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It may have something to do with the fact that this video accuses to the CIA and other powerful elite of being in control of much of the content presented to the general public in the mainsteam media, films and television.
" The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the Major Media.." ....Former CIA Director William Colby
Quotes of the Month
“What happened to Kennedy is nearly what happened to me. America is in danger of upheavals. But you'll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They'll do everything to stifle the scandal. They will throw Noah's cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don't want to know. They don't want to find out. They won't allow themselves to find out."
~ French president after returning to Paris from JFK's funeral on November 24th, 1963 (Peyrefitte's memoir in "It Was de Gaulle")
- Charles de Gaulle
I never make the same mistake twice ...I make it like five or six times, you know .....just to be sure
I am currently under construction .. thank you for your patience
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Mr Blakey Says He Does Not Trust The CIA To Tell The Truth Part A
Bill Newman A JFK Assassination Witness
JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part A1 of 5
JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part A2 of 5
JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part A3 of 5
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JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part A5 of 5
JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part B1 of 4
JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part B2 of 4
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JFK Assassination An Overview by Daniel Sheehan 2016 Part B4 of 4
USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
present by DaneilSheehan_5-3-2016-Part A1 of 5
USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
present by DaneilSheehan_5-3-2016-Part A2 of 5
USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
present by DaneilSheehan_5-3-2016-Part B
USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
present by DaneilSheehan_5-3-2016-Part C
USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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USA Ruling Elites - The Creation Of The CIA -The Mafia- Cuba
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John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A1 of 6
JFK ASsassinion -The Zaprude FilmIs sEeing Believing In the
Assassination of JFK? May 9th-11th 2003
University of Minnwsota, Duluh
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A2 of 6
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A3 of 6
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A4 of 6
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A5 of 6
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
WhyTheJFK_Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication_Part A6 of 6
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
Why The JFK Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication Part B1 of 4
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
Why The JFK Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication Part B2 of 4
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
Why The JFK Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication Part B3 of 4
John Costellla PHD in Engineering and Physics Explains
Why The JFK Assassination - Zapruder Film Is A Fabrication Part B4 of 4
MI6 Are The Lords Of The Global Drug Trade
International Politics
Commentary by James Casbolt, Former MI6 Agent
2 May 2007
It may be a revelation to many people that the global drug trade is controlled and run by the intelligence agencies. In this global drug trade British intelligence reigns supreme. As intelligence insiders know MI5 and MI6 control many of the other intelligence agencies in the world (CIA, MOSSAD etc) in a vast web of intrigue and corruption that has its global power base in the city of London, the square mile.
My name is James Casbolt and I worked for MI6 in 'black ops' cocaine trafficking with the IRA and MOSSAD in London and Brighton between 1995 and 1999. My father Peter Casbolt was also MI6 and worked with the CIA and mafia in Rome, trafficking cocaine into Britain.
My experience was that the distinctions of all these groups became blurred until in the end we were all one international group working together for the same goals. We were puppets who had our strings pulled by global puppet masters based in the city of London. Most levels of the intelligence agencies are not loyal to the people of the country they are based in and see themselves as 'super national'. It had been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the CIA has been bringing in most of the drugs into America for the last fifty years (see ex LAPD officer Michael Rupert's 'From the wilderness' website for proof).
The CIA operates under orders from British intelligence and was created by British intelligence in 1947. The CIA today is still loyal to the international bankers based in the city of London and the global elite aristocratic families like the Rothchilds and the Windsor's. Since it was first started, MI6 has always brought drugs into Britain. They do not bring 'some' of the drugs into Britain but I would estimate MI6 bring in around ninety percent of the drugs in. They do this by pulling the strings of many organised crime and terrorist groups and these groups like the IRA are full of MI6 agents.
MI6 bring in heroin from the middle east, cocaine from south America and cannabis from morocco as well as other places. British intelligence also designed and created the drug LSD in the 1950's through places like the Tavistock Institute in London. By the 1960's MI5, MI6 and the CIA were using LSD as a weapon against the angry protestors of the sixties and turned them into 'flower children' who were too tripped out to organise a revolution. Dr Timothy Leary the LSD guru of the sixties was a CIA puppet. Funds and drugs for Leary's research came from the CIA and Leary says that Cord Meyer, the CIA agent in charge of funding the sixties LSD counter culture has "helped me to understand my political cultural role more clearly".
In 1998, I was sent 3000 LSD doses on blotting paper by MI5 with pictures of the European union flag on them. The MI5 man who sent them told my father this was a government 'signature' and this LSD was called 'Europa'.
This global drugs trade controlled by British intelligence is worth at least 500 billion a year. This is more than the global oil trade and the economy in Britain and America is totally dependent on this drug money.
Mafia crime boss John Gotti exposed the situation when asked in court if he was involved in drug trafficking. He replied"No we can't compete with the government".
I believe this was only a half truth because the mafia and the CIA are the same group at the upper levels.
In Britain, the MI6 drug money is laundered through the Bank of England, Barclays Bank and other household name companies.
The drug money is passed from account to account until its origins are lost in a huge web of transactions. The drug money comes out 'cleaner' but not totally clean.
Diamonds are then bought with this money from the corrupt diamond business families like the Oppenheimers. These diamonds are then sold and the drug money is clean. MI6 and the CIA are also responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in Britain and America. In 1978, MI6 and the CIA were in south America researching the effects of the natives smoking 'basuco' cocaine paste. This has the same effect as crack cocaine. They saw that the strength and addiction potential was far greater than ordinary cocaine and created crack cocaine from the basuco formula. MI6 and the CIA then flooded Britain and America with crack. Two years later, in 1980, Britain and America were starting to see the first signs of the crack cocaine epidemic on the streets.
On August 23, 1987, in a rural community south of Little Rock in America, two teenage boys named Kevin Ives and Don Henry were murdered and dismembered after witnessing a CIA cocaine drop that was part of a CIA drug trafficking operation based at a small airport in Mena, Arkansas. Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas at the time. Bill Clinton was involved with the CIA at this time and $100 million worth of cocaine was coming through the Mena, Arkansas airport each month. For proof see the books 'Compromise' and 'Dope Inc'.
On my father's international MI6 drug runs, whatever fell off the back of the lorry so to speak he would keep and we would sell it in Britain. As long as my father was meeting the speedboats from Morocco in the Costa del Sol and then moving the lorry loads of cannabis through their MI6, IRA lorry business into Britain every month, British intelligence were happy. As long as my father was moving shipments of cocaine out of Rome every month, MI5 and MI6 were happy. If my father kept a bit to sell himself no one cared because there was enough drugs and money to go round in this 500 billion a year global drugs trade.
The ones who were really paying were the people addicted. Who were paying with suffering. But karma always catches up and both myself and my father became addicted to heroin in later years and my father died addicted, and poor in prison under very strange circumstances. Today, I am clean and drug-free and wish to help stop the untold suffering this global drugs trade causes.
The intelligence agencies have always used addictive drugs as a weapon against the masses to bring in their long term plan for a one world government, a one world police force designed to be NATO and a micro chipped population known as the New World Order. As the population is in a drug or alcohol-induced trance watching 'Coronation Street', the new world order is being crept in behind them. To properly expose this global intelligence run drugs trade we need to expose the key players in this area:...
Continue reading for "the names" below...
1. Tibor Rosenbaum — a MOSSAD agent and head of the Geneva based Banque du Credit international. This bank was the forerunner to the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce international (BCCI) which is a major intelligence drug money laundering bank. 'Life' magazine exposed Rosenbaum's bank as a money launderer for the Meyer Lansky American organised crime family and Tibor Rosenbaum funded and supported 'Permindex' the MI6 assassination unit which was at the heart of the John F. Kennedy assassination.
2. Robert Vesco — sponsored by the Swiss branch of the Rothchilds and part of the American connection to the Medellin drug cartel in Columbia.
3. Sir Francis de Guingand — former head of British intelligence, now living in south Africa (and every head of MI5 and MI6 has been involved in the drug world before and after him).
4. Henry Keswick — chairman of Jardine Matheson which is one of the biggest drug trafficking operations in the world. His brother John Keswick is chairman of the bank of England.
5. Sir Martin Wakefield Jacomb — Bank of England director from 1987 to 1995, Barclays Bank Deputy Chairman in 1985, Telegraph newspapers director in 1986 (This is the reason why this can of worms doesn't get out in the mainstream media. The people who are perpetrating these crimes control most of the mainstream media. In America former director of the CIA William Casey is head of the council of the media network ABC. Many insiders refer to ABC as 'The CIA network.)
6. George Bush, Snr. — former President and former head of the CIA and America's leading drug baron who has fronted more wars on drugs than any other president, which in reality is just a method to eliminate competition. A whole book could be written on George Bush's involvement in the global drug trade but it is well-covered in the book 'Dark Alliance' by investigative journalist Gary Webb. Gary Webb was found dead with two gunshot wounds to the back of his head with a revolver. The case was declared a 'suicide'. You figure that out. Gary Webb as well as myself and other investigators, found that much of this 'black ops' drug money is being used to fund projects classified above top secret. These projects include the building and maintaining of deep level underground bases in Dulce in New Mexico, Pine gap in Australia, Snowy mountains in Australia, The Nyala range in Africa, west of Kindu in Africa, next to the Libyan border in Egypt, Mount Blanc in Switzerland, Narvik in Scandinavia, Gottland island in Sweden and many other places around the world (more about these underground bases in my next issue).
The information on this global drugs trade run by the intelligence agencies desperately needs to get out on a large scale. Any information, comments or feedback to help me with my work would be greatly welcomed.
One thing is true... by gmmonko on 06.05.2007
...London and it's vast finance industry is the world largest money laundry machine.
Imagine a state becomes a criminal institutions and pretends to be justified by it's voters.
We need to introduce the fourth power the people, otherwise we have no stake
but the money goes higher up to royalties! by CANUKISTAN_VIEW on 06.05.2007
The MI6, Mosad and CIA are just the mules that do the work BUT THE MONEY GOES TO ROYAL CEFFERS and to the Bush clan.
The problem with USA people now IS THAT THEY LOST 100% THEIR FREEDOM TO THE POINT THAT THEY ARE SLAVES TO THEIR DEBT AND PAY CHEQUE!
They have no voice, no say, no thinking, no intelligent conversations or discussions. Because if they do THEY WILL LOSE THEIR JOB and therefore they will be in the black list of FBI. Their career will be over.
Long time ago I posted the concept of SLAVERY INDEX related to freedom of thinking. If you have deep pockets, you are at your own and can care less about conforming. Rothschild said if he can control the money he can care less about the law.
On the other hand, if you have nothing, then there is nothing more than you can lose. In fact biggest changes in human thinking seem to always come from clean-pocket people like Christ, Gandhi, and many others.
The other interesting group is the gypsies; they are no where in the tax radar and this is why Hitler killed them massively. Native people also are free to think because they are quite out of the consumer vicious circle. They have their own micro economy and a bartering system therefore they can care less about scam currencies. The problem for these societies though is that they do not have enough gun to defend their way of life.
In between these two extremes are those who must work to make a living by renting themselves out and therefore they must compromise their freedom by conforming to rules: starting with dressing code, behavior code, social style code and evolving into a complete surrender of your own social and political dreams and your own soul if you end up in the army, CIA, FBI! Therefore, as the
James Casbolt- St Ives, Cornwall-02/5/07
E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
http://www.friendsofliberty. com/modules.php?name=News& file=article&sid=3117
The British-American coup that ended Australian independence
John Pilger
Thu 23 Oct 2014
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence
In 1975 prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died this week, dared to try to assert his country’s autonomy. The CIA and MI6 made sure he paid the price
cross the media and political establishment in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth.
Latin Americans will recognise the audacity and danger of this “breaking free” in a country whose establishment was welded to great, external power. Australians had served every British imperial adventure since the Boxer rebellion was crushed in China. In the 1960s, Australia pleaded to join the US in its invasion of Vietnam, then provided “black teams” to be run by the CIA. US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks disclose the names of leading figures in both main parties, including a future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington’s informants during the Whitlam years.
Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, Asio – then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of Vietnam as “corrupt and barbaric”, a CIA station officer in Saigon said: “We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.”
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”.
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”
Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were decoded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the decoders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.
Kerr was not only the Queen’s man, he had longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.
When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state”. Known as “the coupmaster”, he had played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia – which cost up to a million lives. One of his first speeches in Australia, to the Australian Institute of Directors, was described by an alarmed member of the audience as “an incitement to the country’s business leaders to rise against the government”.
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”
On 10 November 1975, Whitlam was shown a top-secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA’s East Asia division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.
Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA, where he was briefed on the “security crisis”.
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
•John Pilger’s investigation into the coup against Whitlam is described in full in his book, A Secret Country (Vintage), and in his documentary film, Other People’s Wars, which can be viewed on
http://www.johnpilger.com/
Some Unpopular History of the United States
Book One -- 1610 to 1933 by Richard McManus
This Full Volume can be read at
https://inltv.co.uk/index.php/the-great-american-novel
Some Unpopular History of the United States
The JFK Years and His Assassination
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Edition as of November 2019 by Richard L. McManus
The purpose of this book is to inform readers about historical facts that most US history books omit. Most US citizens do not know about the unnecessary and unjust wars, violations of international law, and covert operations by the CIA and other US government agencies. This book is based on 50 years of work by JFK assassination researchers, a great many declassified documents, and three US Government investigation. I hope future historians and you will find my mistakes so together we get closer to the truth.
Vice President: Lyndon B. Johnson
This volume can be read lower down on this web page
Some Unpopular History of the United States
Book One -- 1610 to 1933 by Richard McManus
This Full Volume can be read at
https://inltv.co.uk/index.php/the-great-american-novel
The purpose of this book is to inform reader about historical facts that most US history books omit. Most US citizens do not know about the unnecessary and unjust wars, violations of international law, and covert operations by the CIA and other US government agencies
--------------------------------
Historical background: the development of rules of conduct for an assembly’s decision making of their organization.
By the end of 200 AD (or Current Era or CE), bishops began congregating in regional synods (historically a council of a church) to resolve doctrinal and policy issues. By the 3rd century, the bishop of Rome began to act as a court of appeals for problems that other bishops could not resolve. The Greek word “assembly” was translated into the word "church" in the King James Henry the VIII’s Bible printed after the invention of the printing press.
The first recorded application of the word "catholic" or "universal" to the church was by Ignatius of Antioch in about 107 CE.
The Roman general Julius Caesar overthrew the Celtic tribes in two expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC as an offshoot of his conquest of Gaul (western France). Caesar He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman dictatorship. He installed a friendly king and returned to Gaul. Germanic pirates/raiders “Saxones” attacked the shore of Britain and Gaul (western France) in the 3rd century CE. At the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicar who administered the Diocese of the Britain.
The Anglo-Saxon tribes (aka Germanic tribes) that migrated to the British Isles in 400’s when freemen came together in a village-moot for their village and to administer justice. The name “Anglo-Saxon” itself only began to be used in the 8th century (700’s) to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The native Britons were already partly Christianized by the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain.
The Christianization of the Roman Empire happened around 312 CE. By this date Christianity had already converted a significant proportion of at least the urban population of the Roman Empire, including a number of the elite classes. Constantine ended the intermittent persecution of Christians with an edict which granted tolerance to all religions, specifically mentioning Christianity. From the 6th century, Germanic tribes were converted (and re-converted) by catholic missionaries. The Viking invasions of Britain destroyed many monasteries and new Viking settlers restored paganism.
Many of Rome's legal and legislative structures were later codified into the Justinian Code. The Corpus Juris (translated: a Body of Civil Law) is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 CE by order of Emperor Justinian I.
As time passed most kingdoms incorporated the few still existing Roman institutions. Holy Roman Catholic Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianized European pagans continued. The term "pagan" is from Latin, it means "villager, rustic, civilian" and is derived from this historical transition.
Duke William II of Normandy (aka William the Conqueror) used his army to invaded and occupied England in 1066. William II had familial relations with the English Saxons and became the King of England. He held a Council of feudal barons who advised him.
In 1525-1526 a theologian and scholar, William Tyndale, was the first person to translate and print New Testament of the Bible from the original language of Greek and Hebrew into the English language. Tyndale used the word "senior" and "elder" rather than "priest" in translating from Greek. He was the first person to take advantage of Gutenberg’s movable-type press for the purpose of printing it. Tyndale also held and published views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by King Henry VIII. Tyndale's translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself was burned at the stake in 1536, at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church. In 1537, the first printing of a complete English language Bible was translated from the original language of Greek and Hebrew.
Lawyer Thomas More served as secretary and personal adviser to King Henry VIII, More became increasingly influential serving as a liaison between the King and Catholic Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. More and Wolsey opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. They prevented Lutheran books from being imported into England and they spied on and investigated suspected Protestants, especially publishers. They arrested anyone holding in his possession, transporting, or selling the books of the Protestant Reformation. More vigorously suppressed the travelling country ministers who used Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament.
More also refused to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England. An Oath of Supremacy required any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded.
The Privy chamber (privacy) was the most influential department in the English King’s royal household. It contained the king's privy lodging, consisting of library, study, and lavatory. What was known as the Chamber was later divided into a Privy chamber (distinguished from bedchamber in 1559), and outer chamber (often styled Presence chamber), and the Great Hall. Thomas Wolsey's position in power relied solely on maintaining good relations with Henry. He grew increasingly suspicious of the "minions"—young, influential members of the Privy chamber. He reduced the members of the Privy Council from twelve to six. These six men were of noble birth were empowered to execute the King's verbal command without producing any written order; their person and character being deemed sufficient authority.
Know as the Groom of the Stool, this was the job of one of a male servant to the household, in charge of the royal poop (which meant he had the task of cleaning the monarch's anus after defecation). His standing was of the highest and this service was seen as entirely honorable, without a trace of being demeaning or humiliating.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, (1485 to July 28, 1540), was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540. Common law originated during the Middle Ages in England from 500 to 1000 AD (CE) for which people use the terms Medieval Times, Middle Ages, and Dark Ages. The Dark Ages is usually referring to the first half of the Middle Ages. Common law (also known as case law), laws developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals that decide individual cases.
Cromwell was one of the strongest and most powerful advocates of the English Reformation. He helped to engineer an annulment of the king's marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon, to allow Henry to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. After failing in 1534, to obtain the Pope's approval of the request for annulment, Parliament endorsed the King's claim to be head of a breakaway Church of England, thus giving Henry the authority to annul his own marriage. King Henry VIII of England also made Catholicism illegal. Thomas Cromwell subsequently plotted a reformist course for Church of England after his appointment by the King to posts of vicegerent in spirituals and vicar-general. He sold off many of the monitories to rich English barons on behalf of the King.
A vicar general is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ordinary executive power over the entire diocese and, thus, is the highest official in a diocese or other particular church after the diocesan bishop or his equivalent in canon law.
Canon law is the body of laws and regulations made by Church leadership, for the government of a Christian church and its members.
Thru the Middle Ages the European feudal system was adopted by the Catholic Church. The church's revenue streams came from, amongst other things, rents and profits arising from assets gifted and profits from money making assets given to the church by believers, be they monarch, lord of the manor or vassal, and later upon a percent of their incomes. The word “diocese”, is from a Greek word meaning "administration", is the district under the supervision of a bishop
The Years 1610 to 1909 -- Unjust and Unnecessary US Wars
From 1415 onward, the Portuguese Empire killed five million people. Their arrested some 4.5 million slaves and shipped them out of Africa. Twice as many as were enslaved by other nations. From 1492 to 1892 the Spanish Empire killed five million people in South America. Of the total three million died from smallpox. In 1521 they murdered some 200,000 Aztecs in their capital city in Mexico. In south eastern India a Portuguese Inquisition by Catholic extremists from 1560 to 1812 was the most severe and cruel. They massacred some 16,000 Hindus, Muslims, Indian Jews and non-Catholic Indian Christians, twice as many as any other colonial power.
In 1534, France started sailing and exploring the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River and during the 1600’s and 1700’s. They colonized the Great Lakes area, the Atlantic coast, and the Mississippi River area of the United States. Since the early 1500s Portuguese, Breton, and Bristol fishermen; Basque whalers; French fur traders; or English cod fisherman who had established a presence on the North Atlantic coast. In 1578, an observer noted 100 Spanish sails, 20–30 Basque whalers, approximately 150 French and Breton fishing ships, and 50 English sails along the coast of Newfoundland. English traders and fishermen had daily contact with Native Americans but lived on ships or in segregated enclaves on land where salt-dried codfish stations were built along Massachusetts Bay.
For 23 years until about 1815, recurrent warfare between the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte and against the other powers of Europe. And France became the dominant power in much of continental Europe. As a result the French killed some ten million people. The French kill some 100,000 slaves in their colony in Haiti. From 1885 onward, the Belgian Empire ten million people in the Congo. Using forced labor, murder and mutilation to force indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections. Smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River. In 1876 the Ottoman Empire (aka Turkey) beheaded and burnt alive at least 5,000 people at the city of Batak in Bulgaria.
Between 1616 and 1619, Native American populations in New England, with no immunity to European diseases, were nearly eradicated by a mysterious epidemic—likely smallpox. The estimated death rates ranged from one third to as high as 90 percent in Massachusetts and other Algonquin tribes. European-induced epidemics in Florida, the Carolinas, and Virginia between 1519 and 1750, including smallpox, bubonic plague, typhus, mumps, influenza, yellow fever, and measles. Other possibly diseases included chickenpox and trichinosis (round worms), and leptospirosis (a bacteria that causes sickness) that is spread by rats or mice that arrived on infested European ships. The duration of the epidemics reportedly ranged from three to six years. In New England, “three plagues in three years successively two hundred miles along the coast” of southern Massachusetts to Cape Cod and inland for 15 miles to extending 60-mile into the interior which corresponds to the area of native corn horticulture.
Also herd immunity among the European colonists reduced the spread of diseases. Europeans had been the caretakers of domestic animals for thousands of years, and had over time grown somewhat immune to the common diseases that accompanied the domestication of such food sources. Native Americans, on the other hand, were largely hunters and gatherers. Second, Europeans had lived in more densely populated areas than Native Americans. When so many humans live together in relatively close quarters (particularly with lack of good, or any, sewage systems and the like), disease spreads quickly with the general population continually getting exposed to numerous germs. The third factor is travel and trade. Groups of people and animals moved around a lot in Europe resulting in the spread of disease across continents—and, eventually, some level of immunity for the survivors. This also resulted in Europeans becoming more genetically diverse than Native Americans.
That said, it should be noted that Europeans were also commonly killed off by the diseases they brought to the New World. It’s just that over time those who were more susceptible to these diseases died off and the survivors’ immune systems had developed to the point where the general populace wasn’t typically being wiped out at rates anywhere close to 95 percent, though the numbers were often still extreme by today’s standards.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/03/native-americans-didnt-wipe-europeans-diseases/ and http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/2/09-0276_article
The Jamestown settlement on the James River, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, VA, and some 100 miles south of Washington DC, was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" in May 1607 and too late in the year to get crops planted. Two-thirds of the settlers died before arriving ships brought supplies and German, Polish and Slovak craftsmen the next year in 1608. Some of the survivors deserted to the Native American tribes. There were an estimated 14,000 Native Americans living in the region. Jamestown served as the capital of the colony for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699.
1610 - 1622 - Deliberate genocide of Powhatans by the Virginia Company of London. It involved the manipulation of English Law by Sir Edward Coke, a prominent jurist whose writings on English common law were the definitive legal texts for some 300 years. There were two Anglo-Powhatan Wars accompanied by racist polemics preached by associates of this Company in London.
From 1620 to 1691 the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony an English colonial located about 40 miles south of Boston, MA and about 400 miles southwest of Jamestown. The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England, in September 1620, with 102 passengers and about 30 crew members, the worst time of the year to sail to North America. They arrived in December 1620.
During the winter, the colonists suffered greatly from diseases like scurvy, lack of shelter and lived on board Mayflower ship. Many of the able-bodied men were too infirm to work and 45 died. By the end of February, five cannons had been defensively positioned in a fort on a hill. Of the 18 adult women, 13 died the first winter while another died in May. Only four adult women were left alive for the Thanksgiving in 1621.
The Pilgrims distinguished themselves from the Puritans in that they sought to separate themselves from the Anglican Church, rather than reform it from within. In Plymouth Colony, a simple profession of faith was all that was required for acceptance. This was a more liberal doctrine than some other New England congregations where it was common to subject those seeking formal membership to strict and detailed cross examinations. There was no central governing body for the churches. Each individual congregation was left to determine its standards of membership, hire its own ministers, and conduct its own business. The colony's laws were based on a hybrid of English common law. The colony offered nearly all adult males potential citizenship in the colony. Most men were elevated to “freeman” status between the ages of 25 and 40, averaging somewhere in their early thirties and thereby had voting rights at an assembly called the General Court. It was both the chief legislative and judicial body of the colony. The colony's most powerful executive was its Governor, he and a seven member cabinet was elected by the freemen. The Governor and cabinet then appointed Constables who served as the chief administrators for the towns who were responsible for publishing announcements, performing land surveys, carrying out executions, and etc.
On May 26, 1637, English troops attacked a large Pequot village on the Mystic River in what is now Connecticut. The village was set on fire and the women and children were killed as they attempted to flee. One observer later wrote: "it was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and scent thereof." In this and the succeeding campaign about 700 members of the tribe were killed including men taken captive. The tribe was disbanded and the survivors were adopted by neighboring tribes. (1)
The Plymouth Colony Puritans of New England eliminated the use of musical instruments in their religious services for theological and practical reasons. The only music remaining in church services was the setting of the psalms. Puritans disapproved of Christmas celebrations, as did some other Protestant churches of the time. Celebrations were outlawed in Boston from 1659 onward. The ban was revoked in 1681 by the English-appointed governor, who also revoked a Puritan ban on festivities on Saturday nights. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. Likewise, the colonies banned many secular entertainments on moral grounds, such as games of chance, maypoles, and drama. A maypole dance would occur in May or mid-summer. It consisted of pairs of boys and girls (or men and women) standing alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon. They would weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other, while the ribbons were woven together around the pole until the merry-makers met at the base.
They were not, however, opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation. Early New England laws banning the sale of alcohol to Native Americans were criticized because it was "not fit to deprive Indians of any lawful comfort alloweth to all men by the use of wine." Laws banned the practice of individuals toasting each other, with the explanation that it led to wasting God's gift of beer and wine, as well as being carnal. Bounds were not set on enjoying sexuality within the bounds of marriage, as a gift from God.
Married women and men were equally expected to have sex. Women and men could file for divorce based on this issue alone. In Massachusetts colony, which had some of the most liberal colonial divorce laws, one out of every six divorce petitions was filed on the basis of male impotence, an issue which held significant cultural ramifications. The Puritans publicly punished drunkenness as well as sexual relations outside marriage.
In Britain in the 1170s, it was common practice for ordinary couples to cohabit before marriage and for cousins to marry one another. In 1650, during the ascendancy of the Puritans, fornication was made a felony. The word was understood as consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. At the Restoration in 1660, this statute was not renewed, and prosecution of the mere act of fornication itself was abandoned. However, notorious and open lewdness, when carried to the extent of exciting public scandal, continued to be an indictable offence at common law. Sex before marriage only became equated with sinfulness with the passing of the Marriage Act 1753. Prior to the passing of this Act, laws against bastard children became stricter during the 1730s and 1740s. Indeed, there was very little stigma around bastards at any social level in medieval England.
Puritans believed in demonic forces, as did almost all Christians of this period. Puritan pastors undertook exorcisms for demonic possession in some high-profile cases, and believed in some allegations of witchcraft.
In January 1692, a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts became had seizures or violent contortions, and made blood curdling screams. A doctor diagnosed the children as being victims of black magic, and over the next several months, allegations of witchcraft spread like a virus through the small Puritan settlement. Twenty people were eventually executed as witches, but contrary to popular belief, none of the condemned was burned at the stake. In accordance with English law, nineteen of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were instead taken to the infamous Gallows Hill to die by hanging. Still more accused sorcerers died in jail while awaiting trial.
Historians have noted that many of the accused were wealthy and held different religious beliefs than their accusers. This, coupled with the fact that the accused also had their estates confiscated if they were convicted, has led many historians to believe that religious feuds and property disputes played a big part in the witch trials. As the years went by, the colonists felt ashamed and remorseful for what had happened during the trials. In 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring some of the names of the accused and paid restitution to their heirs.
Public schools, as we know them today, were few and far between in the early American republic. The Puritans believed literacy was a religious duty (so that everyone could read the Bible), and most children learned basic math and reading at home. By the 1670s, all New England Colonies (except Rhode Island) had passed legislation that mandated literacy for children. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law that required towns with 50 or more people to have a public school for boys and to hire a schoolmaster to teach writing. In the 1700s, elite, private, grammar schools opened in New England to prepare boys to enter the Ivy League colleges, many of which are among America's most prestigious college prep schools today. Throughout the Middle Colonies, individual communities sometimes opened schools to instruct boys in their language, religion and traditions. And Southern plantation owners might hire a teacher to educate their children at home. Wealthy families from every region sometimes sent their sons back to England for school.
During the Revolution, many Americans (like Thomas Jefferson) believed strongly that education was a necessary component of democracy, but despite their arguments, not many of the Founding Fathers thought it was a good idea for the federal government to be involved in such matters. The US Constitution places schools squarely in the hands of the states. Some towns, cities, territories and states began enacting laws providing education for local children around the turn of the 19th century. For example, St. Louis, Missouri opened a school in 1808, and many other localities opened their own one-room schoolhouse. But children in outlying areas couldn't always attend and poor kids might need to help provide for their families. Other places, like Georgia, began closing public schools after 1800, and it was illegal almost everywhere to educate a slave. A free, public education was still out of reach for most American children.
Some strong religious beliefs common to Puritans had direct impacts on the culture. Education was essential to the masses, so that they could read the Bible for themselves. New England differed from its mother country, where nothing in English statute required literacy of children. Catholics who fled England settled in Maryland, and their colony's legislature passed the Act of Toleration of 1649 to ensure the religious liberty of Maryland's Catholics. The law made it a crime to jeer at other believers by calling them names such as a papist, heretic, or puritan. The death penalty could be meted out to anyone who denied the Trinity (notwithstanding no such concept was written about or described within the Bible or rejected Jesus Christ's “son-ship.” Those who profaned Sunday by swearing excessively, becoming drunk or working unnecessarily could be fined. Anyone who spoke against the virgin Mary could be fined and whipped.
The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were the most active of the New England persecution of Quakers, and the persecuting spirit was shared by the Plymouth Colony and the colonies along the Connecticut River. In 1660, one of the most notable victims of the religious intolerance was an English Quaker who was hanged in Boston for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She was one of four executed Quakers. In 1661, King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684, England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686 and, in 1689, passed the broadly religious Toleration Act.
Merchants in the American colonies of the 1690s often funded piracy in waters off India, Arabia, and Madagascar. In 1763, many of colonies’ richest merchant families owed 30 to 40 percent of their wealth to the fruits of war and piracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan
http://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-salem-witch-trials/#sthash.xhnMz89k.dpuf
By the mid-1700s throughout the colonies, most people, including men, wore their hair very long. Women and girls kept their hair covered with hats, hoods, and kerchiefs. Men and boys tied their hair into ponytails until wigs came into vogue in the port cities. Colonials made their own clothes from linen (flax) and wool; every home had a spinning wheel and a loom, and women sewed and knitted constantly, as cotton cloth would not be readily available until the nineteenth century. Plentiful dyes like indigo, birch bark, and berries made colorful shirts, pants, dresses, socks and caps.
Americans grew their own food and ate a great deal of corn—roasted, boiled, and cooked into cornmeal bread and pancakes. Hearty vegetables like squash and beans joined apples, jam, and syrup on the dinner table. Men and boys hunted and fished; rabbit, squirrel, bear, and deer. Pig-raising grew important, but beef and milk cows were scarce until the eighteenth century and beyond. Given the poor quality of water, many colonials drank cider, beer, and corn whiskey—even the children! As cities sprang up, cattle drank beer, yielding a disgusting variant of milk known as “swill milk” that propagated childhood illnesses.
Infant mortality was high, and any sickness usually meant suffering, and often, death. Doctors were few and far between. The colonies had no medical school until the eve of the American Revolution, and veterinarians usually doubled as the town doctor, or vice versa. Going to a physician usually constituted an absolute last resort, as without anesthesia, any serious procedures would involve excruciating pain and extensive recovery. Into the vacuum of this absence of professional healers stepped folk healers and midwives. “Bleeding” (make a sick person bleed), was a common medical practice in order to rid the body of any illness.
While most New England children went to school for a short time, schools in the south were less frequent, and, well into the 19th century, required attendance for fewer months of the year. Boys studied longer than girls. The girls, it was believed, needed only to learn to cook and raise children. Laws prohibited the schooling of African-Americans, though some whites ignored such regulations. Schools were uncomfortable; students sat on wooden benches in damp rooms heated by a single fireplace, with grades first to eight and even high school lumped together in one room. Students wrote on bark with lumps of lead or quill pens dipped in homemade ink. Their main text was The New England Primer. Aesop’s Fables and Robinson Crusoe sufficed in the absence of children’s literature and Bible reading was always acceptable. Teachers punished ill-behaved boys with whips, dunce caps, and cards hung around their necks that read “Idle Boy.” If you bit your nails you had to wear a card that said “bite-finger baby.” While some boys as young as twelve went on to college at Harvard or William and Mary, others joined the workforce as soon as they learned to read, write, and cipher (do arithmetic).
Children worked hard because all Americans were given to hard work all their lives. Most boys and girls, certainly in frontier areas, learned how to plow, mend fences, skin animals, dress meat, fish, shoot, hunt, and ride. Their lives, like their parents’ lives, were tied to the seasons as they worked and played and cultivated the raw land and their survival depended on being very good at shooting a rifle. It was not unusual for a father to go away for days or even weeks, leaving a young teenager in charge of the farm, the livestock, the house, and the other family members. At twelve or thirteen, most boys sought work in the form of apprenticeships, where they learned a craft or trade from a cobbler, barrel-maker, tanner, fisherman, or other skilled artisan.
Women, expected to bear between five and ten children and lots of mothers died as a result getting pregnant and giving birth. With high infant mortality, families typically did not name a child until he or she had reached the age of two: prior to that time, parents would refer to the baby as “it,” “the little angel,” or “the little visitor.” Overall life expectancy hardly tells the tale of everyday life, where work was hard and even most minor illnesses were potentially life-threatening. Despite the reality of such a very hard life for common folk, it is worth noting that by 1774 colonists already had attained a standard of living that far surpassed any found in rest of the world.
The Patriots numbered 40 to 45 percent of the colonists and they were violent toward the Tories/Loyalists who accounted for ten to 15 percent and 35 to 40 percent were neutral.
In the end, many Loyalists simply left America. About 80,000 of them fled to Canada or Britain during or just after the war. Because Loyalists were often wealthy, educated, older, and Anglican (held beliefs and membership within Church of England), the American social fabric was altered by their departure. American history brands them as traitors. But most were just trying to maintain the lifestyles to which they had become accustomed.
Even before the war started, a group of Philadelphia Quakers were arrested and imprisoned in Virginia because of their perceived support of the British. The Patriots were not a tolerant group, and Loyalists suffered regular harassment, had their property seized, or were subject to personal attacks. (tar and feather has got to hurt).
http://www.patriotshistoryusa.com/teaching-materials/bonus-materials/everyday-life-in-america/
1765: James Watt invents the improved steam engine utilizing a separate condenser.
1769: invents the first steam-powered vehicle capable of carrying passengers
The development of new political organizations preceded the American Revolutionary War and played a central role in making the revolution happen. New groups calling themselves Sons of Liberty and the Stamp Act Congress met in 1765. Committees of Correspondence whose purpose it was to share information about the resistance movement were formed in 1772. For an entire generation of Americans the one unifying idea that led to the American Revolution was that the British were conspiring to enslave the colonies.
Some Unpopular History of the United States
Book One -- 1610 to 1933 by Richard McManus
This Full Volume can be read at
https://inltv.co.uk/index.php/the-great-american-novel
Some Unpopular History of the United States
The JFK Years and His Assassination
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Edition as of November 2019 by Richard L. McManus
At 43, President John Kennedy was the youngest man elected US president
Vice President: Lyndon B. Johnson
At 43, President John Kennedy was the youngest man elected US president following a campaign that portrayed him as the epitome of youth and vigor. But a review of Kennedy’s White House medical records and correspondence from his physicians revealed differently. During the 1960 presidential campaign, JFK's diagnosis of Addison's disease was covered up and wasn't disclosed until the 1976 publication of the book, The Search for JFK, by Joan and Clay Blair. The Addison's disease was diagnosed when Kennedy was 30 years old and he was found to have hypothyroidism when he was a senator. Kennedy suffered from migraines, gastrointestinal disorders, and chronic debilitating back pain. The combination of autoimmune adrenal disease and hypothyroidism is consistent with a rare autoimmune endocrine disorder called autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2, or APS2, the journal's editors said. While it is "probable that Kennedy had APS2," confirmatory antibodies are essential to the diagnosis. But it's still unknown whether Kennedy was tested for these because the office records of his endocrinologist, Dr. Eugene Cohen, are not available to researchers. (Source: Endocrine and autoimmune aspects of the health history of John F. Kennedy, The Annals of Internal Medicine, (2009)
In the early fall of 1960, Chuck Spalding asked Dr. Max Jacobson if he could consult in secret with his old Harvard roommate. The mystery patient turned out to be Senator John Kennedy. Kennedy was complaining that he was feeling weak and had muscle aches to the point where he was almost crippled by the pain. This occurred while on the campaign trail for president against vice president Nixon and was about to face him in the first-ever televised presidential debate.
The night of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, Kennedy met with Jacobson (nicknamed Doctor Feelgood) just a few hours before he took the stage. The senator was “complaining in a voice barely above a whisper of extreme fatigue and lethargy,” the authors write. Jacobson plunged a needle “directly into Kennedy’s throat and pumped methamphetamine into his voice box.”
In early 1962, Robert Kennedy grew so suspicious of Jacobson that he sent his formula to the FBI to learn what was in it. When he found out it was amphetamines, he questioned his brother about it.
Jacobson gave the Kennedy too high a dose, causing the psychotic break that led him to run naked and delirious through the hotel’s halls. “He was completely naked, on the verge of paranoia and feeling so free of pain that he almost wanted to perform gymnastic acts in the hallway. The Secret Service detail had to control him. The Secret Service called one of New York’s top psychiatrists, who “saw the president in a manic condition furiously waving his arms and running around without any clothes on. He administered an anti-psychotic medicine, and the president soon returned to normal.
It is my suspicion that word of this incident reached the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and added to their decision to conduct the plot to assassinate Kennedy.
This formula was actually methamphetamine, and over the course of a decades-long practice, Jacobson became doctor to the stars, making unknowing drug addicts
Jacobson, who was raised in Berlin, began experimenting with strange concoctions in the 1930s, when he would consult with Carl Jung, whose guidance led him to first experiment with early psychotropic, or mood and mind-altering, drugs. Experimenting on animals, patients, and himself, Dr. Jacobson looked for ways he could mix early mind-altering drugs with vitamins, enzymes, animal placentas and small amounts of hormones. This evolved to become a mixture of methamphetamine and goat’s and sheep’s blood.
The Nazis heard about his work and demanded the formula. Jacobson said that his drug was fed to Nazi soldiers, making them more vicious. He also believed that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun eventually became addicted to his formula.
Being Jewish, Dr. Jacobson escaped the Nazis, fled to Paris and then to America. The New York Times published a massive expose on him, leading to the loss of his medical license in 1975. (Sources: Dr Feelgood by Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes and
These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack with Jackie by Christopher Anderse
In late 1959, Senator John F. Kennedy's scramble to protect his future presidential reputation began in earnest. A political opponent discovered that Kennedy was carrying on a sexual affair with a nineteen-year-old college student, Marion “Mimi” Beardsley. She was studying at Radcliffe College, a woman's college associates with Harvard University.
Kennedy continued his sexual relationship with this student after his inauguration. David Francis Powers, a very close, personal friend of President Kennedy facilitated this affair/adultery from the summer of 1962 through November 1963. This sexual relationship was known to many. Kennedy's car and driver had been seen picking up and dropping off the student at her dormitory. Mimi Beardsley had been given a job as a White House intern and was put to work among the secretaries in the press office. She also at times traveled with John Kennedy.
Beardsley (Mimi Alford) wrote in her book, that on one occasion, Kennedy said “Mr. Powers looks a little tense. Would you take care of it?” Mimi said that she understood Kennedy was suggesting she give David Powers a blow-job, and she obliged. (Sources: Once Upon a Secret by Mimi Alford and The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh, (1998) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/06/interns-memoir-details-affair-with-president-kennedy.html
Joseph Kennedy set up a meeting with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana to obtain Giancana's support for Kennedy's run for the White House, thereby combining the sway of Chicago crime syndicate with that of Mayor Richard J. Daley's Democratic machine. Frank Sinatra introduced Senator John Kennedy to Judy Campbell. Giancana had longtime ties to Joseph Kennedy, who was involved with Giancana in the bootlegging business during Prohibition.
(The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh)
In 1959 Kennedy's biggest worries about his affair with Beardsley came not from Republicans but from his fellow Democrats, who were eager to find ways to discredit him. Charles W. Engelhard, a South African diamond merchant, had discovered that JFK was having an affair with a nineteen year old student at Radcliffe College named Mimi Beardsley. It seems that Bellino had a long history of carrying out covert operations for the Kennedy family Bellino was employed by Joseph Kennedy as his accountant and personal secretary. He worked for JFK during his presidency. One of his job seems to have been to deal with blackmailers.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4663
Engelhard arranged for one of his aides to hire offer a private investigator $10,000 to fly to Boston (~$81,000 in 2016 dollars) and take incriminating photographs of Kennedy with Beardsley. However, the former policeman was a staunch Kennedy supporter. He turned down the job and, through a mutual friend, brought the plan to the attention of a politically connected Democratic lawyer in Washington. This unknown named lawyer had spent many years as a Senate aide. It was clear, the lawyer said, that "Charley Engelhard was trying to get the goods on Kennedy to knock him out of the running.
John Kennedy tasked former FBI special agent Carmine Bellino to find out what was going on. Bellino was a former FBI agent and later an investigation accountant/CPA. Bellino said he had "put in a wire" on the Engelhard Industries official. Bellino most likely hired former FBI agent Louis “Lou” J. Russell for this wiretapping job. This becomes important later as I tell you about the real reason for the Watergate burglary in my essay about Watergate.
George HW Bush accused Carmine Bellino of organizing a wiretap to be placed on the phones of Engelhard Industries for John Kennedy during his 1960 campaign for president. Bush also said Bellino had tried to bug the hotel where Nixon stayed preparing for the 1960 debates with JFK. Bellino was eventually cleared of this by the US Senate in 1973.
In 1934 Bellino joined the FBI and served as an administrative assistant to, J. Edgar Hoover. In 1955, Robert Kennedy became chief counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He recruited Bellino as one of his staff members. In 1961 John F. Kennedy appointed him as his special consultant until and held the post until the president was assassinated in 1963. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbellino.htm
(Source: Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, by Jim Hougan (1984)
John W. Leon worked as a private detective for Carmine Bellino during the 1960 presidential election. Leon bugged the phones of Engelhard Industries.
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As soon as he entered the White House, Kennedy turned his attention to the health problems of children, the aged, and the poor. He wanted not only to establish government medical insurance for the aged and the unemployed, but to outlaw tax deductions for unjustified or exaggerated medical expenses. He wanted the federal government to care for invalids, feeble-minded and retarded children, and to cover the cost of exceptionally high surgery bills in low- income families. He wanted, if not to reform the medical schools, at least to help the “talented young people without money who are unable to bear the cost of medical school.” He proposed to create 40 new medical and dental schools. He was already thinking of the country’s needs in 1970. But the American Medical Association dubbed Kennedy’s Social Security proposals the “cruel mystification.” To which Kennedy replied, in private (but it was repeated and even appeared in print) that this mystification was only “cruel to some of their exclusivity, and their rackets.”
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/124968-Sim-City-and-John-F-Kennedy
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When Kennedy took office in January 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that Laos and all of Southeast Asia would be lost to communism if JFK did not send in 250,000 troops and use nukes should China/PRC or the USSR jump in.
Retired General Douglas MacArthur visited Kennedy and told him, “Anyone wanting to commit American ground forces to the mainland of Asia should have his head examined. Kennedy cited MacArthur’s judgment as his own to his Joint Chiefs. Edmund Gullion, who was the US consul in Saigon in 1951, also told Kennedy it would be a disaster for the US to follow the French example in Vietnam. ((JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 102)
Kennedy’s Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs, George W. Ball also was one who pleaded against the escalation of the Vietnam War. He told Kennedy to recall France’s devastating defeat, saying, “Within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles and never find them again.” Ball provided a piercing, accurate analysis of the situation in South Vietnam, and of the US stake in it, as well as a prescient description of the disaster any escalation of American involvement would entail. He served in the top ranks of the State Department from 1961 to 1966, but refused to go public with his doubts. In the winter of 1965 and 1966, Ball also forcefully warned President Johnson against bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
In May 1961 Kennedy sent 500 more Army Special forces to South Vietnam bring the total to 1,400 SF advisers. The US military wanted 13,000 troops deployed there. (The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s, by David R. Farber and Eric Foner, pp. 125 to 133).
Counterinsurgency Era - US Sponsored Terrorism -- Countering terrorism with terror
Both President John and Robert Kennedy began to learn what the new military doctrines of counterinsurgency, flexible response, civic action, and nation building really meant. They learned how the obsession with secrecy had completely changed the way the military and intelligence operated.
It involved propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action (aka secretly putting US Army Special Forces on the ground), sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including giving arms to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world. And Kennedy was fascinated by the concept of counterinsurgency, since by nature he was a strong believer in negotiation and limited response rather than simply using a military options. Words such as counterinsurgency, pacification, and US Army special forces began to creep into our political language.
CIA analysts clearly indicated that the wars in Laos and Vietnam could not be won. They warned against involvement in Latin America politics. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 36 -37)
The CIA secretly gave money and technical assistance to the Christian Democratic Party in Italy until the 1960s. The CIA continued Radio Liberty until 1971 when Congress withdrew its support. (Ibid, p. 39)
One of the methods in a counterinsurgency program was isolation of the guerrillas through control of food supplies and the forcible relocation of suspect elements into secure resettlement areas; and the creation of no-go (free-fire) zones, "specific areas from which the population is restricted and in which all non-governmental personnel (translated "anyone persons including civilians) encountered can be assumed to be guerrilla/terrorists."
Unconventional warfare came into play whenever US supported operations took place in enemy territory or in territory that the US considers to be under enemy influence, where the insurgent have been successful in dominating a territory. Offensive counterinsurgency forces acted as if they were conducting covert cross-border raids. US terrorism became the counter-terror operations in counterinsurgency.
No elaboration of the terror operations appeared in the 1960s US Army field manuals (FMs), but references to punitive actions suggested a no-holds-barred approach. The prescription of terror for US Army Special Forces (SF) solders counter insurgency (unconventional) warriors remained a feature of American doctrine in the 1960s and afterward. Nations that the CIA provided Army Special Forces trainers, ended up using torture and death squads against their own citizens after the CIA provide them with Black lists of alleged, communist, bad guys. http://www.statecraft.org/chapter9.html
During the late 1950s the CIA's special military operations manpower was gradually reduced to a couple hundred Army SF soldiers. When the CIA needed more men it would hire them with short-term contacts. The CIA also hired ex-US military service members, adventurers, and outright mercenaries and/or on direct loan from the active duty or reserve, US Army Special Forces soldiers and pilots. After working for the CIA these US military men would return to their former military careers. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence p. 96)
The CIA built secret bases/camp in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala for training people it hired for special operations. For the operation to assist Tibet, it constructed extensive support facilities in Northeast India. They brought large numbers of Tibetan guerrillas to a deserted Army base in Colorado for training. The CIA also used a Navy base in Saipan. The CIA also trained special operations forces in the use of weapons that violated the Geneva Convention, like silencer-equipped rifles and machine guns. (Ibid, p. 98)
In the 1960s, the CIA assumed the role of coordinator of all US government counter-insurgency operations in Latin America. Small detachments of Army Special Forces were regularly placed under CIA control and were dispatched form Fort Gulick in the Panama Canal Zone. The CIA special operations aided Peru's fight against leftist guerrillas. They build training base in the Peruvian jungle region, etc. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 110)
Terror Operations would take the form of campaigns of assassination, kidnapping and disappearing, and mass executions in many countries in subsequent decades, and would remain a hallmark of the counterinsurgency state. Direct involvement of US unconventional forces is prescribed in everything from propaganda to acts of terrorism. Special Forces type soldiers who are demolition specialists can work with the host nation guerrillas in destroying government facilities, terrorist activities, and in tying down internal security forces to protect government installations.
