INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MARCH 6, 1995

On March 6, 1995, I interviewed Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts [CCCC] by telephone. The following is my transcription of that interview. Note that in this interview I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or some of the statements of Mr. Skolnick.

-- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-chief, Conspiracy Nation

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SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I looked in the Tsar file...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...and I sent you a copy of a very rare article from the Chicago Tribune that ran in one edition, in '70.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I put it in the mail Saturday; you should get it.

It says that documents were released, apparently after 50 years (this is 1970, in the article)...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...that the Tsar and the Tsarina, and their family, actually were not murdered but were rescued by the British royalty, their cousins.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. And my guess is that the copyright would've expired on that, so I could just, say, type it out and probably put it on the Internet.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I wouldn't worry about the copyright. I wrote a letter to the editors a year ago about that article, and they've never acknowledged at the [Chicago] Tribune, or responded, or ran it, or anything.

They....... Two things: they released fraudulent details, I believe them to be fraudulent, that some bones, otherwise not identifiable, in the bottom of a mine shaft in Siberia...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...that they did DNA tests on it and they said that those were the Tsar, the Tsarina, and the children.

False. It's false.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Secondly, the guy, Richards -- some guy gave you an e-mail back that there was a book showing that Alexei Romanov [gives spelling]... But the book by a guy named Richards, O.K.? Alexei told me about this 21 years ago! Richards is the pen name of a former gestapo official.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Would you expect a former gestapo official to tell you the truth!?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
No.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What has been published, over the last 30 years and so on, in various books...

Alexei used a Polish name: Michael Golenieski. Michael Golenieski was a top official of the Polish counter-intelligence. O.K.? And, according to published accounts, when he defected -- during the time that he arrived in this country in January of '61, a few days before JFK was inaugurated as the President. He was inaugurated January 20th, '61. O.K.?

He -- Golenieski -- arrived between the November '60 election, and the January '61 inauguration. By special act of Congress he was made a U.S. citizen and promised $100,000 per year. He has been only getting $5,000 per year. But, the reason he was very useful to American Intelligence: his information was so accurate that over 400 Soviet spies were identified in the West and arrested. So how much of a charlatan and a liar could he be!?

O.K. This guy Richards, which is a pen name for an apparent gestapo official, left over from the Second War, is not to be trusted! The books that are to be trusted are Anthony Summers', the -- I believe the name of his book is The Rescue of the Tsar... [The File on the Tsar by Anthony Summers & Tom Mangold, New York: Harper & Row, 1976]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...and another book -- I don't know the author -- but it's called Imperial Agent. And it tells how the Tsar, the Tsarina, and the children were rescued through Vladivostok. And they went all the way around, with a British cruiser, ended at Malta. And the Tsar and his wife and the children took up residence in Poland. And Alexei was given a false name -- Michael Golenieski. He was trained in Marxism, and became a top Polish Intelligence official at the time, right after the Second War, when Russia took over the Warsaw government.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And so he knew all the Soviet spies, which he successfully identified -- including, I think there was a spy who purportedly was a Swede, name (if my memory serves) Wennerstrom.

But there's things published. So anybody named Richards that says that he's a charlatan, doesn't know.

Besides which, in '70, there was a raft of British documents released which the Tribune, in a wire service story, referred to -- that I sent you a copy of, O.K.?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And these documents show it is most likely that the Tsar and the family were rescued.

And the name of William Wiseman, a U.S. diplomat (I don't have the article in front of me; I sent it to you)... But William Wiseman, he was given money to facilitate this by President Woodrow Wilson. That's referred to in the article.

So anybody that says that Alexei is a charlatan and a fraud does not know the pertinent details.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I spent two entire days questioning him. The man has got a profound understanding of American history. For example, he knows about the Alaska purchase in 1867, how it was done at midnight. And it was called, "Seward's Folly".

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Yeah, O.K. It's fairly well-known it's called "Seward's Folly", but as far as it bein' done at midnight, I had never heard that.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh yeah. It was done through a strange bank in D.C. at midnight.

Alexei has got a profound understanding of history.

And the reason, the reason... And when you read this article, that the Tribune has never recanted or renounced, you'll see why. Because if, if the major media were to reveal this major fraud of the 20th century, they'd have to re-do a lot of history books. Why? The Romanov family -- not as the Tsar, but the private gold fortune...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, it went to Rockefeller.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. To the Chase Bank, which later became the Chase Manhattan Bank.

