While we're all being distracted with FISA memos and so on, I can't help the feeling that we're being distracted from looking at other problems. For example, why spend more money on nuclear weapons, when in my view these are all but obsolescent. In that line of thinking, Ms. E.C. spotted this article, and in spite of the fact that it's in Spanish (a language I don't speak and can barely read), when I saw it I knew I'd have to be blogging about it because my "suspicion meter" shot straight into the red zone. It seems that while all the "timing shenanigans" have been going on "up here" some equally interesting shenanigans might be taking place "down there." What's the big news? Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in San Carlos di Barlioche yesterday, and as this article points out, arrived in some "secrecy" and then apparently ordered a "natural itinerary":

Un caballo y un "itinerario natural": los pedidos del secretario de Estado de Donald Trump al llegar a Bariloche Rex Tillerson arribó este sábado con su familia en un clima de hermetismo. Mañana viajará a Buenos Aires, donde se reunirá con Mauricio Macri.

The headline and subtitle, according to "google translate", states:

A horse and a "natural itinerary": the orders of Secretary of State of Donald Trump upon arriving in Bariloche Rex Tillerson arrived this Saturday with his family in a climate of secrecy. Tomorrow he will travel to Buenos Aires, where he will meet Mauricio Macri.

Now, before we get down to specifics, for anyone who has read my books, and particularly the book Nazi International, San Carlos di Bariloche is, or rather, was and may still be, the "municipal hub" of what I've called the post-war "Nazi International," a kind of extra-territorial "state" of post-war Nazis, and various other Fascists after World War Two that truly comprised a network around the globe. In the center of town there is a large hotel with distinctly "Bavarian" looking architecture, which was built during the war as a plastic surgery clinic (gee, I wonder why?), and which functioned as a hotel after the war for visiting guests and dignitaries. Within 100 or so miles of Bariloche, in the Rio Negro province, lies a large compound that after the war was known as the Estancia, the "ranch." This was a large, cordoned off remote area, in which there were large houses (again of distinctly "Bavarian" architecture), which was heavily patrolled by former Wehrmacht and SS officers, and one could not enter nor leave without the requisite "papers". Bariloche is a few miles from the place where physicist Dr. Ronald Richter conducted his nuclear fusion and plasma research for Juan Peron on the island of Huemal.

And that part about "visiting guests and dignitaries" is another part of this very strange story. Just a few years ago, one will recall, President Obama made a pilgrimage to San Carlos di Bariloche, taking many NASA scientists and representatives with him, to conduct a summit with then-newly-elected Argentine President Macri. At least, that's what we were told. What we were not told is that Mr. Obama had joined an apparently long list of presidents who had visited the place on visits that were more or less never announced. Mr. Carter allegedly visited the region shortly after his diagnosis of cancer. And Mr. Eisenhower, as I pointed out in Nazi International, had made a secret trip there in 1954, according to local Argentines, a story which, if true, puts a rather different spin on his "missing weekend to fix a toothache" that has become something of an idee fixe within certain UFOlogy circles, who would have it that Eisenhower made a secret visit to a US Air Force base in southern California to talk with ETs. And if one really probes deeply into this "Bariloche lore," one will discover one name that supposedly did not go there (or in some versions, turned down an invitation to visit), and that was John F. Kennedy, who ran afoul of Mausers - later changed to Mannlicher-Carcanos - in Dallas, Texas. Funny thing too, that in the JFK documents release which Trump went ahead and did after being begged not to do so by the intelligence community, we find files about Hitler survival stories in South America.

Put all that information into the "background context" file for a moment, as you ponder these paragraphs:

El enviado de Donald Trump, acompañado de su familia, aterrizó este sábado temprano en el aeropuerto local. No tendrá encuentros oficiales y tampoco contacto con la prensa. Sin embargo, agendó una conversación con el intendente del Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, Damián Mujica, a quien sólo le anticiparon que el temario versaría sobre la situación de esa reserva natural, áreas de conservación nacional y objetivos de prevención. Pero desde la Embajada de los Estados Unidos no le adelantaron los horarios ni el lugar en que ocurriría la charla. (The envoy of Donald Trump, accompanied by his family, landed early Saturday at the local airport. It will not have official meetings nor contact with the press. However, he had a conversation with the mayor of Nahuel Huapi National Park, Damián Mujica, who anticipated that the agenda would deal with the situation of that natural reserve, national conservation areas and prevention objectives. But the Embassy of the United States did not advance the schedule or the place where the talk would take place.)

Uh huh: we're supposed to believe that Mr. Tillerson made a somewhat secretive trip to Bariloche to talk about the local wildlife preserve. That's right up there with Secretary of State John Kerry going to Antarctica to find out about global warming.

It quickly becomes even more ridiculous:

También se supo que el funcionario dedicará unos momentos a una becaria del Programa Fullbright residente en la zona. El “Fullbright Program” ofrece ayuda a estudiantes en todo el mundo y depende del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. en conjunto con los países y entidades educativas en donde se desarrolla. La pretensión de Tillerson es pasar desapercibido en el Sur, por lo que llegó con una escolta personal a la que se le sumó en Bariloche personal de la Policía Federal Argentina y de la Policía de Río Negro. (It was also learned that the official will dedicate a few moments to a Fulbright Scholar resident in the area. The "Fullbright Program" offers help to students around the world and depends on the US Department of State. in conjunction with the countries and educational entities where it is developed. The intention of Tillerson is to go unnoticed in the South, so he arrived with a personal escort to which he was joined in Bariloche by the Argentine Federal Police and the Rio Negro Police.)

Yes, that's right. In addition to making a semi-secretive trip to Bariloche to talk to locals about their nature preserve, Tillerson is personally intervening to "dedicate a few moments to a Fullbright Scholar resident in the area."

The article also mentions that Secretary Tillerson will then travel to Beunos Aires for a meeting with President Macri about bi-lateral security matters.

Now I cannot help but jump off the end of the twig of high octane speculation here. For one thing, I don't believe for a moment a "quiet visit to Bariloche" has anything whatsover to do nature preserves and Fullbright scholars, any more than I believe President Obama's visit there with NASA people in tow had to do with his golfing passion or Kerry's visit to Antarctica had to do with global warming. Given the postwar "influences" in that region of Argentina, it appears to me that these visits are liaison visits, virtual summit meetings, if you will, with this postwar group. It's therefore intriguing to me that Tillerson travels first to Bariloche, and only then meets with Macri.

Something big is going down, and as the title of this blog would have it, I cannot help but recall that strange "Drop in" comment the President made during his state of the union address, that the USA needed to beef up its nuclear deterrent against rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and "anyone else". Maybe, just maybe, with Tillerson's visit, we were just given a clue who that "anyone else' might be. Call it "the Swamp, South American franchise."

See you on the flip side...