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Meet Robert Pastor: Father of the North American Union
Human Events Online ^ | Jul 25, 2006 | Jerome R. Corsi

Posted on 07/26/2006 2:39:27 AM PDT by Trupolitik

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To: dennisw

The county library card is a great asset!
Biographies, history, news, etc.
That is exactly where I retrieved the info from.

If you're using lapl.org, you can also get the LA Times back to 1881!
Very interesting reading, lol.


81 posted on 07/27/2006 1:14:43 AM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: calcowgirl

Since this is FL I can get into the Sun Sentinel database via library and from home. Also the NY Times.

Thanks much because as I root around the Thompson-Gale databases I found other good research tools. State specific legal forms etc. Doing it right now from home!!! :)


82 posted on 07/27/2006 1:32:38 AM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: dennisw

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004/04/mexico-city-blues-dems-have-mexico.html

"Dem Go-to Guy on Latin America, Bob Pastor, is son-in-law of Robert McNamara ..."


83 posted on 07/27/2006 2:18:10 AM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: calcowgirl

Few days ago, even via the pathetic internet, I found his wife was McNamara. Was wondering if she could be related.


84 posted on 07/27/2006 2:23:51 AM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: dennisw
You're way ahead, then! I pulled this, just to verify our blogger:
MARGARET MCNAMARA, 65, IS DEAD; BEGAN CHILDREN'S READING PROGRAM; [Obituary]
SAXON, WOLFGANG. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Feb 4, 1981. pg. B.6

Margaret Craig McNamara, the founder of a nationwide program to encourage poor children to read, died of cancer yesterday morning at her home in Washington. Mrs. McNamara, who was 65 years old, was the wife of Robert S. McNamara, president of the World Bank.

(snip)

President Carter recognized her service to children by awarding her the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, a few days before he left office. Despite her rapidly advancing illness, Mrs. McNamara had herself taken in a wheelchair to the White House ceremony Jan. 16 to hear Mr. Carter's words of thanks and a round of thunderous applause. A World Traveler

Mrs. McNamara, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She came to Washington when President Kennedy appointed her husband Secretary of Defense.

She traveled widely with her husband all over the world, always carrying her ''book bag,'' a collection of Reading Is Fundamental books, to show to foreign educators. Last year, President Carter appointed her to the Advisory Committee on Library and Information Services.

Mrs. McNamara is also survived by two daughters, Margaret Pastor and Kathleen McNamara, both of Washington; a son, Robert Craig McNamara of Winters, Calif.; one granddaughter, Tiffan, and a sister, Katherine Craig.

A memorial service was scheduled for 2 P.M. Friday in Washington National Cathedral.

85 posted on 07/27/2006 2:37:04 AM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: dennisw
Jerome Corsi was on Hannity and Colmes last night and said as much. Colmes tried to tar Corsi with the anti Catholic, anti Jewish remarks he made a few years ago on FR...

From what I understand his comments that were construed as being anti- both groups were merely to make a point. Like I said, I heard Dr. Corsi give a long interview on Israel National Radio. He has spoken before the Knesset. (Israeli Parliament). Also, I found out that he has created two mutual funds for the state of Israel with the endorsement of B’nai Brith.

I think the crazy left is grasping at straws so they dont have to address...uggh hrmmm... THE ISSUES!?!?! ;-)

86 posted on 07/27/2006 3:27:05 AM PDT by Trupolitik
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To: dennisw
Dennis, the Kerry book is vintage Corsi.

I.E., laden with alarming facts based on solid research. But let's face it, the guy's style is early Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew on steroids. Gibbons, Shakespeare? He ain't. And that, IMHO, is on purpose.

All I'ma sayin' is that one doesn't read ole Jerry for the prose, dude. BTW, I read everything he writes and he is providing us an incredibly valuable service.

His purpose is to alarm people with the facts. It needs to be done and he does it. OBTW, it sells lots of books, too.

87 posted on 07/27/2006 5:51:54 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk (The W Legacy: $5 Gas, 100 Million Mexicans, Hillary (or worse) for President.)
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To: Kenny Bunk

OK Now I get it. All along you were giving him (JCorsi) a left handed compliment


88 posted on 07/27/2006 6:15:43 AM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: calcowgirl

I looked up MArgaret McNamara yesterday and couldn't find her family history. Thanks.