If you know anything about numbers and compound interest, that $400 million, at $20 an ounce [in 1918]...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...and now it's $376 an ounce, for gold. And compounded interest -- that money there is more than the whole bank! You see what I mean? And the Rockefellers, right after these documents came out, in '70 -- released after 50 years, by the British government -- is when they made the fraudulent movie, "Nicholas and Alexandra". And at the close of it they show the Tsar and his family getting shot against a wall in a basement in Ekaterinberg, Siberia.

Across the road from where the Tsar and his family were kept was a house, occupied by British Intelligence. You understand? The British royal family and the Tsar are cousins. They saved 'em!

Read this article when you get it in the mail. You'll see the point.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, all right. You know, this is somethin' that I really hadn't...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
[Sotto voce] If you put this on Internet, you may cause... This... You can quote me: My opinion is that this is one of the great historical frauds of the 20th century.

And when you read the article... Whoever did the article from UPI even quotes an American retired diplomat, who says... He gives some reasons, there, why the British and American government want this hushed up. And, if you're a scholar of history, you know that when the Russians made a peace treaty with the Germans, early in 1917, called the Brest-Litovsk agreement?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Part of it has been secret ever since! This article refers to it. There is a section of that secret understanding, which... It's an agreement between the oncoming Bolshevik government, and the Germans and others, that forevermore it will be kept secret that the Tsar and his family were, in fact, rescued. They were not killed. But that, they will release details as if they were murdered.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right. Along those lines, I've heard it said by some people that this whole Bolshevik Revolution was really part of Wall Street's plan or something.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
All right. Wall Street and the... I think the name of the book is Wall Street and the Rise of the Bolsheviks by Antony Sutton.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
There, he goes into the documented study how those at the tip of Manhattan, on Wall Street, financed Lenin. And in fact, he refers to old issues of the New York Times of 1918 where it was admitted that millions and millions of dollars in gold went from Wall Street to finance the Bolshevik government as... Well, the British financed the Kerensky government, which forced out the, forced the Tsar to abdicate. And until he died in 1959... Kerensky came to the United States. And he was a British agent. But he didn't pull the government together. And then he was replaced by the Bolsheviks, who were financed by American big business!

It's a documented thing; it's not subject to rumors; it's actually so.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right, why did they do that? Why would they finance a communist revolution?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well... The right wing has explained it again and again. I did an interview with a known author there. I forget his name, but I did a 5-minute interview which I ran a few months ago. Some... I'm not an expert on philosophy, so, uh he described it as a Hegelian principle.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Last time we talked...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
"Antithesis for the purposes of synthesis."

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that makes sense.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
In other words, they own both sides.

I know, you're gonna have to scratch your head and review what has happened with the Moscow government, since '89. In other words, were the Soviets "the big, bad wolf" for 40 years in order to help the American defense industry? Played up here...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...that "their submarines are off-shore" and "their bombers are threatening us" and "blah blah" and "blah-blah". And then all of a sudden, the Moscow government disintegrated.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
By the way: I don't know if you saw Internet this morning. Somebody called me up, very early.

Reuters, or some...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! With the Missing in Action? The congressman found those Vietnam veterans. Is that it?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No, no.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
It is not in the American press, yet. So far as I know. But Reuters, or somebody, interviewed that guy Leeson.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Leeson, yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Barings Bank.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
He says that if they proceed to prosecute him, or try to send him back to Singapore (where, he says they will murder him in Singapore)... But if they try to prosecute him, he will name names, that the top-most level of the British government is in this deal involved, that they okayed it.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right. And that's on Reuters then.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I think it's Reuters. Somebody read it to me very early in the morning. From Internet. It was posted on Internet.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Did they happen to say which newsgroup it was in?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Uh... I think they said Reuters, but I wouldn't bet on it.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But the point is, this guy Leeson (if we are to believe him) is threatening to bring down the London government. The French government is about to be toppled because of the spy scandal. The Rome government has been decimated by all those big shots being hauled away to the jail in Milan.

Now, as a result (thanks to you) of my items being on Internet, I have gotten to know chief researchers in the financial field, worldwide, who call me, and use their conference facilities to put me in touch with other guys worldwide, and such. And the consensus is, that the American press is not giving the reasons for the collapse of the dollar. Which is ongoing this morning, you know?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The reason that the Europeans give is that they have advance, inside information, that in the next 90 days will be the downfall of the Clinton White House, because of the expected indictment of Hillary.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
How is the press... You know, the press has kind of been ignoring this for so long. How is the press gonna suddenly do an about- face on this? And...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well you gotta... Let me explain the position of people that I know on the different exchanges, the Merck, and the Big Board, and so on.

