SUMMARY: Is Soros really the Puppetmaster? Or is he just a psyop, a front for British economic warfare operations? The man who created the Soros legend was Lord William Rees-Mogg: prominent British journalist; friend and confidant of the Royal Family; close friend and business associate of Lord Jacob Rothschild; and father of British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg.
IN 1993, many in Europe felt betrayed.
Some grumbled about an “Anglo-Saxon plot.”
Britain had rejected monetary union with Europe, saying she would stick with the British pound.
Tempers flared. Tongues loosened. Rhetoric was starting to get downright racial.
“There is a kind of plot,” said Belgian Foreign Minister Willy Claes. “In the Anglo-Saxon world, there exist organizations and personalities who prefer a divided Europe."
“Anglo-Saxon financial institutions” are undermining Europe’s efforts to unify currencies, charged Raymond Barre, France’s former Prime Minister.
Speaking before the European Parliament, Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission, railed against “les Anglo-Saxons.”1
Not since Napoleon’s cuirassiers charged the British lines at Waterloo had the French-speaking world exploded in such fury against perfidious Albion. Tensions were escalating dangerously.
Not to worry, though.
Help was on the way.
The Soros Psyop
Into the breach stepped Roger Cohen, born and raised in England, educated at Oxford, but now writing for The New York Times.
Cohen slyly changed the subject.
He called Willy Claes’s office and asked spokesman Ghislain D’Hoop to please identify the “Anglo-Saxon” plotters.
There were many, D’Hoop replied. But one was George Soros.
D’Hoop had stepped into the trap.
He had given Cohen what he wanted.
In a September 23, 1993 article in The New York Times, Cohen noted wryly:
“But Mr. Soros hardly fits the traditional definition of an Anglo-Saxon. He is a Hungarian-born Jew who speaks with a noticeable accent.”2
Cohen had deftly changed the subject.
Instead of an “Anglo-Saxon plot,” Cohen now offered a George Soros plot.
In a 900-word article which purported to discuss Europe’s currency crisis, Cohen devoted a third of the piece to Soros, ruminating at length about the unfair “opprobrium” Soros had endured for shorting the British pound in 1992 and the French franc in 1993.
While Cohen pretended to defend Soros, his article had the opposite effect.
Cohen actually drew attention to Soros, making him the centerpiece of a story that was not about Soros at all, or at least shouldn’t have been.
Cohen had thus deployed one of the most powerful weapons in Britain’s psywar arsenal.
I call it the Soros Psyop.
The man chiefly responsible for promoting Soros during this period was Lord William Rees-Mogg, a prominent journalist and member of the House of Lords. … More than anyone else, Lord Rees-Mogg was responsible for weaponizing George Soros.
Providing Cover
In my previous article, “How the British Invented Color Revolutions,” I explained how British psywar operatives developed bloodless coups and other behavioral technologies for manipulating foreign governments quietly and discreetly in the post-colonial era.3
Britain’s strategy since 1945 has been to play possum, lying low and letting the Americans do the heavy lifting of policing the world.
Quietly, below the radar, however, Britain remains deeply involved in imperial intrigues.
One of the ways Britain hides its operations is by using George Soros and others like him as cover.
Designated Villain
When British operatives engage in covert interventions such as destabilizing regimes or undermining currencies, George Soros always seems to pop up like a jack-in-the-box, mugging for the cameras, making provocative statements, and generally doing everything he can to draw attention to himself.
He is what intelligence professionals call a “noisy” operation.
Soros is the designated villain, the scapegoat.
He deliberately takes the blame for things, even when he is not to blame.
It’s a strange way to make a living. But it seems to pay well.
Rees-Mogg grew increasingly rhapsodic in his praise of Soros. He stated that Soros had “rescued” the UK; that Soros was a “benefactor of Britain”; indeed, that a statue of Soros should be “erected in Parliament Square, opposite the Treasury.”
"The Man Who Broke the Bank of England"
Until 1992, most people had never heard of Soros.
Then the British media named him “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.” Soros became an overnight celebrity.
The story goes that Soros shorted the British pound, forced a devaluation, and walked away with one (or maybe two) billion dollars in profit.
In reality, Soros was only one of many speculators who bet against the pound, forcing a 20-percent devaluation on “Black Wednesday,” September 16, 1992.4
Some of the largest banks in the world took part in the attack, along with various hedge funds and pension funds. Yet British media zeroed in almost exclusively on Soros, claiming that Soros led the attack and supposedly made the most money from it.
There is, in fact, little basis for these claims, beyond Soros’s own boasts.
Soros Becomes a Celebrity
Global currency traders are notoriously secretive, fearful of public outrage and government scrutiny.
Nearly six weeks after Black Wednesday, no one was really sure who crashed the British pound.
Then something unexpected happened.
Soros confessed!
On October 24, 1992, Britain’s Daily Mail ran a front-page story featuring a grinning Soros holding a drink, with the headline, “I Made a Billion as the Pound Crashed.”5
The Mail had somehow gotten hold of a quarterly statement from Soros’s Quantum Fund.
Soros claims he was surprised and alarmed by the press leak. But he had a strange way of showing it. Soros went straight to The Times of London and confirmed the story, bragging that it was all true.
He went so far as to boast that, “We [at Quantum] must have been the biggest single factor in the market...”6
And so, on the morning of October 26, 1992, a front-page headline in The Times proclaimed that Soros was “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.”7
In the months ahead, The Times would take the lead in promoting the Soros legend.
