Friday, June 25, 2004

LeWinter's Moon

Well, I did the Google News thang on the Reverend Moon, and up popped a story on the newly-crowned Messiah written by Oswald LeWinter, one of the more fascinating footnote characters of our time.

You probably don't know the name. You may recall, however, that there was a fellow who tried to sell a forged document to Mohammed Al Fayed. The document, which came at a very hefty price, allegedly revealed the ghastly truth behind the deaths of Al Fayed's son and Princess Diana. LeWinter was the man behind the scam; he was caught, and did time.

During the Vietnam war, LeWinter was a professor at U.C. Berkley -- an expert on Shakespeare, as I recall. He befriended at least one leader of the anti-war movement. At the same time, he was relaying info to the feds. In the years since, he has claimed to be either a general or an intelligence operative. Reportedly, he was friendly with CIA man George Cave.

Using the name "Razin," he provided researchers with "inside" info on the October Surprise scandal. Later, before a congressional committee, he admitted that he had been lying. Although the October Surprise story was confirmed by more reliable sources -- including French intelligence head Alexandre de Marenches, Russian prime minister Sergei V. Stepashin, Israeli secret agent Ari Ben-Menashe, former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and former Israeli prime minister Yitshak Shamir -- LeWinter's odd games deep-sixed official inquiry into the event.

He is, in short, a very strange man. He now writes for a somewhat loopy (okay, very loopy) conspiracy site, where he has turned out stories with names like "Bush-Cheney Cabal: Pedophilia, Arms Dealing, Murder." His Moon piece seems fairly good. Even so, when dealing with a shady fellow like LeWinter, caveat lector!

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