What became of the Sun Shipyard's 1980 slush fund of about $120 million,

January 5, 2007 -- WMR has obtained further details on the fate of the SS Poet, which is widely-assumed to have carried arms to Iran as part of George H. W. Bush's 1980 October Surprise operation against President Jimmy Carter, and was then conveniently "disappeared" along with its crew of 34. The Poet had a crew of 10 officers and 24 crew when it set sail from Philadelphia on October 24, 1980, just after George H. W. Bush visited Chester before his secret trip to Paris to arrange an arms swap with the Ayatollah Khomeini's government in return for their keeping the hostages imprisoned in Tehran until after the presidential election.

The Poet had made a trip previous to its stated late October voyage to Port Said, Egypt. Its radio officer joined the Poet's crew in Port Said around October 1, 1980. The Poet had three other names before being renamed the Poet: the SS General Omar Bradley, the SS Portmar, and the SS Port.

The US Coast Guard/National Transportation Safety Board Final Report on the Poet says she loaded corn in Philadelphia at the Girard Point Pier 3, sailing from there down river. She sailed past Sun Ship in Chester, where George H. W. Bush had been on October 18, en route to the mouth of the Delaware River and to the open Atlantic. The Final Report says corn was loaded in holds 1, 2 and 3. It makes no mention of hold 4.

The Poet was later reported missing after it failed to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar. No SOS or Mayday was ever heard from the ship. The RCA Service Company representative who repaired the Poet's radio gear in Philadelphia testified the radio officer was a 30-year Navy veteran and was a Master Chief Petty Officer. The radio officer had served on the SS Pioneer Moon before joining the crew of the Poet.

The Washington Post on November 29, 1980 reported on the Coast Guard/NTSB hearings in Philadelphia on the loss of the Poet and stated, “Families, grasping at straws, speculated that one of the steamer’s holds, whose hatch the inspectors couldn’t open, contained secret weapons. But according to testimony and other evidence, that hold was empty." The Washington Post was living up to its current reputation as water-carriers for the Bush crime family even in 1980.

When speaking at Widener University in Chester on October 18, Bush promised future help for the blighted city of Chester. According to our sources, that "help" arrived when the Bush crime family, using KPMG Peat Marwick and Mellon Bank, fronting for the CIA, facilitated the "sham sale of the [Sun] shipyard assets, a fraudulent [Navy] contract award, a contract default, and ultimate liquidation of the shipyard assets and loss of the city’s major employer." What became of the Sun Shipyard's 1980 slush fund of about $120 million, created in books cooked by KPMG Peat Marwick, Mellon, and the CIA, is still an open question.

Wayne Madsen Report