Prince Charles explains 'pebble theatre'.
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PEBBLE
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Don Pierson [right] explains how a young Prince Charles made a request to join the Radio London fan club. |
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Prince Charles explains 'pebble theatre'.
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PEBBLE
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Don Pierson [right] explains how a young Prince Charles made a request to join the Radio London fan club. |
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[PHOTOS LEFT] These are snapshots taken from the opening of the 1964 Granada TV program called 'World in Action'. This is the same program that did its best to convince everyone that young Ronan O'Rahilly was the originator of Radio Caroline. But in that same TV program, when Ronan tried to explain how and why Greenore was selected as the location to outfit both the the mv Fredericia, and the mv Mi Amigo, he sort of made a mess of things because it became apparent that Ronan failed to understand geography; or even the local history of Greenore, let alone the history of the Republic Ireland! But then Ronan also boasted about being a failed student at school. His gift of the gab was actually mired in mumbles, pauses and repetitive remarks. Said Ronan: "The Dutch were the people responsible for the picking of the vessel .... then the ship was brought to Greenore ...." Now, later on, a different tale was spun about the origins of the mv Caroline, ex-Fredericia. But here is Ronan admitting that the Dutch, and it this instance meaning Captain De Jong Lanau of Wijsmuller, procured the ship called Fredericia. That procurement involved an arrangement with Ronan's father for use of a disused railway terminal with a wharf that abutted the water's edge. As we will reveal, Ronan's dad was cash-strapped and his receipt of an inquiry from Wijsmuller to rent or lease his non-productive waterfront property at Greenore was a win-win opportunity for him to make some easy money. There was one big drawback. Captain De Jong actually represented a Protestant Irishman from Eire named Charles Orr Stanley who was acting through a number of people who were mainly English. While Ronan's father Aodogán was born in England, and he married Marion who was born in the USA, as the years went by, there was a constant reaching back by father and son to glorify to Ronan's grandfather. Because this man was hailed as one of the leaders of a series of uprisings that eventually led to separation for most of the island of Ireland from domination by London, for Aodogán it resulted in faux-anti-English bigotry. For his son Ronan, it manifested itself in kissing-up to as much of the British Establishment as he could! It is if Ronan O'Rahilly got his inspiration for life from the back of a corn flakes box, or something similar. He had no depth; was amoral; contributed nothing and took as much as he could from other people. His feigned attachment to President John F. Kennedy is but one example of his shallow personality. But because Ronan could be bought, and because the Caroline project needed a physical spokesman, Ronan O'Rahilly was hired to do the job, along with a script writer named Ian Cowper Ross.
The problem with Ronan O'Rahilly's statement is that it is simply not true. But neither were the words written by David Block about Arthur Carrington. But the strange thing about the media is that it does not investigate, it simply accepts what is stated, and then either prints or broadcasts those statements as fact.
In the first place it is necessary to state a factual response to a ridiculous statement made by Ronan O'Rahilly. British Railways were created as a result of the British socialist Labour government's Transport Act of 1947. Before that date British Railways did not exist. Now when did the majority of the counties of the island of Ireland become independent? The answer is that the Republic was finally established on December 29, 1937, although there had been steps taken before that to sever ties with the United Kingdom. Now, let's see, this program on Granada TV was aired in 1964, and Ireland had become independent in 1937, and British Railways was not created until after 1947 and adoption of the Transport Act. So, if Ireland was totally independent of the UK in 1937, how could the UK have established a British Railways operation at Greenore, after 1947, when British Railways was first formed? It is impossible. It is a ridiculous statement but Granada TV allowed Ronan O'Rahilly to state this nonsense as fact, because it was left unchallenged. Today, when I say that Ronan O'Rahilly was a fake; a fraud and a liar, it is as if I have blasphemed some sort of religious Diety. Perhaps that is exactly what he became over time. If Aodogán O'Rahilly did not buy some property from British Railways, what exactly did he buy and from whom did he buy it? The answer is that Aodogán O'Rahilly did not buy anything at all from anyone that later related to the facilities that serviced two radio ships! It is important to establish the facts behind Ronan O'Rahilly's blather, because it also impacts upon what Harry Spencer did, and how his actions later impacted both George Saunders and Ove Sjöström. This story will continue to unravel in tomorrow's Blog. I have amended yesterday's blog several times by both modifying and expanding its text. If you have already read that entry, please take another look. In the meantime a note of interest to the trolls who love to slag-off the surname of one of 'the Trio'. I wonder if they have taken time to look at the Google map for Greenore and noticed what is next door to it? Now take a look at this Tom Tom map from Bing, and it places that same location next door to Dundalk. It would appear that the Google map is in error. The trouble with 'instant' referencing is that usually the wrong answers come up first, and this is especially true with anything to do with the O'Rahilly family and the birth of Radio Caroline. I will have a lot more to say about Dundalk and its relationship to Greenore in tomorrow's blog. As for the Haggardstown name, well, it might be related because most of the variations on this name appear to originate from the same source. See: https://hagger.one-name.net/ Shock! Gasp! Horror! Could 'he' have connections via genealogy to 'that' part of Ireland? We don't know, but it's kind of an interesting thought, isn't it?
