A Formula For Disappearing: The Worlds of Bell Pottinger, Formula One and Editorial Intelligence Collide

A Formula For Disappearing: The Worlds of Bell Pottinger, Formula One and Editorial Intelligence Collide


Author [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (of 26/03/2010 @ 14:47:15, in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], viewed 113 times)


Back to the Ocean Club on the night of May 3rd 2007. One clue that might explain a possible lockdown and the ensuing maelstrom of misinformation, is served with the arrival of Alex Woolfall - Head of Issues and Crisis Management at Bell Pottinger and responsible (it is alleged) for limiting the commercial fallout on behalf of the Ocean Club in those first two weeks. According to his [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Alex had '20 years experience of public relations and specialises in helping companies in multiple sectors prepare for and respond to difficult or controversial issues, as well as manage actual crises'. His experience covers deliberate sabotage, allegations of corporate injury, death in the workplac, abduction and robberies and terrorist related activities. Woolfall flew to Portugal as part of the Mark Warner holiday company’s emergency response team on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Madeleine vanished on the evening of May 3. Just as they done with the now iconic Litvinenko image, Woolfall and Bell Pottinger rolled out the now equally famous image of Madeleine wearing a hat on a tennis court (I think we can say with some degree of certainty that Woolfall suggested Kate carry Cuddle Cat around to aggravate a similar emotional response from the public).



Unsusally, Alex Woolfall's arrival at Bell Pottinger was only announced in a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - just a few days prior to Madeleine's disappearence on the 3rd May. Much to the fortune of the Symington family and Mark Warner, Woolfall's first big break had come with ABTA - the Association of British Travel Agents - where Alex was Head of Public Relations. The move was especially fortunate given Warner's previous run-in with ABTA, a precarious chain events similarly involving child welfare and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for a time. A few months prior to Woolfall's arrival, he had contributed to an interview exploring the issues of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].


WEBER SHANDWICK, EDITORIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BELL POTTINGER WORLDS COLLIDE

Woolfall's previous empoyer had been Weber Shandwick, whose UK CEO, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] was hired by Peter Mandelson to advise UK Prime Minister Tony Blair during the 1997 and 2001 General Elections. Regaular readers of The Sargeants Inn may be interested to learn that Colin Byrne is [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the company founded by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and widely regarded as a cynical attempt to capitalise on the thin, blurry line between spin and journalism (and ostensibly to blur it even further).

In February 2010 Julia Hobsbawm and Tim Bell, the urbane founder of Bell Pottinger appeared on the BBC's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] programme fronted by Evan Davis in a general (and fairly flattering) discussion about the PR industry. The Podcast can be [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], whilst a report on Hobsbawm and Editorial Intelligence: A Cash For Comments Special [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Byrne and Weber Shandwick are also members of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] a platform developed by German software giants, SAP as an information and knowledge exchange between the leading security and risk management providers. Other members of the Alliance include [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], Kroll, Aegis and Erinys International, whose CEO, Major General John Holmes worked alongside Kevin Halligen at Inkerman during the period 2002-2004. The Alliance's website describes a broad range of tasks that include 'security esthetics, symbolic and mental defense, consensual manipulation, deep structural analysis and artistic personal protection'. Weber Shandwick also came under scrutiny when it was learned that the company was able to deploy 75 crisis management professionals around the country in support of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of the 9/11 crashes, leading to sepculation that they may have been acting on warnings provided beforehand. The claim was made on the company's website.

Like Michael Shrimpton's friends at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (the US Private Intelligence firm alleged to have prepared the Shrimpton Report) Weber Shandwick's HQ is based in Massachusetts. The 'former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee' who Shrimpton says requested the report as a largely informal exercise is likely to be either [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (Shrimpton's colleague at Washington DC's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and former Chair of Qinetiq) or [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - the man directly responsible for hiring [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - to work on the Minerva Programme with Qinetiq.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], who had been responsible for the expansion of Woolfall's previous company, Weber Shandwick in the late 1980s was CEO of Qinetiq until 2006 - when [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as response to criticism over the British Nimrod crash over Afghanistan in 2006. There have been several other exchanges of personnel between the two institutions over the years.

