There was as soon as a rich billionaire philanthropist who owned homes in Palm Seashore, New York, and France, in addition to a Caribbean Island paradise the place he hosted younger ladies for elite intercourse events, far-off from prying eyes. Just like the notorious paedophile folks trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, this Harvard graduate despatched his workers into the streets to recruit younger ladies for him to coerce and molest. One such worker, Stephen Ward, a person who performed a central position within the downfall of the British authorities within the early 60s, reportedly recruited ladies from the streets of London for this rich man, and even drew him a sketch of a younger woman being pleasured by machines in peculiar methods. Additionally, like Epstein, this rich paedophile had vital intelligence ties which ensured he was shielded from prosecution. The particular person I converse of was richer than Epstein and had extra properties than Epstein; but, in contrast to Epstein he was by no means caught, charged or prosecuted for any of his crimes, ultimately dying of previous age in his late nineties.
That is the story of George Huntington Hartford II, a pal of Hod Dibben and Stephen Ward, and a billionaire who was carefully associated to the intelligence-linked propaganda creators who had been behind the invention of James Bond.
George Huntington Hartford II – The Authentic Jeffrey Epstein
Sitting at a desk at Esmeralda Gullan’s Montrose Membership one night within the mid-Fifties was a younger actress who glided by the identify Marjorie Steele. She wasn’t simply an actress, she was additionally a grasp forger who, on the evening in query, was reportedly competing with the artist Pietro Annigoni to see who might finest reproduce her husband’s signature. Steele was her stage identify, together with her married identify being Huntington Hartford. Marjorie had married into a really rich household: her husband was George Huntington Hartford II, who was born on 18 April 1911 in New York Metropolis and had inherited his huge wealth from his grandfather, George Huntington Hartford I. When Huntington Hartford was simply 6 years previous he started receiving an annual revenue of $1.5 million. His grandfather had created the idea of chain grocery shops after taking up the Nice Atlantic and Pacific Tea Firm (A&P) and had amassed a terrific fortune. Huntington Hartford II’s father, Edward, was not as as his brothers within the creation of extreme wealth and slowly distanced himself from the broader household, as soon as declaring that at the very least “one Hartford must be a gentleman.” George’s mom, Henrietta, was additionally in contrast to the remainder of the household and this led to a persisting rift. Edward’s brothers had refused to assist their sibling financially, and ultimately Edward went as far as to interrupt off contact with them. Edward would additionally do the identical along with his personal youngsters earlier than his loss of life in 1922. Josephine Bryce, George’s sister, mentioned earlier than her loss of life in 1992, “I don’t assume Hunt ever noticed him in any respect.” If the absence of his father wasn’t unhealthy sufficient for George, his mom additionally negatively impacted his psychological growth.
Henrietta Huntington Hartford was a domineering mom and George was her favorite youngster. He turned the main target of most of her consideration, and his sister later described her mom as smothering him in “a cocoon of mom [sic] love.” In a prolonged article printed in Vainness Truthful on the lifetime of George Huntington Hartford entitled “Hostage to Fortune” on 12 June 2010, it was mentioned that Henrietta would nonetheless lean throughout the dinner desk when George was an adolescent to chop his meat for him. That article, which contained quotes from a dishevelled 93-year-old George Huntington Hartford, additionally notes that he “scowled” on the reminiscence of his mom, telling the reporter, “She was domineering, very domineering.” She despatched Hartford away to highschool at St. Paul’s in New Hampshire the place George was reportedly bullied consistently by the opposite college students for being from “new cash.” He acknowledged, “I used to be very harmless, 12 years previous, and I used to be despatched to a really horrible place. My mom ought to by no means had achieved it.” Whereas making the latter assertion, Huntington Hartford can be famous as having raised his voice in misery on the reminiscence. It was very clear from the early lifetime of George Huntington Hartford II that his growth had been stunted in some ways by the absence of his father and the overbearing nature of his mom. It is usually very clear from his later life that he had saved a lot of that hatred and anger for his household hidden inside.
In 1931 Huntington Hartford eloped along with his first spouse, Mary Lee Epling, the daughter of a dentist from West Virginia, a choice which apparently triggered his mom to throw herself onto the ground and weep. The pair had been often discovered mingling with different members of American excessive society, however the marriage got here to an early finish in 1939 after his spouse left him for the actor, Douglas Fairbank Jr. This was primarily resulting from Huntington Hartford chasing skirt, but additionally as a result of he had impregnated a 23-year-old refrain woman named Mary Barton. Sadly for Mary Lee Epling, Douglas Fairbank Jr. himself was a infamous rascal and would turn into a future attendee of Horace Dibben’s elite intercourse events. Huntington Hartford had reportedly “floated the thought” of his mom adopting Mary Lee Epling in order that he “would possibly preserve her as a sister after their divorce.”