The reason for me restating the obvious, is because we need to review what has been revealed so far, and then we can build upon that knowledge. When I have finished documenting just this part of the timeline, you may well be demanding a full refund - with interest - from Paul Rusling - due to his fraudulent promotion of a 'bible' that he conned a number of people into buying. Here's why: 1. The so-called 'Offshore Radio Museum' is also a real disappointment, because it once displayed pictures of a Caroline electrical power unit and claimed that it was a transmitter on board the mv Fredericia. As you will learn, that faux pas was actually a clue to solving the riddle of who built Radio Caroline, and why. But today this cyber ORM still proclaims errors such as this this one under 'Key Dates'. It reads: "1961 - Allan Crawford forms Project Atlanta Ltd to launch an offshore radio station beaming programmes to Britain." Now that would have been prescient if it had been true, but of course Project Atlanta Limited was not registered until August 1, 1963. It is the same sort of fictitious claim that Paul Rusling seized upon to cobble together a really silly tale with help from a person who was once known in 1964 as Oonagh Leigh. The two of them seem maintain a fawning adoration for that now deceased hoaxter, Ronan O'Rahilly. The reason is very easy to understand: The forerunner to Project Atlanta Limited, was a venture headed by Allan James Crawford. It involved the retired Trinity House vessel 'Satellite' which was docked at the Isle of Wight. Crawford lost his financial backing from the John Delaney Organization when the seizure of the mv Lucky Star caused Delaney to fear that this is what could happen to his investment in the THV Satellite. So Delaney pulled out and Crawford lost his mortgage. The curtain came down on Crawford around September 1962 which is when his own 'plan B' evaporated. Crawford wanted to lease the mv Magda Maria (ex-Bon Jour and soon to be Mi Amigo), from Bill Weaver who had rented a hotel room in London while the ship was anchored off Essex. But Bill Weaver had been told to sell it, and not lease it. So the Magda Maria ended up at Galveston Island under the name of Mi Amigo in March 1963. The reason that it was taken to Texas is because Robert F. Kennedy as US Attorney General, and brother of the President, had requested it. He had been heading up a faction of the Central Intelligence Agency which had its base on the southern campus of the University of Miami. The CIA had its own army; air force and navy, but its existence was denied at the time, although at least one Miami investigative reporter was exposing the truth to the world. Mixed up in RFK's planned use of the Mi Amigo was another CIA ship called mv Olga Patricia. This ship, which later became the home of two more offshore radio stations, was found to be much more suitable as a base from which to launch helium balloons dropping propaganda leaflets and other materials over Cuba. But alas, Bobby Kennedy and his brother (who was the President of the United States of America), had been lying to the world after the Cuban Missile Crisis. See the newspaper front page illustrated above and the clipping below. They are dated: October 23, 1962. Clearly there were noisy protesters in London, England who thought that the Kennedys were war mongers anxious to trigger a nuclear showdown with the Russian Empire known as the USSR. This puts the fake adoration of JFK by Ronan O'Rahilly, back into the contemporary light. Not everyone loved the Kennedys because they were about as two-faced as lying politicians can be! Right in the middle of this tale about the former Radio Nord ship being taken to Texas, and just before it left Texas to return to Europe, the President of the United States had his head blown apart by an assassin. It happened in broad daylight, and in the middle of Dallas, Texas during midday on Friday, November 22, 1963. This was Dallas, Texas: soon to be home of inspiration behind 'Wonderful Radio London' and PAMS jingles! It should be noted that the same people whose names swirled around the death of JFK, were soon linked by Gordon McLendon's Dallas radio station KLIF, with a follow-up assassination of the alleged assassin's assassin. This one took place in the Dallas Police garage a day later! Now if you are paying attention, you will notice that November 22, 1963 is a date just after the registration date in London of Project Atlanta Limited on August 1, 1963. It was also just before the mv Mi Amigo slipped out of port on December 29, 1963 to beat a hasty exit from Texas, loaded with transmitters made in Dallas. The very next day on December 30, 1963, Wijsmuller assisted in the purchase of the mv Fredericia at Copenhagen, Denmark, and then it was towed to Rotterdam, Holland. But these are not the only dates that should be placed within a timetable of events in order to establish the beginning of the Radio Caroline project, and these events continue into its first test broadcast on Friday, March 27, 1964. Yesterday, we also established that these dates and events also need to be considered in context, so here they are, again: 1963 - August 1 - Project Atlanta Limited is registered with a skeleton board of directors. The big investors were not listed at that time. 1963 - September-October - Jocelyn Stevens stated on the Granada TV program 'World in Action', that this is when the Radio Caroline venture really began. It is possible that this period of time also contains the the date when Charles Orr Stanley, using his son John as project manager, took over behind-the-scenes management of the earlier Crawford venture that had been registered as Project Atlanta Limited. Their controlling hand was via a representative surrogate. It was about this time that the heavy-hitters, mostly with a printing and publishing background, were added to the board of directors of Project Atlanta Limited. This is also where the connections to Jocelyn Stevens at Stevens Press Limited was also made. We have now found those links! What Rusling and other offshore radio writers all believed, is that the independent record industry and recording artists were the driving force behind the creation of Radio Caroline. Not so! The money primarily came from the printing and mainly newspaper publishing businesses, and they wanted to protect their own advertising bases by getting licenses for their own local, commercial radio stations! Charles Orr Stanley of Pye did not want to operate local commercial radio stations: he wanted to build and equip them with Pye Group products! By gaining surrogate control of Radio Caroline, Stanley was able to import the technical management of Alfred Nicholas Thomas and John Howard Gilman who had previously worked with Stanley and a Pye company to create GBOK. However, its titular head named Arnold Swanson caused that project to collapse because he was a confidence trickster. His personal amorality resulted in his divorce and imprisonment after engaging in underage sex in Canada. With legal issues concerning the so-called 'Hovering Acts' already addressed, and with heavy financing in place from a number of sources, the Radio Caroline project pushed ahead. Advance payments were made to Texas for the release of the mv Mi Amigo on lease terms, and other payments were made via Wijsmuller for the purchase of the mv Fredericia. This was achieved while working in conjunction with O'Rahilly Sr. who assisted with the creation of a false front company. At the time Ronan's father was strapped for cash, and that is why he agreed to lease the disused railway station at Greenore to equip the Fredericia and Mi Amigo! Clearly O'Rahilly Sr and his daughter Iseult received payment from Wijsmuller disbursements for their services, and Wijsmuller were in turn paid by the printing-publishing consortium. These are details we are still documenting - but the above explanation is not speculation and it is supported by documented facts which will be elaborated upon in future blogs! At some point after December 29, 1963 when the Mi Amigo left Galveston, Texas, and no later than January 30, 1964 when Harry Spencer came to 47 Dean Street to meet Allan James Crawford. On February 5. 