Negotiorum Gestio: Arms Smuggler Charles Winters Pardoned by Bush

Charles Winters, twenty-four years after his death, was one of 19 people to receive a presidential pardon on December 26, 2008. Winters provided the nascent Israeli armed forces with three converted World War II B-17 bombers. Winter's co-conspirators Herman Greenspun and Al Schwimmer were a small part of the vast network of nonprofit front organizations centered around the Jewish Agency - American Section and the Sonneborn Institute that purchased and stole surplus WWII arms in the United States in violation of the 1939 Neutrality Act. After the war weapons were being scrapped under President Truman's War Assets Administration. This did not prevent Hank Greenspun from stealing 58 crates of .30 and .50 caliber machine guns for transshipment from Hawaii to the Middle East via Latin America.

According to a May 28, 1948 Central Intelligence Agency report titled "Clandestine Air Transport Operations" US national security was being "unfavorable affected" by Israeli false flag smuggling operations in Europe. Planes such as Winter's B-17s ferried arms through Europe with the pilots and crews dressed in American uniforms—confusing foreign governments and customs authorities.

The arms smuggling network in the United States can be seen as the first manifestation of "negotiorum gestio" a concept outlined by Theodore Herzl in his 1896 plan for establishing a new nation in Palestine titled "The Jewish State". Negotiorum gestio is taking action without consent of a principal, in expectation of ratification later. To date, other legal violations receiving clemency through non-prosecution include violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, election law, and most recently the 1917 Espionage Act allegedly by two AIPAC operatives.

It remains to be seen whether Bush will continue bending to negotiorum gestio as individuals and groups in the United States and Israel lobby for the pardon of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.