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Source:Unlmited Hangout
Crowning the King of Wall Street
In addition to intimate associates of Leslie Wexner, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon's ascent to the highest tier of Wall Street power also depended heavily on the Crown family – whose deep ties to organized crime and the military-industrial complex made them one of the richest, most powerful and most corrupt families in America.
BY WHITNEY WEBB | APRIL 27, 2023
As detailed in Part 1 of this series, Dimon's rise to the top was made possible by his connections, and those of his benefactors, to networks where intelligence, organized crime and corporate power intermingle. As noted there, many of the same elite circles that gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein, namely those around Leslie Wexner, also played a key role in Dimon's selection to be the CEO of Bank One – the position which directly led to his becoming the head of JPMorgan.
Yet, in addition to close associates of Wexner, Dimon's coronation as one of the most powerful bankers in the country was also made possible thanks to another powerful clan that also shares close connections to Wexner – the Crown family of Chicago. Perhaps even more than Wexner, the Crowns are a testament to how the worlds of organized crime and corporate power have mixed over the years to produce elites who are truly untouchable. With a long-standing dominant role in the American military-industrial complex as well as other facets of the corporate world, the Crowns have a history of doing what's necessary – whether legal or illegal – to get what they want to advance their political agendas and grow their own power. Even presidents and the Pentagon have been unable to successfully challenge them. As this article will show, the Crowns – perhaps more than any other group – are a critical part of the story of how Jame Dimon became the king of Wall Street.
Crown Prince of the "Super Mob"
Henry Krinsky was born in 1896 in the city of Chicago. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, worked as a sweatshop foreman and changed the family name to Crown when Henry was a child. After dropping out of school in the 8th grade, Crown started a steel business with his older brother, Sol Crown, in 1915, creating S.R. Crown & Company. A few years later, in 1919, another brother, Irving Crown, joined the company, which became Material Service Corporation (MSC), a sand, gravel, lime and coal business that was prominent in Chicago's construction industry.
[Image] Left to Right: Sol Crown, Irving Crown and Henry Crown in 1919; Source: Crown Community Development
Henry Crown developed an early relationship with Jake Arvey, a notorious political fixer for the Democrats in Chicago who, like Crown, was the son of poor Jewish immigrants. Arvey had deep ties to the Chicago mob, including the circles around notorious gangster Al Capone, and even worked for companies that authorities identified as "controlled by the Capone mob in Chicago," like Continental Press. Arvey worked with Al Capone and his associates to put mob-aligned politicians into positions of power in Chicago, including the mayor's office.
Arvey was a key figure in the network explored in-depth by journalist Gus Russo in the book SuperMob. This "SuperMob" network was composed mainly of Jewish and Italian mobsters and businessmen who rose to power thanks to the corruption within the city of Chicago before expanding to other areas of the country, particularly the West Coast. Another key figure, and Arvey associate, was the lawyer Sidney Korshak, once referred to as the "logical successor to Meyer Lansky" by New West magazine. Korshak, another early friend of Arvey's, had also forged an early working relationship with Capone and had advised the gangster prior to his law career. Once a lawyer, Korshak worked as a fixer for the intermingled interests of certain organized crime-linked and other "legitimate" corporate interests. One of his clients was Crown's MSC, with Korshak serving as the firm's labor lawyer. Thanks to the his connections to both Korshak and Arvey, Crown was able to obtain "lucrative city contracts in Chicago" that soon made him and his brothers millionaires.
During World War II, Crown took leave of MSC to join the Army Corp of Engineers, which benefited from Crown's long-time connection to Arvey. As Gus Russo notes:
[Arvey] managed to become, with no small thanks to friends in the Roosevelt administration, the overseer of countless international post exchange (PX) facilities on military bases. Soon, the military was supplying these PXs with goods purchased from buddy Col. Crown's Material Service Corporation.
During this period, including just months before Crown's discharge in 1945, MSC was accused of corruption in what would become a pattern for the firm. In particular, MSC was sued for over $1 million for price-gouging a number of Chicago city and Illinois state agencies. Another case from the 1940s saw MSC sued by a woman who had invested her life savings into the company for 170 shares in the firm, only to receive nothing from the Crowns.
During the early post-war period, Crown became involved with David Baird, a director of Hilton Hotels, and his Baird Foundation. The Baird Foundation had close connections with a variety of organized crime associates including: Meyer Lansky frontman, Louis Chesler; real estate magnates William Zeckendorf and Lawrence Wien; and Charles and Herbert Allen of Allen & Co.