1964 - the mv Mi Amigo arrived at El Ferrol, Spain and Harry Spencer was there to inspect it. On February 13, 1964 - Harry Spencer arrived at Greenore, Ireland and discovered that the mv Fredericia was already there. On March 27, 1964 - the mv Fredericia renamed Caroline, left Greenore and dropped anchor off Essex and commenced a test broadcast. On April 20, 1964 - the mv Mi Amigo left Greenore for the southeast coast of England. We have relied on Harry Spencer's recall to create part of the timeline relating to him. However, Harry Spencer was writing from recall years after the event. In one place he noted that the mv Fredericia was renamed after Caroline Kennedy, but that myth was created in March 1965 for publicity purposes. Now what of Allan James Crawford and his rather limited original plan to merely promote his own record label sales over Radio Atlanta? Clearly he was not aware of the ultimate reasons behind the master plan being used by Charles Orr Stanley. Neither was Major Oliver Smedley who has visions of using Radio Atlanta for his own political purposes. Radio Caroline was designed to have a very short 'shelf-life'. Its only reason for being, as far as Charles Orr Stanley was concerned, was to force the Tory government into issuing hundreds of local commercial radio station licenses. So here is the real line-up of management behind the original creation of Radio Caroline, which included plans to use the mv Mi Amigo, after dropping the name of 'Radio Atlanta' as soon as the mv Caroline (ex-Fredericia) relocated to a position off the Isle of Man. The timetable for that move was governed by H.M. Government tipping its hand to show whether it would, or would not seize the mv Caroline in international waters. Captain De Jong Lanau of Wijsmuller took charge of managing the ships; while Alfred Nicholas Thomas took charge of the technical and engineering side in conjunction with John Howard Gilman who was also responsible for the design of antennas on both ships. Harry Spencer was taken to Rotterdam and then Greenore by Wijsmuller, in order for his crew to install the antennas on both the mv Fredericia and mv Mi Amigo. The initial management of sales was in the hands of Jocelyn Stevens. Behind the scenes John Stanley coordinated everything with help from his father, and two different PR firms were hired to spread the myths in print, while Ronan O'Rahilly was hired to do the same thing in person, probably as a favor to his father. Now take another look at Allan Crawford's letter dated January 30, 1964, which is addressed to Harry Spencer. Crawford is not writing under the letterhead of Project Atlanta Limited, but Merit Music Co. Ltd. Crawford is telling Spencer that the work he will perform on the rigging (mast and antenna), is to be paid for by Rajah Anstalt, in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Although Crawford refers to it as a company, it is not a company in the sense of the British and American use of that word. It is more akin to a foundational financial trust, and back in 1964 these entities operated under a very strange legal system that was unique to Liechtenstein. One aspect of this anstalt was that it was actually in the hands of a Dr Peter Marxer, about whom we will have much to say later on. This is because Marxer also connected with the financial interests that were represented by Bill Weaver in disposing of the ex-Bon Jour Radio Nord ship, now called Mi Amigo. Crawford did not initiate this letter to Spencer, because Crawford admits that his instructions came from Captain De Jong Lanau who Spencer first met at 47 Dean Street prior to the date of this letter. But Crawford also makes it clear that Spencer has to talk to De Jong in order to discover how to "present his invoice" covering both materials and labor, and from what we already know, that invoice had to find its way on to the desk of Dr Peter Marxer. De Jong is in charge of both ships, and De Jong is Wijsmuller of Holland with an extensive historical connection to Texas and the oil industry. This is also a key point in the entire history of offshore radio, but everyone else has either overlooked it, or they are unaware of it. But 'the Trio' have discovered it and they will be revealing it as an exclusive discovery! Look at the timetable above once again. The mv Mi Amigo will not arrive back in Europe until February 5, 1964, and the date of this letter is January 30, 1964. Spencer went with De Jong to meet the arrival of the Mi Amigo, but when they arrived, the Mi Amigo had not yet reached port and docking. This timeline and the clues dropped by Saunders and Spencer are vital to an understanding of what actually transpired at Geenore. Tomorrow we will return to the storyline of George Saunders, beginning where he got off a train at Dundalk. That is where he was met by John Howard Gilman who then drove him to Greenore. In our blog we will go into the status of the old Greenore railway terminus and how ships were being allowed to tie up to the wharf. We will also explain why Harry Spencer ran into trouble with the Dundalk Engineering Works, and Ronan O'Rahilly's English-born father displayed a faux hatred of the English and set up about trying to resurrect the life of his father. [PLEASE NOTE: This text was amended and expanded several times since its first publication.] I hope that you paid attention to my last video and the clues that were in-bedded within it, because they point to a problem encountered by Harry Spencer; covered-up by David Block's application of the name of Arthur Carrington; left for Ove Sjöström to discover, and George Saunders to blame, and then fire him for a problem he did not create! Radio Caroline was the result of a project bathed in so much military-type secrecy, that it resulted in a typical military-style snafu where "need to know" completely backfired. The left hand, or one part of the team, did not know what the right hand, or the other part of the team, was doing! Thankfully, Harry Spencer and George Saunders have left us with enough clues so that we could begin a search that has now uncovered the real explanation which appeared in both the Irish Times, and partially in the parliamentary official record of the Irish Dial. This is a mystery that is embedded in the tale of two companies looking for something to manufacture, but connecting the dots and collecting all of this information is not as easy as it looks. Harry Spencer is the person we have to thank, even though Harry spoke in general terms, regarding the work that he performed at Greenore. But according to his own recital, he was hired after he went to 47 Dean Street to meet Allan