In 1869, on this day Victor Emmanuel Savoy was born in Naples in the Kingdom of Italy. He would rule Italy from 29 July 1900 until his death on 28 December 1947 [1].

House of Savoy Redeemed by Ed & Scott PalterDue to the political and economic instability of Europe between the wars, he was reluctantly forced to appoint a nationalist government. But he compounded the error by linking the fate of the House of Savoy to the Junta that took Italy to war in 1938 [2].

Four years later, the Allies took another fateful decision, to proceed with Operation Giant [3]. Ignoring the pleadings of his mother, Prince Umberto stayed with the Rome Garrison to restore the honour of the House of Savoy. And despite his tragic death (he was not yet forty) he had indeed assured that the Royal House of Savoy would emerge from the war with some shreds of prestige that would allow them to continue their reign. Of course the Western Allies were keen to put in place a bulwark against Communism, and in Italy (like Japan) saw the intrinsic value of continuity of a Head of State in a defeated nation that they need to convert to a Cold war ally.

In 1790, on this day the tenth State ratified the Second Constitution and George Washington became President-for-Life.

A Disagreeable Scheme, ReduxWith his administration destroyed by Debt Assumption, Whiskey Rebellion and Indian troubles, his predecessor James Madison had already quit in disgust and returned to his native Virginia.

And as the Republic began to fall apart, a Second Constitutional Convention was hastily assembled. Inevitably, General Washington, who had declined the Presidency at the first convention, was recalled (mostly because the Army would not mobilize under any other leadership figure).

Subsequently, Washington attempted to sell a new compact to the States, although ultimately he failed to persuade North Carolina and Rhode Island. This is a variant ending to A Disagreeable Scheme in which Gen Washington also refuses the Presidency

In 1880, on this day Ned Kelly (pictured) was granted life, but on a condition.

Ned Kelly granted life, but on a conditionThroughout his early life, the Australian state of Victoria was plagued by bushranger Edward "Ned" Kelly. He was the son of an Irish ex-convict who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land on charges of thievery, though many argued he was a patriot who had stood a little too tall. The senior Kelly's vigor-beyond-legality passed on to his son, and Ned was notorious for cunning, while questionable, activities. At age 14, he was arrested for assault (claiming he was defending his sister's honor); at 15, he was again arrested for assault (on a man who had borrowed a horse without permission) and harassing his wife. Kelly himself would be accused of horse-thievery, and, in the resulting altercation with one Constable Hall, he beat Hall and reportedly rode him like a horse. Kelly grew and eventually assumed a career in cattle-rustling.

A new story by Jeff ProvineIn what may or may not have been police harassment, Kelly was accused of shooting an officer in the wrist, and so a warrant was put out for his arrest. The Kellies' version of the story was that the constable, Alexander Fitzpatrick, had come asking about Dan Kelly while Ned was gone to New South Wales, made an inappropriate advance on Kate Kelly, and was hit with a coal shovel by the mother, Ellen. Fitzpatrick's doctor noted the smell of alcohol, but Judge Redmond Barry found Ned guilty on scant evidence, prompting a 15-year sentence if he were to be found. Instead, Ned and his brother Dan fled into the bush, later joined by Steve Hart and Joe Byrne.

The Kelly gang was pursued, and a shootout at Stringybark Creek left two officers dead, meaning that Kelly would now be wanted for more than assault. Knowing his life hung on a thread no matter what he did, Kelly turned to daring bank robberies. In Euroa, the gang stole some two thousand pounds while entertaining hostages with horsemanship theatrics. The police scurried to arrest known Kelly sympathizers, but his legend only grew as the government pressed harder. In Jerilderie, they impersonated police officers with uniforms stolen from the local police station, bought hostages drinks, stole another ?2000, and burned the mortgage papers of everyone in the town.

On June 27, 1880, the gang, dressed in long, gray cotton coats and large hats, raided Glenrowan. Beneath their clothes, unbeknownst to the police, was armor constructed out of plowshares that weighed nearly 100 pounds and was thick enough to deflect bullets. When police arrived and the shootout began, bullets bounced off Kelly and terrified police. They cried that he was the Devil or a bunyip. Constable Gascoigne hit Kelly point blank, but the man did not fall, and Gascoigne called out that he could not be hurt. Eventually, the volleys caught Kelly in the foot and hand, and he was brought down and arrested.

