Talk:HRG Group

Early comments

It would be good to upload those .jpgs (linked here) to Wiki, in case those sites go down. All the pics are in the public domain. I just don't have time today. --

Possibly worthy of mention: Lee Harvey Oswald was in frequent contact with George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian emigre settled in Dallas, who was also in contact with GHW Bush. Mohrenschildt's address book contained the entry: "Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland. [Number] 4-6355."[1] Mohrenschildt allegedly had known Bush since the 1940s, and allegedly had some dealings with the CIA. --

Just a request: so far this article has been blessedly free from POV rancor. Please help keep it this way. Avoid unsupported allegations or innuendos; call attention to contrary evidence or interpretations if appropriate. Avoid unreliable sources (and there are many on this topic). Footnote, reference, cite all sources on disputed facts. Flag disputed facts with {reference needed}, as appropriate.

--

It might be appropriate to put in the "CIA?" section the reason this question is of such interest to historians; namely, because Bush has denied any connection. So, it is not that Zapata played a huge role, but it sheds light on Bush. This needs to be stated in neutral language, w/o POV. --

I added the lengthy Watergate tape trascript; but am not sure it should stay. It's long. But rich! Could cut way back and link to Watergate tapes?

Whoa, major revert occurred here, with no discussion

Please engage in discussion before deleting such extensive and excellent work. Please mark the sections that you think should be split, deleted, edited, sourced, etc. IP 208 even suggested that certain sections are too long, but as a work very clearly "in progress" there's no reason to wipe out other parts. I am restoring some of the best parts, others may want to restore more. Eugene Banks 15:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Other readers, what are your reactions? Please compare the major reversion with this last full version (from 19 May 2006): which is better? I count over 200 edits that were just cut; they must have taken many, many hours of work. Until this is resolved, I suggest postponing minor edits, as they would lead to aggravation. So I have reverted to the last edit by 141.161.48.111 and put a temporary {protect} on this page; this is not an endorsement of either page version, it's just an attempt to resolve this gracefully, through discussion, save us all time and aggravation, and make this a useful article(s). One possibility, rather than engage in edit/revert disputes here, is to create two articles: one on purely the business aspects of Zapata, and the other (linked by a clear disambiguation "see" reference on the first line) on evidence of GHW Bush's ties to the CIA c.1959-1973. What do others think? What's the best name for these pages, if we do? "Zapata (business)" and "Bush ties to CIA"? The problem with the latter is it is then a stretch to include Zapata/Liedtke's role, e.g. in Watergate. So, perhaps "Zapata (political)" instead, which has a nice symmetry with "Zapata (business)"? This makes sense to me. For the time being, I have reverted this page and marked it with a {Split} template, but I understand Gazpacho's concerns that it was getting unwieldy, too long, and wandering off-topic. There is clearly a need for discussion here before proceeding with cleanup. This page contains useful {templates} and guidelines on cleanup: Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Eugene Banks 17:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, everything that is about demonstrating Bush family connections needs to go. We have a Bush family article. This article is about Zapata. If you want to move the material from this article to another, you can get it from the history. Claims that have been specifically disproven (I'm talking about the FBI memos, should not be anywhere. Gazpacho 02:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for joining the discussion, Gazpacho. Sounds like you vote for splitting the article. Please: fill us in on what has been disproven about the FBI memos!! Seriously, any external links, Wiki articles, or other sources are very much welcomed on this. Please list them here in this Talk page. (The memos are in the Natl Secty Archives, and it wasn't the G. William Bush misidentified in 1988. So... ?) Of course, the Bush family page is far too broad for the detailed focus here (political ties of GHW Bush/Zapata companies, esp. c.1959-1971), but a Zapata corporation (political) page might work. The choice of what is covered about a company depends in part on readers' interests. I've reverted so that others can provide input. Please leave the revert and {templates} up for enough time to get input from other Wikipedians. Thanks again! Eugene Banks 04:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I misread it to say that G. William Bush had admitted to being the person in the memo. Nonetheless, that memo says nothing about Zapata. You apparently believe that any connections GHWB had with the intelligence community prior to 1966 belong in this article. They don't unless Zapata's business assets specifically came into play. The Bush family is a political family. The Zapata Corporation is not a political organization; it is a business, regardless of whether it was involved in US operations. Consider splitting to something like "Bush family and US intelligence". Gazpacho 06:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