With NSAM No. 177, passed into law on August 7, 1962, the Agency for International Development proceeded on November 1, 1962 to establish the Office of Public Safety (OPS). Once established, the OPS attempted to utilize indigenous police forces against insurgent threats by providing, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a carefully balanced program of technical advice, training, and equipment. Although it is technically an independent agency, USAID operates subject to the foreign policy guidance of the President, Secretary of State, and the National Security Council.
Accordingly, the Kennedy administration envisioned an integrated law enforcement apparatus that the general populace would recognize as a legitimate peace keeping force. In order to promote internal security in Third World nations, the Office of Public Safety (OPS) aimed to bolster the ability of local police to conduct regular operations, master investigative skills in order to identify and neutralize criminal or subversive activities, and create the capability for controlling militant disturbances, such as demonstrations, disorders, and riots, through small-scale guerrilla operations.
Counterinsurgency for the Kennedy administration became the focal point in its fight against the spread of communism throughout the world. In particular, the United States sought to eliminate internal subversion before it could escalate to the point where direct United States military intervention would be required to restore order.
According to U. Alexis Johnson, former Under Secretary for Political Affairs in the State Department, President Kennedy took great interest in United States police programs.
Kennedy hand-picked Byron Engle to oversee the development of this public safety program. He served as director of the Office of Public Safety throughout the majority of its twelve-year existence. Engle began his law enforcement career in 1930 as a Kansas City cop. In Japan during the US Occupation following World War Two, he was a police administrator for the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, Tokyo, Japan, from 1945-1950. Engle subsequently served as the first chief of the Civil Police Administration of the International Cooperation Administration from 1955-1962 until appointed as director of the OPS in November 1962.
Engle's wife, Geraldine "Jerry" L. Engle, worked for the American Red Cross in Japan, Saipan, and Tinian, was recruited by the CIA to act as a liaison between the CIA and her husband's International Cooperation Agency/Public Safety operation at the State Department. Byron Engle also advised the governments of Laos and Cambodia on setting up their internal security/national police agencies. From 1951 Jerry Engle worked for 23 years, until retirement, as an intelligence officer for the CIA in Japan and Turkey. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?pid=174139932#sthash.1ZcDzJgn.dpuf
Further, the OPS furnished cars and helicopters to increase the mobility of recipient nations, and stressed training in interrogation techniques to improve an agency’s intelligence gathering capabilities. a nationwide data bank and an identification system generally consisting of identification cards.
Operational November 1, 1962 until its termination August 17, 1974, the Office of Public Safety provided technical assistance, training, and commodities to 52 nations.34 Building off of preexisting police assistance programs, the OPS established 34 missions by FY 1965. The International Police Academy, once the heart of public safety training operations also terminated classes scheduled in December 1974. http://forumonpublicpolicy.com/archive07/sprankle.pdf
The Alliance for Progress
Attorney General Robert Kennedy convinced his brother that the only way to prevent communism from being exported from Cuba to the rest of Latin America was to develop an aggressive partnership among American business, the Catholic Church, and the CIA. (Ibid, p. 204)
Kennedy's Alliance for Progress became a giant covert operation and large CIA stations were established in many Latin American capital cities. The CIA used the entire news organization, Copley News Service as a cover for its officers (to hide the fact that they were CIA). The Catholic Church played a major role in Kennedy's mission. Kennedy forged a secret relationship between Latin Jesuits and gave funds to the Jesuits. David Rockefeller told Kennedy that American business needed some kind of financial guarantee against political instability if they were going to do substantial private investments in Latin America. Therefore Kennedy set up a cheap political risk insurance program underwritten by a branch of the Agency for International Development (USAID). (Ibid, pp. 205-206)
Kennedy also created the Business Group for Latin America to funnel private funds for covert operations. It was made up of 37 US corporations and its activities were led by David Rockefeller. Enno Hobbing, a former CIA officer, was its executive director. This was a shadow CIA, off the books, or a private enterprise. The group's job was to provide a cover organization in order to use private corporate money for bribes and other political actions against socialist political candidates and parties in Latin America elections. (Ibid., p. 46)
Disputes during the Kennedy years
The Joint Chiefs demanded Kennedy that he put troops into Laos and Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs increase pressure on Kennedy to "save South Vietnam." Kennedy refused to deploy US troops to Laos as his Joint Chiefs repeatedly wanted and they felt Kennedy had "lost Laos" to the communists. Kennedy would later state that "if it hadn't been for Cuba, we might have intervened in Laos."
One of these angry old men was Kennedy’s Ambassador-at-large, W. Averell Harriman. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman.
In 1931 Brown Brothers Harriman & Compay was created. Notable employees included George Herbert Walker and his son-in-law Prescott Bush. The Harriman Bank was the main Wall Street connection for German companies and the varied US financial interests of Fritz Thyssen. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Trading With the Enemy Act and Harriman business interests were seized under the act in October and November 1942 and included:
- Union Banking Corporation (UBC) (for Thyssen and Brown Brothers Harriman).
- Holland-American Trading Corporation (with Harriman)
- Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (with Harriman)
- Silesian-American Corporation
The Rockefeller-Harriman front company, Brown Brothers Harriman, financed Auschwitz. Herbert Walker founded the company and appointed his son-in-law Prescott Bush to the boards of several holding companies, all of which became Nazi fronts. Their lawyers were the Dulles brothers, and they established three banks, one in Germany, one in Holland, and one in New York. The latter was the Union Banking Corporation, headed by Prescott Bush. No matter who won the war, the corporate stocks would be shifted around to whichever bank was in a neutral country when the war was over.
Nearly 4,000 shares (98% of the Union Bank holdings) were held by Roland Harriman in trust for the Rockefellers. That's about three billion in 1951 dollars, (or $30 billion in 2012 dollars). Most of it was reinvested in post-war Germany where they made even more obscene profits. By 1972, one of Rockfeller's assets, the Chase Manhattan bank in New York, secretly owned 38 percent of the former Nazi Thyssen company, according to internal Thyssen records.
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Recovery from the 1958 recession had been very sluggish and unemployment remained perilously high at 6.8 percent just after Kennedy took office. The Council of Economic Advisers urged him to attack unemployment with New Deal style spending but he was worried that a large annual deficit of $7 billion with a total national debt was $303.5 billion, would be politically untenable. (about $2.4 trillion in 2015 dollars).
Due to a recession, Kennedy used the power of federal agencies to influence US Steel not to institute a price increase. The Wall Street Journal wrote that his administration had set prices of steel "by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police." Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in The New Republic that Kennedy had violated civil liberties by calling a grand jury to indict US Steel so quickly. Kennedy won the battle, but lost the war—the price increase was canceled and US Steel announced that its new plants would be built abroad.
By 1962, unemployment remained high and the stock market had failed to recover after losing a quarter of its value. Kennedy also ignored the advice of his key aides and endorsed efforts to enact medical care for workers over 65 under Social Security and risked his personal prestige by addressing a nationally televised Medicare rally in New York.
Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy sponsored by his brother Senator Edward Kennedy. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia. This shifted the emphasis on facilitating family reunification by the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
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State-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. Many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's judgment to desegregate public schools. Segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, bathrooms, and other public places remained. John and Robert Kennedy's intervention secured the early release of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. from jail.
In 1962, Kennedy sent some 400 federal marshals and 3,000 troops to ensure that James Meredith enrolled in the University of Mississippi, Meredith. Kennedy also assigned federal marshals to protect Freedom Riders. This group was more than 400 white and African American volunteers who traveled throughout the South on regularly scheduled buses for seven months in 1961 to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal. In one case African Americans and white passengers on a Trailways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham, Alabama.
On June 11, 1963, Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students from enrolling. George Wallace moved aside after being confronted by federal marshals. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio.
President Kennedy and his brother Robert, the US Atterney General, approved McCone injecting the CIA officer Cord Meyer into the labor dispute between the AFL-CIO’s George Meany and Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers. Reuther was against the Vietnam War and an ally of Martin Luther King, Jr. Reuther participated in both the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs with some 200,000 marchers and the “I had a dream speech”, (August, 1963) and the Selma to Montgomery March (March, 1965). In June 1963 Kennedy proposed Civil Rights legislation. (Source: a June 1, 1973 CIA memo)
Responding to allegations that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist, the Kennedy administration agreed to let the FBI wiretap private individuals.
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In 1956, a group of scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) had come out in support of Adlai Stevenson’s proposals for a nuclear test ban during his presidential campaign against Eisenhower. John A. McCone, a trustee of Cal Tech, immediately retaliated and tried to have them fired. He claimed the scientists had been taken in by Russian propaganda and were guilty of attempting to create fear that radioactive fallout from H-bomb tests endangers life.
Stevenson proposed significant increases in government spending for social programs and treaties with the Soviet Union to lower military spending and end nuclear testing on both sides. Eisenhower publicly opposed these ideas, even though in private he was working on a proposal to ban atmospheric nuclear testing.
In 1948 Harry S. Truman appointed McCone as Deputy to the Secretary of Defense. According to Laton McCartney, despite his title “it quickly became apparent that he was the department’s real boss.” In 1950 he became Under Secretary of the Air Force. While in these posts McCone gave contracts to Standard Oil and Kaiser Aluminum, two companies in which he had financial connections.
During the Eisenhower years McCone was a classic hard-line believer in massive retaliation and nuclear deterrents. As a Catholic and whose political affiliation was with the Republican Party, McCone believed Communism was evil and must be stopped. McCone was a special deputy to James Forrestal, and he helped him create the CIA.
After World War Two, the General Accounting Office told a House Merchant Marine Committee that was investigating war profiteering claimed the company owned by John McCone and Steve Bechtel had made $44,000,000 on an investment of $100,000.
After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy sacked Allen W. Dulles as Director of the CIA. Under pressure from right-wingers in the intelligence community, Kennedy appointed McCone as the new director of the CIA.
McCone illegally tasked CIA officers to work for the US Senator John C. Stennis’s committee on Armed Services to help make the case against the Kennedy Administration’ test ban treaty position. McCone was appointed Director of the CIA and served from November 29, 1961 to April 28, 1965. (Source: The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
At a National Security Council Meeting on July 20, 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA Director Allen Dulles present a plan for a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Such a nuclear attack would have resulted in 40 million Soviet citizens being killed and 3 million Americans as well. Kennedy walks out of the meeting, saying to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "And we call ourselves the human race."
Kennedy's military advisers continued to press him to do a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviets. Generals Lemnitzer and LaMay, Army Chief of Staff, General Earle Wheeler and Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup, wanted Kennedy to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in both Berlin and Southeast Asia before the USSR increased their nuclear capability. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 109)
The Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949. They learned how to make this bomb from spies Klaus Fuchs and the Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs. In November 2007, it became known that a third American Army officer was also a GRU spy. He was Zhorzh "George" Abramovich Koval. He was born in the US to Russian and Jewish immigrant parents who were pro-communist in their thinking. After high school he studied electrical engineering at the University of Iowa for two and a half years. Starting in 1934, he was accepted to study at a University in Moscow and graduated after five years with honors. He was then recruited to spy for Soviet Military Intelligence, the GRU and assigned a code-name Delmar. He returned to the US and joined the US Army. As luck would have it, he eventually worked his way into job as a health physics officer at the various Manhattan Project facilities across the US. He gave the Soviets the key information regarding the fact that a polonium-based initiator was needed to explode a plutonium-based atom bomb. George Koval was discharged the US Army in 1946 and by 1949 when the Soviet had exploded their bomb, he had left the US. He was awarded a gold star marking him as a hero of Russia. He died in Russia on January 31, 2007. Very few people inside Russian intelligence knew his story until after his death. (Smithsonian, May 2009, pp. 40-47)
On August 30, 1961 the USSR resumes atmospheric testing or exploding three hydrogen bombs over Siberia.
In September 1961 Kennedy delivers a speech on disarmament at the UN saying, "The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us … until general and complete disarmament has been achieved… Not an arms race, but a peace race." Premier Nikita Khrushchev was likely moved to respond to this speech and he sent his first secret letter to Kennedy.
Khrushchev sent the Washington DC Soviet embassy’s press attaché a message to deliver to President Kennedy. This letter was smuggles in a newspaper brought by a Soviet intelligence officer to Kennedy's Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. Khrushchev sent the first 26 page, private letter during the Berlin Wall crisis and confessing that he was getting intense pressure from the communist bloc as the reason for his August 1961 order to build the Berlin Wall, thereby ending a mass exodus of East Germans to West Germany.
Khrushchev’s message made reference to the earth as being a Noah's Ark and we all share it. He made particular comment about Berlin where the two of them had backed away from war. Kennedy responded in October 1961, stating, "our collaboration to keep the peace is as urgent – if not more urgent – than our collaboration to win the last war." Over the next two year, 21 letters that were sent between them. Norman Cousins stated he did shuttle diplomacy as a secret messenger between JFK, the pope John XXIII, and Khrushchev. (Ibid, p. 24-25 and 111 and JFK and the Unspeakable, p. xiv)
It is interesting to note the high number of above ground or space based, nuclear test explosion during the period. A series of 36 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1962 by the United States in the Pacific:
October 2, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 75 kiloton
October 6, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 11.3 kilotons
October 18, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 1.9 megatons
October 20, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 7 kilotons
Operation Fishbowl, high altitude nuclear explosion, 147 km altitude (100 km equals “space”)
October 26, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 410 kilotons
Operation Fishbowl, high altitude nuclear explosion, 50 km altitude,
October 27, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 800 kilotons
October 30, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 8.3 megatons
November 1, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 410 kilotons
November 4, 1962, Johnston Atoll, 1 to 40 kilotons
Operation Dominic was a series of 31 nuclear test explosions/tests authorized by Kennedy. From 1958 to 1962 as a part these tests, Operation Fishbowl was the exploding of five nuclear warheads to test in low-Earth orbit (LEO) (aka out space) All of the tests were to be launched on missiles from Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator. Johnston Island had already been established as a launch site for United States high-altitude nuclear tests, rather than the other locations in the Pacific Proving Grounds.
In July 1962 the US exploded a 1.45 megatons, 2,200-pound, W49 hydrogen warhead 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean into space on a Thor rocket, could augment and expand the Earth-girdling Van Allen radiation belts to create a barrier that would incapacitate Soviet intercontinental missiles launched against the United States. The EMP caused electrical damage in Hawaii, about 898 miles away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.
Since all of the Operation Fishbowl tests were planned to occur during the night, the potential for eyeburn, especially for permanent retinal damage, was an important consideration at all levels of planning. Much research went into the potential eyeburn problem. Two cases of retinal damage did occur with military personnel on Johnston Island. Neither individual had his protective goggles in place at the instant of the detonation. Compared to a sea-level or near-sea-level explosions, the eye-damage hazard is more severe due to nuke exploded at low-Earth orbit. Allegedly no such eyeburn injuries in Hawaii were reported.
The EMP crippled one-third of all satellites in low Earth orbit as radiation damaged their solar arrays or electronics. States satellites Traac, Transit 4B, (also known as NAVSAT,was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The system was primarily used by the US Navy to provide accurate location information to its Polaris ballistic missile submarines,) Injun I and Telstar I, as well as the United Kingdom satellite Ariel. It also damaged the Soviet satellite Cosmos V. All of these satellites failed completely within several months of the Starfish detonation. There is also evidence that the Starfish Prime radiation belt may have damaged the satellites Explorer 14, Explorer 15 and Relay One.
The Soviets tested their own high-altitude thermonuclear device in October 1962, which further damaged Telstar’s transistors and rendered it useless. Both the Soviets and the United States conducted their last high-altitude nuclear explosions on November 1, 1962. Two low-yield tests, Checkmate and Tightrope were done. On 19 October 1962, a US rocket launched a low-yield nuclear warhead which detonated successfully at an altitude of 147 kilometres (91 mi). These explosions were designed to have a much lower yield. Although the explosion energies are still classified, it’s estimated they ranged from a few dozen to a few hundred kilotons.
Telstar One was put into orbit on July 10, 1962. On July 11, 1962 a day after launch, Telstar One relayed a TV transmission from Maine, US to France. On July 23, 1962 it transmitted the first non-cable phone call across the Atlantic. In February 1963 Telstar one failed. I am trying to determine how much it cost to replace all this damage. Telstar two was launched a year later (1964). hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dominic
US leaders contemplated the first use of nuclear weapons, following the intervention by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. President Truman authorized the transfer to Okinawa of atomic-capable B-29s armed with Mark 4 nuclear bombs and nine fissile cores. I assume in using the words “fissile core” is meant what is called a “pit”, which is a sphere made of plutonium weighing about 4-5 to 3 kilograms, also. Pits of modern nuclear weapons are said to have diameter of about 10 cm. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with U-235 alone, or in composite with plutonium, but all-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. I have no idea why pits and bombs are mentioned separately here. I do know that high explosive are used in these bombs to make a nuclear explosion.
During US involvement in the Vietnam War the use of nuclear weapons was suggested in order to "defoliate forests, destroy bridges, roads, and railroad lines." In addition, the use of nuclear weapons was suggested during the planning for the bombing of Vietnam's dikes in order to flood rice paddies, disrupt the North Vietnamese food supply, and leverage Hanoi during negotiations. These plans were never carried out.
The Air Force portion of the total defense budget significantly grew, while the Navy's and Army's portion of the defense budget was reduced. The plan was to buildings a combat ready force of over 1,000 long-range strategic bombers capable of supporting nuclear mission scenarios. In the beginning of the Korean War Truman called for a naval blockade of North Korea, and was shocked to learn that such a blockade was impossible, since the US Navy no longer had the warships with which to carry out his request.
Within six months, on June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out and the US was forced to confront an invading army with the forces it had on hand. The Truman administration immediately decided not to use the nuclear arsenal, and sought to check North Korean aggression with conventional forces. The Korean War made it clear that aircraft carriers were still a primary means of projecting conventional force and enforcing US foreign policy. The Navy did get a new aircraft carrier that was launched in October 1955.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union’s Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Kazakhstan was a nuclear disaster four times worse than Chernobyl in terms of the number of cases of acute radiation sickness. In August 1956, fallout from a Soviet nuclear weapons test at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan engulfed the Kazakh industrial city of Ust-Kamenogorsk and put more than 600 people in hospital with radiation sickness. A Soviet scientific expedition in the aftermath of the hushed-up disaster uncovered widespread radioactive contamination and radiation sickness across the Kazakh steppes. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2125202-exposed-soviet-cover-up-of-nuclear-fallout-worse-than-chernobyl/
Kennedy moved for a Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Joint Chiefs of Staff declared themselves, “opposed to a comprehensive test ban under almost any terms.” The Limited Test Ban Treaty outlawing nuclear tests “in the atmosphere, beyond its limits, including outer space, or underwater, including territorial waters or high seas.” On July 26, 1963, he made a television appeal to the nation for support of the test ban treaty. On September 24, 1963 the US Senate voted to ratify the treaty by 80 Senators to 19. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 49-54)
US nuclear weapons testing likely killed seven to 14 times more people than we had thought, mostly in the mid-west and northeast.
New research in 2017 suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. The study, performed by University of Arizona economist Keith Meyers, traced the deadly effects of this radiation, which was often consumed by Americans drinking milk far from the site of atomic tests. https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
August 1960 is the date which the US first recovered Corona satellite photographic evidence that no Soviet intercontinental missiles were yet emplaced according to Major General 0. J. Ritland. The photographs were of very high quality, and as a bonus it developed that at least half of the frames exposed over the Soviet Union were clear of cloud cover. Something in excess of 1, 650, 000 square miles of Soviet territory were laid out for the photo interpreters. More imagery of the Soviet Union than was produced in all four years of U-2 missions. Ground objects ranging upwards from 35-foot dimensions were identifiable on the ground.
Like espionage, over flight by US airplanes was customary, if seldom acknowledged, instrument of peacetime military activity. Literally hundreds of instances had been recorded starting with French and German penetrations of border defense zones in the pre-1914 period. Aircraft violations of international boundaries were among the most frequent causes of ambassadorial protests and apologies during the late 1930s. Incidents involving both Russian and American aircraft crossing both the iron and bamboo curtains were common during the late 1940s. Neither side ever admitted a deliberate policy of aerial espionage, but its existence was indisputable. It was necessary to insure US military readiness to test ways to get US bombers inside Soviet Union thru their air defenses in the event of a nuclear war.
Some indication of the value of border-to-border passes was provided by a succession of balloon
over flights (Genetrix) that finally ended in February 1956 after four years of surprising success. The Genetrix program had been conducted under cover of an upper-atmosphere research project nominally managed by the Air Force Cambridge Research Center. Over the several years of its existence, Genetrix employed a variety of cameras and produced a wealth of information on such diverse subjects as precise altitude control of random-path, balloons during long periods and techniques of recovering parachuted camera capsules by air catch (random-path subject to the way the wind blew that day). Although the United States consistently denied an over flight intention, the effort was ostensibly canceled because of the violence of Russian protests (which were heightened by use of similar balloons to release propaganda materials deep behind the iron curtain). The balloon reconnaissance operation ended in February 1956. How much intelligence about the Soviets Union by these balloons I could not discover.
U2 type spy aircraft (both manned and unmanned) were scheduled to begin their high-altitude penetrations in late 1955.
In 1955, the Eisenhower administration was uncertain about the legality of satellite operations under international law about shooting objects high over the air space and across a nation's border. For the next six years this subject was glossed over, since it likely take that long before the first rocket was strong enough to spy satellites.
In July 1955, as part of a determined United States effort to arrive at a technique of arms control acceptable to the Soviet Union, the President Eisenhower proposed "mutual air reconnaissance" as a means of policing international disarmament. The traditional Soviet deference to "airspace sovereignty" was unquestionably a factor. Yet three months earlier, in April 1955, the Soviets had openly announced their intention of orbiting various scientific satellites--and had identified "photographic equipment" as a portion of the proposed cargo. The United States followed suit, in July 1955, with an announcement of its own scientific satellite.
The first attempt to launch a Discoverer satellite, on January 21, 1959, was aborted. Discoverers III and IV, launched on June 3rd and June 25th, failed to reach orbital velocities because rocket thrust did not meet expectations.
The Soviets did not make any comments about the first US satellites. It would have been difficult for them to credibly do so given that there had been ten previous Soviet space launches, most of which passed over US territory. Sputnik 5 was launched into orbit on August 19, 1960, one day after the launch of Discoverer 14. Sputnik 5 was a biosatellite that took into orbit the two Soviet space dogs, and then safely returned them to the Earth.
Over the next 15 years, the United States would develop and deploy a number of satellites to produce images; intercept radar signal communications, missile telemetry; and detect infrared signals that could be exploited for intelligence purposes.
The Corona satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), the People's Republic of China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972. Corona started under the name "Discoverer" as part of the WS-117L satellite reconnaissance.
The first Corona satellites had a single camera, but a two-camera system was quickly implemented. The front camera was tilted 15 degrees aft, and the rear camera tilted 15 degrees forward, so that a stereoscopic image could be obtained. Later in the program, the satellite employed three cameras. The third camera was employed to take "index" photographs of the objects being stereographical filmed.
The first cameras could resolve images on the ground down to 40 feet in diameter. Improvements in the imaging system were rapid, and the KH-3 missions could see objects 10 feet in diameter. Later missions would be able to resolve objects just 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter. Although the best resolution was only obtained in the center of the image, this could be overcome by having the camera sweep automatically ("reciprocate") back and forth across 70° of arc.
The first satellites in the program orbited at altitudes 100 miles (160 km) above the surface of the Earth, although later missions orbited even lower at 75 miles.
After the fierce heat of reentry was over, the heat shield surrounding the vehicle was jettisoned at 60,000 feet (18 km) and parachutes deployed. The capsule was intended to be caught in mid-air by a passing airplane. Towing an airborne claw which would then winch it aboard, or it could land at sea. A salt plug in the base would dissolve after two days, allowing the capsule to sink if it was not picked up by the United States Navy.
For use during unexpected crises, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) kept a Corona in "R-7" status, meaning ready for launch in seven days. By the summer of 1965, NRO was able to maintain Corona for launch within one day.
This software, run by an on-board computer, was programmed to operate the cameras based on the intelligence targets to be imaged, the weather, the satellite's operational status, and what images the cameras had already captured.
The first GRAB satellite was launched June 22, 1960. Each launch of the GRAB satellite to intercept Soviet radar signals (ELINT) had to be personally approved by President Eisenhower, just as he had to approve U-2 missions that crossed over Soviet territory.
The POPPY satellites recorded ELINT (radar) data, targeting radar installations in the Soviet Union and Soviet naval ships at sea. There were seven launches of POPPY satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base from 1962 until 1971, all of which were successful. The program continued until August 1977.
QUILL satellites carried a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to produce images of the Earth's surface from space (radar photos taken at night and thru clouds). To avoid calling excessive attention to this unique vehicle, its orbital path was similar to one then being used by US photo satellites. Since launch from Vandenberg AFB near midday meant that the initial orbit began as a descending (southbound) leg during daylight, all later descending legs did likewise and all ascending (northbound) legs occurred during darkness.
KH-5 ARGON was a series of reconnaissance satellites produced by the United States from February 1961 to August 1964. The KH-5 operated similarly to the Corona series of satellites, as it ejected a canister of photographic film. At least 12 missions were attempted, but at least 7 resulted in failure.
At least two missions deployed ELINT sub-satellites (small ELINT satellites // collecting radar signals// attached to a bigger IMINT satellite). Ground resolution for the satellite was 140 meters, with a swath of 556 km. The onboard camera had a focal length of 76 mm. The purpose of the system, which produced relatively low-resolution images compared to other spy satellites, was to provide imagery for map making purposes.
An alternative program to the Corona program was named SAMOS. This program included several types of satellite which used to test TV downloading photos vs. dropping film. The image was then transmitted to telemetry to ground stations. Telemetry was the sending of radio commands to a satellite and/or to determine where it was flying.
Maneuvering rockets were also added to the satellite beginning in 1963. Corona orbited in very low orbits to enhance resolution of its camera system. But at perigee (the lowest point in the orbit), Corona endured drag from the Earth's atmosphere. In time, this could cause its orbit to decay and force the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere prematurely. The new maneuvering rockets were designed to boost Corona into a higher orbit, and lengthen the mission time even if low perigees were used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-5_Argon
Codenamed Gambit, the KH-7 (Air Force Program 206) was a reconnaissance satellite used by the United States from July 1963 to June 1967. Like the older Corona system, it acquired imagery intelligence by taking photographs and returning the undeveloped film to earth. It achieved a typical ground-resolution of two foot.
All KH-7 satellites were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in July 1964. KH-7 satellites flew 38 missions, numbered 4001-4038, of which 34 returned film, and of these, 30 returned usable imagery. Mission duration was one to eight days. A high-resolution instrument, the KH-7 took detailed pictures of "hot spots" and most of its photographs are of Chinese and Soviet nuclear and missile installations, with smaller amounts of coverage of cities and harbors.
Presidential directive establishing the TALENT-KEYHOLE (TK) security control system. US personnel with the need-to-know about U2 spy plane intelligence (talent) and satellite collected intelligence (keyhole), were issued a TK security clearances in addition to a top secret security clearance. The point was to limit the number of people who know about this intelligence collection capability or what was learned by from the programs. Also was established of a roster of all individuals with such clearances, and the nature of their job(s) and a recorded of their training about security policies or when people no longer had access to TK intelligence produces or new collection capabilities.
A so-called BYEMAN security system also involved granting individual security clearance to each separate type of satellite. That is, this limited the numbers of US people who know about this capability to reduce the risk of espionage and compromise. In other words, the codeword for these security clearances was the above names for satellites types and/or KH-numbered satellites, “KH” is short for the codename “keyhole.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)
Nixon’s mafia connections
In February 1955, Vice President Richard Nixon traveled to Havana to embrace the despot Fulgencio Batista at his lavish private palace, praised ''the competence and stability'' of his regime, awarded him a medal of honor, and compare him with Abraham Lincoln. Nixon hailed Batista's Cuba as a land that ''shares with us the same democratic ideals of peace, freedom and the dignity of man.'' When he returned to Washington, the vice president reported to the US cabinet that Batista was ''a very remarkable man … older and wiser … desirous of doing a good job for Cuba rather than Batista … concerned about social progress…'' And Nixon reported that Batista had vowed to ''deal with the Commies.''
What Nixon omitted from his report was the Batista connection with mafia boss Meyer Lansky to the rampant government corruption under Batista – and the extreme poverty of most Cubans. Nixon also ignored Batista's suspension of constitutional guarantees, his dissolution of the country's political parties, and his use of the police and army to murder political opponents. Twenty thousand Cubans reportedly died at the hands of Batista's thugs.
Meyer Lansky was a member of the American Jewish mafia and he was partners with Italian mob boss Lucky Luciano. Lansky became the money laundering expert for the American mafia by hiding from the Internal Revenue Service, a lot of the profits made from their growing US casino businesses. The mafia only reported to the US Internal Revenue Service a smaller amount of their profits. Lansky used a Swiss bank account and moved the money back into the US economy through a network of shell and holding companies.
In his first 1946 political foray and run for Congress for southern California, Nixon received a $5,000 contribution from Mickey Cohen plus free office space for a ''Nixon for Congress'' headquarters in one of Cohen's buildings. Cohen was one of the leaders of the mafia in Los Angeles. In Nixon's 1950 campaign Cohen claims he raised $75,000 for Nixon in return for political favors. This news story was published by Drew Pearson in 1956 that this deal was organized by Murray M. Chotiner. Nixon did not sue Pearson. Cohen signed a confession in October, 1962 admitting this. In his autobiography, Cohen claims that the orders to help Nixon came from mafia boss Meyer Lansky. (Source: a radio broadcast in 1956 by journalist Drew Pearson)
Chotiner served as campaign manager for Richard Nixon’s successful runs for the United States Senate for California in 1950 and for the vice presidency in 1952. He was active in each of Nixon's two successful runs for the White House in low-profile positions. As a lawyer and Republican campaign worker, Chotiner obtained a reputation for working for organized crime bosses. Chotiner was involved in the attempt to blackmail George Wallace about corruption in Alabama. This played an important role in persuading Wallace to announce that he would not be a third-party candidate in the 1972 presidential election. (The Politics of Rage by Dan T. Carter and http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKchotiner.htm
Jimmy Hoffa hated John and Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy had been trying to put Hoffa in jail since 1956, when Robert was staff counsel for a Senate probe into the Mob's influence on the labor movement. In 1960, Robert Kennedy said, "No group better fits the prototype of the old Al Capone syndicate than Jimmy Hoffa and some of his lieutenants."
In the 1960 presidential election, Hoffa and his two million-member union backed Vice President Nixon against Kennedy. Edward Partin, a Louisiana Teamster official and later government informant, eventually revealed that Hoffa met with mafia boss Carlos Marcello to secretly fund the Nixon campaign — saying: "I was right there, listening to the conversation. Marcello had a suitcase filled with $500,000 cash which was going to Nixon ... (Another half-million dollars) was coming from mob boys in New Jersey and Florida." The Hoffa-Marcello meeting took place in New Orleans in September 1960, and has been verified by William Sullivan, a former top FBI official.
Nixon lost the 1960 election, and Hoffa soon wound up in prison for jury tampering and looting the union's pension funds of almost $2 million. In December 1971, President Nixon gave Hoffa an executive grant of clemency, allowing Hoffa to serve just five years of a 13-year prison sentence. Nixon broke from clemency custom by not consult the judge who had sentenced Hoff and did not listen to the US Parole Board negative recommendation for early release. Hoffa’s son James P. Hoffa Jr. stated that racketeer Allen Dorfman delivered $300,000 to a Nixon aid at a Washington DC hotel to secure the elder Hoffa's release. This allegation is corroborated in a FBI record of a statement made by an FBI informant. One restriction Nixon did put on Hoffa's freedom: he could never again, directly or indirectly, manage any union. The restriction helped Hoffa's successor to the leadership of the Teamsters Union, Frank Fitzsimmons. This restriction was reputedly bought by a $500,000 contribution to the Nixon campaign by New Jersey Teamster leader Tony Provenzano. He had for years dominated Teamsters New Jersey Local 560.
An internal FBI memo of May 24, 1973, describes Frank Sinatra as ''a close friend of Angelo DeCarlo of long standing.'' And in April 1972, DeCarlo asked singer Frankie Valli to contact Sinatra and have him intercede with Vice President Agnew for DeCarlo's release. Sinatra ''allegedly turned over $100,000 cash to Maurice Stans (Nixon campaign finance chairman) as an unrecorded contribution.'' Vice presidential aide Peter Maletesta ''allegedly contacted former Presidential Counsel John Dean and got him to make the necessary arrangements to forward the request (for a presidential pardon) to the Justice Department.'' Sinatra is said to have then made a $50,000 contribution to the president's campaign fund. President Nixon pardoned Angelo DeCarlo, described by the FBI as a ''methodical gangland executioner.'' Supposedly terminally ill, DeCarlo was freed after serving less than two years of a 12-year sentence for extortion. Soon afterward, Newsweek reported the mobster was not too ill to be ''back at his old rackets.”
(Source: Crossfire, The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs, pp. 156 to 167)
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroselli.ht
In March 1950, US Senator Estes Kefauver (D-TN) worked to form Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce that worked to expose the role of organized crime in political corruption, illegal gambling, and labor racketeering. The FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, refused to allow the FBI to serve as investigators for this committee. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 85)
The Nixon administration intervened on the side of Mafia figures in at least 20 trials, mostly for the ostensible purpose of protecting CIA ''sources and methods.'' Nixon ordered the Justice Department to stop using the words "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" to describe the mafia. During the Nixon years, pressure from Washington eased off on Sam Giancana. And the long-standing deportation proceedings against mafioso Johnny Roselli were dropped. By the 1960s, the FBI had identified Nixon’s close friend, Charles G. “Bebe” Rebozo’s links to the mafia.
In 1950, fearing that Congressman Dick Nixon of California was facing a nervous breakdown, Florida US Senator George Smathers suggested he take a holiday in Florida. This is where Nixon first met Rebozo. They became very close friends, if not homosexual lovers. Bebe Rebozo’s parents come from Cuba and he was born in American.
Senator Smathers was part owner of Automatic Vending Company and he was involved with in a company called Serve-U-Corporation whose owners were Bobby Baker, Fred Black and mafiosos Ed Levenson and Benny Sigelbaum. Established in 1962, the company provided vending machines for companies working on federally granted programs. The machines were manufactured secretly owned by Sam Giancana and other mobsters based in Chicago. (Source: Nonmenclature of an Assassination Cabal, by William Torbitt)
As far back as 1951, Rebozo had been involved with Lansky in illegal gambling rackets in Miami, Hallandale, and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Former crime investigator Jack Clarke said back then Rebozo was ''one of Lansky's people.” Rebozo's organized crime connections were solid. He had both legal and financial ties with ''Big Al'' Polizzi, a Cleveland gangster and drug kingpin. Jewish mafioso Moe Dalitz the major figures who shaped Las Vegas, Nevada, was also a friend of Bebe Rebozo.
Nixon and Rebozo bought real estate in Florida’s upscale Key Biscayne, getting bargain rates from Donald Berg, a mafia-connected Rebozo business partner. The Secret Service eventually advised Nixon to stop associating with Berg. The lender for one of Nixon's properties was Arthur Desser, who consorted with both Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa and mobster Meyer Lansky.
Nixon and Rebozo were friends of James Crosby, the chairman of a firm repeatedly linked to top mobsters. Rebozo's Key Biscayne Bank was a suspected pipeline for mafia money skimmed from Crosby's casino in the Bahamas. (Source: Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President, by Don Fulsom (2012))
According to historian Anthony Summers, in the early 1950s Bebe Rebozo paid off Nixon's big gambling losses - possibly as much as $50,000. Most of Nixon's gambling took place at Lansky's Hotel Nacional in Havana.. Nixon stayed in the Presidential Suite of this hotel for free. Moe Dalitz and Meyer Lansky were owners of the Hotel Nacional
Moe Dalitz ran a Jewish gang called the Cleveland Syndicate and he was an associate of Paul Laxalt of Nevada, and Dalitz contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns. Laxalt was Governor of Nevada from 1967 to 1971 and a United States Senator from 1974 to 1987. He was one of Ronald Reagan's closest friends in politics. http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Moe_Dalitz
When Howard Hughes wanted to buy the Desert Inn hotel, principally owned by the Moe Dalitz, The CIA’s private investigator Robert Maheu persuaded Jimmy Hoffa into talking to Dalitz. The mafia then sold the hotel to Howard Hughes. One big reason Hoffa was successful in talking Dalitz into selling was that all of the mafia’s Las Vages casinos owed borrowed money from Teamster’s pension-fund.
Howard Hughes ended up buying four resort hotels from the mafia owners, most of the land on the Las Vegas Strip, two airports, one airline, and a local television station. It all came to almost $100 million.
In April 1975, The Washington Post reported, "Hughes Aircraft has been mentioned as a potential hotbed of interrelationships with the CIA." The New York Times on March 20, 1975, quoted high Government officials as saying the Hughes Aircraft Company had been building spy satellites for years and his company "employed a number of high-ranking CIA and military men" who were really working for the CIA.
In 1956, Hughes made a controversial $205,000 loan to Nixon’s brother Donald. Details of the loan were leaked during the 1960 Nixon vs. Kennedy presidential campaign. In 1969 and 1970, years when Howard Hughes was seeking federal approval for airline acquisitions, he hired Robert Maheu and Maheu delivered two bundles of $50,000 each in cash to Bebe Rebozo. This was an alleged campaign contribution for Nixon.
Back in 1946, FBI agents in New York were investigating Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello. The mafiosos were getting together to come up with the financing for the Flamingo (casino)." But the New York FBI agents soon received an order from Truman's Attorney General, Tom Clark, to cease the investigation on the grounds it "lacked federal jurisdiction." It was later found out that (Nevada’s US Senator) Pat McCarran had interceded on behalf of his newly emerging constituency"(the mafia). Senator McCaran charged that the FBI investigation had been designed to "damage the economy" of Nevada. Thus it wasn't a coincidence, "The guys who came out there [to Vegas] up into the 1950s and the 1960s, were outright guys with mob ties and (had) serious records for illegality in other places.
The source of this information was Joseph Yablonsky, the FBI special agent in charge of the Las Vegas district office from 1980 through 1983. Yablonsky said he didn't see a lot of integrity among the Navada’s major politicians, with the exception of US Senator Dick Bryan, when he assumed the governorship in 1980.
http://www.newsnet1.com/electricnevada.com/pages96/mob1.htm
Richard Danner, a former FBI agent gone bad, was the city manager of Miami Beach when it was controlled by the mafia. Danner eventually became a top aide to Howard Hughes. And years later during the final act of the Watergate scandal, Danner delivered a $100,000 under-the–table donation from Hughes to President Nixon.
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When Kennedy took office, 13 out of the 21 highest positions in the State Department were occupied by career officers. In 1962, only six were career men; the other 15 were administrative appointees. He named 80 new ambassadors, 35 of whom were political appointees. The State Department was beset by anxiety and apprehension. There was a noticeable thinning in the ranks of the old guard.
Kennedy placed men in key ambassadorial positions who the State Department leaders considered as amateurs. He appointed a General as Ambassador to France, university presidents to Chile and to Philippines, lawyers to Denmark, NATO, and the Ivory Coast. H appointed a publisher as Ambassador to Guinea, writers to Japan and Brazil, and professors to Egypt and India. In the State Department hierarchy, young men found themselves suddenly promoted and more experienced diplomats were recalled to Washington. At the Geneva conference on Laos, Averell Harriman took the daring step of appointing William H. Sullivan, over the heads of men in higher pay grades simply because he considered him more capable.
In the days of the Dulles brothers, CIA Director Allen Dulles had always reported directly to his brother John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State. Kennedy ordered all United States Ambassadors to supervise and coordinate the activities of all American agencies in their respective countries (with the exception of the military). This measure was hardly welcomed by the CIA bosses considered the Presidential decision as an attack on CIA’s basic prerogatives.
Wishing to inject new blood into the senior ranks of the administration, Kennedy conceived the idea of drafting corporation vice-presidents for a year of government service. But these vice-presidents found it hard to adjust to government ways.
At the highest level, Kennedy had decided to abandon the tradition that all decisions of the cabinet and the National Security Council be approved by the majority. He abolished the weekly meetings of the cabinet, the cabinet secretaries, the administrative body of the National Security Council, the Coordinating Committee for Operations, and dozens of inter-departmental committees. He called it “doing away with bureaucracy,” and he justified his actions by saying that he saw no reason why the Postmaster General should be concerned with problems in Laos.
The leaders of American Catholicism also attacked Kennedy for refusing to appoint an Ambassador to the Vatican, for rejecting the idea of a holy war against the Soviet Union, and for favoring birth control. They even criticized him for not holding mass at the White House. In 1961 Kennedy submitted a bill to Congress authorizing federal aid to primary and secondary schools, but withholding it from parochial and other church-controlled schools as stipulated by the Constitution. Protests poured in from Jews and Protestants as well as Catholics. The reaction of the combined churches was so vehement that the bill was rejected. The following year, religious leaders became angry when Kennedy proposed, as part of his tax reform bill, to modify the system of tax deductions for contributions to charity.
The Roman Catholic Church did not forget the American OSS officers who had saved them from both Nazism and Communism. It rewarded them by making them Knights of Malta, or members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM). Officially, the Knights of Malta are a global charity organization. Beginning in the 1940s, knighthood was granted to countless CIA officers, and the organization has become a front for intelligence operations.
The Knights of Malta were so conservative that one, John Raskob, the Chairman of General Motors, actually became involved in an aborted military plot to remove Franklin Roosevelt from the White House. (Sources: George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter –XII) http://www.tarpley.net/bush12.htm
Operation SOLO was a 27 year long FBI covert operation that infiltrated the Communist Party in the United States by Morris and Jack Childs from 1958 until 1977. The FBI through extraordinary measures, managed to keep this operation secret from everyone, including the CIA. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover briefed President Eisenhower about the SOLO mission repeatedly from November 1958 onwards. For the next two years, Hoover sent summaries of his reporting directly to Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon. Hoover reported that the world's most powerful Communists, Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev were at each other's throats. The breach between Moscow and Beijing was a revelation to Eisenhower.
The FBI director also reported that Moscow wanted the American Communist Party to support the civil rights movement in the United States.
A naturalized US citizen of Russian/Ukrainian/Jewish origins, Morris H. Childs, was an important figure in the US Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s, serving as the editor of its newspaper, the Daily Worker. His father was a Jewish anti-Tsar, Russian who immigrated to the US. His father was revolutionary activities against the Tsarist regime, for which he was imprisoned. Morris was an American political activist and American Communist Party functionary who became a Soviet espionage agent and then a double agent working for the FBI. He and his brother Jack Childs had fallen out with the Party in 1948.
In 1945 as part of operation TOPLEV, FBI agents tried to talk top-level Communist Party members and officials into becoming confidential informants. Morris H. Childs rejoined the Party and rose higher and higher in its secret hierarchy. In April 1952, FBI special agent Carl Freyman of the Chicago office made a successful appeal to Morris Childs to go to work as a secret government informant.
Jack Childs was happy to lend assistance to the FBI, declaring he "never really believed any of that communist bullshit" and that he had been active in the Communist Party merely for the sake of his brother, who had been a true believer and a figure of authority. Morris had begun to question everything. He became penniless, stricken by a heart attack and seemingly near death. The Chicago FBI office paid for Morris's treatment at the Mayo Clinic, managing to restore him physically.
The Childs brothers had provided information to the FBI about Stanley Levison, one of Rev. Martin L King's key political advisers. Levison had been active in the US Communist Party during the early 1950s but, as Childs reported, had left the organization because of its political irrelevance. Nevertheless, the FBI saw Levison as a Soviet agent and used his former political connections as leverage to force King to break with his adviser.
In the summer of 1957, the Party's leaders proposed that he serve as their international emissary in an effort to reestablish direct political and financial ties with the Kremlin. Morris Childs repeatedly risking his life by making 57 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Beginning in 1958, Morris Childs became a Soviet espionage agent and acted as a secret courier on behalf of the American Communist party, briefing Soviet officials on political affairs in the American party and carrying funds from Moscow to New York City, all the while reporting details to his FBI case officers. In 1962 Morris was married to Eva Childs, who often took part in his frequent trips to Moscow and was herself an FBI informant.
Morris Childs (aka last name, Chilovsky and CIA code name Agent 58), was the first and perhaps the only American spy to penetrate the Soviet Union and Communist China at the highest levels during the Cold War. He had face-to-face conversations with Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedong and others Communist leaders.
Over the course of two decades of activity in this role, Childs played a major part in the transfer of more than $28 million in Soviet subsidies to the American Communist movement. The total approached $2 million annually by 1976 and rose to $2,775,000 by 1980. The FBI knew the precise amount because it counted every dime at a half-way house prior to when Morris deposited it in a safe for Gus Hall, president of the US Communist Party. Childs remained on the FBI's payroll until his retirement in 1982.
Hoover told the White House that one of the Childs brothers had met with Anibal Escalante, a political leader of the newly victorious revolution in Cuba and a confidant to Fidel Castro, and he said that Castro knew the United States was planning a paramilitary attack to overthrow him.
I don’t know if Eisenhower or the CIA failed to tell Kennedy that Castro knew of the coming invasion? Eisenhower never approved the invasion plan; that was left to Kennedy. (Source: Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, by John Barron, 1997)
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President Kennedy’s War against Economic Nationalism (Developmentism)
Thomas Paterson writes, “To put it simply, Cuba was a symbol and reality, challenged US hegemony in Latin America. International terrorism and economic warfare to bring about regime change are justified not by what Cuba does, but by its very existence, its successful defiance of the proper master of the hemisphere.”
Rejecting a 1961 legal brief that held the Bay of Pigs invasion to be a violation of US neutrality laws, Attorney General Robert Kennedy determined that US-run force were patriots. Therefore, none of their activities appear to be violations of our neutrality laws. (Source: Hegemony or Survival, America’s Quest for Global Dominance, by Norm Chomsky, pp. 90-93)
In 1961 a cabinet-level Counter-Intelligence Group was headed by Maxwell Taylor. This group along with the CIA was responsible for creating the Special Forces (Green Berets). Training in counter-insurgency started to be taught at military schools from the National War College on down and at the Foreign Service Institute.
In the early 1960s, opinion polls showed that the Southern Cone (Latin and South America) was surging to the left with Marxist arguing for extensive nationalization and radical land reforms. Centrist argued that the key was greater economic cooperation among Latin American countries, with the goal of transforming the region into a powerful trading bloc to rival Europe and North America.
Capitalists owned 40 percent of the Cuban sugar industry, 90 percent of telephone and electricity utilities, 50 percent of the railroads, and 23 percent of the non-sugar industries. By the 1950s, the U.S. controlled 80 percent of Cuban utilities (electricity and gasoline), 90 percent of Cuban mines, close to 100 percent of the country’s oil refineries, and 90 percent of its cattle ranches.
The Cuban-Jewish exile community (5/6ths of the island’s Jewish population had been expelled by Castro. The American-Jewish mob and E. Howard Hunt had armed and equipped the anti-Castro resistance.