James Crawford. The strange thing is, according to his own testimony, he never met the man he went to see! However, not only is that idea contradicted by a letter dated January 30, 1964 which was written by Allan James Crawford on Merit Music stationery to Harry Spencer; but that letter is in confirmation of a previous business arrangement which relates to the meeting that Spencer attended at 47 Dean Street! Not only that, but this letter names the ship Mi Amigo and it also explains how Spencer will be paid after presenting his invoice to De Jong! From this we can now deduce that the meeting took place at some time prior to January 30, 1964, and we can also deduce that it was at some time after December 29, 1963 when the mv Mi Amigo departed from Galveston Island. But so far we are discussing one ship, and that is mv Mi Amigo. If you will recall, the first person that Spencer met at 47 Dean Street was Alfred Nicholas Thomas who discussed erecting a mast on a ship that would support an antenna. Then he met Captain De Jong Lanau of Wisjmuller who wanted to discuss the same topic, and De Jong was obviously in charge of the meeting because he then told Spencer to come to Rotterdam with him - immediately. When Spencer got to Rotterdam, he was taken the following day to the Wijsmuller offices where a sort of bidding process was in place by other candidates for the same job that Spencer had been asked to discuss. He claims that he won the job, only he was suddenly told that there was not one ship but two. One of those vessels was named Fredericia, and it was already in Rotterdam. The other ship was Mi Amigo, and Spencer was flown to Spain to see it, only it had not yet arrived when he got to El Ferrol where it was to dock. It finally arrived on February 5. 1964, and Harry Spencer made design notes for the mast, and then he returned to his Yard on the Isle of Wight. However, by the time that Harry Spencer got to Greenore on February 13, 1964, the mv Fredericia, now renamed Caroline, was already tied up at the quay. So far he was still talking about masts to support antennas. But in his reminiscence about the time he spent at Greenore, he then added this: "We had some German generators to fit on the mv Caroline, I had made some suggestions where we could site them, I marked out areas of steel bulkheads that would have to be cut, and marked out on the dock where the plant would be sited." [sic] Now recall how Spencer came to be at Greenore: He was summoned to meet Allan James Crawford at 47 Dean Street about a former Trinity House Vessel that was docked on the Isle of Wight where Harry Spencer had his own work facility. But when he arrived in London by train and got to 47 Dean Street, he was obviously told about the mv Mi Amigo, although Spencer made no mention of meeting Crawford. Instead, Spencer was first grilled by Alfred Thomas and then by De Jong who told him that he had to go to Rotterdam immediately. The job was putting a mast on a ship, and that one ship became two ships and therefore two masts. But now in Greenore, Spencer was talking about taking charge of a job to install German generators (plural), by cutting out areas of steel bulkheads (plural). What was this all about? Clearly it was nothing to do with installing masts on two ships. But then the story becomes even more mysteriously complicated. Before the mv Mi Amigo departed from Galveston, the refurbished Continental Electronics transmitters had been taken out of storage in Houston, shipped to Dallas, refubished and on December 21, 1963, reloaded and reinstalled along with the generator necessary to power them up. On December 29, 1963 the vessel then left Galveston bound for the Bahama archipelago before heading on to Spain. However, the mv Fredericia had to be remodeled and then equipped as a radio ship, and the question is: who did the work on that ship? David Block tried to credit the work to Arthur Carrington, but this is obviously untrue. What we now know is that the rest of the story as told by Harry Spencer can be coupled not only to the recital by Ove Sjöström, but to the documented story about a firm in Ireland that saw its salvation in obtaining a contract from a former Nazi war manufacturer, and it was a firm deeply rooted in a geopolitical hot bed of staunch anti-English grudges, notwithstanding the fact that Harry Spencer was as English as they come! The amazing story of how the shadow of Nazi Germany graced the mantle Radio Caroline, will continue tomorrow. Here is a tease: Well, you can either count this as the end of a series within this blog, or the explosive beginning of a controversial story that is still named 'Dial 999 for Caroline', and it was given that name long before Paul Rusling stole our research - but did not know what to do with it. The reason I hark back to Rusling is because he is but the latest in long series of hack writers who are more interested in puffing up their chests, while hopefully puffing up their wallets, than telling anyone the truth about anything. That includes the true story of Radio Caroline which neither you, nor anyone else has read anywhere, at any time before now! Smack dab in the middle of the fuse that lights the touch paper to unraveling this story is George Saunders, who I have been telling you about. George's story begins with boredom at Marconi where he had been assigned the job of writing a marine radar handbook. Then, one day, after work, and while getting a pint at his local pub in Chelmsford, he spotted John Howard Gilman, who he thought was just a lonely guy sitting by himself at a table. So George came over and asked to join him. There was probably some sort of facial movement on Gilman's face that indicated that he would welcome company, because George was a young man who was not exactly the 'pushy' type. In fact, George is still one of that dying breed who will stand for Queen and Country until his last breath. He is also a very intelligent person, and a joy to speak with because he is quite considerate of the person that he is speaking to, unless of course your views clash with his fundamental core beliefs. While Marconi had Italian fascist origins, it also had very British broadcasting roots that began in the nearby Essex village of Writtle. But George was more into radio and its attributes than party politics and sniping, unless of course you presented yourself as a socialist. Now when I came prepared today to tell you the end story of a sequence of events, that was before I was shown something that really blew my mind. All of a sudden that title 'Dial 999 for Caroline' was not so strange because I was delving into the past activities of the IRA - the Irish Republican Army, and its political associates. I was also delving into the history of the Republic of Ireland, and I don't mean that digression about 'The O'Rahilly'. It also links back to those Nazi bombers that tried to obliterate London during the 'Blitz', and then it links in a very bizarre way to the problem that Harry Spencer had in equipping the mv Fredericia. That 'problem' included the cover-up by David Block by introducing the obstructionists Arthur Carrington and Ronan O'Rahilly.
To figure out what I am now going on about, I suggest that you reread what is already on line, because you need that grounding to understand what Radio Caroline really represented and why the British government seriously considered jamming it after it first went on the air.