The rest of his gang had died, Byrne dying from blood loss while Dan Kelly and Steve Hart reportedly committed suicide. Kelly stood before Judge Redmond Barry, the same who had promised to give him 15 years in the original harassment that had sent Kelly into the bush two years before. Barry sentenced Kelly to hang, but at the last moment 30,000 signatures for a stay of sentence were met with an enterprising lieutenant with an idea. In exchange for life imprisonment, Kelly would join in the designs of mass producing his armor for infantry.

Given into permanent custody of Her Majesty's Army, Kelly was taken to London where he and several military engineers reproduced his armor. The original suits had been made on a bush forge, but were of incredible quality, accidentally using the lower temperature and spotty nature of the rough forge to create uneven, more bullet-resistant metal. The armor designs would be put to use in the Boer War, where they would prove useful only in aggressive forward raids. Primarily, the armor was declared useless, though Kelly was maintained in military prison. He spent his time dictating and writing letters from his prison, denouncing the Australian government and arguing for the rights of Irish Catholics throughout the empire.

When the First World War began, trench warfare turned advances into slaughter until Kelly's armor was reintroduced in 1916. At the Battle of the Somme, armor-clad British soldiers stormed across No Man's Land. While many were cut down in the legs by machine gun fire and others simply fell over and were unable to get up, the pushing force overwhelmed German troops and started the general retreat from France that would end the war in 1917.

As Europe breathed between the wars, the Kaiser began a new arms race, developing motorized Panzer that would be emulated by other nations. In 1936, the Second World War would begin due to Germany's move into Austria during socialist riots. The new war would be nothing like the stalemate of the first and spread the deadness of No Man's Land across much of the continent. Kelly would not live to see the massive destruction his idea had caused, having died in prison in 1928, still writing in criticism of abusive tyranny.

In 1960, with the electoral recount process underway in the disputed States of Texas and Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong and Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi of the Airborne Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam effected a more dramatic change of government by assassinating President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Change of GovernmentAfter the plotters had trapped the ruling Ngo Family inside the Independence Palace, Diem tried to stall the coup by holding negotiations and promising reforms, such as the inclusion of military officers in the administration. Opposition politicians then joined the fray, exploiting his position, but Diem was simply playing for time, unaware that the 5th and 7th Divisions of the ARVN were unable to lift the siege because the plotters had closed the roads leading into the capital Saigon¹.

Whilst this drama played out, lame duck President Eisenhower and his two successor candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were also in limbo. Both candidates decided to seize the initiative by putting forthrightly their views on both the situation in Indochina, and also the case for US intervention to save the region falling like a domino to Communism.

In 1796, largely due to the destructive misbehaviour of John Adams the victor of the first contested American presidential election was Alexander Hamilton (pictured).

Dragon's TeethNominally at least, Adams was Hamilton's senior in the Federalist Party however the Vice President had destroyed his revolutionary credentials by persisting in his advocacy of an American monarchy. Just a month into office, Adams had been labelled "his rotundity" in the Senate by arguing that George Washington should be addressed with the monikers "His Majesty the President" or "His High Mightiness" over the simple "President of the United States" that eventually won the debate.

A fact that was lost on no one was that the childless Washington was sterile, and the Vice President was almost alone amongst Founding Fathers in having a male heir, John Quincy Adams.

Thomas Jefferson was uncharacteristically drawn into the debate due to the indiscretion of a printer who repeated his harsh criticism of Adam's "Davila Papers". Never one to miss out on an argument, Adams accused Jefferson's anti-monarchism of being a Francophone in nature, stating that his former friend was sowing "Dragon's Teeth" in the new republic.

Prior to the passage of the Twelve Amendment, the runner-up in the presidential race was elected Vice President and consequently Hamilton was saddled with Colonel Aaron Burr. But by irony of circumstance, this unlikely partnership saved the young republic. Because Hamilton made the stupendous error of raising and organizing an army to fight the French by invading the colonies of her ally, Spain.

Hamilton congratulated himself that he had succeeded in pulling the "Dragon's Teeth" by ensuring that America would not be drawn into the French system of thinking. And yet it was not the end of the French episode, because in 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte's brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc landed in Louisiana with twenty-thousand crack troops. Fortunately, Burr was a crackerjack soldier, who, as an emergency Commander-in-Chief, crushed the French at New Orleans.

