Letters to
the Editor
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 2378
Boston, Massachusetts 02107-2378
By E-mail
Re: Winokur to Leave Harvard Board
by Beth Healy and Patrick Healy
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Anne Williamson has documented a pattern
of institutional corruption by
Harvard University to use
its brilliant academic resources and reputation to promote bid
rigging and
insider trading on Russian privatizations ---- advantaging Harvard's
endowment, it's network of investors and government contract business.
US
taxpayers and Russian citizens lost big. It seems Harvard's
business ---funded by US taxpayers through AID---was to help engineer
transfers of public assets at far below market value to a private
syndicate
of insiders. (See Harvard-Russia Links Below.)
I have described a similar pattern of institutional
corruption by Harvard
University at the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD.) US
taxpayers and communities lost while Harvard's endowment, its
network of
investors and Harvard government contracts and appointees benefit
significantly from their ability to influence policy and budgets.
This
includes Harvard Kennedy School promotion of a housing program
that builds
housing for $150,000-250,000 per unit in neighborhoods where single
family
homes could be rehabbed and sold for $25-75000. (See Harvard-HUD
Links
Below.)
These events occurred on the watch of Harvard
President Larry Summers and
honored Harvard graduate Robert Rubin at the U.S. Treasury. Your
article
indicates that Mr. Rubin is under consideration for appointment
to the
Harvard Corporation board. He is a former member of the Harvard
Management
board.
We have reports during Mr. Rubin and President
Summers watch at the National
Security Council and the U.S. Treasury of manipulation of the
gold market
and gold prices that has been documented by the Gold Anti-Trust
Action
Committee (GATA) and is envisioned by an earlier paper of President
Summers.
We have reports as well of the inexplicable
disappearance of over $3.3
trillion from HUD and DOD during fiscal years 1998-2000 (See Harvard-$3.3
Trillion Missing Money Links Below) and statements from appropriations
staff
that HUD is being run as a criminal enterprise. This would necessitate
the
US Treasury running it as a criminal enterprise as they run HUD
with the
help of numerous companies also affiliated with Enron.
Greg Palast, BBC and Guardian Observer correspondent,
has documented the use
of secret agreements by the World Bank to engineer transfer of
essential
pubic resources in Argentina and other countries into multinational
corporations at below market values. This could only have happened
with the
knowledge and support of President Summers and Mr. Rubin in their
roles as
Secretary of the Treasury.
These U. S. Treasury policies continue into
the new Administration. They are
not the sole responsibility of the leaders of the prior administration.
However, those who promote such policies are fully responsible
and
accountable. Harvard is as well, if it chooses to promote them
to the
leadership of the Harvard Corporation and University. (See Harvard-US
Treasury Links Below).
Now, Harvard Watch has documented a pattern
of institutional corruption in
connection with Harvard's Enron entanglements. This includes sufficient
questions to merit a serious investigation as to whether Harvard
Management
personnel and/or one of the funds that manages money for Harvard,
Highfields
Capital, engaged in insider trading or were complicit in a "pump
and dump"
fraud scheme in connection with Enron securities and offshore
partnerships.
Highfields was established by a Harvard Management employee and
is reported
to have been paid approximately $30MM in annual compensation by
Harvard
(Harvard tax return). Enron's former CEO, Jeff Skilling, is a
former partner
of Ron Daniels, Harvard's Treasurer who manages Harvard Management.
In addition, the use of Harvard's academic
talent at Harvard Business School
and Harvard's Kennedy to justify federal and state energy "de-regulation
and privatization" policies was simply intellectual air cover
for more
transfers of public assets and resources at below market prices
to private
investors, which includes Harvard Endowment and its investment
network. (See
Harvard-Enron Links Below)
The time has come to ask whether Harvard's
entire institutional scheme is
appropriate to qualify for a tax exempt status under US tax law.
Why should
Harvard not have to pay taxes if its activities simply justify
the theft of
taxpayers resources and increase the burden to honest taxpayers?
Harvard's
endowment increased from $4 billion to $18 billion between 1992
and 2000, in
part as a result of the "privatization" boom it helped
promote in
combination with its tax-exempt status. Based on what we have
seen in
Russia, at HUD, in the countries described by Mr. Palast's work
and now in
connection with Enron, we need to ask what the American and the
global
community have paid in terms of shrinking the pie.
How much human, intellectual, environmental
and financial capital has been
destroyed just so it could be transferred into the hands of a
few?. Why
should honest hardworking people continue to help finance a tax
scheme which
is harmful to us? A review of the evidence suggests that the rich
are
becoming richer---not based on performance or a commitment to
free
markets--but because they have learned how to lie, steal, bribe
and cheat
successfully. The time has come to ask whether we should continue
to help
finance Harvard's promotion of such a leadership culture.
How many honest reporters, government officials
and Harvard students will
have to sacrifice their time and careers before we address what
is
happening? How long will we go without the rule of law applied
to the
Harvard Endowment and their friends? Is Harvard's intellectual
brand to
become a joke? This can not possibly be in the best interest of
the wider
Harvard community. Harvard's graduates and employees include thousands
of
decent fine people who have added much to our world. As I drive
throughout
America, reference to someone being a Harvard graduate or professional
is
increasingly a term of derision --- as if a Harvard diploma is
a way that
"Tony Soprano" gets on the right corporate boards and
into the right country
clubs.