Rees-Mogg was misleading his readers. He did not support British sovereignty. Rees-Mogg was a globalist, who believed the nation-state had outlived its usefulness.
Hidden Protectors
In a January 15, 1995 article in The New Yorker, Connie Bruck recalled the astonishment that swept the financial world at Soros’s public confession. She wrote:
“Soros’s colleagues in the financial community—including some of Quantum’s directors and shareholders—were stunned at his public revelations; to this day, many express bewilderment at his action. One person in the hedge-fund community said to me, `Why bring light to this subject? Why bring attention to yourself?’”8
These financiers failed to grasp the big picture. They failed to understand that Soros was in a different league, playing a different game.
He was not just a speculator.
He was a psywar operator.
The Man Who Created George Soros
The man chiefly responsible for promoting Soros during this period was Lord William Rees-Mogg, a prominent journalist and member of the House of Lords.
The Financial Times called him “one of the grandest names in British journalism.”9
Lord Rees-Mogg died in 2012.
He was editor of The Times for 14 years (1967-1981), then vice chairman of the BBC.
He was a friend and confidant of the Royal Family, a close friend and business associate of Lord Jacob Rothschild, and the father of British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg.
More than anyone else, Lord Rees-Mogg was responsible for weaponizing George Soros.
Soros, Savior of Britain
When the Daily Mail accused Soros of crashing the pound, The Times stepped in to explain that Soros was a hero, who had actually saved British sovereignty.
In a front-page story of October 26, 1992, The Times explained that Soros had possibly saved the country from economic collapse and enslavement to the EU.10
The devaluation of the pound had forced Britain to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), thus halting British plans to join Europe’s monetary union, said The Times.
Lord William Rees-Mogg was particularly outspoken in Soros’s defense.
“Britain had the good fortune to be forced out of the ERM,” Rees-Mogg wrote in his March 1, 1993 column in The Times. “George Soros’s economic policy, for a modest fee, corrected [Prime Minister] John Major’s.”11
In subsequent columns, Rees-Mogg grew increasingly rhapsodic in his praise of Soros. He stated that Soros had “rescued” the UK; that Soros was a “benefactor of Britain”; indeed, that a statue of Soros should be “erected in Parliament Square, opposite the Treasury.”121314
Descended from an ancient family of landowning gentry, Rees-Mogg knew that globalism had always been the creed of the titled classes, whose only true loyalty is toward their families. … Restoring the feudal order is, in fact, the true and hidden goal of globalism.
Globalist Agenda
In fact, Rees-Mogg was misleading his readers.
He did not support British sovereignty. Rees-Mogg was a globalist, who believed the nation-state had outlived its usefulness.
Whatever reasons he had for opposing monetary union with Europe, British patriotism was not among them.
Rees-Mogg set forth his globalist beliefs in a series of books co-written with U.S. investment writer James Dale Davidson.
In The Sovereign Individual (1997), the authors prophesied that “Western nations” would soon “crack apart in the manner of the former Soviet Union,” to be replaced by tiny jurisdictions “akin to city-states” which would “emerge from the rubble of nations.”15
The authors predicted that, “Some of these new entities, like the Knights Templar and other religious and military orders of the Middle Ages, may control considerable wealth and military power without controlling any fixed territory.”
As in the days of “feudalism,” wrote Rees-Mogg and Davidson, “low-income persons in Western countries” would survive by attaching themselves to “wealthy households as retainers.”16
In other words, the lower classes would return to serfdom.
This was all for the best, the authors wrote, as it would allow the “ablest people” — i.e. the “top five percent” — to live where they liked and do as they liked, free from loyalties or obligations to any particular nation or government.
“As the era of the ‘Sovereign Individual’ takes shape,” the authors concluded, “many of the ablest people will cease to think of themselves as party to a nation, as ‘British’ or ‘American’ or ‘Canadian.’ A new ‘transnational’ or ‘extranational’ understanding of the world and a new way of identifying one’s place in it await discovery in the new millennium.”17
These are not the words of a patriot.
The New Feudalism
There was, in fact, nothing new about the “new way” Rees-Mogg promised in his book.
Descended from an ancient family of landowning gentry, Rees-Mogg knew that globalism had always been the creed of the titled classes, whose only true loyalty is toward their families.
The Harry Potter series provides an apt metaphor for today’s world, in which elite families move invisibly among the “muggles” or commoners, quietly running things behind the scenes, while hiding in plain sight.
By the 1990s, privileged families like Rees-Mogg’s had grown tired of hiding. They yearned for the good old days, when they could live openly in their castles and command their serfs.
Oxford political scientist Hedley Bull played to this crowd when he predicted, in his 1977 book The Anarchical Society, that, “sovereign states might disappear and be replaced not by a world government but by a modern and secular equivalent of… the Middle Ages.”18
Bull’s forecast of a new medievalism resonated with British elites.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, Rees-Mogg and others of his class began openly celebrating the end of the nation-state and the rise of a new feudalism.
Restoring the feudal order is, in fact, the true and hidden goal of globalism.
About that "Anglo-Saxon Plot"
Rees-Mogg’s extravagant praise of George Soros aroused suspicions on the Continent of an “Anglo-Saxon plot.”
Further suspicions arose when J.P. Morgan & Co. and its offshoot Morgan Stanley were found to be complicit in breaking the pound.
While nominally American, these banks had strong historical ties to Britain.