In 1859, on this day the State of Virginia issued warrants for the half-dozen prominent northerners who conspired to organize John Brown's attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

Harpers Ferry Raid, Part 1: "Those Who Sent Him"Accordingly, the "Secret Six" would be obliged to "surrender to fugitive's justice [from Brown's raid]" , being collectively "charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia". Because widespread popular protests in the North on the day of John Brown's execution infuriated Southerners such as Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise who admired Brown's courage and forthrightness but condemned "those who sent him [John Brown]". The enduring image is captured in "The Last Moments of John Brown", by Thomas Hovenden (pictured).

Governor Wise admired Brown's courage and forthrightness but condemned "those who sent him" Despite appeals for clemency, Wise staunchly refused to commute Brown's sentence. And his insistence on pursuing the "Secret Six" was no less determined. Wise argued convincingly that Harpers Ferry wasn't Brown's first act of psychotic madness. Just days after the proslavery sack of Lawrence, his band of men had killed several proslavery settlers in "Bleeding Kansas", hacking to death five men along Pottawatomie Creek with short, heavy swords.

If abolitionists praised Brown's compassion for the "poor slave," to white Southerners he was anarchy incarnate. Yet easy as it was to dismiss John Brown as a madman, the "Secret Six" were neither hardscrabble ruffians nor ex-slaves but respectable, wealthy residents of Boston radiating culture, education, and fortune. As such, they presented an especial threat to the slave-holding plutocracy, by serving as the archetypical Northern mercantilists who had undermined the Founding Father's dreams for Confederacy.

Senator James Mason of Virginia formed a Senate committee to investigate the raid, to validate Wise's allegations of Northern abolitionist complicity. After much hard talk about a Northern abolitionist cabal his committee colleague Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the committee found proof of Northern complicity "It would be hard to conceive of a conclusion other than conspiracy that to which the whole affair has come," the New York Times observed in June 1860. The same paper suggested that it would be a miracle if the next President had a Union to preside over come the next inauguration.

In 1621, at Thanksgiving Township in the modern-day province of Wampanoag, English Settlers set apart a day to celebrate their first harvest festival.

The First Deliverance DayThe guest of honour, Ousamequin (also known as Massasoit), the Great Sachem of the Pokanoket had prevented the failure of the settlement, and the almost certain starvation that the English faced during the earliest years of the Township's establishment.

Moreover, the Sachem had forged critical political and personal ties with the leadership figures of John Carver, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Winslow, William Bradford, and Miles Standish.

"The English are my friends and love me".In "Mourt's Relation", Winslow himself would later record ~ "Many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others".

In good spirit, the English settlers agreed henceforth to celebrate their deliverance with Native Americans on the fourth Thursday in every November.

In 1941, on this day the S.S. Automedon was boarded by the German Raider Atlantis in the Indian Ocean.DLG '40 - Part 3: Force Orange
Onboard the Automedon were the plans for the defence of Singapore. The Germans discovered the documents but the recent peace settlement with Britain prohibited them from sending them to the Japanese. Shortly afterwards, the architect of that peace, David Lloyd George announced the formation of Force Orange (Lloyd George who had been appointed Prime Minister as an 'honest broker' after the Battle of Britain).
Heading towards Singapore was a battle group including Prince Of Wales and Repulse with support from HMS Indomitable, an Illustrious class aircraft carrier. First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound felt that Singapore could not be adequately defended, unless the Royal Navy sent the majority of its capital ships there, to achieve parity with the estimated nine Japanese battleships. That had been until recently considered unacceptable as the British were at war with Germany and Italy. On December 7th, the attack on Pearl Harbour would create an improbable scenario. British Seapower would be the only effective deterrent to Japanese aggression, which had been demonstrated in the invasion of French Indochina. ..(the story continues).

In 2004, on this day the Palestinian Head of State, His Excellency Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini died at the Mukataa, his lavish presidential compound on the Central West Bank of the River Jordan.Turning Point

Yasser Arafat - as he was more commonly known from his freedom fighting days, or Abu Ammar by his kunya given name - was seventy-five years old and had dedicated his entire adult life to the founding of Palestine.

