Suns.

That explains why this isn't some remote ancestral connection.

The Berry line is still very much part of the living family network your father knows.

The wealth also changes the way I'd interpret the Garabagi connection.

A man with homes in London and San Diego major international business interests and enough capital for his descendants to remain extremely wealthy decades later.

was operating in precisely the social world where senior political and military figures could plausively be personal friends rather than merely acquaintances.

If Garabagi was at Barry's London home socially, playing backgammon, joking, relaxing, and there is separately a story involving him at Barry's San Diego home, I think close friend becomes a much more reasonable working description than some general.

There is an interesting corroborating detail about Garabagi himself.

He was a Tabrizi Azerbaijani, born in 1980