Israel’s armaments industry sold an estimated 60 percent of its weapons to Central American dictatorships. Israeli weapons and military hardware sustained the regime of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Israeli weapons to Somoza were funneled under the cover of the Israeli Maritime Fruit Company, through Max Fisher's mafia associates who exported cocaine out of Central America. Fisher's partner in Paz-Israel Oil Company Ltd.,was an Israeli billionaire Shaul Eisenberg. Paz-Israel Oil is the largest Israeli fuels company. The Israel-Mediterranean Oil Company in Panama had the same principal business address as Pan-Israel Oil. The voting stockholders of both companies were all Israeli Jews. President Kennedy provided only limited support to Israel. After his death the US, for the first time, began large-scale shipments of arms to Israel.
It is through the offices of United Fruit Company that Yehuda Arazi ran guns to the Israeli Army. Yehuda Arazi, (aka Alon), was a Polish Jew active in the Haganah paramilitary in Palestine and subsequently the Israeli Defense Force after the creation of Israel.
Henry Neil Mallon built Dresser, an oil pipeline equipment concern. In 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., bought Dresser and made it a publicly traded corporation. Mallon was a close friend to Allen Dulles. Mallon was a founder of the Council of World Affairs, a nonprofit organization that provides a forum for the discussion of world problems.
Mallon the president of Dresser Industries of Dallas, TX gave George HW Bush his first job at a Dresser subsidiary International Derrick and Equipment Company (IDECO). George HW Bush named his son Neil Mallon Bush. Prescott Bush was president of Brown Brothers Harriman (bank) and one of the partners of this bank was Averell Harriman. George Herbert Walker, George HW Bush's grandfather served as president of Brown Brothers Harriman. From November 1952 until January 1963 Prescott Bush was a US Senator from Connecticut. Richard Nixon was a protégée of Prescott Bush, who in 1946 had supported Nixon's bid for congress. In fact, Prescott Bush was the Republican campaign strategist who brought Eisenhower and Nixon to the presidency of the United States.
In 1982 Dresser Industries employed 40,000 people in North America and the company was worth reported $4.16 billion. In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton and became known as Halliburton Company. Former Vice President Dick Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 US presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President.
In the mid and late 1920s, and early 1930s, George H. Walker, the maternal grandfather of George HW Bush, was a director of seven companies operating in Cuba; the Cuban Railroad, Cuban Dominican Sugar, Barahona Sugar, Cuba Distilling, Sugar Estates of Oriente Inc., and Atlantic Fruit and Sugar. These were merged in 1942 into the West Indies Sugar Company. It was nationalized in 1960 by the Fidel Castro. http://www.sabinabecker.com/2010/08/the_bush_crime_familys_tentacl.html
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In 1961 Kennedy appointed Paul H. Nitze Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. From 1950 to 1953, Nitze directed the Department of State Policy Planning Board. They scripted psycho-political operations for the National Security Council. Paul Nitze, was behind the three most important reports that promoted the perception of a Soviet threat against the United States after World War Two. Author Burton Hersh has said that Nitze was one of two people who met quarterly in Frank Wisner’s office to select the missions that would be approved for The Office of Policy Coordination, the CIA’s early covert operations group.
Nitze was a child of a rich family and he married into another rich American family (Standard Oil). He was an investment banker and in 1929 Nitze joined investment bank Dillon, Read & Company until 1941. Nitze entered government service during World War Two, serving first on the staff of James Forrestal when Forrestal became an administrative assistant to President Franklin Roosevelt. In 1942, he became finance director of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, working for Nelson Rockefeller. In 1943 he became chief of the Metals and Minerals Branch of the Board of Economic Warfare, until he was named director, Foreign Procurement and Development Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration later that year. Don’t confuse Nitze with Fleet Admiral (5-Stars) Chester W. Nimitz who was Chief of Naval Operations from November 1945 until her retired in December 1947. In 1963, Nitze became the Secretary of the Navy, serving until 1967.
On February 19, 1961, Kennedy issued a statement abolishing the Operations Coordinating Board, giving its responsibility for much of the Board's work to the Secretary of State. Kennedy wrote: …."Second, insofar as the Operations Coordinating Board - as a descendant of the old Psychological Strategy Board - was concerned with the impact of our actions on foreign opinion - our image abroad - we expect its work to be done in a number of ways; in my own office, in the State Department, under Mr. (Edward R.) Murrow of USIA, and by all who are concerned with the spirit and meaning of our actions in foreign policy. We believe that appropriate coordination can be assured here without extensive formal machinery.”
“Third, insofar as the Operations Coordinating Board served as an instrument for ensuring action at the President's direction, we plan to continue its work by maintaining direct communication with the responsible agencies, so that everyone will know what I have decided, while I in turn keep fully informed of the actions taken to carry out decisions. We of course expect that the policy of the White House will be the policy of the Executive Branch as a whole, and we shall take such steps as are needed to ensure this result.”
“…Mr. Bromley Smith, who has been the Executive Officer of the Operations Coordinating Board, will continue to work with my Special Assistant, Mr. McGeorge Bundy, in following up on White House decisions in the area of national security. In these varied ways we intend that the net result shall be a strengthening of the process by which our policies are effectively coordinated and carried out, throughout the Executive Branch." Bundy was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1975, in his book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, former CIA officer Philip Agee, links the "Special Group" to the Operations Coordinating Board. The Special Group also went by the names, the 303 group, the 40 Committee, and the 5412/2 group. Director of Central Intelligence, an Under Secretary of State, and Deputy Secretary of Defense were/are ad hoc members. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2807/emspecial.html
In the 1950's Psychological operations, were coordinated by a US Governmental agency called the Psychological Strategy Board. The architect of the Psychological Strategy Board was Gordon Gray. Gray had a consultant named Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was the paid political consultant to the Rockefeller family. Eisenhower then appointed Gray his National Security Advisor from 1958 until 1961.
Gordon Gray, Henry Kissinger, and many members of the Rockefeller family belonged to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). On July 26, 1951, President Truman would tell the press that the Psychological Strategy board was a part of the Central Intelligence Agency. The British equivalent of CFR is the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
OSS officer Charles Tracy Barnes during World War Two served with US Air Force intelligence. After the war, he returned to legal practice. In January 1945 he had worked under Allen Dulles until the end of the war. In 1950 he went to Washington to serve as special assistant to Under Secretary of the Army, Archibald S. Alexander. He also served as deputy director of the Psychological Strategy Board during the Korean War. In 1951 he joined the CIA. In 1953, he was appointed Special Assistant for Paramilitary Psychological Operations, under Frank Wisner, and was the principal case officer in the CIA operation leading up to the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
The Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS) become the United States Information Agency (USIA). The USIA was established to achieve US foreign policy by influencing public attitude at home and abroad using psycho-political policy strategies. The USIA Office of Research and Reference service prepares data on psychological factors and propaganda problems considered by the Policy Planning Board in formulating psycho-political information policies for the Kennedy’s National Security Council.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was an open source intelligence component of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the US government openly available news and information from foreign media sources. Its headquarters was in Virginia. FBIS maintained approximately 20 monitoring stations worldwide.
The mission of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was run by the CIA from 1941-2004. Since the 1940s, FBIS has monitored, translated, and republished selected foreign radio and television broadcasts, newspaper articles, government news agency releases, and political speeches. FBIS primary users - US government officials - determined which stories are included, so political, military, economic, and environmental topics are the major emphases. The translations were published as quickly as possible--usually within a few days of original publication--in a series of daily reports.
The Psychological Strategy Board was renamed the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB). It was hoped that this new, vague ambiguous name would not lessen curiosity about its true mission. OCB had more members than the Psychological Strategy board. It had the same mission, to use psychological strategy, propaganda, and mass media, to manipulate huge groups of individuals. It had a psychological warfare machine -- the United States Information Agency at its disposal. The USIA would be responsible for foreign policy propaganda for the President’s National Security Council (NSC). The Operations Coordinating Board for coordinating interdepartmental aspects of operational policy plans to insure their timely and coordinated execution.
The USIA Office of Research and Reference service prepared data on psychological factors and propaganda problems. The Policy Planning Board used the data in formulating psycho-political information policies for the NSC. In 1955 the Director of the USIA became a voting member of the Operations Coordinating board; USIA representatives were invited to attend meetings of the NSC Planning Board; and the USIA Director was invited to Cabinet meetings.
Cuba -- Cuban Task Force aka Task Force W, aka Operation Mongoose or 40
In 1956 President Eisenhower started sending US advisor to Latin American to help and equip their police to better handle left-wing student protest marches. The USAID's Central and South American Assistance Teams were involved in support and training for CIA mercenaries that were involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961. The hidden purpose of this police training was to teach the police how to make black lists of subversive individuals and organizations to be used to arrest or kill them.
In 1959, Castro nationalized Brown Brothers Harriman’s 200,000 acre plantations in Cuba.
In March 1952 three months before the elections, Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar became the dictator of Cuba due to a military coup. He revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia. Some 15 to 20 percent of the labor force was chronically unemployed, and only a third of the homes had running water.
In 1952, Meyer Lansky was purchasing a share of the Cabaret Montmartre gambling casino in Havana and entering into a partnership with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The US Congressional Kefauver committee hearings had shutdown Lansky’s gambling clubs in Florida and Batista allowed the mob to control Cuba’s hotel and tourist unions, The deal also allowed Santo Trafficante to move narcotics from the Middle East and Far East through Cuba to Miami. Lansky’s partner John Pullman formed the Exchange and Investment Bank of Geneva specifically to laundering money for the drug syndicate. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 113)
American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. who served as special assistant to President Kennedy said of Batista, "The corruption of the government, the brutality of the police, the government's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution.”
Batista carried out wide scale violence, torture and public executions; ultimately killing anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 people. For several years until 1959, the Batista government received financial, military, and logistical support from the CIA.
Strong evidence points to the fact that the original middleman between the CIA and the American mafia was Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa used Florida as a shipping base for guns and a few army surplus airplanes to both sides in the Cuban Revolution. Hoffa wanted to continue gun-running after Castro took control of Cuba and wanted to use $300,000 of Teamster Union money for his mafia friend Santo Trafficante, Jr. Trafficante had an office in the building of Teamster Local 320 in Miami. (Source: Ultimate Sacrifice, by Thom Hartmann)
From December 1956 to December 1958, Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement and other nationalist rebelling elements led an urban and rural-based guerrilla uprising against Batista's government and on New Year's Day 1959 Batista immediately fled the island with an amassed personal fortune to the Dominican Republic. Batista took along a personal fortune of more than $300 million that he had amassed through graft and payoffs. Critics accused Batista and his supporters of taking as much as $700 million in fine art and cash with them.
The grandson of Fulgencio Batista, Raoul G. Cantero, III, became a naturalized US citizen, he graduated from Harvard Law School, and became a Justice on the Florida Supreme Court.
In 1958, Gulf Oil Corporation leased GHW Bush’s Zapata Offshore oil drilling platform. CIA veteran Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt had joined Gulf’s board. This was the same Kermit Roosevelt who had overseen the CIA’s successful 1953 coup against the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, after Mossadegh began nationalizing Anglo-American oil concessions. http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/09/25/part-2-viva-zapata-3/
Kimery states, "Veteran CIA operatives in the war against Castro say Bush not only let the CIA use Zapata Offshore (oil drilling company) as a front for running some of its operations, but (they) assert that Bush personally served as a conduit through which the agency disbursed money for contracted services.” Meaning services for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Oil drilling rigs needed to buy supplies and need a ship to carry supplies and people to and from it, even helicopters, so it was a good way to hid large purchases. For example, the CIA purchased US Navy landing craft infantry (LCI) that were used in World War Two and renamed them the Barbara J and an LCI named Blagar. Records falsely show the LCI were sold for scrap steel, by Florida or Atlantic Reserve Fleet pool in May 1960. http://www.circulonaval.com/Historia/III_historia_1959_2011/bahia_de_cochinos/unidades.htm
Kimery says, “George Bush would be given a list of names of Cuban oil workers we would want placed in jobs,” said one CIA official connected to Operation Mongoose, the program to overthrow Castro in the years following the Bay of Pigs invasion. “The oil platforms he dealt in were perfect for training the Cubans in raids on their homeland…. Bush had been a top officer of the CIA since at least 1960, when he recruited Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion.” (Source: Covert Action Quarterly: Anthony Kimery
Beyond providing a staging area for anti-Castro Cubans, Zapata Offshore appears to have served as a paymaster. CIA officer John Sherwood said, “We had to pay off politicians in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and elsewhere Bush’s company was used as a conduit for these funds under the guise of oil business contracts. The major breakthrough was when we were able, through Bush, to place people in PEMEX – the big Mexican national oil operation.” The complicated PEMEX affair began in 1960, when Zapata Offshore offered a lucrative secret partnership to a competing Mexican drilling equipment company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfe (Permargo).
Zapata Offshore Company accepted an offer from an inventor, R. G. LeTourneau, for the development of a mobile offshore oil drilling rig. He invented this new rig that could operate in some 40 feet of ocean, rest on the ocean bottom, and be jacked up so storm waves could not damage it. Zapata advanced LeTourneau $400,000, which was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function, followed by an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock when it did. The rig cost about $3 million.
I don’t know how Zapata Offshore company got its name, but the Bay of Pigs beach is located south on the Zapata Peninsula, on the south coast of Cuba.
In 1956 off the coast of Port Aransas, TX, Zapata Offshore began drilling its first oil well for Standard Oil. Standard Oil Corporation was an American, oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. In 1958, Zapata Offshore oil drilling company signed a contract to drill on an area in the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Cuban shore, only about 60 miles south from Miami, Florida This put the oil drilling platform in a good place to support the Bay of Pigs invasion or to infiltrate people into Cuba. http://www.sabinabecker.com/2010/08/the_bush_crime_familys_tentacl.html
Declassified CIA records for another mission had the codeword LP/MEDLEY. It was a secret CIA communication monitoring operation of telegraph signals exiting or entering the United States, therefore, I am guessing that LP/DICTUM was also listening post (“LP”) either monitoring radio or telephone communications and WU/BRINY may have been the front company from which monitoring occurred.
Zapata Petroleum or Zapata Offshore was a Midland, TX oil company headed by George HW. Bush until 1966. One of the part owners of this company was CIA officer Thomas J. Devine (CIA codename WU/BRINY/1), on June 12, 1963, he was tasked to run an unknown named front company in Haiti for a Project WU/BRINY/LP/DICTUM.
Here an example of how the CIA picked code names that were not just random. AM/QUACK was the codename for Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentinean physician who fought with Castro and AM/THUG was for Fidel Castro.
Monitoring radio signals at times required being within range of the sending radio station (not too far away) and the power of the radio transmitter. Rain and forests greatly decreases the range of a radio signal’s strength. Trees are full of water and so they absorb radio frequency (RF) energy. Understanding this physics, causes me to make the educated guess that WU/BRINY and WU/SALINE were “water units” (aka WU) were oil rigs built in 1955 and 1957.
Here are the records of when the oil drilling platforms were built for Zapata Off-Shore.
Scorpion Zapata Drilling, Nov. 1955, Sank 1969
Vinegaroon Zapata drilling, Apr. 1957 Retired 1983
Maverick I Zapata drilling, Apr. 1964, Sank 1965
Endeavour Zapata drilling, Apr. 1965, retired 1993
http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/merchantships/postwwii/drillingrigs.htm
According to Wall Street Journal journalist Anthony Kimery, veteran CIA officers in the war against Castro say GHS Bush not only let the CIA use Zapata Offshore act as a front company but that Bush personally served as a conduit through which the CIA disbursed money for contracted services. Oil drilling rigs needed to buy lots of supplies and they needed a ship to carry supplies and helicopters to move people to and from it. Zapata therefore was a good way to hid large purchases. For example, the CIA purchased US Navy Landing Craft infantry (LCI) that were used in World War Two and renamed them the Barbara J and an LCI named Blagar. Records falsely show the LCI were sold for scrap steel, by Florida or Atlantic Reserve Fleet pool in May 1960. According to Wall Street Journal journalist Anthony Kimery, George HW Bush personally served as conduit thru which the CIA contracted services. Zapata leased cargo vessels and shipped CIA cargo disguised as oil drilling equipment. Bush had been tasked to search for people who could be recruited by the CIA as business contract agents.
The CIA purchased ships included five older freighters bought or chartered from the Garcia Steamship Lines, bearing the names of Houston, Rio Esondido, Caribe, Atlantic, and Lake Charles. United Fruit Company also provided two somewhat better armed support ships, the Blagar and the Barbara or Barbara J. Named after GHS Bush’s wife Barbara -- as some researcher have assumed. (Source: George Bush, The Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 8b, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin) http://killtown.911review.org/bushbio/chapter8b.html
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Bay_of_Pigs
According to retired Naval Intelligence officer, LTC William R. Corson, USMC, "GHW Bush was perfect at talent spotting and assessing potential recruits for the CIA. Bush was one of many businessmen that would be reimbursed for hiring someone the CIA was interested in, or simply carrying a message." Kimery wrote that one CIA official told him, “George Bush would be given a list of names of Cuban oil workers we would want placed in jobs. The oil platforms he dealt in were perfect for training the Cubans in raids on their homeland…. Bush had been a top officer of the CIA since at least 1960, when he recruited Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion.” (Source: Covert Action Quarterly: Anthony Kimery)
Beyond providing a staging area for anti-Castro Cubans, Zapata Offshore appears to have served as a paymaster. “We had to pay off politicians in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and elsewhere,” said John Sherwood, one of the CIA supervisors of Operation Mongoose in the early 1960s. “Bush’s company was used as a conduit for these funds under the guise of oil business contracts…”
In 1965 GHW Bush allegedly lost one of his drilling rigs in a hurricane. Bush’s youngest brother William Henry Trotter Bush recalled the fears expressed by the staff of Zapata offshore company, saying that it would be impossible for an insurance claim to be paid because of the absence of any wreckage. But George himself was calm, reassuring his people that “everything was going to be all right.” I assume what is being said here (without coming right out and saying it ) is that no hurricane made the drilling disappear or Bush knew CIA or someone would cover any lose he might suffer.
Lloyds of London insurance company paid $8 million for the $3 million dollar rig. Wreckage of the rig was never obtained and Lloyds of London paid out such claims without wreckage. Lloyds rarely before paid a claim without wreckage, if ever. In other words, GJW Bush got a $5 million pay check for working with the CIA. And his mobile offshore oil drilling rig never discovered any oil.
In 1981, all US Securities and Exchange Commission filings for Zapata Off-Shore between 1960 and 1966 were destroyed. Zapata's filing records with the US Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955 to 1959, and again from 1967 onwards. In other words, during the year GHW Bush was Vice President; important records detailing the years he allegedly owned Zapata Offshore disappeared. (Source: Family of Secrets by Russ Baker, p. 14, Plausible Denial by Mark Lane, p. 331, and George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, 2004, p. 173) and http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKoperation40.htm
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/09/25/part-2-viva-zapata-3/
http://halbower.blogspot.com/2009/02/family-of-secrets-by-russ-baker.html
After Castro took power in January 1959, the CIA Intelligence Directorate prepared an intelligence report for the White House that stated the rebels’ success was due largely to the corruption of the Batista regime and the resulting popular disgust among the Cuban people. And while an annoyance, Castro was in no way a direct threat to the US. The intelligence summary stated despite Castro’s socialistic leanings, he was fiercely independent, a devout nationalist, and he had the general support of the populace. CIA Director Allen Dulles personally intervened and rewrote this report.
William Harvey was Chief of Cuban Task Force (In 1961 it was called Task Force W) and an assassination mission code named ZR/RIFLE. Task Force W was a group of anti-Castro Cuban commandos who infiltrated Cuba prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion with the mission to kill key leaders of the Castro regime. Bissell told William Harvey that he could not to speak to CIA Director, Allen Dulles or President Eisenhower about this part of this job. Nothing about this mission was to be put in writing. The code name ZR/RIFLE was kept secret from even high ranking CIA officers. The CIA was never mentioned by name in ZR/RIFLE document. I believe William Harvey had been in charge of CIA assassination of suspected USSR spies in post World War Two Europe in connection with CIA torture operations under MK/ULTRA.
In April 1959, Alan Robert Nye, 31, an American lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve from Chicago was arrested and prosecuted in Havana. He is accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro. Prosecuting attorney Lieutenant José Antonio Suarez asserts that Nye received $100,000 from the ousted Batista regime. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but is allowed to leave the island as long as he never returns. At this time, there had been a total of 483 total war criminals of the Batista regime executed by firing squads.
According to Amnesty International 21 political executions were done by the Castro’s government since the revolution (1959 until 1987) of 237 death sentences after a trial. Latin American historian Thomas E. Skidmore says there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959. British historian Hugh Thomas, in his study Cuba or the pursuit of freedom stated that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970, while The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators ascertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years of 1958 to 1967. Professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, Rudolph J. Rummel estimated the number of political executions at between 4,000 and 33,000 from 1958 until 1987, with a mid range of 15,000. According to the US government some 1,200,000 Cubans (about 10 percent of the current population) left the island for the United States between 1959 and 1993.
In April 1959, the CIA Station in Havana still had officers working in the US Embassy. CIA officer David Morales had recruited FBI undercover agent, Bernard Barker. Soon after World War Two, Barker was discharged from the US Air Force with the rank of captain. He returned to Cuba and joined the National Police. He worked as an assistant to the Chief of Police with the rank of sergeant. At the same time, he was recruited by the FBI and began to work for them. Later, he transferred to the newly-established CIA.
Bernard L. "Macho" Barker Jr. was born in Havana, to a Russian American father. Barker’s mother was a Cuban woman from a prestigious family and a member of the old Cuban aristocracy. He became a dual US citizen along in addition to his Cuban citizenship. Barker was one of the Watergate burglars.
When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, Barker was ordered by his CIA superiors to relocate with his family to Miami where he would be more useful working among Cuban exiles. He and his family moved to Miami in January 1960. Bernard Barker was also working for Santo Trafficante Jr. (Sources: Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann)
By July 1959 the CIA had put out a contract on Fidel Castro's life. On October 11-21, three covert raids by US military aircraft bombed Cuban sugar mills. Cuba immediately began efforts to purchase airplanes for its defense. On Oct. 21, an aircraft raid on Havana kills two people and wounds 45 civilians in the streets. The next day, a US military aircraft strafes a train full of passengers. In response, Cubans form a popular militia.
On December 1959 Allen W. Dulles, the director of the CIA established Operation 40, a pro-Batista, a capitalist government in exile. It obtained this name because originally there were 40 CIA officers and anti-Castro Cuban, contract agents involved in the operation. Later this was expanded to 70 agents. The group was presided over by Vice President Richard Nixon. CIA officer Tracy Barnes became operating officer of what was also called the Cuban Task Force.
Vice-President Nixon portrayed himself in his memoirs as one of the original architects of the plan to overthrow Castro, proposed to the CIA that they support “goon squads and other direct action groups” inside and outside of Cuba. Nixon repeatedly sought to interfere in the invasion planning. He had assembled an important group of businessmen headed by George HW Bush and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary private funds. What was called a “second track” in addition to Congress appropriated funding for the CIA. ” Jack A. Crichton was president of Nafco Oil and Gas and owned Dorchester Gas Producing. He was associated with David Harold Byrd, Clint Murchison, Haroldson L. Hunt and Sid Richardson, aka a Big Oil group in Dallas, TX.
The CIA’s declassified Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation (Zapata or JM/ATE) also notes that invasion planners discussed pursuing “Operation AM/HINT to set up a program of assassination.”
The Common Cause magazine in 1990, argued that:
"The CIA put millionaire and contract agent George HW Bush in charge of recruiting anti-Castro Cubans for the CIA’s invading army; Bush was working with another (right-wing) Texan oil magnate, Jack Crichton, who helped him in terms of the invasion."
This news story was linked to the release of "a memorandum in that context addressed to FBI chief J. Edward Hoover and signed November 1963, in the body of this memo it was noted, “Mr. George Bush of the CIA."
In 1959 George HW Bush was asked “to cooperate in funding the anti-Castro groups that the CIA decided to create”. The man the CIA “assigned to him for his new mission” was Félix Ismael Rodríguez Mendigutia. His uncle was minister of Public Works during the Fulgencio Batista. At 18 years old, he joined the Caribbean Anti-communist Legion, created by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, with the intention of ending communism and restoring fascism in Cuba. In September, 1960 he joined a group of Cuban exiles (Brigade 2506) in Guatemala.
In 1958, Eutimio Rojas, a member of the anti-Castro Cuban guerrillas was hired to kill Castro as he slept at a camp in the Sierra Maestra. On February 2, 1959, Cuban security guards arrested Allan Robert Nye, an American, in a hotel room facing the presidential palace. Nye had in his possession a high-powered rifle equipped with a telescopic scope, and had been contracted to shoot Castro as he arrived at the palace. A month later Rolando Masferrer, a former leader of Batista’s death squads, turned up at a Miami meeting with American mobsters and a CIA officer.
During 1959 Frank Fiorini (Sturgis) became Chief of Security and Intelligence for the Cuban Air Force and Minister of Games of Chance in Havana. In truth Sturgis was working for the CIA and was actually involved in plotting Castro’s death. In order to maintain his credibility with Castro, Sturgis executes 71 supporters of the Batista regime. And in the 1970s he was arrested in the Watergate burglary.
Author Daniel Hopsicker also takes the view that Operation 40 involved private funding. In his book, he claims that Richard Nixon had established Operation 40 as a result of pressure from American corporations which had suffered at the hands of Fidel Castro. (Source: Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History, by Daniel Hopsicker, 2001, p. 170)
President Eisenhower planned to destroy Castro and regime change in Cuba. Vice President Richard Nixon was head of the 5412 committee (aka the 40 committee) and was the White House action officer in charge of the "Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime." This group included Admiral Arleigh Burke, Livingston Merchant of the State Department, National Security Adviser Gordon Gray and CIA Director Allen Dulles. In January 1960, CIA Director Dulles presents "Cuban project" for "careful planning of covert actions." A plan to provoke a general uprising of the Cuban people with the collaboration of the forces in exile in the US and in this way legitimize, a US intervention (overt war).
On January 12, 1960, napalm bombs are dropped from covert US aircraft and burn ten tons of sugar cane in Cuba. On the 21st, four 100 pound bombs are dropped on Havana, causing extensive damage. From 28th through the 29th January 1960, US military aircraft bomb and severely damage five sugar cane fields.
Cuba expropriates 70,000 acres of land held by US sugar companies, who refused to sell the land at any price, in an attempt to make up for the lowered quota that is damaging the nation's economy. This land includes 35,000 acres held by the United Fruit Company, which had owned over 270,000 acres of Cuban land at the time. The Castro regime gave free title to people to some l00,000 farms and created cooperative farms that provided stable year-around employment hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers.
On February 7, 1960, another air attack by covert US military aircraft burns 30 tons of sugar cane and several sugar mills. The CIA backed Cuban guerrillas who did sabotage attacks on sugar production and bombings in urban areas.
In the 1960s, the CIA purchased large amounts of sugar and then sold it in a curtain foreign country to attempt to destroy the market for Cuban sugar. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 46)
On February 18, 1960, an airplane trying to bomb Cuba exploded in mid-air and the pilot was carrying a US ID card.
During Castro’s trip to New York for an appearance at the United Nations in 1960, CIA agents attempted to pull kill Castro. The plan was to place thallium salts in Castro’s shoes and on his night table in the hope that the poisons would make the leader’s beard fall off. In high doses, thallium can cause paralysis or death. This scheme collapsed at the last minute.
On February 22 thru 25, 1960, a B-25 took part in fire burning sugar cane fields in Cuba and on the 23rd, attacked sugar mills. The Cuban government reaches out to the United States for peaceful negotiations on the 29th February. These air attacks were denied by the US.
CIA contract pilot William “Tosh” R. Plumlee stated that the first time he became involved, connected with the CIA was in was 1956. At age 17, he was attached to the 4th Army Reserve Military Intelligence out of Dallas, Texas. Plumbee flew airplanes out of Love Field with unit and worked with.
Around the 1960-1961, Plumlee trained Cuban pilots at Retalhuleu, Guatemala and at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, (the CIA base (code-named JM/TIDE, aka Happy Valley) prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion. The National Guard unit and they had just received a couple of AT6-Texans (a World War Two fighter type airplanes) with which they used in the training Cubans to fly in the back seat to make transitions to P-51's (aircraft). He was assigned to the 4th military intelligence unit and his first mission was flying a supply operation to supply guns and ammunition to the students at the University of Havana inside Cuba. This was when the US foreign policy was pro-Castro. He worked with Column Nine, Frank Perez's outfit was in Cuba.
In order to better conceal the preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA organized a series of front companies. The exiled Cubans destined for being trained by CIA contract pilot Tosh Plumlee said he trained Cuban pilots as pilots were gathered at Opa-Locka, a disused Marine air base near Miami. Despite a large number of trained Cuban personnel, some US citizens were needed to train them and maintain aircraft.
The CIA decided to do its recruiting through Alex E. Carlson and the Double-Chek Corporation to secretly hire pilots. To find the pilots, the CIA naturally turned to the Air National Guard in Alabama, Virginia and Arkansas, the last state units to fly the obsolescent B-26. From these states, some two dozen pilots were signed up by the CIA. Both the US and Cuban pilots and technical personnel were recruited via the Double-Check Corporation, with the help of Brigadier General Reid Doster, who was the commander of the Alabama National Guard. Doster gathered some 80 Americans and at least 60 Cubans. From Inter Mountain Aviation Company a total of 26 B-26Cs were purchased. Of these, 20 were considered as useful and made fully operational.
Other companies supporting Operation Pluto were the Civil Air Transport (CAT). CAT turned into Pacific Corporation Holding, which included the new main company, Southern Air Transport (SAT) and that also operated Air America, and Air Asia.
In order to better conceal the size of the Operation Pluto, the B-26s and their crews were officially controlled by the Caribbean Marine Aero Corporation, which was also paying the Cuban crews. The training of the crews was officially undertaken by the Zenith Technical Enterprises Inc., while all the transport aircraft were operated by the CAT and its subsidiaries. The small arms were purchased through Interarms Company, owned by the well known arms dealer Sam Cummings.
The more experienced Cuban pilots had already started to fly their first missions over Cuba, transporting dissidents, saboteurs (Task Force W), arms, and ammunition. Despite many problems with poorly marked drop-zones and poor communications, by March 1961 no less but 68 such missions were flown over Cuba from a secret CIA base in Retalhuleu, Guatemala (Rayo Base) between July 60 and April 61, using at least 6 of the 8 B-26s delivered in the summer of 1960. (Sources: Foreign Invaders, by Hagedorn / Hellström, pp. 89-91 and Air America at the Bay of Pigs, by Dr. Joe F. Leeker, updated on 4 March 2013)
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_154.shtml
On March 4and 5, 1960, the French ship La Coubre loaded with 76 tons of Belgian arms and ammunition blow up in Havana Harbor killing 75 to 100 and wounding more than 200 people. Soviet Union began to secretly support Castro. (The CIA on Campus: Essays on Academic Freedom and the National Security State, edited by Philip Zwerling)
On March 17, 1960, President Eisenhower signs National Security Council directive ordering planning and training (Operation Pluto) for the Bay of Pigs invasion and covert operations against the Castro regime. Part of the invasion plan was infiltrating a team of anti-Castro Cubans whose mission was to kill selected leaders of Castro’s regime (Operation 40). In November 1960, Colonel Edward Lansdale, a counterinsurgency specialist for the White House NSC, sent the invasion task force a “must go list” (aka a black list or kill list) of eleven top Castro regime officials, including Che Guevera, Raul Castro, Blas Roca and Carlos Raphael Rodriguez. (Sources: Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 82, Untold Story of the Bay of Pigs, By Robert Dallek, Newsweek, August 14, 2011 and Fonzi chronology, p. 415, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/
These actions included the use of a propaganda campaign designed to overthrow Castro,
- a) the termination of sugar purchases
- b) the end of oil deliveries
- c) the continuation of the arms embargo in effect since mid-1958
- d) the organization of a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles to invade the island,
- e) and several, CIA-funded, clandestine, radio stations in the US broadcasting to Cuba. (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75) https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Alleged+Assassination+Plots+Involving+Foreign+Leaders
On March 23, 1960, Rafael Garcia Rubio infiltrates into the northern coast of Havana Province, Cuba. He later explains, “Our job consisted of making contact with armed organizations and groups operating on the island, and training them in weapons and explosives. We were 86 men.”
I assume this group of guerrilla/ terrorists were the Task Force W that William Harvey was in charge of running and supplying.
The principal counter-Castro revolutionary movement inside Cuba the Movement of Republican Revolution (MRR) led by Manuel Artime. MRR received support from members in Miami, Mexico, Venezuela and etc. Tony Verona was involved with MRR. Infiltration into Cuba and airplane drops of arms and supplies to the MRR forces were arranged by the CIA. There were emergency airplane landings in Mexico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Island on some of these flights. Out of 30 air supply missions only four were successful, and an airplane crash in Mexico almost blew the Bay of Pigs mission.
Of the 21 ministers appointed in January 1959 within the Cuban government, twelve had resigned or had been ousted by the end of the year. Four more would go out in 1960 as the revolution moved toward a Marxist-Leninist political system. (Cuba, A Short History," Edited by Leslie Bethell)
Colonel J.C. King, Chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division (C/WH), argued to CIA director Allen Dulles that in Cuba there existed a far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against US holdings in other Latin American countries. In June 1960, Gerard Droller was sent to Miami, as Chief Political Action (C/WH/4/PA) under Jacob “Jake” Esterline Chief of the Cuban Task Force (aka Branch 4 or C/WH/4) to help organize the overthrow of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Esterline reported to the Deputy Director for Plans, Richard M. Bissell and not to King (C/WH). CIA officer Jim O'Connell was in charge of supporting operations of the Cuban Task Force.
Gerard Droller (CIA alias Frank Bender) posed as a wealthy steel tycoon. His main task was to recruit and organize the political leaders of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the Miami area, assisted by CIA officer E. Howard Hunt (alias Eduardo). CIA officer Tracy Barnes functioned as operating officer. CIA officers David Atlee Phillips, Barnes, Esterline, and Hunt had previously worked together in the 1954 in the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (Operation PB/SUCCESS).
CIA bosses Jake Esterline and Droller tasked alleged civilian William Pawley and CIA officer E. Howard Hunt with the planning of political issues relating to a possible successful for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Pawley thought it was important to get a right-wing government established in Cuba. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/esterlineinterv.pdf
William Pawley’s father was a wealthy businessman based in Cuba. Pawley also owned major sugar cane farmland and mills in Cuba and Havana’s bus and trolley company. Young Pawley attended private schools in both Havana and Santiago. Pawley will be one of the dispossessed American investors in Cuba who tries to convince Eisenhower that Castro is a communist and urges him to arm the Cuban exiles in Miami. He was a close friend to both pre-Castro Cuban rulers, President Carlos Prio and General Fulgencio Batista.
Through his national security aide, Nixon demanded that William Pawley be given briefings and access to CIA officers. Pawley pushed the CIA to support untrustworthy exiles as part of the effort to overthrow Castro risking disclosing the war plan.
On April 4th, a US military aircraft from the US naval base at Guantanamo drops napalm bombs in Cuba.
In May 1960, Howard Hunt was involved in the creation of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, an umbrella, anti-Castro organization or the Cuban government in exile. Also involved with Hunt were anti-Castro contract agents Bernard L. Baker Jr. and Frank Sturgis. All three of these bad boys were arrested in the Watergate burglary. (Source: George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography Chapter -XII- Chairman George in Watergate --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin and http://www.tarpley.net/bush12.htm
On May 12, 1960 the Cuban military brings down a civilian airplane killing the US citizen pilot.
In June 1960 groups of Cuban refugees within the US formed the Frente Revlucionario Democrático (FRD) (in English: Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front) was opposed the government of Fidel Castro. The FRD consolidates five existing anti-Castro groups: the Movimiento de Rescate Revolucinario, headed by Manuel Antonio Varona; the Movimiento Democrático Cristiano, headed by Jóse Ignacio Rasco; the Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionario (MRR), lead by Manuel Artime; the Associación Montecristi, led by Justo Carillo; and the Frente Nacional Democrático (Tripel A), led by Aureliano Sanchez Arango.
David Ferrie acquaintances were anti-Castro Cuban Sergio Arcacha Smith, Carlos Quiroga, Carlos Bringuier, and Luis Ravel. Bringuier was placed in charge of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) publicity and propaganda. Bringuier's clothing store in New Orleans became the local headquarters with the above named anti-Castro Cubans. CIA officer named George Joannidesan was the case officer for the DRE, code-named AM/SPELL. (Source: The Man Who Did Not Talk by Jefferson Morley, (November, 2007)
There is much documentation of Ferrie's anti-Castro activism in late 1960 and early 1961. Ferrie's period of activity with the Cubans was very brief and abruptly ending in the fall of 1961 after his morals (homosexual conduct) arrests. Throughout most of this period, his whereabouts are established by his employment and other records. There is very little verifiable information on such activities after early 1962. Arcacha-Smith was also an associate of Guy Banister. In January, 1962, Arcacha-Smith was expelled from the FRD/Cuban Democratic Liberation Front after being accused of misappropriating funds.
Ferrie's connection with the CIA was very tangential. He volunteered to work with the local branch of the CIA-organized FRD for, as noted, a very brief period of time. Ferrie's financial and social difficulties reveal no indication of any secret backing. He did not benefit financially, and nobody intervened to prevent his severe legal difficulties. He died an impoverished broken man.
Prior to September 1961, Ferrie was flying for Eastern Air Lines three times a week from New Orleans to Houston and other Texas cities, including two overnighters. There would not have been a great deal of opportunity for him to have made such flights from Florida. (And the flight log contains no indication of any such flights.)
2) Prior to April 1961, Ferrie was not fully accepted as an active participant by the anti-Castro Cubans.
3) After his August 1961 morals arrests, Ferrie was soon ostracized by the Cubans. Ferrie denied ever going to Cuba. However, he did tell a friend about one sojourn into Cuba in August 1960, which he said was for the CIA.
Manuel Artime is put in charge of military activity and remains the main link to the CIA. Each of these groups differed in terms of being less angry about the Batista’s dictatorship and/or more or less in favor of socialism or anti ties with the Soviet Union which Castro turned to for foreign aid. The liberal Cuban exiles believe that the real purpose of Operation 40 was to kill communists and after eliminating hard-core Fidelistas, to go on to eliminate first the progressive followers of Manuel Ray, then the followers of Tony Varona and finally to set up a right wing dictatorship, presumably under (Manuel) Artime.” (codenamed AM/BIDDY-1).
A CIA anti-Casto assassination outfit was established by Vice President Richard Nixon in June of 1960 to destroy the economy of Castro’s Cuba and a plan to assassinate Castro, his brother, and other leaders of his revolution. The assassination force of some 15 anti-Castro Cubans who were mafia guys working for mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr. (codenamed S-force) had been training in Mexico. After the Bay of Pigs invasion, this mission would be called Operation Mongoose.
In 1959 Tony Varona emerged as a leading anti-Communist. He moved to the Manzanillo region where he joined up with Carlos Prio and Manuel Artime. Along with Huber Matos they planned a counter-revolution against Castro. According to Fabian Escalante this rebellion was organized by Frank Sturgis and the CIA. (Source: CIA Covert Operations: 1959-62, by Fabian Escalante)
Varona moved to the United States and with Manuel Artime, Aureliano Arango and Jose Cardona established the Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution (MRR Party) and later he became head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), an organization that worked with to set up a training camp outside New Orleans in 1962.
Huber Matos criticized of the Castro regime's shift in favor of Marxist principles and the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). He was convicted by Castro’s regime of treason and sedition and spent 20 years in prison (1959–1979). Before the struggle against dictator Fulgencio Batista, Huber Matos was a teacher at the Manzanillo Institute, and the owner of a small rice plantation.
In July 1960, the CIA ordered the CIA’s Havana Station to put out the word that the CIA would pay $10,000 to anyone who assassinated Che Guevara. On August 16, 1960, the first assassination plot by the US against Fidel Castro is initiated when a CIA officer is given a box of Castro’s favorite cigars and told to poison them. It is unknown whether any attempt was later made to pass the cigars on to Castro. (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 73) http://history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0047a.htm
On July 3, 1960, the United States suspends trading sugar with Cuba through the Sugar Act, cutting off over 80 percent of Cuban exports to the United States, effectively crippling the economy. On July 5, Cuba retaliates by nationalizing all US businesses and commercial property.
On the July 28th, Castro addresses a mass rally at Revolution Plaza, when terrorists detonate four bombs intended for Castro. The attempt is unsuccessful, and Castro continues speaking.
In August 1960, DCIA Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell authorized CIA officer William Harvey to go after Communist Cuba. Harvey with his assistant CIA officer, Ted Shackley, set up facilities to recruit anti-Castro Cubans. They open a new CIA station in Miami (code name JM/WAVE) in an old building at the University of Miami. They put up signs that read: Zenith Technical Enterprise. JM/WAVE grew to 600 CIA officers. CIA interrogated the 2,800 Cuban refugees arriving in Florida every day. The CIA also had a base located at the former Richmond Naval Air Station south of Miami. The building complex had a sign stating: "US Government Regulations Prohibit Discussion of this Organization or Facility.”
In 1960 CIA Officer Paul Helliwell was transferred to provide business cover for the CIA’s Cuban operations, the Sea Supply Corporation office in Miami. According to Joseph Trento’s book, Prelude to Terror, "The primary objective of Helliwell's operations in Florida was to cement the CIA's relationship with organized crime." This included Santos Trafficante, who had a common business interest in Asia, the "successful exportation of Chinese white heroin."
According to Peter Dale Scott in his book, The Iran Contra Connection, Helliwell worked with Howard Hunt, Mitch WerBell III, and Lucien Conein on developing relationships with drug-dealing Cuban veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. It was during this period that Helliwell met Ted Shackley and Tom Clines. Helliwell later became CIA paymaster for JM/WAVE. In this way, Shackley was able to finance unofficial CIA operations against Cuba.
Allegedly there were at least 55 dummy corporations to provide employment, cover, and commercial disguise for as many as 3,000 Cuban volunteer and contract agents and sub-agents. There were detective bureaus, gun stores, real estate brokerages, boat repair shops, and party boats for fishing and other entertainments. The CIA also set up the clandestine Radio Swan, later renamed Radio Americas aimed at Cuba. There were fleets of specially modified boats based at a marina in the city of Homestead, FL, just south of Miami and at other marinas throughout the Florida Keys. CIA contract agents were assigned to the University of Miami and other educational institutions. (The Secret History of the U.S., p. 343)
Between January and August 1960, 5,780 incidents occurred against Castro’s regime in Cuba, of which 716 involve sabotage of important economic objectives. In August 26, the US Coast Guard impounds two boats in Marathon, Florida, after members of the Florida-based "Student Revolutionary Directorate" used them to fire automatic weapons at Havana beachfront buildings the night before. The 23 members of the expedition are not arrested, and no charges are brought against them. http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl4.htm
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The Senate's Report on Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders reported there had been an internal CIA committee which passed on proposals involving the operational use of drugs, chemicals, and biological agents. In February 1960, CIA's Near East Division sought the endorsement of what the Division Chief called the Health Alteration Committee for its proposal for a special operation to incapacitate an Iraqi colonel believed to be promoting Soviet bloc political interests in Iraq. The Division sought the Committee's advice on a technique "which while not likely to result in total disablement would be certain to prevent the target from pursuing his usual activities for a minimum of three months. We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop."
In April 1960, the Committee unanimously recommended to the Deputy Director for Operations Richard “Dick” M. Bissell Jr. that a disabling operation be undertaken. Bissell's deputy, Tracy Barnes, approved on behalf of Bissell an operation to mail a monogrammed handkerchief containing an incapacitating agent to the Iraqi colonel from an Asian country. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 181)
During the late spring or early summer of 1960, CIA Deputy Director of Plans (aka operations), Richard Bissell requested his Science Advisor Joseph Scheider to review the general "capability of the clandestine service in the field of incapacitation and elimination." Scheider testified that assassination was one of the capabilities he was asked by Bissell to research.
Scheider indicated that Bissell turned to him because he was knowledgeable about "substances that might be available in CIA laboratories
In August 1960, CIA’s Director of the Office of Security, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, personally contacted Robert “Bob” Maheu during the fall of 1960 and he accepted working for the CIA for the purpose of contacting the American mafia. Edwards said that since the underworld controlled gambling activities in Cuba under the Batista government, it was assumed that this element would still continue to have sources and contacts in Cuba which perhaps could be utilized successfully in connection with CIA's clandestine efforts against the Castro government.
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A lawyer who did work for the CIA, Edward Bennett Williams introduced mafia guy, Johnny Roselli to Robert Maheu. Maheu was an FBI agent in 1940 working to catch Nazi spies, In 1947 Maheu established his own private investigative company. Williams knew Roselli from defended mafia guys in court. A week later at a party at Maheu home, he introduced Roselli to CIA officer James "Big Jim" O'Connell. O'Connell had served with Maheu in the FBI during World War Two. (Source: Robert F Kennedy and His Times, by Arthur Schlesinger 1986 and The Secret History of the CIA, p. 198-199)
Robert Maheu was also a friend of FBI Agent Guy Banister. It is likely they were working together in FBI counter intelligence operations at the time. Maheu got hired as a contract agent for the CIA in about 1954, working on and off while receiving a $500 a month retainer. Those were jobs in which the CIA could not officially be associated as having done in case the news media learned about them. Than the CIA could say it didn’t know anything about this Robert Maheu guy.
Robert Maheu worked for Howard Hughes as a private investigator to spy on his mistresses and on his business rivals. The CIA tasked Maheu to pimp prostitutes for King Hussein of Jordan when he came to Washington DC. Maheu was not only in charge of keeping Hughes business and personal life a secret, but also he acted as the billionaire’s top bagman (secretly giving cash to political candidates).
On September 24, 1960 an initial meeting was held between James O 'Connell, Johnny Rosselli, and Robert Maheu at the Plaza Hotel in New York for the purpose of planning assassination of Castro. Roselli then decides to introduce two new players to the picture: Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante Jr. Rosselli then asks Giancana to participate. Giancana agrees and approaches Trafficante, who agrees to recruit a person to carry out the assassination. (Davis; Fonzi chronology, p 415)
In September 1961, two Cubans hired by Johnny Roselli were arrested in Havana driving with two Jeeps loaded with bazookas, grenade launchers, and machine guns. They made a full confession during interrogation, and admitted they had been working with CIA officers in Miami. They said they had been trained at US Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. They were executed by Castro and his army.
September 26, 1960, four boats set out from Miami to invade Cuba under the leadership of Rolando Masferrer Rojas. Only one of the boats reaches Cuba, and three Americans are eventually executed as a result: Allan D. Thompson, Anthony Zarba and Robert O. Fuller.
In early October 1960 a subsequent meeting takes place in Florida at the Fountainbleu Hotel that included Rosselli, Giancana, Trafficante jr. and CIA officers Maheu, and O 'Connell. Sam Giancana refused to kill Castro by making it look like a mafia assassination that was a CIA idea presented to him. Later, Colonel Sheffield Edwards said that none of Giancana's efforts have materialized to date and that several of the plans still are working and may eventually pay off. None of them succeeded in killing Castro. (Source: FBI memo to US Attorney General dated, May 22, 1962) and http://www.jfklancer.com/cuba/FBIMemo_Maheu-Roselli.html
Jimmy Hoffa ......
was one of the CIA's cut-out (go-between) with the mob in their plan to kill Castro. Top Teamster organizer Rolland McMaster was Hoffa's liaison to Santo Trafficante during the planning of the assassination in the early 1960s. Russell Bufalino of the Pennsylvania mafia had also been among the mob bosses whom the CIA solicited for direct action against Castro.
The CIA did not realize that among the Cuban refugees it recruited for the Bay of Pigs that some of Castro's most loyal supporters were deliberately sent as refugee to spy on anti-Castro Cuban who continued to working with the CIA. (The Secret History of the CIA, pp. 199-200).
Unknown to the CIA at the time Trafficante Jr. was a spy for Castro and telling him all about the plans to kill him. In a mafia power move against Meyer Lansky, Trafficante had struck a deal with Castro promising him control of gambling in Cuba once the revolution succeeded. In the years of guerrilla warfare against Batista, Castro received guns from Trafficante. In return Castro promised Trafficante control of gambling in Cuba once the revolution succeeded.
