the ratification of the Genocide Convention, it has risen to the level of a jus cogens international crime. As a result, any individuals, agencies, or states that commit genocide must be held accountable.

On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly approved a draft of the Genocide Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and since then 135 states have ratified the Convention, including the United States. According to the Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties, conventions are binding and enforceable against all states that have signed and ratified the specific convention. Therefore, in accordance to Article IV of the Genocide Convention, which requires all parties to prosecute those charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct andpublic incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide, regardless of their capacity as a ruler or public official, in a competent tribunal within the State where the crime took place or in a competent international tribunal that has proper jurisdiction over the case, any persons or agencies that commit acts of genocide within the territory of the United States must be held accountable for their crimes.

Even though the crime of genocide remains universally condemned by the international community, the United States government, its agencies, and its personnel have been effectively granted de facto immunity. The time has come to hold the perpetrators of these acts of genocide accountable and to formulate a system of reparation for the victims of these heinous international crimes, in order for the world, as well as the victims, to realize that justice does prevail in the international community.

This Comment will address the demise of Native Americans' livelihood, reproductive rights, and identity at the hands of the United States government, its agencies, and its personnel. Because the United States had a direct role in perpetrating genocidal acts against Native Americans, it must be held accountable for these acts. The international community must hold these agencies and persons responsible, and an apology and reparations must be awarded to Native Americans for their grave losses. While the need for reparations is clear, the method used to provide these reparations remains at issue.

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