In 1947, Mr Arafat enrolled in the University of King Fuad I. During the 1948 War of Independence, Mr Arafat left Cairo to join Arab forces fighting against Zionist troops. In early 1949, when the war was winding down in Palestine's favor, Mr Arafat returned to study Political Science, serving as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students. During his first year as president of the union, the institution was renamed Cairo University after a coup was carried out by the Free Officers Movement overthrowing King Farouk I. By that time, Mr Arafat had graduated with a bachelor's degree and was called to duty with Egyptian forces during the Suez Crisis to repel a fresh set of invaders, this time the British and French. The unconditional backing of the Free Officers Movement, and in particular the lifelong support of Abdul Gamal Nasser and his successors would be key to Mr Arafat's own rise to power in Ramallah.

Accordingly, a week of national mourning was declared in both Ramallah, and nearby East Jerusalem, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the north of the capital city.

Students of irony might care to note that the term Mukataa although commonly used to describe Palestinian government bureau and centres actually means 'something separated' in Arabic. This term could equally apply to the desperately unhappy state of a Zionist organisation led by Mr Binyamin Netanyahu, currently residing somewhat further away from the 'Eternal City of the Jews' than that gentleman would undoubtedly have preferred.

In Ellington, Connecticut Mr Netanyahu convened a news conference in his capacity as the Head of Congregation Knesseth Israel. Founded in 1906 by a group of Jewish farmers, the synagogue was built in 1913 partly with funds from the philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch's Jewish Colonization Association. The choice of the Constitution State was unintentionally symbolic; the motto of Connecticut is Qui transtulit sustinet, in Latin meaning 'He who transplanted sustains'.

Of course the Jewish Colonization Association had long labelled Mr Arafat an Arab nationalist and a terrorist, saying his death could be a turning point for Jewish fortunes in the Middle East.

Despite the catastrophe of 1948, the people of Eretz Israel had not given up on their vision of a Jewish State in the Middle East, said Netanyahu. However, when pressed, he refused to give a road-map stating that 'for the foreseeable future', the Jewish homeland would be these agricultural colonies on real estate purchased by the committee, in the Americas.

In 1918, the Great European War ends with the downfall of all the monarchies on the continent.

Treaty of PragueAfter the Christmas Truce of 1914 had produced a huge body of soldiers unwilling to fight each other, these soldiers had returned to their native countries and begun fighting the regimes there. The 4 year struggle finally ended on this day with an agreement among the new governments in a dozen nations to never commit war against each other again.

The Treaty of Prague, signed by over a hundred soldiers and representatives of the new Peace governments, marked what President Wilson of America called, "the end of the war to end all wars".

In 1444, on this day a mixed Papal army defeated a large Ottoman force near Varna in eastern Bulgaria.

Glorious Papal Victory at VarnaTheir hard fought victory was a personal triumph for Władysław III of Poland (also King of Hungary). Over-ruling the sound advice of the more experienced Bulgarian Commander Hunyadi János, he rushed five hundred of his Polish knights against the Ottoman center in a bold move that ultimately won the day.

It was of course a huge risk but the only way that the thirty thousand man Papal Army could overcome an Ottoman force nearly twice the size. It would prove a crucial turning point in the Ottoman War.

In 1956, to the further embarrassment of the Soviet Union, the Russian adventurer Boris Skossyreff (pictured, with monocle) managed to join the revolutionary armed forces fighting for the Hungarian Uprising.

Conjoined Crisis Part 7
Colonel Pal Maleter welcomes King of AndorraColonel Pál Maléter and his troops were holed up in mines which dated back to the old Empire and extended across the border into Czechoslovakia. Their plight was being broadcast to the world by Imre Nagy who had been given refuge in the British Embassy. Despite their bold attempts to emulate the Cursed Soldiers of Poland, their resistance to Soviet forces was mostly symbolic. However, the intervention of Boris Skossyreff was a psychological blow to the Soviets.

A Lithuanian Baron who fled Russia after the Revolution he later proclaimed himself King of Andorra before being sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He had been released from a labor camp in Siberia earlier in the year.

Superficially, the bold personal interventions of maverick nobles such as von Habsburg, Skossyreff and later Michael King of Romania was a rival "throwback" challenge to Soviet Authority. Regardless of the misreports in the Western Media that the old Royal Families were tearing down the Iron Curtain, there was of course absolutely no prospect of a return to power for the Imperial Houses of Eastern Europe. Which was not to say their token resistance was completely without significance, because the real issue was the series of blundering mistakes that had been made in the Politburo, not just the release of Skossyreff but also yielding to Władysław Gomułka the newly appointed First Secretary of the Party in Poland.