Trafficante placed spies for Castro among the refugees fleeing Cuba after the revolution. They were Castro’s most loyal supporters and were KGB trained members of the Cuban Intelligence agency, the DGI. This was not discovered by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics until July 1961.
The CIA had done a very bad job of vetting the exiled Cubans they recruited for the Bay of Pig operation and later operations against Cuba. Trafficante also allowed Castro’s supporters to bring in heroin into Miami and sell it on his turf to help finance the revolution.
In July 1961, Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) special agent Charles Siragusa discovered that mafia boss Santos Trafficante Jr. was a double agent working for Castro’s foreign intelligence service, the Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI). He insisted that Fidel Castro had jailed Trafficante Jr. as a way to build up a legion as hating Castro. Allegedly Castro had promised Trafficante control of gambling in Cuba once the revolution succeeded in return for spying for him against the anti-Castro refugees who fled to the States. After fleeing Cuba, Santos Trafficante continued operated a lucrative gambling business in Tampa, FL as he had done in Cuba. ). Siragusa had worked in Central Europe investigating the Corsican Mafia’s heroin trade. (Source: The Secret History of the CIA, pp. 199-200), and The Strength of The Wolf, by Douglas Valentines, 2004, pp. 225 and 306-307) http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5320
Among early attempts devised by the CIA to discredit Castro was a plan to place chemical powders on his boots that would cause his beard to fall out when he was in New York to speak at the United Nations in 1960.
When that failed, the CIA planned to slip him a box of cigars tainted with LSD so that he would burst into fits of laughter during a television interview. But it was the CIA's plans to poison Castro with botulinum toxins in the early 1960s that came closest to succeeding. According to Castro’s Chief of Security (DGI), Fabian Escalante, he suspected or documented 167 plots against Castro.
In October 1960, a CIA delegation including Major Harry C. “Heinie” Aberholt flew Nicaraguas’ President Luis Somoza-Debayle to get Somoza’s permission to use Puerto Cabezas (a port on the Atlantic coast of the northern part of Nicaragua) as a departure base for the Bay of Pigs strike force. Aberhold had served in World War Two, the Korean War and later secretly trained pilots in Southeast Asia. They represented themselves as businessmen from United Fruit Company in New Orleans. Somoza said that he knew who they were and that he supported them, and so Aderholt flew with a son of Somoza to inspect Puerto Cabezas.
On October 8-10, weapons caches dropped from a US military aircraft are seized and over 100 Cuban guerrillas are arrested. On October 19, the United States imposes a full trade and economic embargo on Cuba (excepting food and medicine).
On November 19, 1960 The Nation published the editorial, “Are We Training Cuban Guerrillas?” ran, days after Kennedy’s narrow election win over Richard Nixon and five months before the failed paramilitary invasion stating. The story reported on details, published in the Guatemalan press, about a compound that the CIA had purchased for one million dollars to train Cuban exiles. They also reported that Guatemala’s president admitted on television that this base did exist. The New York Times writes: “Dr. Castro and his friends cannot for a moment think that the United States would be wicked enough or foolish enough to attempt an armed conquest of Cuba.”
When the Times published its front-page story on January 10, 1961 and the headline stated, “U.S. Helps Train an Anti-Castro Force at Secret Guatemalan Air-Ground Base.” It prompted an emergency damage-control meeting between Dwight Eisenhower (then in the final weeks of his presidency) and top CIA, Defense and State Department officials. According to a secret memorandum of the conversation, “The President decided that we should make no statement and continue to refuse to comment.” At the State Department, a spokesman claimed to know “absolutely nothing about” a base in Guatemala training Cuban exiles.
(Sources: Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados, pp. 222 to 228)
http://www.thenation.com/article/cuba-libre/
"Sometime in early January 1961, Bissell instructed Chief of a CIA Foreign Intelligence staff, William Harvey, to establish an executive action (aka assassination) capability, which would include research into a capability to assassinate foreign leaders. Bissell indicated that executive action covered a wide spectrum of actions to eliminate the effectiveness of foreign leaders, with assassination as the most extreme action in the spectrum. The project was given the code name ZR/RIFLE by the CIA.
ZR/RIFLE was a mission to develop an assassination capability and also a second was to do assassinations with some foggy or gray area of out and out warfare. William Harvey had been in charge of the CIA section with general responsibility for such programs.
William Harvey testified that Bissell had told him that the Kennedy White House had twice urged the creation of such a capability and that he was almost certain that on January 25 and 26, 1961, Bissell met with two CIA officials: Joseph Scheider, who by then had become Chief of the Technical Services Division, and a CIA recruiting officer, to discuss the feasibility of creating a capability within the CIA for Executive Action.
The CIA’s assassinations recruiting officer was apparently James O'Connell, the Directorate of Security's Deputy Director for Investigations and Operational Support. One contract killer was given the cryptonym QJ/WIN and placed under Harvey's supervision. QJ/WIN was a foreign citizen with a criminal background who had been recruited by the CIA for certain sensitive programs prior to Project ZR/RIFLE. Harvey used QJ/WIN to spot "individuals" with criminal and underworld connections in Europe for possible multi-purpose use." For example, QJ/WIN reported that a potential asset in the Middle East was "the leader of a gambling syndicate with an available pool of assassins." (Source: The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, pp 181-183, 189)
On January 14, 1961 a fire was started in the tobacco warehouses of Havana causing severe damages.
Six deadly botulinum pills were cooked up in the CIA’s TSD labs and delivered to Roselli. On February 13, 1961, Trafficante took the botulinum pills to Havana and gave them to Jorgé Orta, He functioned as Castro's private secretary and could have slipped a poisoned pill into a drink. Allegedly a few days before the invasion, Orta changed his mind and fled to the Venezuelan Embassy. Along with the pills, Trafficante also delivered a box of cigars soaked in botulinum toxin, which kills within hours. The cigars were prepared by Dr. Edward Gunn, chief of the CIA’s medical division. The cigar was so deadly, Gunn said, that it need only be touched, not smoked, in order to kill its victim.
On March 11, 1961 an electrical plants in Havana is destroyed, leaving a large part of Havana without electricity. Two days later, an oil refinery at the Santiago de Cuba port is attacked. http://homepage.eircom.net/~csg/TheBayOfPigs.html
In March 1961, Major Rolando Cubela Secades was a former commandant of Castro’s rebel army and a hero of the Cuban revolution, somehow contacted the CIA and offered to work with the CIA to overthrow Castro while remaining in Cuba. Over the next two years, the CIA provided “direct and indirect support” for Cubela’s intrigues. I don’t know what these intrigues were, maybe they amounted to nothing. Cubela was the number two man in the Interior Ministry at the time of his recruitment by the CIA. The Ministry of the Interior was closely associated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces since 1959. The Ministry of the Interior was also responsible for fire protection, law enforcement (policing), and the Security division of the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for counterintelligence (crimes such as espionage, sabotage, and offenses against state security). http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/lofiversion/index.php/t2955.html
CIA gave Rolando Cubela the codename AM/LASH. He refused to take a lie detector which provided the CIA to be very suspicious of Cubela’s true motives about wanting to overthrow the Castro government.
CIA wanted to use him to kill Castro, but he refused for the time being and repeatedly asked the CIA for a high powered rifle with a silencer. The CIA refused to give one to him. Why, I don’t know. Author David Corn described Rolando Cubela as "an erratic fellow who drank excessively." (Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades by David Corn and CIA’s Inspector General’s Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, page 79.)
In March, 1961, CIA officer William Harvey arranged for CIA officer Jim O'Connell, to meet Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, Johnny Roselli and Robert Maheu at the Fontainebleau Hotel. During the meeting O'Connell gave poison pills and $10,000 to Rosselli to be used against Fidel Castro. As Richard D. Mahoney points out in his book: Sons and Brothers: "Late one evening, probably March 13, Rosselli passed the poison pills and the money to a small, reddish-haired Afro-Cuban by the name of Rafael "Macho" Gener in the Boom Boom Room.
Juan Orta Cordova allegedly received a handful of poison pills from mobster Santos Trafficante, who got them from mobster John Rosselli, who got them from the CIA officer James O'Connell. Juan Orta was Castro’s personal secretary in Havana offered to kill Castro for the CIA. Castro’s security discovered Orta was unhappy with the way Castro was running Cuba and who had been receiving kickback payments from gambling interests, and so they moved him to another job in January 1961. Fully aware that the US was planning an invasion, the Cuban government was tightening security, and closing off potential threats. Only the most trusted were allowed access to the leadership. Orta sought refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy and when Venezuela broke relations with Cuba in November 1961 fled Cuba. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-cia-idUSN0427935120070705
Shortly before they took off, the American CIA fliers were told they would receive air support from the carrier-based Navy jets. (The word had been (allegedly) flashed by Richard Bissell after the President authorized the unmarked Navy jets to fly for one hour at dawn.) Because of the mix-up over time zones, the B-26s got to the Bay of Pigs after the Navy jets had already gone.
American CIA airmen Thomas Willard Ray, Leo Francis Baker, Riley W. Shamburger, Jr. , and Wade Carroll Gray, died on April 19, 1961, while flying in combat at the Bay of Pigs.
http://www.american-buddha.com/invisiblegov.5.htm
In Nestor Carbonell book entitled, And the Russians Stayed he wrote that after some brief training in Miami, including polygraph tests and being briefed on the mission, the Operation 40 unit was then flown from Florida to Guatemala for further training. Then it was on to the city of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua on the Atlantic coast, they set from sail from there for Cuba aboard a ship named Lake Charles. The unit did not leave Nicaragua until two days after the invasion force, and never did land."
Carbonell provides a firsthand account of his role in Operation 40. Carbonell writes that he had just finished his work on the planning committee for the CIA-created, five-member exile junta that was to become Cuba's provisional government with Castro's ouster. After completing his planning work a month before the Bay of Pigs, Carbonell decided to enlist in the invasion force: "Just before I left for Guatemala, some of my colleagues persuaded me to join a newly formed unit - Operation 40 - which was to be integrated into the brigade and charged with occupation and temporary administration of liberated territories. This unit was composed of about 80 men, most of them young professionals known to him, and was headed by an amiable former colonel of the Cuban Army, Vicente Leon, “who had honored his uniform throughout his career."
Manual Antonio “Tony” de Verona was born in Cuba. Varona also worked closely with organized crime leaders such as Santo Trafficante and Johnny Roselli. In 1959 Tony Varona emerged as a leading anti-Communist. He moved to the Manzanillo region where he joined up with Carlos Prio and Manuel Artime. Along with Huber Matos they planned a counter-revolution. Varona was involved in several attempts to kill Fidel Castro. According to Castro’s Chief of foreign intelligence service, DGI, Fabian Escalante, years later the counter-revolution against Castro was organized by Frank Fiorini and the CIA. (Around 1963, he changed his last name to Frank Sturgis)(CIA Covert Operations: 1959-1962)
In late August a New York Times report Tad Szulc in Costa Rica learned about the training for the Bay of Pigs invasion from a Cuban friend. The State Department asked him to kill the story. The Bay of Pigs anti-Castro Cubans troops were called Brigade 2506 and along with them were Special Forces soldiers transferred from the US Army to work secretly for the CIA.
On January 3, 1961, the United States and Cuba sever diplomatic and consular relations.
On January 14, 1961 a fire was started in the tobacco warehouses of Havana causing severe damages.
January 20, 1961, JFK is inaugurated as the president of the United States. The CIA task force leadership in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the US military. The candid assessment was not shared with the President-elect and not after his inauguration. The believed, the “original concept is now seen to be unachievable (with a force of 1,400 men) in the face of the controls Castro has instituted. (and the) second concept (1,500-3,000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD action.”
CIA Director Allen Dulles and Bissell never expected an uprising by the people of Cuba against Castro when Brigade 2506 landed. They and the Joint Chiefs lied to Kennedy about this. They expected the invaders would establish and secure a beachhead. Than the CIA and Joints Chiefs cry to Kennedy for the US Navy and Marines floating nearby to come to the Brigade’s aid. They hoped Kennedy would be forced by public opinion to use American Marines and the Navy. Further, on the first day of the invasion, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, Chief of Naval Operations had sent the US aircraft carrier USS Essex and helicopter landing ship USS Boxer close to Cuban shore, in violation of Kennedy’s order to keep US ships 50 miles away.
"The country’s military and intelligence chiefs had clearly believed they could sandbag the young, untested Kennedy into joining the battle. But he had stunned them by refusing to escalate the fighting." (Source: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass)
A member of Kennedy's Task Force on Latin American Affairs, Norman N. Goodwin reportedly opposed the Bay of Pigs invasion, unsuccessfully trying to persuade Kennedy not to order the operation.
On March 11, 1961 an electrical plants in Havana is destroyed, leaving a large part of Havana without electricity. Two days later, an oil refinery at the Santiago de Cuba port is attacked. http://homepage.eircom.net/~csg/TheBayOfPigs.html
In March 1961, Kennedy rejected the CIA's war plan called Trinidad for an amphibious/airborne assault on Cuba and instead he approved a quiet invasion landing at night in which there would be "no basis for American military intervention." On approving the new plan for the April 15, 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy reemphasized that he would not intervene by introducing US troops, even if the exile brigade faced defeat on the beachhead.
On the day before the first action, Jacob Esterline the CIA's Project Director for Bay of Pigs invasion and Marine Colonel Jack Hawkins both strongly thought that the impending invasion should be called off because last-minute changes in the plan would guarantee disaster, and wanted to resign. Bissell convinced them to stay on board. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Esterline
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=EsterlineJD
Kennedy had repeatedly told CIA Deputy Director, Dick Bissell in the lead up to the Bay of Pigs that he reserved the right to abort the operation at any time. Yet Bissell advised the anti-Castro Cubans Brigade commanders to “mutiny against their US advisers and proceed with the invasion.” Encouraging a mutiny is the US federal crime of subversion.
During the first years of the Castro revolution, a journalist from Argentina Rodolfo Walsh lived in Cuba until 1961. There in March 1959 with the assistance of a Colombian writer, he helped found Prensa Latina, the official state news agency of Cuba. One day while in the Prensa office, he got his hands on an encrypted CIA telex and deciphering the message learning of the planned Bay of Pigs invasion. The Castro government was happy to receive this information and planned accordingly to counteract the invasion once it happened. (The Shock Doctrine, p. 97) http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/rodolfo-walsh-defender-of-a-free-press
CIA insiders began a buying spree of stocks in Cuban sugar companies. A successful US take-over of Castro’s Cuba would have seen the prices of these stocks soar. Stockbrokers became curious about the sudden influx of orders on what one broker called the tip that cheap sugar shares might prove a sweet gamble. Prices were climbing when the brigade hit the beach. (Barry & the Boys by Hopsicker, p. 112).
The CIA had information indicating that the Soviet Union knew the date of the planned invasion and did not inform Kennedy. Radio Moscow actually broadcast an English-language newscast on April 13, 1961 predicting the invasion and said, "a plot hatched by the CIA criminals" will occur within a week. The invasion took place four days later. According to British minister David Ormsby-Gore, a British intelligence estimates stated that the Cuban people were predominantly behind Castro and that there was no likelihood of mass defections or insurrections following the invasion. This estimate was given to the CIA. http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-f-kennedy-and-pigs-of-war.html
At dawn on April 15, 1961, eight B-26 bombers launched from Nicaragua attacked the Cuban Air force and achieved only partially successful in destroying the Cuban T-33 jets on the ground. These jets were provided by the US to Batista. These CIA B-26s were painted with the markings of Castro’s Cuban Air Force (a war crime). A second air strike was planned to complete the destruction of Castro's air force. A few planes escaped the first attack. (Source: Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, pages 142-144)
Kennedy allowed a limited air cover by unmarked US Navy fighter jets in the last hours to escort the B-26s flight to Cuba. But under the control of the CIA these B-26s arrived on the scene an hour before Navy jets who took their orders from the Navy. We could say this was the reason one wave of B-26's was mauled (badly attacked or killed) by the Cuban T-33s. Pilots were told that, if they were shot down and captured, they should describe themselves as mercenaries and the US would "deny any knowledge" of them. Four US pilots lost their lives. It wasn't until 1976 that they were given medals in ceremonies. Their families were encouraged to keep secret.
In the heat of the battle at the Bay of Pigs, one of the transport boats fired 75mm recoilless rifles and .50-caliber machine guns on aircraft their own B-26s, striking some of them. According to CIA officer Grayston Lynch, “We couldn’t tell them from Castro planes,” “We ended up shooting at two or three of them. We hit some of them there because when they came at us…it was a silhouette that was all you could see.” In 1950 Lynch served as a Captain with the 77th Special Forces Group in Laos. In 1960, he was hired on contract by the CIA as a Commander of the 2506 Brigade (an anti-Castro Cubans CIA Army). In 1971 Lynch retired from the CIA and became a federal drug agent.
Several damaged CIA airplanes made emergency landings on the Grand Cayman Islands, and were seized by local authorities. The situation created an awkward diplomatic situation with Great Britain; details of the negotiations between the US and England are classified.
The overnight assault started just before midnight on the April 16, thru the 17th, 1961. They landed on the beach 150 km south-east of Havana and east of the Zapata peninsula, with a force of 1,400 Cuban exiles and two CIA special forces soldiers. One SF soldiers was Grayston L. Lynch, 37, commanded a group of the Cuban warriors. The other was William "Rip" Robertson who also served with the US Army Special Forces in Laos. He became a Paramilitary Operations Officer of the CIA's Special Activities Division in 1960. Lynch landed in a 12-foot rubber raft to mark the beach for the invasion when he and his men were spotted by a two-man patrol from the Cuban military. Lynch fired, killing both. Lynch later volunteered to return to help rescue 41 men from his assault brigade that had landed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayston_Lynch
As a result of poor logistics planning the soldiers on the beach ran out of ammunition. All their ammo was in one ship which got sunk by a T-33. According to Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy's special counsel, adviser, and legendary speechwriter; the CIA then cancelled a convoy bringing more ammunition. They did so without consulting the President.
Castro's army surrounded the invading Brigade 2506 troops in a few days and who surrendered on April 19th. Castro had an army had roughly 15,000 troops and civilian-militia fighters. Some 170 of Castro’s military were killed. The 1,201 Cuban exiles were captured and 200 killed during the failed invasion. Castro held the prisoners until December 1963, when he ransomed them to the United States for food and medicine worth $53 million. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 13 and The Secret Team by L. Fletcher Prouty, Col., U.S. Air Force (Retired) http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
Leo F. Baker, Wade C. Gray, Thomas W. “Pete” Ray and Riley W. Shamburger died during the Bay of Pigs invasion. They flew two of the four, B-26 bombers that crashed during the invasion. The death of these Americans was classified until 1978. Widows of four of the pilots killed reported they were receiving bi-weekly checks from the Double-Chek Corporation, headed by a man named Alex E. Carlson. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2134
April 20, 1961 the CIA had a commando unit of 35 anti-Castro Cuban exiles, a dozen CIA officers or radio operators ready to infiltrate, 170 recruits who had not left the United States, and 26 contract agents inside Cuba, most in the Havana region, with whom the CIA still had contact. Shortly after the failed US Navy commandos used diesel submarines to engineer the escape of anti-Castro Cubans. Over several weeks, commandos slipped from the subs and rowed to shore in inflatable rafts. They were piloted back to the subs and often had to dive 15 to 30 feet through dark waters to enter the submerged craft through special pressurized compartments. Many of those rescued likely would have been jailed or executed for plotting to overthrow Castro, according to former US sailors involved in the operation. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/oni-assassination-of-president-kennedy.html
President Kennedy personally briefed Eisenhower on April 22, 1961 admitting problems with the CIA operation. That same day, at a National Security Council (NSC) meeting, Robert Kennedy, fiercely criticized advice given to the president prior to the invasion.
After the Bay of Pigs failed attack, Kennedy no longer trusted the CIA and his Joint Chiefs of Staff. He and his brother decided to take full control of all covert operations and Robert Kennedy would from then on, ran them. As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas explained, regarding JFK confiding in him, that Kennedy was seared by the Bay of Pigs experience, and “he had experienced the extreme power that these groups had, these various insidious influences of the CIA and Pentagon, on civilian policy.” JFK even questioned if he, as president, could “ever be strong enough to really rule these two powerful agencies.” Justice Douglas was an old friend of the Kennedy family.
Kennedy could not forget his pre-invasion conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who asked Kennedy how many men were invading and how many men Castro could field against them. Kennedy replied, “Perhaps 1,500 invaders and 25,000 opponents.” Afterwards, Kennedy repeatedly asked his aides, "How could I have been so stupid as to let them proceed?"
In addition to President Kennedy learning the CIA tried to sucker him into ordering the military to attack Cuba and he also learned top CIA officers had encouraged ultra right-wing generals in Algeria to mutiny against Charles de Gaulle in 1961.
After the failed invasion Kennedy appointed General Maxwell Taylor Commission and the CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick found the CIA was primarily responsible for the failure of the invasion. After more than three decades this top secret IG report was declassified and released and it blamed the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, not on President Kennedy. Among the details hidden from public view that a CIA official transferred funds from the invasion budget to pay for the assassination plot against Castro, which was so secret that the chief of invasion planning, Jacob Esterline, was not told what the money was for.
CIA officials feared that if the document leaked, it could provoke crippling public criticism of the CIA. "In unfriendly hands, it can become a weapon unjustifiably (used) to attack the entire mission, organization and functioning of the agency," CIA deputy director C.P. Cabell wrote in a December 15, 1961 memorandum. The conclusions of this report so outraged CIA officials that all but one of the 20 copies produced was destroyed. Much to the chagrin of top CIA officers at the time, CIA’s inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick laid the blame for the failure squarely at the feet of his own CIA and particularly the chief architect of the operation, Deputy Director of Plans, Richard Bissell.
The IG’s report concluded the operation was characterized by bad planning, poor staffing, faulty intelligence and assumptions, and “a failure to advise the President that success had become dubious.” Moreover, “plausible denial was a pathetic illusion. The Agency failed to recognize that when the project advanced beyond the stage of plausible denial it was going beyond the area of Agency responsibility as well as Agency capability.”
The above Taylor Commission report remained classified until 1998. (Source: Crime So Immense, Texas Observer, May 26, 2000)
Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operations, Volume III, page 149 written between 1974 and 1984 by Jack Pfeiffer, who rose to become the CIA’s Chief Historian.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/
The CIA chief historian Jack Pfeiffer between 1974 and 1984 had tried to spread the blame beyond the CIA to the State Department and President Kennedy. https://www.newsweek.com/bay-pigs-newly-revealed-cia-documents-expose-blunders-67275
In his 2005 book, The Secret History of the CIA, author Joseph Trento continues to blames President Kennedy for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion by ordering Richard Bissell to cut back on the bombers attacks resulting the supply ships were unable to unload ammunition to the troops. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 204) .
In January 1962, Kennedy fired CIA director Allen Dulles, Major General Charles Cabell, USAF Deputy Director of CIA, and demoted Richard Bissell. Major General Marshall "Pat" Carter soon replaced Cabell as. Richard Helms became chief of Clandestine Services, replacing Richard Bissell. Kennedy quietly moved to cut the CIA budget in 1962 and again in 1963, aiming at a 20 percent reduction by 1966. This put him in direct conflict with the CIA that had come to hold itself accountable to no one. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 27)
Kennedy ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they and not the CIA, was his principal military advisers in peacetime as well as in wartime. Kennedy replaced Dulles with John McCone, a former head of the Atomic Energy Commission. Just two months after the Bay of Pigs fiasco Kennedy approved NSAMs 55, 56 and 57 to redefine and transfer executive branch responsibility for executing unconventional-warfare operations (political warfare) against North Vietnam from the CIA to the Pentagon. He wanted to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces – to do away with it as the US foreign intelligence agency. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 257)
On June 28, 1961, President Kennedy himself signed National Security Action Memorandum NSAM #55. This important order was directed solely to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff who at that time was General Lyman Lemnitzer. Its subject, clearly stated, was "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations." In layman's terminology "Cold War Operations" meant "Clandestine Operations."
Kennedy opened that directive with memorable words: I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in Cold War Operations:
- a) I regard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military advisor responsible both for initiating advice to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their advice to come to me direct and unfiltered.
- b) The Joint Chiefs of Staff now would have a responsibility for the defense of the notion in the Cold War similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities..."
- c) I expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff to present the military viewpoint in governmental councils in such a way as to assure that the military factors are clearly understood before decisions are reached. When only the Chairman or a single Chief is present, that officer must represent the Chiefs as a body, taking such preliminary and subsequent actions as may be necessary to assure that he does in fact represent the corporate judgment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- d) While I look to the Chiefs to represent the military factor without reserve or hesitation, I regard them to be more than military men and expect their help in fitting military requirements into the over-all context of any situation, recognizing that the most difficult problem in
Government is to combine all assets in a unified, effective pattern.
Chairman and the Chiefs were briefed on NSAM 56 (Evaluation of Paramilitary Requirements) and NSAM 57. First they were surprised to discover that: this order had been addressed directly to them and was signed by the President. It had not come through the Secretary of Defense, and had not been sent to other top-level addressees such as the Secretary of State and the Director of Central Intelligence. This procedure was rare, and meaningful. The Joint Chiefs learned their lawful functions were being broadened to include "Cold War Operations" (aka political warfare prior the mission of the CIA and USAID.
Kennedy assigned responsibility the foreign police operations and training to the State Department by signing NSAM-117, but in reality, it was handled by the CIA.
On May 6, 1961, the National Security Council (NSC) agreed that US policy toward Cuba should aim at the downfall of Castro and Kennedy ordered the CIA to make a detailed study of possible Cuban weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The deputy director of plans of the CIA held a follow-up meeting May 9th where he discussed supporting Cuban exile groups’ independent operations against the Cuban government. The first CIA plan for its own operations would be submitted on May 19, 1961.
On May 7, 1961, CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston finally told Kennedy that the CIA had contracted with Sam Giancana and John Roselli to murder Fidel Castro. Kennedy also became very angry about not being told about this and other past operations to assassinate other foreign leaders.
On May 24, 1961 CIA Director Allen W. Dulles discussed, in general, covert operations approvals by the interagency 5412 Special Group, and learned that senior CIA officials Richard M. Bissell and C. Tracy Barnes were to meet that very day with White House aide Richard N. Goodwin to discuss a 5412-type operation against Cuba.
Guantanamo’s intelligence chief, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Hal Feeney and Lt. Jack Modesett commanded these operations. They worked with the gunman Luis Balbuena in an attempt to assassinate the Castro brothers and simultaneously ignite a skirmish at Guantanamo Naval Base on the Cuban national holiday of July 26, 1961 (Operations Patty). Luis Balbuena’s fellow assassin was supposed to be Alonzo Gonzalez. However, the operation was busted up by the Cuban government, with strong indications that Gonzalez was a double agent answering to Castro.
Alfredo Izaguirre de la Riva (AMPUG-1) has been described as the leader of Operation Patty. A CIA memo refers to an entire “AMPUG net”. Izaguirre was working under the control of a Lt. Commander Feeney. CIA documents show that Izaguirre was arrested on July 22, 1961 four days before the planned attack. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter3.html
The Patty leaders planned the also unsuccessful Operation Liborio, where Castro narrowly escaped being killed by a bazooka in an operation led by Army intelligence agent Antonio Veciana. Veciana escaped thanks to a warning by his cousin-in-law who was a Cuban intelligence officer Guillermo Ruiz. Veciana is best known as the leader of the anti-Castro exile force Alpha 66, where he allegedly collaborated with Ruiz. Right about the time of the failed attempt in 1961, Feeney was reassigned to Norfolk, Virginia.
On August 31st that unit decided to adopt a public posture of ignoring Castro while covertly attacking civilian targets inside Cuba directed toward the destruction of targets important to the Cuban economy. Refineries and plants using US equipment were mentioned specifically. In 1961, the 117th Reconnaissance Wing of the Alabama Air Guard and under the 9th Tactical Air Force was used to being on temporary civilian clothes assignments working for CIA bosses. Among these CIA contract pilots were Barry Seal and James Harrison. Seal in fly cocaine into Mena, AR as part of CIA drug trafficking in support of the Contra in the 1980s.
http://www.utdallas.edu/library/specialcollections/hac/cataam/Leeker/history/BayOfPigs.pdf
Under orders from the Chicago mob boss, Richard Cain opened an office where he recruited Cuban insurgents and soldiers of fortune to go down to South Florida to train as guerrilla warriors. In September 1961 Cain got a job infiltrating local communist organizations in and around Panama City, FL. According to CIA records, Cain was an informant for the CIA from 1960 until 1964. Cain was a FBI informant through at least 1964 informing on the anti-Castro Cuban exile group, the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), but the FBI did not trust him due to this close association with the North American mafia.
While Richard Cain was a child, his mother was friendly with mafia boss, Sam Giancana. Cain became a member of the Chicago mob, according to his half-brother, Michael J. Cain.
(Sources: Ultimate Sacrifice by Lamar Waldron, Thom Hartmann and Crossfire, The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. and The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain, Michael J. Cain, p. 118)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroselli.htm
http://ultimatesacrificethebook.com/outline
President Kennedy on November 30, 1961 issued orders creating a new Cuba-oriented unit of the 5412 Group, the Special Group (Augmented), as well as the command operation itself. This became the basic directive for Operation Mongoose. The order also specified that Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale, USAF would lead the project from his post at the Pentagon as chief of operations and was tasked with mission planning. Bobby Kennedy became the chair of the Special Group (Augmented) and he emphasized that President Kennedy wanted higher priority given to Cuba. The SG (A) further set up a Caribbean Survey Group composed of the action officers of each of the participating agencies, to specify the roles each agency would play in the operation as it unfolded.
Here is a list of the members of the Special Group Augmented:
Attorney General Robert Kennedy and General Maxwell Taylor (co-Chairmen)
National Security Adviser: McGeorge Bundy
CIA Director: John McCone
CIA officer George McManus (note taker and special assistant to Helms)
Henry Kissinger approved psychological warfare program directed at Brazil
State Department: Alexis Johnson
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs: Livingston T. Merchant
Undersecretary of Defense: Roswell Gilpatric (1961 to 1964)
Deputy Secretary of Defense: James Douglas
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer (Sept.1960 till about Oct. 1962) demoted to US Commander of NATO after the Cuban Missile Crisis
Under Secretary of State: CIA officer Ray S. Cline Cline had been Chief of the CIA’s intelligence analysis desk charged with monitoring the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China from 1953 to 1957. He correctly predicted the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s. The Sino–Soviet split transformed the geopolitics of the bi-polar cold war into a tri-polar cold war.
On December 19, 1961, Rorke and Sturgis (aka Frank Fiorini) were involved in a CIA operation that included dropping over 250,000 anti-Castro leaflets on Cuba. Rorke and Geoffrey Sullivan made several flights over Cuba, including a bombing raid on a refinery area near Havana on April 25, 1963. On September 24, 1963, while flying into and over Cuba airspace, Rorke Sullivan and a passenger Enrique Molina Garcia, disappeared and it is unknown if Castro’s military shot down his airplane or not. According to a declassified FBI document, Alexander Irwin Rorke Jr. began working for the CIA in 1960. His case officer was Commander Anderson of the United States Navy who was assigned to the CIA office in New York.
During Second World War Rorke served as a military intelligence specialist in the US Army. He was responsible for the security of five German provinces and participated in the first postwar roundup of Communist agents in the Allied military zones of Germany. Rorke was one of a handful of people heading up Charles Willoughby's Anti-Communist Liaison - Committee of Correspondence along with Rev. Billy James Hargis, and journalist Edward Hunter. For two years during World War Two Hunter worked for the Morale Operations Section of the OSS.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14295
BG Lansdale felt the CIA’s project had been misguided, focused on armed raids rather than actions to implant a popular movement that could overthrow Castro. He wanted the CIA to use its fleet of seven boats on infiltration and exfiltration missions, attempting to build intelligence nets and resistance groups in Cuba. Lansdale saw potential for using the underworld, the Church, women, labor, students and other groups as part of the operation. The Special Group (Augmented) accepted the concept, on January 11, 1962. Lansdale responded on January 18th with a more detailed elaboration of his plan, which, while not going much beyond the creation of an operational staff, did lay out 32 tasks, with deadlines, for assorted agencies to plan for and bring to his staff. Half the tasks were allotted solely or jointly to the CIA. Langley promised to have plans for sabotage, psychological warfare and labor action ready by February 15th.
On January 28, 1962, an anti-Castro Cuban group was arrested in Cuba in their attempt to paralyze urban transportation by destroying motors with chemicals and magnetic mines.
On February 21st Robert F. Kennedy convened the Lansdale staff plus CIA Deputy Director Marshall S. Carter. The president’s brother told the group that the Cuba covert operation had become the highest priority of the United States.
The two big Landing Craft Infantry (ships) that had participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion were renamed, given a new corporate cover, and added to the Mongoose fleet. After the Bay of Pigs invasion, the LCI, Barbara J continue to serving with the Maritime fleet of the CIA from 1962 to 1965 under the following names Villaro, Explorer and Petrel. The CIA’s station in Miami, called JM/WAVE, expanded rapidly. Robert Davis headed the station at first, followed by Albert L. Cox. William K. Harvey led the CIA’s operational task force. An interrogation center at Opa Locka, Florida, at first promised for mid-February, opened a month late. Harvey had doubts on his station chief’s performance. He sent CIA officer Theodore Shackley to Miami and Shackley later replaced Cox as station chief. He had previously worked with Harvey in Berlin.
Harvey continued to keep in contact with Johnny Roselli. According to Richard D. Mahoney, Rosselli flew to New York in April 1962 to meet with Bill Harvey. A week later, the two met again in Miami to discuss the plot in greater detail... On April 21 Harvey flew from Washington DC to deliver four poison pills to Rosselli, who then gave them to anti-Caster leader Tony Varona to take to Havana. That same evening, Harvey and Ted Shackley, drove a rented truck filled with arms to a deserted parking lot in Miami. They got out and handed the keys to Rosselli. Shackly was the Chief of Station in Miami, FL.
In March 1962, Brigadier General Ed Lansdale suggests killing Castro while he visits Ernest Hemmingway's Cuban home in meeting with President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. In the 1960's, CIA counter-espionage chief, James Angleton held the authority over CIA assassinations. Assassinations were formally run by US Army Colonel Boris Pash in the 1950s. The CIA's Western Hemisphere Division's Director of Operations, David A. Phillips, helped guide the plans to assassinate Castro. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 138)
http://jfklancer.com/cuba/lansdaledocs/index.html
In an early 1962 memo, William Harvey states that “Lt. Jack Modesett and Commander Hal Feeney of Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) at Guantanamo have in the past loaned considerable assistance to counter-revolutionary groups operating on the base and in the general area surrounding the base”, and that Balbuena needed a new method of receiving tommy guns and sniper rifles now that he couldn’t simply obtain them from Guantanamo.
In 1962, Team Cobra was Feeney's new plan to take over Cuba set up by the brand-new Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). One aspect of Cobra was air raids from Guatemala aimed at strategic Cuban targets. On March 12, 1962, Team AM/Cobra, Mariano Pinto Rodríguez and Luis Puig Tabares, infiltrated a Cuban province in the north. The CIA used Belgian diplomatic pouches to smuggle spy gear into Cuba for the Cobra operatives. This became the most successful Mongoose infiltration, creating a network of almost 100 agents, operating through the second half of 1963.
In June 4, 1962, the commando team AM/Torrid led by Joaquín Escandón Ranedo, the team was Pedro A. Cameron Pérez, Luis Nodarse, Radamés Iribar Martinéz and Rafael Bonno Ortíz. landed on a beach to southern Cuba. Escandón exfiltrated on June 12 back to Miami, FL, (JM/WAVE). In August they were recalled back to JM/WAVE. In November two agents return back to this area in Cuba. But the sense remained that the ground had not been prepared for the rapid-fire operation Lansdale envisioned. The CIA operations had planted four supply caches in Cuba and completed a single 1,500-pound supply mission. CIA had plans for sabotage but any carried out so far had been sparked by the Cuban exiles directly, not the agency. These teams and William Harvey’s planning staff made up what was called Task Force Wand he was still in charge of ZR/RIFLE, the plot to assassinate Castro and/or his revolution leaders.
According to James Bamford's book Body of Secrets "The (war) plans (codenamed Northwoods) had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962.
Northwood was a false flag operation plan involving doing terrorist attackes against American civilians and military targets and blaming them on the Cuban government The possibilities detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a US ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in US cities to win political support for a war against Cuba. It was rejected by President President Kennedy. http://jfklancer.com/cuba/links/howell_northwoods.pdf
In late March 1962, the State Department brought an array of leaders of Cuban exile political groups to the White House, where they met with national security adviser McGeorge Bundy. They became unhappy with the lack of action to remove Castro. Starting in 1962 more Cuban exile groups, including additional splinter factions, began taking the field independently regardless of CIA instructions, for example, Alpha 66.
In April 1962, Deputy Director of Clanestine operations, Richard Helms issues what he termed "explicit orders" that CIA officer William Harvey to contact Rosselli. Harvey complained to DCI John McCone about the requirement for advance Special Group Augmented (SGA) approval of "major operations going beyond the collection of intelligence." Harvey was delighted when he received orders from Helms to revive the Rosselli project without seeking SG-A approval. When questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975, Helms conceded that he had not been instructed to do it, but then again he had not been told not to. (Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK, by Hinckle and Turner, p. 137-138)
In April 1962, William Harvey passes poison pills to Rosselli in Miami for the second attempt to kill Fidel Castro. Rosselli passes them to Tony Varona, reporting back that the hit squad had targeted not only Fidel but also Raul and Che Cuevara. Harvey, along with Ted Shackley, obtain $5,000 worth of explosives, detonators, rifles, handguns, radios, and boat radar in Miami that were delivered to Tony Varona.
Rosselli was now working directly with the Cuban exile community and directly on behalf of the CIA in response to their offer of several hundred thousand dollars for the hit. David Sanchez Morales, Chief of Operations in Miami, was Rosselli 's case officer. (All American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli Story by Rappleye and Becker (1995) pp. 224-225)
April 15, 1962: Now was the above plotting the cause for Castro’s regime placing dynamite under the cells in prisons, allegedly as a warning to any prisoner who might try to help Bay of Pigs combatants. Word spreads, so that no Cuban citizen with a family member in prison will aid the American invasion. This may be an example of just how good that Castro had infiltrated Operation Mongoose.
On about August 10th, at Langley William Harvey prepared a new operational called Plan B+, also known as Stepped-Up Course B. The revised plan anticipated increasing CIA personnel involved to over 600, conducting training at several Army-run sites, five submarine missions a month, increasing to ten in 1963, and a robust infiltration schedule with sabotage missions included. William Harvey had 60 Cuban contract agents working inside Cuba (aka agents-in-place). The most violent Cuban exile group was Alpha 66. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, pp. 142-144 and 213)
The CIA’s Mexico City station was always looking for Cubans who were willing to defect in place. The CIA’s Cuban operations were known as LI/TAMIL. The LITAMIL network was spread out throughout Mexico and Central America, with at least two informants inside the Cuban embassy in Mexico City during 1963. This network was created by a Mexico City station officer during the 1959-1960 period. The most important informant of all was LI/TAMIL-9, better known as Luis Alberu, a cultural attaché at the Cuban embassy. William Harvey was confident that Alberu was sufficiently anti-Communist. In 1962, Alberu was developed as an agent by Harvey’s people at Task Force W.
The Cuban Missile Crisis -- October 14, 1962 to October 28, 1962
The Soviet military had secretly deployed to Cuba, not just missiles but also aircraft and thousands of troops. In late spring of 1962 when CIA analysts noted that the Soviets were sending an increased amount of military assistance to Cuba. Historians would learn the Soviet troops numbered more than 40,000. One CIA mission nonetheless took place during the Missile Crisis, an attack at the copper mine in Cuba. A later investigation established that a series of missed signals plus the climate of pushing for results had allowed this raid to go forward even as the Missile Crisis unfolded. The commando team was not recovered.
Chief of Station Shackley warned headquarters his Cuban contract commandos were primed to go. “If they did not receive definitive orders in the next days there could be an explosion in Miami.” Three of Shackley’s infiltration teams had already left, when Robert Kennedy ordered Task Force W to stand down (meaning to cancel any planned sabotage operations). Theodor “Ted” Shackley Jr. in the spring of 1961 became the Chief of Station of this Miami base (code name JM/WAVE) until 1965. His was job to help Harvey to provide intelligence and manpower to military planners. When GHW Bush was CIA director in 1976, he appointed Shackley as Associate Deputy Director for Operations (the CIA's clandestine operations directorate). This is likely evidence that Bush Sr. had worked as a CIA officer or contract agent and had worked with Ted Shackley. Shackley will later show up in Bush Sr.'s 1979-1980 presidential campaign. http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm
Kennedy, who had previously told the secret warriors that his promise to the Russians, in resolving the Missile Crisis, never to invade Cuba, did not mean there could not be covert operations, now implied to Moscow that CIA activity would be restrained.
CIA Director McCone de-activated Task Force W and reassigned William Harvey who was sent to Rome as chief of station. Harvey continued to run ZR/RIFLE. Harvey discontinued leading Staff D, which had the mission of breaking into foreign embassies in the middle of the night, cracking safes and stealing codes and ciphers so that the National Security Agency could decipher encrypted communications. Shackley said that Harvey never recovered from being fired. Harvey’s prodigious drinking of five martinis at lunchtime began to surface as a serious and visible problem. Director McCone moved Desmond FitzGerald, from heading the Far East Division to become chief of the Special Affairs Staff (aka continuing operation Mongoose under a new name).
The mission to overthrow the Castro government, or Special Group (Augmented) was renamed “the Special Affairs Staff.” Kennedy reassigned the Cuba mission to an NSC “Standing Group,” also sometimes called the “ExCom”, and it was chaired by national security adviser McGeorge Bundy. Kennedy met with CIA officers to review the Cuba operation and approve the next batch of targets.
During the Cuban missile crisis, Lieutenant Commander Hal Feeney, USN, was appointed head of the Cuba branch of the DIA. By the summer of 1963, Feeney and the DIA were working within Unconventional Warfare Program Alfa, designed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan sabotage attacks on Cuba. Feeney also served as an advisor to the executive committee of the NSC.
General Taylor was JFK’s primary military adviser from mid 1961 until 1964 and that cut out the Joint Chiefs Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff as if October 1, 1962. Taylor pointed out two reasons for the invasion’s failure. One the warriors had to cross eight miles of open terrain to get to the Escambray Mountains where the terrain was better for guerrilla fighting and the vast majority of the Cubans were not trained in guerrilla warfare. (Source: High Treason: The Assassination of JFK & the Case for Conspiracy, by Carroll & Graf, p. 269)
Shortly after the conclusion of the investigation, Kennedy recalled General Taylor to active duty and installed him to the newly created post of Military Representative. As Army Chief of Staff, Taylor had been an outspoken critic of the Eisenhower Administration's "New Look" defense policy, which he viewed dangerously over-reliant on nuclear arms and neglectful of conventional forces. General Taylor had a 's close personal relationship with Kennedy and access to the White House, effectively cut the Joint Chiefs of Staff out the loop with regard to major national security policy decisions. On October 1, 1962, Kennedy appointing Taylor Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
An Alpha-66/Second Front of the Escambray joint mission launched a more controversial raid in March 1963. On the 17th their craft attacked the Soviet freighter Lgov in Cuban waters. On the 26th an Alpha-66 splinter group, Lambda-66, attacked the Soviet ship Baku by boat in the Cuban port of Caibarién. In both cases the exiles had spokesmen ready to claim credit—and to assert US laws were no impediment. In the Caibarién attack the raiders brought a Life magazine photographer with them. The Soviet Union filed diplomatic protests in both cases, including noting that the United States had laws prohibiting the very things the Cubans were doing. British authorities apprehended one of the Cuban exile craft and captured some of the participants who were camping on the Bahamian island of Anguilla, where they had accessed a CIA arms cache. Anguilla was British territory.
The Alfa Special Task Force (STF) had responsibility for all unconventional warfare matters related to Cuba, and would include "CIA elements". This is a clear reference to a special paramilitary unit, David Morales' Comando group (CM). CM was a small, elite anti-Castro force financed by the CIA. The STF and the CM had the same targets - ports, highways, rail, petroleum. Cyrus Vance at the State Department asked the Joint Chiefs if there could be prearranged support for CIA officers if there was hot pursuit. Fletcher Prouty of the Special Operations Division responded that there should be a case-by-case decision for each operation to ensure that the services were able to plausibly deny involvement in case of capture. Prouty then ticked off the previous CM missions, as well as one that was coming up. CM worked with Feeney and the Alfa Special Task Force. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter3.html
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter4.html
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146592
CIA contract pilot William “Tosh” R. Plumlee joined Task Force W Section, working out of the CIA Station in Miami (codenamed JM//WAVE). In 1962 he worked as both a pilot and contract agent undercover CIA CAG (Covert Action Group). He was also a member of the Operation 40.
Tosh Plumlee did not fully know the correct code name JM/WAVE, as he called it “Jim Wave.” His misuse of codename indicates that Plumlee was working on the edge of knowledge as to what CIA was totally up to. By the spring of 1962, Miami CIA’s station employed more than 200 CIA officers. They in turn ran over 2,200 anti-Castro Cuban paid and volunteer agents or direct action soldiers and had over 100 boats. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKjmwave.htm
Later Plumlee, taking orders from the Pentagon and worked through the National Security Council staff, he flew CIA aircraft in Laos, Thailand, and later South Vietnam for Air America, and till 1987 he flew arms to Central America and drugs on the return trips.
Plumbee stated Roselli was one of the people he got tasked to fly places. Plumbee said he flew an airplane with Roselli on board, perhaps more than six or seven different occasions. Plumbee said that these mafia people had tremendous contacts with US military intelligence and Roselli was refereed to as the "Colonel." In 1962 Plumbee came back to the Dallas area and he learned about two CIA safe- house there that was run by Dallas Cubans. These were used to ex-filtrating anti-Castro Cubans connected with Alpha 66, out of the Miami area. One of these safe-houses was directly behind where Lee Oswald had rented a room, in the alley. Plumbee states that he saw Lee Oswald there briefly but did not talk to him. (Sources: Drugging America – the Trojan Horse by Rodney Stich) http://www.pbsblog.com/pdf/EDrugging_America_part.pdf
In life in Castro’s Cuba after the revolution included, arbitrary arrests; sentencing by court martial with neither public audience nor defense; periods in hard labor camps without sufficient food, clothes and medical care; and the arrests of children over nine years old. Prisoners in hard labor camps included beatings, biological experiments in diet restrictions, violent interrogations and extremely unsanitary conditions. (Source: Tribunal on Cuba was held in 1986 in Paris sponsored by a group called Resistance International and the Coalition of Committees for the Rights of Man in Cuba)
According to Amnesty International 21 political executions were carried out on behalf of the Castro’s government since the revolution (1959 until 1987) out of 237 death sentences. Some Cuban scholars maintain that had the government not applied severe legislation against the torturers, terrorists, and other criminals employed by the Batista regime, the people themselves would have taken justice into their own hands. Latin American historian Thomas E. Skidmore says there had been 550 executions in the first six months of 1959. British historian Hugh Thomas, in his study Cuba or the pursuit of freedom stated that "perhaps" 5,000 executions had taken place by 1970, while The World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators ascertained that there had been 2,113 political executions between the years of 1958 to 1967. Professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, Rudolph J. Rummel estimated the number of political executions at between 4,000 and 33,000 from 1958 until 1987, with a mid range of 15,000.
According to the US government, some 1,200,000 Cubans (about 10% of the current population) left the island for the United States between 1959 and 1993.
On December 19.1963 the secret warriors had their first meeting with President Lyndon Johnson on Cuba operations. LBJ opined that sabotage missions with less than a 50 percent chance of success should be cancelled. From May 1964 on, Johnson progressively cut back the Cuba enterprise.
Details of the Cuban missile crisis
In about August 1961 the US deployed 32 cruise missiles on Okinawa. The 2,000-km range missiles were armed with 1.1 megaton nuclear warheads—some 70 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb.
