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This article appears in the January 6, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

What's a `Rohatyn'?

by Tony Papert

Researched by a team coordinated by Pierre Beaudry.

When a proposal of Felix Rohatyn's appeared in the Washington Post of Dec. 13, 2005, counterposing his own plan, to Lyndon LaRouche's well-known proposals for national economic recovery through long-term, low-interest Federal credits for vital infrastructure-building, leading Congressional Democrats tended at once to realize that there was something "fishy" in what Rohatyn was suggesting, but many were unsure about exactly what was wrong with it.

Small wonder.

Most Americans, even among those who imagine that they have known him for many years, lack any understanding of who or what Felix Rohatyn is. Why? Because Rohatyn is neither an American, nor does he resemble anything which more than very few living Americans have ever knowingly encountered. Not only does he belong to a species—the European Synarchist—with which they have not the slightest acquaintance. Worse, their ignorance of European history, or, what is the same thing, the dumbed-down, flat-earth versions of history which they have swallowed, leave no room for the even possible existence of such a species as Rohatyn's.

What is the European Synarchist? A definition will be provided, but first, given the cults of stupidity which pervade our society, first it is necessary to demonstrate that something exists "out there" to be defined.

The U.S. diplomat, Ambassador Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., wrote to President Roosevelt from London on Jan. 7, 1942, describing a clique which controlled the fascist Vichy government of France, the government which (more or less) ruled that country everywhere south of the German zone of direct occupation. "This group," he said, "should be regarded not as Frenchmen, any more than their corresponding numbers in Germany should be regarded as Germans, for the interests of both groups are so intermingled as to be indistinguishable; their whole interest is focussed upon furtherance of their industrial and financial stakes."[1]

Ambassador Biddle went on to detail the proof that the "Banque Worms clique" controlled most parts of the Vichy government, with a special emphasis on total control over all economic and related portfolios. On paper, Banque Worms had been established earlier by the Lazard Frères bank of Paris, on behalf of the Worms family of industrialists. In reality, the closely integrated Lazard Brothers bank of London, Lazard Frères of Paris, and Lazard Freres of Wall Street, had established Banque Worms as a "cutout," a vehicle through which top financier families could deploy the forces of the Synarchy.

Lazard Paris, where Rohatyn's patron André Meyer was a leading senior partner, was intertwined with certain other leading French banks, and integrated into the treasury and finances of the state, in large part because of its intimacy with Lazard Frères of New York, on Wall Street, and Lazard Brothers (London), which latter was part of the inner circle of financiers around the monarchy and around Bank of England head (and Hitler bankroller) Montagu Norman. Lazard London's Lord Robert H. Brand, a senior managing partner in the early decades of the century, had founded the British Round Table for these circles in 1906-09. Brand and Lazard Brothers president Sir Robert Molesworth Kindersley, were the British representatives to the Dawes Committee to reorganize the German debt in 1923, and so forth.

As a senior partner, and then also (1938-40) associate manager of Lazard Frères of Paris, André Meyer was very close to the center of the France-centered Synarchist conspiracies which had brought fascism to power in Italy (1922), Portugal (1932), Germany (1933), Spain (1939), and other countries. In France itself, the Synarchy tried and failed to overturn the Third Republic in three successive putsch attempts between 1928 and 1937, even while "burrowing from within" and infiltrating successive Paris governments at the same time. These were Marshall Lyautey's intended putsch in Alsace-Lorraine in 1928, aided by pro-fascist clergy, which would have paved the way for a takeover of Paris; Colonel LaRocque's planned storming of the Parliament at the head of his Croix de Feu (Cross of Fire), seconded by Charles Maurras' Action Française, on Feb. 6, 1934; and finally, a putsch attempt apparently led by the Cagoules ("hooded ones," right-wing goon squads), which was exposed and aborted on Feb. 17, 1937. At last, by 1940, the Synarchy's only recourse had been to invite the German Reichswehr in, to do what they could never do themselves: to sweep away the hated Third Republic, along with probably hundreds of thousands of its supporters.