[Image] A drawing of Crown depicting him during his time in the military, when he became nicknamed "The Colonel"; Source: Southern Towing
The Baird Foundation also had connections to Permindex, an intelligence-linked outfit with both CIA and Mossad connections that is alleged to have played a role in the death of John F. Kennedy. According to correspondence from Permindex lawyer Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, Permindex had "cultivated" interest for their efforts among American businessman, Baird in particular. The Baird Foundation was later revealed to have been an asset of the CIA's International Organizations Division and acted as a "pass through" conduit for sending Agency funds to CIA fronts in the Middle East and Africa. Furthermore, Baird's main banker, Serge Semenenko of First National Bank of Boston, had his own ties to Crown, with Crown once contacting Semenenko to arrange for financing of what would become the Acapulco Hilton.
By the end of the 1950s, MSC was well on its way to becoming one of the top government contractors in the country. Its fortunes in that regard only grew following the company's merger with weapons manufacturer General Dynamics in 1959. Crown gained 20% equity in the new company, with MSC becoming a subdivision of General Dynamics, and Crown's right-hand man, Patrick Hoy, became Vice President of the company. Hoy had previously been president of Chicago's Hotel Sherman, which had close connections to the city's organized crime community.
Crown served as a director of General Dynamics until he was forced out in 1966. That same year, Hoy also left General Dynamics to join Penn-Dixie Cement Company, the CEO of which was Jerome Castle – "an admitted 'old friend' of New York crime boss Frank Costello." Refusing to accept defeat, Crown spent years buying back large amounts of General Dynamics stock, which eventually allowed him to stage a takeover and wrestle back the company so it would again be firmly under his control.
Source:
Crowning the King of Wall Street
In addition to intimate associates of Leslie Wexner, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon's ascent to the highest tier of Wall Street power also depended heavily on the Crown family – whose deep ties to organized crime and the military-industrial complex made them one of the richest, most powerful and most corrupt families in America.
BY WHITNEY WEBB | APRIL 27, 2023
Whether for his controversial comments on private property seizure by governments and corporations or his coming testimony in the JPMorgan-Jeffrey Epstein case, Jamie Dimon – the CEO of JPMorgan – has been in the news a lot lately. While Dimon's comments often receive media attention by virtue of the power he wields on Wall Street and the U.S. banking industry at large, most know very little about Dimon's time before JPMorgan and how he came to lead one of the largest, most powerful banks on Wall Street and in the world.
As detailed in Part 1 of this series, Dimon's rise to the top was made possible by his connections, and those of his benefactors, to networks where intelligence, organized crime and corporate power intermingle. As noted there, many of the same elite circles that gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein, namely those around Leslie Wexner, also played a key role in Dimon's selection to be the CEO of Bank One – the position which directly led to his becoming the head of JPMorgan.
Yet, in addition to close associates of Wexner, Dimon's coronation as one of the most powerful bankers in the country was also made possible thanks to another powerful clan that also shares close connections to Wexner – the Crown family of Chicago. Perhaps even more than Wexner, the Crowns are a testament to how the worlds of organized crime and corporate power have mixed over the years to produce elites who are truly untouchable. With a long-standing dominant role in the American military-industrial complex as well as other facets of the corporate world, the Crowns have a history of doing what's necessary – whether legal or illegal – to get what they want to advance their political agendas and grow their own power. Even presidents and the Pentagon have been unable to successfully challenge them. As this article will show, the Crowns – perhaps more than any other group – are a critical part of the story of how Jame Dimon became the king of Wall Street.
Crown Prince of the "Super Mob"
Henry Krinsky was born in 1896 in the city of Chicago. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, worked as a sweatshop foreman and changed the family name to Crown when Henry was a child. After dropping out of school in the 8th grade, Crown started a steel business with his older brother, Sol Crown, in 1915, creating S.R. Crown & Company. A few years later, in 1919, another brother, Irving Crown, joined the company, which became Material Service Corporation (MSC), a sand, gravel, lime and coal business that was prominent in Chicago's construction industry.
Henry Crown developed an early relationship with Jake Arvey, a notorious political fixer for the Democrats in Chicago who, like Crown, was the son of poor Jewish immigrants. Arvey had deep ties to the Chicago mob, including the circles around notorious gangster Al Capone, and even worked for companies that authorities identified as "controlled by the Capone mob in Chicago," like Continental Press. Arvey worked with Al Capone and his associates to put mob-aligned politicians into positions of power in Chicago, including the mayor's office.
Arvey was a key figure in the network explored in-depth by journalist Gus Russo in the book SuperMob. This "SuperMob" network was composed mainly of Jewish and Italian mobsters and businessmen who rose to power thanks to the corruption within the city of Chicago before expanding to other areas of the country, particularly the West Coast. Another key figure, and Arvey associate, was the lawyer Sidney Korshak, once referred to as the "logical successor to Meyer Lansky" by New West magazine. Korshak, another early friend of Arvey's, had also forged an early working relationship with Capone and had advised the gangster prior to his law career. Once a lawyer, Korshak worked as a fixer for the intermingled interests of certain organized crime-linked and other "legitimate" corporate interests. One of his clients was Crown's MSC, with Korshak serving as the firm's labor lawyer. Thanks to the his connections to both Korshak and Arvey, Crown was able to obtain "lucrative city contracts in Chicago" that soon made him and his brothers millionaires.