On June 6, 1961 enormous wooden crates arrived at an air base on the western part of Cuba, along with more than 100 Soviet troops. Inside the crates were MiG-15s and MIG-19 Soviet fighter jets, the first weapons in a buildup in Cuba that included Soviet fighters, bombers, radar, anti-aircraft batteries. http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/cuba-during-the-missile-crisis-31990119/#ixzz36XXutej5
The successful defusing of the Cuban Missile Crisis had a profound effect on both Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. The two men had been to the brink of nuclear war together and were determined never to come that close to the brink again. The secret letters between each other laid the groundwork for the trust both leaders needed during this crisis. Negotiation began for a treaty to terminate the testing of nuclear weapons both sides had been testing with increasing regularity.
In July 1962, CIA analysts noted increases in arms being shipped to Cuba, along with the arrival of a large number of civilian young men arriving from the Soviet Union, but they all seemed to have a military bearing and wore only two kinds of sport shirts. These analysts became convinced that an unprecedented military buildup was occurring in Cuba. From photographs of cargo crates on the decks of Soviet ships they deduced the crates contained transport airplanes and jet fighters. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, pp. 262- 263)
CIA Director John A. McCone was a key player in the Executive Committee of the National Security Council during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate given to President Kennedy on September 19th concluded it unlikely that nuclear missiles would be placed on the island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._McCone
A month before the Cuban Missile crisis, Soviet leaders put their strategic forces on their “highest readiness stage since the beginning of the Cold War,” This action was possibly responding to Kennedy’s call up for the military reserves, perhaps worried that the White House had discovered Moscow’s plans to deploy missiles on Cuba, the Kremlin kept forces on alert for 10 days, beginning on September 11, 1962. (Source: History of the National Security Agency).
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Now for some details that make me question whether or not the Joint Chief of Staff knew way ahead of time about the ICBMs with nuclear warheads long before Kennedy was told about the Soviet weapons flooding into Cuba.
January 19, 1962: A meeting of the Special Group Augmentation (SGA) is held in Robert Kennedy's office. Notes taken by CIA officer George McManus contain the following passages: "Conclusion Overthrow of Castro is Possible...a solution to the Cuban problem today carried top priority in US Gov. No time, money, effort--or manpower is to be spared. Yesterday...the president indicated to (Robert Kennedy) that the final chapter had not been written--it's got to be done and will be done." McManus attributes the phrase "top priority in the US government--no time, money...to be spared" to Attorney General Kennedy. (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 141)
On February 3, 1962, Kennedy emposed a US embargo on trade with Cuba.
In April 1962 the US deployed Jupiter missiles and personnel in Turkey became operational. The missiles are armed with 1.45 megaton warheads, 97 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Fatality projections for each missile aim at one million civilians. (History of the Jupiter Missile System, 7/27/62)
Late April 1962: While vacationing in the Crimea, across the Black sea from Turkey, Khrushchev reflects on the Turkish missiles and reportedly conceives the idea of deploying similar weapons in Cuba. Soviet sources have identified three reasons that might have led Khrushchev to pursue the idea seriously. The deployment of missiles in Cuba would:
(1) increase Soviet nuclear striking power, which lagged far behind that of the United States (perhaps most important);
(2) deter the United States from invading Cuba; and
(3) psychologically ending the double standard due to US missiles on the Soviet perimeter but denied the Soviets a reciprocal right.
Upon returning to Moscow, Khrushchev discusses the idea with First Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan. Although Mikoyan is opposed, Khrushchev asks a group of his closest advisers, including Frol Kozlov, Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) Sergei Biryuzov, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and Marshal Malinovsky to evaluate the idea. The group proposes that a mission be sent to Cuba to see if Fidel Castro would agree to the proposed deployment and to determine whether the deployment could be undertaken without being detected by the United States. (Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Revised to include New Revelations ...by Raymond Garthoff, p. 13)
May 1962: Following further discussions in May and June, Khrushchev authorizes Soviet military officials to decide independently on the exact composition of nuclear forces to be deployed in Cuba. The military proposes a force of twenty-four medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) launchers and sixteen intermediate-range (IRBM) launchers; each of the launchers would be equipped with two missiles (one serving as a spare) and a nuclear warhead. Soviet officials also decide that a large contingent of Soviet combat forces should be sent to Cuba. The proposed Soviet contingent includes four elite combat regiments, twenty-four advanced SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries, forty-two MiG-21 interceptors, forty-two IL-28 bombers, twelve Komar-class missile boats, and coastal defense cruise missiles. (Ibid., pp. 12-18)
May 8, 1962: A multi-service military exercise designed to test contingency planning for Cuba begins. The operation, codenamed WHIP LASH, concludes on May 18. Another US military exercise in the Caribbean known as JUPITER SPRINGS is planned for sometime in the spring or summer. Soviet and Cuban sources have suggested that the series of US military exercises conducted in the region throughout the year are perceived as additional evidence of US intentions to invade Cuba. (Operation Mongoose, 4-10 May, 5/10/62; and Ibid., p. 31)
On May 12, 1962, an anti-Castro Cuban, Alpha 66 team attacked a Cuban patrol boat, killing three and wounding five Cubans. On June 7, two anti-Castro Cuban guerrillas are killed by the police in southern most area of Cuba. On July 25, 1962, BG Edward Lansdale had infiltrated eleven CIA, anti-Castro Cuban, guerrilla teams into Cuba, including one team in the northeast corner of Cuba that has grown to as many as 250 men.
According to the Chief of Castro’s foreign intelligence and security service (DGI), Fabian Escalante, in 1962 Eladio Del Valle tried to infiltrate Cuba with a commando group of 22 men but their boat had landed on English Key - a little island, not mainland Cuba. Castro’s forces knew this because one of their spies had helped to bring this group to Cuba. (Source: JFK: The Cuba Files by Fabian Escalante (2006).
May 30, 1962: After conferring with Raul Castro, Che Guevara, Osvaldo Dorticos and Blas Roca, Fidel Castro informs the visiting Soviet officials that Cuba will accept the deployment of nuclear weapons. (Garthoff, p. 66; Allyn, p. 141)
By July 1962 CIA analysts noticed further increases in the arms being shipped to Cuba, along with the arrival of a large number of young men from the Soviet Union-who Moscow claimed were technical advisors to assist in economic development programs. The CIA doubted this, for, among other reasons, all the civilians were young, seemed to have a military bearing, and wore only two kinds of sport shirt.
A small group of CIA analysts, expert in deciphering the ways Moscow and its allies conducted their foreign aid programs, became convinced that an unprecedented military build-up was occurring in Cuba. The Aerial reconnaissance of Soviet cargo ships begin moving out of the Black Sea on July 15, 1962 show them riding high in the water. Vessels carried unusually light cargo, typically a sign that military equipment is being transported. CIA analysts were able to determining the contents of the large crates carried on the decks of the Soviet ships delivering arms. With a high degree of accuracy by looking at photographs of these boxes, factor in information about the ship's embarkation point and Soviet military production schedules, and figured out the crates most likely contained transport aircraft or jet fighters. The CIA also discovered the hiding places of the 22, IL-28 bombers. (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p. 1)
The Soviets hid the missiles the big crates containing the missiles by carrying them below deck, as opposed to their usual practice of putting bulky military equipment on deck where US Navy planes could photograph them.
July 15th: Around this time, Soviet cargo ships begin moving out of the Black Sea for Cuba with false declarations of their destinations and reporting tonnages well below their capacities. Aerial reconnaissance of the ships in the following months showing them "riding high in the water" would confirm that the vessels carried unusually light cargo, typically a sign that military equipment is being transported. (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p. 1)
July 25th: BG Edward Lansdale provides the Special Group Augmentation (SGA) an assessment of Phase One of Operation Mongoose. Some successes are reported, such as the infiltration of eleven CIA guerrilla teams into Cuba, including one team in Pinar del Río Province that has grown to as many as 250 men. Nonetheless, Lansdale warns that "time is running out for the US to make a free choice on Cuba." (Document 7, Review of Operation Mongoose, by Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, 7/25/62)
In the summer of 1962, Johnny Roselli goes on two missions attempting to reach Cuba. Both fail, with the second resulting in his boat sinking. In September 1962, Roselli informs CIA officer William Harvey the poison pills were still with an "asset" in Cuba and that Tony Verona was ready to send in another team but it didn’t seem that they actually go. http://www.jfklancer.com/cuba/castroplots.html
August 10th: After examining CIA reports on the movement of cargo ships from the Black and Baltic seas to Cuba, CIA Director John McCone dictates a memorandum for President Kennedy expressing the belief that Soviet MRBMs are destined for Cuba. McCone's memorandum is sent over the objections of subordinates concerned that McCone has no hard evidence to back up his suspicions. (Chronology of John McCone 's Suspicions on the Military Build-up in Cuba Prior to Kennedy's October 22 Speech, 11/30/62; Recollection of Intelligence Prior to the Discovery of Soviet Missiles and of Penkovsky Affair, n.d.)
August 20th: General Maxwell Taylor reports that the SGA recommends a more aggressive Operation Mongoose. Kennedy authorizes the development of aggressive "Plan B Plus" aimed at ousting Castro, but specifies that no overt employing US military should be made part of those plans (Sources: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 147 and Document 12, National Security Action Memorandum 181, on Actions and Studies in Response to New Soviet Bloc Activity in Cuba)
On August 22, 1962, the S.S. Streathen Hill, a British freighter heading to the Soviet Union with Cuban sugar, is forced to dock in Puerto Rico because of a damaged propeller. With repairs to the ship underway, 14,000 bags of sugar are offloaded to speed up the process. CIA contact agents enter the warehouse where the sugar is stored, and lace the bags in an unknown chemical. When President Kennedy learns this, he horrified and orders the sugar to be destroyed.
https://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/subject/missile-crisis/ch02.htm
In August 1962, thirteen fighters arriving at the Santa Clara air base in central Cuba, to be assembled by Soviet engineers. MIG-21s could/can carry nuclear bombs and in Cuba there was a total of 35 of the 39 shipped-in-crates MIG-21s assembled. When 44 aircraft were ready to fly, it became clear something of great significance was up. Weeks before the missiles arrived that September, Soviet troops threw up cinder-block walls around parts of Cuba’s main harbor, Mariel, to shield it from view. Residents within a mile of the port were suddenly ordered to evacuate their homes. After that, all Cubans—even members of the Cuban military—were barred from Mariel, where the first missiles would come ashore. (Source: Inside Castro’s Bunker by former Cuban Brigadier General Rafael Del Pino during the Cuban Nuclear Missile Crisis Rafael del Pino was Air Force assistant to Fidel Castro in the Cuban Central Command Post http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/cuba-during-the-missile-crisis-31990119/#ixzz36XYg4iPD
August 23rd: August 23, 1962, President Kennedy calls a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to air John McCone's concerns that Soviet missiles were in the process of being introduced into Cuba. Although Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara argue against McCone's interpretation of the military build-up in Cuba, Kennedy concludes the meeting by saying that a contingency plan to deal with a situation in which Soviet nuclear missiles are deployed in Cuba should be drawn up. And Kennedy's instructions are formalized in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 181, issued this same day. Kennedy directs that several additional actions and studies to be undertaken "in light of the evidence of new bloc activity in Cuba," and assigning studies on Berlin, Cuba, and Mongoose problems stating: "What actions can be taken to get Jupiter missiles out of Turkey?"
Reports of the arrival of large numbers of Soviet technicians and military personnel, the construction of larger launch complexes, and the extension of airstrips to accommodate high-performance aircraft together with information on vehicle and rail convoys gathered from Cuban informants, strongly indicated the preparation of missile sites of other than the surface-to-air variety which had been under surveillance for some time.
The CIA was using satellite surveillance photos which helped locate Cuban missile site that were similar to the missiles sites in the Soviet Union, allowing analyst to guess the type of long range missiles in Cuba. The US news media reported these photos had been taken from U2 planes, so this date may be the first time such satellite photos were made public. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, byVictor Marchetti, p. 264)
https://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/subject/missile-crisis/ch02.htm
The CIA was gaining information about arms flowing into Cuba from debriefing refugees arriving in Miami. They reported that for days, mysterious trucks rumbled through the Cuban streets, highways, and countryside. Enormous 18-wheelers moved in convoys that stretched for hundreds of yards, cutting off traffic. The convoys would sometimes pause while power lines and mailboxes along the route were removed to make room for their passage. Occasionally, a home, encroaching on the narrow road, was torn down. As the trucks passed through the various towns, they left a trail of downed telephone poles and crushed huts.
In August 1962 a Soviet FROG (Free Rocket Over Ground) missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead was observed in Cuba (range 75 to 100 miles) and on September 12, 1963 a US spy in Cuba spotted an SS-4.
In August 1962, 65,000 military personnel took part in exercise Swift Strike II that covered about 5,500 square miles in North and South Carolina. This was a deception plan also to move troops from bases all over the US to the Southeastern United State.
August 29th: U-2 reconnaissance photograph taken on reveals the construction of a surface-to-air (SAM) missile site at La Coloma, Cuba.
September 1-5th: Construction secretly began on SS-5 IRBM sites in Guanajay, Cuba (about 25 miles west of Havana. SS-5s had a range of range of about 2,200 miles.
September 7th: The US Tactical Air Command establishes a working group to begin developing plans for a coordinated air attack against Cuba to be launched well before an airborne assault and amphibious landing. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) military planners have, until then, made no provision for such an operation. (The Air Force Response to the Cuban Crisis 14 October - November 1962, 1/63)
September 15-20th: Construction began at San Cristobal on the SS-4 MRBM sites and also began at the Remedios IRBM site. SS-4s had a range of about 1,100 miles. The city of Remedios, Cuba is about 150 miles southeast of Havana.
September 15th: A report from a CIA agent in Cuba reported that as of September 7, a large restricted military zone had been establish in Pinar del Rio Province (the western end of north Cuba). This information in secret writing in a letter mailed from Cuba via international mail to an accommodation address in a foreign city.
September 11th: NSA detected Soviet military forces throughout the USSR being placed on a higher readiness status, including elements of the Soviet strategic nuclear strike forces. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/
September 19th: The United States Intelligence Board (USIB) approves a Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) report for the President stating that some intelligence indicates the ongoing deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba. In particular, the report notes: (1) two large-hatch Soviet lumber ships, the Omsk and the Poltava, had been sighted "riding high in the water" suggesting that they carried military cargo; (2) intelligence accounts of sightings of missiles and a report that Fidel Castro 's private pilot, after a night of drinking in Havana, had boasted, "We will fight to the death and perhaps we can win because we have everything, including atomic weapons"; and (3) evidence of the ongoing construction of elaborate SA-2 air defense systems.
If a CIA spy, could it be possible a Department of Defense spy have learned in May 1962 that Castro and his regime had agreed to allow the USSR to deploy ICBMs.
During the month of September, a buildup of Soviet offensive military posture in Cuba was evident through the analysis of intelligence reports and the increase in sea transport from Soviet Bloc ports. From January through July, an average of 14 Soviet dry-cargo ships per month had called at Cuban ports. In August, this figure more than doubled; in September it was 46. Soviet tankers were docking at a rate of 10 per month. In addition to ships of USSR registry, 29 Soviet satellite dry-cargo transports and four tankers entered Cuban ports during the first nine months of 1962. Including those Bloc vessels discharging Cuban cargo in October, the total number of Russian and Soviet Bloc ships was 379 -- 85 more than the total 1961 figure, even with 2 months until the end of the year. Significantly, the traffic during August, September, and October accounted mainly for the difference in the two annual figures. On October 23, there were 23 Soviet and satellite ships en route to Cuba, 16 of them dry-cargo. In addition, six others were believed to include Cuba on their itineraries.
September 27th: An intelligence report from a refugee debriefing was disseminated. The refugee saw 20 trucks with long trailers driven by Soviets during the night of September 12, 1962, in the Mariano district of Havana. The source described the fins of the object and even drew a picture of the missile silhouette and tail fin silhouette. Using photographs, re refugee identified the object as a Soviet SS-4, MRBM missile.
September 30th: construction began at the Sagua La Grande MRBM sites (some 100 miles southeast of Havana)
There were no flights over the interior of Cuba from September 5 until October 14—a total of 39 days.
October 1st: An intelligence report was distributed stating that a Cuban refugees who had arrived in the US, reported seeing on September 17th, a convoy of Soviet flat-bed trailers carrying large tubes extending over the end of the trailers, headed toward Pinar del Rio province.
October 3rd: It was absolutely essential that these preparations be carried out with strict secrecy. In many cases, instructions and queries went out for the eyes only of those cognizant commanders at the highest echelon of command. In almost all cases, messages and memorandums were classified Top Secret, Exclusive. Great care had to be taken to prevent disclosure of the scope of preparations and to avoid the impression that the United States was building to a point of military readiness for Cuban operations.
October 5th: CIA chart of Reconnaissance Objectives in Cuba layed out "unidentified - missiles" at the locations where later the Soviet ICBMs were discovered.
October 8th: The Joint Chiefs sent the Secretary of Defense's Cuban contingency memorandum to the Unified Commanders, requesting their comments and recommendations. CINCLANT responded immediately with the recommendation that his operations plans for the invasion of Cuba and the removal of the Castro regime be implemented. This reaction was in consonance with the JCS consensus. CINCLANT also recommended preparatory actions to begin at once and progressively in the future to improve readiness to execute these plans.
To mask widespread preparations for the actions proposed, CINCLANT suggested announcement that forces were preparing for an exercise entitled "Quick Kick." Therefore, the Phibriglex 62 US Marines amphibious brigade assault landing exercise was scheduled for the period October 15-20. This exercise previously was set for November in the yearly exercise schedule allowed the US Navy to prepositioning its forces.
On the 8th, CINCLANT suggested that supplies be prepositioned on Mayaguana Island (just east of Cuba) in accordance with a previously arranged agreement with the British.
US Senator Kenneth Keating (R-NY) speaking in the Senate said there were dangerous Soviet missiles in Cuba. Keating I guess was not charged with disclosing this top secret information, nor was the source of this leak investigated. What is interesting about this was that it most likely politically motivated was done to hurt the Democratic Party in the up and coming mid-term elections in November 1962 and to pressure Kennedy into going along with the Joint Chiefs who were crying for an invasion of Cuba.
The CINCLANT history of the missile crisis notes that "as early as about October 10th the National Military Command Center began inquiring informally of CINCLANT as to the nature and scope of PHIBRIGLEX-62. Without ever relating the exercise to the Cuban situation, there were indications of high-level interest in it." (CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis--1963, pages 2-3)
Atlantic Fleet forces already were at a high peak of readiness because of a heavy schedule of training operations which were underway. Amphibious Training Landing Exercise (PHIBTRALEX) 3-62 onto Vieques Island, just south of Puerto Rico, scheduled for August 27 through November 2nd, was in progress and involved Amphibious Squadron 8 with the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Marines embarked.
UNITAS III, the third annual anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise with several South American countries, was underway, having begun August 17. It was to end December 10th.
Operation SWEEP CLEAR II, a Joint Canadian - US mine sweeping exercise, was underway off Nova Scotia.
According to FBI Director Hoover, Army Intelligence used Alpha 66 raiders as intelligence sources on Cuba. The CIA also had shadowy associations with Antonio Veciana Blanch and Alpha 66. Veciana was involved in an attempt to kill Castro in 1961. US Army Intelligence, Lt. Col. Grover C. King, wrote in an October 22, 1962 message, “There is a working agreement between Alpha 66 and CIA.” King pointed out that Alpha 66 used CIA explosives in its hit-and-run sabotage operation in Isabela de Sagua in October 10, 1962 (just prior to the Cuban missile crisis) killing 20 people, including several Russian citizens. He wrote, “Prior to the raid on La Isabela an Alpha 66 member stole approximately $600.00 worth of explosives from the CIA. Explosives were used in La Isabela raid.” On October 15, 1962, Alpha 66 sunk a Cuban Navy patrol boat. (Source: The Kennedy Brothers: The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby by Richard D. Mahoney)
On October 14th A U2 spy plane that flew at 70,000 feet above sea level, brought back photos. The U-2 flight over the western section of northern Cuba brought back photographs of six sites where Soviet medium-range ballistic missile (SS-4 MRBMs with a maximum range of 1,100 miles) and four SS-5 intermediate range missiles (2,200 miles) sites were being built. The MRBMs were located within the large area off limits to Cubans in the Pinar del Rio Province. This area was reported to the CIA on September 15th, and therefore, the U-2s did not have to search the whole island of Cuba. The agent who warned the CIA about this “restricted military zone” was never adequately credited for helping find the missiles.
The CIA was able to figure out that these were ballistic missile sites because of satellite surveillance photos taken of similarly configured missiles sites inside the Soviet Union. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, p. 264)
There were 42,000 Soviet military forces in Cuba, not the 10,000 reported by the CIA to repel any US invasion according to Khrushchev’s son.
https://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-my-father-and-president-kenedy-saved-world
October 15th: A major amphibious exercise code named PHIBRIGLEX-62 was scheduled for October 15-30. On October 15 more than 40 ships involved in the exercise were underway. The objective of the exercise was to conduct an amphibious assault on Vieques Island. The stated intent of the assault was to overthrow the imaginary tyrant "Ortsac"-- Castro spelled backwards. Approximately 20,000 naval personnel and 4,000 to 7,500 marines were involved.. The exercise was not suspended until October 20th.
I also have another source that said this exercise was scheduled to start on August 27th and end on November 2nd, about a month and a half earlier.
Addition military experts/generals were added the nine member National Security Council and together this group was called the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). They quickly discussed several possible courses of action, including;
- Do nothing: American vulnerability to Soviet missiles was not new.
- Diplomacy: Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
- Secret approach: Offer Castro the choice of splitting with the Russians or being invaded.
- Invasion: Full force invasion of Cuba and overthrow of Castro.
- Air strike: Use the US Air Force to attack all known missile sites.
- Blockade: Use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba. (1)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the US from conquering Cuba. Kennedy was skeptical and he concluded that attacking Cuba by air would signal the Soviets to presume a clear line to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also believed that US allies would think of the US as trigger-happy who lost Berlin because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban situation. (2)
The nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers, in a group he formally named the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). EXCOMM then discussed the effect on the strategic balance of power, both political and military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the missiles would seriously alter the military balance, but Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara disagreed. He was convinced that the missiles would not affect the strategic balance at all. An extra 40, he reasoned, would make little difference to the overall strategic balance. The U.S. already had approximately 5,000 strategic warheads, while the Soviet Union had only 300. He concluded that the Soviets having 340 would not therefore substantially alter the strategic balance. (3)
- 1. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, by Robert Kennedy (1971). . p. 14.
- The Real History of the Cold War: A New Look at the Past. by Alan Axelrod (2009)
- New world new mind: moving toward conscious evolution by Robert Evan Ornstein, (1989)
October 18th: Kennedy is visited by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who asserts that Soviet aid to Cuba is purely defensive and does not represent a threat to the United States. Kennedy, without revealing what he knows of the existence of the missiles, reads to Gromyko his public warning of September 4 that the "gravest consequences" would follow if significant Soviet offensive weapons were introduced into Cuba.
October 19th: Two SS-5 sites with a total of eight launchers were under construction near Havana. One site would be operational in six weeks, and the other could be operational between becember 15-30. The US had learned how long it took to put together and make the SS-5 operational from an Soviet military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Oleg Penkovsky recruited by MI-6 (Britain’s CIA).
A West German double agent overheard a remark at the East German, Stasi headquarters, paraphrased as "I wonder how things are going in Cuba." This was then passed on to CIA. A large number of Stasi informants used to spy on every East German citizen. These confidential informants (Stasi people) were trolley conductors, janitors, doctors, nurses and teachers. http://www.thequivive.com/europe/glamour-shots-with-syrian-rebels/
On October 19, 1962, at a meeting with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kennedy refused their advice to bomb and/or invade Cuba because of these missiles. From the beginning of his Presidency, Kennedy encountered pressure for a nuclear first strike against the Soviets. The military had a “winning strategy” as a top-secret military priority. At the July 20, 1961 National Security meeting, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee of the Joint Chiefs presented a plan for a first strike. Kennedy asked how long US citizens would have to remain in fall-out shelters. I don’t know if he got an answer to this question.
Kennedy had been briefed by Strategic Air Command that estimated 12 million US casualties if the US did a preempt first strike. Major General Harold K. Johnson, US Army was talking about an estimated 30 million casualties out to a 1968 time frame, and it would be impossible to the US to achieve nuclear superiority. Johnson made a further statement, “Each of the strategies used against the USSR would result in at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR. Our problem is how to catch more of the Soviet missiles before they are launched…” (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, pp. 234- 242)
Cuban officials arrest Miguel A. Orozco Crespo, a leader of a group of CIA contract special forces guerrillas, who had infiltrated Cuba on October 20, 1963. He admitted to at least 25 missions in Cuba throughout the year, Orozco tells Cuban police about CIA operations throughout Cuba, and explains that his CIA case officers in Florida are Rip Robertson and Robert Wall.
On October 22, 1962, Kennedy announced the quarantine of Cuba, setting up a naval blockaded against Soviet ships. A US Navy’s top secrert undersea sound surveillance system (SOSUS) noticed Soviet submarines headed toward Cuba.
Nikita Khrushchev ordered the Soviet ships to stop dead in the water rather than challenge the quarantine. Also the Kremlin put military forces, especially air defense forces, on an “extraordinarily high state of alert.” But “offensive forces avoided assuming the highest readiness stage, as if to insure that Kennedy understood that the USSR would not launch first.”(JFK and the Unspeakable, by James W. Douglass, pp. 20-23)
This undersea sound surveillance system was invented and was built in the Bahamas in 1954. More SOSUS equipment and monitorying sites were built along the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean to New England. SOSUS was being added to the west coast of the US thru the 1980s with a total of 22 SOSUS monitoring sites. It gave the US a tremendous advantage locating Soviet submarines and in helping to make US submainres quiter and about ten years ahead of the Soviets in making their subs silent.
The US Naby spy, Chief Warrant Officer John Walker, disclosed this secret SOSUS intelligence capability to the Soviets in 1966 or 1967, so in the 1970s they kept their subs stayed out of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. By 1978 Soviets were making their subs quieter and by the 1990s they had made their propellers quitter with the help of the Japanese electronics company Toshiba. Walker’s brother Arthur, Jerry Whitworth and John Walker’s son were all convicted of espionage. https://www.rallypoint.com/shared-links/history-s-greatest-spy-technology-documentary
Kennedy phones former Presidents Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower to brief them on the situation. Meetings to coordinate all actions continue. Kennedy formally establishes the Executive Committee of the National Security Council and instructs it to meet daily during the crisis. Kennedy briefs the cabinet and congressional leaders on the situation. Kennedy also informs British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of the situation by telephone
At 7:00 p.m. Kennedy speaks on television, revealing the evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba and calling for their removal. He also announces the establishment of a naval quarantine around the island until the Soviet Union agrees to dismantle the missile sites and to make certain that no additional missiles are shipped to Cuba. Approximately one hour before the speech, Secretary of State Dean Rusk formally notifies Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin of the contents of the President's speech.
On October 22nd a public announcement to naval blockading of Cuba and the demand for the removal of all offensive weapons. The US nuclear readiness level was secretly increased to DEFCON-2 meaning all aircraft by the Joint Chiefs, both on the ground and in-flight, are armed with nuclear weapons. The US has nuclear missiles in Puerto Rico and nuclear capable bombs at the Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba, all ready for use against the Soviet forces headed for or in Cuba.
During this crisis a U-2 was sent over the Soviet Union protected by US jets armed with nuclear air-to-air missiles and on October 22, 1962 the US Air Force does a test launch of an ICBM from California.
The first low-level reconnaissance missions occurred on October 23, (operation Blue Moon) using Navy F-8A, photo-reconnaissance jets.
Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson lays the matter before the U.N. Security Council. The ships of the naval quarantine fleet move into place around Cuba. Soviet submarines threaten the quarantine by moving into the Caribbean area. Soviet freighters bound for Cuba with military supplies stop dead in the water, but the oil tanker Bucharest continues towards Cuba. In the evening Robert Kennedy meets with Ambassador Dobrynin at the Soviet Embassy. After the Organization of American States endorsed the quarantine, President Kennedy asks Khrushchev to halt any Russian ships heading toward Cuba. The president's greatest concern is that a US Navy vessel would otherwise be forced to fire upon a Russian vessel, possibly igniting war between the superpowers.
On October 23, 1962, the Director of Naval Intelligence failed to inform the White House or Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that new High-Frequency Direction Finding (HFDF) data showed that many of the Soviet merchant ships bound for Cuba had already stopped dead in the water or had turned back for Russia. When the mistake was discovered the next day, McNamara was furious with Admiral Anderson, the Chief of Naval Operations. (American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989 by Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, Book II, p. 329)
The National Security Agency’s (NSA) performance during the Cuban Missile Crisis was superior, especially in the important area of tracking the movements of Soviet merchant ships carrying Soviet troops, weapons and equipment to Cuba. (Ibid, pp. 317-332)
For most of the Cold War, NSA was the single largest and most expensive component of the US intelligence community. It reached its historic peak strength in 1969, with 93,067 military and civilian cryptanalyst. (Book I, pp. 63-67; and American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989 by Dr. Thomas R. Johnson, Book II, pp. 293-294 and 373)
NSA kept the White House and the Pentagon informed of Soviet military activities. US intelligence tracked the readiness condition of Soviet air defense and strategic forces during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Soviet forces went on high alert three times during September and October 1962. (Book II, p. 331)
October 24th: Chairman Khrushchev replies indignantly to President Kennedy's October 23 letter.
October 25th: Knowing that some missiles in Cuba were now operational, the president personally drafts a letter to Premier Khrushchev, again urging him to change the course of events. Meanwhile, Soviet freighters turn and head back to Europe. The Bucharest, carrying only petroleum products, is allowed through the quarantine line. U.N. Secretary General U Thant calls for a cooling off period, which is rejected by Kennedy because it would leave the missiles in place.
On October 26th, A Soviet-chartered freighter is stopped at the quarantine line and searched for contraband military supplies. None are found and the ship is allowed to proceed to Cuba. Photographic evidence shows accelerated construction of the missile sites and the uncrating of Soviet IL-28 bombers at Cuban airfields. Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange Kennedy would pledge not to invade Cuba. John Scali, ABC News reporter, is approached by Aleksander Fomin of the Soviet embassy staff with a proposal for a solution to the crisis.
On the same day, the US Air Force launched the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base to the Marshall Islands. The Soviet Union could have easily seen this as the beginning of a nuclear attack.
The US forces were already at Defensive Condition Two (DEFCON-2) denoting the threat of an imminent, nuclear war. Also Strategic Air Command’s airborne bombers deliberately flew past their customary turnaround points. This was an unambiguous threat that Soviet radar operators would certainly have recognized and alerted the Soviet reported. These events may have been due to chance or bad luck, and things just getting out of hand, as Kennedy feared, or the out-of control, US military was playing games to get a war started. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 24-29)
On October 26th British Bomber Command had been carrying out a readiness exercise unrelated to the crisis. But because the crisis was heating up, the commander extended the exercise and moved his forces to the equivalent of DEFCON 2, ready to launch nuclear weapons in 15 minutes. As in the US, this was done without the authorization of central authorities.
When Kennedy moved US forces to DEFCON 3 he was not aware that a missile at Vandenberg Air Force Base was scheduled to be launched as part of a routine flight-testing program. On October 26th, the test launch took place as scheduled.
Also on October 26th the US sent a U2 spy plane from Alaska to collect air samples over the North Pole looking for evidence of a Soviet nuclear test. A bright aurora that night kept the pilot from getting good navigation readings from the stars, causing him to stray into Soviet air space and he was detected and chased by Soviet fighter planes.
US fighters took off to rescue him. The fighters were equipped with nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles, and the escalation to DEFCON 3 gave the pilots authority to decide on their own whether to use them against the Soviet planes. Secretary of Defense McNamara grounded further air-sampling flights.
Author Raymond Garthoff wrote that “the Soviets could only see (the attack) as an effort to backpedal on what was for them, the key question remaining: American assurances not to attack Cuba.” … He concludes, “that the risk and danger to both sides could have been extreme, and catastrophe not excluded.” (Source: Reflections on the Cuban missile crisis by Raymond L. Garthoff and Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, (11/20/75), pp. 147-148)
The Soviets had sent four submarines to patrol the waters off Cuba. The US did not learn until decades later that these subs carried torpedoes tipped with a nuclear bomb. Even worse, the submarine commanders were given the authority to fire them. And even worse than that, the subs were out of contact with Moscow and could only guess what was going on above them.
On October 27th, the US fleet discovered and surrounded one of the subs, and started dropping depth charges as a signal that the sub should surface. The submarine commander assuming the worst, decided to fire his nuclear torpedoes at the US ships. The decision required a second officer on the sub to agree and provide his half of the key needed to fire the torpedo— which he did. The head of the submarine fleet, Vasilli Arkhipov, happened to be on board—and overruled his order.
In the fall of 1962, the USS Oxford AG-159 had been making slow figure-eight patterns in the waters just off the coast of Havana, Cuba. Its mission had been to eavesdrop on Cuban microwave communications throughout the island. The US Navy’s SIGINT crew had been monitoring radio transmission of the Cuban secret police, the Cuban navy, air defenses, and civil aviation and Cuban telephone microwave communications throughout the island. On September 15, 1962, the Oxford’s crew was able to detect the presence of Soviet P-12 radar. This suggested that the Soviets had secretly upgraded the target tracking and acquisition systems in Cuba.
On October 27, 1962, the Oxford discovered radar signals from Soviet SAM missile sites near Mariel, which is about 20 miles west of Havana. This discovery would soon alter both low flying F-8 Crusader photo missions and high altitude U-2 spy plane reconnaissance flights over the island. Anti-Castro Cubans wanting to escape Cuba would just take a boat out the meet this ship.
An American U-2 plane is shot down by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile and the pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, is killed.
The U-2 and other US Air Force photograph reconnaissance flights had located only found 34 of the 42 SS-4 missiles and SS-5 missiles which had been shipped to Cuba. The US also did not detect some 100 tactical nuclear weapons, on 80 cruise missiles with a 12-kiloton warhead, 12 FROG ground to ground rockets with 2-kiloton warheads and six 12-kiloton bombs. These Soviet missiles were prepared for launching. In Cuba there was there was 43,000 Soviet troops (or three divisions) and 270,000 soldiers in Castro’s army. (Ibid., p. 30)
The Soviet in Cuba moved their nuclear armed missile battery 15 miles from the US base at Guantanamo, ready to blow it up. This movement was not detected by the US military. The crisis continued for three more weeks because President Kennedy demanded that the USSR remove its Il-28 bombers (range 750 miles) from Cuba and that they reduce their military personnel on the island down to 3,000.
A second letter from Moscow demanding tougher terms, including the removal of obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey, is received in Washington. At a tense meeting of the Executive Committee decided to ignore the Saturday more hostile letter from Moscow and the US would respond favorably to the more conciliatory message. Kennedy insists that removal of the American missiles in Turkey will have to be part of an overall negotiated settlement and resisted pressure for immediate military action against the SAM sites.
Khrushchev made a very stupid mistake by not telling the US about all the SS-4 nuclear missiles and tactical nuks he had been deployed in Cuba before Kennedy ordered the Naval blockade to begin. Some Soviet officials thought Khrushchev had been a coward because he removed the missiles from Cuba and he was forced out of power the following year. (Source: The Untold History of the United States, by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick)
Later on the night of the 27th, Attorney General Robert Kennedy met secretly with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. They reach a basic understanding: the Soviet Union will withdraw the missiles from Cuba under United Nations supervision in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba. In an additional secret understanding, the United States agrees to eventually remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct28/
Just before dawn on October 28th, the eight launch commanders of the Okinawa missiles received orders—containing all the proper codes—calling for all 32 missiles to be launched. Rechecking the orders confirmed the command. At least one of the launch commanders was reportedly preparing to fire. Captain William Bassett, the senior field commander on duty, had his doubts. He ordered that none of the missiles be launched until they received further validation of the order. He eventually confirmed that the order had been issued by mistake, although it is still not clear why or how it happened.
Part of the reason Capt. Bassett for his action was because he had not gotten a message announcing the step up to DEFCON 1. DEFCON 1 means total nuclear annihilation or all out nuclear war. DEFCON 2 is the second most highest threat warning and ordering planned defensive actions begun by the US military.
(Source: Global Security, October 30, 2015 David Wright, physicist)
http://blog.ucsusa.org/category/ucs-nuclear-weapons#.Vjggf-SFOZ8
On October 28th a radar operators in Moorestown, NJ, called NORAD to say their radar had detected an incoming missile attack launched from Cuba and headed for Florida. Rechecking the data confirmed the false detection. Fortunately, before a response was initiated, NORAD realized it was a false alarm. The problem occurred when a satellite rising over the horizon showed up on the radar. The satellite appeared in just the location expected for a missile launch from Cuba. Also this false alarm happened just when a test tape simulating a missile launch from Cuba was inserted in the computers to run a check on the software.
Normally there would have been two safety checks intended to avoid this confusion. The radar operators should have received notice of any satellites they might see, but the office that provided this notice had been distracted by other tasks due to the crisis. And other radars intended to be able to check the readings of the Moorestown radar were not operating at the time.
CIA contract pilot William “Tosh” R. Plumlee said he flew missions evacuating defecting Russian missile technicians out of Cuba.
In the fall of 1962, President Kennedy sent James Donovan to negotiate with Fidel Castro the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners, so they could return to their families in Miami and elsewhere. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 56)
Khrushchev had concluded that the Cold War was bankrupting the Soviet Union, and his country could not survive without an end to the arms race. He began demanding more and more internal Soviet reforms.
Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that the missile crisis arose because, “we were quite certain that the (Bay of Pigs) invasion was only the beginning and that the Americans would not let Cuba alone.” He wrote, “ The main thing was that the installation of our missiles in Cuba would, I thought, restrain the United States from precipitous military action against the Castro government”…In addition…it would “equalize the balance of power. The Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed to you.” (Ibid., p.20)
Leonid Brezhnev was busy accusing Khrushchev of losing his nuclear nerve as a result coming so close to nuclear war. The head of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny later wrote Brezhnev, “realized that if Khrushchev lost his relationship with Kennedy, he would lose his support for remaining in power.“ They understood Khrushchev stature as a world figure was the unique relationship he had developed with Kennedy. (Ibid., pp. 254-257)
Historian Thomas G. Paterson is very critical of Kennedy’s handling of the missile crisis, stating that he recklessly took the route of confrontation when the route of diplomacy was readily available to him. In Paterson’s essay Bearing the Burden: A Critical Look at JFK’s Foreign Policy he states, “The president’s desire to score a victory, to recapture previous losses, to flex his muscle, accentuated the crisis and obstructed diplomacy… Kennedy gave Khrushchev no chance to withdraw his mistake or to save face… He left little room for bargaining but instead issued a public ultimatum and seemed willing to destroy, in Strangelovian fashion, millions in the process.” The appearance of being weak or hesitant to act during an election season was unacceptable, so Kennedy built up the threat to be more dangerous than it actually was. Following the disastrous Bay of Pigs debacle, the Kennedy administration was eager for a confrontation that would demonstrate their power and superiority over the Soviets. Paterson concludes that Kennedy was not the cool and collected decision maker that his adherents have maintained. Instead, President Kennedy was vain, reckless, and impatient, all of which generated the tensions that could very well have resulted in nuclear war.
Another proponent of this theory is Roger Hagan, who has asserted that it was Kennedy’s arrogant and hostile Cuban policies, forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to put missiles on the Cuban island. Like Paterson, Hagan states that “Politics, toughness, a sense of nakedness and military peril, a sense of being tested, (and) silly rage, all were probably mingled into an un-analyzed conviction of the necessity of our action.” Cowboy diplomacy, in other words, was exercised by Kennedy so that he would not appear soft on communism, a position that would have left him weak politically.
In his book The Crisis years, Michael Beschloss asserts if the public were not so ignorant they would have seen that their President was responsible “for provoking the crisis” to begin with. The fact that the public bought the “official version” emboldened Kennedy’s political status and his appearance of being tough on communism. (Beschloss, pp. 564 to 568).
https://dissentiscool.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/the-cuban-missile-crisis/
Kennedy perhaps shaken by the Cuban Missile Crisis, also looked for ways to defuse the situation and reach accommodation with Castro. He began to start a secret dialogue with him. In the fall of 1962, Kennedy sent a lawyer, James Donovan to negotiate the release of the 1,113 Bay of Pigs prisoners of that war, so they could return to their families in Miami and elsewhere. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 56)
On November 19, 1962, high-altitude incursions over Cuban airspaces begin again, while low altitude incursions are suspended.
On December 4, 1962, an anti-Castor Cubans organization in the US called the Second Front of the Escambray fire from two gunboats at sea on the Cuban port of Caibarien.
In December 23-24, 1962, the Cuban government agrees to release 1,113 Bay of Pigs invaders back to the United States in exchange for $53 million in medical supplies and baby food. The Cuban government keeps nine of the invaders in prison, releasing the last in 1986.
On January 11 and 24, 1963 Cuban counter revolutionaries kill an eleven-year-old in one attack and two children in another. Robert Kennedy learned that CIA missions were continuing, and he ordered CIA Director McCone to terminate the operations. Additionally in February 1963, CIA supervisor William Harvey was demoted, was officially removed from his post as head of Project Mongoose, and was reassigned to the Rome station as chief of station. Edward Lansdale is subsequently sent to Miami to oversee the end of Mongoose.
Members of the Cuban Student Directorate (aka DRE) (AM/HINT) were infiltrated into Cuba doing guerrilla operation in 1962 and working with Alpha 66. During 1962 and 1963, the leader of DRE was Manual Salvat and its military director was Blanco Fernandez. On August 24th Salvat, Jose Basulto, and four or five other members of the Student Revolutionary Directorate machine gunned the Havana hotel raid. Afterwards the CIA’s case officer to the DRE, CIA officer Ross Crozier was replaced and moved to another assignment. Alpha 66 was most hostile to Robert Kennedy’s order to stop attacks on Cuba and continued for many years to do so with funds from the mafia or the Texas Oil millionaires.
Members of the DRE were very active in protesting and opposing the Batista regime and DRE fighters played a major role in the revolution against him. DRE members fought fiercely in Havana and initially took control, later to concede political control to Fidel Castro and his followers when they entered the city. DRE members were later among the first to oppose Castro’s eventual turn to communism and the Soviets. The DRE network inside Cuba might be considered one of the best organized and secure during the period of 1962-1963.
In the DRE exile members in the US were primarily engaged in fund raising, recruiting and political/media opposition to the Castro regime. DRE and its Miami chapter were one of the few exile organizations actively cultivated and supported by the CIA, both for their intelligence connections and their political value. However DRE members did participate in raids of their own into Cuba and also joined with other operationally focused groups such as Alpha 66.
DRE was the group that Lee Oswald was in contact with in New Orleans in August 1963. Oswald offered to help train them, but they followed him and discovered he was passing out Fair Play to Cuba fliers. Guy Banister had encouraged Oswald to spy on student groups in universities.
AM/BARB: This was a propaganda operation placing DRE members in universities throughout Latin America. In April 1962, the AM/BARB radio network had been increased to 11 countries and totalled about 184 programs per month. AMBARB agents were in 15 countries and had sent about 60,000 leaflets. On November 16, 1962 “negotiation were under way with three industrialists in Texas who were sympathetic and would provide AMBARB delegates in these countries.” Jack A. Crichton was president of Nafco Oil and Gas and owned Dorchester Gas Producing. He was associated with David Harold Byrd, Clint Murchison, Haroldson L. Hunt and Sid Richardson, , aka a Big Oil group in Dallas, TX
November 1963: Cuba enacts the Second Agrarian Reform Law. The government expropriates all private holdings larger than 167 acres. A total of 11,000 farms are confiscated. Only subsistence farms remain in private hands.
November 2, 1963: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson grants the right to apply for permanent residency to any Cuban who arrived in the U.S. after January 1, 1959. More than 123,000 Cubans apply immediately.
June 26, 1967: Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin pays a surprise visit to Havana after meeting with President Johnson. He advises the Cubans that the Soviets will not support wars of national liberation in Latin America. His visit is followed by a letter from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev warning Castro that the Soviets will not prevent a US invasion if Castro continues fomenting revolution in Latin America.
September 25, 1970: The US warns the Soviet Union to discontinue construction of a nuclear submarine base in Cienfuegos, Cuba.
September 11, 1974: In Miami, Florida, a group of seven anti-Castro militants forms Omega 7, a terrorist group that will target Cuban governmental representatives or Castro sympathizers in the United States.
April 5, 1976: There are now more than 15,000 Soviet-armed Cubans fighting in Angola. http://www.larry-hancock.com/documents/names.pdf
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The CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders in his book, Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts.
Many intellectuals were rewarded with prestige, public recognition, and research funds precisely for operating within the ideological blinders set by the CIA. Some of the biggest names in philosophy, political ethics, sociology, and art, who gained visibility from CIA-funded conferences and journals, went on to establish the norms and standards for promotion of the new generation, based on the political parameters established by the CIA. Not merit nor skill, but politics defined truth and excellence and future chairs in prestigious academic settings, foundations, and museums.
The CIA promoted anti-communist writers by funding lavish conferences in Paris and Berlin where objective social scientists and philosophers like Isaiah Berlin, Daniel Bell, and Czeslow Milosz preached their values and the virtues of Western freedom and intellectual independence, within the anti communist and pro-Washington parameters defined by their CIA paymasters. Many of the so-called prestigious anti-communist literary and political journals would long have gone out of business were it not for CIA subsidies. CIA bought thousands of copies that it later distributed free. The CIA's involvement in the cultural life of the United States, Europe, and elsewhere had important long-term consequences. The CIA was especially keen on publishing disillusioned ex-communists like Silone, Koestler, and Gide.
CIA promoted symphonies, art exhibits, ballet, theater groups, and well-known jazz and opera performers with the explicit aim of neutralizing anti-imperialist sentiment in Europe and creating an appreciation of US culture and government (aka Congress for Cultural Freedom). The idea behind this policy was to showcase US culture, in order to gain cultural hegemony to support its military-economic empire. The CIA was especially keen on sending black artists to Europe—particularly singers (like Marion Anderson), writers, and musicians (such as Louis Armstrong)—to neutralize European hostility toward Washington's racist domestic policies. If black intellectuals didn't stick to the US artistic script and wandered into explicit criticism, they were banished from the list. None of these prestigious intellectuals dared to raise any doubts or questions regarding US support of the mass killing in colonial Indochina and Algeria.
The very origins of the cultural Cold War were rooted in class warfare. Since the middle of the 1950s, the CIA used US American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) pouring millions of dollars into subverting militant trade unions and breaking strikes through the funding of social democratic unions. The AFL-CIO) took on an increasingly active role in the implementation of American foreign policy. In 1949 a federations of non-communist trade unions was established that included the US AFL-CIO, the British TUC, the French FO, the Italian CISL and the Spanish UGT) at a conference in London attended by representatives from 53 countries. This new group was called the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and its prime goal was to fight Communism. CIA officer Morris Paladino was the Director of Education, Director of Organization and Assistant Secretary General of ICFTU working out of the CIA's International Organizations (IO) Division in Mexico City. http://www.monthlyreview.org/1199petr.htm
In June 1962, a Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) Special Agent launched an investigation of AFL-CIO union leader Irving Brown for drug trafficking, but the FBN was quickly told to drop the case by the CIA. Brown was assigned by AFL-CIA and CIA to help the labor movement in Italy in countering the growth of the Communist Party there. He was given "port privileges at JFK Airport in New York, so he was routinely ushered through Customs without having his bags open (check for drugs). Brown had a relationship with French drug smuggler, Maurice Castellani. The FBN dropped its investigation of Castellani and he continued to traffic in narcotics for seven years.
