Hey, I've got a cold too...

So, I'm reading that and I think, I know that name...Krongard...yup, Cookie is Buzzy's brother. You feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you begin to see that all of the pieces of the puzzle were moved into place. Cookie is a pro at covering up...

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Cookie'n'Buzzy go to Washington

Mercenaries, Scandals, Political Appointments and Insider Trading: The Adventures of a Pair of Baltimore Blue-Bloods in their Service of the Nation

Now that it has begun to widen to ensnare Bush appointees, we can on one level perhaps be grateful for the scandal caused by Blackwater's allegedly heavy-handed behaviour in Iraq Howard Krongard, nominated to his current position of State Department Inspector General despite a complete lack of diplomatic or State experience, is proving to be the best example of a political appointments process gone bad since the memorable phrase, "Brownie, you're doing a helluva job."

A Darth Vader Figure

But while the State IG -- 'Cookie' to his friends -- appears to be an East Coast establishment lightweight, out of his depth but doing what he's told, running minor interference for t he administration when asked, there is another Krongard out there who appears to more of a Darth Vader figure in the Dick Cheney / Karl Rove mold.

Cookie's brother and fellow Princeton alum 'Buzzy' (that's A.B. Krongard, to you...) emerged out of the world of international banking with a colourful bio (he likes guns! he fights sharks! he does martial arts!) and dark roots already showing at the roots of his fair-haired reputation.

Graduating from Princeton with a law degree in 1958 and after serving in the Marines as an infantry officer for three years, Alvin B. (A.B. "Buzzy") Krongard capped a 30-year career with a stint as Chairman and CEO of Alex. Brown, a holding company whose principal component was Alex Brown and Sons, known as the oldest investment firm in the U.S. In 1997, Alex. Brown merged with Banker's Trust, which was in turn purchased by Deutches Bank, a European banking colossus whose legacy, which stretches back to pre-WWII roots, includes well-documented financing of the Nazi regime.

Just months earlier that same year, Krongard had left Bankers Trust/Alex. Brown to take a post as counsellor to CIA chief George Tenet. By March of 2001, he was named executive director, number 3 spot at the agency.

Did Krongard's Firm Benefit From 9/11?

Fast-forward only a few months later to September, and the black days of the attacks that brought down the twin towers (including, incidentally severe damage to the nearby Deutches Bank building). One of the earliest conspiracy theories to emerge, within a week of the tragedy, was that illegal trading was done by someone with foreknowledge of the attack, in order to profit on a catastrophic drop in airlines stock.

One Chicago trader said the big increase in options trading is evidence that some people knew about the coming disaster.

"Somebody knew about it, whether it was a broker or somebody who knew these guys, or it's one of these terrorist cells," said Jon Najarian, founder of options specialist Mercury Trading in Chicago.

Almost as quickly, Buzzy Krongard was linked to this theory, by From the Wilderness founder and researcher Michael C. Ruppert writing on October 9 of that year:

Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That evidence also demonstrates that, in the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. A Match Made on Wall Street

In 2004, former investment banker Krongard -- untouched by the 9/11 insider trading allegations -- married fellow investment executive, Cheryl Gordon. Ms Gordon was at the time a senior partner of Apollo Management, but was destined in short order to become both a director of U.S. Airways Group and also for asset manager Legg Mason .

His wife is not the only interest Krongard has retained in the investment community. Following his departure from the CIA in 2004 as part of Porter Goss' purge of top agency management, Krongard joined the monolithic law firm DLA Piper, and continued to dabble in various boards of directors. (Note: it's worth noting here that DLA Piper was created on the merger of three firms. It was at one of these -- Piper & Marbury -- that Krongard's younger brother Howard worked as an associate in his first job out of Princeton).

Interlocking Boards of Directors and Anomalous Stock Holdings

One of the directorships that Buzzy Krongard currently participates in is on the board of the tremendously successful Under Armour Inc., founded by fellow Baltimorean Kevin Plank, as well as mortgage lender PHH. The Under Armour position is worth dwelling on because of some highly coincidental linkages. Krongard is UA's lead director, and as part of his compensation receives stock in the company. As recently as July of this year, SEC filings revealed he possessed nearly 20,000 shares in UA, worth approximately $US 1.2 million. What's strange here is when it's discovered that the major shareholder in Under Armour (4.5 million shares worth, or nearly $US 300 million) is the French insurance firm, AXA. Strange, because AXA was one of the big losers on 9/11, partly because of policy losses, but also because it owned 25% of American Airlines.

Equally coincidental is the fact that AXA owns huge amounts (over 12 million shares) of stock in Legg Mason, the firm on whose board Krongard's wife serves as a director and shareholder, with nearly 300 shares herself. We also find that Legg Mason reciprocally owns about 1.8 million shares in AXA, as well.

A Bilderberg Connection

Looking more deeply into AXA, one of the first things we find out is that it's leader since 2002, one Henri de Castries is a repeat Bilderberg attendee in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. And, as those who follow conspiracy theories know, the Bilderberg Group is one of the primary suspects in the drive to institute a globalist New World Order; it is also said that it was at the group's 2002 annual meeting that the invasion of Iraq was first discussed openly at the international level.

Full Circle: Back to Blackwater

As always in cases of conspiracy theories in utero, there are many dots but the connections between them are typically less than obvious. In the case of Buzzy Krongard, there are clearly cases where there's smoke, but the presence of fire has yet to be proven. The evidence gathered in this article might be enough to start some theorizing about Krongard, unclaimed millions from the 9/11 put options, and hush money being paid by AXA, but they would remain unfounded theories and allegations without merit. We will, perhaps have to wait for the fullness of time to bring more evidence to the foreground. In the meantime, however, -- and to bring this article full circle -- there is some testimony to suggest the existence of additional linkages between former CIA executive director Buzzy Krongard and Blackwater USA (remembering that in the beginning, we established the already existent links between Buzzy's brother Howard and the security contractor).

Robert Young Pelton, author of Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror and the discoverer of the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan, is quoted by the TPM Muckraker website last year:

Buzzy Krongard had been appointed to the position of executive director of the CIA in March 2001. He had quite a few years of experience as advisor to the [CIA Director], but further back in his career he had been an investment banker, and it was in that capacity that he had first become acquainted with [Blackwater founder] Erik [Prince] and the Prince family fortune. . . .

After Prince called seeking opportunities for his new business venture, Blackwater obtained a $5.4-million six-month contract that specified that it was for an "urgent and compelling" necessity. "Urgent and compelling" contracts eliminate all the competitive bidding requirements, so the contract went straight to Blackwater. . . .

Prince's first contract was not renewed after the initial six months. The official reason given was that Blackwater [who had no security personnel at the time the contract was signed] had never managed to stay fully staffed up. . . though rumors have circulated throughout the security industry that the CIA had discovered a conflict of interest relating to Buzzy Krongard.

Will Buzzy Expose Himself for his Brother?

Given the current difficulties in which his little brother finds himself, will Buzzy Krongard come to Cookie's aid again? And if he does, will that gesture be the move that finally puts him in the limelight sufficiently to expose the apparent connections to globalist conspiracy that he has so far managed to keep hidden? Only time -- and continued research by the devoted few -- will tell. But if it does occur, it will surely mean that the fallout from the Blackwater tragedy does, indeed, have a silver lining.