The impression was that Stalin's successors - Nikita Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Marshal Konev and others - had lost their grip, and it was becoming increasingly likely that the crises in Eastern Europe would force a regime change in Moscow. An article from the Conjoined Crisis thread.

In 2012, just days after Mitt Romney's defeat at the polls, Republicans demanded a fundamental restructuring of the Electoral College that would bring an end to the frustration of dysfunctional Federal Government. The result followed a wave of voter disappointment in which Donald Trump (pictured) called for a protest march on Washington. Other commentators remarked upon the excessive focus on swing states and undecided voters that perhaps disenfranchised the mainstream majority.

Radcliffe Cloud, ReduxBecause under these far-reaching proposals to address the change of demographics, the winner-take-all voting system would be slowly eliminated on a state by state basis. One option was a national roll-out of the congressional districting solution already operating in Maine.

Of course a more extreme option being proposed by GOP backers was secession model based upon a refinement of the Radcliffe Cloud in which those congressional districts would become red or blue cantons in a two-countries-in-one geography model like the modern India. Comedian Bill Maher suggested that perhaps Trump's hair and scalp represented an assessment model for the viability of two entities loosely connected in a shared living space.

In 2011, on this day the ruinously high costs of providing a nuclear shield to American allies was carefully examined by the US Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

Flaithiulacht The Federal Deficit forces America to call time on "Ruinous Generosity"Back in August, the Debt Celling Negotiations had introduced a "trigger mechanism" that should this Supercommittee fail to reach an agreement, disproportionate cuts would fall upon the defense budget. And for the past two decades the centrepiece of America's critical defense program had been the Strategic Defense Initiative. But the costs of providing a ground and space-based systems to protect the United States and its allies from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles had become prohibitively expensive.

The problem was that there was an even bigger picture in November. That very day the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report estimating that Iran was less than eighteen months away from acquiring nuclear capability. Therefore the removal of the nuclear shield from Israel was currently unthinkable. And with the Eurozone close to financial collapse, America could not seek to recover costs from faltering countries such as Italy and Greece. Coming into view was the prospect of a contracted nuclear shield for critical coverage, a decision that could split the Western Alliance.

In 1938, on this day the British High Commissioner's office in Rome cabled prime minister Neville Chamberlain with alarming news: Martian militarist technicians were working with Italian and German physicists at a desert research station in Italian-occupied Libya on the development of a new type of explosive weapon which utilized the process of atomic fission to achieve its destructive effect.

Part Five of Parley To make matters worse, these same technicians were also consulting with German rocket scientists on the possibility of adapting the experimental atomic weapon to be capable of fitting into the warhead of a long-range or medium-range ballistic missile.

If the Nazis succeeded in devising such a warhead, the cable warned, Hitler could potentially attack targets as distant as London simply by pushing a button.

In 4004 B.C., Humanity Resists Temptation. On this day, as calculated by our brother James Ussher and remembered by Mother Eve, she was walking in The Garden when approached by a serpent, that crafty foe.

Humanity Resists Temptation The world was still young, having only been finished that October, and there were but two humans in all of Creation, Eve and our slightly older Father, Adam, from whose rib Eve, and thereby all of us, came. She meandered by the feared Tree of Knowledge that has long been buried under concrete and steel.

Before its protection, however, the tree was open to be seen and its fruit could be picked with mere fingertips. The serpent asked, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"

A new story by Jeff ProvineEve replied, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

The serpent scoffed and said, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil".

After a moment of temptation, Eve resisted and ran screaming through the Garden, crying out for God. Upon hearing His voice asking after the matter, Eve explained she had been tempted. God found the spirit of Lucifer, that most rebellious angel cast out of Heaven, in the beast, and both were cast into the Pit. Since that day, we humans have always fought the temptation of the Tree, leading to its burial in the ongoing Babel project, putting it under a foundation someday as high as Heaven. Until the end of time, we will drive it deeper and deeper, away from our hand so that we will never know what it is to "die".

In the six thousand years since, humanity has grown and achieved feats applauded by the angels such as building cities and exploring to every corner of the Earth. As far as we have gone, all of us consider The Garden our home, and many continue to sleep under its boughs. We have even "created" on our own, making art and music and telling tales of fanciful things, such as if the morning dew were so heavy it fell from the sky in waves of drops or if we could fly like angels.