In a sense this is not the final part of the electrical installation dispute, because this thread will now continue into the first part of the Nightmare at Greenore. That will begin tomorrow. The original published story about the creation of Radio Caroline was the work of David Block. He was employed by the public relations firm of Leslie Perrin and Associates, and Perrin was one of the biggest names in the UK, where he concentrated upon public relations for artists and companies connected to show business. Perrin would not been commissioned by some fly-by-night operation, because Perrin had carefully built an international reputation so that in the UK he could represent the most famous names in show business. Just after WWII, Leslie Perrin began building his music and club connections while working for Melody Maker, and when the original Musical Express was about to go out of business in 1952, a new owner stepped in and Perrin joined their new team of four news reporters. The New Musical Express became a trend setter in the UK, because it was the first music tabloid to copy the US Billboard publication and list the top selling records as well as the top sheet music sales. Over the years Perrin's contacts allowed him to eventually launch his own public relations agency, and clearly someone with a master plan then contracted with Perrin to launch the quality image of Radio Caroline as a neo-clone of a pseudo-Marconi production. Back in 1922, it was Marconi that created radio station 2MT based in a village called Writtle, just outside of Chelmsford. That was before a BBC station ever went on the air, and thus 2MT became the first broadcasting station in the United Kingdom. The decades went by and then in 1964 the opportunity was created to launch Radio Caroline as a commercial radio successor in interest to Marconi's 2MT. Behind the scenes was not Marconi, but Pye, and the Pye Plan was to use Radio Caroline as an audio battering-ram that would demonstrate a public daytime demand for UK commercial radio. The targeted audience were bored English wives who did not go to work and lived in the more affluent part of England. However, Radio Caroline was to be a short-term project. It was intended as a means of swaying political votes for licensed land-based commercial radio by establishing a demand from its primarily female listeners looking after a house and raising young children. There was a very limited and narrow window of opportunity to make this happen. Allan Crawford's interests were woven into this Plan, but before Crawford could go on the air he had to get a radio ship, and the Texan owners of the ship that he wanted to lease, would not release it until another ship was used as a guinea pig to prove that the UK government would not seize the vessel. So the mv Fredericia became Crawford's guinea pig. If this test was passed successfully, then Crawford's interests would be folded into the Pye Master Plan, although it was hoped that the operation would result in land-based licenses almost immediately. There were almost 200 radio stations in various stages of formation that were seeking licences. A potential deadline was also in the offing. If the Labour Party won the next General Election, then all bets were off. They would not license sponsored commercial radio stations, and they had already made a political noise about rolling back the ITA television program contractors. But the author of the Master Plan was Charles Orr Stanley who was working with his son John, and they controlled the Pye Group of companies which held existing government contracts in many areas. Stanley was secretly playing all sides against the middle, and for fear of losing his government contracts, he dare not let it be known that he was 'Mr Big' behind the Radio Caroline venture. Stanley did not have to use his own money, only his influence, because there were several wealthy vested interests who wanted to obtain commercial radio licenses. However, to make Radio Caroline into a serious venture and not a buccaneering exploiter, it was necessary in the first stage to aim at a middle-of-the-road presentation for a daytime audience. No controversy, no politics, no religion. Herbert W. Armstrong who had previously contracted with the Voice of Slough / GBOK project, then turned to Allan Crawford and in 1962 Crawford agreed to take his programming. This is semi-noted in the Radio Atlanta Rate Card which accepted sponsored programming. It was not a part of the original Radio Caroline Rate Card. When Pye stepped in, Armstrong was pushed out. Radio Caroline as a station was therefore cloaked in the wardrobe of the Establishment magazine 'Queen', and its initial presenters were drawn from the world of the theater. Being able to rub shoulders with the pop world just emerging with the Beatles, and Princess Margaret and her club trend-setters was also good camouflage. But the equipment to be used by Radio Caroline also had to represent the best that the broadcasting industry had to offer. Yet the name 'Pye' could not be stamped upon it. Because this successor to British Marconi's achievement with 2MT could not use British equipment, Pye turned to the same sources in the USA that equipped the mv Mi Amigo. George Saunders remarked that it looked as if the equipment had been plucked from a catalog. Some of it was totally unnecessary for an offshore station, but necessary for a USA FCC licensed station. However, with Crawford in the background, a Marconi employee was wheeled out to be 'sold' as the mastermind who put this new station together, and this former Marconi employee was draped in achievements that in reality were not his to claim. Another wrinkle was in the fact that Arthur Carrington's specialty was promoting the sale of Marconi television cameras. He was not a radio man. Perrin assigned the PR contract to David Block, and a Radio Caroline booklet shouting the praise of Arthur Carrington, was the result - even though Carrington never showed his face or answered a single question at a Radio Caroline press conference. So it was that when Radio Caroline came on the scene it sported the very best in broadcasting equipment which everyone was told, had been installed by a Marconi employee whose prior achievements had been noted by all. Of course there was just one problem: That was not exactly the true story behind the creation of Radio Caroline. But David Block's writing skills and his layout artist worked a charm with their booklet! Both the press and the public 'bought' the message that David Block had delivered, and to distract nosy reporters, a young; good looking gad-fly and gifted 'blatherer' named Ronan O'Rahilly, was hired to draw attention to redirect all of the unwanted questions to himself and his make-believe life.. In response, Ronan shoveled out story after made-up or exaggerated story about his quest to promote a blues singer named Georgie Fame, because all he ever wanted to do was to record Georgie Fame and get his record played on the air. Never mind that Georgie Fame was already doing well and EMI issued an LP featuring him, long before Radio Caroline ever came on the air. Never mind that the theme of Radio Caroline was an instrumental tune played on an organ by a U.S. jazz musician; or that the first record played in regular programming was by the Rolling Stones featuring a Buddy Holly song; or that test broadcasts had also featured the sound of Ray Charles. However, while Radio Atlanta had indeed been put together in the USA by a dedicated, and very qualified team of professional broadcasters and engineers so that it only lacked a new mast and antenna before it could go on the air, the same was not true of Radio Caroline. It was built one step at a time, and the first step was buying a ship. The second step was installing transmitters and a studio. The final step was building a mast and attaching an antenna to it. It was fine for David Block to create a image by claiming that Marconi's Arthur Carrington had created Radio Caroline, but in reality the work was performed in secrecy because not all of the people involved were qualified to build an entirely new radio station. Meanwhile Arthur Carrington who was this supposed engineering genius, was nowhere to