Shrimpton, you might remember, also provided legal assistance in the extradition proceedings of General Pinochet; Bell Pottinger orchestrated Pinochet's parallel [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Cambridge, Massachusetts - where Woolfall's previous employers are based - also featured in the life of disgraced Mi6 Officer, Richard Tomlinson, who like Halligen's friend Jonathan Stamper at Alpha Bravo and Watchwood Resources Ltd (Trafigura/Mohammed Abacha trials) served for five years in the Territorial Army's 21 SAS and in 23 SAS. The former Mi6 Officer jailed in 1997 for breaking the 1989 Official Secrets Act.

So when Kevin Halligen accuses Clarence Mitchell of being '[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]' it's perhaps not as absurd as you'd think.

FORMULA ONE, BELL POTTINGER, MAX MOSELY AND GERRY MCCANNS WORLDS COLLIDE

Bizarrely, Major General John Holmes, the man who worked alongside Kevin Halligen at Inkerman on the 'Minerva Programme' featured in not one but two other major news stories in recent years. His private intelligence company Titon International featured in both the Lithinenko affair in 2006 and the Max Mosely 'News of the World' scandal in 2008. The one time FIA President Max Mosley had been caught on film allegedly taking part in what UK tabloids characterized as a 'Nazi orgy' with five female prostitutes. John Holme's business partner, and co-founder of Titon International, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] told The Times reporter Edward Gorman that Mosley had been warned of a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by his collaborator, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. However, Attew's statement gets more complex when one considers that [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of being behind the smear campaign in the first place, leading some commentator's to suggest that Titon International may have played a small role themselves in the smear campaign against Mosely. Holme's partner, Dean Attew had once been employed by the Formula One rights-holder and had also advised Mosley.

Another of those accused of funding the smear-campaign were Mosley's rivals: the McLaren Motorgroup. McLaren boss Ron Dennis vehemently denied any involvement after being forced make a statement following an assertion on a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - an ally and friend of Mosely. The British-based motor racing outfit fined £48m by F1’s governing body, the International Automobile Federation (IAF), after it emerged one of its engineers was found with data belonging to rival team Ferrari. What's interesting about the story is that the Mclaren Group were represented during and after the case by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

A little time later Mi5 were implicated in the attempt to smear Mosley when it was learned that one of the prostitutes used in the plot was the wife of an Mi5 Officer. The [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Mosley's son, Alexander died at his desk asa result of a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Police did not treat it as suspicious. Eddie Jordan - a friend of the family - said he was 'devastated' by news of the death of the 'nice, young, very energetic, very, very clever boy.'

Mosely's estranged colleague, Bernie Ecclestone, famous for his 'Hitler wasn't all bad' statement, had also been a client of Carter Ruck - the litigation specialists used by the McCanns.

In yet another twist, both [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] gave evidence before a committee of MPs in Westminster to demand tighter press regulation. The 'unlikely pair' were being questioned for the culture, media and sport committee's ongoing inquiry into press standards, privacy and libel inquiry that took place in March 2009. Mosely - the son of British Nazi-sympathiser, Sir Oswald Mosley - had received £60,000 in damages from the News of the World and McCann had received £500,000 from the Express Newspaper Group - owned by right-wing Porn Baron, Richard Desmond. Asked by the committee why he and his family only took action against a single newspaper group, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by some distance but they could have easily sued more publishers. "That was not what we were interested in, we were interested in putting a stop to it first and foremost," McCann said. That the £500,000 the couple received in damages took the form oif a 'donation' to the Find Madeleine fund, has led some to speculate that the sum was in exchange for 'services rendered' - a reference perhaps to the Madeleine story having kept the newspaper afloat at a time when general sales were flagging (readers might be interested to learn that prior to his fronting the British Union of Fascists, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and his wife Diana Mitford had been respected members of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]).



TITON INTERNATIONAL, KEVIN HALLIGEN, JOHN HOLMES AND LITVINENKO WORLDS COLLIDE
As for the role played by Titon International in the mysterious death of Alexander Litvinenko, events are not entirely clear. Police found that Polonium traces were found in the offices of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]and Erinys International in London shorlty after Litvinenko had been taken ill. At the time of his death it was believed that the two offices (housed in the same building and both firms employing Halligen's former colleague, John Holmes) were both owned by Russian tycoon and oligarch Boris Berezovsky - a friend of Alexander. It was a claim that was later denied.