They says, "Skolnick. I help you with your information. Don't tell me what's gonna be next month. Tell me what's gonna be tonight! Call me at home, so that I can do something at the opening of the markets tomorrow."

CONSPIRACY NATION:
[Laughs]

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I says, "I'll tell ya what's gonna be in six..."

"I don't wanna hear it, Skolnick. You owe me a favor, Skolnick. I helped you with this, this, and this. And a friend of mine in the media gave you that story, so many years ago. Hey! You owe me one."

I says, "Yeah, tell me." I says, "I'm not in the business of bartering or brokering financial information, because that would get me into financial interest. I have no financial interest in this, and then and therefore I do my best to stay objective."

You see what I mean?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But there are some that have been quietly interviewing most of the most knowledgeable people -- not just me, but others all over the world -- about the Whitewater thing and the possibility of Hillary getting indicted, for the purpose of trying to figure out where the market is and whether it will go beyond 4200 on the Dow-Jones, and so on. I'm talking about chief researchers of major brokerages that have -- I don't know what the word is -- befriended me, became acquainted with me... you know.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They believe (some of 'em) that their European colleagues have got inside information about Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor, about to "drop the boom" or leak out stuff about Hillary, which will roil up our central government and make Clinton to be more of a wimp than he is, so that nobody that's a diplomat will wanna shake hands with him on-camera anymore. You know what I'm sayin'?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I notice he doesn't go abroad very much. I don't know if you've...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well that's because nobody... [sotto voce] The chief currency traders that I have talked to... Hey! I've been doin' this since '58. I will never mention who they are. Doesn't matter who calls me up and says, "Skolnick. You've gotta tell me who they are." I will not to say who they are! Their names, and details of where they're located, are confidential.

But they say that their colleagues in Europe are convinced that there will be a downfall of the American central government in 90 days. In any case, by June. And so, they are dumping the dollar. And as much as the federal reserve drops money down that rathole, it only makes matters worse. It just gets worse, and worse, and worse, and worse.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. Do you foresee a military coup of some sort?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, you're gonna find this, also, very odd. But... I talk to everybody. And I have been... I and associates of mine have been put in touch with certain retired Generals, who -- are not to be quoted!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But they talk, off-the-record, along the lines of the Admirals and Generals that are named, by names, in the book Silent Coup. He says there was 30 of 'em that overthrew Nixon. Their point, at that time, was "It would be too messy." In other words, they, like... They accused JFK of treason, at the Bay of Pigs. They accused Nixon of treason with the Hanoi government. They didn't want to stage an assassination in an open car; the public wouldn't buy it a second time. So they set him up, with these double-agents: James McCord and the rest of 'em.

Only the Brits wrote a paperback book about the double-agents. I have it here. I don't remember the title. Two British writers, I don't remember their names, wrote a paperback book about McCord and the others being double-agents who... The guard there took the tape off the door...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, that's...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And McCord put the tape back! So...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
...Yeah...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...there was somebody in the building! He put the tape back on the door lock again. Did you see...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, I...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
McCord and them guys wanted to get caught!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, that's fairly well known.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And I think I told you. Did I send you the thing about the plane crash?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Uh, no you didn't. You know, I've been workin' on the Andreuccetti case.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
All right. But anyway, I got a thing about the plane crash. Hunt's wife had $2 million that she blackmailed off of Nixon, 'cause Hunt and his wife had inside information that Nixon was involved in the plot against JFK in Dallas.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I take that back. You may have sent me that thing on the plane crash.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
It's an orange-colored thing. I sent it to ya.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. I... All your stuff...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...That's O.K. It's in very small type and you didn't get around to read it.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
No. In fact, I think I even put it on the Internet, now that you mention it.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
O.K. They got $2 million -- falsely described as "10 thou" [i.e. 10 thousand] by the press, O.K.? But the deal is, they didn't want to blow out Nixon's brains, so they set him up at the Watergate. And Woodward, who's...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
He's CIA, right?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Naval Intelligence.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...was the front -- not a journalist, understand...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And he had all the inside information, as if a secret contact met him in an underground parking garage -- all of it B.S. [i.e., "Bullsh**"], O.K.?