J.P. Morgan’s core business had always been acting as a front for British investors in America. U.S. railroads and other industries were largely built on British capital, much of it disbursed through Morgan banks.19
Junius S. Morgan—J.P.’s father—started the family business in 1854, moving into the London offices of Peabody, Morgan & Co. and remaining in England for the next 23 years.20
The Morgan family’s ties to Britain are deep.
In the run-up to Black Wednesday, J.P. Morgan & Co. aggressively shorted the British pound.21 Meanwhile, its sister bank Morgan Stanley provided massive loans to Soros, enabling him to do the same.22
Allegations of an “Anglo-Saxon plot” do not seem farfetched, in view of these facts.
It seems likely that Soros and other foreign speculators merely provided cover for what was, in effect, a British economic warfare operation against its own central bank.
How the British Recruited Soros
As Roger Cohen noted in The New York Times, George Soros is not an “Anglo-Saxon.” So how did he get mixed up in this Anglo-Saxon plot?
Young Soros was recruited through the London School of Economics (LSE). There, he was molded into a weapon of British “soft power.”
In an earlier article “How the British Sold Globalism to America,” I explained how Britain uses “soft power” (seduction and cooptation) to build influence networks in other countries.
Britain considers herself to be “the world’s leading soft power,” according to the UK’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.23
The British owe their number-one status, in large part, to their aggressive recruitment of foreign students to UK universities, an endeavor which is deemed a national security priority, overseen by the British Council, an arm of the Foreign Office.
The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review notes that, “1.8 million overseas students receive a British education each year” and that “More than a quarter of current world leaders have studied in the UK.”24
After graduation, these UK alumni are closely watched by the British Foreign Office.
According to a 2013 UK government white paper, those alumni who seem headed for high places are encouraged to seek “greater engagement” with fellow UK alumni, for the purpose of forming “a network of people in positions of influence around the world who can promote British foreign policy goals…”25
It seems likely that Soros and other foreign speculators merely provided cover for what was, in effect, a British economic warfare operation against its own central bank.
Model Recruit
George Soros is a triumph of Britain’s soft-power strategy.
Not only did he rise to a “position of influence” after graduating, but he remained close to his British mentors and promoted their teachings.
Soros named his network of Open Society Foundations in honor of his LSE professor Karl Popper, whose theory of “open society” guides Soros’s activism to this day.
Popper’s 1945 masterwork, The Open Society and Its Enemies, is a philosophical defense of imperialism, specifically of British liberal imperialism, as espoused by LSE’s founders.
The Fabian socialists who founded LSE believed that British expansion was the greatest civilizing force in an otherwise barbarous world.
In his book, Popper expressly defended imperial conquest as a first step in wiping out tribal and national identities, to clear the way for a “Universal Empire of Man.”
"British Prejudices"
Soros arrived in London in 1947, a refugee from Soviet-occupied Hungary.
He lived in England for nine years, from ages 17-27 (August 1947 to September 1956).
Graduating from LSE in 1953, Soros got his first job in finance at Singer & Friedlander, a London merchant bank.
Soros admits that he moved to the U.S. only to make money.
He planned to stay five years, then return to England.
“I did not particularly care for the United States,” he told his biographer Michael Kaufman, in Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. “I had acquired some basic British prejudices; you know, the States were, well, commercial, crass, and so on.”
Soros developed a strong aversion to the concepts of tribe and nation, following Karl Popper’s lead. … In 1995, Soros told The New Yorker, “I don’t think that you can ever overcome anti-Semitism if you behave as a tribe. … The only way you can overcome it is if you give up the tribalness.” … In fairness, Soros was only repeating what he had learned at the London School of Economics.
Open v. Closed Society
Disdain for America was not the only “British prejudice” Soros acquired at LSE. He also developed a strong aversion to the concepts of tribe and nation, following Karl Popper’s lead.
In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper taught that the human race is evolving from a “closed” society to an “open” one.26
The catalyst for this transformation is “imperialism,” he explained.27
Closed societies are tribal, concerned only with what is best for the tribe, while an “open” society seeks what is best for all mankind.
Popper admitted that tribal societies seem attractive on the surface. Tribal peoples are closely bonded by “kinship, living together, sharing common efforts, common dangers, common joys and common distress.”28
Yet, tribal people are never really free, Popper argued. Their lives are ruled by “magic” and “superstition,” by the “laws,” “customs” and “taboos” of their ancestors.29
They are stuck in a routine they cannot escape.
By contrast, an "open" society has no taboos or customs, no tribes or nations. It consists only of "individuals," free to do or think as they please.30
"Universal Empire of Man"
Popper held that all societies start out "closed,” but later become “open” through "imperialism."
When one tribe grows strong enough to conquer other tribes, “closed” societies are forced to “open” themselves to the conqueror, while the conqueror also becomes “open” to the ways of the conquered.
"[I]t is necessary, I believe, that tribalist exclusiveness and self-sufficiency could be superseded only by some form of imperialism,” Popper concluded.31
Empires make tribes and nations obsolete, said Popper. They provide a single government, with a single set of rules for everyone.
Popper dreamed of a "Universal Empire of Man" that would spread "open society" to every corner of the world.32
Popper’s ideas were not original. He was merely espousing the doctrine of liberal imperialism to which the London School of Economics was dedicated. [LSE co-founder Sidney Webb] set forth the essence of the imperial “open society” nearly 50 years before Popper.