be seen and photographed! It now appears that the reason for 'puffing-up' the achievements of Arthur Carrington was in order that the entire venture would be interpreted as his work, and his work alone. Coincidental with this PR exercise, David Block had to steer clear of anything to do with the mv Mi Amigo and Radio Atlanta. That was a separate project by other people who just happened to use the same wharf to tie up to in Eire. David Block and Leslie Perrin did not represent them. They had their own public relations firm called Ed White and Associates. Block made no mention of Thomas; Gilman or Spencer, yet we know that Spencer built the broadcasting mast on the Fredericia from which he hung the antenna that Gilman had designed. We also know that Thomas appears to be the main link to John Stanley of the Pye Group of companies, and that Thomas, Gilman and Spencer were all present at Greenore. But was Carrington ever there? Here is what we do know for sure: We know that Arthur Carrington had been employed by the Marconi Television Demonstration Unit, and that his achievements with regards to television camera promotion are well documented. We also know that he knew Alfred Nicholas Thomas as far back as 1950, and one year later on August 8, 1951, we can still place Carrington at Marconi promoting television cameras. In 1955, Arthur Carrington was hired by Howard Thomas of ABC-TV to head up the engineering staff of the joint ABC-ATV Alpha television studios. (Howard and Arthur were not, as far as we know, related.) This new employment brought Carrington into the sphere of Charles Orr Stanley and his Pye Group of companies. After WWII, Stanley had been the driving force behind the introduction of both sponsored commercial television and radio stations in the United Kingdom, and Stanley was also connected to Howard Thomas via many contacts in the ITA franchised venture.. Now we have the team of Alfred Nicholas Thomas, who went to work with Gilman for Pye on projects relating to the promotion of licenses for sponsored radio broadcasting, and Thomas who had previously worked with Carrington. But to see where Carrington fits into the installation of equipment on board the mv Fredericia, we first have to turn back to Harry Spencer's account of events at Greenore. Then we can read the account of Ove Sjöström about his clash with George Saunders - who claims to have sacked him due to poor work. But in reality, that remark about "poor work" may have been a totally unjust allegation, because Sjöström may have been acting in desperation as a result of the poor work initially carried out by unknown Irish workers at Greenore. They held a grudge against Harry Spencer, but no one knew this thanks to David Block. He falsely attributed the work to Arthur Carrington! I originally planned to conclude this section today, but because the next part is a blog in itself, I will wrap up this true story behind the electrical installation dispute, tomorrow. [This text was both expanded and amended after its first publication on line today in this blog.] On a September day in 1950, Alfred Nicholas Thomas who was representing the BBC in experimental live television transmissions from an aircraft; found himself working with Arthur Carrington of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd., on the same project. Long before microwave links made live network television transmissions a very ordinary and practical means of relaying television signals, several people had begun experimenting with the idea of turning circling aircraft into flying antennas. One such group was the U.S, Westinghouse company with their version called 'Stratovision'. It was later used by a U.S. university, and it was also adopted by the U.S. military which used it over South Vietnam during the wars in South-east Asia. But in the U.K., it was the BBC monopoly which had resumed TV transmissions commenced before WWII, that teamed up with the Marconi company to experiment with live television programs transmitted from a flying aircraft to a ground station. It was this event which brought together a BBC transmitter expert named Alfred Nicholas Thomas and Marconi's lead spokesman for television camera sales named Arthur Carrington, way back in the year 1950. In the middle of their escapade were representatives of the Pye Group of companies. Arthur Carrington covered the same event for a Marconi publication, and although he acknowledged the BBC, he made no mention in his report of Arthur Nicholas Thomas. However, it is clear that these two men worked together on projects such as this from at least 1950 onwards. Arthur Carrington headed-up the Marconi sales team that sought government contracts for Marconi cameras. There was a lot of cross-over between events that Carrington became involved in, and those Pye became involved in. The cameras used in this airplane experiment are the same cameras used by Pye to televise the 1949 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race from ship-to-shore via the launch Consuta. There is a picture of the camera on the vessel with accompanying text beginning on page 161 of 'Radio Man', the life-story of Pye's C.O. Stanley. [See picture extreme left] The same sort of 'borrowing' of events that David Block engaged in to produce the glowing CV for Arthur Carrington in the Radio Caroline 'puff pieces' of text, were merely a somewhat dishonest public relations exercise engaged in by Leslie Perrin and Associates. This same 'technique' cropped-up again and again in the original Radio Caroline literature where one writer merely copied from a previous writer. Many of the acts of achievement that were credited solely to Arthur Carrington, are in fact documented achievements of the Pye Group of companies in association with both Marconi and BBC. So the question is: why did David Brock invent a CV for Arthur Carrington? The answer is very clear. Pye could not be seen to have any connection whatsover to the launching of Radio Caroline, and therefore Arthur Carrington took sole credit in an attempt to create the impression that Atlanta and Caroline were two different projects. But this cover-up actually created and then disguised a fatal flaw in the outfitting of Radio Caroline. It was a problem that George Saunders was told to go and remedy. It was also a problem created at Greenore and subsequently blamed on Ove Sjöström and it appears that neither George nor the Ove had any idea of how this problem came about in the first place. But we do, and this is what we will explain tomorrow in the final part of this electrical installation dispute, before returning to the rest of the story. We are following the recruitment of young George Saunders from his job at Marconi, to becoming the Chief Engineer on board the mv Mi Amigo - via initial recruitment in 1964 by John Howard Gilman in a Chelmstord pub. Although George was finally hired at Greenore, Eire following a final vetting by Alfred Nicholas Thomas: he did not travel back to England from Greenore on board mv Mi Amigo. When George Saunders arrived in Greenore, which seems to have been around the date of Friday, March 13, 1964, the mv Mi Amigo was tied up next to the mv Caroline (ex-Fredericia.) Harry Spencer was already busy at work in liaison with his crew from the Isle of Wight, and they were building masts for each ship that were capable of supporting the antenna systems that had been designed by John Howard Gilman for each ship. Clearly Spencer and Gilman were at Greenore working in coordination on one project, not two competitive projects as the bogus books about Radio Caroline all want their readers to believe! Now if Spencer and Gilman were working on one project at Greenore, what of Alfred Nicholas Thomas who was the person in charge and to whom Gilman was reporting to? After all, Saunders only came to Greenore for a final, a interview conducted by Thomas, and he only got the job after Thomas gave his approval. But Saunders did not stay in Greenore very long, because he obviously still had to still give his notice to Marconi back in Chelmsford telling them he would be leaving: unless of course bored George had been already booted by Marconi. However, given George's cautious nature, that seems hardly likely.
