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Indeed, Peach, you are wise to caution people to read this trash VERY CAREFULLY.

Here's what the real thrust of the story should be (if, in fact, it even should be an AP story more than 65 years after the events described):

Prescott Bush, the current president's grandfather, didn't even work at the bank. He was just a member of the Board of Directors. Many prominent people are on multiple boards. Most of the time, appointing a prominent person to a board amounts to little more than an honorific.

As a member of the board of Union Banking, Bush was three or more companies removed from the Thyssen group of businesses. Union Banking was owned by Bank Voor Handel, a Dutch bank described in the AP piece as "closely affiliated" with a German conglomerate, United Steel Works. The latter company was a part of the Thyssen group of businesses, which the AP piece describes as an "empire."

More importantly, the implied "link" between Prescott Bush and Hitler through Thyssen is buried in the AP's 7th paragraph. Apparently, seven of the U.S. directors of the Union Banking board held 4000 shares of the bank's stock. Prescott Bush held exactly ONE share.

Then, to poke even further holes in their own smear, Salant goes on to write that Fritz Tyssen broke with the Nazis in 1938. That was the year before WWII broke out in Europe. Tyssen split with them over their persecution of Catholics and Jews. In other words, although he may have supported them early on, Tyssen wasn't a Nazi. When he learned the truth about them, he heroically bucked them at a time when they were the biggest and most dangerous power in Europe. In fact, he spent about four years in a Nazi prison during the war.

Is this the best the Left can do? Laugh my butt off big time!!!

This story has been hanging around the internet for months. The conspirators even have the Bush family obtaining the Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation from Fritz Thyssen in order to support the Nazis. According to that tale, when Fritz became a worried man the Bush family became involved in the 1938 purchase because of close family ties to I.G. Farben which, supposedly, wanted slave labor for Auschwitz. Unfortunately, Auschwitz was not established until 1940 and became a death camp in 1942.

Most significantly, Union Banking Corportation was founded in 1924 by W. Averell Harriman (later FDR's ambassador to the USSR in WWII). The Thyssen involvement was disguised by using the Bank Voor Handel as a cutout. Its primary responsibility was to manage the Theyssen family funds, which it did until October 1942. It can be said that the Harriman family was even more intimately involved with the Thyssen then the Bush ever were.

It this crap continues we can soon expect a book from the political right which claims that when FDR supported Harriman (a man who later made an unsuccessful run for President) he was supporting both a Nazi sympathizer and then a Communist dupe.