During World War II, Crown took leave of MSC to join the Army Corp of Engineers, which benefited from Crown's long-time connection to Arvey. As Gus Russo notes:
[Arvey] managed to become, with no small thanks to friends in the Roosevelt administration, the overseer of countless international post exchange (PX) facilities on military bases. Soon, the military was supplying these PXs with goods purchased from buddy Col. Crown's Material Service Corporation.
During this period, including just months before Crown's discharge in 1945, MSC was accused of corruption in what would become a pattern for the firm. In particular, MSC was sued for over $1 million for price-gouging a number of Chicago city and Illinois state agencies. Another case from the 1940s saw MSC sued by a woman who had invested her life savings into the company for 170 shares in the firm, only to receive nothing from the Crowns.
During the early post-war period, Crown became involved with David Baird, a director of Hilton Hotels, and his Baird Foundation. The Baird Foundation had close connections with a variety of organized crime associates including: Meyer Lansky frontman, Louis Chesler; real estate magnates William Zeckendorf and Lawrence Wien; and Charles and Herbert Allen of Allen & Co.
The Baird Foundation also had connections to Permindex, an intelligence-linked outfit with both CIA and Mossad connections that is alleged to have played a role in the death of John F. Kennedy. According to correspondence from Permindex lawyer Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, Permindex had "cultivated" interest for their efforts among American businessman, Baird in particular. The Baird Foundation was later revealed to have been an asset of the CIA's International Organizations Division and acted as a "pass through" conduit for sending Agency funds to CIA fronts in the Middle East and Africa. Furthermore, Baird's main banker, Serge Semenenko of First National Bank of Boston, had his own ties to Crown, with Crown once contacting Semenenko to arrange for financing of what would become the Acapulco Hilton.
By the end of the 1950s, MSC was well on its way to becoming one of the top government contractors in the country. Its fortunes in that regard only grew following the company's merger with weapons manufacturer General Dynamics in 1959. Crown gained 20% equity in the new company, with MSC becoming a subdivision of General Dynamics, and Crown's right-hand man, Patrick Hoy, became Vice President of the company. Hoy had previously been president of Chicago's Hotel Sherman, which had close connections to the city's organized crime community.
Crown served as a director of General Dynamics until he was forced out in 1966. That same year, Hoy also left General Dynamics to join Penn-Dixie Cement Company, the CEO of which was Jerome Castle – "an admitted 'old friend' of New York crime boss Frank Costello." Refusing to accept defeat, Crown spent years buying back large amounts of General Dynamics stock, which eventually allowed him to stage a takeover and wrestle back the company so it would again be firmly under his control.
Before Crown was forced off the board in 1966, he and General Dynamics shared a series of odd connections to figures intimately connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Toward the tail-end of the Eisenhower administration, a plan was hatched to develop a fighter jet called "Tactical Fighter Experimental" or TFX. The decision to award the contract to build TFX to General Dynamics would quickly become a source of great controversy.
According to L. Fletcher Prouty, the controversy was largely due to a plan hatched by Kennedy’s Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, an OSS veteran, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that resulted in McNamara awarding the contract to the firm that would benefit the Democratic party the most, which turned out to be General Dynamics. However, the political calculus of McNamara and Goldberg clashed with the fact that top officials and experts at the Pentagon had found the General Dynamics proposal to be "unacceptable" and had recommended that Boeing instead be chosen, arguing that Boeing had more experience building such aircraft and that the costs would be lower. The Pentagon would eventually be proven right, as General Dynamics was ultimately unable to produce a functional fighter jet and the debacle wasted billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
According to L. Fletcher Prouty, the controversy was largely due to a plan hatched by Kennedy’s Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, an OSS veteran, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that resulted in McNamara awarding the contract to the firm that would benefit the Democratic party the most, which turned out to be General Dynamics. However, the political calculus of McNamara and Goldberg clashed with the fact that top officials and experts at the Pentagon had found the General Dynamics proposal to be "unacceptable" and had recommended that Boeing instead be chosen, arguing that Boeing had more experience building such aircraft and that the costs would be lower. The Pentagon would eventually be proven right, as General Dynamics was ultimately unable to produce a functional fighter jet and the debacle wasted billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Please go to Unlmited Hangout to continue reading.
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Has anyone ever wondered what the FBI has been doing all these years? The FBI is one arm of the gangster state:
Epstein was crawling around everywhere:
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