Mystery Man: William Rhodes Davis - Hardcover

Harrington, Dale

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574881817 ISBN 13: 9781574881813

Publisher: POTOMAC BOOKS, 1999

Synopsis

This revealing book details how powerful American, British, and Mexican business and political leaders helped a talented and complex American serve Hitler.

About this title

About the Author

Dale Harrington has worked in the banking industry for many years as a financial analyst. His investigation of business transactions (many of them with fraudulent aspects) has given him an insider's understanding of the complex relationship between American corporations and the federal government. Harrington lives in Oakland, California.

Review

America has always been cursed with opportunists willing to do business with dictators. The current crop of people willing to profit from China - from President Clinton's apparent cash payments from the Chinese secret police to Republican businessmens' use of near slave labor to boost their profits - have their antecedents in William Rhodes Davis, who made a fortune supplying Hitler with the oil to launch World War II. There were many mysterious things about Davis - his relationship to FDR, his role as a Nazi agent, even his death. Mr. Harrington doesn't, can't give us the answers to everything, but he does a brilliant job laying out the facts that are known. The author is both an investment banker and a sensible man. Both are necessary skills to bring to a book like this. As an investment banker, he is anexcellent guide through the thickets of financial manueverings. As a sensible man, he weighs the information carefully and allows the reader to draw his own conclusions. I have only one quibble: he mentions that Sir Harry Oakes became associated with Davis shortly before Davis' strange death. Oakes himself of course figured in a strange murder case in the Bahamas shortly thereafter. I would have liked the author to see if there was any connection between the cases. That is the minorest of quibbles, however, and readers of this book will be able to reflect on just how many facets history has. --Larry Petersen

Everyone who is interested in how big corporations are in cahoots with the government should read this book. It should be a primer for international business students and anyone who wonders why the United States is teetering on becoming a fascist government. Dale Harrington takes the reader on a journey starting at the beginning of Davis' career, using current events and Davis' involvement to accurately state what happened behind the scenes during World War II. The fact that many Congressmen didn't want to be prosecuted and jailed because they were involved with Davis or had first hand knowledge of his crimes carries over to the status quo of why today's politicians are corrupt. Keeping these activities under wraps by controlling the media should be an outrage to the American people. --By Lisa Phillips

This is an excellent book for understanding the place that greed has in igniting worldwide catastrophe. William Rhodes Davis saw himself as an amalgam of Cecil Rhodes of the DeBeers Diamond Company and namesake of Rhodesia and the Rhodes Scholarship that bears his name and of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. That he operated in Texas is not surprising given that Texas Ranger, John Coffee "Jack" Hays' nephew, John Hays Hammond, was Cecil Rhodes' right hand man at DeBeers or that uncle "Jack" became the sheriff of San Francisco in 1850 on the same day that fellow Texas Ranger Ben McCullough became sheriff of Sacramento smack dab in middle of the Gold Rush. Follow the money? William Rhodes Davis did not invent the term, but he tried to perfect it. I only wish that Dale Harrington had spent more time on Mr. Davis' relationship with his son, former Governor of California, Gray Davis, whose apparent connections to the Enron debacle was cause for his recall and replacement by Arnold Schwartzenegger. And that another Davis entered the California Gubernatorial election after fleeing to California from Georgia back to where he would be extradited for the murder of David Coffin an heir of the New England Coffin fortune. They don't teach this stuff in our college history classes and they should --By Will Harvey

About this edition

• Publisher: POTOMAC BOOKS
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1574881817
• ISBN 13: 9781574881813
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304