Forbidden Fruit
In many ways, the Empire is more “tolerant” than the tribe, Popper argues. Detribalized peoples discover they are free to do and say many things which they used to think were “taboo.”
But there is one thing the Empire cannot tolerate: tribalism itself.
Popper warned that humanity can only go forward, not backward. He likened the “open society” to eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Once you have tasted the forbidden fruit, the gates of Paradise are closed.
You can never go back to the tribe. Those who try will become fascists.
"We can never return to the alleged innocence and beauty of the closed society... ,” Popper warns. “The more we try... the more surely do we arrive at ... the Secret Police, and ... romanticized gangsterism. … There is no return to a harmonious state of nature. If we turn back, then we must go the whole way — we must return to the beasts."33
Socialist Empire
Popper’s ideas were not original. He was merely espousing the doctrine of liberal imperialism to which the London School of Economics was dedicated.
LSE was founded in 1895 by four members of the Fabian Society, including Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw and Graham Wallas.34
All were staunch imperialists, as well as socialists, seeing no conflict between the two. Indeed, the Fabians saw the British Empire as an excellent vehicle for spreading socialist “internationalism.”
In a 1901 tract called Twentieth Century Politics: A Policy of National Efficiency, Sidney Webb called for an end to “abstract rights based on ‘nationalities’.” Dismissing what he called the “fervid propaganda of Irish `Home Rule,’” Webb condemned any movement that pushed for “self-government” based upon the “obsolete tribal notion” of “racial autonomy.”
Instead, Webb held that the world should be divided into “administrative units” based solely on geography, “whatever the mixture of race,” as exemplified by “that great commonwealth of peoples called the British Empire” which included “members of all races, of all human colors, and nearly all languages and religions.”35
Thus, Webb set forth the essence of the imperial “open society” nearly 50 years before Popper.
In a strange echo of Orwell, Lord William Rees-Mogg also suggested that his new feudalism would retain many of the outward appearances of normal English life, even as the British nation fell apart at the seams. … We thus see that Orwell’s “specifically English” socialism—in which even the Monarchy would survive—seems to bear an eerie resemblance to Rees-Mogg’s new feudalism. It might even be appropriate to ask whether they are one and the same.
Invisible Socialism
George Orwell is not known to have been a Fabian, but he shared the Fabian dream of a socialist British Empire.
In his 1941 book The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, Orwell predicted that a “specifically English Socialist movement” would arise, which would retain many “anachronisms” from the past.36
These “anachronisms” would calm and reassure the English soul, even as British society was being turned inside out.
One such “anachronism” would be the Monarchy, which Orwell thought worth preserving. Another was the Empire, which would be rebranded as “a federation of Socialist states…”
Orwell predicted that a true English socialism would “show a power of assimilating the past which will shock foreign observers and sometimes make them doubt whether any revolution has happened.”
Despite appearances, the Revolution would be real, in every “essential” way, Orwell promised.
"Like an Unburied Mummy"
In a strange echo of Orwell, Lord William Rees-Mogg also suggested that his new feudalism would retain many of the outward appearances of normal English life, even as the British nation fell apart at the seams.
In their 1987 book Blood in the Streets, Rees-Mogg and Davidson predicted that, even after nation-states had lost their power and sovereignty, “the forms of the nation-state would remain, as in Lebanon, as indeed, the form of the Roman Empire was preserved, like an unburied mummy, through the Middle Ages.”37
Despite his dismal view of Britain’s future, Rees-Mogg continued posing as a British patriot to the end. Perhaps this was his way of keeping up appearances, of helping to preserve the “form” of Britain, “like an unburied mummy,” in order to calm and reassure the English soul.
We thus see that Orwell’s “specifically English” socialism—in which even the Monarchy would survive—seems to bear an eerie resemblance to Rees-Mogg’s new feudalism.
It might even be appropriate to ask whether they are one and the same.
Rees-Mogg and his associates knew that, if enough small investors could be lured into believing the Soros legend, if enough could be manipulated into imitating Soros’s moves, buying and selling as he advised, then Soros would command the swarm. He could make or break markets, simply by talking.
The Imperial Soros
In 1995, Soros told The New Yorker, “I don’t think that you can ever overcome anti-Semitism if you behave as a tribe. … The only way you can overcome it is if you give up the tribalness.”38
This was neither the first nor the last time Soros raised eyebrows by condemning Jewish tribalism as a contributing factor to anti-Semitism. When Soros made a similar comment in 2003, he got a scolding from Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress, who retorted, “Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews; it’s caused by anti-Semites.”39
In fairness, Soros was only repeating what he had learned at the London School of Economics.
His Open Society foundations are expressly dedicated to Popper’s teachings, which oppose tribalism of any kind. By rejecting the tribalism of his own Jewish people, Soros was merely being intellectually consistent.
On a personal level, I can hardly condemn Soros for his critique of Jewish tribalism, inasmuch as my own Jewish father held similar views.
One of the ways my father expressed his rebellion was by marrying my mother, an exotic beauty, half Mexican, half Korean, and Catholic by faith.
I fully empathize with Soros’s uneasy relationship with his Jewish identity.
Nonetheless, I hear in Soros’s words a troubling echo of Sidney Webb’s imperial ideology, an influence which pervades and defines Soros’s Open Society network at every level.
Pied Piper Effect
In the months following Black Wednesday, British media promoted Soros like a movie star, building his legend as the greatest financial genius of the age.
