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Except where noted these claims
are excerpted from an article published in the November 3, 2000 issue of Lyndon LaRouche’s
Executive Intelligence Review: "Temple Mount
Fanatics Foment a New Thirty Years' War" by Salvatore Montagna, Jeffrey
Steinberg, Michele Steinberg, Scott Thompson, and Anton Chaitkin.
[2]
These claims, like much conspiracy theory, are based on a carefully selected and
arranged set of facts embedded in a pastiche of innuendo, assumption, opinion and
interpretation finely crafted to disguise a lack of causality or connectivity
between these facts. Facts that disturb the placid flow of predetermined opinion are
either ignored, discounted as irrelevent or molded to fit the needs of the author.
Skilled conspiracy theorists can take a collection of unrelated facts and weave them
into a superficially plausible whole. Their tools are misdirection, selected
omissions and hidden logical fallacies. The first step in refuting such theories is
to confirm the facts.
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Although false accusations and attacks on Freemasonry are, in the main, based on the imaginative writings of nineteenth century authors, the events of the twentieth century have provided fertile ground for new attacks. Dating from at least the early 1980s, one attack by Lyndon LaRouche is an accusation that British Freemasonry, under the control of the House of Windsor, is secretly plotting to gain control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and build the third Temple. Like most attacks on Freemasonry, it can easily be debunked by identifying the errors in fact and logic.
The idea that freemasons of the world should unite to rebuild the Temple, or that they intended to do so, seems to have first appeared in early twentieth century Boston, or so it is reported in The Illustrated London News. One masonic response, laughing at the very concept, can be found here.
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"On Oct. 16, Israeli police turned back members of the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, as they attempted to enter the Dome of the Rock to anoint the cornerstone of a Third Temple."
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There is no demonstrated link between the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement and any recognized body of Freemasonry.
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"Through months of investigation, more than 30 interviews, and a review of thousands
of pages of primary source documents, some never previously made public, EIR has
established that the entire Temple Mount provocation is being run, top-down, by the
most lunatic elements within the highest levels of British Freemasonry—with the
blessing and involvement of members of the House of Windsor.
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No documentation, references or citation are provided for any of these claims."
LaRouche claims to provide these in an EIR Special
Report, released in September 2001 and available for $150. The following
documented and verifiable facts are provided for free.
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"This Masonic control is exerted through the Quatuor Coronati "research" lodge of the
Grand Mother Lodge of British Freemasonry, headed by the Queen’s first cousin, the
Duke of Kent, and run on a day-to-day basis by the Seventh Marquess of Northampton
(Spencer "Spenny" Douglas David Compton), a maternal descendant of the Baring
family, of British East India Company notoriety."
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Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 is a research lodge, publishing an annual
proceedings, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, and
raising funds by the sale of books and regalia. The financial accounts published in their annual journal, AQC, show no monies expended for research expeditions or research, with the exception of the annual Norman B. Spencer Prize Essay Award of £100.
Lord Northampton, the Marquess of Northampton was appointed by HRH the Duke of Kent
as Pro Grand Master in succession to Lord Farnham, who retired in April 2001. In
England, if the annually elected Grand Master is of the Royal family it is his
perogative to appoint his representative to carry out his duties. These duties are
mainly ceremonial as the daily operations are the responsibility of the Grand
Secretary and the several Boards Chairmen.
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"Lord Northampton, who has been atop the Temple Mount conducting "Temple studies,"
candidly has admitted in interviews, that he is an adherent of British Israelism...."
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No citation is given: interviews with whom? Visit to the Temple Mount when?
British Israelism, as a Christian
sectarian movement, has never adopted the rebuilding of the Temple as an
objective. See <britishisrael.co.uk>.
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"Lord Northampton is, by his own admission, a practitioner of the satanic rituals of
Aleister Crowley. Indeed, as he explained to an interviewer, Lord Northampton
installed one of the world’s leading "scholars" of the Golden Dawn cult, R.A.
Gilbert, as the editor-in-chief of Ars Quatuor Coronarum, the theoretical journal of
the lodge. Crowley had written an account of his "spiritual progress" in magic and
Satanism under the title The Temple of Solomon the King."
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Lord Northampton’s interest in the history of Fringe Freemasonry [3] is not an admission of satanic practices. The interviewer is unnamed and the interview uncited.
Robert A. Gilbert was Chairman of the Quatuor Coronati Correspondence Circle for
1996-99 and editor of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum for 1993-97. He became editor
in chief in 1998 as no one was willing to assume the editorship unassisted. The
members of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, as corporate members of Q.C. Correspondence
Circle Ltd., annually elect their executive officers who in turn appoint the editor.
