After rising to the helm of Alex. Brown & Sons, the venerable Baltimore investment banking firm, Buzzy Krongard oversaw its acquisition by Bankers Trust in 1997 and left the next year for the C.I.A., as a counselor to George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. He became executive director, the No. 3 post, in 2001 and helped design the agency’s secret detention program after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, top, and his brother Howard Krongard
By SCOTT SHANE
BALTIMORE, Nov. 16 — They were smart, scrappy brothers who rose from modest circumstances in Baltimore to become lacrosse stars at Princeton, succeed in business and land big government jobs.
Now the Krongard brothers — who have carried childhood nicknames, Buzzy and Cookie, through long careers — are tied up in the tangled story of Blackwater, the security contractor accused in the deaths of at least 17 Iraqis while guarding a State Department convoy in Baghdad.
The shorthand version boils their involvement down to that Washington catchall conflict of interest. The full story appears more complicated, less about cozy nepotism than about family estrangement.
But the concern about a conflict resulted Friday in the resignation of Alvin B. Krongard — Buzzy — from the Blackwater advisory board he had just joined. The company said he hoped to defuse accusations that his ties to the company were causing Howard J. Krongard — Cookie — the State Department inspector general, to go easy on Blackwater.
Alvin Krongard, 71, who left a $4 million-a-year job in investment banking to serve in top posts at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1998 to 2004, played what he describes as a routine role as an intermediary in helping Blackwater get its first big security contract from the agency for guards in Afghanistan in 2002.
A martial arts enthusiast and former Marine who has regaled friends with tales of punching a great white shark while scuba diving, Mr. Krongard said he later became friendly with the company’s founder, Erik D. Prince. They have hunted near Blackwater’s North Carolina training ground and at Mr. Krongard’s hunting club in Maryland.
Meanwhile, Howard Krongard, 66, a former general counsel at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche who took the State Department job in 2005, was grilled this week by House Democrats. They accused Mr. Krongard (who does not use his nickname professionally, as his brother does) of alienating his staff and improperly interfering in investigations, including a Justice Department inquiry into allegations of weapons smuggling by Blackwater employees.
Hence Representative Henry A. Waxman’s disclosure at a hearing Wednesday, the latest in a string of revelations the California Democrat has used to torment the Bush administration.
“We have now learned that Mr. Krongard’s brother, Buzzy Krongard, serves on Blackwater’s advisory board,” Mr. Waxman declared, saying the inspector general had “concealed this apparent conflict of interest.”
Howard Krongard grew indignant, saying his brother had no ties to Blackwater.
“When these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him,” he said. “I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board.”
Then came a break, and Howard phoned his older brother. Buzzy told Howard he had just returned from his first Blackwater advisory board meeting in Williamsburg, Va.
A chagrined Howard Krongard returned to the witness stand. “I want to state on the record right now that I hereby recuse myself from any matters having to do with Blackwater,” he said.
Howard Krongard has also disqualified himself from an inquiry into the construction of the American Embassy in Baghdad, and subordinates have lambasted him for what they called abusive and erratic conduct. John A. DeDona, Howard’s assistant for investigations until August, said in an interview that he believed top State Department officials had influenced the inspector general to back away from tough investigations, including that of Blackwater, which diplomats depend on for protection in Iraq under a $1.2 billion contract.
At the hearing, Howard Krongard, who did not respond to a request for an interview for this article, described himself as an apolitical auditing lawyer whose reforms have met resistance from subordinates who resent supervision. “I want to say in the strongest terms that I have never impeded any investigation,” he told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
From a distance, events might suggest that Mr. Prince chose to recruit Buzzy Krongard to curry favor with Howard Krongard and blunt any inquiry into Blackwater. But if that was Mr. Prince’s strategy, his intelligence was gravely flawed, according to people who know the family.
The Krongard brothers barely speak, friends say. In fact, Howard appears to be estranged from several family members, including his son Kenneth, whom he sued last year over a home loan. And Buzzy Krongard has said that when Howard called him a few weeks ago as he prepared his testimony, it was their first conversation in months.
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Related
FBI finds Blackwater Iraq shootings unjustified
FBI agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The FBI investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company’s employees violated deadly force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, are already under review by the Justice Department, the newspaper said.
Blackwater’s Owner Has Spies for Hire
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Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks — high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence — that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency’s more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas.
September 6-10, 2001: Suspicious Trading of Put Option Contracts on American and United Airlines Occur
“To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also [learned] that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options… on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.” Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc., which was bought by Deutsche Bank. “His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust—Alex Brown’s private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world.”
The CIA
The founding fathers of the CIA William “Wild Bill” Donovan and Allen Dulles, were both prominent Roman Catholics, and members of the secret society the “Knights of Malta”. A.B.”Buzzy” Krongard’s appointment to the top of the CIA pyramid by George Bush Jnr., after a long career in investment banking, once again illustrates who’s interests the CIA is serving. The 68 year old Krongard recently boasted to the Washington Post “the whole OSS was nothing but Wall St. bankers and lawyers”. He fails to mention that many of these bankers and lawyers were ardent political and financial supporters of the Nazis – who were perceived as an ally against the ideology of communism – regardless of their methods and beliefs.
PROJECT HAMMER RELOADED
Vanguard appear to change their banking relationships from time to time. At the time Serras was in contact with van Rooyen, their relationship was with Morgan Stanley & Co. Today it is with the Bank of New York, Inc – itself no stranger to front-page scandals involving money-laundering activities for Russian crime syndicates and political figures.[50] Of interest is the fact that Vanguard was earlier affiliated with Buzzy Krongard’s old firm, Alex Brown – which had changed its name following the take over of Bankers Trust by Germany’s Deutsche Bank – to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown Inc. It is now Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Britain Accused Over CIA’s Secret Torture Flights
No one really knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes
Aftermath News 