Lord William Rees-Mogg led the pack.
Rees-Mogg and his associates knew that, if enough small investors could be lured into believing the Soros legend, if enough could be manipulated into imitating Soros’s moves, buying and selling as he advised, then Soros would command the swarm.
He could make or break markets, simply by talking.
In his Times column of April 26, 1993, Rees-Mogg cast a mystical aura over Soros, portraying him as a latter-day Nostradamus who could see through “public delusions” to the “reality” beneath.40
Other journalists fell into line, repeating Rees-Mogg’s talking points like sleepwalkers.
“Why are we so bewitched by this modern Midas?” asked the Daily Mail, in the swooning tones of a desperate lover.41
Not everyone bought into the Soros myth.
Leon Richardson, an Australian financial columnist, accused Rees-Mogg of trying to build Soros into a Pied Piper, to lead investors astray.
“Lord Rees-Mogg praised Mr. Soros, calling him the most brilliant investor in the world,” said Richardson in his May 9, 1993 column. “As a result, people started to watch Mr. Soros and what he does to make money.”42
Many in the financial press murmured about the unusual degree of coordination between The Times, Soros, Goldsmith, and Rothschild.
The Gold Scam
Those who were watching Soros after Black Wednesday didn’t need to wait long for his next investment tip.
“Soros has turned his attention to gold,” Rees-Mogg announced on April 26, 1993.43
Newmont Mining was the largest gold producer in North America. Soros had just bought 10 million shares from Sir James Goldsmith and Lord Jacob Rothschild.
If Soros was buying gold, maybe we should too, Rees-Mogg implied.
Not everyone jumped at Rees-Mogg’s suggestion.
Some commentators noted that, while Soros was buying Newmont shares, Goldsmith and Rothschild were dumping them — hardly a clear buy signal.
“Normally, when an insider sells stock in his own company he tries to keep it from being noticed,” commented Leon Richardson. “This was a strange case where the insider was trying to get wide media coverage about his selling.”
Nonetheless, the Pied Piper Effect worked. By August 2, the gold price had skyrocketed from $340 to $406 an ounce, a 19 percent increase.
"A New Way of Making Money"
Many in the financial press murmured about the unusual degree of coordination between The Times, Soros, Goldsmith, and Rothschild.
“Soros is an enigma…” said the London Evening Standard. “He never talked up gold, but then he didn’t need to. The Press did it for him, with Goldsmith’s cheerleader, Lord Rees-Mogg, sounding the clarion call in The Times.”44
“One can only marvel at the Goldsmith/Soros timing and stage-managed aura of their feel-good show for gold,” commented EuroBusiness Magazine in September, 1993. “They also had an impressive supporting cast: a media that played like a Greek chorus to their gold bug tune.”45
David C. Roche, a London strategist for Morgan Stanley, concluded, “It’s a new way of making money, a combination of judicious investment at the bottom of a market and a publicity coup.”46
The gold play proved that Soros worked with a team. His lone wolf image was just another myth. When the spotlight of celebrity first shone on Soros, it found him working with a tight circle of British investors, among them, some of the most famous names in global finance.
Team Player
Despite all the hype, the gold bubble burst in September, sending gold prices through the floor.
Many lost their shirts.
But Goldsmith and Rothschild made a killing, selling at the peak.
Some suspected that the whole point of the operation may have been to help Goldsmith and Rothschild realize a profit on their previously sluggish Newmont holdings.47
Soros, on the other hand, took a beating. By the time he dumped his Newmont shares, he had to sell low.48
Why did he do it? Why would Soros spearhead a gold hyping scheme that brought him little or no profit?
Some suspected that Soros may have taken a hit for the team.
Maybe he wasn’t such a maverick after all.
Maybe the Pied Piper was just a guy who follows orders.
Prophet or Pawn?
At the very least, the gold play proved that Soros worked with a team.
His lone wolf image was just another myth.
When the spotlight of celebrity first shone on Soros, it found him working with a tight circle of British investors, among them, some of the most famous names in global finance.
Investors at that level do not so much “speculate” in the markets as control them.
The gold scam revealed that Rees-Mogg, Soros, Goldsmith and Rothschild were bound by an intricate web of business relationships.
Goldsmith, for instance, was a director of Rothschild’s St. James Place Capital. Another St. James Place director, Nils Taube, served simultaneously as a director of Soros’s Quantum Fund.49
Rees-Mogg himself was a close friend of Lord Rothschild, as well as a board member of J. Rothschild Investment Management and a director of St. James Place Capital.50
Meanwhile, Times reporter Ivan Fallon — who helped break the story of Soros’s gold buy in the Sunday Times, co-writing the original April 25 report— just happened to be Goldsmith’s biographer, author of Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith.51
It was all very cozy.
In a series of articles in Revolver News, Darren Beattie exposed a cabal of U.S. national security operatives who specialize in toppling regimes through “color revolutions.” … Beattie accuses these “pro-democracy” groups of staging a mutiny against President Trump. … He calls the plotters “Atlanticists,” a euphemism commonly applied to State Department Anglophiles who put British interests over American ones. One of these “Atlanticist” plotters was George Soros, according to Beattie.
"Insider's Gang"
“These kinds of connections, this impression of an insider’s gang, are what make more mainstream investors occasionally raise an eyebrow where Soros is concerned,” grumped The Observer disapprovingly.52
The Observer was right. Soros was an “insider” working with other insiders. And there was no indication that he was anywhere near being a senior partner in this group.