This was the great "mystery" of how France could fall to the Germans in six weeks. The Synarchy effectively disarmed the country and prevented effective resistance. This is well documented by Robert "Raoul" Husson, whose writings and clippings form the bulk of the Mennevee Archive of the University of California at Berkeley, "les Documents Politiques Diplomatiques et Financiers," and by other investigators. Husson and others also document that the 1.9 million French troops who were outflanked and helplessly taken back to Germany as prisoners, had been largely selected for that role by a Synarchist military intelligence operation headed by the pseudonymous "P. C. Victor," under which 60 French fascists were brought into a "Cinquième Bureau" to profile 600,000 anti-fascist or pro-republican Frenchmen supposedly considered a "danger to national defense." Many of the 600,000 who escaped German captivity in this first round, were sent to Germany later as forced laborers, under a program proposed by Pierre Laval, through which (pro-fascist) prisoners of war were released back to France, on condition that (anti-fascist) forced laborers be sent from France, to take their places in the German munitions factories.

Having fled to New York from his own golem, as it were, in 1940, this was the André Meyer who later adopted the fellow Jewish refugee, the Viennese Felix Rohatyn, to succeed him in place of his own son Philippe, of about the same age as Rohatyn, who had wisely refused.

What Rohatyn did to his adopted city of New York between 1975 and 1982, as sketched in an accompanying article by Richard Freeman, proves that old André Meyer was right: young Rohatyn did indeed have the makings of a European Synarchist of the same mold as himself.

Ambassador Biddle continued, "On the one hand, Pierre Pucheu (Interior) and Yves Bouthillier (National Economy) were members of the Worms clique. Gérard Bergeret (Secretary of State for Aviation) was included by some among Pétain's personal following, by others among the Worms group. Excluding Bergeret, the Secretaries of State were almost to a man associates of the same clique. They were Jacques Barnaud (Delegate-General for Franco-German Economic Relations), Jérôme Carpopino (Education), Serge Huard (Family and Health), Admiral Platon (Colonies), René Belin (Labor), François Lehideux (Industrial Production), Jean Berthelot (Communications) and Paul Charbin (Food Supply).... Among the Worms group should be mentioned further a large number of somewhat subordinate officials (chiefly secretaries-general) like Lamirand, Borotra, Ravalland, Bichelonne, Lafond, Million, Deroy, Filipi, Schwartz, and Billiet' " loc cit.

Although the name Synarchy was invented by Joseph-Alexandre Saint-Yves, called D'Alveydre (1842-1909), its occult secret organization, the freemasonic Martinist Order, had existed long before, formed in France, centered in Lyon, in the 1770s. This exclusive, secret, magical-mystical Freemasonic order was sponsored from Jeremy Bentham's London. London used it to insure that no version of the American Revolution and Republic would occur in Europe, specifically in France, which was most ripe for it. Manipulations of the Martinist Order were largely to blame for the fact that the French Revolution became the bloody tragedy it did, right through the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte, and through to that of his nephew, Napoléon III.

Notable 18th-Century Martinists in French politics included the Pierre Mesmer whom Franklin and his French ally Sylvain Bailly exposed as a scientific fraud. Another was the mountebank magician and psychic who called himself Cagliostro. The blood-drenched Savoyard nobleman Joseph de Maistre preplanned the personality and role of Napoléon Bonaparte, modelling it on the Spanish Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada who expelled the Jews in 1492. Although his moral doctrines were those of a Caligula, and Sir Isaiah Berlin dubbed him "the first fascist," Maistre is revered by many contemporary Catholic integrists.

Moving to the early Twentieth Century, the most powerful known organizations of French Synarchy, the Synarchist Movement of Empire (SME) and its military wing, the Secret Revolutionary Action Committee (SRAC), were founded in 1922, coincident with Mussolini's March on Rome. Writing in La France Intérieure in February-March, 1945, investigator "D.J. David" (Robert "Raoul" Husson) defined the SME as "the great French fascist secret society. It is this institution which, ever since its creation, had been recruiting patiently and prudently, with extreme care, the men destined to take power after the awaited revolution, after this revolution which was to destroy, no matter what, all republican institutions."

He classified the SME as an "intermediary" secret society, as follows. "Inferior secret societies are those that everybody knows about,... Whoever wants to join them, for personal reasons, can do so. All he has to do is to submit a request at the address of the secret society, generally known, or he transmits his request to a known member.... Such secret societies are very numerous." David mentions the Masons, the Cagoulards ("hooded ones," a right-wing goon squad), the Theosophists and others, concluding, "in the inferior secret societies, the ideologies put forward, whatever they are, are nothing but philosophical, religious, mystical, or political teasers which recruit people who are generally personally disinterested and sincere."

He continues, "The intermediary secret societies have a completely different structure. They are, to say it bluntly, infinitely more secret than the inferior ones. Their names and their existence are less generally known, except in rare cases. More important, their members are unknown.