Meanwhile, Heaven has been quiet other than a second rebellion by angels suffering something known as "boredom," perhaps a thing akin to the arrogance of the first rebellion. The Word, which was in the beginning being with God and being God, also seemed at a loss, as if He were meant for more. Still, He was known to approach Earth and share fellowship with us. Most dramatically, some 2000 years ago, the Word became man by virgin birth and ruled as king. While a significant entry, most agree we would have accepted Him in any case, but who are we to question God's Plan?

In 1382 AH, in the hot lush savannah country which lies four days up river from the coast of the Gambia, Kajali Demba died peacefully in his sleep. For too many years he had been the griot of the village of Juffure, serving the local Mandinka as an oral historian, poet, praise singer and wandering musician.

Saga of an African FamilyHis successor would be the young man Kinte (pictured second from left) who began his first address with a simple demonstration. Cutting open a mango, he held the fruit high above his children, preventing them from taking it.

He then began his oration with a piece of homespun wisdom, "When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything". This metaphor of non-violence had served his people for half a millenia of peaceful existence by the banks of the River Gambia.

In 2010, on this day the movie "Wrong Turn 4: No Escape" premiered in cinemas across North America.

Directed by Rob Schmidt, and written by Alan B. McElroy, the plot reprises the now familiar life-or-death struggle of an inbred, idiot-like family of rednecks living beyond the fringes of human civilization. These human animals are monstrous and frightening and remain that way through the length of the movie.

Wrong Turn 4In the first reel, George W takes to the cockpit and when Air Force One crashes the entire Bush Family are stranded in the vast forests of West Virginia. And Three Finger, One Eye and Saw Tooth finally face their nemesis.

In 1996, Frederick Willem (F.W.) de Klerk flew to the Southern Cape.Evil Conspiracies

During a fiery meeting at his lagoon-side home Die Anker on the Wilderness, the second Executive State President of the Republic of South Africa would be angrily confronted by the host, his predecessor Pieter Wilhelm (PW) Botha (pictured).

In his autobiography published on this day in 1999, The Last Trek - A New Beginning de Klerk recounted the climax of his confrontation with Die Groot Krokodil (Afrikaans for 'The Big Crocodile') ~

"He received me politely but coolly and took me to his study.

I noticed there was a pile of books on his desk with bookmarkers at various places. He said there was something he wished to discuss with me, namely, what he called my membership of the New World Order.

He picked up some of the books on his desk and began to read me passages, here and there, to the effect that there was an evil conspiracy in the world called the New World Order.

He then referred to the joint press conference that I held with President Bush in the rose garden of the White House during my official visit to the United States in 1990. He said that when we had announced the new spirit of co-operation between the United States and South Africa which had flowed from our discussions, I had been bound¹ into the evil conspiracy by President Bush who, according to him, was a leading figure in the New World Order".

And yet the Republic of South Africa's foreign policy was due in no small part to Botha's own efforts in the 1980s to improve relations with the West - especially the United States. He had argued that the preservation of the apartheid government, though unpopular, was crucial to stemming the tide of African communism, which had made in-roads into neighbouring Angola and Mozambique after these two former Portuguese colonies obtained independence. Botha even began a secret nuclear weapons program in collaboration with Israel, which culminated in the production of six nuclear bombs².

When the Soviet Union blocked UN Resolution 661, a desperate United States was unable to build a coalition of the willing. President George H.W. Bush was forced to negotiate with Israel and South Africa who both provided token forces for the 1991 invasion of Kuwait. This unexpected turn of events would have profound implications for the statesmen of the New World Order.

On 4 December 2001³, the State President's wife Marike de Klerk was found stabbed and violently strangled to death in her luxuous Cape Town flat. De Klerk, who was currently on a brief visit to Stockholm, Sweden to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Nobel Prize foundation, announced he would immediately return to mourn his dead wife. On 6 December, 21 year old security guard Luyanda Mboniswa was arrested for the murder. On 15 May 2003 he received two life sentences for murder as well as three years for breaking into Marike de Klerk's apartment.

Upon his death on 31 October 2006, fresh speculation linked Botha to the murder of Marike de Klerk. In truth, many South Africans harboured little doubt that Botha had also ordered the death in custody of Nelson Mandela, the head of the South African Communist Party⁴, who was murdered under identical circumstancs at Robben Island in 1986. It would take little persuasion to accept that Botha had pulled in a final favour from the security forces, to punish his successor for his act of betrayal.

Die Groot Krokodil had devoured his final victim.