Now, the Europeans apparently have... Well it was European journalists, together with some retired CIA people, that uncovered Clinton's secret Swiss accounts, by way of the Fuji Bank and the Grand Caymans -- that $50 million that we described went to Little Rock, to the Caymans, to Switzerland, and is there in the name of Chelsea Jefferson.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right, this all ties in with the Andreuccetti case. And that's...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
...You sent me a lot of those...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And, and, and the thing is, one of Kenneth Starr's people told me -- not to flatter me! -- that the thing that we have been working on -- about the 50 million?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
-- is one of the most crucial points. They've already got the date. They know the money arrived in Little Rock and went by way of Fuji Bank, to the Caymans and off to Switzerland. And it got mixed in with the Mena cocaine money, O.K.? Clinton's "cut" for the deal. All right?

The thing is, they claim, that if that story ever gets into the popular press it will topple the government. That is their words: "It will topple the government."

So, they didn't tell me that to flatter me. 'Cause these are really hard-nosed investigators. You understand what I'm saying?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And, uh...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know, I had noticed last night that, just a brief spot on, that there's four Supreme Court justices that are under investigation for acceptin' perks, or somethin' like that? Have you heard anything about that?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No, no.

But understand what the problem is: there's a concerted attack on the central government. I don't want to pick up on LaRouche's theories, I'm not a supporter of his -- I stay neutral, regarding him.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, I... I'm neutral also. He has some good ideas, but...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
He claims that it's a British conspiracy.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Uh... It's the same thing as Watergate. You know what I mean?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They want Clinton out.

Hey, look how many months it took for Watergate.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, that dragged on.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...March of '73, to August of '74. And as you... As I have told you, I got inside information from a top journalist, whose editor killed a story about Spiro Agnew. And I was 6 months ahead of the parade. And I must be a good 6 months -- oh, I'm at least a year or more ahead of the parade on the Al Gore scandal.

And notice, the Wall Street Journal is going at the third-in- command, the Speaker of the House, Gingrich.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I just got the Journal just now. I was just out gettin' it. So I haven't read it yet.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well not today, but in the past they've run very negative stories about Gingrich.

So in other words, they've got enough goods to terminate the 3 top people of our government: the President, the Vice-President, the Speaker of the House. And what they want to do is cause a bad situation where they can put in Jay Rockefeller. Remember, they had a plan to put in Nelson...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, I remember that, O.K.? And what? They were first gonna get rid of Al Gore and then Jay Rockefeller was gonna come in and...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I'll tell ya somethin': in '75, I had the same recorded lines, you know?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And every one of my lines... At the time, I had older equipment, that required more phones. I had 30 lines coming in to "1100" [i.e., 312-731-1100], O.K.? They were all blocked! Because I was running accurate stories about 3 genuine plots against Gerald Ford. Um... "Squeeky"...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Fromme.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...Fromme. Uh... that other woman. What the Hell was her name there?

There were 3 genuine plots. And the secret [Secret]... I called up a friend of mine, in the media, that I know. And he says, "Skolnick. You're on the top of the Security Index. It's a wonder that there's anything still going at your house, any kind of a utility." I was gonna picket the phone company, in '75. It was just no way... There was no way that... At the time I had about 35 lines, total. I got newer equipment now, that drops the lines quicker and therefore I don't need that many lines, see?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And there was no way that anybody could reach my message, during that period when we ran exclusive stories about the plots against Gerald Ford.

But what I'm getting to is, if there's something happened to Gerald Ford, who was the un-elected Vice-President? Nelson Rockefeller!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Do you see the point?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. And then... Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So in other words, there was a scheme to put in Nelson Rockefeller as the un-elected... 'Cause a lot of people don't like his name. And they don't like Jay Rockefeller, just because of the name. Although he's very pleasant to... when you see him on the television.

So there apparently is a plot to put in Jay Rockefeller as the new President. So they're... They're cranking up attacks on all three of 'em: Clinton, Gore, and Gingrich. They're gonna get rid of all three of 'em.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. You know, I have some questions on the Andreuccetti case. I'm slowly but surely gettin' those documents out there. I kind of...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well what are the questions.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right. This is how I understand it so far: Andreuccetti owned the King's Point Condominiums. And did he own some other...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, they are 5 buildings. I don't know how many dozen... hundred... apartments, that are, over here, called "condominiums".