89 posted on 07/27/2006 8:07:33 AM PDT by texastoo ("trash the treaties")
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To: All
After years of helping to bring Jimmy Carter's vision into reality, Bob Pastor leaves the Carter Center Beginning a new life
Don Melvin. The Atlanta Constitution. Atlanta, Ga.: Apr 23, 1998. pg. A.16.16
Subjects: Social services, Resignations, Personal profiles
People: Pastor, Robert A
Companies: Jimmy Carter Presidential Center

In photographs of Jimmy Carter --- conferring in the Oval Office with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, discussing election monitoring with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega or negotiating in Haiti to avert a U.S. invasion --- there often appears in the background the image of a small, dark-haired, bespectacled aide. Bob Pastor's face may not be instantly recognizable. But behind some of Jimmy Carter's most famous successes lies a lot of Bob Pastor's work.

When Carter was president, Pastor helped negotiate the Panama Canal treaties. When, as ex-president, Carter wanted to observe Panamanian elections, Pastor went to secure permission. (In a rage, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega leapt onto a table and began throwing things at Pastor but eventually allowed Carter and his team to come.) And when Carter persuaded Daniel Ortega to accept election results and yield power peacefully, launching a new era in Nicaraguan politics, the moment was one for which Pastor had worked, in one capacity or another, for many years.

Pastor commands wide respect in foreign policy circles. In 1994, President Clinton nominated him to be ambassador to Panama, but the nomination was blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who said he would prevent a vote. Denied and disappointed, Pastor soldiered on at the Carter Center. When Carter, former Sen. Sam Nunn and Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, negotiated an agreement under which Haiti's military regime left the country without a fight, Pastor was the man who stayed behind to make sure the deal stuck, even as U.S. troops flew toward the Haitian coast. More recently, Pastor traveled to villages in China, working to bring a few sparks of democracy to that vast Communist tinderbox. But the era of appearing in the background of Jimmy Carter photographs is coming to an end.

Now 51 and restless, Pastor announced last week that he will leave the Carter Center this fall to write and . . . well, begin the rest of his life. "Not only will I miss Bob in a professional capacity," Carter said, "but as a personal friend."

There are two questions only time will answer: How effective will Carter continue to be, particularly in Latin American affairs, without Pastor? And what will become of Pastor's career without the Carter name behind him?

Giving in to wanderlust

Pastor grew up in New Jersey, the son of a bricklayer, but heard the siren song of international affairs early on. He spent his junior year of college in England; that summer, the summer of '68, he traveled all over Europe. He was in Czechoslovakia in August trying to stop Soviet tanks from rolling in; he got out, fortunately for him, before they did.

"There's just a personal excitement from living abroad," he said. "I mean, the amount of knowledge one can consume in living in a completely alien environment was so high, so large, that there was almost something intoxicating about it."

He returned to Lafayette College, in Easton, Penn. But at Christmastime of his senior year, he hitchhiked to Tampa and got a job clearing snakes out of the hold of a banana boat --- "the worst job of my entire life," he said. Then, in a move that is pure Bob Pastor, he jumped ship in Bluefields, Nicaragua, hitchhiked north to Guatemala --- and worked on his senior honors thesis on the Guatemalan revolution. That combination of intellectualism and adventurism, of writing and hands-on experience, would mark the rest of his life.

After college, he served in the Peace Corps in Borneo, where his contact with the outside world consisted of the New York Times Week in Review delivered four or five months late --- "which wasn't bad," he said, "because it still put me about 20 years ahead of the people I was living with." The year was 1972; Pastor hitchhiked through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, right in the middle of the Vietnam War. His parents, of course, thought he was nuts. "They were not very supportive, let alone enthusiastic," he said. "But they were glad I came back."

Adventurous path to Washington

Armed with a Ph.D. from Harvard, Pastor moved quickly into the councils of power. In his 20s, he was executive director of the Commission on U.S.-Latin American Relations. In 1977, at the age of 29, he was working in the White House, having been picked by Brzezinski to be director of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs on the National Security Council. "He was a real beaver," Brzezinski recalled. "He worked late hours. Sometimes I would call him at 3 a.m. and say, 'Get your (expletive) over here.' And he would."