"Installing" an officer in a Lodge is a piece of ritual and is not an indication of
any influence in selecting him for the position. The AQC editor is not an officer in the Lodge and would not be installed. On September 14, 1995 Gilbert presented a
paper to QC on the topic of "Chaos out of order: the rise and fall of the
Swedenborgian Rite" in which he makes numerous references to the Golden Dawn. He
refers to Westcott as having "unleashed" the Golden Dawn upon the world; not a
flattering image. At the time he was Librarian-General of the research society,
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia [AQC 108 p. 148]. Gilbert has published nothing in
AQC that would suggest he is a proponant or apologist for the Golden Dawn.[4]
The relevance of the Golden Dawn or Aleister Crowley, or what has been termed Fringe Freemasonry, to a claim that British
Freemasonry is secretly plotting to rebuild the temple is not demonstrated.
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"In December 1995, the "Jerusalem" freemasonic lodge was established, adjacent to the
Temple Mount, in the Grotto of King Solomon, to work for the rebuilding of Solomon’s
Temple. The lodge worked side by side with the on-the-ground networks of Jewish and
Christian fundamentalist fanatics, to foment a bloody religious war over the control
of the Temple Mount. That such a lodge would be founded shortly after the
Israel-Palestine peace breakthroughs at Oslo—and just weeks after the assassination
of Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, an architect of that peace—is surely no
coincidence."
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Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995. The founding of
Lodge Jerusalem No. 91 under the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy was celebrated in
Jerusalem on December 28th. The Lodge was warranted to meet in Italy — it did not
meet in Jerusalem. The Grand Lodge of the State of Israel enjoys mutual recognition
with the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy. This relationship precludes either Grand
Lodge warranting Lodges in the other’s geographic jurisdiction. [5]
Regardless, the lodge’s founding and Rabin’s assassination is a coincidence of unrelated events. None of these claims are documented, demonstrated or proven.
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"The Jerusalem Lodge was founded by the Grand Master of Italian Regular Freemasonry,
Giuliano Di Bernardo, the right-hand man of Lord Northampton on the Temple Mount
project. At the ceremony launching the Jerusalem Lodge, Di Bernardo declared, "The
rebuilding of the Temple is at the center of our studies." In June 1996, Di Bernardo
published an Italian edition of his book, Rebuilding the Temple, which was to be
published in English by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge."
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The Regular Grand Lodge of Italy was founded in
Rome on April 17th 1993 with Prof. Giuliano Di Bernardo as its first Grand Master, and 107 founding members. For the previous three years he had been Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, from which body he had resigned shortly after the Grand Orient of Italy annual meeting at the end of March 1993. It is currently recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England, Grand Lodge of Scotland and Grand Lodge of Ireland. Many other Grand Lodges continue to recognize the Grand Orient of Italy. [6]
Any link between Giuliano Di Bernardo and Lord Northampton is not documented
or cited. The Quatuor Coronati Lodge has not published Di Bernardo’s Rebuilding
the Temple, it has not appeared in their catalogue, nor has a review appeared in
AQC. The Italian edition, La ricostruzione del
Tempio. Il progetto massonico per una nuova utopia. was published by Venezia in
Marsilio in 1996. It is not about physically rebuilding a temple in Jerusalem but
rather details Di Bernardo’s personal belief that it is possible for the world’s monotheistic
religions to dwell together in harmony, creating a spiritual, global temple.
A freemason since 1961, Di Bernardo published Filosofia della Massoneria in
1987, translated and revised as Freemasonry and Its Image of Man, A Philosophical
Investigation [ISBN 0-7104-5001-X] in 1989.
There is no mention of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem in either book: "Gradually, operative activity took second place, with the symbolic work of the construction of a
spiritual and invisible Temple becoming the main aim of the 'new' Freemasonry." [Freemasonry and Its Image of Man p. 11.]
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"Di Bernardo revealed that, while Foxman lacks intellectual capital, Lord Northampton
and he had met Foxman in Switzerland, just prior to the launching of the Jerusalem
Lodge, to discuss their project, and have met with him on several other occasions.
"There are strong relations between B'nai B'rith and Freemasonry," Di Bernardo
explained."
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There is no connection between B'nai B'rith and regular Freemasonry. This story was promoted by Nikolaus Markow in Der Kamopf der dunklin Mächte (Frankfurt am Main: Welt-Dienst Verlag, 1944, p. 51.) Di Bernardo does not represent regular Freemasonry, only his Grand Lodge, and then only during his term as Grand Master. No reference, proof or citation is given attesting that Di Bernardo actually made this claim.