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They're giant buildings, O.K.? In a whole development there.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And when the gold was purportedly put under Building Four...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. So that this is...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The cement trucks that came there were pouring cement like the cement was going all the way down to China.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
So there's... You mean there's also this thing with the gold, all right? And that gold was what? The gold that was smuggled out of Italy?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. And the one that was part of that unit, keeps, on purpose, running into me: Illinois appellate court judge Anthony Scariano, a former sergeant in the O.S.S. And he was part of the unit that had the gold in a cave! In the last twenty-some odd years, since 1973 (that's 22 years), I have interviewed most of the members of his unit. Scariano survived five military and civil investigations in the 12 years following '44, when the gold disappeared.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
So that's the reason...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And then he came up to me, two years ago, in the presence of two of my friends -- one of 'em being Andreuccetti -- and says, "Skolnick, I saw your T.V. show," (this was... We did a T.V. show in... We taped it in October of '92). He says, "There's some inaccuracies there."

I says, "Well, Tony, I don't have no case pending in your court. So you could talk to me. What's inaccurate?"

So he turns to federal district judge Hubert Will, a senior, semi-retired judge who was walking with him -- and ran right into my wheelchair, on purpose or otherwise -- and he turns to him and he says, "Well. Skolnick's show referred to two people in my unit that murdered the Major and dumped him in a lake."

And then he went on to describe him. And from that I got to understand that Tony and others felt it was justified to murder the Major. Because the gold in the cave... The Major was gonna do what some would consider treason. He was gonna turn over the Italian gold to the partisans, the Italian... uh, the communistas, the Italian Communist Party!

So Tony turned to Judge Will. So now here's two CIA guys: Judge Will, before taking the bench, had been head of counter- intelligence in Europe, for CIA. O.K.?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So here's these two CIA guys walking through the lobby of the courthouse, and they walk right into me, on purpose or otherwise, and he starts talkin' to me about the show we did about the gold under Andreuccetti's building, see?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Um-hmm [understands].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So he made a, he made a -- what do you call it? He made an apology for the thing. Like it was justified. That his people were justified in murdering the Major and moving away the gold, 'cause the Major, the head of the unit in charge of this cave full of gold, was gonna turn over the gold to the Italian Communist Party.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. But they kept the gold for themselves though.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No, no, no...

The gold had been gathered up from the Vatican, from King Emmanuel. The House of Savoy. Because at the close of the war, King Emmanuel's property in Italy was forfeited. The details of how the new parliament in Rome forfeited his property started to be run in the book, a reference book called Statesman: 1946. And part of it is re-printed in the '72 issue of Statesman. If you get to a good reference library, you can see that. The House of Savoy.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Who is an heir to the House of Savoy? Joseph Andreuccetti.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. The plot thickens. Let me just run through a few basic questions though here...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
All right. Well let me just tell you one more detail.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The reason they've kept Joe [i.e., Joseph Andreuccetti] in court, going on the eleventh year, is they wanted to tie up his signature. Now if you understand law, you would see the point. A person's signature has no financial validity when there is a bankruptcy trustee in charge of you. If you get pushed into bankruptcy, your signature is crap! You can't do anything with it, financially. So that the trustee...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Jay Steinberg?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...Jay Steinberg,

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...Hopkins & Sutter, RTC, the $50 million transfer, and all of it... The reason they keep Joe pending in court is, it continues to invalidate his signature.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
O.K.? It's his signature that is so damn important.

Then, when you compare that with the Lynette Redmer interview (which the government has threatened me over, which they got an injunction against me and Joe over it), you can see what the importance is.

And there is Scariano, part of that O.S.S. unit, O.K.? He turns to this CIA intelligence chief, Judge Will, and he starts referring to "Skolnick's cable TV show". In my presence! In the presence of Joe and another associate.

Do you see the point?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Uh... It's a complex case, O.K.? And I'm workin' on it. And I'm goin' through the court documents. And I got the, I jumped ahead to the last documents and put them out, because it seemed to me that...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Listen. I'm thinking about writing a book. I'm working on a more detailed story for Media Bypass.

[CN -- Media Bypass is a magazine, as I recall, handled independently by Tom Valentine, host of Radio Free America. It has no direct connection to Spotlight, to my knowledge. Skolnick's article, to appear in the next issue as I understand, deals with the Whitewater scandal. Skolnick has said he would send me a copy, but even if he remembers to send me a copy of it, I hesitate to distribute it, due to a recent "learning experience" I had in regard to my distribution of what I believed to be a summary of another author's material. So -- bottom line -- if you can find the magazine, read Skolnick's article. I will do what I can about trying to possibly summarize Skolnick's article, but I can't guarantee I will be doing so soon, if at all.]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The point of the thing is, the largest bank in Italy, owned in part by the Pope, has got an office here, O.K.? Banca Nazionale de Lavoro.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Banca Nazionale de Lavoro.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Now if you knew banking, you would see my point. I'll make the point, it'll be on the tape, and you can study it.