In 1943 Jay Lovestone became the director of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union’s International Affairs Department. In 1945 Jay Lovestone became executive secretary of the AFL’s Free Trade Union Committee. Lovestone became a CIA contract agent in 1947 and CIA officer James Angleton became was his case officer. In 1955 Angleton, now CIA’s chief of counterintelligence again recruited Lovestone to work for the CIA,. In 1963 Lovestone became director of the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department (IAD), which arranged for millions of dollars from the CIA to aid anti-communist activities internationally, particularly in Latin America. The AFL-CIO president George Meany discovered in 1964 that Lovestone was involved with the CIA and instructed him to break-off contact with Angleton. Lovestone agreed to do this but when Meany discovered in 1974 that he was still working with Angleton he forced him from office.(The Strength of the Wolf, p. 270 - 273 and http://spartacus-educational.com/USAlovestoneJ.htm
In 1947 to 1948, Brown hired squads of goons to wrest control of the docks at Marseilles other southern ports from the communist port unions, thus enabling allied ships to deliver food, machinery and other items in short supply to France and Italy. Brown enlisted Corsican and Sicilian gangsters to toss strikers off the docks into the water. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 272)
Brown could not have cleared the docks for allied shipping or effectively challenged the communist-led unions without the huge sums of money which he continuously received to bribe foreign union leaders, organize demonstrations, call or break strikes, influence union elections and disrupt communist meetings.
From 1945 until 1948, Brown was getting funds from the AFL treasury, the US State Department and major corporations like Exxon, General Electric, Singer Sewing Machines and others that had commercial interests in Europe. Then, in 1948, the US launched the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Plan), which allotted $13 billion to Western Europe, but nothing to countries in the Soviet orbit.
The Marshall Plan stipulated that five percent of the funds should be used for administrative purposes and rebuilding Western European unions. But since Brown had developed a cozy relationship with the Marshall Plan director, Averill Harriman, Brown was able to get a good slice of the $800 million available in a slush fund (CIA funding) to finance his expanding activities.
When the Marshall Plan folded in 1950, the CIA was there to continue funding Brown’s secret operations on an even grander scale. The CIA turned over tens of millions to the Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC), because the spy agency found Brown’s covert operations useful. Neither the CIA nor the FTUC were obliged to report these undercover financial transactions.
Brown felt he could be of special value to the United States by organizing and unifying the Greek non-communist unions. It was a difficult assignment, because the principal force among the workers was the Greek communist guerrillas, who had fought the Nazi-Italian occupation, as well as their homegrown fascists. (AFL-CIO’s Dark Past, November 15, 2004)
The CIA had subverted the 1962 Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ (FBN) investigation of AFL-CIO labor leader Irving Brown for drug trafficking. Brown was working to organize the labor movement in Europe for the CIA. Brown was given port privileges at JFK Airport in New York, so he was routinely ushered through Customs without having his bags open and checked. Brown had developed a relationship with French drug smuggler, Maurice Castellani.
According to Alfred W. McCoy in book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, from 1947 to 1951, OSS/CIA provided arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille, France to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks – ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront. (A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade by William Blum)
The FBN dropped its investigation of Castellani and he continued to traffic in Narcotics for seven years. Castellani had the support of the CIA, perhaps the Vatican, and the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) -- aka the French foreign intelligence service. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 362)
France’s General Charles de Gaulle was funding his political actions teams through drug trafficking. Many of the traffickers were heroes of the Resistance who worked closely with SDECE. The SDECE acted as a conduit for drug trafficking Corsicans abroad and de Gaulle protected them all. SDECE had an assassination squad that de Gaulle used to silence his enemies. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 375)
The Berlin Crisis
Four months after the Bay of Pigs, The CIA and Sate Department were again withholding information from Kennedy. Kennedy was desperate for information about the US's ability to defend West Berlin and prevent our US troops from being trapped there should the Soviet decide to attack.
In August 1961, the Soviet Union started building the Berlin Wall to prevent the flood of refugees fleeing at the rate of 2,500 a day. The Soviets had the confidence that the US could not react to their building of the wall because they had recruited a US Army Colonel William Whalen to spy for them. Whalen told them that the US had no plans for defending Berlin and had very few military assets in West Berlin, short of a suicidal nuclear exchange. The CIA never once managed to accurately predict the Soviet's intention in Berlin. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 189)
On August 9, 1961, the National Security Agency (NSA) was the only US intelligence agency that collected warning information about the East German Communist Party’s plans to begin blocking all foot traffic between East and West Berlin. The NSA intercept was not widely disseminated, and the Interagency Intelligence Watch Committee assessment/warning did not reach President Kennedy. The East German decision to deal with the massive outflow of refugees was to close the border that divided the city of Berlin and soon led to the Berlin Wall. The President was angry and rightly so, that he had no advance warning of the crisis which soon developed into a tank vs. tank confrontation. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/
Another source alleges that also on August 6th, a confidential informant provided the 513th Military Intelligence Group (Berlin) with the correct date of the start of construction of the Berlin Wall.
For sixteen hours from the 27 to 28 October 1961, US and Soviet tanks faced each other in divided Berlin and the two superpowers came closer to kicking off a third world war. On October 27, 1961, ten American M-48 tanks moved toward Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall. They were confronted with ten Soviet tanks and 20 more Soviet tanks arrived as reinforcements. Then 20 more US tanks moved up. Throughout the night and for sixteen hours the confrontation continued. Had the US tanks tried to bulldoze or move forward, the Soviet tanks would have open fire on them. Alarmed, Kennedy phoned General Lucius Clay, and Kennedy expressed his anger about the threaten action he had taken with his tanks. Clay, an old World War Two general, had a mind of his own when it came to taking orders from a young president. Kennedy sent an urgent message to Khrushchev suggested to him if he would withdraw his tanks within 24 hours, Kennedy would do the same 30 minutes later. Than Kennedy ordered General Clay to be ready to carry out his order. Khrushchev started to recognize that Kennedy was under even more intense pressure from his military than Khrushchev was under. General Clay wanted to provoke a nuclear first strike on the USSR. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 112 - 113)
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On September 5, 1961, Premier Khrushchev sent President Kennedy a confidential message suggesting that "it might be useful in a purely informal and personal way to approach you and share some of my ideas.…only in a confidential correspondence can you say what you think, without a backward glance at…the journalists." This first one was twenty-six pages long. It did deal passionately with politics, in particular Berlin where the two leaders backed away from war. Emphasizing their common ground with a biblical analogy, Khrushchev said, the comparison of their situation “with Noah’s Ark where both the clean and the unclean found sanctuary. But regardless of who lists himself with the clean and who is considered to be unclean, they are all equally interested in one thing and that is that the Ark should successfully continue its cruise.”
On October 16, 1961, Kennedy responded: "Certainly you are correct in emphasizing that this correspondence must be kept wholly private, not to be hinted at in public statements, much less disclosed to the press and give us each a chance to address the other in frank, realistic and fundamental terms. Neither of us is going to convert the other to a new social, economic or political point of view. Neither of us will be induced by a letter to desert or subvert his own cause. So these letters can be free from the polemics of the ‘cold war’ debate…For my part the contents and even the existence of our letters will be known only to the Secretary of State and a few others of my closest associates in the government.…My family has had a home here overlooking the Atlantic for many years.
My father and brothers own homes near my own, and my children always have a large group of cousins for company. So this is an ideal place for me to spend my weekends during the summer and fall, to relax, to think, to devote my time to major tasks instead of constant appointments, telephone calls and details. Thus, I know how you must feel about the spot on the Black Sea from which your letter was written, for I value my own opportunities to get a clearer and quieter perspective away from the din of Washington.”
There were 18 of these secret letters according the May 2016 lectures by Daniel Sheehan at the University of California; Santa Cruz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r6Xshd8Jp4&feature=share
On February 21, 1962, Khrushchev sent Kennedy snide congratulations on Col. John Glenn's orbital flight: "…a citizen of America [has] been added to the family of astronauts." The first astronaut in space was, Yuri Gagarin, a citizen of the USSR.
On March 7, 1962, Kennedy wrote Khrushchev a letter containing five proposals for joint US-USSR exploration of space—suggestions that came to fruition decades later.
That July 4th Khrushchev and his side-kick, Leonid Brezhnev, sent Kennedy best wishes on the occasion of America's Independence Day. On the 12th Kennedy thanked them for their good wishes.
In the 56th letter, dated September 28, seventeen days before CIA photo analysts spotted Soviet missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev peevishly raised one of his pet beefs: the buzzing of Soviet ships by US aircraft.
On May 9, 1962 Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly met with a Soviet official, Georgi Bolshakov. They met outside the Justice Department, went to a park bench and they talked for four hours. Bolshakov was a GRU officer under journalist cover as the Press Attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. They met on numerous occasions in 1961 in order to convey messages from the administration to the top Soviet leadership, including Premier Nikita Khrushchev. At times during some periods, they met as often as two or three times a month. Bolshakov was little more than a message carrier from the Kremlin, who knew little about Khrushchev’s inner most thoughts. One of the conversations that Robert Kennedy had with Bolshakov was to warn him that unless the Soviet Union withdrew its IL-28 bombers from Cuba, the United States was prepared to resume low-level reconnaissance of Cuba. (Sources: JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass, Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe and http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba194.asp )
https://patch.com/california/napavalley/bp--the-kennedy-khrushchev-letters-1961-1963-4d5d2ad2
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In the spring of 1962, Mary Meyer, recently divorced from her CIA husband, Cord Meyer, she visited Timothy Leary at Harvard. She tells him she has a "friend who's a very important man, who wants to try LSD for himself." At the time, though Leary does not know this, Mary is having an affair with President Kennedy, which will include more than thirty visits to the White House (later confirmed by Presidential Secretary Kenneth O'Donnell). Mary tells Leary that the government is studying ways to "use drugs for warfare, for espionage, for brainwashing." She asks him to "teach us how to run (LSD) sessions, (and to) use drugs to do good." Leary agrees. He provides her with drug samples and "session" reports, and is in touch with her every few weeks, advising her on how to be a "brain washer." She swears him to secrecy.
In Late July 1962, while the First Lady is away at the Kennedy summer home in Hyannisport, Mary visited JFK at the White House. She records the visit in her diary, and later describes it to her close friend James Truitt of the Washington Post about she and the President smoking two joints of marijuana, reportedly prompting the leader of the free world to say,
"This isn't at all like cocaine. I'll get you some of that."
Mary allegedly dispensed to Kennedy a dose of LSD.
In the Fall of 1962, Leary meets Mary Meyer in a room at Boston's Ritz Hotel. She alludes to her love affair with Kennedy and tells him that "top people in Washington are turning on." According to Leary's recounting, she also says: "Do you remember the American Veterans Committee, that liberal veterans group you belonged to after the war? The CIA started that."
…"CIA creates the radical journals and student organizations and runs them with deep-cover agents.... dissident organizations in academia are also controlled."
When Leary asks her how she knows all this, and she explains “that CIA has not only been running left-wing groups as fronts, but has been sponsoring more psychedelic research than he will ever know. You are doing exploratory work the CIA tried to do in the 1950s. So they're more than happy to have you do their research for them. Since drug research is of vital importance to the intelligence agencies of this country, you'll be allowed to go on with your experiments as long as you keep it quiet."
In the spring of 1963, Leary again meets Mary Meyer at the Ritz Hotel. She says that her love affair has been exposed, although no publicity has resulted. "I don't trust the phones or the mail," she warns,” and tells him to make no contact with her until further notice.
In May-June 1963, Mary warned Leary, that their sessions are in jeopardy because he is attracting too much publicity. In September 1963, Mary drove to see Leary, who was conducting experiments at a large private estate in Milbrook, New York. She gives him, for his experiments, a bottle of "the best LSD in the world," from the National Institute of Mental Health. She says: "We had eight intelligent women turning on the most powerful men in Washington. And then we got found out.... I made a mistake in recruitment. A wife snitched on us... I've gotten mixed up in some dangerous matters."
On October 12, 1964, at 12:45 p.m., Mary Meyer is shot to death, execution-style, on a park towpath by the Georgetown Canal in Washington, D.C. Her body is identified by her husband, Cord Meyer's brother-in-law, Ben Bradlee, the editor of the Washington Post. CIA counterintelligence chief, James Angleton confiscates and later burns the diary in which Mary has recorded her liaisons with JFK and maybe the LSD usage. http://home.dti.net/lawserv/leary.html
Just before Cord Meyer (a high ranking CIA officers in charge of operation Mockingbird, died on March 13, 2001, when questioned about who the thought killed Mary Meyer, he said,
“ Who had committed such a heinous crime? "The same sons of bitches," he hissed, "that killed John F. Kennedy.”
Southeast Asia: Kennedy and the war in South Vietnam
I am going to review some history that occurred before the Kennedy years because it is related to what Kennedy’s foreign policy toward South Korea, South Vietnam, and opium trafficking in general thru out of Southeast Asia. The OSS and CIA secretly trafficked in opium and heroin. How much of this Kennedy knew about I don’t know, but for sure the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew. This also has to do with the importation of tungsten from South Korea and Burma and maybe why the US went to war against North Korea.
From 1927 to 1937, there had been a Communist insurgency and civil war in China. In 1931 The Japanese occupied Manchuria and this war escalated into full-scale conflict in July 1937 with the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. In late 1937, the Chinese Communist Party and the National People's Party (or anti-communist party aka Kuomintang) formed a united front to counter the Japanese.
In August 1937 retired Major General Claire L. Chennault became General Chiang Kai-shek's chief air adviser. Chennault was retired from the United States Army Air Force and he was employed to create an aviation school for the Chinese Air Force. The Japanese invaded westerly from Shanghai up the Yangtze River and slowly took control of Chinese railroad line and roads until the captured China’s capital city Nanjing. China was rich in coal and iron ore which Japan wanted. The Chinese did not have the air forces or navy to defend against the Japanese and the Japanese began bombing civilians in nearly every major city in unoccupied China. Some 30 million Chinese and the Chinese Army fled west and those Chinese remaining in pockets after being enveloped by the Japanese started conducting guerrilla warfare.
Chinese casualties:
3,220,000 military (including wounded, prisoners and missing)
17,530,000 civilians
227 Soviet dead
Historians estimate up to 300,000 Chinese were mass murdered (by beheading or buried alive) in the Nanjing Massacre in about December 1937.
Japanese casualties:
Total Military deaths 943,259:
388,605 Japanese military killed
432,000 Chinese military collaborators killed
30,304 Chinese collaborators from Taiwan
14,527 Korean collaborators
General Chiang Kai-shek made a big mistake in thinking his large but ill‑equipped armies could match Japanese military skills and their better equipped forces including air superiority. Chiang never seems seriously to have considered an armistice, but instead called for a "war of resistance to the end" which condemned most Chinese to years of harsh Japanese control and near famine conditions. The war he fought was long and bloody resulting in between 15 and 20 million dead Chinese and more than 90 million becoming refugees.
Late in 1940 FDR and the US Treasury approved a new stabilization loan for the Bank of China to underpin the Chinese currency. In January 1941, Lauchlin Currie, FDR’s economics advisor, was sent on a mission to Chungking, China for discussions with General Chiang Kai-shek and Chou En-lai who was the Communist party representative.
Yes, the same Lauchlin Currie that I talked about above who was allegedly a Soviet spy.
A total of $1.6 Billion ($27.3 Billion in 2016 dollars) in military equipment and supplies was given to China thru lend lease program. These guys were all given civilian passports as employees of a sort-of, OSS front company called Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO). It was a joint venture with the Chinese Government, Curtiss-Wright and Douglas
Aircraft. The main objective of the lend lease program was to provide goods, so who paid the salaries and cost of operating Flying Tigers is unknown. CAMCO's operating funds were laundered thru the OSS front company came from China Defense Supplies (CDS) and originated as United States Lend-Lease Aid." from its inception in 1934, first CAMCO airplane manufacturing plant was at Hangchow, China until the Japanese bombed in August 1937. Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company was the creation of William D. Pawley. I’ll talk more about him below.
Retired Captain Bruce Leighton resigned from the Navy in 1928 to become a Vice President of Wright Aeronautical Corporation and of Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation from 1933 to 1936. He was recalled to active duty as the vice president of the Intercontinental Aircraft Corporation and a staff officer in the Chief of Naval Operations, of the proposal to form a volunteer air force for China if the United States would loan or guarantee a loan for the purchase of planes. It was stated that Leighton left a long memo with specific proposals which was passed to the Chief of Naval Operations.
Leighton wanted the US government to influence the US Export Import Bank to guarantee private US bank loans up to $25 million made not directly to China but to the Intercontinental Aircraft Corporation, which in turn would extend credit to the Chinese for the purchase of US planes, equipment and pilots. The $25 million credit approved by Export Import Bank in December 1938 was crucial in ensuring that the supply route remained open by providing the transportation vehicles and support material to operate the new road from Ledo, India thru northern Burma, and to provide China with purchasing power during World War Two. An additional $20 million to the Universal Trading Corporation was approved in 1940. A 1939 journal article in Foreign Affairs noted that China used part of the $25 million to purchase 2,000 three-ton trucks from Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors.
An entity called the US “China Lobby” helped convince Congress to donate hard cash and many tons of war material in support of Chiang Kai-shek's war against the Japanese. China lobby was made up of a broad network of people, both foreign and domestic which included publisher Henry R. Luce publisher of Time and Life newsmagazines, Alfred Kohlberg, a publisher and retired New York importer; Frederick C. McKee, a wealthy Pittsburgh manufacturer and philanthropist and anti-communist Republicans in Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export%E2%80%93Import_Bank_of_the_United_States
FDR’s economic advisor, Lauchlin Currie approached Thomas Corcoran and requested that Corcoran, as a private individual charter a Delaware corporation and call it China Defense Supplies (CDS). It became the sole supplier of Lend-Lease materials for China. CDS was headed by T. V. Soong, Chiang Kai-shek’s brother-in-law who lived in Washington D.C. It appears his name was all that was useful in FDR’s covert operation, as China Defense Supplies was largely staffed by American businessmen. Soong was also the purchasing agent for CDS and purchased materials through a company called the Universal Trading Corporation. The Universal Trading Corporation was set up to enable mutually profitable trade between the United States and China, and was wholly owned by the Chinese government. It was primarily focused on tung oil imports to the United States, one of China’s most valuable exports at the time, and a primary ingredient in the manufacture of paint in the 1930s and 1940. (Source: The American Military Mission to China, 1941-1942: Lend-Lease Logistics ...by William G. Grieve, p. 33)
In 1931, the League of Nations imposed restrictions on the manufacture of heroin in Europe, so leading European drug traffickers went to Shanghai and Tientsin in the early 1930s. In particular, the Jewish syndicates that dominated New York's drug trade and sent agents to purchase heroin in Shanghai. Simultaneously, Shanghai's Green Gang leader Tu Yueh-sheng emerged as the city's leading drug dealer and a key intelligence operative for the Nationalist Government. Through his close relations with the Nationalist regime, Tu's cartel was a major force in the Yangtze River opium trade and by 1934 was exporting an estimated 16,653 tons a year.
As war in China increased, Burma’s opium production increased from eight tons in 1936 to an approximate 36 tons in 1942. In French Indochina (Laos and North Vietnam) opium production increased from 7.4 tons in 1940 to 60.6 tons in 1944.
So the profits from the sale of opium most likely went thru the Nationalist Bank of China for buying military supplies thru Universal Trading Corporation for General Chiang Kai-shek’s Kwantung KMT Army.
(Opium History Up To 1858 A.D by Alfred W. McCoy) http://www.opioids.com/opium/history/
A Flying Tiger covert operation was approved by President Roosevelt on April, 13, 1941, and the United States government began financing the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO) headed by retired Major General Claire Lee Chennault. The Flying Tigers, (aka 1st American Volunteer Group) did not enter actual combat until after the United States had declared war on Japan. Since the summer of 1938 Chennault established a training base in Kunming, a city nearest to the southern border of China and nearest Burma. He had been training Chinese pilots and building the Chinese Air Force. In the summer and fall of 1941, some 100 pilots and some 200 ground crew and administrative personnel were shipped to Burma. William Pawley’s brothers Edward and Eugene Pawley established factory outside Rangoon (Yangon), Burma where 90 Curtiss P-40 fighter aircraft were assembled. In early 1942 the Flying Tigers went to war for real and achieved combat success of 300 kills against a loss of 12 of their shark painted P-40 fighters.
Pawley and his brother provided payroll and other housekeeping services to these men thru their company, Intercontinental Aircraft Corporation of New York. Since 1927 Pawley was salesman Curtiss-Wright Airplane Company. He got rick selling airplanes to the Chinese Air Force and other Southeast Asian nations. Pawley established aircraft manufacturing plants in China as well, with Chinese investors. Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO was the front company financed by Lend Lease loans. In May 1942, Pawley moved his factory to Bangalore, India after the Japanese continued to attacked west following Chinese railroads and taking Nanking. The Indian Government bought a one-third stake in his company, which then was called Hindustan Aircraft Limited.
In 1945, President Harry Truman appointed Pawley the US Ambassador to Peru. According to left-wing newspapers in Lima, Pawley was making “lucrative deals” for himself in Peru transporting “unspecified goods” in and out of Peru. In 1948 he became US Ambassador to Brazil–and an FBI informant. Later he was a friend of the dictator Rafael Trujillo and an investor in the Dominican Republic’s bauxite industry. He was also extremely friendly with the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, again with business connections. In 1951 Pawley became a special assistant to Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKpawley.htm
The Sino-American Coperative Organization was an organization created by the SACO Treaty signed by the Republic of China and the United States of America in 1942 that established a mutual intelligence gathering entity in China between the respective nations against Japan. It operated in China jointly along with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Lt. General Joseph W. Stilwell became the Chief of Staff to General Chiang Kai-Shek, served as the commander of the China Burma India Theater responsible for all Lend-Lease supplies going to China. Prior to this Stilwell had served three tours in China, where he mastered spoken and written Chinese, and was the military attaché at the US Legation in Beijing from 1935 to 1939.
In May 1942, Stilwell personally led his staff of 117 men and women out of Burma into India on foot. Stilwell established a training center about 200 miles west of Calcutta for two divisions of Chinese troops from forces that had retreated to Assam from Burma.
In December 1942, Stilwell ordered a road be built from Ledo, India thru northern Burma after the Japanese occupied Burma and cut off supply lines to Kunming, China and the base of the Flying Tigers and KMT Army forces. The road was built by 15,000 American soldiers (60 percent of whom were African-Americans) and 35,000 local workers. Some 1,100 Americans died during the construction, as well as many more local peasants.
An Army Air Force Air Transport Command was established and in April 1942 began an airlift by DC-10s transport airplanes to resupply Kunming, China. The first mission flying gover the Himalayan Mountains took place on April 8, 1942. This was called flying “over the hump”. They flew from a Royal Air Force airfield at Dinjan, India (now Bangladesh). By the end of the war on July 1945 the airlift proved to best strategic plan in that it transported a total of 650,000 tons compared to 147,000 tons shipped on the Ledo Road by trucks.
The Chinese were not eager to make use of the American supplied arms against the Japanese, and were slow in moving them along the Burma Road toward Chiang Kai-shek’s divisions. Chiang then failed to distribute the supplies, hoping instead to use them to fight the communist civil war, once others nations defeated the Japanese. And so the arms were stockpiled in Rangoon.
A wartime OS report criticized Lt. General Dai Li’s use of concentration camps and political executions against his opponents. Dai Li was also known as a Himmler of China because of his use of torture and death squads. He was Ghaing Kai-Shek’s head of military intelligence. Dai Li had organized criminal gangs into his spy network and controlled the police everywhere in Japanese-held China. Under Dai Li’s protection American convoys roamed China. In the last 13 months of the war, Dai Li’s guerrillas, aided and advised by Miles’s 1,800 Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard men, destroyed 209 bridges, 84 locomotives, 141 ships and river craft, 97 warehouses, and killed 23,540 Japanese.
Vice Admiral Milton E. Miles’s unit set up 14 weather observations units, radio communications, and coast watchers. Their reports to the US Fleet and waiting submarines were responsible for sinking thousands of tons of Japanese ships. By 1943, the OSS gradually took over the activities that in China. With barely 120 Americans at any one time, OSS Captain Carl F. Eifler's unit eventually recruited and trained almost 11,000 tribesmen in the hills of north Burma. They had borne the brunt of those killed by the Japanese in the early months of their invasion of Burma.
In July 1942, the first group of 21 OSS officers assigned to Detachment 101 arrived at the China-Burma-India headquarters in New Delhi, India. The OSS had been instructed to train Chiang Kai-shek’s men in guerrilla warfare. General George Marshall and Lt. General Stilwell, the American commander in Asia, both believed that Chaing was completely corrupt and needed to be forced into introducing reforms. Stilwell particularly had problems with General Tai Li, who had “acquired great wealth through his control of the opium trade.
Former OSS officer and Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) agent George White testified to the Kefauver committee, that he had been approached in 1943 by an old China trafficker, August del Grazio on behalf of Lucky Luciano. In 1947 State Department official Walter Dowling noted the OSS and General Dai Li dope dealing with the Green Gang of Tu Yueh Sheng in Shanghai.
Soon after the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the People’s Liberation Army broke away from Chaing Kai-shek’s Republic of China Armed Forces (aka Kuomintang or KMT) and continued the civil war against them. The KMT's Northern Army was forced to flee into Burma and Thailand.
In 1948, OPC teams began arming and training a separate army under Thai General Phao, which became known as the Thai Border Police. OPC was doing what the CIA ended up doing, after OSS was shut-down/de-activated. In about May 1949 OPC teams arrived in Bangkok to train the Thai Border Police for covert support for continuing KMT fighting against Chinese communists, along the Burma-China border. Later in the year the US began to arm and train the Thai army and to provide the kingdom general economic aid. By the fall of 1949, the US State Department accepted that communism was making inroads within the Chinese community in Thailand. State also knew that the Thai military and police were involvement with opium, but since the army controlled Thailand’s security relationship with the West, US opium interdiction took a back seat to fighting communism.
In May 1949, Major General Claire Chennault had a meeting with President Truman and advocated an increase in funds for Chaing Kai-shek and his Koumintang (KMT) army. Truman dismissed the idea as impractical. Given the downsizing after World War Two of the US Army and its resulting poor readiness posture, I think that was a smart idea. US troops were deployed to Korea without enough cold weather boots and clothing.
A former naval intelligence officer, Daniel Harkins, claimed that Nazi and Japanese loot (the Black Eagle Fund and Yamashita or Golden Lilly gold),had been laundered and manipulated by Allen Dulles and Sir William Stephenson through the World Commerce Corporation (WCC) and this was used to finance warfare in Thailand after the war. When Harkins informed Congress, he was suddenly fired and sent back to the United States. (The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The ...by John Loftus and Mark Aarons Citing)
In the later 1940s, former head of OSS, Major General William Donovan, British MI-6, Sir William Stephenson, OSS officers Paul Helliwell and Willis Bird organized the World Commerce Corporation (WCC). The origin of US involvement with Thai politico/drug traffickers appears to have involved principally four men. After World War Two, Sir William Stephenson’s WCC became very active in Bangkok and he recruited James Thompson, the last OSS commander in Bangkok, to stay on in Bangkok as the local WCC representative. This led to the WCC’s financing of Thompson’s Thai Silk Company. The Thai border with Laos was where a communist insurrection was feared, and where future CIA operations would be concentrated.
Paul Helliwell was chief of Special Intelligence for OSS in Kunming, China. Also as Far East Division OSS boss, he allegedly controlled the pipe-line of covert funds for secret operations throughout East Asia after the war. Eventually, Helliwell would be responsible for the incorporation in America of the CIA front companies, Sea Supply Inc., a Taiwan-based airline, and Civil Air Transport Inc. (CAT) (later Air America), which would provide support to both the Northern Army in Thailand and the KMT drug camps in Burma.
Willis Bird ran a trading company supplying arms and materiel to Thai oligarchy. By 1951 US government funds for OSS officer Bird’s missions were being handled by a CIA proprietary firm, Sea Supply Inc. That outfit was incorporated by Paul Helliwell in his civilian capacity as a lawyer in Miami. Helliwell also became general counsel for the Miami bank that Mafia accountant Meyer Lansky allegedly used to launder proceeds from the Asian drug traffic.
Admiral Charles Cooke seems to have been an early player in what would become the CIA's drug trafficking operations involving Civil Air Transport (CAT), later known as Air America).
"The plan to save Taiwan advance on November 7, 1949, when William S. Pawley received permission from Secretary of State Dean Acheson to lead a group of retired military officers, headed by Admiral Charles Cooke, to Taiwan to advise the KMT on security affairs.
William Donovan met with Chiang Kai-shek's defense minister and secret police chief to grease the skids on Pawley's behalf, and William C. Bullitt, Jr. in December began raising funds for the so-called Pawley-Cooke Advisory Mission --the lion's share of which was provided by a group of Texas oilmen led by right-wing fanatic H.L. Hunt.
I guess he was rich guy because Bullitt’s father was an executive with the Norfolk and Western Railroad and an investor in coal mines. In an article published in Look Magazine on August 24, 1954, he proposed an immediate attack on Communist China and asserted that the United States should "reply to the next Communist aggression by dropping bombs on the Soviet Union.”
In 1950, Donovan and Pawley bought out Chennault, having persuaded the China Lobby to pay him $5 million for his beat-up airline (Civil Air Transport). Some of the notable members of the China Lobby were Henry R. Luce publisher of Time and Life newsmagazines, Alfred Kohlberg, a publisher and retired New York importer; Frederick C. McKee, a wealthy Pittsburgh manufacturer and philanthropist and anti-communist Republicans in Congress. Along with these guys, Retired Major General Charles A. Willoughby with the assistance of the notorious Hunt clan of Dallas, he set up in a right-wing intelligence network called the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture by H. L. Hunt's sons Nelson Bunker Hunt and Lamar Hunt. (Gold Warriors, Sterling & Peggy Seagrave, pgs. 95-96)
Willoughby was the chief of intelligence on General MacArthur's staff during World War Two, the occupation of Japan, and the Korean War. Willoughby retired from the army in 1951. In 1951 Willoughby went before the House of Un-American Activities and travelled to Spain becoming an unofficial advisor to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
Later in the war, OSS officer M. Preston Goodfellow managed sensitive OSS operations in Burma and China, and formed close ties to General Dai Li and drug smuggler Du Yue-sheng. Goodfellow was also involved in the Pawley-Cooke escapade. In 1942, he had been Donovan’s liaison officer with OSS Colonel Garland H. Williams. According to Korean War historian Bruce Cumings, Goodfellow made a fortune by combining business ties with right-wing regimes in Asia and interests in Central America. Beginning in January 1941, Williams re-organized the US Army Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) into the US Army, Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). John Williams (Garland’s brother) was directing the British Special forces (SOE) operations in Chungking, China.
Pawley's collusion with Cooke, Donovan, Goodfellow, Bullitt, and H. L. Hunt is a textbook example of how privateers ran the shadow CIA, dovetailed with narcotics trafficking. Colonel Garland Williams was also the vice president of Commerce International China (CIC), a subsidiary of Donovan's WCC.
In 1948 and 1949 OSS Colonel Williams had been tasked to conducted surveys of Iranian opium production and had learned that Iran's most influential families had amassed a fortune through the opium trade. He knew that Iran shipped tons of opium to Indochina through Greece and Armenian mafia brokers like Fassoulis Satiris. So it is highly likely Satiris bought the Thai and KMT opium, and in return the WCC boys and CIA got cash. In 1950 Williams was also a security chief for the CIA at the same time that CIA officer Allen Dulles was meeting with KMT officials to seal the Pawley-Cooke deal.
(The Strength of the Wolf, Douglas Valentine, pgs. 78-79)
In about 1950, William Pawley left Thailand for Havana where he went into business with Meyer Lansky. He spent lavishly, buying sugar plantations, an airline and a bus company. When Fidel Castro seized control of Cuba from the Batista regime, Pawley escaped to Miami where he continued his alliance with Lansky, using a Miami bus company as his front. Meanwhile, Pawley helped Donovan persuade right-wing Texas oil man H. L. Hunt to support the KMT regime with millions of dollars for covert operations." In 1953 or 1954, Pawley was involved with the CIA operation that over thru Guatemala. I have no idea if he ever was an OSS or CIA officer, but he had friends in high places and/or he was dispensing (Gold Warriors, Sterling & Peggy Seagrave, p. 270)
Goodfellow became involved in tungsten deals with World Commerce Corporation a post war firm established by the heads of several Allied intelligence organizations, including General Donovan. By early 1949, Donovan was combining his business activities with OSS clandestine activities. From the fall of1949 to the mid-1950s, Goodfellow became a key agent for Korean-American business deals, to including aiding Nationalist China (Taiwan). There appears to have been a tungsten shortage at the end of World War Two.
In November 1950, President Truman, faced with large numbers of Chinese communist troops pouring into Korea, approved an operation, code-named Operation Paper, to prepare remnant Kuomintang (KMT) forces in Burma for a countervailing invasion of Yunnan. It is clear also that these troops, the so-called 93rd Division under KMT General Li Mi, were already involved in drug trafficking. It is clear finally that, as we shall see, Truman belatedly approved a supply operation to drug traffickers that had already been in existence for some time.
The decision to launch Operation Paper was made by a small cabal inside the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), notably Desmond Fitzgerald and Richard Stilwell in conjunction with former OSS Chief William Donovan, who favored the rollback of communism over the official State Department policy of containment.
As the Korean War turned against the United States, Chiang Kai-shek, with his dream of returning to the mainland and defeating the communists, were seen as a potential pressure point against Mao. With the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his 'exposing' of communist sympathizers in the federal government, American officials muted or stopped criticism of Chiang's rule. Suddenly the Kuomintang army (KMT) was respectable, and American aid began to pour in. The American Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Taiwan grew from a handful of advisers in 1951 to 2,300 five years later. Economics aid and war material flowed in at a rate that the island could not possibly absorb.
By 1951 the CIA was closely allied with the KMT drug operation in Burma and Yunnan China through the front company, Sea Supply Corporation. It was founded and run by CIA officer Paul Helliwell.
In 1953, 7,000 KMT troops were airlifted to Taiwan, but many more troops decided to remain behind. 7,000 troops remained entrenched around the Burma-Laos border, while several thousand more remained in Thailand. A second withdrawal of KMT troops occurred in 1961 and then US military aid, nearly all provided by the US tax payers, were three-quarters of Taiwan’s national budget." (Inside the League, Scott & Jon Anderson, pgs. 49-50)
Eisenhower appointed William Donovan US Ambassador to Thailand where he served from September 4, 1953 until his resignation on August 21, 1954. In October 1954, Donovan was replaced as ambassador by another former CIA man, John Peurifoy, who was widely regarded as the premier anti-communist in the State Department.
Donovan was a former Wall Street lawyer who came from a poor Irish-Catholic background and he won the metal of honor in world War One earning the nick-name Wild Bill. Over the years, he was almost a stranger to his wife (from a wealthy Protestant family). They had two children, but he spent little time with his family. His extramarital affairs were so common that CIA officers were aware of his desire for female companionship during his foreign stops. Donovan returned to the United States in 1954, allegedly almost broke. I find that hard to believe. His health began to deteriorate and he died in 1959.
In 1954 Senior FBN agent Wayland Speer was tasked on a mission to the Far East to gather evidence of Communist China’s involvement in the drug business. Speer uncovered no hard information of Chinese government culpability, but one of his reports implicated two senior officers in the Nationalist Chinese secret police, top Thai government leaders and military officers, American servicemen, and officers of the CIA-controlled Civil Air Transport (CAT) airline. He noted one smuggler who claimed to obtain his opium from Yunnan Province in southern China. Civil Air Transport (CAT), a cargo airline was falsely known as being owned by Nationalist Chinese interests. Speer stated that one of his informants was a pilot, who had flown missions for the Thai police. This pilot provided details of attempts by one of his Taiwanese co-pilots and other Nationalist Chinese to enlist him to fly 12 tons of opium out of Burma and 50 pounds of heroin from Bangkok. He also reeled off examples of other dope-smuggling plots involving Thai police officials, Thai Air Force officers, and a US master sergeant. CAT planes in Thailand were generally clean, he said, because the Thai Air Force took steps to prevent competition with its own opium flights. Speer quickly learned that dishonest officials were the rule, not the exception in Thailand. The Thai national police under ruthless and brutal generals became the largest opium-trafficking syndicate in Thailand.
OSS officer Jim Thompson called his adopted country “the most corrupt place on earth” and said “everyone is in the opium traffic from the top to the bottom,” starting with the police. He like what appears to be true of other OSS and CIA officers was the owner of a business, the Thai Silk Company.
Another informant told agent Wayland Speer that the Army held literally tons of opium and morphine at its barracks in Bangkok. Speer then learned from the US embassy’s security officer that the top KMT officer in Bangkok “finances all of her intelligence operations with opium.” http://mythorelics.blogspot.com/2014/05/secret-power-in-thailand.html
By the late 1950s it became clear that Chaing Kai-shek would never be strong enough to invade China. The main focus changed to stopping the spread of communism to countries like Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. At the time, the main group fighting communism in the region was the large private armies controlled by the Asian drug lords. For example, Laotian General Vang Pao was employing his 30,000-man army to fight the communist Pathet Lao. In return for working with the CIA, Helliwell helped Vang Pao to modernize the drug trade. William Corson claims that: "Portable heroin processing facilities were brought in. It was a creation of the CIA's technical services division." Some of these profits went to help CIA run some unofficial covert operations.
In 1959, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) agent George White arrested members of the San Francisco Hip Sing gang, but their mafia boss, Chung Wing Fong fled to Taiwan. Fong was an official of the San Francisco based Chinese Anti-communist League. This group was a KMT front. FBN Director Harry Anslinger continued to cover up the Taiwanese-Thai drug connection for the next decade.
During the campaign against Cuba in 1960, CIA officer Paul Helliwell establish a company called Red Sunset Enterprises, which reportedly was an employment agency for anti-Castro espionage and sabotage specialists. Like Zenith Technical Enterprises, Red Sunset was listed in the white pages but without an address. That is how CIA front companies operated.
(Source: Operation Paper: The United States and Drugs in Thailand and Burma, Chapter 3, by Peter Dale Scott and The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs, by Douglas Valentine) http://apjjf.org/-Peter-Dale-Scott/3436/article.html
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As the Japanese imperial army swept through China it seized gold, silver, precious gems and works of art. The worth of all this booty is estimated to be as much as over $100 billion today. According to various post-war estimates, the gold bullion alone totals 4,000 to 6,000 tons. After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, Major General Charles A. Willoughby and BG Edward Lansdale captured this loot. General Douglas MacArthur, former US president Herbert Hoover and CIA Director Allen Dulles knew that the US was confiscating this Golden Lily loot/fund. Lansdale briefed Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy about the findings, and at a US Cabinet-level decision, that decision was made to confiscate the gold and cover-up its discovery. President Truman may also have been in the circle of those who were briefed about the recovered gold. MacArthur called it the M-Fund and these funds were used to conduct CIA political warfare operations in Japan, Korea, and the rest of the world.
Before this Japanese loot was captured, OSS officers in Europe capture tons of Nazi gold (aka the Black Eagle Gold). From Switzerland 280 trucks of Nazi gold were move from Germany across France and Spain to the safe haven of neutral Portugal.
Information about this war loot was disjointed; ultimately all such reports were passed up to the office of the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson. He had a special interest in the subject of looted bullion and kept a group of financial experts thinking hard about it. Three of these men were Stimson's special assistants John J. McCloy, Robert Lovett, and consultant Robert B. Anderson. In September 1945, Stimson was replaced as Secretary of War by Robert P. Patterson, Sr. if he was read-on about this secret, I don’t know.
The problem of how to deal with plundered treasure, and what to do with Axis gold after the war, was discussed in July 1944 when 44 nations met at the resort of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to plan the post-war economy. These discussions, some of them extremely secret, revealed the flaws and loopholes that existed in the international financial system, making any clear-cut resolution unlikely. The Bretton Woods agreement (as it was made public) set a fixed price for gold of $35 an ounce, and banned the importation of gold to America for its use. But it appears the Golden Lilly Fund was not disclosed in this manner. (Gold Warriors, America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold, Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave, (2005))
As more and more gold was discovered in the Philippines, it was distributed in private accounts across the globe in over 100 banks, and administered by E. Erle Cocke, Jr. After serving as an aide to Secretary of State George Marshall and Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, Cocke was appointed a US delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959. He held a position in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development during the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was co-founder with Brigadier General Eugene Phillips of Cocke & Phillips International Corporation, a banking consulting and lobbying firm founded in Washington, D.C. in 1976.
(Sources: Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave," Verso, 2005, pp 96-99, and Guyatt's Project Hammer Files)
Santa Romana was the Filipino guy who helped MG Willoughby and BG Edward Lansdale find the gold that the Japanese had buried in various locations in the Philippines. The Japanese at the end of the war could not risk shipping this loot back to Japan. Lansdale and Romana were made responsible for recovery of the treasure, confiscated the land where much of the gold was buried, and proceeded to mine it. Over the years, Lansdale's personal account in Zurich grew to over 30,000 metric tons – greater than the national treasury of any modern nation state. Romana had multiple accounts and the largest single account was valued at over 20,000 metric tons. While these accounts were created in their names, over time it would be shown these were actually government accounts. As a point of reference, the annual gold production of the world is estimated to be 1,200 tons and the US gold repository at Fort Knox held in 1980 was only 8,221 tons. On his death, Santa Romana's will and his tax record provided evidence of his fortune had been deposited in the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong and elsewhere.
The Henry Keswick family (British) had controlling interest in Jardine Matheson Bank. This family also had controlling interest in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), which was the largest holder of Santa Romana's known gold accounts, although Citibank would be the largest recipient of the confiscated treasure. When Roman died, the bank refused to hand over his accounts to his heirs, and confiscated his accounts. The sons of Henry Keswick, John and William Keswick, were British OSS (aka Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers and participated and support for the OSS.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Yoshio Kodama maintained an extensive network of spies in China, feeding information back to the Japanese government. He procured large shipments of materials, such as nickel, cobalt, copper, and radium, for the mounting war effort, sometimes bartering for these supplies with heroin. By the time the war was over in 1945, Kodama was worth the equivalent of $175 million. Kodama was active in Japan's political arena and criminal underworld from the 1950s to the early 1970s.
Yoshio Kodama then spent two years in Sugamo Prison as an indicted war criminal, but was suspiciously released on December 24, 1948 when he made a deal with MG Willoughby to give the CIA $100 million (one billion in 2015 dollars). Professor Chalmer Johnson said “Kodama had a working relationship with the CIA,” and was probably the CIA’s number one contract agent in Japan. (Ted Szulc, New Republic, April 10, 1976, p. 11; and Baerwald, Asian Survey, September 1976, pp. 817-818)
As Yoshio Kodama American pal Ted Lewin, funded the Cannon Agency (aka MG Willoughby’s death squad) named after CIC Colonel Jack Y. Cannon. The Cannon Agency arranged the beating and killing of student leaders, liberals, leftists, socialist, labor union organizers, scholars, and journalists. Cannon worked closely with Mashii Hisayuki, Kodama’s Korean mafia Lieutenant who headed the Tosei -kai gang of Japanese mafia, yakuza).
Kodama acted as go-between for the General MacArthur’s G-2 section of the occupational forces and the yakuza, and was able to mobilize battalions of gangsters to carry out his political will. The CIA paid him $150,000 in 1949 to use his underworld connections to smuggle a shipload of tungsten out of China, a shipment that never arrived, although Kodama kept his fee.
After Buckminster Fuller's group published the fact that the element tungsten was found mainly in Korea, the US government censored those findings for some years, possibly in an effort to hide the weakness inherent in being dependent on that element, and possibly covering its connection to the Korean War. Fuller’s group was cataloging the world's resources and researching his theory of “Spaceship Earth.” And that earth was made up of limited resources.
If you sprinkled just a bit of Tungsten into molten iron and stirred it up, you get tungsten carbide steel. Artillery dominated the World War Two from the start, with massive guns firing 1,800 pound shells reducing shit to rubble. But it was not just about the size of the guns, but how long they could be used. German armament makers perfected some that could fire up to 15,000 rounds without becoming unserviceable, compared to Russian and French weapons that became unserviceable after firing about half the number of cannon balls (artillery rounds). Greater than 80 percent of tungsten is sourced from Chinese mines.
Tungsten mine was the powerhouse of the economy in the post-Korean War decades, contributing more than 50 percent of the country's export revenue as one of the largest global tungsten producers. South Korea was one of the few places on earth where tungsten was found and mined. In the 2015, China/PRC currently accounts for more than 90 percent of global supply.
Korean was the third largest world producer of tungsten. China was the second largest. The most important tungsten mines were located just south of the 38th parallel, which is why Truman decided it for the cease fire line. Another important source of tungsten was eastern Burma.
President Eisenhower was noted as having said "we are fighting to protect the precious resource tungsten." Eisenhower had also expressed the world's need of materials (tin and tungsten) from Indochina that were very important. These two items were in demand and the world could not afford any interruptions of not receiving these materials. (The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990, Marilyn Young, p. 31) https://politicalcrumbs.wordpress.com/thinking-like-a-state/how-the-state-thinks-eisenhower-and-indochina/
Before the victory of Chinese Communists in 1949 over the KMT, China shipped out tungsten through its trading subsidiary, International Suppliers Corporation (ISC). Before the Korean War a British owned mine in Burma supplied 10 percent of the world’s needs. The Koreans began smuggling tungsten across the border into Thailand. They used the KMT to move the ore.
Early in the Korean War Eugene H. Doorman, a State Department officer was conducting covert operations collecting biographical data about people in Japan who could be trusted during the occupation. The American military needed tungsten, a scarce strategic metal used for hardening missiles. Japanese conservatives needed money. Members of Doorman Group were US Army Attaché Colonel Crowley, OSS officers Keiichi “Kay” Sugahara (a Japanese-American) and Jane Smith-Hutton, Naval Attaché Captain Henri H. Smith-Hutton, and Army Attaché Lt. Col. Harry J. Creswell. They sold tons of tungsten to the Pentagon for $10 million and smuggled it into the US.
The tungsten had been stored by from Japanese military officers during the war. The CIA provided $2.8 million in financing for the tungsten operation, which reaped a profit more than $2 million for the CIA’s secret intelligence and propaganda operation fund. By 1953, the CIA began doing political warfare to help non-socialist Japanese political parties from gaining power and helped the right wing Liberal Democratic Party take control of their government. (Source: the files of Kay Sugahara and Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952 by Howard Schonberger, professor at the University of Maine)
During the Korean War, Yoshio Komada had a company in Shanghai, called the Tokyo Rare Metal supplied tungsten to the US. In 1951 to 1952 there was a world shortage of tungsten because during World War Two the Communist Chinese shutdown the trade in this metal. Komada smuggled a stockpile of tungsten out of mainland China on Nationalist warships to Tokyo.
In 1954 Preston Goodfellow arranged with Kenneth D. Mann the president of Firth Sterling (one of the world's largest consumers of tungsten) to import tungsten from South Korea and it set up the first tungsten carbide mill in Korea. Mann and Goodfellow got to know each other while serving in the OSS. Mann said, “After a talk with Dovovan, then the US Ambassador to Thailand, I am quite sure that we can restrict the production from Thailand to insure world market stability.” Goodfellow was part of Donovan’s World Commerce Corporate outfit (WCC)… Thai and KMT drug money laundering for guns.
It was one of Korea’s chief foreign exchange earners during the 1950s, accounting for 17 percent of its total export. Mann was the former head of propaganda operations for the OSS. It was shipped out through International Supplier Corporation (ISC). ISC developed Civil Air Transport (CAT) Incorporated’s contacts with northern Chinese warlords. Mann was the former head of OSS Morale Operations branch. CAT was a CIA front company, later called Air America.
The purpose of the Corporation was to move Nazi money back to democratic West Germany. Nazi Gold had been moved and hidden (invested) in Argentina during the war. This money was the source of the miraculous West German economic revival in the 1950’s was the same money that had been stolen by Hitler in the 1940’s. (Source: The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994; pp. 77–78 and (Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Press 1998; p. 300.)
