Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

684 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:679embarrassment, he went on to deny that he was an antisemite and evendenied that he was the same Brasol who had been connected to the Beiliscase—Beilis, a Ukrainian Jew, had been accused, then acquitted, of the ritualmurder of a Christian boy—and anything involving the Protocols. That,he insisted, was the work of another officer, also named Brasol or Brasul.He was, of course, lying.There may have been more to the Monday Opera Club than first meetsthe eye. According to a history of the Sovereign Order of St. John (basically,the Knights of Malta), the club was a “society program” of the SOSJand a part of its bigger effort to aid Russian exiles and their cause. 16 Brasol,in this account, was a member of the order’s Russian Priory, along with hisantisemitic brother-in-arms Count Arthur Ivanovich Cherep-Spiridovich, aSerbian and Russian intelligence officer, through which they supposedlybattled the “globalist’s agenda.” 17 As for Grand Duke Cyril, the same historyidentifies him as the “Protector of the Order” and, as of 1922, the“financier of the Order’s field operations.” 18 Also counted among theSOSJ’s members were many in prominent positions in American business,finance, and government.Whether or not the order was anywhere as powerful as claimed, or thatBrasol was part of it, there is no question that he was linked to numerouspersons associated with it, among them an American physician, Dr. WilliamSohier Bryant. To no great surprise, Dr. Bryant was well known to Mrs.Loomis, to George Bodman, Brasol’s banker buddy from War Trade Intelligence,and to Brasol’s old comrade in Protocols-peddling, Dr. HarrisHoughton, who had collaborated with Brasol in the production of the 1918Protocols. Like Bodman and Houghton, Bryant also had a wartime connectionto intelligence. Beyond this, Bryant served Brasol for years as a frontfor obtaining subscriptions to various publications, notably Jewish onessuch as the Forward and Jewish Examiner. 19 (Some years down the road,Bryant would become a prominent member of the America First Committee20 ). What all this boils down to is that when Brasol implied that he hadfriends in high places, or at least influential ones, he wasn’t joking. Boris16. Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (SOSJ), Knights of Malta, “Historyand Lineage Charts since 1797,” http://www.osjknights.com/History-After-Malta.htm (accessed October 1, 2012).17. Ibid.18. Ibid.19. Boris L. Brasol papers, Boxes 5-6, Library of Congress, and memorandumre: Further Information Needed on Boris Brasol, November 11, 1942, 4-5, FBI,100-22487, Section 2.20. Brasol hearing, 53, FBI, File 00-15704.