The bank has the most sound collateral in the world. They have got it in with this gold, which is good collateral. Do you know what I mean? It's like...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! Sure.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They got, like, a warehouse receipt. It's not like a federal reserve note, that's got nothin' behind it. Their -- whatever you wanna call it -- their IOUs, that they issue as bank notes, from this bank, with the branch in Chicago, is secretly backed up by the gold that's under the ground in Building Four! [laughs]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
[laughs]

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I told ya what happened before our show went on the air! One member of the London gold pool admitted it to me later. He, at great expense, he came with a giant back-hoe and started digging, for no other good reason, behind Building Four.

I interviewed the president of the condo association. And she took me over, behind Building Four, and she says, "Look where they were digging over here. It didn't make any sense! There's nothing going on. Why were they digging?"

They were digging for a whole week, uh -- starting the day after we taped the show! Before the damn show even went on the air, they were already diggin' a big hole there -- see?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But what they found out [laughs]... I brought a hydraulic expert to look at the place. There's an artificial lake near that development, and, like the Pyramids of thousands of years ago, there's a trick, see? If you try to get to the gold, you get drowned. This artificial lake will get ya. It's hooked up by a special device there. 'Cause right across the road from the Kingspoint Condominiums is this artificial lake. And so, if you try to get at the gold, you need to know the trick, see?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The lake will suddenly drown you, underneath there! [laughs]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, there's some kind of a mine out in Nova Scotia or somethin' that's kind of the same way; that they discovered some mine...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I brought some of the leading hydraulic experts in the world to look at the thing, and they agree with me. I'm the first one that looked at the lake and says, "Hey. I'm not a hydraulic expert. What's with this lake!?" [laughs] So they noticed that there's some kind of a trap door underneath one of the laundry rooms in one of the buildings.

Anyways... Hey! If I write a book about it, it'll be astounding, I'm telling you.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! You ought to!

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
A friend of mine contacted Oliver Stone, who knows me, and they're thinkin' about makin' a movie about it. It, it's very interesting.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. With Christian Henning, jr., O.K.? He's the godson and nephew of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Did you hear that interview we did with the consul-general of Italy?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! That went out. That went out, I sent that out. I'm workin' on... Did you get the, I sent you some information.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, I got it. I didn't look it over. It just arrived in the mail. Thank you, very much.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. I'll send ya some more.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The point is that, Marcinkus is the key. They want... [sotto voce] He's here, supposedly with diplomatic protection. The Vatican is not Italy. And Italy is not the Vatican. The Vatican is a separate sovereignty...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...within Italy. Do you see what I'm sayin'?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

And so, Italy wants him?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. Italy wants him on a thing left over from Michele Sindona. His son, Nino Sindona, has been an export-import agent in Chicago. And... Well... The guy that traded on the markets for Michele Sindona has been trying to "put the arm on" [i.e., pressure], on Andreuccetti. It's a long story, separate by itself. Just take my word, at the moment, that we got a lot of details about that.

Sindona is mentioned in detail in Luigi DiFonzo's book, Luigi DiFonzo's book, St. Peter's Banker.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You can read about Michele Sindona. He was the Pope's banker. And he was murdered in an Italian jail, after being extradited from the United States.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. And so we have Christian Henning, jr., uh, and he represented himself as being in business with Andreuccetti and got a loan...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Falsely!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah... falsely, yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Illinois law requires a written partnership: there is no such thing.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. And but he got a loan, using Andreuccetti's property as collateral?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. And then, two other guys, one a bankruptcy auctioneer, bought the building in his own name -- not as an auctioneer, but in his own name. And...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
That was Lieberman.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Wallace Lieberman and Robert Belavia, a known gangster.

Read the interview with Redmer.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! All right, well where is the interview with her? Do you have that?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I sent it to you! It's... You got it already.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
You mean those court documents.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You see there that her... She was part of the unit investigatin' 'em, and her higher-ups corruptly sped up the thing, to put him away.

Lieberman was murdered... You see it there, right before...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Yeah. In Cicero. Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...in '91. Thereafter, all the land titles disappeared; you can't find 'em on Chicago Title or where the trust was, with LaSalle Bank.

You know what a land title is?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Uh, it just show who owns the property, right?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. It disappeared!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
O.K.? You can't... When you go down there and inquire, they says, "Oh, uh... 'glitch'. We can't find it anymore."

