TO THIS very day, the Walt Disney Company has made a point of selling you on Uncle Walt’s clever acquiring of Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida without unveiling precisely how the bunny was pulled from the hat, and more importantly, for what purposes. Wikipedia and practically everyone else plays along. They want you to believe there is nothing more to see here; that Disney and everyone else involved are independent agents acting out the design of their own inspiration or ingenuity. But Uncle Walt was a Wizard with a capital W. And that’s the best sort of spook there is. Mm-hmm. I said it. Spook. You know that cartoon where the mouse wears white gloves and a wizard’s cap and fights off the naughty brooms? The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is not a metaphor. Disney is Yen Sid. The Wizard. That’s Disney spelled backwards. They rub it right in our faces and then deny any liability.
Here’s the official story. Uncle Walt needed land. But Uncle Walt didn’t want land at market value. He wanted more than 40 square miles of central Florida all to his Company, and he wanted it for something less than the going rate—under $200 an acre. That could only mean one thing. He needed sellers to have absolutely no idea who was buying various swaths of interconnected land from them. Roy Disney went about to make Walt’s dream a reality, and nearly blew his cover. When word finally leaked, earthen soil shot up to $80,000 per acre. But it was too late. He had already muscled central Florida out of underappreciated swampland, sometimes as cheap as $80 per acre.
Roy Disney scouting out land in Florida
Yen Sid succeeds again. Free enterprise or the American dream or whatever. Oh, the nostalgia. Nostalgia. Can you taste it? Mmmm, nostalgia. The pure unadulterated nostalgia. It’s like a slice of hot apple pie, with vanilla ice cream melting all over it. Sparkly candles and everything. Try not to hyperventilate. Just breathe.
Let’s take a quick glance at another succulent slice of Americana, the official narrative, by which you are likely already familiar. Anaheim, California. Within three years of its opening in 1955, Uncle Walt was unhappy with Disneyland, particularly because business owners had squeezed him in on all sides. This much is true. Disneyland was incapable of grand expansion, and therefore could not fulfill Disney’s vision for America. The Company regularly rehearses this tragic tale of Utopia butting heads with manifest destiny, and it’s precisely where we need to pull back the curtain, because very few people care to know or seem to appreciate the fact, let alone ponder the following ramifications. From day one, Disney’s key contacts in creating Walt Disney World were Paul Helliwell and William Donovan.
William J Donovan (Mm-hmm, look at that conveniently placed globe)
A quick Google glance at Donovan reveals that he served as the head of the OSS during the Second World War and then went on to create the CIA.So, Donovan’s kind of a big deal. He was also the founding partner of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, a New York law firm whose attorneys included future CIA director William Casey.
Paul Helliwell (left)
A leisurely glance at Helliwell reveals that he began his career in the OSS, alongside Donovan, and then ran CIA operations in Southeast Asia, creating dummy companies which would in turn supply and finance communist opposition. Helliwell has a wiki page, but they don’t include a picture. In fact, all I could find of him online was one tiny-sized print. Maybe it was pulled from a newspaper as part of a disinformation campaign. I don’t know. Despite the poised goofy grin, his lack of documentation tells me he didn’t like the idea of having Mao Zedong matching up his mug.
Odd friends to have if Disney himself was an independent entrepreneur.
It went down like this.
Donovan set about to provide fake identities for Disney agents and then proceeded to set up a disinformation campaign. So, CIA paid journalists and media. If they were to maintain control over the World’s total development, the intelligence community understood the Disney Company would have to limit the voting power of Orlando’s private residents, even if it violated the Equal Protection Clause and the US Constitution.
Helliwell had relocated to Miami as early as 1960 in order to agitate Castro in Kennedy’s Camelot-era and perhaps prepare for the Cuban Missile Psychodrama. As Disney’s legal strategist, Helliwell went about the material creation of Walt Disney World in precisely the same manner as his secret war in Indochina. And his strategy went something like this. Set up a puppet government. Then use that regime to do your bidding. It was Helliwell who established two phantom cities with nobody living in them. Disney engineers were then brought in to obstruct the area’s natural water flow and create artificial reservoirs around their dummy storefronts, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.
Recognize the name? Buena Vista Television. What is that in the logo—missile’s penetrating the firmament? Goes right in line with Disney’s official logo, whereas the tower of Babel penetrates the firmament with a little help of pixie dust. Buena Vista was finally disbanded in 2007 in favor of focusing upon the three core brands of Disney, ABC, and ESPN. However, its very first syndication, after being incorporated in 1985, was a little something called Siskel & Ebert. Mm-hmm, CIA.
On paper these were towns. But nobody lived in them. Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista’s only residents were hand-picked insiders who ceded all control over to Disney executives. Another phantom company, Reedy Creek Improvement District, juggled civic government operations like waste removal, emergency medical services, and fire departments. The manipulation was controlled by Disney lawyers working at Donovan’s New York firm and Helliwell’s Miami offices. The CIA secured all future land development for Disney, and ensured that all money which the World generated would stay within Company hands.
In reality, Disney became its own government entity.
Walt Disney was a Wizard. Yen Sid. When it was originally released in 1940, the Disney Company described The Sorcerer’s Apprentice thusly. “It is the picture of the typical little man and what he would like to do once given complete control of the earth and its elements.” Indeed, he saved his greatest magical act for last.
In one final magic trick, Disney blurred all distinctions between reality and fantasy and then seduced America into the alchemy. Is the cognitive dissonance winning today? He didn’t call it The Magic Kingdom as a metaphor.
Wizard and spook. Best of both worlds. From its very conception in Anaheim, California, and probably long before, Walt Disney World was a CIA operation. They want you to believe that Disney and the CIA were independent agencies; that its own founder, William J. Donovan, only wanted to help an old chum out on the side. But Helliwell has already given everything away. At best, Mickey Mouse is a storefront mannequin, and at present, Walt Disney World’s development has yet to come to an end. Let that sink in. The vision is not yet complete. Meanwhile, Walt Disney World is magically above the law. Ask yourself why a seizure of land through New York lawyers has never once been contested by any person or government agency. Breathe a little. Try not to let the cognitive dissonance win the day.
The fact that the Disney organization has avoided taxation and environmental regulations, as well as maintained immunity from the US Constitution to this day, is the masterwork of Helliwell.
The State of Florida has no authority to shut a single ride down in Walt Disney World, let alone protect its visitors from injury or death. Kind of interesting then, knowing it’s CIA underpinnings, that Walt Disney World, when faced with the impending threat of the coronavirus, was the very first entity to shut down. CIA controlled Hollywood did too.
It’s okay. You can say it.
Eat. Sleep. Disney. Psychodrama.
-Noel
Sources
Allman, T.D., The Daily Beast, “How the CIA Helped Disney Conquer Florida”
Brown, Diana: “Disney World and Its Tangled Wed With CIA Ops”
Wikipedia: “Walt Disney World”
Wikipedia: “Buena Vista Television”
Wikipedia: “Paul Helliwell”
Wikipedia: “William Donovan”
Gabler, Neal: “WALT DISNEY: The Triumph of the American Imagination”