The significance of the "Made in Texas" label relates to answering this question: Who was the engineer in charge of the mv Mi Amigo after leaving Greenore? Obviously it could not have been George Saunders, and the broadcast snippet of true 1960's Texas radio delivery as accessed above, was broadcast on Monday, May 18, 1964. That was long after the mv Mi Amigo had departed from Greenore. So if George Saunders was not in charge of the initial broadcast engineering, which seems likely due to the notice he would have to give to his employer at Marconi (assuming that he was still working there and did not quit before he went to Greenore, which seems to be an unlikely and imprudent thing to have done), then who was Bob Scott and his dj son 'Johnny Jackson' supposed to be turning to for broadcast engineering guidance? The answer is provided in writing by Allan James Crawford. Bob Scott and Johnny Jackson were Texans whose true identity was as father John Thompson and son Johnny Jackson. Allan Crawford sent this note out to Bob Scott on the mv Mi Amigo, with instructions that identified who was in charge of broadcast engineering:
Milan Leggett was the Engineer in Charge representing Gordon McLendon's broadcasting interests as owner of the mv Mi Amigo. Allan James Crawford did not own the ship, and neither did Project Atlanta Limited which was registered in London on August 1963. At the time of registration, that company did not have its heavy-weight board of directors that were added later; prior to December 1963 when the mv Mi Amigo departed from Galveston Island, Texas. The "Mr Thomas" that is referred to in Crawford's handwritten letter, is Alfred Nicholas Thomas who was working for Charles and John Stanley of the Pye Group of companies. Milan Leggett was in charge of McLendon's interests, and Thomas was in charge of the Pye interests. As if to put the McLendon 'stamp of ownership' on the mv Mi Amigo, the company registered in the UK by Allan James Crawford was named Project Atlanta Limited. There is the possibility that when Crawford originally began working on a broadcasting venture in 1962, with plans to use the Trinity House Vessel (THV) Satellite, he may have originally intended to call his station 'Atalanta' due to a Belgian connection. However, when Crawford's first attempt was doomed, his second attempt involved trying to humor Gordon McLendon, and thus Atalanta became 'Atlanta'. There is a certain amount of McLendon humor involved here. It was in the tiny town of Atlanta, Texas where McLendon went to school and began using its stadium speaker system as his foray into play-by-play commentary. To name the offshore station 'Radio Atlanta' after such an insignificant dot on the map, smacks of McLendon's version of Scottish humor where his Houston station call letters were KILT and illustrated with a tartan configuration, and where he referred to himself as 'The Old Scotchman', and not 'The Old Scotsman' referring to genealogy. We do know that Harry Spencer had been at Greenore prior to the evening of February 25, 1964, which is when he watched the Cassius Clay fight on TV with the locals. We also know that Planet Productions Limited was not even registered until two days after the fight on February 27, 1964. So who was paying Harry Spencer, and how where they paying him? For that answer we have to return to Spencer's summons to 47 Dean Street, in the Soho District of London. That meeting was called by Allan James Crawford, but it was not conducted by him. When Spencer arrived he first met Arthur Nicholas Thomas, and he grilled Spencer about erecting a mast on a ship that would be capable of supporting a radio broadcasting antenna. Then he met Captain De Jong Lanau, Superintendent of Wijsmuller Shipping and Towing, and Lanau had Ronan O'Rahilly in tow. But all of this was at Allan Crawford's offices and studio, and so far, nothing had happened. There were no secrets during this planning phase, and this was only the beginning of what would always develop as a joint project! But we know more! We know that Gilman was working with Thomas, even though he does not appear to have been present at the meeting. We also know that Thomas was working for Charles Orr Stanley and his son John Stanley and that they managed the Pye Group of companies. In addition, we know that Thomas and Gilman had previously worked on the GBOK project from the Pye facility at Sheerness. According to Spencer, it was Allan Crawford who called the meeting, but it was Captain De Jong Lanau who hustled Spencer off at short notice to Rotterdam. That is where he discovered that he was to work on two ships, and not one, and the first one was the mv Fredericia which was already in Rotterdam. He was then told about the mv Mi Amigo which had not yet docked in Spain after a voyage that began during the closing hours of 1963 from Galveston Island, Texas. Furthermore, we also learned from Spencer how he would be paid for his work on the mv Mi Amigo. Spencer was told to present his invoice to Captain De Jong Lanau of Wijsmuller! Clearly separate financial accounts had been created, but Crawford was working with Captain De Jong Lanau of Wijsmuller, and it was that company which coordinated all work performed on both the mv Caroline and the mv Mi Amigo, Concurrent with these activities was broadcast training for both ship stations that was also undertaken at Crawford's premises located at 47 Dean Street. All of Radio Caroline's early programming was created on tape in the top floor studio owned and controlled by Allan James Crawford. But it is that fable spun by David Block of Leslie Perrin and Associates public relations firm, which we will explain tomorrow. It is the same story that resulted in George Saunders claiming to have fired Ove Sjöström due to incompetence. But, it is also the same story that links Arthur Carrington to Alfred Nicholas Thomas via a long relationship. That connectivity of interests runs through the person of Charles Orr Stanley and his Pye Group of Companies! This is the story that we will elaborate upon tomorrow. We begin with the conundrum bolstered by Paul Rusling who produced the latest in a stream of totally fictitious works about the origins of Radio Caroline. He did so to avoid issues that had been brought to his attention within the 'Caroline Newsletter'. Rather than work with a research team to solve the problems that existed in the prevailing and accepted story, Rusling merely stole from the 'Caroline Newsletter' and private correspondence, and then he tried to hammer into several round holes an equal number of square pegs after which he abandoned those he did not know what to do with. But as we have revealed to date, several people who were in Greenore while both the mv Caroline and the mv Mi Amigo were there, have revealed their part in a joint working plan, although up until now, we have not specifically revealed the reasons for the plan, or how a team was assemble to implement it. Instead, for our part we have progressed unhurried and followed the pattern of a cold case crime investigation. We are carefully examining all of the evidence and then cross-examining statements to see where they are in agreement and supported by external contemporary sources, while observing where witnesses are merely guessing as to what happened. Because the scene shifts to Greenore, it is necessary to examine what Greenore is, and what Greenore is not, within the meaning of this story. Remember, we are dealing only in facts. The area of Greenore we are interested in, is that area that was at one time occupied by a railway terminus; a hotel, and a wharf connecting to a steamship ferry mainly transporting visitors and goods from the island of Great Britain, to the island of Ireland. Many writers have claimed that In 1964, the owner of the former railway terminus; hotel and wharf was an Irishman who was also the father of Ronan O'Rahilly. So, it is necessary to bury this myth once and for all time. Ronan's dad was about as Irish as a plastic shamrock made in the USA and sold by a franchised Woolworth's store operating in Eire. Ronan's dad was born in England and he married a U.S. citizen. They bought plans for the house they lived in near Dublin, which is where young Ronan grew up as one of their several children, from the Macy's department store in New York City, New York, USA. On the other hand, Charles Orr Stanley who looms big in this entire story that dates