Casimir Pilenas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Casimir Pilenas, a.k.a. Casimir Palmer, and a.k.a., Casimir Palmer-Pilenas, was a private investigator, a British intelligence agent, and a "spotter" for Scotland Yard.

He was also an associate of Boris Brasol, arguably the most notorious anti-Semite, responsible for disseminating, publishing, and circulating the infamous plagiarism, the Protocols of Zion in the United States.

In 1917, as a British intelligence informant, he caused the arrest of Leon Trotsky in Nova Scotia by British naval authorities acting on instructions from Britain's Admiralty's Naval Intelligence Division. Palmer-Pilenas accused Trotsky of carrying $10,000 which he alleged had been provided by pro-German sources. But no such money was found on Trotsky, or his five companions at the time of his arrest and subsequent internment.

The acknowledge scholar, John Higham, in 1963 text, the second edition of his 1955 classic work, Strangers in the Land, says:

The "Protocols" reached America in 1918 through Czarist army officers who had come to this country on a military mission, notably through Lieutenant Boris Brasol. Brasol foisted upon the Military Intelligence Division of the United States Army an English translation of the "Protocols" and started typewritten copies circulating in other influential circles in Washington, D.C. A renegade associate, one Casimir Pilenas, tried to extort $50,000 for the manuscript from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

In making this claim Higham relies on archival material cited in his end notes, material described as records of the AJC.

However, this claim of "extortion" is not supported by the actual file on Pilenas held by the AJC. And in fact these records show that his motives were not regarded as malicious by the AJC, and that he apparently acted as an informent for the AJC, regarding antisemtism, and antisemites, for some years thereafter, and that he apparently wanted to sell his services, and the records which he obtained, to the ADL. He also sought assistance from the AJC in having his material on antisemitism published.

In 1933 Casimir Palmer, a resident of 11 West 108th Street in Manhattan at the time, appeared as witness in court. On the stand he described himself as a former agent of the British military intelligence service and as a former employe [or employee] of the United States military intelligence division. He answered questions regarding his investigation of reports made by Boris Brasol to the War Department [the predecessor of the U.S. Department of Defense] "regarding alleged radical activities by Jews during the war." Pilenas testified that he requested and received from Brasol a copy of the "Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion." Pilenas further testified that Brasol had written on several occasions to the US intelligence department concerning "radical movements among the Jews". This was a law suit in the US Court of Claims and involved an attempt to recover $1,500,000 by the Russian Volunteer Fleet Corporation. Mr. Brasol, a known monarchist, was prejudiced against the Bolshevist government's recovery. At issue was the question whether the petitioning party was an agency of the Soviet government--or a private entity. Brasol had formerly represented Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia. Also, the Soviet government, during the October Revolution had confiscated property of the United States, or of United States private citizens and corporation, and so before Soviet Russia could recover the United States wanted to offset its own claims. But on or about January 15, 1933, when the matter was reported in the New York Times the proceeding had simply been adjourned.

He allegedly worked as a "government intelligence agent" and by 1937 attempted to expose the link between Henry Ford and the Nazis. Says Albert Lee, in his Henry Ford and the Jews:

    Detective Casimir Palmer who had been involved as a government intelligence agent since
    Boris Brasol brought the Protocols to America, wrote to Professor
    Nathan Isaacs in 1937 that "Henry Ford and his subordinates Ernest G. Liebold,
    Harry Bennett, and others have turned the
    Ford Motor Company Chemical Department into the headquarters of the
    Nazis here. [p. 95]