Pastor proved he could not only develop ideas but put them into practice. When he was with the Commission on U.S. Latin-American Relations, it offered 28 recommendations for Latin American policy; in the White House, Pastor helped implement 27 of them. But there were failures, too. In 1979 and '80, Carter and Pastor tried without success to mediate a democratic transition of power in Nicaragua. Ten years later, they would get a second chance. Still in all, it was an exciting time for a young man. Pastor served every day of the Carter administration. "My greatest fear, when I finished those four years, was that I might never find a job as interesting as that again," he said. "And that was almost true."

Advocate of fair elections

Pastor joined the Carter Center as a fellow in 1986 and racked up an impressive list of achievements. The Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government, a group of 30 current and former heads of state from the Americas that has lent weight to Carter's efforts to monitor elections and encourage democracy, began as a memo from Pastor to Carter. Pastor secured permission from Noriega for Carter's team to monitor elections in Panama in 1989 --- elections Carter criticized as fraudulent. His work was important in heading off a U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1994.

Perhaps his proudest achievement came in Nicaragua in 1990. Invited in 1989 to a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Sandinista rise to power, Pastor had a message for President Ortega: " 'If you want to convince the world that you're serious about a free election, there's an easy way to do it.' "He said, 'How?' "I said, 'Why don't you invite the person who denounced Noriega's election as a fraud --- Jimmy Carter?' "

Ortega accepted. But Pastor had learned from the experience in Panama, when Noriega had refused to meet Carter as the election results came in. The Panamanian election had been exposed as dishonest, but a peaceful transfer of power had not been achieved. So Pastor had a message for Carter: " 'If you're serious about trying to influence and mediate this electoral process, you're going to have to invest a lot of time. We can't come down here on the day of the election, or a week before. You're going to have to come down here at least six or eight times. You're going to have to actively engage in mediating every single problem.' And he agreed to do that. 'You have to,' I said to him, 'get to know Ortega so well that on election night you can tell him, if he loses, that he's got to respect the results.' "

When the results showed the Sandinistas losing, Ortega --- in contrast to Noriega --- met with Carter. "I have won a presidential election and lost one," Carter told Ortega, "and losing wasn't the end of the world." Ortega yielded. It was the first time in Nicaraguan history that power had been transferred peacefully. And it brought to fruition the effort Pastor and Carter had launched from the White House 10 years before.

Toward a better world

Pastor is an academic, a teacher, the author of 11 books --- but he has never been content with only that. He has always wanted not merely to theorize, but to effect change in people's lives. "He has this ability to believe you can change the world," said Bill Foege, former executive director of the Carter Center. "So he seems undaunted by any size problem. He wades right into it."

"He's very idealistic," said Pastor's wife, Margy, whom he met in the office of Rep. Bella Abzug and who is the daughter of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. "He really is one of those old types that still has, despite the fact that we read so much negative stuff about the world today, idealism."

People familiar with the operations of the Carter Center say Pastor's work has been indispensable. He and Carter have had a mutually beneficial relationship. Pastor's influence has been increased because he was able to use Carter's name. Carter benefited from Pastor's savvy, energy and deep knowledge of Latin America.

"When he came to the Carter Center, it took on a whole new aura," said Douglas Brinkley, who has just finished writing a book on Carter's work as ex-president. "I don't think President Carter's post-presidency would be anywhere near what it has been without Bob." Carter himself said Pastor's "encyclopedic knowledge of this hemisphere" has been "of crucial value." But it would be wrong, Brinkley said, to think that "Bob Pastor steers the bicycle that is Jimmy Carter."

And Marion Creekmore, former director of programs at the Carter Center, said the center will continue to do good work, because, "What President Carter does, and his successes, depend first and foremost on himself and his wife."

No one doubts that Pastor will do well, also. At 51, he knows he can no longer wait for an ambassador's post, especially as long as Jesse Helms, who opposed the Panama Canal treaties, remains in the Senate. His days of typing late into the night so that Carter can hold a morning press conference, or running down the hall with an agreement Carter is waiting to sign, are drawing to a close.

Brinkley has no doubt that one day, whether four years from now or 10 or 12, Bob Pastor will be an ambassador. Pastor says he might like to head a non-governmental organization --- which is to say a development, trade or policy organization like CARE or Amnesty International or the Carter Center --- but he is not sure exactly what he'll do.

"I just think there are points in life where people have to change, they have to go on, they have to do something different," says Margy Pastor. "Now it's time for him, having hit the age he's hit, to say, 'hey.' He just needs to find new places to roost."