Huntington Hartford graduated from Harvard College in 1934, the place he studied English literature. Solely a few years after commencement he purchased a crusing ship named The Joseph Conrad, a uncommon square-rigger sailboat that he had bought from famed author and adventurer Alan Villiers. Huntington Hartford quickly turned an avid sailor, collaborating in ocean races such because the one reported on 28 August 1937, an occasion the place he and Walter S. Gubelmann raced from Newport, Rhode Island, to the Bahamas.
After graduating from Harvard, Huntington Hartford went to work for his uncles at A&P’s firm headquarters. Nevertheless, his uncles had been apparently eager to make George’s entry into the household enterprise tough. They put him within the statistical division of the corporate the place he oversaw the monitoring of the sale of bread and pound cake. Rapidly changing into disenchanted with the expertise, George took a time off to attend the Harvard/Yale soccer recreation. His alma matter misplaced and George Huntington Hartford additionally misplaced his place throughout the household agency. By 1942, Huntington Hartford was investing in property in Santa Monica, buying a home constructed by an opera singer in Runyon Canyon throughout the conflict in 1942. In 1948, Hartford additionally launched a modelling company in Los Angeles and New York in order that he might “be with ladies” and it’s right here the place his workers started selecting up younger ladies off the road for him to sleep with. Lisa Rebecca Gubernick, who wrote a biography of George Huntington Hartford II entitled “Squandered Fortune,” acknowledged, “Hartford believed that if he purchased sufficient and constructed sufficient, he might convert these boldfaced mentions within the society columns to lasting fame,” positing that the A&P inheritor hoped to construct a cultural empire. Certainly, all through the Nineteen Forties and 50s, Huntington Hartford tried to make a reputation for himself within the artwork scene, however the incoherence of his imaginative and prescient meant that each one his grand initiatives ultimately failed.
By this time he was changing into often known as a patron to the humanities, which continued to be the case when Hartford had met his second spouse, the younger Marjorie Sue Steele, who was recorded in the New York Occasions as being a “former evening membership cigarette woman.” He had met Marjorie whereas she was promoting cigarettes at Ciro’s evening membership in Los Angeles, and he had enticed her right into a relationship by buying her merchandise. His ruse labored and by all accounts she turned the favorite of his 4 wives he had throughout his lifetime. On the time that Huntington Hartford started wooing Marjorie Steele, she was already engaged to Charlie Chaplin’s son, with the legend of silent motion pictures himself being the one to advise her to depart his personal son and marry the rich Huntington Hartford as an alternative.
Within the Fifties, Huntington Hartford started buying properties in New York Metropolis, Palm Seashore, and New Jersey. He additionally bought the well-known Hollywood property often known as “The Pines”, a London city home, a property in France, in addition to shopping for a home on Hog Island within the Bahamas. He later bought Hog Island totally in 1959 and renamed it Paradise Island, quickly trying to show it right into a haven for illicit elite intercourse events involving underage ladies. He even gave Paradise Island its personal flag which was formed like a “P,” an emblem he additionally needed to placed on the moon as an emblem for “world peace.”
The last decade of the Fifties had been seen as the most efficient years of his life. Bolstered by Marjorie’s ambitions as an actress and a painter, he started investing within the film business, produced one in all his spouse’s extra profitable motion pictures in 1951, opened a theatre in Hollywood, and based what was described as an “artists colony.” Throughout these busy years, he discovered time to write an adaptation of Jane Eyre for Marjorie, which had a brief run on Broadway and ultimately flopped after Marjorie pulled out of the challenge as a result of “she simply determined it might harm her repute as an actress.” To that, Huntington Hartford had acknowledged, “I feel she was proper.” Hartford started investing in all method of grand initiatives throughout this period, all of which had been to be failures below his management. This was additionally to be the destiny of his marriage to Marjorie, which was heading for divorce by the tip of the Fifties.