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"The role of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in the Temple Mount plot significantly
predates the launching of the Jerusalem Lodge. Dr. Asher Kaufman, a corresponding
member of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, did some of the first post-war archaeological
"studies" of the Temple Mount, laying the foundations for the upsurge of
Jewish fundamentalist assaults on the site. He was personally dispatched to
Jerusalem by the lodge’s Dr. T.E. Allibone, a senior figure in the British Royal
Society, and one of Britain’s preeminent nuclear physicists, who served for 30 years
as the "Lord of the Manor" of Britain’s most top-secret nuclear weapons
laboratory at Aldermaston."
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The annually published proceedings of the Quatuor
Coronati Lodge No. 2076, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, from 1887 until 1973 have
no record of Asher Kaufman as a member of the Lodge or Correspondence Circle.
Prof. Thomas Edward Allibone (1903/11/11 - 2003/11/09), initiated into Lodge No. 3911 in Cambridge, joined the Quatuor Coronati Correspondence Circle in 1928—he was never a member of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge. [7] Neither of them have published anything in
Ars Quatuor Coronatorum.
Prof. Allibone did not work for the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment. He was
Director of the AEI research laboratory in Aldermaston, a private, and unrelated,
corporation. [8]
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"With the deployment of Dr. Asher Kaufman to Jerusalem in 1967, just
weeks after the conclusion of the Six Day War in June...."
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Born and raised in Scotland, Dr. Asher Selig Kaufman worked for Dr. Allibone from
1954 'til 1959. He has been neither a member of the Quatuor Coronati Correspondence
Circle nor a freemason. [9]
From 1959 until his retirement in the mid-1980s, he was a physicist on the faculty
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Becoming interested in the Temple mount in
1967, he did not begin active research until 1974. He is the author of The
taper-shape of the second temple and the location of the treasury, Tel Aviv:
Friends of the Midrashia, 1988 and The Temple of Jerusalem ; pt.1,2(1)
Jerusalem : Har Yera'eh Press, 1991.
The Six-Day War was initiated by Israel against Egypt at 7:45 am, June 5, 1967, with a cease-fire effected by the UN Security Council on June 11th. [Cf. James Bamford, Body of Secrets. 2002.]
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"Through Temple Mount Faithful founder Stanley Goldfoot, a member of the Stern Gang
terrorist underground, Dr. Lambert Dolphin, a physicist at the Stanford Research
Institute in Menlo Park, California, was brought to Jerusalem in the early 1980s."
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On May 22, 1983 Dr. Dolphin’s team of eight people attempted to make the first
scientific survey of the rabbinical tunnel. Although invited by Yehuda Getz, the
Rabbi in charge of the tunnel, the survey team was turned away by plain clothed
detectives due to WAQF (the Moslem high command) objections. Dr. Dolphin has neither
attempted nor conducted further geophysical work at the Temple Mount.
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"Dolphin set all of this down in a written account of his 1994 visit to Israel, accompanied by Missler and 70 'pilgrims.'"
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Employed by SRI International in 1956, Dr. Lambert T. Dolphin retired as Senior Research Physicist in 1987. He has never been a freemason, and has been a self-described evangelical Christian since 1962. [10]
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"But, under the sponsorship of the British Crown, the Club of the Isles, and the
British masonic structures, the "errant seed" had been injected into the
religious and political life of the Jewish community in Palestine long before the
launching of the current Temple Mount project."
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No factual links have been demonstrated or documented.
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"The first excavation of the holy sites in Jerusalem, centered on the Temple Mount,
was carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund, under the direction of Gen. Sir
Charles Warren, during 1867-70. This expedition launched the British freemasonic
"Temple Mount project." In 1884, Warren was one of only nine freemasons who founded
the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, and he became its first head."
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Lieut.-Gen. Sir Charles Warren GCMG, KCB (1840 - 1927/01/21) was
a founding member of the premier masonic research lodge, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No.
2076, warranted on November 28, 1884. He was elected its first Master for 1886-67.
He wrote two papers for the AQC: one on the orientation of temples (1886) and the
other on military lodges (1899). He wrote nothing, for the Quatuor Coronati, on King
Solomon’s Temple, any alleged "Temple Mount project" or on Jerusalem.
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"'A spokesman for Militi Templi Scotia, the Scottish Knights Templar, admitted to The
Sunday Post, "We are currently involved in an attempt to remove control of the holy
sites of Jerusalem from the Israeli Government.'