Hey. Notice what Redmer says: she said that her higher-ups in the Regional Director's Office of the IRS personally stole the property.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Do ya see the point!?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Uh it's a complex case, O.K.? And I'm tryin' to, you know, sort it all out. And like I said...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
All right... Read the two-page story that I wrote about it, that I sent you.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
"The Mysterious 50 Million Dollars". Read it.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, I did, you know? And it's, you know I...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
If you don't understand it, there's even skilled lawyers that need a little help! [laughs]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. I'm tryin' to sort it all out and get the picture here.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
This is a sophisticated scam!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Oh it's, I mean, the thing is just huge, you know? And it doesn't just...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well Banco Lavoro is using the gold as collateral. That's number one.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Nobody in Congress will mention Banco Lavoro, Chicago. Nobody!

Uh, what else? The $50 million is related to it, and that got wound in with Clinton.

Clinton is "up the wall" because -- uh the scandal involving Clinton also involves Ollie North and Bush, who are Republicans! So [laughs]... there's a complication.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. And this Gierum confession: do you have a copy of that?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Uh, part of it was put in the court record. I'll have to find that page and send it to ya.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. 'Cuz I'd like to get that out on the Internet if I can. And your...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Every, almost everything I'm tellin' ya has already been in the court record. We confronted the government and their response is to try to get an injunction to shut us up so that we don't interview anybody anymore!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You know. And then there was that threat in the hallway, and so on. I mean, somethin' about all this is bothering them. Do you see what I'm saying?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
That's why, you know, like I say, I jumped ahead and... 'Cuz I'm slowly typin' in these documents and gettin' 'em out there...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well... I'm workin'... I mean, you know, if there was an honest, free press in America, I would speed up my work on a possible book. I don't think it can be published, unless I could raise the money for private publication. Who the Hell is gonna, among the small number of corporations that run the book business, are gonna commission a book on this subject? Come on!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know, you might try (I was thinkin') Feral House is a small publisher, maybe would...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Where are they at?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Offhand I don't know. I could check on it. But you know, they've done kind of work in this. And Thunder's [Mouth]...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You can, you can see from the details I'm givin' ya that we've got tons of information. Absolutely tons.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Yeah.

And the thing is that, it should be documented and brought out more. It might... Part of my hope in all this is that, you know, somebody in the press -- you know, this is goin' out on the Internet -- somebody in the press is gonna say, "Huh, there might be a story here." You know?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah but we're going on the fifth year of our show, we have an estimated 500,000 viewers on Monday night, and nobody that's a TV media critic of any of the major papers here ever will mention us, a single word!!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And yet, if you were to talk to them -- the political editor of the Tribune and all of 'em -- they all know about our show. But they won't say a single word. We bother them. Why? Because, you know, we interview, we investigate the federal reserve and the Tribune company and stuff like that -- we bug them. So we're invisible as far as they... They want us to be invisible and never mentioned in their newspaper.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So why would you suspect that they would pick up on this and...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well it was my hope -- O.K.? -- that that would become so...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well, you know that it becomes so obvious you know? You've got all this stuff...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Wait 'til you see what I sent you, that was in the Tribune and never withdrawn! Why does the Tribune continue to run these fraudulent stories, as if the bones were examined in a mine shaft, of the Tsarist family, when after 50 years had passed, they released documents from the British government that the Tsar and his family were rescued!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
It was published in their paper in 1970. I sent you a copy.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. You've also... You mentioned the Lincoln assassination. This maybe is a change of subject. It's just somethin' I know a little bit about: is, you know, that there was a higher plot involved in that...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well read the book, The Lincoln Conspiracy.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know what? I actually, I did a synopsis of that book and I sent it out on the Internet.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well some historians question them, but it's basically true. They question 'em about a few things there.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I don't see, you know I haven't found any historical book that tries to -- except one book, all right? There's one book that tries to answer that.

I mean, there's other books by, like, Otto Eisenschiml or whatever...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, I got all of them...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...preceded this book. And the one's that criticized Lincoln Conspiracy...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
They didn't know what they're talkin' about! I, from what I read. I mean, I only found one book...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
There's a woman that runs a thing in, wherever the Hell it is, in Maryland -- Surratt's [Museum]...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
She criticizes The Lincoln Conspiracy. But they have a financial interest. I mean, they sell tickets so you can go and visit their museum, see? I ain't selling tickets to anything.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. I mean, it's just, you know I bring that up because you had mentioned that in some of your commentaries. And it's just, it's a subject I know a little bit about, havin' looked into it. And there's just so much suspicious circumstances surrounding that assassination.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well read John Wilkes Booth's letter to a Washington, DC newspaper, that was kept secret in the family that owned the newspaper for 113 years. Read it. It's in that book.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Which book?

