Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History (52 page)

—
I assume Otto was not pleased.

He was not pleased at all, that’s putting it mildly.

—
This was when you went back to see him the second time, when you told him this?

The second time, right. I had suggested to him, I don’t remember if this is the second or third time, about the time that … and I got together about doing our own book about him. He was very excited about this and the possibility of doing the movie, and he says he has to approve this and he has to have the right to … he’s making all kinds of changes. I’d gone to my attorney and written up a contract, and he didn’t like it.

—
The contract was concerning what?

The books and the magazines and everything to handle about his experiences. He insisted all this is going to deal with is about World War II, and you can’t tell him “Who cares, that part’s only been written about probably a million times.” We were getting along and things were developing; I wasn’t going to fiddle around too much about that.

—
For what reason did you actually go to Madrid the second time?

Basically to give him the information about ComSat, to report on B. and to see how far we could develop this. I was getting very interested in developing something with him, particularly when I saw he had confidence in me.

He looked over ComSat and liked what he saw. I think that this was just to see how much I could find out, and how willing I was to fill him in on company business.

He liked particularly the way I do things in a company, not just the standard data of their financial reports, but the personal asides, and this is particularly what they like. Peculiarities of people that work in a company, be they in the sex line, the drug line, dealing on the side with another business — all the things that are not usually published, but may be no more than rumors.

—
How much time was there between the first and second and third visits to Madrid?

About nine months between the first and second, about four-five months between the second and third.

—
What was the result of his being impressed with the work you’d done?

We’re not talking about SS, World War II, we’re talking about business that had nothing to do with that period. At least I didn’t think so. We’d talk about German industry. He’d talk about youth, about how German youth just “don’t have any pride,” that they’re not paying attention to business anymore. When he was in Germany on one of his visits when I was gone, he’d had a real verbal row, and he took great pleasure in being able to tell me he’d put down these German youths who were espousing modern thinking. “This is all wrong,” he’d say.

He started to talk about the Messerschmidt-Volkau-Blum, a very large consortium for the aircraft industry, everything from designing air parts to the entire aircraft, doing sub-assemblies; they did the sub-assemblies on the A-300, they did it on the Concorde. They did relatively minor work on that. At that time they were just developing the XM-1, the new main battle tank for the United States. Germany was supposed to supply the power plant to it. It turned out that Chrysler would supply the power plant.

You had this amalgamation of the three main countries, Germany, United States and Britain supplying various parts to the battle tank, so since they’re all partners in NATO, if something developed, their parts would be interchangeable. We started talking about Chrysler, and he had the German psyche, which he really typifies, he has to be on top or he didn’t like it. That was the main thing about the McDonnell-Douglas thing. Mainly because B. was with McDonnell-Douglas. He seemed to hedge around that, initially, but he knew, or felt he knew me well enough to discuss it. He was very very very upset. With the coming in ‘71 of the airshow in Paris, he wanted me to see that and report back on that.

He wanted me to go to the Paris airshow and to talk to this other man. This was the third trip. He had, evidently, they all had, paranoid feelings that people are out to get them and everyone crosses everybody, which isn’t all that far from the truth. Everyone is jockeying for position, trying to protect themselves. He says, “I want you to check this S., get him to talk. What I’m going to do now…” and he took out this business card — you saw it [photocopy in possession] and put the signature on the card that authenticates it, and then on the back. He said if I had any trouble, he wanted me to go, anytime, to this very day to the SS organization in Ludenscheid, and they will give me any aid that I need.

Beginning with the DC-10 operation, [it] is typical in that it was for economic purposes. The Organization, first of all, wished to promote their own involvement with the Airbus, as opposed to the DC-10. Where that were not possible or practical they would use extortion in the form of payments per aircraft — DC-10, 747, LI0-11 — for every one sold they would receive a portion of those funds. In regards to the DC-10, the initial period of approximately nine months to a year payments were made.

—
By who?

Individuals within McDonnell-Douglas. Within the corporation during the initial development stages and initial sales there were two employees of McDonald-Douglas who provided data on design criteria, possible sales to be made, directly to the Organization and, in reverse, the Organization through these two men could influence possible sales and design criteria in the aircraft. The first of these two men, his name is S. He operated out of Geneva, Switzerland, and was initially the financial and merchandising extension of McDonnell-Douglas, their representative. The other gentleman who worked directly out of the Los Angeles area was B. He directly had access to and influence through individuals to gain information on design criteria and sales, and to directly input data on design material into the aircraft and merchandising methods. The DC-10, the payments were made during the initial design and sales principally through the airshow of 1971 in Paris at Le Bourget Field where the show was held at that time.

I went up to see S. Obviously, I could not use Skorzeny’s card to get into the airshow. I was up there for Press Day, and at that time, no public was allowed in, only journalists with credentials. I went in there and they had a booth at the entrance at Le Bourget Field. They had what they called chalets, temporary buildings lined up in staggered form, and I went to the McDonnell-Douglas one and said I wanted to see S. The receptionist called him over, and I said, “I would like to interview you for a story.”

—
S. is an employee of McDonnell-Douglas?