Huntington Hartford, Ivar Bryce and James Bond
By 1960, Huntington Hartford’s marriage to Marjorie was coming to an finish, and he was celebrating by organising elite intercourse events, in addition to changing into an everyday at Hod Dibben’s sordid London-based occasions. On the well-known, generally satanic themed, intercourse events held by Hod Dibben and Mariella Capes, aka Mariella Novotny, George Huntington Hartford mingled with the elites of London, gangsters such because the Kray twins, in addition to most of the major characters concerned within the Profumo Affair, an occasion which noticed the downfall of the British authorities. One of many individuals who generally attended these gatherings was Stephen Ward, who was to turn into the primary patsy within the Profumo scandal, leading to his loss of life by overdose whereas in custody throughout one of the vital excessive profile court docket instances Britain had ever seen. Douglas Thompson mentions Huntington Hartford’s relationship with Stephen Ward and Horace Dibben in his guide, “Stephen Ward: Scapegoat,” stating:
All through the Fifties, workers would strategy younger ladies on the road on his [Hartford’s] behalf. In London, Stephen Ward, sketchpad in hand, did that for him. He additionally sketched a drawing of a woman being pleasured ’around the world’ by a machine for Huntington Hartford, who gave it to a pal of Kim Waterfield. The billionaire American favored ladies within the flesh. As did the producer Harry Alan Towers, who was invited to a London celebration thrown by Huntington Hartford. There, with Stephen Ward and Hod Dibben, was Mariella [Novotny].
Commenting on Marjorie Steele, Thompson additionally states:
The primary of his 4 wives was Marjorie Steele, an aspiring actress. Once they married in 1949, she was an adolescent (Huntington Hartford favored prime).
The latter assertion was partly false, as Marjorie Steele was truly the second of Huntington Hartford’s wives, nonetheless, he was well-known for liking “prime”, with Thompson occurring to say:
Because it was, George Huntington Hartford, one of many world’s richest males and a fan of Hod Dibben’s intercourse events, discovered 18-year-old Mariella just a little on the previous aspect.
In actual fact, Stephen Ward’s try and entice Huntington Hartford into Mariella Novotny’s mattress chamber opened-up a really harmful can of worms, which ultimately contributed to Ward’s premature loss of life, one thing we’ll discover extra later on this sequence.
One of the fascinating associates of Huntington Hartford was his brother-in-law, a person named Ivar Bryce. Born John Felix Charles Bryce in 1906, Ivar’s father had made his fortune dealing in guano whereas his mom had labored as a painter with a aspect job writing detective novels. Throughout World Struggle I, to flee potential Zeppelin assaults, an eleven-year-old Bryce was despatched to Cornwall. There, on a Cornish seaside, Bryce met a younger Ian Fleming and the 2 boys fashioned a permanent friendship. Fleming and Bryce attended Eton School collectively and later went on to co-publish {a magazine} known as The Wyvern, the place Bryce’s mom used her connections to influence well-known artists resembling Welsh painter Augustus John to contribute drawings. The journal was additionally used as a far-right propaganda instrument, and at one level they even printed an article praising the British Fascist Get together.
Throughout World Struggle II, Bryce started working for William Stephenson, who was the pinnacle of the British Safety Coordination (BSC) working out of New York. The BSC was an offshoot of MI6, which was setup by Winston Churchill to research enemy actions, forestall sabotage of any British pursuits within the Americas, and to positively affect American sentiment in the direction of the British. They used many underhand strategies to attain their objectives and Bryce was charged with stirring up bother between the USA of America and their varied Latin American neighbours, initially by utilizing the specter of Nazi infiltration to drive particular American coverage actions. In Thomas Mahl’s guide printed in 1998, entitled, “Determined Deception: British Covert Operations in the USA, 1939-44,” it states:
Bryce labored within the Latin American affairs part of the BSC, which was run by Dickie Coit (identified within the workplace as Coitis Interruptus). As a result of there was little proof of the German plot to take over Latin America, Ivar discovered it tough to excite Individuals concerning the risk.
To treatment American disinterest within the potential Nazi infiltration of Latin America, Bryce created faux propaganda, which efficiently helped to bitter relations between the US and Cuba. In his biography, You Solely Stay As soon as, Bryce writes about an early operation to undermine the Cuban-American relationship through the creation of a map, which was supposed to be given to US Congress as proof that Cuba was serving to the Nazis arrange secret bases of their nation. Bryce writes:
Sketching out trial maps of the potential adjustments, on my blotter, I got here up with one exhibiting the possible reallocation of territories that might attraction to Berlin. It was very convincing: the extra I studied it the extra sense it made… had been a real German map of this sort to be found and publicised amongst… the American Firsters, what a commotion could be triggered.
On this occasion, the ruse was carried out efficiently and have become a catalyst for Congress’ resolution to dismantle what remained of their neutrality laws which went on to pave the best way for a extra acrimonious relationship between the US and their Cuban neighbours. Throughout World Struggle II, Ivar Bryce constructed a property in Jamaica and his pal, Ian Fleming, who was then the non-public assistant to the director of British naval intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey, had determined that he would additionally reside in Jamaica and write full time after the conflict. In 1945, Bryce helped Fleming discover some land and a home exterior Oracabessa, with Fleming calling his newly discovered retreat “Goldeneye” – the identify of one in all his initiatives throughout the conflict.