Chamish Confirmed? Man Killed In secret Holy Land Power Struggle? EXCLUSIVE -
By Colin Grant <www.dcthomson.co.uk> 1-17-00
Found on Barry Chamish’s website barrychamish.com."
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Militi Templi Scotia has no connection with the Grand Lodge of Scotland or
Freemasonry.
Barry Chamish is an Israeli conspiracy
theorist who claims that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York is
controlled by the Society of Jesus and is Israel’s number one enemy.
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"Two weeks later, in London, the greatest gathering of
freemasons in memory took place, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the
founding of the United Grand Lodge of England, and to inaugurate His Royal Highness
the Duke of Kent as the new Grand Master of Masonry. It was out of that gathering,
according to T.E. Allibone, that the decision was made to dispatch Kaufman to
Jerusalem, launching the Quatuor Coronati drive to locate the precise spot where the
Third Temple would be built."
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The 250th anniversary of the first Grand Lodge meeting was held on June 27, 1967. It
was not the anniversary of the United Grand Lodge of England, founded in 1813.
The Duke of Kent was elected at the Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge held June
14, 1967 and Installed as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England at the
June 27th meeting held in the Royal Albert Hall.
Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 held its meeting on June 28, 1967, at which 88 new
members were elected to the Correspondence Circle, bringing their number to 7,106.
No mention is made in the meeting’s minutes of Jerusalem or the Temple. [AQC Vol. 80,
pp. 207-9]
Prof. Thomas Edward Allibone BCE is a Fellow of the British Royal Society, perhaps
its oldest living member; he was never a member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076.
No citation is given for the claim that Dr. Allibone made this statement. Dr.
Allibone, although 98 years old, is lucid and does not recall making such a statement. [11]
Dr. Allibone lent his name to The Impact of the natural sciences on archaeology in 1970. He also wrote The release and use of atomic energy, as an introductory textbook in 1961. [12]
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1. 
King Solomon’s Temple—View from the northeast corner. Plate 6. The Bible and
King Solomon’s Temple in Masonry, by John Wesley Kelchner. 1951: A. J. Holman
Company, Philadelphia. A scale model based on Kelchner’s research and constructed by Albert Wesley Hilt in 1923 for the Holman Bible Company was displayed at the New York World’s Fair in 1960 and resided for many years in the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania museum.
^
2. Others have taken up
this claim. A variation on this theme can be found at www.redmoonrising.com/tm.htm. Another
group, the Watch Unto Prayer ministry can be found online at watch.pair.com/chronology.html but
provides no information as to who or where they are. The following undated quote
from their site echoes LaRouche:
"HM Queen Elizabeth II’s Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), according to its leaders,
today cites the Biblical Archaeology Society as the foremost source updating British
Freemasons Sir Charles Warrren’s work on the question of rebuilding Solomon’s Temple
on Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Mount) in Jerusalem. The Biblical Archaology Society,
founded by Ivy Leagues graduate Hershel Shanks in 1974,...has carried out the
foremost debate on the site for rebuilding Solomon’s Temple based upon the work of
British Mason Sir Charles Warren. The Society has produced more than 17 articles in
its varous publications for Christian Fundamentalist consumption...
"PEF cites two
authors of note for the Biblical Archaeology Review: Asher Kaufmann, who is a member
of the "Correspondence Circle" of the Quatuor Coronati [Lodge], as well as a protege
of Aldermaston/British Museum scientist T.E. Allibone, who dispatched him to Israel
to poke around Al-Haram Al Sharif after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; and Leen
Ritmeyer, an agent of Lord Jacob Rothschild. ^
3. "Fringe Masonry" is a term coined by Ellic [Paul] Howe (1910/09/20-1991/09/28) in "Fringe Masonry in England 1870-85" Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Vol. 85 (1972). Strictly speaking, it refers to the practices and beliefs of a small body of nineteenth century freemasons working outside of regular Freemasonry. The term has grown to encompass those freemasons whose interest in mysticism and the occult led them to such organizations as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD) and the Ordo Templi Orientis. "Fringe Masonry existed. By examining it in a rational manner and in the context of its time we can defuse it and render it worthless as a weapon of attack on mainstream Freemasonry." John Hamill. Ars Quauor Coronatorum Vol. 109. p. 214. ^
4. Correspondence from William Cooper, Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Archives and Library, and member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge; and AQC Vols. 106 - 113. ^
5. On December 15, 2001, the Gran Loggia Regolare D'Italia elected Fabio Venzi as Grand Master. Information on the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy is taken from correspondence from Fabio Venzi and Giuliano Di Bernardo. ^
6. The Regular Grand
Lodge of Italy notes on their website, www.glri.org/Regioni/Lazio/logge/lira e spada/liraespada.htm
that on December 28, 1995 they celebrated the founding of Lodge Jerusalem No.