Representing McDonnell-Douglas. He won’t show on their employee lists as such. He’s the one working out of Geneva, where he can make a buck, put it that way. He works for a number of companies. We went in and sat down, and I said, “Otto Skorzeny wanted me to speak with you.” He called over a maid, all sort of semi-private, where no one was listening. He says, “What do you want?” I said, “Oh, I think I’ll have a bourbon. He’s becoming very, very — anything I wanted, now that he knows who I’m from. I said, “What about how things are going? Otto’s very concerned. I’m merely passing this on. I don’t have any authority, but he’s very upset, so how do you see it?” He says, “There seem to be problems with the engine development…”

—
What engines are you talking about? The DC-10?

Right. This is before anything developed about crashes or anything. He said, “Well, there’s no problem at all. There’s been discussion [about] the GE engines… We had a bit of delivery problem with the GE engine, but there’s no problem on delivery.” He started to mention he didn’t know how much I knew. I told him I don’t know that much about what’s been going on, merely trying to carry information, that I’m a conduit, a telephone, if you will, between you and Otto. He was showing his concern. He said, “There’s no problem aside from the slight delivery problem on the engines.” It’s very difficult to put this in words — he was trying to explain that there were problems, evidently in payoffs.

We know now that there had been a problem, regarding the Turkish airliner that went into the tank in Paris on takeoff, and the initial problem with the DC-10 regarding the rear latch on the door. If it’s not closed properly then the door can come out, causing immediate decompression.

—
The [sabotaged] Turkish airliner was a couple of years after this, wasn’t it? ‘73 or ‘74?

The company knew there was a problem. He said, “I know they’re concerned about that. I know the Organization is interested in the money alone. They wanted to push theirs, lacking the ability to sell their own, which they were not prepared to do at that time. The A-300 was not ready to fly. They had nothing more than a mockup in ‘71. So since theirs wasn’t ready, then McDonnell-Douglas would pay, since they’re the direct competitor. They were looked on more as a competitor than the Boeing, since the Boeing… at that time the 707 had been in service for quite a long time, and they were looking for replacements. It developed that there wasn’t real replacement but little more than augmenting the 747 with the A-300, which has sold marginally, and with the [DC-] 10 which has done so-so, certainly in light of what has happened.

He finally started talking, searching me out: how much does he know about payments? I’m thinking: payments? What is this about payments? I was a bit puzzled. I said, “Well, what about the payments?” “Well, there seems to be a problem now with Lockheed being investigated for their possible loan and whether they’ll get a loan from the U.S. Government; guarantees. There’s a little too much heat on the aircraft industry, and they’re balking, they’re not making payments.” He started to explain, in very simple terms, that McDonnell-Douglas had been approached to pay, and was balking because of this investigation and the heat on the industry. I said, “Well, what do you expect me to do?” and he said, “Let Otto know.” In retrospect it makes a great deal of sense.

—
Could you elaborate on the specifics of the extortion of McDonnell-Douglas prior to this event [the induced crashes of DC-10 aircraft] and, specifically, how it was done, for how long and payments and amounts? You had mentioned that there was an Airbus which was competing, could you explain the whole groundwork on that?

The Airbus was developed and sold through a consortium of French and German manufacturers. They perceived the new generation of aircraft to be middle-range and still large-bodied aircraft, an improvement on the Boeing. They were aware that Lockheed and also Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas were also developing that, however, the costs were deemed too heavy for a single European interest to go it alone and consequently this association was developed. I use this word “developed” and it certainly was encouraged by the German side, who because of the DC-10, which will be explained, wished to profit from this and did not wish to tie up a great deal of their own capital in it.

—
When you say “German side,” who are you referring to?

Messerschmidt-Volkau-Blum.

—
At what point was the decision made, and how was it made, to extort or coerce McDonnell-Douglas?

In the embryonic stages of this, in ‘71, the German interests did see that the DC-10, the L-1011, the other possible competitors were far advanced, would be direct competition, and they could not go it alone, could not be the first of the new generation of aircraft, and it was decided there were two options. Either through extortion or, if necessary, through the accidents that took place. The [methods] of the accidents as they developed were not known in ‘71, but they were developing some ideas. The biggest problem in developing an accident is the accident must not appear to be the work of a terrorist because that would not show on the integrity of the aircraft.

—
The accidents were to discredit…

The aircraft itself, yes.

—
So they decided to start with extortion. How did they start this?

My knowledge is that D., the representative of McDonnell-Douglas in Geneva, who was the direct Organization man on this — had during the development of the DC-10 worked with B., who also had worked with Lockheed, in direct input and output on design. They knew what was happening and when it was happening and how far it was along. They were surprised in one regard when they saw how deliveries were to be made. They were further advanced than the information had been coming. The information had been coming solely through B. and S. directly to the Organization. The multiple options were discussed and it took a while to do it because if they could avoid the ‘accidents’, they wished to do that. It was not an ego thing, it was dollars and cents, pounds, whatever. They had worked on the extortion from approximately ‘71 till about ‘76. Up to ‘76 it was not considered a problem. They had run a test, one test, done without notification to McDonnell-Douglas. There was no attempt to extort at all, regarding the DC-10 that crashed in Paris. That was well-known to be, at least on the face of it, the failure of the hatch door which caused structural failure of main members in the floor of the aircraft on which passengers were on.