On the two FBI memos: did you read them closely? The first one (Nov 22) explicitly says "GHW Bush, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company." The second FBI memo reports a briefing just 24 hours later of "George Bush of the CIA." These memos are very much related to Zapata. Why would the FBI brief the President of Zapata? Why would they brief Bush about the anti-Castro Cuban exile community? (A briefing on an insanely busy day, no less, the day after JFK was killed. A briefing so important that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo about it, a week later, and sent it to the State Department's Intelligence division.) Why would the CIA mis-identify G. William Bush in the 1988 campaign (thereby "outing" a former employee, rather than the usual "no comment")? I do not have answers to these questions, nor are any answers required in this article. I agree with Eugene Banks: whatever the interpretation, the facts are worth knowing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.13.23 (talk • contribs)

Yes, I read them. The fact that Bush was president of Zapata Corporation and the FBI identified him as such, indicates nothing about whether Zapata's assets were involved in any operation. I do not want to discuss the merits of theories. I just want to keep this article focused on the business activities of Zapata, a business. Any cited claims that Zapata's assets were used in an operation, such Bay of Pigs or Iran-Contra, are OK. One-off discussions about the individuals involved belong elsewhere.

Note that there is no Wikipedia policy that content added to an article must remain in it. Is there a specific reason people are opposing a split to articles about people, rather than another article about the company? Gazpacho 21:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed split (discussion)

I think we by and large agree on the split and I have not heard any opposition; I'm just holding off to give the users at 208, 141, 68, Diasimon, ZwoBot, Mennonot, Uhdcj98, 64, Khatru2, Chris, Samantha etc a chance to weigh in. (208, 68, anyone out there? I don't know if this page gets seen much.) My sense is that the risk for Wikipedia now is instability and chaos, not lethargy or lack of change. So patience is a virtue.
Just to pass the time until then, some very small points of clarification: it's not clear to me in what way the founder and CEO of a (small) company is not a business asset. I would say he's the most important asset. If the use of ships is relevant, then it seems to me that so is the use of human resources (personnel). And this includes the CEO. (Thus, MBA courses include HR along with Finance, Operations, Marketing, etc.) But this may be moot, because it seems to me that all this part of the story (Bay of Pigs and Iran-Contra included) should be split to the [political] side.
Agreed, no need to discuss theories here. (For those who are interested, what's important is to present the facts of the memos, with a NPOV. They raise some burden of proof and Prima facie questions, but these can be dealt with later/elsewhere on that page.)
A detail: rather than creating a separate disambiguation page, which would force readers to go through an unnecessary step, I suggest using the template {dablink} on the top of each half of the split. E.g., it might look something like this:

For the political aspects of Zapata Corporation, see Zapata corporation (political aspects).

and

For the business aspects of Zapata Corporation, see Zapata Corporation (business).

Naturally, it is a vital part of the agreement to split that these {dablinks} remain a permanent part of both Articles so long as they are split. Is everyone OK with this? Eugene Banks 00:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I have stated my opposition to the split you are proposing several times, and have not seen any reason why it is inappropriate to split to the individuals' articles. If a company's CEO is notable enough for his own article, as Bush obviously is, then his actions are relevant to the company's article when he acts on behalf of the company, i.e. spending its money, managing its assets, speaking for its interests, and not when he is attending college or hanging around the Texas book depository. "Bush's [alleged] presence on the crime scene says little about his work affiliations or those of Zapata, with the CIA or any other organization" -- if that's the case, why mention it here? It is not hard for someone to click a link. Gazpacho 18:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Was away, am just getting back to this. Did a lot of work on it last week.

In general: Nice to have a civil discussion in the Talk page. Split sounds fine to me. Sorry if this is obtuse, but I don't follow Gaz's logic. Above, he wrote: "I just want to keep this article focused on the business activities of Zapata." That seems fine; but why not then create a page focused on the political ties of Zapata, including the co-founder/CEO/president of Zapata Petroleum (Liedtke), the founder/CEO/president of Zapata Off-Shore Drilling (Bush), the funders (Prescott, Harriman, Mallon) and their cohort (S&B), and several promiment business partners (Diaz, Pauley)? This will take some discussion here, I'm not being argumentative, just want to understand. E.g., given Gaz's logic, this Zap Corp page could be stripped down to the bare bones, as is the Pennzoil page -- after all, Pennzoil is a much larger company. This is fine with me; and there will remain interest in a separate article on the political activities/ties of Zap.

Reasons for split: Given the swirl of interest around Zapata, early Bush Sr activities, and evidence that he and Zapata had ties to the CIA, it struck me that the thing to do is treat these aspects in one "encyclopedic" page (a new Zap Political page is fine). This is, after all, a major reason for so much interest in this particular one of umpteen small Texas oil companies. (Not all of them merit a Wiki page. This company is of interest because of Bush.) Thus, I included various allegations for which there seemed some plausible evidence and some degree of reliability, but I also tried (with NPOV) to summarize the evidence.