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The Lincoln Conspiracy.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I don't remember that one! I...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh yeah, yeah! And the guys that surrounded Lincoln, many of 'em were commodities speculators. And (I don't know how to put it to you)... Read Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare. Who killed Julius Caesar? His closest friends.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Why? They had some interest in opposition to their friend, so they knocked him off. They all stabbed him to death. Read Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare.

And likewise, Lincoln's friends had an interest to "croak" him. For financial reasons. They had big investments in the commodity markets in that day.

And, they accused Lincoln of treason 'cuz he wanted to "bind up the wounds"...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...and go easy on the South, which would've caused cotton production and such to resume -- these guys were short in the cotton market.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
That's my take on it too: that he was gonna let the South back in the union, and they wanted to go down and plunder the South, is what a powerful motive for it would be.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, if you were a legal researcher you would know that, a whole raft of cases from the time of the Appomatox surrender [and] thereafter, in the U.S. Supreme Court, that shows the great opposition to accepting the Constitutional rights of rebels.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Their rights were forfeit, even after the war!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
There's a whole raft of cases that I could tell you about if you were interested in that.

So I mean, the other angle we've been investigating for 20 years is the fact that the Continental Bank, which was formed right before the Civil War, together with the Board of Trade -- 1857 -- um... How could I put it to you? They handled the assassination money. Let's put it to you that way.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. I've read the book, The Lincoln Conspiracy. There's also, let's see...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh you gotta read it 10 times...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah [laughs].

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You gotta be, you gotta be a historic buff...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...to understand this. If you don't understand it the first 10 times, that's O.K.

You gotta know finance. You gotta know commodities. You gotta be able to check with experts. You gotta... before you can understand it! [laughs] I wish Eisenschiml was still around. He was a... He used to get on the television 30 years ago.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
There's another book, called Mask for Treason...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, I got that too. Very good.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
It mentions that the, in that book there, it mentions that the military officer who cut the military telegraph cables on the bridge where John Wilkes Booth escaped -- there were several bridges goin' out of DC. And on the bridge that the conspirators selected for him to go on, they cut the telegraph cables so he could escape? That person became the founding president of Western Union telegraph company.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. The way I understand it is, the telegraph went out but it was at a central location -- which is actually more ominous, you know? It wasn't so much a thing of...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. And the guy named Lafayette C. Baker...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah!

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...who headed up what we now call the U.S. Secret Service, was part of the plot. And likewise, the head of the U.S. Secret Service in 1963, Rowley, was believed to be part of the plot against JFK, 98 years later.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right, that's... I guess I'll just kind of let you go now, O.K.? 'Cuz I...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, you're swamped with this. [laughs]

Uh, I'm planning a sizeable article for Media Bypass about the Whitewater thing, and I'll send you... I'll keep you informed about that.

Um, the thing that bugs 'em is this message we're running now. They're, they go straight up the wall because we've got inside information about the buying and selling of TV jobs that absolutely... It's one of the great internal scandals of the media. I mean, even you: You want to be a talking head on the media?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
[laughs]

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I could tell ya... It doesn't matter. It will make your hair blonde if it's not blonde now. And as long as you can read what's on the teleprompter, you put up the price, and you become a talking head.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know, I... One thing I wanted to...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh you think I'm lying! I used to teach at a radio broadcast school. I know a lot.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Fine. I mean, this is all, you know, stuff that I'm... I'll tell ya: I think what you say has merit, O.K.? I mean, I'm not...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I have no reason to lie; why would I lie?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
No! I don't...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...this past 37 years. If I lie, I got a lot to lose. Not financially, but the name I have built up over 37 years. I, I don't do any of this or say any of this because some uh, ratings are gonna go up or a sponsor's gonna like me better. The main thing I have is a good name.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah I, you know, like I say -- I'm not the type of person that's a "true believer", O.K.? That is just gonna just turn off my mind and just accept anything somebody says...

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No! I want you to ask questions. I don't want you to accept what I say or what anybody says, just on the face of it.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! That's, you know, like I say, I think what you say has got a lot of merit, and I'm open-minded to lookin' into it further.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well just think of my background: our work has caused the largest judicial bribery scandal in the history of the United States. So that should be on the top of the list that I have no reason to fake-up anything, you know?

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"