In Congressional testimony, Herbert S. ("Pug")
Winokur, Chairman of the
Enron Finance Committee, indicated that he had hired and managed
executives
and auditors that mislead him. Based on Winokur's description
of his
negligence as an Enron board member, questions were raised regarding
his
appropriateness to serve as a board member of Harvard Corporation
and
Harvard Management. He has had the discernment to resign.
I would hope that Mr. Winokur's resignation
would not divert attention from
the illumination and healing of a deeper institutional cancer
within the
Harvard leadership, the management of Harvard's endowment and
Harvard's
government policy and contracting community.
Sincerely Yours,
Catherine Austin
Fitts
President
Solari, Inc.
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing, First Bush Administration
Former Managing Director, Dillon Read & Co. Inc.
===============================================================
cc: Anne Williamson, Author, "Contagion"
Greg Palast, BBC and Guardian Observer
William J. Murphy, III, GATA
Reg Howe, GATA
Christopher Powell, GATA
Harvard Watch
Linda Minor, Author, "Follow the Yellow Brick Road: From
Harvard to
Enron"
Beth Healy, Boston Globe
Patrick Healy, Boston Globe
Lawrence Summers, President, Harvard University
Robert Rubin, Co-Chairman, Citigroup, Inc.
Herbert S. Winokur, Chairman, Capricorn Holdings
===============================================================
LINKS
===============================================================
HARVARD-RUSSIA:
================
The Rape of Russia: Testimony by Anne Williamson
before the Committee on
Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives,
September 21, 1999.
http://zolatimes.com/V4.31/williamson_russia.htm
Qui Tam Adopted by DOJ vs. Harvard regarding contracting
services provided
through US AID
http://www.solari.com/harvardcomplaint.pdf
(needs Adobe Acrobat)
HARVARD-HUD:
==============
The Edgewood Stories: Part One-Three
http://www.solari.com/gideon/articles%20by%20caf.htm
The Myth of the Rule of Law: How the Money Works
on the Destruction of
Hamilton Securities
http://www.solari.com/gideon/q301.pdf
(needs Adobe Acrobat)
HARVARD-US TREASURY:
======================
Gold Anti-Trust Action (GATA):
http://www.gata.org/
All That Glitters Is Not Gold, by Kelly O'Meara
(3/4/02)
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/180093.html
Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard in PDF Format.
Robert B. Barsky, Lawrence H. Summers
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 96, No. 3. (Jun., 1988),
pp. 528-550.
http://www.gata.org/gibson_s_paradox.html
World Bank Secret Documents Consumes Argentina
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=125&row=0
The War on Waste, CBS News, (January 29, 2002)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
The Kelly O'Meara "Missing Money"
Series:
Why is $59 Billion Missing from HUD?, by Kelly
O'Meara (11/06/00):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=125906
Cuomo leaves HUD in Shambles, by Kelly O'Meara
(3/05/01):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=125762
Inside HUD's Financial Fiasco, by Kelly O'Meara
(6/25/01):
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b17d96451e1.htm
A Financial Fiasco is in the Making, by Kelly O'Meara
(7/30/01):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/161202.html
Rumsfield Inherits Financial Mess, by Kelly O'Meara
(9/03/01):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=139530
Total Lack of Trust, by Kelly O'Meara (9/17/01):
http://www.restoringamerica.org/archive/elected/lack_of_trust.html
Wasted Riches, by Kelly O'Meara (10/22/01):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/108588.html
Bureaucrats Circle Their Wagons, by Kelly O'Meara
(12/31/01):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=158428
DynCorp Disgrace, by Kelly O'Meara (2/4/02)
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/163052.html
What Does It Take to Lose a Contract?, by Kelly
O'Meara (3/18/02):
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/189894.html
HARVARD-ENRON:
================
Harvard Watch's "Trading Truth: A Report on
Harvard's Enron Entanglements"
http://www.harvardwatch.org
Follow the Yellow Brick Road: From Harvard
to Enron, by Linda Minor
Part One:
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lindaminor/lm3,19,02harvardtoenron,pt1.htm
Part Two:
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lm4,4,02,harvardtoenronpt2.htm
Part Three:
To Be Published 4/02 at NewsMakingNews.com
============================================================================
BOSTON GLOBE:
===============
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/096/business/Winokur_to_leave_Harvard_board+.shtml
Winokur to leave Harvard board
Cites questions that have arisen over ties
to bankrupt Enron
By Beth Healy and Patrick Healy,
Globe Staff
4/6/2002
Herbert S. ''Pug'' Winokur Jr. will step
down from Harvard University's
powerful governing corporation in June to head off any potential
embarrassment for the school over his ties to Enron Corp., he
told the
university's president in a letter yesterday.
Winokur, a Greenwich, Conn., investment executive,
was appointed two years
ago to the seven-person corporation, on which members usually
serve for
decades. The corporation reviews and approves academic, finance,
and
personnel decisions for Harvard.
Winokur also was a director of Enron, the
bankrupt Texas energy-trading
company. In February, he and other independent directors were
called on to
testify before Congress about their knowledge of Enron's financial
troubles.
In his letter to Harvard president Lawrence
H. Summers, Winokur said, ''As
[we] have discussed, I am concerned that my Enron involvement
is in some
ways diverting attention from your agenda for Harvard and from
the important
work of the corporation and the university.'' He told Summers
he did not
''wish to be a distraction in any way.''
snip-
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