And then there is Albert A. Gore, who would have carried on his family tradition, had he gotten more votes than his opponent in the 2000 election (which, of course he didn't...


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by Joseph Farah
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Gore sensitive about Hammer connection
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...Al Gore is being cagey about his middle name because of his family's long-time association with a billionaire Soviet apparatchik.

In her Feb. 15 column, Jeanette Walls reveals the vice president usually gives only his middle initial -- A -- when asked about his middle name. When pressed upon by a fifth grader recently, Gore asked the kid to give his full name.

In other words, the vice president won't even give a straight, direct answer to the question: "What's your name?"

Does this remind you of any recent presidents?

On his tax return, Gore lists his middle name as Albert. I always thought that was his first name. According to the Wall Street Journal, his birth certificate lists the middle name as simply the initial "A."

Very strange. Why the hypersensitivity?

A source told Walls that his parents gave him the initial as a middle name because they wanted their friend and benefactor, Armand Hammer, to believe their child was named for him. An official spokesman for the vice president questioned the veracity of the report.

With good reason the campaign wants to divert attention from the Hammer-Gore connection.

Hammer used to boast that he had Sen. Al Gore Sr. "in his back pocket." As I have reported here before, Hammer set up Gore Sr. in business before he ventured into politics, stayed close to him throughout his political career and hired him after he left office.

"Throughout the whole of his life, Al Gore Sr. and his family depended on pay-outs, kickbacks and subventions from Hammer," wrote Neil Lyndon, who worked for Hammer. "Like his father before him, Al Gore Jr.'s political career was lavishly sponsored by Hammer from the moment it began until Hammer died, only two years before Gore Clinton in the 1992 race for the White House."

Who was Hammer? He was a personal friend of V.I. Lenin. He was known as Lenin's "path" to America's financial resources. He was the first of a long line of Western businessmen to participate in KGB-controlled joint ventures in the Soviet Union. He was the son of Julius Hammer, a founder of the Socialist Labor Party and later the Communist party USA and who served time in Sing Sing for performing illegal abortions. Armand Hammer was called the "Capitalist Prince" by the KGB. He dutifully served the Soviets for seven decades and became the first -- and only -- "American capitalist" to be awarded the Order of Lenin.

According to Edward J. Epstein's "Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer," Lenin told Stalin about this so-called "industrialist": "This is a small path leading to the American 'business' world, and this path should be made use of in every way."

In other words, Hammer was a part-time spy, part-time money-launderer, part-time "industrialist" -- but a full-time traitor to the United States of America.

To the Soviet Union in his day, Hammer was a figure with much in common with the contemporary spy-cum-billionaire Mochtar Riady -- doing the bidding of socialist tyrants and making a bundle in the process.

It was Al Gore Sr. who stopped the FBI from pursuing an investigation of Hammer as a Soviet agent of influence. And the cozy relationship with the family continued when Al Gore Jr. -- whatever his real name is -- was elected to the Senate in 1980. Hammer was the guest of honor in the "senators only" section during President Reagan's inauguration.

The Hammer connection continued to define Al Gore's political career. He serves as co-chairman of a Russian-U.S. commission intended to help the next generation of Armand Hammer-style "Capitalist Princes" develop contacts with businesses that are little more than foreign intelligence fronts. In 1994, the vice president established U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technical Cooperation, better known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. The purpose of the commission is to help establish join ventures in space exploration, science and technology, defense conversion, environmental initiatives, public health issues, agribusiness and economic development. The Russian side of this equation is littered with shadowy figures with one foot in the intelligence community and the other in mob-related activities.

Now you see why Al Gore Jr. is the perfect candidate to continue the Bill Clinton tradition. He's been groomed for it his whole life -- from the very day he was born.

So, at the next Democratic party town hall meeting, some one should ask the simple, straightforward question -- once again -- of candidate Al Gore: "Sir, what is your full name?"

It will be fun to watch him squirm, change the subject and evade answering. And now you'll know why.