"Consequently, an individual cannot simply request membership in these secret societies, and their method of recruitment is not the same as in the inferior secret societies. You have to be chosen by a secret member, who chooses you without your knowing it. It is not the candidates who ask for membership [but, rather], it is a superior secret recruiting committee which decides to attempt to recruit this or that person.

"From that moment on, a whole tactical approach is put forward: the person is invited from among ordinary groups, during lunches, meetings, small committees, etc.; the recruiter must outwit the candidate and study him; and then, when the situation is ripe, the existence of the secret group is revealed to him, and the member is recruited right then and there....

"Within the intermediary secret societies, there is no need to use teasers, or camouflage ideologies. There is no international humanitarian propaganda as in the Freemasonry, or any ridiculous nationalist appeals as in the Cagoule, or any mystical illuminations as in Theosophy. This is deemed useless, given the level of culture in the members. The themes are sometimes political or philosophical, such as organizing the world, and the dignity of human life, etc...."

Elsewhere, the author notes that intermediary secret societies "are used primarily for penetrating the institutions of the state."

"The superior secret societies are still more secret, if I may say so, than the intermediary secret societies. Neither their name, nor their existence, nor the names of their members are known. In general, they contain only a small number of members, no more than one or two hundred, and sometimes less, but assembling in their hands either immense political powers, or immense capital.

"These secret societies are behind the intermediary secret societies. They organize them, inspire them, finance and direct them, often without the knowledge of the latter.

"There exists a set of converging proofs that lead one to think that at least two such superior secret societies are in existence today.

"The first one was formed in earlier times by a powerful group of representatives of the main ruling families of Europe, as well as the members of the high nobility....

"On the other hand, a second secret society of this type, which has been in existence for at least a quarter of a century [i.e., since 1920—ed.], in Europe, unites a large portion of the industries in France, and in the United States, less in England. Proof of its activities has been found as early as 1924, and its existence is no longer deniable. It secretly directs the Synarchist Movement inside the biggest countries, and seemed to have been in very close contact with the European fascist governments which have emerged since 1922."

Explosive Revelations

During the six-week phony war and thereafter, explosive revelations concerning Synarchy shake France, coincident with a series of deaths related to Jean Coutrot, probably its most active known organizer, who had created hundreds of front organizations of professionals, scientists, women, and what-not else during the interwar years. Here is the account of the same D.J. David. (Other writers give different versions, but the differences are not material for our purposes.)

"After revelations were made about the activities of the SME, the secretary of Coutrot, Frank Théallet dies in a hospital of Saint-Brieuc, on April 23, 1940. His personal papers are stolen while his effects are being moved after his death. Twenty-six days after, Jean Coutrot commits suicide in his home, after he had expressed, to some of his closest friends, the terrible remorse that was haunting him, because of the misery his revolutionary action had brought to his fatherland. One month later, the new secretary of Coutrot, Yves Moreau, dies mysteriously in his home. And a few weeks later, the brother-in-law of Coutrot dies of a heart attack. The emotions run high in the synarchist gang, but a heavy silence covers up this series of singular events....

"On August 23, 1941, the thunderbolt strikes: the newspaper L'Appel publishes, under the name of two collaborators, Costantini and Paul Riche, a special issue concerning the revelations of the SME. The reaction from Vichy is immediate: the Minister of Interior [Paul Pucheu of the Worms clique-ed.] issued five arrest warrants against Costantini and Paul Riche, and three other journalists of that newspaper, using the argument that their action was 'disturbing the anti-communist policy.' loc cit

Characteristic such revelations concerned the "Revolutionary Synarchist Pact," which was the signed secret oath of allegiance, as it were, of each SME member. "The Revolutionary Synarchist Pact appeared in the form of a roneographic document of a hundred pages, with a characteristic luxury gold-plated cardboard binding. It was given to each member, against a signed receipt. On the first page, one reads an ominous warning: 'Any illicit possession of this document will incur unlimited sanctions.'....

"Each Synarchist pact document is identified with two numbers similar to a Martinist procedure." The meaning is what Robert Husson wrote in a July 14, 1944, memo: that the mode of membership of the SME was the same as that of the Martinist Order, called chain membership: that each member receives two numbers: his own, and that of the member who recruited him. That is the only person with whom he may discuss the work of the Movement or Order, and the only other person who he knows is a member of it."