Alleged Photo in Dallas: Its fine with me if the "Alleged Photo" section is removed entirely. I was just trying to be comprehensive, but balanced; thus the inclusion of all the caveats about it, including the "proves nothing" line. People are going to find this photo on the web (and perhaps keep adding it to Wikipedia), so why not give a balanced, definitive treatment of it here? (If someone finds a reliable source where Bush really says he can't remember where he was that day, as alleged, then this would become more interesting again for the reason noted -- someone who phoned in to the FBI that day should remember it. I've seen lots of third-party references to this assertion, but not a direct quote. This is too small a detail for the Bush Sr page, but might -- debatably -- be relevant for a discussion of Zapata's political ties c.1963. It fits in neatly with the two FBI memos.)

Btw, the main GHW Bush page is full of links to more detailed aspects of his life. Indeed, it lumps together all of this in one paragraph: "Postwar: Yale, family, oil business". So there's no room there for more on the Zapata era.

Iran-Contra: this is a good example of my point on the need for an encyclopedic page on the political ties around Zapata. Gazpacho writes: "It is not hard for someone to click a link." And yet he removed the following quote: "The roles of Rodriguez and Bush Sr in the Iran-Contra Affair cannot be denied," and the reason he gave in the Edit Summary is: "Bush denied it." Well, Bush seemingly did deny it initially and we could (and maybe should) highlight this deception; but we cannot deny reality. If one clicks on the Felix Rodriguez (CIA) link, that page reveals: >>> "*The Walsh Report (Chapter 25) states that M. Charles Hill took notes at a meeting between George Shultz and Elliott Abrams on 16 October 1986, as follows:

• "Felix Rodrigues [sic] -- Bush did know him from CIA days. FR [Rodriguez] is ex-CIA. In El Salv[ador] he goes around to bars saying he is buddy of Bush. A y[ea]r ago Pdx [Poindexter] & Ollie [North] told VP staff stop protecting FR as a friend -- we want to get rid of him from his involvnt w[ith] private ops. Nothing was done so he still is there shooting his mouth off."[2]
• Three months later, Rodriguez met with Donald Gregg, who by then was Bush's National Security advisor. The Walsh Report (Chapter 29) states: "Gregg introduced Rodriguez to Vice President Bush in January 1985, and Rodriguez met with the Vice President again in Washington, DC, in May 1986. He also met Vice President Bush briefly in Miami on May 20, 1986."[3]
• Rodriguez also met and spoke repeatedly with Bush's [national security] advisor Gregg and his deputy (Col. Samuel J. Watson III). [The] chapter in the Walsh Report titled "Donald P. Gregg" (Chapter 29) contains 329 references to Rodriguez.[4] <<<

We could repeat these <ref>'s here, as a citation? Perhaps rephrase the deleted sentence as: "Rodriguez and Bush Sr worked together again in the Iran-Contra Affair."? Some level of redundancy is needed for ease of use -- it is hard(ish) to click a link, because there are so many of them, and we don't like our view of the world challenged.

Just some thoughts. Over to you. 208.59.121.177 14:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The reason it's not appropriate to create an article about "political ties of Zapata" is that every single tie you want to put there goes to the individuals, with no indication that they were acting on behalf of Zapata. Try this: select the headline "Connections with the CIA" and search for occurrences of "Zapata". Except for the sections on Bay of Pigs and Iran Contra they're quite few, and the most direct occurrences merely refer to Zapata in order to identify the individuals. I've listed this article at Requests for Comment to get an outside opinion, but unfortunately nobody is volunteering. Gazpacho 21:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

So far I have not been proactive in actually moving material I remove here to other articles. If move material to articles about Prescott Bush, GHWB, the Liedtkes, etc. as I remove it, could that resolve our dispute? Gazpacho 17:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It makes sense to me to leave it as it is (6/25/06). No need to remove material to other articles. Gazpacho wrote: "every single [political] tie [...] goes to the individuals, with no indication that they were acting on behalf of Zapata." Yes, of course!! Surely you don't mean that only if the activities were part of Zapata's business strategy (e.g., only if Zapata Inc. is making money off these ties) should it be included in an article on Zapata? That would be an extraordinary filter for a general encyclopedia. (Perhaps for a narrow, business-only magazine one might do this -- although Zapata normally wouldn't merit mention because as a business it is no big deal.) Just because Zapata is a business does not mean that business activities are the only things that should be considered about it in a general article.

I disagree with all of gazpachos comments, are you a lawyer? apparently not a good one, because these facts about GHW Bush's ties to the Kennedy Assassination are conclusive enough to argue in court. free speech in this country is challenged enough without tricksters like you bartering the facts (and other such vexacious litigation) for worthless lies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Polired (talk • contribs) 20:20, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

This article needs to be updated need and split in two.