According to DEA's John J. O'Neill and others, the policy was not to stop the drug business in Vietnam, but to win the war. River boats openly transported opium paste from the highlands down the Mekong River to the Vietnam's delta. One of the secrets of the Vietnam War was that Ngo Dinh Diem, his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and South Vietnamese Generals were selling heroin to the Corsican and American mafias. (The Strength of the Wolf, pp. 345 to 347)
The Golden Triangle's opium production approached its present scale; Burma's total harvest had increased from less than 40 tons just before World War two to 300 to 400 tons in 1962, while Thailand's expanded at an even greater rate, from seven tons to over 100 tons. (Source: The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Thailand's Opium: The Fruits of Victory, by Alfred W. McCoy)
US aid to the non-Communist forces of South Vietnam had started in 1950, both with materiel and assistance to the French doing the primary training. In October 1950 US aid was administered by various US generals who commanded the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (MAAG-I). The Geneva Accords allowed for freedom of movement between the North and South Vietnam until October 1954. The US Navy program, called Operation Passage to Freedom, saw up to one million North Vietnamese moved south, most of whom were Catholic. Over 60 percent of Catholic in the north moved to South Vietnam.
Bảo Đại had been emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty prior to the Japanese invasion in World War Two. He was the chief of state of South Vietnam from 1945 until 1955. His was the last dynasty of Vietnam. Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm won election over Bảo Đại in October 1955, becoming President. The total number of votes for a republic exceeded the total number of registered voters by some 380,000—an obvious sign of fraud.
The French financed their covert intelligence operations with opium according to Maurice Belleux, who was the former head of Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE -- aka the French foreign intelligence and counterintelligence service). He stated that French paratroopers would collect raw opium and move it by French military aircraft to Saigon where it was distributed by the Sino-Vietnamese mafia. The Corsican crime syndicate also shipped opium to Marseilles and refined it into heroin from where it was distributed to Europe and the US (aka The French Connection). (The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs, by Douglas Valentine p. 362)
After French forces occupied the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953, Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and placed heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. Boosted by Chinese aid, Giap mounted assaults on the opposition’s strong points beginning in March 1954, eliminating use of the French airfield. Viet Minh forces overran the base in early May, prompting the French government to sign the Geneva Accords of 1954.
South Vietnamese mafia, Bình Xuyên, boasted of an army of 40,000 and controlled a vice empire of brothels, casinos, extortion rackets, and opium factories unparalleled in Asia. Bảo Đại had given the Bình Xuyên control of the national police for $1,250,000.
The CIA's Colonel Edward Lansdale and CIA paramilitary officer, Major Lucien Conein arrived in June 1954 to help President/dictator Ngô Đình Diệm strengthen his rule. They led a propaganda campaign to encourage as many refugees to move south as possible.
The CIA's paramilitary training programs in Laos developed into a covert war of unprecedented scale against the Pathet Lao in the northeast part of Lao. The Pathet Lao was a political party and a guerrilla arm, and they were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists. By 1954 the United States was funding about 80 percent of Frances war in South Vietnam, a war that killed about half a million people. The CIA air drop supplies for the French forces besieged in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.
Viet Minh guerrilla army units began using the caves and enlarging them in the early 1950s while fighting the French. In the north-eastern area of Laos is an extensive network of caves in limestone mountains. Four-hundred eighty of these caves were used by the Pathet Lao. By the mid-1960s, up to 23,000 people lived in the caves and caverns (a large chamber in a cave) contained a hospital, a school, Pathet Lao offices, bakeries, shops, and even a theatre. The caves – some at the foot of hills, others high up, hidden by surrounding escarpments and accessible only by scaling steps cut into sheer rock faces – were an impregnable fortress. The area was home to the Communist army, who were fighting the royalist forces, based in Vientiane, Laos.
The inhabitants of the caves followed a routine of sleeping by day and working at night in the fields outside. Caverns held weaving mills, printing presses and workshops where American bombs and worn-out trucks were upgraded into farming tools and appliances. On Saturdays, adults would take a break and attend classes consisting of professional, cultural and political courses as well as lessons in algebra, geometry and geography.
The conclusion of the war didn’t bring the hardships experienced in the caves to an end: what changed were the inhabitants. After 1975, the caves became a re-education camp for functionaries of the Royal Lao government – from the lowliest foot soldier to the former king.
Cambodians were also fighting against the French in order to gain independence. From 1954 till 1958 North Vietnam government was primarily concerned with its internal development vs. reunification of South Vietnam. The North hoped to achieve reunification either through the elections provided for in the Geneva accords or through a natural collapse of the weak Diem regime. By 1959 the CIA discover evidence of large-scale infiltration from North Vietnam by the Viet Minh.
In March 1954, Allen L. Pope left the US Air Force and joined Civil Air Transport, a CIA front company. In April 1958 he again started flying CIA bombing mission against the Indonesian Army and Navy. In May 1958 his B-26 was shot down, he parachuted to the ground and with a broken leg was captured. He was used as a bargaining chip in Indonesian negotiations with the United States for arms. In February 1962, US Attorney General Robert Kennedy paid President Sukarno a goodwill visit, pleaded for Pope's release, and in July 1962 he was released from prison. He had been sentence to death for killing 17 civilians in one of his bombing attacks.
Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia extended diplomatic relations with the Communist Chinese/PRC in 1958. This flew in the face of US policy to ensure the isolation of the PRC. Sihanouk became correctly convinced that the US had persuaded its alliance partners (South Vietnam and Thailand) to go along with the US plan to overthrow his government. Prince Sihanouk’s government was neutral and not bent on communism.
Cambodian General Dap Chhuon was plotting with the CIA and in November 1958 President Eisenhower was briefed about this CIA coup attempt. In February 1959, Sihanouk’s troops arrested Dap Chhuon and in so doing, they also arrested CIA officer Victor M. Matsui with his CIA radio. Dap Chhuon ended up dead, but Sihanouk later released Matsui and deported him from Cambodia. As a result Sihanouk distrusted the US and he gave the North Vietnamese insurgents a free hand to use Cambodia for their supply base. (Source: Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby, by John Prados, pp. 65 to 68)
Lon Nol was the son of a civil servant. In 1952 he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and given command of an infantry battalion. As the French retreated from Indochina, he led the Viet Min to keep Cambodia independent. In 1955, he became military Chief of Staff in Phnom Penh, and soon he became Defense Minister. In 1961, he rose to the rank of lieutenant general. Prince Sihanouk put Lon Nol in charge of overseeing the North Vietnamese transport of arms to South
In March 1970 in a coup Lon Nol, became political leader of Cambodia. Aiding in this coup was Sirik Matak, Sihanouk’s cousin (a member of the Cambodian royal family, a dynasty going back to 350 AD (aka CE).
Việt Minh political party/cadres who stayed behind in South Vietnam were activated and started to fight the South Vietnamese government. North Vietnam occupied portions of Laos to assist in supplying the guerrilla fighting National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. In 1960 the US started bombing South Vietnam resulting in some 70,000 to 80,000 deaths. A Buddhist resistance movement, the Viet Cong grew due to their anger over the corrupt and wealthy Catholic government.
The French were able to break the Viet Minh logistical codes as well as part or all of several of their operational codes from 1947 to 1957 and used aircraft SIGINT platforms.
Laos
The CIA supported Colonel Nosavan Phoumi who had never seen combat and was growing rich in the opium trade. A coup broke out led by a Laotian Army Captain Kong Le, resulting in a three way war between him, Col. Phoumi, and the Pathet Lao. And the Soviets aided the Pathet Lao with a massive airlift.
(Source: The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA, by Evan Thomas, pp. 240 to 299)
The CIA’s paramilitary commander, William Young had been assigned to Bangkok in 1958. In 1960 he was sent to back to Chiang Mai, Thailand and from there he directed CIA case officers in villages in Burma and Laos. His men spied on China and used tribesmen to kill communists in Laos during the 1960s. He became a top CIA Vietnam War-era assassin (hunter-killer) in the forests of Burma, Laos and Thailand. His guerrilla base in northwest Laos served as CIA headquarters for cross-border intelligence forays deep into southern China/PRC. After a year of recruiting and training native peasants, Young had begun sending the first teams of hill tribes people; Hmong, Lahu and Yao into the PRC. People's Republic of China was established in Beijing on October 1, 1949.
The Long Tieng, Laos (aka Long Cheng) airstrip became one of the largest American military installations on foreign soil and a secret CIA paramilitary training center by the mid-1960. It was located about 75 miles due north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos and about 200 miles southwest of Hanoi, North Vietnam. In August 1961, the first US Air Force unit the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron code named "Jungle Jim" was deployed to Burma, Laos, Thailand, and South Vietnam. It was later renamed the 1st Air Commando Wing. Their mission codenamed “Farm Gate” was close air support for the CIA’s secret army. They flew World War Two style propeller, T-28 fighters and C-47 and B-26 bombers and their mission was to train the Vietnam Air Force. T-28s were also used by the CIA in the Belgian Congo during the 1960s.
US Air Force Captain Richard Secord was assigned to this unit from 1961 to 1965. In August 1966, after promotion to Major, he was assigned to Thailand's Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in August 1966 as part of joined Operation Waterpump to train the Royal Lao Air Force. Major Secord flew 285 combat missions in Southeast Asia.
Starting in the late 1960s, 254 Cessna A-37Bs with two turbojet engines were delivered to the South Vietnamese Air Force. Approximately 187 A-37Bs were in South Vietnamese service when the country fell. 95 were later captured and were used by the Communist Vietnam in missions over Cambodia and during the China conflict in 1979. (Sources: Harvesting Pa Chay’s Wheat: The Hmong & America's Secret War In Laos by Keith Quincy), The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Alfred W. McCoy and Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos by Roger Warner)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1104/S00036/cia-suicide-after-a-life-of-god-and-guns.htm
The CIA's paramilitary training programs in Laos developed into a covert war of unprecedented scale against the Pathet Lao in the northeast of the country, while providing bases for bombing raids against North Vietnam on the northwestern border. The Pathet Lao were the Laotian equivalent of the South Vietnamese communist political party, the Viet Minh.
The CIA recruited and trained a private army of over 30,000 Hmong and other Laotian tribesmen. Some 40 to 50 CIA officers ran this operation, later aided by 20,000 Thai mercenaries at a cost of about $300 million a year. This CIA secret army went on the rampage throughout northern Laos, attacking Pathet Lao villages and expanding Hmong commando operations into bordering provinces. As each village was captured, the inhabitants were put to work building crude landing strips, usually 500 to 800 feet long, to receive Air America's "refugee" supplies. These landing strips were then used by Air America to fly Hmong opium to markets in Long Tieng and Vientiane.
Commanding this CIA secret army was Vang Pao dring the 1960s and 1970s. He was the only ethnic Hmong to attain the rank of major general officer in the Royal Lao Army, and he was loyal to the King of Laos while remaining a champion of the Hmong people. In the 1960s, according to CIA officer Tony Poe and author Alfred W. McCoy, Vang Pao flew heroin across southern Laos into central Vietnam where the chief of the Vietnam Air Force, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ would receive it.
Vang Pao immigrated to the US after the communists seized power in Laos in 1975. He and his wife initially moved first to Montana before settling in California and at 81 he died in January 2011.
The CIA did nothing to halt the trade or to prevent its aid from being abused. By the early 1960s the Golden Triangle had become the largest single opium-growing region in the world. The Golden Triangle had surplus opium; it had well-protected, disciplined syndicates.
In Laos during the 1960s the CIA battled communists with a secret army of 30,000 Hmong highlanders. Santos Trafficante Jr. was doing drug trafficking with Laotian warlords and also with Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother of Ngo Dinh Diem (President of South Vietnam). Ngo Dinh Nhu collected protection money for allowing the Hmong tribesmen in the highlands of South Vietnam to farm opium poppies. These tribesmen were rewarded for fighting for South Vietnam with free transportation for their opium crop on airplanes of the CIA front company, Air America.
Ngo Dinh Diem, a rigidly pious Catholic, was President of South Vietnam from October 1955 to November 1963. Shortly after the Vietnamese Binh Xuyen gangsters were driven out of Saigon in May 1955, he kicked off a determined anti-opium campaign with the shutting down of opium dens, addicts found it difficult to buy opium, and Saigon was no longer even a minor transit point in international narcotics traffic. However, only three years later the government suddenly abandoned its moralistic crusade and took steps to revive the illicit opium traffic. The beginnings of armed insurgency in the countryside and political dissent in the cities had shown Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, that he needed more money to expand the scope of his intelligence work and political repression. Nhu exercising personal command of both the Army of Vietnam (ARVN) Special Forces (a paramilitary unit which served as the Ngô family's de facto private army) and the Cần Lao political party which was a secret Catholic body which consisted of many small cells that were used to spy on South Vietnamese society at all levels, in order to detect and quash opposition to the Diem regime.
Although the CIA and the foreign aid division of the State Department had provided generous funding for those activities over the previous three years, the US Embassy to deny Nhu’s request for increased aid. He was determined to go ahead, and decided to revive the opium traffic to provide the necessary funding. Nhu used his contacts with powerful Cholon Chinese syndicate leaders to reopen the opium dens and set up a distribution network for smuggled opium. Within a matter of months hundreds of opium dens had been reopened, and five years later one Time-Life correspondent estimated that there were 2,500 dens operating openly in Saigon's sister city Cholon.
According to CIA officer Lt. Colonel Lucien E. Conein to keep these outlets supplied, Nhu in 1958 established two pipelines from the Laotian poppy fields to South Vietnam. The major pipeline was a small charter airline, Air Laos Commerciale, managed by a Corsican gangster.
While Nhu seems to have dealt with the Corsicans personally, the intelligence missions to Laos were managed by the head of his secret police apparatus, Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen. As head of the secret police, vaguely titled the Office of Social and Political Study, Tuyen commanded a vast intelligence network that included the CIA-financed Special Forces, the Military Security Service, and most importantly, the clandestine Can Lao party.
US Army Special Forces Lt Col. Conein was an assistant to Lansdale and Colby. His actual job was to maintain CIA contacts with Vietnamese generals. Nearly all of them trusted Conein. Several of them trusted only Conein, because he once had been their commanding officer in the 1940s and early 1950s. During World War Two, Conein served in the the French Foreign Legion and later in the OSS. He lived and fought with the notorious Corsican Brotherhood, which was then part of the French Resistance. Later, the Brotherhood became deeply involved in the drug trade. Conein was part of an OSS team parachuted into northern Vietnam in the spring of 1945 to fight the Japanese alongside the Vietminh. Conein worked with E. Howard Hunt when Hunt was working in the OSS. He tried to set up a stay-behind network in North Vietnam. He and his agents carried out sabotage against the public transportation system and buried weapons and explosives to equip a possible uprising against the Communist regime. For the latter caper, Conein came up with the novel idea of packing military hardware into coffins then buried in cemeteries. After 1956 he trained sabators in the Philippines and they unsuccessfully attempted raids into North Vietnam. Almost all of the sabators wee captured or killed. In 1962 he was back in South Vietnam.
In 1965, Conein arranged a truce between the CIA and drug trafficking Corsicans in Saigon. The truce allowed the Corsicans to traffic, as long as they served as contact men for the CIA. The truce also endowed the Corsicans with free passage at a time when Marseilles’ heroin labs were turning from Turkish morphine base to Southeast Asian morphine base. Conein left the CIA in 1968 and became a businessman in South Vietnam. (Source: The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, by Alfred McCoy) http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKconein.htm
Through the Can Lao party (aka Catholic secret society), Tuyen recruited spies and political cadres in every branch of the military and civil bureaucracy. Promotions were strictly controlled by the central government, and those who cooperated with Tuyen were rewarded with rapid advancement. With profits from the opium trade and other officially sanctioned corruption, the this intelligence outfit was able to hire hundreds of thousand full and part-time agents; cyclo-drivers, dance hall girls, and street vendors as part-time spies that soon covered every block of Saigon-Cholon. Tuyen kept detailed dossiers on every important figure in the country.
Since Tuyen was responsible for much of the Diem regime's foreign intelligence work, he was able to disguise his narcotics dealings in Laos under the cover of ordinary intelligence work. Vietnamese undercover operations in Laos were primarily directed at North Vietnam and were related to a CIA program started in 1954.
After purchasing opium and gold, Tuyen's agents had it delivered to airports in southern Laos near Savannakhet or Pakse. There it was picked up and flown to Saigon by Vietnamese air force transports which were then under the command of Nguyen Cao Ky, whose official assignment was shuttling Tuyen's espionage agents back and forth from Laos. Tuyen also used diplomatic personnel to smuggle Laotian opium into South Vietnam. In 1958 the director of Vietnam's psychological warfare department transferred one of his undercover agents to the Foreign Ministry and sent him to Pakse, Laos, as a consular official to direct clandestine operations against North Vietnam. Within three months Tuyen, using a little psychological warfare himself, had recruited the agent for his smuggling apparatus and had him sending regular opium shipments to Saigon in his diplomatic pouch.
The CIA was assigned to carry out this mission and incorporated a fictitious parent company in Washington, D.C., Aviation Investors, to provide a cover for its operational company, Vietnam Air Transport. The agency dubbed the project "Operation Haylift." Vietnam Air Transport, or VIAT, hired Colonel Nguyen Cao Ky and selected members of his First Transport Group to fly CIA commandos into North Vietnam via Laos or the Gulf of Tonkin.
In mid 1956, Nhu appointed Tuyến as his go-between with CIA agents stationed in South Vietnam. The US ambassador Frederick Reinhardt arranged for Tuyến to work with CIA officers such as Philip Potter and William Colby.
By the 1960s, American mafia boss, Santos Trafficante Jr. was doing business with Laotian warlords and also with Ngo Dinh Nhu. Ngo Dinh Nhu collected protection money for allowing the Hmong and Montagnard tribesmen in the highlands of Vietnam to farm opium poppies. One of the secrets of the Vietnam War was the both brothers were at the Vietnamese end of the Corsican mafia heroin trail. These tribesmen were rewarded for fighting for South Vietnam with free CIA airplane transportation for their opium crop via the CIA front company, Air America. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 345)
From 1958 to 1960 Nhu relied mainly on small Corsican charter airlines for transport, but in 1961-1962 he also used the First Transport Group (which was then flying intelligence missions into Laos for the CIA and was under the control of Nguyen Cao Ky) to ship raw opium to Saigon. During this period and the following years, 1965-1967, when Ky was premier, most of the opium seems to have been finding its way to South Vietnam through the Vietnamese air force.
Using patronage and discretionary funds, the broker builds a power base by recruiting dozens of small family cliques, important officeholders, and powerful military leaders. Since these ad hoc coalitions are notoriously unstable (betrayal precedes every Saigon coup), the broker also has to build up an intelligence network to keep an eye on his chief's loyal supporters. Money plays a key role in these affairs, and in the weeks before every coup political loyalties are sold to the highest bidder. Just before President Diem's overthrow in 1963, for example, US Ambassador Lodge, who was promoting the coup, offered to give the plotters funds at the last moment with which to buy off potential opposition.
In May 1961 Kennedy secretly issued National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM 28) ordering a covert CIA war against North Vietnam (NVN) (without Congressional declaration of war) to be conducted by South Vietnamese people directed and trained by the CIA and 400 US Special Forces troops and 100 other US military advisers. No publicity was given to either move. Also it was ordered the infiltration of South Vietnamese forces into south-eastern Laos to find and attack NVN bases and supply lines. (The Pentagon Papers, pp. 79-82)
On August 29, 1961, Kennedy raise the total of US adviser in Laos to 500 and went ahead with equipping of 2,000 more Laotian Hmong tribesmen, making a total of 11,000 fighting for or with the CIA. He refused the Joint Chiefs' recommendation to deploy additional US combat troops, instead allowed Army special forces under cover as "advisers." (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 110 and 116)
Kennedy transformed the "limited-risk gamble" of the Eisenhower Administration into a broad commitment to prevent Communist domination of South Vietnam. Kennedy’s tactics deepened the American involvement in Vietnam piecemeal, with each step minimizing public recognition that the American role was growing.
In November 1961, American soldiers were put in combat-support roles that involved them increasingly in actual fighting. The Kennedy administration effectively squelched press speculation about the troop question with carefully managed leaks to the press. (The Pentagon Papers, pp. 83 and 100)
The CIA's Intelligence Directorate provided a conspicuously more pessimistic analysis vs. that of the Pentagon. A CIA intelligence estimate in October 1961 reported "that 80 to 90 percent of the estimated 17,000 Viet Cong had been locally recruited and that there was little evidence that the VC relied on external supplies" (meaning supplied from North Vietnam. (The Pentagon Papers, p. 98)
Kennedy wanted to expel CIA’s front company, Air America, from Laos. In 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy indicted Sea Supply Company’s manager for having bribed a US official in Laos. Sea Supply Company was CIA front company providing war fighting supplies, but very secretly it was also trafficking in opium. This prosecution was blocked by JFK’s ultra, right-wing, political enemies in Congress and Air America kept its contract in Laos. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 262)
In the late 1950s, the Eisenhower administration had installed an anti-communist aristocrat, Ngo Dinh Diem, as President of South Vietnam. Diem called a referendum offering himself as a choice between himself and Bao Dai, which Diem won overwhelmingly. Bao Dai was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty. In October 1955, he declared himself president. The CIA helped Diem rig and win the election in 1956.
Diem and his extended family were Catholic, rich and corrupt, while the majority of the people of South Vietnam were dirt poor and Buddhist. He even outlawed the flying of the Buddhist flag. He launched a nine year reign of terror included mass detention without trial, wholesale torture, rape and murder. He was indifferent to the fate of the peasantry and refused to aggressively implement even the modest land reform programs.
In December 1958, Diem’s jailers fed poisoned bread to several hundred prisoners and his troops fired into crowds of peaceful protest marchers. Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, rounded up suspected communists and guillotined them in the public squares of small villages and on the advice of US advisers, had the South Vietnamese air force indiscriminately bomb civilians. The Strategic Hamlet Program, which forcibly removed peasants in Viet Cong control areas from their ancestral land, further angered people in the country side. As a result tens of thousands of people were joining the Viet Cong.
In 1959 the US had given South Vietnam $965 million (about $6.7 billion in 2014 dollars) in US economic and military aid. Starting in 1955 the US helped pay the wages of the South Vietnamese Army. The emphasis of US training and assistance continued to be to develop a conventional South Vietnamese army of 150,000 soldiers to repel an invasion from North Vietnam. But US Army Special Forces had not provided any training to the paramilitary Self-Defense Corps (numbering 43,000) or the Civil Guard (numbering 53,000) which were responsible for most aspects of security in rural areas.
National Liberation Front (aka Viet Cong) political party formed in the south was bent on overthrowing Diem. It was a political movement made up of two distinct groups: South Vietnamese intellectuals who opposed the government and were nationalists and communists. By 1960 over 70,000 to 80,000 Vietnamese had been killed by Diem’s secret police. By early 1961 the Diem government was on the verge of collapse. So in 1961 and 1962 Kennedy ordered the US Air Force to bomb South Vietnam and defoliate the forest. By 1965 the US had killed some 150,000 people.
In February 1962, Department of Defense established the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), a unified subordinate command of Commander in Chief, Pacific. In April 1962, the US military was doing everything they could to sell Kennedy on going to war in Vietnam. John Kenneth Galbraith, the US Ambassador to India wrote a memorandum to Kennedy suggesting that he explore with North Vietnam disengagement and mutual withdrawal from the growing war in South Vietnam. The US Joint Chiefs were furious at Galbraith’s proposal.
On April 6th, Kennedy told his newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State, Averell Harriman to send Galbraith instructions to pursue an Indian diplomatic approach to the North Vietnamese exploring a mutual disengagement. Harriman sabotaged Kennedy’s proposal (violated JFK’s direct order) and Galbraith never received JFK’s instructions. Kennedy finally had to use Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to get his policies on Vietnam and Laos moving in this direction. (JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass (2010), p. 119)
In July 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Geneva Agreements on Laos, theoretically terminating their military operations and agreeing to withdraw US Army special forces by October 1962 as specified. However the CIA devised a number of deceptions to continue its covert activities.
All of the CIA’s special forces soldiers moved to adjacent areas of Thailand, but returned almost every day by helicopter or plane. Civilian personnel (not covered by the Geneva Agreements) were recruited for clandestine operations. In December 1962, for example, CIA officer Edgar Buell trained Hmong guerrillas in demolition techniques and directed the dynamiting of six bridges and twelve mountain passes near Ban Ban. The US Embassy declared that Air America flights to Hmong villages were only for "humanitarian aid" and as such were exempted from the Geneva Agreements. These flights carried weapons and explosives as well as refugee supplies.
In May 1962, Kennedy ordered the commander of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), General Paul D. Harkins, to devise a plan for turning full responsibility for the war over to South Vietnam and to reduce the number of US troops. On May 11, 1962, General Harkins’ face appeared on the cover of Time magazine with a commentary What it Takes to Win, stating the US has a commitment to stay in Vietnam even if it took a decade. McNamara repeated this order to Harkin on July 26, 1962. By October 1962, he still had not responded with a plan. This was the Joint Chiefs dragging their feet to delay Kennedy’s planned withdrawal
(Ibid. pp. 120-123)
Members of the US press nicknamed General Harkins "General Blimp" because of their belief that he inflated the successes of US and South Vietnam military activities. As violence continued to escalate, many reporters began to perceive that what they were seeing in the field or what they were told confidentially by officers, did not match the information released by Harkins. They concluded that Harkins was misinformed by his staff or he was lying.
By the summer of 1962, Kennedy frustrated with the CIA’s inability to execute the covert war against North Vietnam, he ordered the Pentagon to take over and to greatly expand the covert war. The Pentagon initiated Operational Plan 34A (codenamed Operation Parasol-Switchback).
This operation consisted of inserting into North Vietnam, aerial reconnaissance missions and naval sabotage operations. A special Pentagon unit called the Office of Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (aka Studies and Observation Group or SOG) was tasked to authorize every one of these long range, behind-the-enemy lines, missions. This office reported directly to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mission requests were walked through the top echelons of the US government thru national security advisor McGeorge Bundy.
In July 1962, the US joined thirteen other nations at Geneva in signing the Declaration of Neutrality of Laos. On July 23, 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the start of a planning for American withdrawal from South Vietnam and long-term projections for reducing American financial aid to the Saigon Government.
In October 1962, Kennedy authorized a limited crop destruction operation spraying US –furnished herbicides from South Vietnamese helicopters. Secretary of State Dean Rush argued against this idea because women and children would suffer from hunger and it would just cause more enmity among the people. Kennedy had yielded to pressure from his military advisers and approved this operation. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 122)
The US program of defoliation, codenamed Operation Ranch Hand, sprayed herbicides (Agent Orange) over millions acres of land in Vietnam from 1961 to 1972, next to roads, rivers, canals and military bases. It contained the chemical dioxin. Vietnam veterans and their families began to report a range of afflictions, including rashes and other skin irritations, miscarriages, psychological symptoms, Type-2 diabetes, birth defects in children and cancers such as Hodgkin’s disease, prostate cancer and leukemia. In addition to the massive environmental impact of this defoliation program in South Vietnam, that nation has reported that some 400,000 people were killed or maimed. In addition, Vietnam claims half a million children have been born with serious birth defects, while as many two million people are suffering from cancer or other illness.
Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto Company that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents. A declassified letter by V.K. Rowe at Dow’s Biochemical Research Library to Bioproducts Manager Ross Milholland dated June 24, 1965 clearly states that the company knew the dioxin in their products was harmful. “This material is exceptionally toxic; it has a tremendous potential for producing chloracne (a skin disease resembling severe acne) and systemic injury.”
In 1988 letter from Dr. James R. Clary, a former government scientist with the Chemical Weapons Branch, to Senator Tom Daschle, Clary wrote: “When we (military scientists) initiated the herbicide program in the 1960′s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’ formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’ version. However, because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy’, none of us were overly concerned…”
Through 2004, Dow and Monsanto funded several friendly studies by Dr Alvin L. Young to show that the exposure of US ground forces to Agent Orange should be of minimal health concern. His studies have drawn the scorn of prominent members of the scientific community.
Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, a retired senior/advisor at Hatfield Consultants, told Thanh Nien Daily. “Young is paid by the chemical companies. I don’t believe a word he says.” Hatfield Consultants is a research leader in the field of contamination from dioxin herbicides in Vietnam.
Political pressure was building up as US casualties continued to occur. By the fall of 1962, the Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield became opposed to the increasing US commitment to a war. Mansfield told Kennedy that in South Vietnam, outside its cities, the nation was run at night by the Vietcong. The likely Republican presidential candidate who would run against John Kennedy in 1964, was Berry Goldwater. Goldwater was totally against withdrawing US troops from South Vietnam. By November 1963, there were a total of 16,500 US military personnel in Vietnam. (Ibid. pp. 122 and 125)
In February 1963, the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) began operations in Thailand. A FBN agent made a case on two Thai lieutenants serving with the Thai border police. After their arrest the CIA officers who were training the Thai police, simply sent them to manage a drug network in Laos. In another instance, a CIA pilot left a suitcase full of opium at the Air America ticket counter in Bangkok. The CIA whisked away the pilot to the Philippines and he was put under protective custody. General Vang Pao was busted by FBN with drugs in his car trunk. Later the Thai prime minister gave Vang Pao back his Mercedes Benz and morphine base, and the CIA sent him to Miami for six months to cool his heels. (The Strength of the Wolf: pp. 332 - 334)
On February 11, 1963 senior White House aide, Michael V. Forrestal reported to Kennedy stated that Vietcong recruitment inside South Vietnam was so effective that the war could be continued even without infiltration from North Vietnam. By October 1963, there were 16,732 US troops in South Vietnam (The Pentagon Papers, pp. 112-113).
CIA Director John McCone argued forcefully that Diem was the only leader who could hold South Vietnam together, but Robert Kennedy decided that he could not support such a repressive a regime, despite strong protests from some military leaders, the CIA, and the Catholic Church. One of the major US lobbyist on behalf of Diem and his regime was Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York. Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and his wife, madame Nhu, had become the oppressors of the South Vietnamese Buddhist majority.
In May 1963, thousand of Buddhists demonstrated to protest the Diem’s government and nine Buddhists were killed by South Vietnamese troops. On May 8th two powerful explosions killed seven people and wounded 15 others during a protest by South Vietnamese Buddhist in Hue. It was determined by medical experts, that the killed and wounded people had to have been injured by a bomb made of very powerful, plastic explosives. At this time in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong didn’t have that kind of explosives. (JFK and the Unspeakable p, 130)
According to William P. Bundy, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense, Kennedy in early summer of 1963, consulted on Vietnam with just a few advisers in the State Department and White House, thereby leaving out representatives of the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA. They knew they had been left out of this decision, just like Kennedy's decision about above ground test ban treaty. The reason was simple. Kennedy knew the military-intelligence elite opposed to all his efforts to end the Cold War. They wanted to win it. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 180-186)
In late 1963, The CIA recruited Norwegian and German mercenaries to train South Vietnamese Naval sabotage units to operate small attack boats against North Vietnam. Japanese investors were used in a effort to build up the South Vietnamese economy because American companies tended to shy away from making substantial investments there. (The Secret War Against Hanoi, p. 177)
In August 26, 1963 Kennedy appointed Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as US Ambassador to South Vietname, and he ordered him to order the CIA Saigon Chief of Station John Richardson to prepare for a coup against Diem. (The Secret History of the CIA, pgs. 333-334)
In 1960, Lodge had been Richard Nixon’s vice presidential candidate running mate against Kennedy. Rumors had it that Nixon lost votes in the southern states because Lodge pledge (made without Nixon's approval) that if elected, Nixon would name at least one African American to a cabinet post. Lodge’s father, Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. had served in Congress for 27 years from 1887 to 1924 and had served as the Senate Majority Leader as a Republican.
Kennedy wanted to end Diem's flagrantly authoritarian rule and he approved a South Vietnamese military coup d’état by their generals to overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem and offered full support for the successor government. Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman in charge of the State Departments Vietnam desk (aka Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern affairs), along with CIA's Deputy Director of Operations, Richard Helms and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, helped persuade Kennedy in his decision for the coup. (JFK and the Unspeakable., p.181)
In October 1963, the US cut off aid to Diem. The US maintained clandestine contact with the South Vietnamese generals throughout the planning and execution of coup. Kennedy had requested the brothers be evacuated by air to another country for asylum. The CIA however, had made no plans to evacuate Diem and Nhu to avoid their assassination. On November 1st-2nd,1963, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were killed. ( JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 207-209 and The Pentagon Papers, p. 158- 162))
The Pentagon and Joint Chiefs dragged their heels on finishing the Vietnam withdrawal plan.
Kennedy had already developed a withdrawal scenario from South Vietnam with Robert McNamara to begin gradually taking out troops that fall of 1963 and finishing the process in 1965. Kennedy told Mike Mansfeld his plan was to pull out completely after the 1964 election. Kennedy told an old friend and Washington columnist, Charles Bartlett: "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. ...Those people hate us... But I can't give up a piece of territory like that to the communists and then get the American people to reelect me." Democratic House Leader Tip O'Neill was another person who heard Kennedy talk like this after being summoned to the Oval Office. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 180-186)
On May 6, 1963, Kennedy order 1,000 US troops removed from South Vietnam by December 31, 1963. On October 11, 1963, Kennedy issued a secret order for a US withdrawal from Vietnam in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM 263). (Ibid, pgs. 93 and 125)
In February 1963, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) began operations in Thailand. An FBN agent made a case on two Thai lieutenants serving with the CIA-advised Thai border police. After their arrest the CIA simply sent them to manage a drug network in Laos. In another instance, a CIA pilot left a suitcase full of opium at the Air America ticket counter in Bangkok. The CIA whisked away the pilot to the Philippines and was put under protective custody by CIA security officers. General Vang Pao was busted by FBN with drugs in his car trunk. Vang Pao was the commander of a CIA backed army of indigenous opium growing tribesmen in Laos. Later the Thai prime minister gave Vang Pao back his Mercedes Benz and morphine base, and the CIA sent him to Miami for six months to cool his heels. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 332 - 334)
By the 1960s, Santos Trafficante Jr. was doing business with Laotian warlords and also with Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother of Ngo Dinh Diem (President of South Vietnam). Ngo Dinh Nhu collected protection money for allowing the Hmong and Montagnard tribesmen in the highlands of Vietnam to farm opium poppies. One of the secrets of the Vietnam War was the both brothers were at the Vietnamese end of the Corsican heroin trail. These tribesmen were rewarded for fighting for South Vietnam with free CIA transportation on Air America for their opium crop. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 345)
Over the next decade, Burma's Shan states were transformed into the world's largest opium producer. The CIA's alliance with the opium armies in the Burma-Thai borderlands lasted for a decade.
Lt. Colonel William Corson stated that by 1963 that Ambassador at Large Averell Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the Attorney General. “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointment secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from, Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, the White House staff guy who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman. A Special Operations Army Officer John Michael Dunn, took his orders not from normal CIA chain of command, but from Harriman and Forrestal. According to Corson, Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters. (The Secret History of the CIA, pgs. 334-335)
Lt. Colonel Corson was a Marine Corps officer who became an expert in counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare and became an advisor to four presidents. He was one of the major sources for the book, The Secret History of the CIA, by Joseph Trento. After he retired in 1968, he was almost court marshaled for writing his book titled, The Betrayal. It was highly critical of US policy in Vietnam. He wrote that more American soldiers would die needlessly in Vietnam. In 1944, Corson worked in OSS with the top OSS officers Allen Dulles, Frank G. Wisner, and William Donovan. He never became a CIA officer. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 26-28)
By the end of the Vietnam/Laos war, a total of about one third of the casualties in the were due to land mines and booby traps. The longer the US stayed there, the greater the chances of US soldiers getting killed or becoming disable from one of these mines.
Wounded hospitalized: 153,329
Severely disabled: 23,214; 5,283 Lost a limb; 1,081 Sustained multiple amputations.
Amputation or crippling wounds to the lower extremities were 300 percent higher than in World War Two and 70 percent higher than Korea. Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4 percent compared to 5.7 percent in World War Two.
“Kennedy felt that his own demise (death) was increasingly likely if he continued to buck his military advisers.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 94)
I don't knew how much Kennedy knew about CIA's drug trafficking. There is a history of the CIA and the military not telling the presidents about some secret operation or their working with the mafia and/or not even telling the Director of the CIA or US Ambassadors of the foreign countries about covert operation conducted there. http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm
The CIA was actually flying opium, not simply protecting drug warlords. On August 30, 1964, Major Stanley C. Hobbs was caught smuggling 57 pounds of opium from Bangkok to South Vietnamese officers in Saigon on Air America. His general court martial in November 1964, at Ryukyu Island (aka Okinawa) was conducted in secret for security reasons. The records of the trial have been lost, though he was convicted. Hobbs was merely fined $3,000 and suspended from promotion for five years. He served no time. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 336)
In 1966 the CIA launched Operation Palace Dog in concert with the US Air Force. The stated purpose was to train Laotian and South Vietnamese pilots , but its secret mission was to provide security for the joint Laotian/Vietnamese drug smuggling. Also Palace Dog aircraft were used to fly medicines from the World Medical Relief warehouse in Detroit to Vang Pao’s secret army in Long Tieng.
By 1967 the US military and the US Customs service were conducting secret investigations into both Palace Dog and Air America. Senior Customs official Dave Ellis stated,” It was getting bad…the CIA looked away from Air America and Continental Airlines. Air logistics for the Laos opium trade were further improved in 1967 when the CIA and USAID gave Vang Pao financial assistance in forming his own private airline, Xieng Khouang Air Transport. This airline flew additional cargoes of opium and heroin between Long Tieng and Vientiane.
In June 1967, the Kuomintang (KMT) generals got angry at Burmese warlord Khun Sa’s plan to sell 16 tons of opium. This sale threaten to destroy the general’s monopoly over the supply, so the KMT generals marched their forces from Burma across the border into Laos. The CIA learned of this attack on Laotian force and ordered Major Richard Secord to send a squadron of his T-28s to attack the KMT forces. As a result the KMT troops retreated.
Around June 1967 the CIA learned that Thai government officials selling the communists weapons in exchange for opium. So the CIA had a team of 25 men hunter-killer team called “the Trackers”, flying around in Laos, Thailand and South Vietnam killing members of a communist-connected drug smuggling ring.
(Source: The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs by Douglas Valentine)
In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine named Professor Joseph S. Nye to its list of top global thinkers. Here is what he has to say about all the money the US has wasted on Southeast Asia.
The US supported the South Korea dictators since 1945 for the past 70 years. Former assistant secretary of defense Joseph S. Nye, Jr. has argued that pre-positioning equipment and troops in South Korea "is a terrific force multiplier" that allows one to "add tremendous additional capability in a very short time." But only a bit more sense.
Nye continues: The United States could maintain a cooperative relationship with South Korea even in the absence of a defense guarantee and US troops there. Moreover, it is hard to imagine an Asian conflict in which the United States would intervene with ground forces, which makes the lone division stationed in South and associated US pre-positioned equipment, superfluous.
China is, today at least, the most obvious potential military adversary of America in East Asia. If the US ended up going to war with China over, say, Taiwan, the Navy and Air Force would do the heavy lifting. A sizable American presence in South Korea would merely turn that country into a military target and would be likely to make Seoul hesitate to support Washington in such a contingency. Moreover, the regional "stability" argument fails. America would remain the region's largest trading partner; would retain significant cultural, historical, and political ties; and could cooperate militarily with allied states. It could even intervene militarily if it believed its vital interests were threatened.
MK/ULTRA
This program did experiments to attempt to find a truth drug to aid the CIA in interrogating of KGB defectors, espionage suspects, and etc. In August 1963, CIA inspector General, John S. Earman Jr. reported to CIA Director McCone that MK/ULTRA was unethical, possibly illegal, and put “the rights and interests of US citizens in jeopardy.” CIA scientist Sid Gottlieb and CIA officer Richard Helms had tried to cover themselves by not keeping records.
Earman had stumbled across the existence of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) safe-houses in San Francisco, CA. In his IG report he noted that testing at the safe-houses had been performed “on individuals at all social levels (who were being serviced by prostitutes), including informants and members of suspected criminal elements...” He noted that arrangements were made with “police authorities ....to protect the activity in critical situations.“ To ensure plausible deniability, the CIA made sure that the responsibility for the handling of the test subjects rest “with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents working alone.” (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 300-301)
Robert Kennedy discovered another FBN safe-house in Chicago in July 1963 testing LSD via MK/ULTRA, he entered into a relationship with Paulino Sierra Martinez, head of the anti-Castro Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilo (JGCE) in Chicago. Sierra, on behalf of Bobby Kennedy with the State Department funds hired anti-Castro terrorist groups training outside of the US. Sierra was allegedly tied to Trafficante and Marcello. Chicago mafia boss, Sam Giancana revealed his connection to MK/ULTRA as a way of warding off the FBI. (Ibid., p. 307)
CIA inspector General John S. Earman Jr. stated the CIA had perfected an interrogation theory employing chemical substances. In 1962 an Army Special Purpose Team traveled to the Atsugi Naval Base, Japan and used LSD during interrogations of foreign nationals suspected of drug smuggling and spying. Testing of LSD was also conducted on prisoners in South Vietnam. CIA hired a medical specialist to test LSD on prisoners at the Atlanta Penitentiary and through the National Institute of Mental Health on drug addicts at the Public Health Farm in Lexingon. (Ibid., pp. 225 and 303)
Experiments in the use of drugs during torture started in 1916. In 1943, Nazi doctors experiment with mescaline as a truth serum at Dachau and Auschwitz. In the mid-1950s, the CIA launched a classified programs devoted to researching "special interrogation techniques." A declassified CIA memorandum explained that the program "examined and investigated numerous unusual techniques of interrogation including psychological harassment and such matters as total isolation and the use of drugs and chemicals. The research was done under CIA code names of Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke, and MK/ULTRA. MK/ULTRA program involved 80 institutions, including 44 universities and 12 hospitals.
US Army Colonel Sheffield Edwards, was appointed the Deputy Director of Security in April 1950. This CIA Directorate was in charge of research into the use of hypnosis and drug-based interrogations as a result of the brainwashing conducted on American POWs held by North Korea. Project Bluebird in August 1951 was renamed, Artichoke, and in April 1953, it was then called MK/ULTRA.
Dr. Donald Hebb, director of psychology at McGill University experimented on intensive isolation and blocking input to the senses. He found that intensive isolation interfered with the ability of people to think clearly and made them hunger for stimulation or surprisingly receptive to ideas. He used these experimental results to explain why US POWs held in North Korea were less patriotic and willing to accepting anti-capitalist ideology. The theory was that this hunger for stimulation would make an interrogators job much easier in "breaking" an enemy POW (meaning betray his fellow comrades in arms).
Donald O. Hebb, a professor of psychology at Montreal's McGill University did sensory deprivation experiments. Four of his student subjects commented that the isolation conditions of his experiments were a form of torture. So Hebb stop his research because forcing students to withstand isolation for longer periods of time, would clearly violate medical ethics. (Ibid., pp.. 34-35)
This ethical conflict was no problem for Dr. Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist and colleague of Hebb's. Cameron used his mentally ill patients who were admitted to the Allan Memorial Institute as experimental subjects. Cameron developed a isolation, sound-proof chamber, piped in white noise, turned off the lights, etc. He kept his patients in this chamber of weeks, with one of them for 38 days. In a 1960 paper, Cameron said that a major factor that allows people to "maintain a time and space image" (to know where we are and who we are) is because we need continued sensor input. Cameron focused on inducing regression in his patients from an adult into a more infantile state, that is learned or structured personality traits fall away converting them into dependent children (some even talking baby-talk). (The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, p. 36)
These torture methods were tested in during the Vietnam war by the CIA. It should be noted that after the US pulled out of South Vietnam, the US admitted many South Vietnamese refugee and many of them were involved in the torture and death squads which were as part of the CIA operation Phoenix. http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/usa/cia_torture_97.html
CIA inspector General John S. Earman Jr. stated the CIA had perfected “an interrogation theory employing chemical substances.” Theory was in practiced by 1962, when an Army Special Purpose Team traveled to the Atsugi Naval Base in Japan to use LSD during interrogations of foreign nationals suspected of drug smuggling and spying. Tests were also conducted on prisoners in Vietnam, where the CIA was concerned about a regional drug smuggling managed by President Diem’s brother Nhu, through his intelligence service.
(The Strength of the Wolf, p. 225)
Operation Mongoose -- exiles attack continue
In 1963 a spy Juan Feliafel working for the Cuban intelligence (DGI) infiltrate the anti-Castro groups in Miami. He went on seventeen terrorist or sabotage missions to Cuba. On the eighteenth mission Feliafel, he stayed in Cube and he became one of the chief witnesses who provided evidence about Cubela's plan to assassinate Castro. (JFK and the Unspeakable, Ibid., p. 66)
Kennedy, responding to mounting pressure from CIA and military advisers that Castro was planning a more aggressive policy to export revolution to other Latin American countries, endorsed the continuation of Mongoose operations after the Bay of Pigs.
On August 24, 1962, the CIA-backed Revolutionary Student Directorate (DRE) cryptonym AM/HINT had carried out a highly publicized commando attack on beachfront properties in a Havana suburb. The Sierra Maestra Hotel and nearby Blanquita Theater were shelled by a 20 millimeter cannon mounted on a small, speedy boat 200 yards offshore. The Associated Press reported that the damage was slight. From Mexico City, CIA supervisor David A. Phillips visited Miami, where the DRE was based, and communicated regularly with Bill Kent and Ross Crozier, CIA case officers for the DRE.
From mid-1960 until mid-1973 Antonio Veciana Blanch (CIA code-name AM/SHALE-1) was involved in anti-Fidel Castro activities under the direction of CIA officer David A. Phillips. Veciana was an accountant and a former manager of the Banco Financiero in Havana. The Banco Financiero was owned by Julio Lobo. According to CIA records, Lobo, who left Cuba for Miami in October 1961, was an early source of funding for Alpha 66 and Veciana received “large sums of money for Alpha 66 from Lobo in 1962.” Lobo offered to commit $250,000 for future Alpha 66 operations.
The gangsters turned to the Banco Financiero to finance the expansion of their gambling business by financing the construction of the Mafia-owned Capri and Riviera hotels. Before the revolution Lobo, who owned eleven sugar mills and had a half-interest in three other mills, was known as Cuba’s “Sugar King.” Lobo’s Galban Trading Company was one of the biggest sugar brokerage houses in the world. His holdings also included other banks, insurance companies, and real estate.
Three of ten Cuban-exile scheduled six-man sabotage teams have already been dispatched to Cuba. On November 8, 1962, a six-man CIA sabotage team dispatched as part of Task Force W blows up a factory in Cuba killing 400 workers, according to the Cuban government. On December 4, 1962, an anti-Castor Cubans organization in the US called the Second Front of the Escambray fire from two gunboats at sea on the Cuban port of Caibarien.
On December 4, 1962, US law enforcement officials also prevented a hit-and run team from the International Penetration Force (Interpen) from leaving Florida. In the Florida Keys, US Customs officers arrested 12 or 13 Interpen mercenaries, including ten North Americans. They were charged with violation of the Neutrality Act. United Press International reported that Interpen “had been training for a guerrilla attack on Cuba for the past six months at No Name Key forty miles northeast of Key West. Among those arrested is Gerry P. Hemming was the founder with Frank Sturgis of the International Anti-Communist Brigade. Hemming ran a company called Interpen (aka Intercontinental Penetration Force). This outfit was also involved in training members of the anti-Castro groups funded by people like Roland Masferrer, Carlos Prio and Santos Trafficante. When the government began to crack down on raids from Florida in 1962, Interpen set up a new training camp in New Orleans.
Roy Hargraves, a member of Interpen, led a team of exiles in a successful raid on Cuba. After capturing two Cuban fishing boats Hargraves took them to the Bahamas. Some members such as William Seymour and Edwin Collins, worked with Bernardo De Torres on non-Interpen operations in 1963. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhargraves.htm
(FBI Memorandum 105-1198, Miami Field Office, Jan 20, 1963; Hinckle and Turner, pp. 154-157; Fonzi chronology p 418)
In December 23-24, 1962, the Cuban government agrees to release 1,113 Bay of Pigs invaders back to the United States in exchange for $53 million in medical supplies and baby food. The Cuban government keeps nine of the invaders in prison, releasing the last in 1986.
Operation Mongoose was shut down, but Task Force W continues with a new name of Special Affairs Staff, located at the CIA's Miami station. William Harvey the head of RZ/RIFLE and Task Force W was replaced by Desmond FitzGerald as head of the Special Affairs Staff. Covert attacks against Fidel Castro (including assassination attempts directed at Cuban government officials continue throughout 1963 under FitzGerald. Other operations continued include industrial and economic sabotage as well as guerrilla attacks against Cuba.