Of the 598 propositions, David quotes only a relative few, of which:

"Proposition 121: All current revolutionary effort of the Revolutionary Synarchist Brotherhood (RSB) which inspires the Synarchist Movement of Empire (SME) is thus oriented toward taking over the control of the state; everything must concur to the taking of power, or coming to power.

"Proposition 255: Preventive revolution must be established at the heart of the state, and be assisted by a Synarchist elite, which is entirely devoted in a spirit of sacrifice.

"Proposition 344: The organized hierarchy of professions is the fundamental instrument of the effective Synarchist revolution; its best technical means.

"Proposition 308: Outside of the organized hierarchy of professions, there can exist only an abstract pseudo-citizen

  • "Dangerous for the people whom he frightens;

  • "Dangerous for the state that he loots, weakens and corrupts;

  • "An abstract pseudo-citizen in a constant conflict with a state which is anarchistic, no matter what regime is in power."

Proposition 505 asserts that "the imperial conscience requires for its exaltation the concerted activity of a Synarchist Party of Empire." This party "must be recognized by the constitution," (Proposition 507), "must be the only political party federally extended unilaterally to all of the countries of the Empire," (Proposition 508) and must "remain the inspiration and the censor of all of the orders and of all of the sectors of activity of life in the Empire." (Proposition 510).

Proposition 113 asserts that the concrete reality of immediate needs requires the control of the following economic organisms:

  • "Agreements between consumers or users;

  • "Agreements between distributors of products or services;

  • "Agreements between producers;

  • "Finally, the bringing together of these diverse sorts of agreements forming themselves and perfecting themselves under the protection of the public powers."

Proposition 405 prescribes the separation of powers between five powers: the cultural, the judiciary, the executive, the legislative, and the economic.

Proposition 314 clarifies this separation of powers by specifying that

"The role of the political state must never be:

"A) In economic property (soil, subsoil, energy sources, raw materials, means of production or distribution, enterprises of profitable material services, or financial capital, etc.)

"B) Or direct management of one or the other elements of economic life of the people in one of the other of these nations of empire."

Finally, Propositions 441-444 specify that the entire synarchist economy is based on the use of plans of coordination and direction. These plans are established by a "Bureau of Planification, which is the center and qualified chief of popular democracy in the synarchist social order, the economic coordinator of the group of free popular republics: regional, communal, and professional."

London coordination of the French Synarchy continued throughout this period, with the Occult Bureau and the British Fabian Society playing a notable role. After the demoralizing defeat of the 1934 putsch attempt we described above, the Synarchy tried to recoup by bringing the Fabians over from London, and bringing hundreds of Synarchists out of the woodwork, to call in unison for a radical reform of the French Constitution, curtailing the legislative powers, enhancing the executive, limiting national sovereignty, and enhancing "integral human relations between complete human beings, not between simple units of production and consumption."

This "Plan of July 9, 1934," written by Jules Romain, led to the creation, in 1936, of the Centre d'Études des Problèmes Humains (Center for the Study of Human Problems), created by Jean Coutrot and run by the infamous Dr. Alexis Carrel and Dr. Serge Tchakhotine, and, in 1938, of the Institute for Applied Psychology (IPSA). These French institutions were run by the British Fabian Society, and personally managed by Aldous Huxley on location in France. Husson wrote that the central focus of the IPSA was the "destruction of the human personality," transforming humans into "modified individuals" with the use of drugs and surgical intervention, "especially sterilization and castration."

You hadn't forgotten, had you, that H.G. Wells, of "The Island of Dr. Moreau," was the godfather of the Huxley boys, Aldous and Julian?

Meanwhile, in 1933, H.G. Wells and Aldous and Julian Huxley had already created a brother British Synarchist organization in London, called the Federation of Progressive Society and Individuals (FPSI). In their published Manifesto, they wrote:

"Then came 1931, and there was an operation planned to bring Germany into the dictatorship-world empire scheme. The British monarchy was behind it; others were behind it; people in New York were behind it. Initially the understanding of the Anglo-American supporters of this fascist project—which was largely based in France, actually, around firms like Lazard Frères and so forth. But the intent of the project was to have the Germans re-arm, and destroy the Soviet Union. While Germany was embedded in Russia, in the process of trying to [defeat] the Soviet Union, then, the allies—France and Britain—intended to jump on Germany's rear, and crush Germany, and be rid of the Soviet Union at the same time, and set up world dictatorship."[2]


[1] William L. Langer, Our Vichy Gamble (New York: The Norton Library, 1947), p. 169.

[2] Manifesto (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1934).

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