back to the beginning of broadcasting in the United Kingdom, is about as Irish as they come, even though he was a Protestant in a sea of Roman Catholics. So it will be necessary to track the business biography of both O'Rahilly Sr., who managed the building supply company that owned the semi-abandoned site at Greenore when the two ships docked there, as well as the Stanley family, and trace its Irish roots near Cork. But not now. Right now we want to remind readers of what we are doing and why we are doing it. We are still nailing down a solid timeline, which is a timeline that no other writer has ventured to accomplish. Go on, check it out. Name the book that has all of this in print for you to turn to: that's right, it does not exist! Why? Because all of the fake Radio Caroline books want to tell you that Atlanta and Caroline were two separate projects, and the only way they can do that is by jumping the page, or I should say jumping the months from August 1963 to March 1964. Oh, there are film clips from Greenore that appear to show what is going on at Greenore prior to March 1964, but they are very general and non-specific. It is the specificity of our own very accurate, and some might say very boring, methodical cold-case crime scene type of investigation that is now bringing you the real story for the first time. Tomorrow we go back to the investigation itself .... During the time that George Saunders was at Greenore, which appears to have been after Friday, March 13, 1964, since the mv Mi Amigo was already there, but as previously noted, it was before Tuesday, March 23, 1964, when the mv Caroline (ex-Iseult; ex-Fredericia) departed; Harry Spencer [shown left] was already at work on the mv Caroline. Spencer has often repeated to several people, an apocryphal tale involving the anti-English attitude of Aodogán O'Rahilly, who was the father of Ronan O'Rahilly. According to Spencer, not only did Aodogán O'Rahilly not like Spencer simply because he was English, but he would not even look at him when talking about him when Spencer was present. According to Spencer, Aodogán O'Rahilly turned his chair around so that only his back was visible to Spencer. This is most peculiar for several reasons. First of all Aodogán O'Rahilly was by birth an Englishman having been born at Hove near Brighton. Second, the impression that has been created is that Aodogán O'Rahilly owned a 'port' at Greenore, and his son Ronan negotiated its use for his own 'Caroline' project as well as the 'Atlanta' project of Allan James Crawford. But this is another apocryphal tale lacking veracity. We know that the 'Caroline' project was not originated by, or even managed by Ronan O'Rahilly who was but a convenient stooge thrown to the press by a PR firm. We also know that Greenore was neither a 'port' at the time, and neither was the land adjacent to the waterfront at Greenore, owned personally by Aodogán O'Rahilly. The true story is that the disused railway terminal at Greenore had been bought at auction several years before, by a building company managed by Aodogán O'Rahilly. At a second auction some time later, a disused railway hotel adjacent to the railway terminal had also been bought by the same building company which was not even located at Greenore. The plan for these auction purchases was to demolish all structures on the site; clear away the rubble, and then to build a new factory and use part of the land for the movement and parking of heavy duty trucks and trailers. However, the building materials company did not have the money to go ahead. This is where the 'useful stooge' named Ronan, was brought in to get his Irish Republican father to let 'friends' of his son go ahead and equip two ships at the water's edge, and to also use the adjacent land for construction purposes. To sell this idea to his father, Ronan did not refer to the name of an Englishmen, instead, he used the name of Australian Allan Crawford. Behind Crawford was an Irishman named Charles Orr Stanley who had extensive business interests in the Republic, and a family home near Cork. So when Spencer and other Englishmen started popping up at Greenore and Aodogán O'Rahilly got to hear of it, he was none too pleased. George Saunders does put his own visit to Greenore within the context of work already being carried out by Harry Spencer. Saunders also observed that as an Englishman he found the location to be somewhat unfriendly. While he was on the mv Mi Amigo at Greenore, Saunders was told that ".... we need quite a bit of work doing yet, it’s not ready to go. This ship has been on the air previously but the aerial has to be rigged." That remark referred to the ongoing work of Harry Spencer. Because Harry Spencer was the person who rigged the masts on both the mv Caroline and the mv Mi Amigo, it is helpful that Harry Spencer provided us with a time-marker. In his own account of work at Greenore which appears in the Appendix to Humphries' book (as noted earlier), Spencer says that he watched the famous "Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay" fight on television while he was at Greenore. The date of that boxing match was February 25, 1964. This date is also important because it provides for more inter-connectivity in this singular project involving two radio ships. That inter-connectivity is provided by details of the business relationships between Harry Spencer and John Howard Gilman and Allan James Crawford and Captain De Jong Lanau. Gilman seems to have been the second man in the broadcast team headed by Alfred Nicholas Thomas. It was Thomas who had retired from the BBC in 1959 and begun working for one of Charles Orr Spencer's Pye Group of companies. The first assignment Thomas had under this arrangement was to work on the VRON/CNBC project, but it failed due to lack of money on the Dutch side of the operation. Thomas brought in Gilman and then Gilman bought in Saunders for approval by Thomas. But it is even more interesting to note that Gilman performed work for both the mv Caroline and mv Mi Amigo, and that he could not have done so until Spencer had been hired by Captain De Jong Lanau! However, dependent upon all of that was the coordinated sailing of the mv Mi Amigo from Galveston, Texas with McLendon engineer Milan Leggett on board; and the almost simultaneous purchase of the mv Fredericia which was then towed by Wijsmuller from Copenhagen to Wijsmuller facilities near Rotterdam! Spencer explained in the Humphries' Appendix how he designed the custom-built masts for both the mv Caroline and mv Mi Amigo, to which he then attached antennas to each mast that had been designed by John Howard Gilman. We also know from the original account provided by Alan Bednall that was recovered from Wroughton archives, that the involvement by Charles Orr Stanley in masterminding all of this was regarded as 'top secret'. Even the board of directors of the Pye Group of companies in Cambridge were not aware of how this operation was being conducted on a military "need to know" basis. Everyone worked through intermediaries where necessary. We can trace the first meeting between Harry Spencer and Alfred Nicholas Thomas back to Allan Crawford's office/studio at 47 Dean Street in the Soho District of London. That is where Spencer met both Ronan O'Rahilly and Captain de Jong Lanau, Chief Superintendent of Wijsmuller Towing Company , for the very first time. We know now that Spencer was at Greenore with both Thomas and Gilman before Saunders arrived, and we also know that Spencer was at Greenore before February 25, 1964 when the Cassius Clay fight was televised, and thus we also know that Planet Productions Limited would not be registered for the very first time, and in Ireland, until two days after that famous boxing match. If Planet Productions Ltd did not exist until February 27, 1964, but both ships had been obtained during the closing hours of December 1963, and work was underway on both of them at Greenore; then, in the minds of most people who have been following this story, that would only leave Project Atlanta Limited as the driving force. But that company which had been registered in England during August 1, 1963, had only a skeleton board of directors at first, and the big money names did not join its board of directors until some time had passed, after that date. So who was really running this 'show'? More tomorrow .... |
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