What Litvinenko was doing at either of the offices is not entirely clear. Some have speculated that he was working with Holmes and Erinys International - others that he was simply visiting friends. The lack of closure on this particular riddle has led to speculation that Litvinenko may have been involved in smuggling radioactive material into Central Europe with the expressed purpose of building a dirty bomb. His conversion to Islam in the days and months leading up to his death have led some to sepculate that his actions may have been in connection with the Chechen mujahideen - and his untimely death the a result of an accident during transportation. But whilst a self-inflicted death looks more than plausible (in light of the lighting-fast Public Relations campaign) any suggestion that he was carrying out activities for the Chechen mujahideen looks a little less compelling. Afterall would someone carrying out a covert mission for al queda really arouse suspicious by converting to Islam at such a critical time. Given that one of the last places Lithinenko is alleged to have visited was a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], one also has to question the sincerity of his beliefs. Is it more likely that it was a late and rather desperate attempt to provide some kind of cover-story?

Suicidal jihad seems unlikely but not impossible, but I'm more inclined to believe it was just another botched false-flag operation and that Litvinenko paid the ultimate price for his cynical meddling (did it never occur to anyone to ask why the Russians would use a murder weapon that was so very easy to trace? The equivalent of a radioactive breadcrumb-trail?). As outrageous as it sounds, such a theory might explain the almost incomprehensible schema of radioactive deposits. The evidence seems to suggest that the intitial (accidental) trail had another, more deliberate trail, superimposed onto the top of it - as if attempts had been made to apply some plot or motive onto a fairly casual and accidental series of movements through London.

Readers may be reminded that it was [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] again who handled the Publicity Campaign for Lithinenko. They were responsible for two defining images of the last few years of this decade: the tragic picture of Lithvinenko in his hospital bed and the 'last picture' of Madeleine McCann on the Tennis Courts (did Gerry or any of his colleagues at COMARE have access to nuclear tiggers like Polonium 210? I have no idea. Sounds terrifically unlikely).

Trivia

Doesn't the founder of Enfants Kidnappes - Pascal Tasset - have something to do with Motorsports?

Major General John Holmes who worked at Inkerman with Kevin Halligen between 2002-2004 - prior to forming Titon International and joining Erinys - worked on a counterterrorism report for the Metropolitan Police called 'Project Unicorn'. The report was co-authored by Paul Cardew - a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Harvard University (located in the neocon/CIA stomping ground of Cambridge, Massachusetts - home to Alex Woolfall's Weber Shadwick and so many of Halligen and Michael Shrimpton's wider circle - as well as disgraced Mi6 officer, Richard Tomlinson).

Cardew also served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary with Dave Edgar - the other Private Investigator hired by the McCanns. John Holmes has served with the Scots Guard - the same regiment as Raymond Hewlett 'witness' Peter Verran.

Like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (my alien's hamster ate Madeleine) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - Paul Cardew was also a member of the British Defence and Security think-tank, the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (RUSI) - where he had the position of Deputy Head.

As a result of 9/11 the last decade became a 'boom era' for Private Intelligence and Risk Assessment Companies. Luckily for the Metropolitan Police, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] had been hired on the morning of July 7th 2005 to conduct a crisis management drill at exactly the same time the bombings occurred.

In 2004 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] the Director of Visor Consultants, chaired two-days of talks entitled, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Paul Cardew was also on the panel.

Visor's clients include JP Morgan Chase, the Defence Investment Company who hired Tony Blair on his resignation as Prime Minister. A represenative of one of Morgan Chase's biggest investments, Northrop Grumann also joined Paul Cardew and John Holmes on the 'Project Unicorn' panel.
Paul Cardew was head of Britsh Transport Police until 2001.
Cardew is now Director of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - providing services in Health, Safety and Security.


links:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - Shrimpton alleges he produced the report for a US Homeland Security company headed up by Ilana and Richard Freedman - both of whom have links to Halligen's Intelligence associates in Washington and Boston. Very much a part of the John Loftus/Robert Katz/Michel Cherney [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - the darker side of neoconservatism. Little bit cautious about Shrimpton drawing the Gerrad Group into the frame though - as contentious as they are. Bait and Switch? One would suspect he'd be acting on behalf of private intelligence and security companies closer to home or more credible agencies in the US (I rather fancy someone along the lines of Inkerman, Control Risks or even Erinys Int).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]