Soros was a servant, not a prophet; a follower, not a leader.
That is why Soros cried foul when he was convicted of insider trading in 2002, in connection with France’s Société Générale scandal.
"It is a bizarre thing because I was the only one who was found guilty when the whole of the French establishment was involved," Soros complained to CNN.53
Soros plainly felt that the French had broken the rules.
In Soros’s view, when “the whole…establishment” of a country conspires to rig markets, it is unfair to single out any one conspirator for prosecution.
After all, Soros was simply doing what the others were doing.
Color Revolutions
At the same time Rees-Mogg was polishing Soros’s image as the greatest investment guru in the world, he also promoted Soros’s political activities.
“I admire the way he has spent his money,” said Rees-Mogg in his April 26, 1993 Times column. “Nothing is more important than the economic survival of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe.”54
Rees-Mogg was referring to Soros’s foundation work in the former Soviet states, where Soros quickly became infamous as a funder and organizer of bloodless coups known as “color revolutions.”
As with his currency trades, Soros did not act alone when engaging in regime-change operations. He was part of a team.
I suspect that Soros’s true role among “color revolution” operatives is similar to his role in the financial world. He deflects attention from British operations by loudly claiming credit for them.
Soros and the "Atlanticists"
In a series of articles in Revolver News, Darren Beattie exposed a cabal of U.S. national security operatives who specialize in toppling regimes through “color revolutions.”55
They operate through a network of government-sponsored NGOs, among them The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its two daughter groups, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Beattie accuses these “pro-democracy” groups of staging a mutiny against President Trump.
According to Beattie, these “pro-democracy” operatives played a central role in disrupting our 2020 election, their schemes culminating in the so-called Capitol “insurrection,” which Revolver has now exposed as an inside job orchestrated by FBI provocateurs.56
Beattie calls the plotters “Atlanticists,” a euphemism commonly applied to State Department Anglophiles who put British interests over American ones.57
One of these “Atlanticist” plotters was George Soros, according to Beattie.58
The Mouth that Roared
Normally, when Soros involves himself in regime-change operations, he goes out of his way to claim credit, just as he did for breaking the Bank of England in 1992.
For instance, in his 2003 book The Bubble of American Supremacy, Soros freely confessed, “My foundations contributed to democratic regime change in Slovakia in 1998, Croatia in 1999, and Yugoslavia in 2000, mobilizing civil society to get rid of Vladimir Meciar, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, respectively.”59
That same year, at a Moscow press conference, Soros publicly threatened to oust Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, stating, “This is what we did in Slovakia at the time of Meciar, in Croatia at the time of Tudjman and in Yugoslavia at the time of Milosevic.”60
When Shevardnadze was subsequently overthrown in a November 2003 uprising, Soros publicly claimed credit.
“I’m delighted by what happened in Georgia, and I take great pride in having contributed to it,” Soros bragged to the Los Angeles Times on July 5, 2004.61
It is difficult to understand why McFaul would deliberately endanger Soros and a whole slew of American operatives [in Ukraine] by publicly implicating them in election meddling, unless perhaps he was trying to deflect attention from some other participants who were not American. One such non-American participant was the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), a UK “pro-democracy” group funded by the British Foreign Office. WFD played a crucial role in the Orange Revolution. Did McFaul put his fellow Americans at risk to provide cover for the British?
UK Alumni Network
Somewhat unusually, Soros did not rush to claim credit for the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, but one of his colleagues, Michael McFaul, did it for him.
“Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes,” wrote McFaul in The Washington Post of December 21, 2004.62
McFaul — who was then an associate professor at Stanford, but who later served as Ambassador to Russia under Obama —went on to list various “American agents of influence” whom he claimed had taken part in the Orange Revolution, among them International Renaissance Foundation, which McFaul made a special point of describing as “Soros-funded.”
Ukraine is a dangerous, violent country, where foreign agents run certain risks. It is difficult to understand why McFaul would deliberately endanger Soros and a whole slew of American operatives by publicly implicating them in election meddling, unless perhaps he was trying to deflect attention from some other participants who were not American.
One such non-American participant was the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), a UK “pro-democracy” group funded by the British Foreign Office. WFD played a crucial role in the Orange Revolution.63
Did McFaul put his fellow Americans at risk to provide cover for the British?
As a Rhodes Scholar and Oxford graduate, McFaul is a UK alumni who has risen to a “position of influence”—exactly the sort of person whom the British Foreign Office routinely calls upon to assist in promoting “British foreign policy goals.”
The Hidden Hand of Britain
One of the so-called “American agents of influence” whom McFaul exposed in The Washington Post was Freedom House.
As revealed in my previous article, “How the British Invented Color Revolutions,” Freedom House was founded in 1941 as a British intelligence front, whose purpose was to push for U.S. entry into World War II, and to help Britain carry out covert operations against U.S. peace activists.64
There is no reason to believe that Freedom House has changed its allegiance since then.
To describe Freedom House as an “American agent of influence” puts a certain strain on the word “American.”
Freedom House perfectly exemplifies the sort of Anglophile front which Darren Beattie calls “Atlanticist.”
Where is Soros?
I suspect that Soros’s true role among “color revolution” operatives is similar to his role in the financial world.
He deflects attention from British operations by loudly claiming credit for them.
So where is Soros now?
Why isn’t he crowing over the fallen figure of President Trump, as he crowed over Meciar, Tudjman, Milosevic, Shevardnadze, and so many others?