91 in Jerusalem:
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"28 dicembre 1995 I FF. S. Mieli e F. Giannetti escono dalla L. per fondare la L.
Jerusalem N. 91 che viene consacrata nelle cave del Tempio di Re Salomone a
Gerusalemme; fra gli ufficiali consacratori figura il F. M. Segre."
^
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In correspondence received by the author from the Assistant Grand Secretary of the
Grand Lodge of the State of Israel:
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1. We recognize the regular G. Lodge of Italy
2. We do not agree to other recognized Grand Jurisdictions warranting Lodges in
Israel.
3. We are not aware of the regular Grand Lodge of Italy having established a Lodge
in December 1995, in Jerusalem.
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7. The annually published
proceedings of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076,
Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, from Volume I, in 1887, until Volume 31, in 1918,
included a list of the members of the Correspondence Circle entitled the St. John’s
Card; from then until Volume 86, in 1973, the list included only the names of new
members. In 1973 the St. John’s Card was discontinued. A list of the members of the
Lodge was, most years, also included—membership was restricted to 40: in 1967 it
was 22 while today it is 33. T.E. Allibone is noted as joining the Correspondence
Circle in 1928. Asher Kaufman’s name does not appear in any list of Lodge members or
the St. John’s Card published between 1887 and 1973. The Q.C. Correspondence Circle
Ltd, a non-profit making body, was formed on November 1, 1974: all full members of
the lodge were elected corporate members from which were drawn the Council or Board
of Directors. ^
8. From 1946 until his
retirement in 1978. Prof. Allibone was Director of the Associated Electrical
Industries Research Laboratory in Aldermaston. Aldermaston is a small community some
80 km west of London containing a number of high tech companies and research
facilities. It is also the site of the headquarters of the UK’s Atomic Weapons
Establishment. The AWE is responsible for the design and manufacture of the
Trident submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile system. The AWE was
managed by Hunting-BRAE Ltd, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Currently
British Nuclear Fuels and the US company Lockheed Martin are part of AWE Management
consortium which runs Aldermaston and its Burghfield research site. Prof. Allibone
did not work for AWE, he worked for AEI. ^
9. Personal
correspondence to the site webmaster, Trevor W. McKeown,
October 10, 2001, deposited in the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon Archives. ^
10. Conversation with the
site webmaster, Trevor W. McKeown, September 18, 2001 and gleaned from www.ldolpin.org. ^
11. Personal
correspondence to the site webmaster, Trevor W. McKeown, September 24, 2001,
deposited in the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon Archives. ^
12. The Impact of the
Natural Sciences on Archaeology, A Joint Symposium of The Royal Society and the
British Academy, Organized by a Committee Under the Chairmanship of T.E. Allibone,
F.R.S., Published for the British Acadamy by Oxford University Press, London: 1970.
SBN: 19 725922 7. 185 p. 21cm x 30cm. Of 17 papers on topics such as radiocarbon
dating, and archaeomagnetic methods, none refer to Jerusalem or the Temple. Dr.
Allibone did not write the preface or any of the papers.
A short biography of Dr. Allibone can be found on the dustjacket for The Release and Use of Atomic Energy:
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"The author of this book, T.E. Allibone C.B.E., D.Sc., Ph.D.,
F.R.S., has been Director, Associated Electrical Industries Research
Laboratory, Aldermaston, since 1946. Awarded M-V Scholarship to Sheffield
University, he produced the first pure metallic zirconium and some of its alloys.
After hearing Sir James Chadwick lecture on the disintegration of elements with
a-particles, he obtained scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
and suggested to Sir Ernest Rutherford that he should build apparatus to accelerate
charged particles to high energy and look for artificial disintigration. So began
the first attempts to produce transmutation. These were taken up a few years later
by Cockcroft and Walton after Gamow had propounded the theory that protons of modest
energy had a finite chance of penetrating the energy barrier around a nucleus. Dr.
Allibone has lectured and televised widely on many aspects of fission and fusion
experiments; he gave the Faraday Lectures in 1946/7 and again in 1956/7 on atomic
energy, his Presidential Address (A) at British Association was on thermonuclear
science and the Christmas Lectures 1959/60 at the Royal Institute were the subject
of this book.
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The Release and Use of Atomic Energy. T.E. Allibone C.B.E.,
D.Sc., Ph.D., F.R.S., Based on the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.
London: Chapman & Hall, 1961. 158 p. [back dustjacket flap] ^
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