90 posted on 07/27/2006 1:21:17 PM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: texastoo; dennisw; hedgetrimmer; nicmarlo
Ping to above. More on Robert (Bob) Pastor (from 1998):
Pastor says he might like to head a non-governmental organization --- which is to say a development, trade or policy organization like CARE or Amnesty International or the Carter Center --- but he is not sure exactly what he'll do.

"I just think there are points in life where people have to change, they have to go on, they have to do something different," says Margy Pastor. "Now it's time for him, having hit the age he's hit, to say, 'hey.' He just needs to find new places to roost."

I guess we now know what his next endeavor is!
91 posted on 07/27/2006 1:23:35 PM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: seasoned traditionalist
Is our Congress asleep or simply ignoring this for whatever reasons?

I wrote my congress critter (Ric Keller-FL) a stongly worded letter about this and he always responds with something. I'll post it when he does.

92 posted on 07/27/2006 1:24:55 PM PDT by subterfuge (Call me a Jingoist, I don't care...)
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To: Trupolitik; MikefromOhio
Robert Pastor intends to give away U.S. sovereignty to a newly forming North American Union exactly as he gave away the Panama Canal to Panama during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Wow. This guy can give away our country's sovereignty? He must have more political influence than any American who ever lived!

In December 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Pastor to be U.S. ambassador to Panama. Pastor’s nomination was approved by a 16-3 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his confirmation looked virtually certain. The nomination failed, however, and was withdrawn by the administration in February 1995, after then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) swore to prevent a Senate vote on Pastor’s nomination.

He couldn't win a confirmation vote to be Ambassador to PANAMA?!?!? He didn't have enough juice to even get an up-or-down vote, but he's going to give away our sovereignty?? LOLOLOLOL!!!!! That's hiliarious!!

Ping to the Foreman!

93 posted on 07/27/2006 1:55:12 PM PDT by You Dirty Rats (I Love Free Republic!!!)
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To: Trupolitik

bttt


94 posted on 07/27/2006 1:56:23 PM PDT by ConservativeMan55
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To: sinkspur
Satan has horns. The Longhorns are in Texas, site of the TTC. Coincidence?

I don't think so!! Plus, this Pastor guy was nominated by Bill Clinton, and we all know how horny he is!!

95 posted on 07/27/2006 1:57:13 PM PDT by You Dirty Rats (I Love Free Republic!!!)
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To: calcowgirl

Where o where did you dig up this effusive bullcrap?


96 posted on 07/27/2006 7:50:17 PM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: dennisw

The library, of course. From the comfort of my office. :-)
Does your library have ProQuest news service? Mine does, and it includes the The Atlanta Journal/Constitution (where that article was published)

Pastor is quite the operator, huh? Behind the scenes with Ortega and the Sandinistas, giving away the Panama Canal.

CFR, IPS, Brookings... this guy is no lightweight and is not to be ignored, imo.


97 posted on 07/27/2006 7:56:19 PM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: calcowgirl
The library, of course. From the comfort of my office. :-)
Does your library have ProQuest news service? 

I don't see it. I'll call up tomorrow. My guess is I can only access from a library. Thanks, as always!

Mine does, and it includes the The Atlanta Journal/Constitution (where that article was published)

Pastor is quite the operator, huh? Behind the scenes with Ortega and the Sandinistas, giving away the Panama Canal.

He has lead a busy life of anti USA treachery. All to join this sovereign nation to Latin ones with radically different cultures and laws

CFR, IPS, Brookings... this guy is no lightweight and is not to be ignored, imo.

98 posted on 07/27/2006 8:21:26 PM PDT by dennisw (Confucius say man who go through turnstile sideways going to Bangkok)
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To: ovrtaxt
IMO, this topic is going to be BIG in the coming months and years, and right now most people don't have a clue that it exists.

You got THAT right! This should be in the front of every American's mind but hardly anybody knows about it.

Please keep me on your ping list.

99 posted on 07/28/2006 9:00:17 AM PDT by Minuteman23
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To: ovrtaxt

Thanks, it's nice to know someone is still plugging the conservative cause here ;-)


100 posted on 08/23/2006 10:40:22 AM PDT by Veracious Poet (Cash cows are sacred in America...GOT MILKED???)
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