Perhaps Soros got a call from London.
Perhaps his superiors warned him that things are getting a little dicey with these Revolver exposés.
Perhaps they told Soros to keep his mouth shut.
Richard Poe is a New York Times-bestselling author and journalist. He co-wrote with David Horowitz The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. Poe is presently writing a history of globalism. His work is available at richardpoe.substack.com and RichardPoe.com.
Based in part on a Twitter thread dated October 19, 2020.
https://x.com/RealRichardPoe/status/1318193392627732480
FOOTNOTES
Roger Cohen, “Europe Sees a Plot: ‘Anglo-Saxons’ Ruin Currency Plans,” The New York Times, September 23, 1993, Section D, page 2
ibid.
Richard Poe, "How the British Invented Color Revolutions," LewRockwell.com, May 14, 2021
Thomas Jaffe and Dyan Machan, “How the Market Overwhelmed the Central Banks,” Forbes, November 9, 1992
“I Made a Billion as the Pound Crashed,” Daily Mail, October 24, 1992
Anatole Kaletsky, "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England", The Times, October 26, 1992, pp1, 38
Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 2002), p 238
Connie Bruck, “The World According to George Soros,” The New Yorker, January 23, 1995, pp. 54–78
John Lloyd, "Memoirs" (Review), Financial Times, July 22, 2011
Kaletsky, “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England," The Times, October 26, 1992
William Rees-Mogg, “Oriental Sting in the Slump’s Tail,” The Times, March 1, 1993
William Rees-Mogg, "Roll-Call of Dishonor," The Times, March 11, 1993
William Rees-Mogg, "Take a Gold Look at Shifting Reality," The Times, April 26, 1993
William Rees-Mogg, "He Helps Us to Hate Europe," The Times, April 19, 1993
James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p283
Davidson and Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual (1997), p360
Davidson and Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual (1997), pp 232, 251
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan Press, 1977), p254
Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (New York: Touchstone / Simon & Schuster, 1990), pp. 3-16
Chernow, The House of Morgan (1990), p. 10, 28, 41.
Thomas Jaffe and Dyan Machan, “How the Market Overwhelmed the Central Banks,” Forbes, November 9, 1992
Duncan Balsbaugh, “The pound, my part in its downfall and is it time to fight the central banks again?”, International Financing Review (IFR), November 3, 2015
National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Propserous United Kingdom, Presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of Her Majesty, CM9161, November 2015
ibid.
International Education: Global Growth and Prosperity, UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) July 2013, Ref: BIS/13/1081, pp. 6, 39
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume I: The Spell of Plato (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2003: originally published in 1945), pp. 184-188
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), p 194
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), pp. 186, 189
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), pp. 184-186
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), pp. 187-188
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), p. 194
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), pp. 197-196, 198
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I (1945), p. 214
"Meet Our Founders," The London School of Economics and Political Science [website accessed June 18, 2021]
Sidney Webb, Twentieth Century Politics: A Policy of National Efficiency, Fabian Tract No. 108 (London: The Fabian Society, November 1901), p5
George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (London: Secker & Warburg, February 19, 1941)
Blood in the Streets, page 99
Connie Bruck, “The World According to George Soros,” The New Yorker, January 23, 1995, p. 59
Uriel Heilman, “In Rare Jewish Appearance, George Soros Says Jews and Israel Cause Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 10, 2003
William Rees-Mogg, “Take a Gold Look at Shifting Reality,” The Times, April 26, 1993, p. 16.
The Daily Mail, April 30, 1993, cited in Slater, Soros: The Unauthorized Biography (1996), page 201.
Leon Richardson, “Make a Pile as Big Boys Move Into Bonds,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 9, 1993, p4
William Rees-Mogg, “Take a Gold Look at Shifting Reality,” The Times, April 26, 1993, p. 16.
Mark Honigsbaum, “Will the Real George Soros Stand Up?”, London Evening Standard, September 24, 1993, page 10.
Stephanie Cooke, Charles Raw, “The Great Gold Swap: Acquisitions in the Gold Mining Industry,” EuroBusiness, Vol. 1, No. 5, September 1993, page 8.
Allen R. Myerson, “Currency Markets; When Soros Speaks, World Markets Listen,” The New York Times, June 10, 1993
"By then, however, Goldsmith and Rothschild had pulled off a remarkable investment coup. Whether or not it was their intention, their activities and statements pushed up the value of their Newmont shares to a point where they could sell at a massive profit. For the two years before this, their investment in Newmont had looked like a big mistake." Stephanie Cook and Charles Raw, "Kicking up Gold Dust," The Independent (London), September 19, 1993, p.14
"In all, it was estimated that the Goldsmith-Rothschild team made more than $164 million from their Newmont investment and still held 6.5 percent of the company. ... Soros, who increased his holdings to 10.2 million shares, or 12 percent of the company, did not fare so well. ... He began selling in 1997 as the gold price declined and liquidated his position in early 1998 at about $32 a share, suffering a sizable loss." Jack H. Morris, Going for Gold: The History of Newmont Mining Corporation (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, ), p. 200; However, some sources report that Soros made up for his loss, at least partly, through his timely sale of gold bullion. See, for instance: "But no sooner had gold risen than Soros began taking his profits—quietly of course. By mid-August Quantum had reportedly dumped between two to three million ounces, most of it at the top of the market." Mark Honigsbaum, "Will the Real George Soros Stand Up?", Evening Standard (London), September 24, 1993, p. 10; See also: "The Sunday Times of London reported on August 15 that Soros had sold his entire holdings in gold bullion at between $385 and $95 an ounce. Soros appeared to be cutting his losses: The price of gold had soared to over $400 an ounce in London two weeks earlier, but then plunged sharply." Slater, Soros: The Unauthorized Biography (1996), page 200.