In 1950, Ivar Bryce married into the Huntington Hartford household and wed Josephine Huntington Hartford. Like George Huntington Hartford II, his sister, Josephine Bryce, had inherited wealth from their grandfather. But, in contrast to George, she invested it effectively, concentrating on proudly owning racehorses and changing into very profitable in her personal proper. Throughout the late-Fifties, Ivar Bryce, Ian Fleming, and George Huntington Hartford additionally started producing movies collectively. In April 1953, Fleming had printed a novel entitled On line casino Royale, which launched his readers to a British undercover agent, serving Queen and nation, who glided by the identify James Bond. The guide was profitable and shortly Fleming started working with Ernest Cuneo to develop scripts for James Bond’s cinematic debut. Cuneo had been an essential, if not very important, determine within the operations of the aforementioned BSC throughout World Struggle II. He additionally admitted to passing details about American decision-making onto British spies, throughout a time the place the Brits had been intent on manipulating US actions. Cuneo acknowledged:
Given the time, the scenario, and the temper, it isn’t stunning nonetheless, that BSC additionally went past the authorized, the moral, and the correct. All through the impartial Americas, and particularly within the U.S., it ran espionage brokers, tampered with the mails, tapped phone, smuggled propaganda into the nation, disrupted public gatherings, covertly sponsored newspapers, radios, and organizations, perpetrated forgeries—even palming one off on the President of the USA—violated the aliens registration act [sic], shanghaied sailors quite a few instances, and presumably murdered a number of individuals on this nation.
Xanadu or Bust
In April 1959, the movie journal Kinematograph Weekly reported that:
Producer Kevin McClory and financier Ivar Bryce, who head Xanadu Productions, are planning to construct their very own studio within the Bahamas.
The Bahamian authorities was eager to see a movie manufacturing firm set up itself on one in all their 3000 islands. They had been fast to supply the corporate tax cuts and different incentives below their Encouragement of Business Act to entice Bryce and McClory to spend money on the Bahamas. Kevin O’Donovan McClory had initially met Ivar and Josephine Bryce throughout a go to to their villa on Windfall Island within the Bahamas—the villa itself is known as Xanadu—to debate collaborating on a movie known as “The Boy and the Bridge.” The Sunday Mirror reported on the match in September 1959, stating that:
The upshot was that Bryce went into partnership with Kevin–Bryce’s cash and Kevin’s know-how–to make a movie.
Additionally in April 1959, Ian Fleming wrote a letter to McClory regarding potential James Bond film concepts, with that letter additionally getting used in a 1963 court docket case between Bryce and McClory after their enterprise relationship ultimately broke down. Nevertheless, in August 1959, McClory and Bryce had been nonetheless on agreeable phrases and had been reportedly about to start out work on their new studio within the Bahamas.
Basing the manufacturing firm and far of the event of the James Bond franchise within the Bahamas made sense for a lot of causes. The Huntington Hartford youngsters had each bought houses within the Bahamas, with George’s “Paradise Island” being situated very near Ivar and Josephine Bryce’s Xanadu villa. However the primary purpose for Bond being based mostly within the Bahamas was McClory himself, who claimed that he was liable for a big a part of Ian Flemings novel, Thunderball, being set within the Bahamas. McClory claimed within the beforehand talked about 1963 court docket case that Bryce and Fleming had tried to oust him because the producer of the proposed Bond movie. Finally, like the connection between McClory and Bryce, the plans to construct a studio within the Bahamas started to unravel.
George Huntington Hartford had promised that his redevelopment of Hog Island into “Paradise Island” was to see the creation of a “dignified trip resort.” In 1960, the New York Occasions reported that the island at Nassau within the Bahamas was to be a spot for “artists and writers, socialites, and diplomats, academics and scientists, sportsmen and college students” in an environment of “cultural enjoyment.” However Huntington Hartford was going to should work arduous to make his Paradise Island imaginative and prescient a actuality, particularly if he was to draw the suitable crowd. In November 1962, the challenge was described as:
Essentially the most elaborate resort primping for its first full winter of operation is the $23,000,000 Paradise Island challenge of Huntington Hartford. Simply quarter-hour throughout Nassau Harbour by particular boat, this vacation complicated encompasses a French restaurant, a 52-room resort, lavish tropical gardens, a swimming pool and excellent tennis courts.