This article needs to be updated to show the current changes that have happened in the last 3 years (2009-20011). The first thing that has happened is that the Glazer family selling it controlling stack of the Zapata Corporation to Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital 2009. Witch result in the company’s name being charged to Harbinger Group Inc. with the ticker symbol HRG on the NYSE. http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=HRG http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aozeLSutM_QU http://www.harbingergroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1350786&highlight= Also in 2010-2011 Harbinger Capital Partners LLC transferred it’s 54.4% in Spectrum Brands to Harbinger Group Inc. giving the company controlling interest in that company. http://www.harbingergroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1470262&highlight= http://www.harbingergroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1514182&highlight= Also in 2011 Harbinger Group Inc. acquired the insurance company Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings, Inc. http://www.harbingergroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1547525&highlight= http://www.harbingergroupinc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=118763&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1536649&highlight= Plus I think this part titled “Connections with the CIA” should be splinted off has its own its own article because make the article inconsistent. Thai article should be about Zapata Corporation/ Harbinger Group Inc. That part should be but in an article about alleged thing that Bush sr. might of done while CEO of Zapata Corporation. But it does not have anything to do with todays Harbinger Group Inc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.35.226.90 (talk) 23:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 00:53, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

---

Zapata Corporation → Harbinger Group – This NYSE listed company changed its name to Harbinger Group in 2009 Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Support, "new" name is likely to predominate, if it hasn't already. —rybec 14:07, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Watergate Scandal (1972)

I have removed the following section from the article:

Phillips and others have detailed subsequent involvement by Zapata associates in the Watergate affair. George Bush, as Richard Nixon's ambassador to the United Nations, allegedly urged his former Zapata partner Bill Liedtke to launder $100,000 to the White House plumbers. After Nixon's 1972 re-election, he appointed Bush as Chairman of the Republican Party National Committee. When the laundering was exposed, those involved included several CIA officials: E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martínez, Virgilio González, and Bernard Barker. A discussion of the laundering appears on the Nixon tapes for June 23, 1973.

The only citation provided for this information is the "smoking gun" tape which refers to money laundering but does not mention Zapata, Bush, Liedtke, Sturgis, Martínez, and Virgilio González. Hunt recruited Barker - they knew each other from the CIA - but this does not imply a Zapata-CIA connection. In fact, Nixon and Haldeman "propose having the CIA ask the FBI to halt their investigation of the Watergate break-in by claiming that the break-in was a national security operation."[5] Location (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

CIA section is getting a bit garbled

The excisions of poor sources has rendered the section on the CIA accusations a little incoherent. For example, right at the beginning there's a reference to someone's accusations, but the passage that identified the fellow is gone. Mangoe (talk) 12:52, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I've dealt with this far too often where editors attempt to make a case for conspiracy by intertwining sources that are reliable (some for statements of fact and others only for statements of opinion) with sources that are clearly not reliable. The trouble is that there is sometimes the expectation that editors familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines regarding reliable sources, original research/synth, weight, and fringe are to fix it and make their points for them. Sometimes it is easy enough, but it gets much more difficult when there are a thousands dots to connect. Location (talk) 16:16, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I have removed the following material:

John Loftus writes: "Prouty's credibility, however has been widely attacked because of his consultancy to Oliver Stone's film JFK," but notes on page 598 that: "While his credibility has suffered greatly because of his consultancy to Oliver Stone's film JFK, his recollections about the CIA supply mission have been confirmed by other sources."[6]

Per the above, Prouty is not mentioned previous to that statement in the article. When he and his claims were mentioned in the article, the sources provided to that material were not reliable (i.e. they were self-published sources by non-notable authors). Location (talk) 17:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Seat

In the actual Form 10-K the executive office is 450 Park Avenue, 29th Floor, New York, NY. There is no link to Rochester, New York anymore.--Kopiersperre (talk) 21:55, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Thomas Devine article

I'm surprised there isn't an article yet for the CIA Agent Thomas J. Devine. I'd be willing to create one, but I'd appreciate some help (since I'm still kind of new to Wikipedia). If anyone is interested feel free to message me. (I'm also on DebatePolitics.com under the same username). Thanks!

--Abbazorkzog (talk) 00:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Zapata Offshore - Boats

I recall Company Zapata Gulf Marine Corporation - that merged with Tidewater marine in 1991. see New York Times 22-Jun-1991 Wfoj3 (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Zapata Marine operated a worldwide fleet of workboats and crewboats serving offshore drilling rigs and production platforms. In the mid-1970's they were separate from (but parallel to corporate-wise) Zapata Off-shore Drilling Company — sometimes hired by an oil operator to move supplies to, and handle personnel movements for, a rig contracted from the latter.Casey (talk) 16:41, 12 September 2021 (UTC)