"A fellow director of the company [St. James Place Capital] is Nils Taube, who... is also a longtime Soros associate and non-executive director of Soros's Dutch Antilles-based Quantum fund." Stephanie Cooke, Charles Raw, “The Great Gold Swap: Acquisitions in the Gold Mining Industry,” EuroBusiness, Vol. 1, No. 5, September 1993, page 8: "Both Sir James [Goldsmith] and Lord Rees-Mogg are non-executive directors of Lord Rothschild's investment company, St. James Place Capital." Roger Scott, "Major World Gold Play Taking Place, Sun Herald (Sydney), p. 55.
"As a first step towards his goal, he [Jacob Rees-Mogg] joined J. Rothschild Investment Management in London as an analyst. ... What undoubtedly helped his chances was the fact that his father was a long-standing friend of the firm's founder, Lord Rothschild. That William Rees-Mogg had himself been on the board of the company since 1987 cannot have done any harm to his son's prospects either." Lord Ashcroft, "How Jacob Rees-Mogg made his millions from trading shares as a schoolboy to ruthlessly walking out on the old family friend who gave him his big break," Daily Mail, September 14, 2019; "I am myself a non-executive director of St. James's Place Capital, which is Lord Rothschild's investment company..." William Rees-Mogg, "Take a gold look at shifting reality," The Times (London), April 26, 1993.
"Now George Soros has turned his attention to gold. According to an important story by John Cassidy and Ivan Fallon in The Sunday Times, he [Soros] has bought 10 million shares in Newmont Mining from Sir James Goldsmith and Lord Rothschild, at a cost of some $400 million." William Rees-Mogg, "Take a gold look at shifting reality," The Times (London), April 26, 1993.
The Observer, cited in Robert Slater, Soros: The Unauthorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), page 202
Charles Hodson, "Soros Not Confident of Appeal," CNN.com, January 28, 2003; cited in Richard Poe, “Soros Fights Felony Conviction,” RichardPoe.com, November 5, 2007
Rees-Mogg, The Times, April 26, 1993
"Meet Norm Eisen: Legal Hatchet Man and Central Operative in the “Color Revolution” Against President Trump," Revolver.news, September 9, 2020
See complete Revolver.news series on Color Revolutions below:
"The Curious Case of George Kent: State Department’s Belarus 'Color Revolution' Expert And 'Never Trump' Impeachment Witness," Revolver.news, August 16, 2020
"Transition Integrity Project: Is this Soros Linked Group Plotting a “Color Revolution” Against President Trump?", Revolver.news, September 4, 2020
"Meet Norm Eisen: Legal Hatchet Man and Central Operative in the “Color Revolution” Against President Trump," Revolver.news, September 9, 2020
"Further Proof Presidential Debate Commission is Rigged: Chairman is Co-Founder of Top “Color Revolution” Org Linked to Steele Dossier and More," Revolver.news, October 9, 2020
"Unindicted Co-Conspirators in 1/6 Cases Raise Disturbing Questions of Federal Foreknowledge," Revolver.news, June 14, 2021
Richard Poe, "How the British Invented Color Revolutions," RichardPoe.com, May 13, 2021
"Transition Integrity Project: Is this Soros Linked Group Plotting a ‘Color Revolution Against President Trump?", Revolver.news, September 4, 2020
George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (New York: PublicAffairs / Perseus Books, December 2003). p. 132, cited in Richard Poe, “George Soros’s Coup,” NewsMax Magazine, May 2004
Mark MacKinnon, "Georgia Revolt Carried Mark of Soros," Globe and Mail, November 26, 2003, cited in Richard Poe, “George Soros’s Coup,” NewsMax Magazine, May 2004
David Holley, "Soros Invests in His Democratic Passion," Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2004, cited in Richard Poe, “The Lies of George Soros,” RichardPoe.com, July 18, 2004
Michael McFaul, “'Meddling' In Ukraine Democracy is not an American plot,” Washington Post, December 21, 2004, page A25
"IRI [International Republican Institute] fielded a twenty-five member delegation... The delegation co-Chairmen are Michael Trend, Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom and Vice Chairman of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Honorable Bohdan A. Futey, United States Federal Judge. ... The delegation found that Ukraine's electoral process and its quest for democracy have taken a step backward. ... The government of Ukraine must take immediate steps to improve the administration and conduct of the second round of voting [scheduled for November 21, 2004]." Aspects of the Orange Revolution V: Institutional Observation Reports on the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections, Ingmar Bredies, Andreas Umland, and Valentin Yakushik, editors. (Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem Verlag, 2007), pp. 23-25; See also "IRI's Preliminary Statement on Ukraine's Presidential Repeat Runoff," IRI.org, December 27, 2004.
Richard Poe, "How the British Invented Color Revolutions," RichardPoe.com, May 13, 2021
Saw you on MelK. I was enthralled.
I’ll never know even a tiny bit of the stuff I wish I’d know.
Thank you
(I have your book with Horowitz. I will definitely read it now)
No article on how the British led to the downfall of the Roman Empire?