When the island’s Ocean Membership lastly opened in 1962, elites jetted in from everywhere in the globe, with over a thousand folks reported to have attended Paradise Island’s official launch celebration. However by March 1964, Huntington Hartford’s island resort was experiencing issues with crime after gunmen held up a gaggle of vacationers who had been visiting Nassau and on their approach to the Paradise Island resort. 4 males had been reported to have stopped the taxi after ramming it with their car and had been mentioned to have stolen the belongings of the taxi’s occupants. On the time, the vacationers had been travelling again from an evening on the Bahamian Membership, Nassau’s solely playing on line casino on the time. The taxi driver additionally advised the police that the bandits all “appeared like Individuals.” Though the robbers managed to get away with solely round $1,000 in money, their haul contained some extraordinarily expensive jewelry—together with a diamond ring price $250,000—and their heist noticed them web objects totalling in extra of $750,000, which was equal to over $7 million in at present’s cash.
Because it was with each different endeavour which Huntington Hartford undertook, he quickly turned disinterested in his Paradise Island challenge. By October 1964, his resort was up on the market. The press reported statements by Huntington Hartford’s dealer, a person named Johnny Maschio, admitting that the island had by no means been worthwhile, blaming the 52-room resort for limiting the enterprise’s profitability, saying:
You possibly can’t pay for males like Pancho Gonzales, the island tennis professional, and Gary Participant, the golf professional, with 52 paying friends.
The 700-acre property, which Huntington Hartford had initially bought from a Swedish Industrialist named Dr. Axel Wenner-Gren in 1959, was lastly reported to have been offered seven years later. Huntington Hartford didn’t get the $32 million which he initially needed, with the resort ultimately promoting for round $14 million as an alternative.
A Man About London City
Many rich elites, resembling George Huntington Hartford, had vital and shut ties to numerous members of various nationwide intelligence companies throughout this era. Many of those companies had been nonetheless evolving by way of the scope, scale, and magnificence of their operations all through the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties. American and British intelligence companies weren’t combating their Soviet foe publicly and, as an alternative of taking sure actions themselves, they had been usually discovered utilising entrance organisations such because the BSC to coerce their allies into making sure selections.
Central to the ideological conflict between East and West throughout this period was the battleground of London. The Chilly Struggle was hardly ever fought within the open, and in main capital cities resembling London, spies representing all sides had been conducting offers within the shadows. This put the evening golf equipment of London on the entrance traces of an data conflict, which had the ability to bitter worldwide relations, or doubtlessly spark wide-reaching worldwide incidents. This period of spy-games was made far more harmful by the dawning of the nuclear-age, with everybody concerned believing within the threat of nuclear warfare, mutually assured destruction, and the potential extinction of life on Earth.
To achieve entry to sexual encounters with younger ladies and ladies, males like Huntington Hartford attended these secretive elite intercourse events based mostly in London and uncovered themselves in additional methods than one. Whereas his huge inherited wealth and his many vital and highly effective connections afforded Huntington Hartford some safety, the one profit that these not-so-private occasions had for the rich billionaire was that they provided him the chance to fulfil his carnal needs. Nevertheless, for the intelligence brokers and their associates, these sordid occasions turned a primary place to assemble compromising data on highly effective folks, which might then be used towards them later. It shouldn’t shock anybody that organisers of elite intercourse events resembling Horace Dibben and George Huntington Hartford II, had been helpful allies for compromise operations run by the varied intelligence companies, whether or not they knew it or not. Like Horace Dibben, Huntington Hartford himself gave his companions entry to an actual underworld of hidden sexual subversion, which many individuals nonetheless assume is fantasy.
Nevertheless, this specific period of sexual compromise operations was coming to an finish. The folks concerned had been naive to consider that they may management such a posh blackmail operation indefinitely. Quickly, a gaggle of far more severe and sinister predators had been slowly surrounding the individuals who thought they occupied the highest of the intelligence meals chain. There was a brand new wave of spies coming to prominence who had been energetic among the many melting pots of each London and Washington DC; folks resembling Tom Corbally had been skulking across the American and English capitals and shortly would start to enact the scandal of the last decade and produce concerning the downfall of the British authorities. But, it wasn’t solely the British authorities which these intelligence brokers supposed to coup—they had been additionally wanting over the Atlantic, in the direction of America, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Quickly, this investigation will go deep into the precise Profumo Affair and the intelligence linked characters who made it occur. As for George Huntington Hartford, he turned a drug addict and misplaced almost all his fortune. He spent the final years of his life lamenting his many detrimental childhood experiences, mattress sure and disgruntled. He ultimately died within the Bahamas on the age of 97.