According to the Chief of Castro’s foreign intelligence and security service (DGI), Fabian Escalante, said more poisoned pills, one batch disguised in a bottle of Bayer aspirins, were delivered through the North American mafia to an opposition group that almost succeeded in March 1963 when Castro went for a milkshake. (Source: JFK: The Cuba Files by Fabian Escalante (2006).
During operation Mongoose the CIA base in Miami, Fl. (codenamed JM/WAVE) was headed by CIA officer Ted Shackley. There had been a total pf about five hundred CIA officers and 4000 Cuban contract agents in operation Mongoose. Downsizing the operation may have also sparked the hostility in the anti-Castro Cubans on top of their blaming President Kennedy for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Task Force W had a staff of two hundred and it was the largest section at CIA’s Langley headquarters. The Chief of Task Force W had been Jacob Esterline (aka Don Eduardo) from Mar. 1960 to 1962 which had been a sub-operation of operation Mongoose and Desmond FitzGerald became chief of it from 1962 to 1964. BG Edward Lansdale who had been incharge of operation Mongoose was now without a job until he shows up in Vietnam after he likely joined plotters of the JFK assassination.
William A. Morgan joined the US army after World War Two and was stationed with the 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division in Japan. After his discharge from the Army, Morgan apparently worked for a local mafia in the US. Opposed to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Morgan abandoned his wife and children and went to Cuba in 1957. Morgan was one of about two dozen US citizens who fought in the Cuban Revolution, leading a band of rebels that drove the Cuban army from key positions in the central mountains and helping to pave the way for Fidel Castro's forces to secure victory. He was one of only three foreign nationals to hold the rank of comandante in the rebel forces. Morgan became disenchanted with the revolutionary government, as did others who wanted Cuba to restore elections.
Morgan was arrested in October 1960 and charged with plotting to join and lead the counter-revolutionaries who were active in the Escambray Mountains. On March 11, 1961, shortly after a military trial at La Cabana prison, Morgan, then 32 years old, was shot by firing squad.
His new wife, a former Cuban guerrilla fighter was tried with him in absentia. She was found guilty of co-conspiracy and sentenced to 30 years in prison. She was released after ten years. She admitted that she and her husband had begun running guns to anti-Castro guerrillas because he was opposed to Castro's pro-Soviet leanings.
At the start of 1963, McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy’s national security advisor declared: “….there is well nigh universal agreement that Mongoose is at a dead end.” BG Lansdale was left without a leadership job. He had been offered the post of Ambassador to South Vietnam by JFK early in 1961, but the offer was withdrawn when Secretary of State Rusk strongly protested the move. (Source: Kennedy’s Wars by historian Lawrence Freedman)
On January 11, 1963 and another on the 24th, anti-Castro Cubans kill an eleven-year-old in one attack and two children in another.
In January 1963, Italy and Turkey announce that some US Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles stationed in their countries will be phased out, in accordance to the secret deal made with the Soviet Union. US nuclear missiles remain secretly hidden in places like Taiwan, Puerto Rico, and throughout Japan. Before the nuclear missiles are removed from Italy and Turkey, the United States sends submarines with nuclear warheads into the Mediterranean, to ensure they maintain all angles of nuclear striking distance at the Soviet Union.
In February 18, 1963, Premier Khrushchev informs President Kennedy that "several thousand" Soviet troops in Cuba would be withdrawn by March 15, however one Soviet division (2,600 soldiers) remains in Cuba in case of US invasion.
Santo Trafficante was well known among Cuban exile action groups as a one-stop source for weapons. A Miami source told the FBI, Any anti-Castro group in the Miami area could obtain arms and ammunition from the mafia through Trafficante and that Trafficante would be willing to finance such purchases if he were given evidence groups were actually taking some action against Castro.”
In February 1963, the CIA noted that Trafficante, Jr. “reportedly gave aid for arms and ammunition to Serafín’s Movimiento Acción Patriótica for commando raids in Cuba.” Evelio Duque’s Ejército Cubano Anti-communista (ECA) (Cuban Anticommunist Army) met with an unnamed Trafficante representative to negotiate an arms deal a few months later. A source told the FBI, “Duque wanted to obtain rockets, high explosives, and detonators for use in raids against Cuba,” the source said. “Duque allegedly received $25,000 from Carlos Prío for this purpose.”
March 18, 1963: Members of Alpha 66 (and possible the S-Force assassination team) calling themselves the Second Front Commandos, attacked an anchored Soviet vessel Lvov, off northern coast of Cuba. Organized by CIA officer David A. Phillips, they hoped to provoke Kennedy and Russia into another confrontation. Then they went ashore and attacked a Soviet infantry camp wounding twelve soldiers. Afterwards the group held a press conference to brag about their actions. The Soviet Union delivered an angry protest. (Sources: Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK by Warren Hinckle and Bill Turner, p.174; Cuba, The US and Russia 1960-1963, by Lester A. Sobel, pp. 126-127: U.S.-Cuba Relations, 1960-1963: Neutrality Enforcement and the Cuban Exiles During the Kennedy Administration)
Kennedy stated that "our best information was that they did not come from the United States." He also stated that the United States did not support the group and had no connection with it. (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, pp. 277-278)
On March 21, 1963, JFK expressed some concern why we were without good intelligence on the intentions of these groups. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, Exiles, 3/63)
This makes me think that Nixon did not tell Kennedy that he had established in June 1960 an assassination outfit and it is possible the CIA also did not tell him about their involvement in supporting this group based in Mexico. The CIA may have outsourced the funding of this outfit via right wing political groups in Texas, thereby distancing the CIA in case the truth was disclosed.
An FBI investigation found that some members of Comandos L (the L standing for Libertad) were connected to Army Intelligence and the CIA. Antonio Cuesta stated this group, an off shoot of Alpha 66. Cuesta was a small boat operator in CIA maritime operations in 1961 and in May 1962 and he was also being utilized by Army Intelligence. The Soviet freighter L'Gov was attacked by being shot up on March 17th at the sugar port of Isabela de Sagua on Cuba s north coast
On March 25, 1963, under Cuesta command his L-66 (aka Lambda 66) commandos sank the Soviet freighter Baku as it loads Cuban sugar at the harbor of Caibarien, Cuba. (House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) records)
This source reported that Alpha 66 whose leader was Antonio Veciana sank this ship. In March 1963, Alpha 66, the CIA-sponsored Cuban exile force raided a Soviet vessel in Cuban waters, causing dozen of casualties and serious damage. Eight days later Alpha 66 attack another Soviet freighter in a Cuban port. Antonio Veciana, an Alpha 66 leader admitted years later that the purpose of the CIA-initiated attack was “to publicly embarrass President Kennedy and force him to move against Castro.” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n12_v27/ai_17828366/pg_7/?tag=content;col1
In the wake of these attacks President Kennedy’s crackdown on unauthorized Cuban exile attacks, Attorney General Robert Kennedy had second thoughts about prosecuting Alpha 66, Comandos L, and Segundo Frente Nacional de Escambray (SFNE) commandos. Trials in open courts would reveal US intelligence agency links to the exile action groups.
On March 30, 1963, the State and Justice Departments jointly announced their intent to ensure that Cuban exile groups conducting sabotage raids would no longer do so from US soil . Faced with the FBI raids on training camps and loss of support, some of the CIA supported anti-Castro groups relocated to other countries such as Nicaragua.
One training base tightly held and sanctioned by CIA officers was located Belle Chase Naval base, ten miles from New Orleans near the Mississippi River. This had also been mentioned in print for the first time during the Garrison investigation, and was indeed an officially CIA sanctioned training camp. The base was used to train some 300 Cuban commandos in underwater demolition.
On March 31, 1963 Robert Kennedy's Justice Department took its first step in implementing a policy of preventing Cuban refugees and ordered the US Marshall to take over the CIA’s anti-Castro bases at No Named Key (20 miles northeast of Key West, FL) and another Lacombe training site near Lake Ponchatrain and New Orleans. Using helicopter gun ships they detained anti-Castro Cubans. The Justice Department ordered eighteen Cubans in the Miami area, to confine their movements to Dade County (or in some cases, the US), under the threat of arrest or deportation. One of them was Alpha 66 leader Antonio Veciana. (U.S. Curbs Miami Exiles t o Prevent Raids on Cuba, New York Times (April 1, 1963), The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK, by Dick Russell, and Daniel Sheehan lectures in May 2016 University of California; Santa Cruz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r6Xshd8Jp4&feature=share
The FBI ordered 18 Cubans in the Miami area, to confined their movements to Dade County, FL (or for some cases, confined to the US), under threat of arrest or deportation. The US got support from the British in preventing Alpha 66 from using of their Caribbean Islands. Within a week, the Coast Guard in Florida, working in concert with the British officials in the Bahamas, seized a series of Alpha 66’s boats. The owner of one of the confiscated boats, Alexander I. Rorke, Jr., told the New York Times that "the Central Intelligence Agency, had had advance knowledge of the trips " of his boat, the Violin III, into Cuban waters. Rorke also said that "the CIA had financed trips of the Violin III.
During the Second World War Rorke served as a military intelligence specialist in the US Army. According to a declassified FBI document, Rorke began working for the CIA in 1960. Rorke later joined Frank Fiorini (aka Frank Sturgis), in attempts to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba. (Seized Boat's Owner Says U.S. Knew in Advance of Cuba Raids, New York Times (April 3, 1963)
The Cuban exile raids prompted a Soviet protest to Washington. Khrushchev held Kennedy responsible. Kennedy wrote Khrushchev secretly on April 11, 1963, explaining that he was “aware of the tensions unduly created by recent private attacks on your ships in Caribbean waters; and we are taking actions to halt those attacks which are in violation of our laws, and obtaining the support of the British Government in preventing the use of their Caribbean islands for this purpose. The efforts of this Government to reduce tensions have, as you know, aroused much criticism from certain quarters in this country. But neither such criticism nor the opposition of nay sector of our society will be allowed to determine the policies of this Government. In particular, I have neither the intention nor the desire to invade Cuba….”
(Source: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, by James W. Douglass, pgs. 58 -60)
Kennedy ordered a government crackdown on all the Miami exile raids into Cuba and added to the Coast Guard, six more planes and 12 more boats to police the Straits of Florida against the anti-Castro raiders, and restraining the CIA’s covert special operation to draw the US into a war with Cuba. An FBI informant foiled a raid on Cuba involving the Minutemen and FBI conducted raids against his Florida airfield and Lake Pontchartrain training camp. Castro responded positively and said, “a step forward toward reduction of the danger of crisis and war.”
On April 1, 1963, The New York Times reports: "Seventeen heavily armed Cuban exiles planning to attack a Soviet tanker off Cuba were seized yesterday by a British force on a solitary islet in the Bahamas chain. The anti-Castro raiding party was led by Jerry Buchanan, a member of Frank Sturgis ' International Anti-Communist Brigade. (Fonzi chronology, p. 419)
The New York Times reported that the CIA had advance knowledge of his raids into Cuban waters and they financed the trips. The Times April 6, 1963 headlines read, “US Strengthens Check on Raiders.” The Florida refugee groups and the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) exploded with bitterness and anger toward Kennedy. I guess you could call this a provisional government in exile.
In early April 1963, James Donovan returned to Cuba and raised with Castro the future US policy and how diplomatic ties with the US might be resumed. Donovan had worked as the Associate General Counsel at the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War Two which dealt with funding things like making the atomic bomb and experiment on US persons without their informed consent and the the Office of Strategic Services. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 60)
Also on April 10, 1963, the NY Times' Tad Szulc reported that the Florida refugee groups subsidized by the CIA exploded with bitterness, charging the Kennedy administration with engaging in coexistence with the Castro regime.
In April 1963, Miró Cardona resigned as chairman of the CRC, claiming that Kennedy had chosen a path of peaceful coexistence with Castro's government. In 1961 to 1962, the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council occupied an office in the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street. This was the building where anti-Castro activist and Guy Banister also had his office. During this period, Banister associate Sergio Arcacha Smith was the official delegate of the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council.
Bradley E. Ayers was a retired Army Captain during the early 1960's, specializing in paramilitary training. In early April 1963, Ayers was loaned by the Army (sheep-dipped) to the CIA, which assigned him to the Miami station. Ayers' job was to train Cuban exiles and prepare them for an invasion of Cuba. This much of his story is borne out by checks of his military and CIA files. (Source: Zenith Secret: The conspiracy that killed the Kennedy brothers finally ...by Bradley Ayers)
Ayers took part on the Elliot Key refinery raid in Cuba which seemed to evolve beyond the station's normal paramilitary/operational structure. He stated that, “he and the group for two hours we pored over refinery blueprints and incredibly detailed U2 photos and recently smuggled-out snapshots of the target.”…His team used two 81mm mortars…; from an observation position on high ground; their fire would be guided into the refinery proper. White phosphorous ordinance (was) used, in the hope that the cracking towers would catch fire immediately and the surrounding fuel storage tanks would explode. Approximately twenty mortar round would be fired into the refinery.” Two fishing trawlers would be used as mother ships from which three V-20, 20-foot, swift boats with two .30 caliber Browning machine guns were launched. V-20s were launched a shallow water point about a mile from the target.
These V-20 shift boats had two 100 horse-powered Gray Marine inboard engines giving the boats a top speed of 40 knots. They also had a fiberglass double hull in order to withstanding the pounding of the open sea and collisions with coral reefs. Ayers trained frog men and his team(s) used two-man submarines to strike Castro's ships in the harbors. Ayers also said Robert Kennedy visited CIA personnel at their base in the Everglades.
Captain Ayers said Colonel Campbell required him only met to with him away from the CIA Miami Station. This may be the part of the start of raids against Cuba paid for using private funding and not authorized by CIA bosses, but rather run by a shadow CIA.
Alexander Rorke and Geoffrey Sullivan CIA pilot made several flights over Cuba, including a bombing raid on an oil refinery area near Havana on April 25, 1963. The Castro regime filed a protest with the US. On September 24, 1963, Rorke and Sullivan took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and their airplane disappeared while flying over Cuba. (Chicago Tribune, April 30, 1963) On April 29, 1963, Pedro Diaz Lanz, who was the chief of the Cuban Air Force until he defected in 1959 and said 27 Cubans on two yachts were halted by a United States Coast Guard vessel several miles off the coast of Florida and ordered back to port. (New York Times, 4/29/62)
On April 20, 1963 former Vice President Nixon, in an address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, criticized JFK for stopping the Cuban exile raids
Fidel Castro’s views toward Kennedy had changed due to his May 1963 visit to the Soviet Union and conversation with Khrushchev.
In a secret June 5, 1963 memorandum, CIA’s Director of Clandestine Operations, Richard Helms wrote that CIA had just received a report that, “at the request of Khrushchev, Castro was returning to Cuba with the intention of adopting a conciliatory policy toward the Kennedy administration ‘for the time being’.” Castro and Kennedy began secretly sending messengers to each other. Castro felt that Kennedy was a man he could talk to. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 67-70)
On June 15, 1963, US Customs agents broke up a plan to bomb the Shell Oil refinery, seizing a twin-engine Beechcraft airplane, explosives, and bombs at an abandoned airport near Miami. Michael McLaney, who bought the Hotel Nacional from Lansky’s allies in the Cleveland Syndicate in 1958, supplied the airplane and the money for the bombing mission. An FBI memorandum stated a confidential informant, MM T-1, was of the opinion that McLaney was investing in the raid in order to earn some credit for future business operations in Cuba should the Castro regime be overthrown.” McLaney was a Mafia-linked businessman and sports gambler from New Orleans.
Mafia gambler Sam Benton organized the botched plan to bomb the Shell Oil refinery. Evelio Alpizar Pérez told the FBI, “Benton stated that he wanted the plane to carry two 300-pound napalm bombs and six 100- pound demolition bombs.” Benton, who worked for McLaney at the Hotel Nacional, tried unsuccessfully to recruit Alpizar for the Shell operation. McLaney described Benton’s role: “He lined up actions, arranged to fund and supply them, and took a percentage off the top.” (Deadly Secrets p. 225)
In June 19, 1963, Kennedy approved a program to sabotage and harassment against targets in Cuba that included electric power stations, transportation, oil and manufacturing facilities. The US also froze $33 million in Cuban assets in US banks.
Kennedy ordered a government crackdown on all the Miami exile raids into Cuba and ordered the Coast Guard add six more planes and 12 more boats to police the Straits of Florida against the anti-Castro raiders. Also the US got support from the British in preventing the use of their Caribbean Islands. Florida Cuban refugee groups and the Cuban Revolutionary Council exploded with bitterness and anger toward Kennedy. Castro responded positively and said it was, “a step forward toward reduction of the danger of crisis and war.”
On about July 10, 1963, FBI was tipped off and they seized two 250 pound bombs and other heavy duty explosives. On hand to meet the about Beechcraft airplane was Sam Benton. I have not other information about if anyone was arrested, etc.
Antonio Varona traveled to Chicago, where he met with Sam Giancana, Murray Humphreys, and other leaders of the Chicago Outfit in July 1963. A confidential CIA informant said that “four underworld figures made a contribution of $200,000 to him (Varona)”. The DRE also cultivated Bacardi Rum as a financial sugar daddy. The Miami CIA Station reported that the DRE was offering a $10 million reward for Castro’s assassination. http://progresoweekly.us/gangsterismo-u-s-cuba-mafia/
The FBI also learned that nineteen Cubans had seen sent to the Lake Ponchartrain camp and sent by Laureano Batista the leaders of Movimento Democratica Cristiano (MDC) The FBI also learned that these Cubans were staying at McLancy farm near Lacombe, Louisiana. (Sources: Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth about the Unknown Relationship ...by John Newman pp. 320 to 321 and FBI Report of William Mayo Drew, Jr., August 8, 1963, JFK Record No. 180-10076-10241). http://www.jfk-online.com/jpsoprl.html
US Army Colonel Gorden S. Campbell was, he was a CIA contract agent who was based at the CIA's Miami station (codenamed JM/WAVE). According to Bradley E. Ayers, Campbell was a close associate of CIA station chief there, Theodore Shackley. Rudy Enders, a retired CIA officer, claims that Campbell helped the agency ferry anti-Castro guerrillas across the Straits of Florida. (Source: Deadly Secrets, by Turner and Hinckle (1992). http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKcampbellG.htm
FBI director Hoover knew all about the anti-Castro training camps on Lake Poncharrtain through New Orleans FBI agents Warren DeBruey and Regis Kennedy. He knew that one of the camps was located on land owned by William Julius McLaney, (brother of Mike McLaney) who had close ties to Robert Kennedy. Hoover responded to President Kennedy's order by sending FBI agents to close down only one camp, the "McLaney Camp." This was Hoover's way of thumbing his nose at President Kennedy's orders to close down the camps, and it placed the Kennedys in a potentially embarrassing position, if Robert Kennedy's ties to William McLaney became public.
William McLaney and his wife were friends of Robert Kennedy. Joseph P. “Joe” Kennedy, Sr. played golf two or three times a week with Mike McLaney at the Palm Beach Country Club and visited at his Palm Beach home. JFK's father in 1933 purchased this million dollar, beachfront mansion was called the La Guerida. It became known as JFK’s "Winter White House."
Another golfing buddy of McLaney was Florida, US Senator George Smathers a leading exponent in Congress for the Killing Castro at any price.
Mike McLaney owned the Casino Nacional in Havana. When Fidel Castro took power, Mike McLaney was arrested for three months, then freed, and continued to operate under Fidel Castro in hopes of becoming gambling czar of Cuba, hopes nursed by having paid out $102,000 to Fidel Castro’s Ministry of Gambling, Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis. When the Casino Nacional was nationalized in 1960, the McLaney brothers lost $7 million. One of Mike McLaney employees, Lewis McWillie, was Jack Ruby’s best friend. William McLaney owned the Carousel Club casino in Las Vegas. Just a coincidence that Jack Ruby’s club in Dallas is also called the Carousel Club. William also owned Gibbons Race Track Feed that served horse racing tracks.
http://www.toptenrealestatedeals.com/homes/weekly-ten-best-home-deals/2014/7-1-2014/5/
(Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, by Gus Russo)
There is evidence that H. L. Hunt was one of the financial backers Lacombe training site near Lake Ponchatrain. Historian Michael Kurtz states that Lee Oswald, David Ferrie and anti-Castro Cubans were seen at one of the training site/camp in September 1963. Delphine Roberts who was Banister's secretary, has said Ferrie took Lee Oswald on at least one visit to a training camp. INS agent Wendell Roache stated that Ferrie took a motion picture of Cubans being trained. Robert Tanembaum, a deputy counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassination of JFK, stated he brought in witnesses to view this film, and on viewing it, they identified Oswald, Banister and David A. Phillips as people photographed at this training camp exercise. Inexplicably, the film would later disappear from the Committee’s files.(Sources: Let Justice Be Done by Bill Davy and Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, by James DiEugenio) http://gaylenixjackson.com/jfk-assassination/the-lake-pontchartrain-training-facility-and-the-mclaney-brothers/
Major General Charles Andrew Willoughby, USA, served as General Douglas MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence during most of World War Two and was involved in the capture of the Golden Lilly Fund (loot/gold stolen by the Japanese Army). MG Willoughby was also connected to CIA operation in 1950 in Tokyo and with US Army intelligence during the Korean War with MacArthur’s staff. Lieutenant Colonel John Chiles, 10th Corps G-3, or chief of operations of that unit said “MacArthur did not want the Chinese to enter the war in Korea. Anything MacArthur wanted, Willoughby produced intelligence for.… In this case Willoughby falsified the intelligence reports.… He should have gone to jail...”
Willoughby retired from the army in 1951 in the wake of MacArthur's removal from command in Korea by President Truman. MacArthur wanted to bomb China and North Korea, but Truman feared another World War. After his retirement, Willoughby travelled to Spain and became an unofficial advisor to the Spanish fascist dictator.
Willoughby, with the assistance of the Hunt clan of Dallas, formed his own private intelligence network. This intelligence network would later become affiliated with the Gehlen Organization, the former Nazi SS officers under General Reinhard Gehlen who were recruited by the OSS to spy on the Soviets at the end of World War Two. This Gehlen organization became the foreign intelligence service for decades of West Germany up till today.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12029-major-general-charles-a-willoughby/
General Willoughby set up in Dallas, TX a right-wing intelligence network called the International Comite for the Defense of Christian Culture by H. L. Hunt's sons Nelson Bunker Hunt and Lamar Hunt. They had long time ties to both MacArthur and Willoughby. The Hunts bankrolled MacArthur's disastrous 1952 bid for the presidency and hired Willoughby as an agent for the Hunt Oil Company shortly after he "retired." The Hunt family would go on to become major financial backers of Willoughby's intelligence network, the Foreign Intelligence Digest (newspaper) and the Foreign Intelligence intelligence, made up of private citizens.
My assumption is that this group may have been run by Guy Banister spying on college students and the US Communist Party’s members.
In the 1960s Foreign Intelligence Digest incorporated some of Kennedy's most outspoken ideological opponents in the United States: men like Frank Capell... and Billy James Hargis, the Christian Crusade ally of General Edwin Walker.
Because the John Birch Society regularly claimed that all US presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt onward had been communists, its opinions were considered too controversial politically for a US general to advocate; military officers were not supposed to engage in politics at all. Walker was quoted by the Overseas Weekly as saying that Harry S. Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson were "definitely pink". In other words, having libeal Democratic Party views that they felt were too much like commies.
During early 1962, Walker campaigned for governor of Texas and lost the Democratic primary election to the eventual winner, John Connally. During October 1962, Walker was arrested for promoting riots at the University of Mississippi in protest against admitting a black student, James Meredith, into the all-white university.
William D. Pawley was a member of the American Security Council (ASC), along with Charles Willoughby and a host of other former MacArthur men. What's more, the Sovereign Order of Saint John was also directly involved with the ASC via its Coalition for Peace Through Strength. Pawley was born and raised in Cuba and son a wealthy businessman based in Cuba. He became wealthy and set up secret US air forces in China during World War Two. He was appointed as US Ambassador by Harry Truman to Peru in 1945. He was named US Ambassador to Brazil in 1948. He was close friend of both President Dwight Eisenhower and Allen W. Dulles, he took part in a policy that later become known as “Executive Action,” a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power.
Pawley played a role the CIA to overthrow the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after Arbenz introduced reforms affecting the United Fruit Company. https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=William%20D.%20Pawley
“One avowedly racist members (of the the Hunt-Willoughby outfit) was Austin J. App, chairman of the Federation of American Citizens of German Descent. According to a British book, the West German intelligence network, the West German foreign intelligence (BDN) may have funded App's Federation to the tune of $280,000 in 1964. If so, the Hunt-Willoughby connection can be called transnational, in that it melded assets, and probably funds, from overseas to supplement the Hunt family's assets…”
"The ongoing Willoughby interest in the Far East was represented by the presence of Father Raymond de Jaegher of the Free Pacific Association, the patron in America of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu..." (Source: Deep Politics and the Assassination of JFK, Peter Dale Scott, pp. 213-214)
The dynamite seized on July 31, 1963 by the FBI was linked to the Schlumbuger Wells Company bunker in Houma, La. The cases the arms were stored in were said to be labeled either “Schulmberger.” Schlumberger served as a small arms depot for the CIA. It permitted a bunker leased for storing blasting supplies to be used as a cache for ammunition, bomb casings and other military items, some of which were shipped abroad. Some of the weaponry was to have been used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The government’s fumbling of the invasion upset the firm, which subsequently decided to terminate its contract with the CIA. A 1967 CIA memo released in 1992 confirms that it had a “discreet and continuing contact with the main Schlumberger office in Houston and branch offices in Minneapolis and elsewhere.”
In September 1961 Gordon Novel took part in the burglary of a Schlumberger Well Service company’s munitions bunker. He informed the FBI: "Schlumberger Well Service had an arrangement with the CIA wherein it leased a bunker in which ammunition, bomb casings and other materiel would be stored for the CIA. Eventually the materiel would be shipped out of the United States in Sclumberger boxes marked 'Machinery.' The explosives would then be shipped by boat to Cuba where they were going to be used in a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion."
The CIA verified Gordon Novel's statement: "Novel has claimed to the press that the munitions from the bunker were to be used for a diversionary operation during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Agency officers familiar with the operation at the (redacted), have indicated that such a diversionary operation was based at (redacted), but that operation was canceled before a landing was made." Gordon Novel reported that Andrew Jerome Blackman, David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Luis Rabel were involved in removing the arms from the Schlumbuger explosives bunker. According to Judith Baker (Lee Oswald girlfriend) Layton Martens also took part in this bunker incident. Martens was Ferrie’s roommate and was assumed to be his homosexual lover. Martens was also involved with Ferrie, supplying weapons to anti-Castro Cubans in 1961. (Live by the Sword, by Gus Russo, pp. 150-151 and David Ferrie: Mafia Pilot, Participant in Anti-Castro Bioweapon Plot, Friend ...by Judyth V. Baker)
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/05/houma-bunker-raid-revisted.html
The New Orleans States Item newspaper, which at the time had an investigative team working parallel to the County DA Jim Garrison probe, reported that a reliable source close to Banister said he had seen 50 to 100 boxes marked "Schlumberger" in Guy Banister's office-storeroom early in 1961 before the Bay of Pigs. The boxes contained rifle grenades, land mines and unique "little missiles." Banister explained that "the stuff would just be there overnight ... a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight." It was all right, assured Banister, "I have approval from somebody." (New Orleans States Item, April 25, 1967)
Paulino Sierra Martinez, a Cuban attorney in Miami formed a united front called the Junta de Gobierno en Exilio. Sierra funded air operations in Cuba by Orlando Bosch’s Movimiento Insurreccional de Recuperación Revolucionaria (MIRR) in August and September 1963. A CIA cable reported that Sierra provided “the initial funds” for a MIRR air raid on the Cunagua sugar mill in Camaguey province on August 15, 1963. (Ernest Hemingway and the Cuban Encounter, by Brian Mahoney, pp. 269-270)
Bill Johnson, a North American pilot for Orlando Bosch, told the FBI that Roberto “Chiri” Mendoza also helped finance MIRR’s bombing raid in Cunagua, Cuba (a city near the east coast of Cuba. Mendoza, a business associate of Batista and Santo Trafficante, Jr. was a former owner of the Havana Hilton casino. He was also linked to the Sans Souci nightclub and casino.
According to the FBI, MIRR flew a second mission over Camaguey on September 7, attacking the Jaronu sugar mill. An FBI report stated, “Four of these bombs exploded and . . . caused great damage to the sugar mill.” In September, the CIA learned that MIRR had obtained aircraft for future attacks in Cuba. “Two P-51 aircraft are being sold for the total sum of 16,000 dollars to Bill Johnson by Aero Enterprises, Inc. of LaPorte, Indiana,” stated a CIA cable. “Bill Johnson has napalm loaded drop tanks which he will attach in LaPorte.”
Declassified documents prove that Lee Oswald was not the informant for the McLaney raid.
On July 30, the day before the raid, the FBI received a tip from Mrs. Elise Cerniglia, who was associated with the Catholic Cuban Center in New Orleans. She most likely was given the codename MM T-1. She told the FBI some ten Cuban refugees had arrived in New Orleans from Miami on July 24th, for the purpose of attending a training nearby and from there they were to be transferred to a training camp in Guatemala. MM T-1 is described in one document as "a Miami businessman with numerous contacts among the Cuban population of South Florida . . ."MM T-1 did not report to FBI agent William Walter's New Orleans office. (Sources: Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar ...
by Burton Hersh pp. 220-280) http://alt.assassination.jfk.narkive.com/sR59OOQj/president-kennedy-orders-the-fbi-to-close-the-camps http://gaylenixjackson.com/jfk-assassination/the-lake-pontchartrain-training-facility-and-the-mclaney-brothers/
Mike McLaney eventually moved with his family to Haiti, where he enjoyed a near-monopoly on the casino business under the Duvaliers. He opened the Casino International, at the Royal Haitian Hotel.
In a 1967 interview with a New Orleans States Item reporter, former Banister associate Bill Nitschke revealed that sometime before the Kennedy assassination, he visited Banister’s office and Banisters secretary Delphine Roberts told him that Banister, Ferrie, and sometime Banister’s contract agent and pilot, Hugh Ward, were all involved in running guns to Miami and other places.
Infiltrating left-wing groups with his agents provocateur was a particular specialty of Banister’s. In a 1981 interview a New Orleans attorney, Tommy Baumler, revealed that he also worked for Guy Banister, joining left-wing college groups and reporting back to Banister. Baumler also recalled that "Clay Shaw, Banister, and Guy Johnson made up the intelligence apparatus in New Orleans." Johnson was a former Lieutenant Commander in the Office of Naval Intelligence during World War Two, and he was granted a top secret clearance in 1950.
The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) discovered that the CIA’s anti-Castro Cuban drug smugglers were unloading cocaine at secret bases in the Florida Keys and selling it on the streets of Miami. Many drug smuggling Corsicans moved to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay sending cocaine to Europe in return for heroin that was then smuggled to the US. (The Strength of the Wolf, pp. 343 and 354)
In 1963, CIA officers were operating under cover as US Customs agents as part of a special CIA unit in Houston. This CIA unit worked with the anti-Castro Cubans. The US Customs, Coast Guard, FBI, nor the Texas State narcotics bureau, revealed the existence of a Galveston drug ring to the FBN with connections to the anti-Castro Cubans. ((The Strength of the Wolf, pp. 307 and 313)
In December 1964, Ramon Marquez a Puerto Rican club owner and drug trafficker was arrested. He was credited with moving $25 million in cocaine from Corsican suppliers in Chile and Argentina, through anti-Castro Cubans operating in Honduras and Mexico, to other anti-Castro Cubans in Miami.
On August, 19, 1963, Richard Cain had dinner with the head of the CIA office in Chicago, chief William Lohmann The purpose of the meeting was to discuss activities of Cuban Counter-revolutionary groups. He was actively working with the Cubans, training them for what they hoped would be “the next invasion" (meaning the planned second invastion planned by Robert Kennedy planned to kick off in December 1964).
Lohmann wrote in his report to CIA headquarters: "Subject (Cain)... speaks good Spanish and has considerable contact with the Cuban community in Chicago. Subject is, through his position in the Cook County Sheriff's Office, also in contact with the less legal (criminal) adventures of the (anti-Castro) Cubans in Chicago. Subject was told generally of our requirements and agreed to help us wherever he could; particularly in noting any rumors of CIA contact in Chicago, providing information on the undercover activities of the Cubans, particularly Paulino Sierra and his contacts; and providing the names of any Cubans who might be useful to us."
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKanticastro.htm
In 1976 Antonio “Tony” Veciana was interviewed by an American investigative journalist and author Gaeton Fonzi who was working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The founder of the anti-Castro organization, Alpha 66, Veciana told the committee about his relationship with his CIA contact, Maurice Bishop. He claimed that in August, 1963, he saw Bishop and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Veciana admitted that Bishop had organized and funded the Alpha 66 attacks on the Soviet ships docked in Cuba in 1963.
Veciana explained the policy: "It was my case officer, Maurice Bishop, (the CIA alias used by CIA officer David A. Phillips) who had the idea to attack the Soviet ships. The intention was to cause trouble between Kennedy and Russia. Bishop believed that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret agreement that the USA would do nothing more to help in the fight against Castro. Bishop felt - he told me many times - that President Kennedy was a man without experience surrounded by a group of young men who were also inexperienced with mistaken ideas on how to manage this country. He said you had to put Kennedy against the wall in order to force him to make decisions that would remove Castro's regime."
It is claimed that CIA officer Desmond FitzGerald came to the conclusion that Trafficante was feeding back information to Fidel Castro in the hope of recovering his gambling dynasty.
FitzGerald had never told the Director of Central Intelligence (DCIA) John McCone, about Rolando Cubela. McCone was a wealthy Texas businessman who had been brought in to replace Allen Dulles after the Bay of Pigs. He had been kept ignorant of all the CIA's assassination plots. In the "need-to-know" world of the CIA, Richard Helms had decided that McCone did not need to know. Authority for the assassination plots was apparently something that could spring forward after a change of CIA directors--or even presidents. To Helms, the unrelenting pressure from Bobby Kennedy had sufficed as authorization, and besides McCone did not want to know. When the subject of assassination was briefly raised at a meeting of the Special Group in August 1962, McCone, quickly suppressed it and moved on to another topic.
On September 20, 1963, Kennedy gave approval for William Attwood, a distinguished journalist, to make discreet contact with Dr. Carlos Lechuga, Cuba’s UN ambassador in order to explore a possible dialogue with Castro. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 84-89)
After serving as a US Army, Colonel Gordon S. Campbell was put in charge of the CIA’s secret Caribbean fleet in the Caribbean, working under cover of Marine Engineering and Training (MET) corporation in Homestead, Florida. As a contract agent, Campbell had an office secretary named “Maggy,” working at his air-conditioned office at Miami station.
The CIA also had a mother ship named Rex that was a reconditioned US Navy sub chaser. It had a crew of 40 Cuban exiles. It was armed with two 40 mm naval cannon, a .57 recoilless rifle, two 20 mm cannon, and two .50 caliber machine guns. The also had a similar ship the Leda, another of four similar ships and dozens of smaller vessels that made up the CIA fleet. Another CIA ship, Explorer II, was owned by Explorations, Inc. of Miami Shores. Smaller motor craft with inboard engines, called Swift boats, were registered to Ace Marine Survey, the president of which was a New Orleans public relations man who did work for such CIA sponsored groups there as the Friends for a Democratic Cuba.
The Rex was officially owned by the Belcher Oil Company, which was primarily in the business of refueling cruise ships. The Rex’s dockage fees were paid by Sea Key Shipping Company, which was nothing more than a post office box. Normal customs and immigrations inspections were waived for the Rex.
The Cuban seamen of the Rex were paid $300 a month and their pay checks were written on the account of a commercial fisheries company. Most of the crew had experience in the Cuban navy or merchant marine. They had been recruited by a team of former Batista naval men working for the CIA. Political trustworthiness was as much a job requirement as seamanship, and the crew were subjected to polygraph tests designed to ferret out any creeping Castro sentiments. At sea between West Palm Beach and Miami, the Cuban crew brought up the guns from below decks.
On October 21, 1963, the Rex had a special mission which would bring it a dangerous half-mile from the Cuban shore. Off Elliot Key, they met two black rubber rafts, with twelve men dressed in black who boarded the Rex. “They were members of the Commandos Mambises, the elite of the CIA’s anti-Castro commandos. The Commandos Mambises numbered fewer than fifty, mostly men without families to miss them. Their leader was Major Manuel Villafana, who had commanded the Bay of Pigs air force.
The orders they received for the mission on the night of October 22, 1963 their target was in Pinar del Rio Provenance at the west end of the island, near the Cape Corrientes lighthouse. The Cape Corrientes lighthouse was in-explicitly dark that night, but they sailed into an ambush by a Cuban patrol boat. It appears that the commando team had been penetrated by Castro Cubans, the scout group had been captured, and the Cubans were waiting at the drop off point to capture those being sent in. Five men were caught, some confessed and some were executed, two boats were taken by the Cubans, and the Collins Radio corporate cover for the CIA had been blown. In addition, the mission called into question the legality of such domestic covert operations being run from the US shores.
In the darkness, the Cubans accidentally fire on a freighter. On October 30th, Castro announced on Havana radio and television the capture of five more infiltrators and saboteurs – “agents of the CIA...The CIA organized all arms shipments.” The US officially protested the MiG fighter attack on the unarmed freighter. One of the captured Cubans confessed that he had landed from the Rex with a boatload of arms, including high powered rifles that were to be used to kill Cuban leaders. (Deadly Secrets, by Turner and Hinckle (1992)
Castro also announced that two Canadian pilots were apprehended on October 24, when a search of their plane found large amounts of grenades and explosives. According to, who Oswald was arrested with in New Orleans, wrote in his book Red Friday (Crime Without Punishment by Dr. Carlos J. Bringuier, (1969)
According to Bradley E. Ayers, Colonel Campbell (aka Mr Bishop) became his case officer for the Elliot Key refinery raid which seemed to evolve beyond the station's normal paramilitary/operational structure. And Ayers said while he was Shackley's deputy, he also appeared to function with a good deal of independence and have his own agenda.
CIA raider ship the Rex, leased to Collins Radio was used to deposit anti-Castro Cuban commandos in Cuba, a botched raid that made news on the front page of the New York Times, on November 1, 1963 and blowing the CIA cover of Collins Radio Company of Richardson, Texas. Zenith Technical Enterprises was the front cover business for the CIA JM/WAVE that employed the Cuban commandos. The book Zenith Secret was written by Bradley Ayres, the US Army Captain and Ranger who trained the Cuban commandos for their missions into Cuba.
The CIA and the Joint Chief of Staff plotted to kill JFK
Reasons why they killed President Kennedy
The evidence that this is a true statement is a long complicated story and the credit for discovering the facts proving it goes to authors who did years of research and have written many books on the subject.
At a July 20, 1961, National Security meeting, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee of the Joint Chiefs and CIA director Allen Dulles presented a plan for a first strike on the Soviet Union. Kennedy asked how long US citizens would have to remain in fall-out shelters. President Kennedy walked out of the meeting, saying to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "And we call ourselves the human race."
In February 1961, Kennedy’s science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, explained to him the extreme dangers from radioactive fallout. Wiesner also told him by that the missile gap was fiction. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 7)
Air Force Intelligence was estimating that Soviets would deploy 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles by the early 1960s. The intelligence branch of the Strategic Air Command figured the Soviet Union would, or might already, have 1,000 or more. Back in the 1950s, Air Force Intelligence Chief Major General George Keegan, had briefed officials on the thousands of hidden Soviet missiles, knowing full well this was a lie. The US had an overwhelming strategic advantage over the Soviets’ missile force. For this reason, the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to do a first nuclear attack, before the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons increased in number. Kennedy had been briefed by Strategic Air Command that estimates if the US did a preempt first strike, we would have 12 million casualties.
By September 12, 1963 Major General Harold K. “Johnny” Johnson, US Army, Assistant or acting deputy chief of staff for military operations, was talking about an estimated 30 million causalities out to a 1968 time frame, and it would be impossible to the US to achieve nuclear superiority. General Johnson made a further statement, “Each of the strategies used against the USSR would result in at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR and as three million Americans. Our problem is how to catch more of the Soviet missiles before they are launched…” I assume they did not know about nuclear winter yet. (Ibid., pp. 234- 242)
The CIA on the other hand calculated the number of Soviet nuks was about 50. I discovered that by the time John F. Kennedy took office on January 20, 1961, photos from spy satellites revealed that the Soviets had just four ICBMs. But this spy satellite allegation may not be true given that declassified information as of September 2011, states that the first successful photograph (image intelligence - IMINT) satellite, the KH-7 or GAMBIT, was successfully launched in July or October 25, 1963. The film canister was ejected successfully after the photographic phase and the capsule recovered by an aircraft. But who knows for sure!?
The first radar detecting (ELINT) satellite was launched in 1962 and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was established. This satellite named Poppy was designed to detect land based radar emitters and support ocean surveillance. Poppy’s average useful life on orbit was 34 months. (Sources: Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 123) http://www.node707.com/archives/005705.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/aberdenn/trud/rumsfeld_intelligence_unit.html
http://www.space.com/12996-secret-spy-satellites-declassified-nro.html
Many of the anti-Castro invasion force (Brigade 2506) continued to believe the myth that Kennedy was responsible for the failure of the invasion. Kennedy had approved the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 15 and 16 1961. What the CIA and military tried to do was force to Kennedy into a full scale military attack on Cuba, knowing full well the invading anti-Castro Cubans, Brigade 5206 troops could not hold out without US support and Castro had a lot of support among the Cuban people, who would not rise up against Castro as a result of an invasion.
The CIA had information indicating that the Soviet Union knew when the invasion was going to take place and the CIA did not inform the Kennedy brothers. Radio Moscow actually broadcast an English-language newscast on April 13, 1961 predicting the invasion in a plot hatched by the CIA “using paid criminals” within a week. Tad Szulc was a foreign and Washington correspondent for The New York Times. On April 6, 1961, nine days before the Bay of Pigs invasion, Szulc wrote an article stating that an invasion of Cuba was "imminent."
Prior to its publication, Kennedy became aware of the article and personally telephoned the Times' publisher. The Times yielded to the President's demand that the story be reduced in prominence and detail.
President John Kennedy had repeatedly told CIA boss, Richard Bissell in the planning phase that he reserved the right to abort the operation at any time. Yet Bissell advised the anti-Castro Cubans commanders to mutiny against their US advisers and proceed with the invasion.
While at a Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) meeting in Ankara, Turkey, April 27-28, 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk privately raises the possibility of withdrawing the US Jupiter missiles from Turkey with Turkish Foreign Minister. He objected to Rusk's suggestion, pointing out that the Turkish Parliament has just approved appropriations for the missiles and that it would be embarrassing for the Turkish government to inform Parliament that the Jupiters now are to be withdrawn. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., Rusk briefed Kennedy on his discussion and Kennedy accepts the idea of some delay in removing the Jupiters. (Source: Negotiating Channel through Andrew Cordier and Details of Negotiations to Remove Jupiters Prior to Crisis, by Dean Rusk of 2/ 25/87)
On November 29, 1961, President Kennedy fired Allen Dulles and appointed John A. McCone. as CIA Director. Within the next three months, Kennedy also fired the Deputy CIA Director General Charles P. Cabell, USAF, and demoted Richard Bissell to head up Area 51’s testing of nuclear weapons and building U2 spy planes and stealth aircraft.
Another insubordinate military leader was Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations. On the first day of the (Bay of Pigs) invasion, he had sent “the US aircraft carrier USS Essex and helicopter landing ship USS Boxer close to Cuban shore, in violation of Kennedy’s order to keep US ships fifty miles away,” from Cuba. This was the first true test of the young president: "The country’s military and intelligence chiefs had clearly believed they could sandbag the young, untested commander-in-chief into joining the battle. But he had stunned (and likely angered) them by refusing to escalate the fighting."
Hardly welcomed by the CIA, Kennedy ordered all United States Ambassadors to supervise and coordinate the activities of all American agencies in their respective countries (with the exception of the military). The CIA considered the Presidential decision as an attack on its basic prerogatives. In the days of the Dulles brothers, DCI Allen Dulles had always reported directly to his brother John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State.
The President gave most high officials and department heads the impression that they were behind the times. He was not preoccupied with the official hierarchy, nor with unanimous decisions. At the highest level, Kennedy had decided to abandon the tradition that all decisions of the Cabinet and the National Security Council be approved by the majority. He abolished the weekly meetings of the Cabinet, the Cabinet Secretaries, the administrative body of the National Security Council, the Coordinating Committee for Operations, and dozens of inter-departmental committees. He called it “doing away with bureaucracy.”
In 1961 President Kennedy appointed Walt W. Rostow as deputy to his national security assistant, McGeorge Bundy. Later that year he became chairman of the State Department's policy planning council. Rostow was also the main figure in developing the Kennedy Administration's policy in Vietnam. Rostow was convinced the war could be won.
During the Second World War, Walt W. Rostow served as a major in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) under William Donovan. He had a PhD from Yale and taught economics at Columbia University. In 1945 Rostow joined the State Department in Washington as assistant chief of the German-Austrian division. Later he was involved in the development of the Marshall Plan. In 1958, Rostow became a speech writer for President Dwight Eisenhower.
On May 11, 1961 President Kennedy secretly issued National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM 28) ordering a covert CIA war against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents who were directed and trained by the CIA and 400 US Special Forces troops and 100 other US military advisers. No publicity was given to either war making without a declaration of war. Also the orders infiltration of South Vietnamese forces into south-eastern Laos to find and attack NVN bases and supply lines. On August 29, 1961, Kennedy agreed to raise the total of US adviser in Laos to 500 and to go ahead with equipping of 2,000 more Mong (Laotian tribesmen), that made the total of tribesmen recruited by the CIA to 11,000.
In November 1961, American soldiers were put in combat-support roles that involved them increasingly in actual fighting. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 116, The Pentagon Papers, p. 79-82 and The Strength of the Wolf, p. 83)
Kennedy on November 22, 1961 orders the sending of military adviser and support units to Vietnam. But he refused the Joint Chiefs’ recommendation to deploy additional US combat troops but instead spent Army Special Forces undercover as “advisers” to defeat the insurgency in South Vietnam.
Another reason they killed Kennedy
Meeting with Kennedy in the Vienna summit on June 4, 1961, Premier Khrushchev caused a new crisis when he reissued his threat to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany. Also
the USSR provoked the Berlin Crisis with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin, and the Soviets began building the Berlin Wall that —partitioned East German.
As the confrontation over Berlin escalated, Kennedy delivered a speed on nationwide television on July 25th. He stated he wanted six new divisions for the Army and two for the Marines, and he announced plans to triple the draft and to call up the reserves.
On September 25, 1961, President Kennedy delivers a speech on disarmament at the UN. He said, "The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us … until general and complete disarmament has been achieved… Not an arms race, but a peace race." This alarmed the pro-nuke, US Generals and Admirals. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 111)
On October 27 to 29, 1961, combat-ready American and Soviet tanks faced off in Berlin at the Checkpoint Charlie manned by US Army military police. Tensions over access to the city of Berlin and its Soviet-controlled eastern sector had increased to the point of likely military confrontation.
To signal American and Allied determination to maintain access rights, the US Army moved ten M-48A1 tanks and three M-59 armored personnel carriers to the Checkpoint Charlie on October 26. The next day Soviet tanks moved into opposing positions. With the attention of the world fixed on Berlin, American and Soviet tanks, barely one hundred yards apart, faced each other for more than 24 hours with their main guns trained on each other. At the same time, American military and diplomatic personnel with military police escorts continued to move through the checkpoint, exercising their rights to travel into the Soviet sector. On the morning of October 28th, Soviet tanks withdrew. Shortly afterwards, the US armor pulled back. The stand-off at Checkpoint Charlie was over.
It was at this point that US Secretary of State Dean Rusk conveyed to General Lucius Clay, the US commanding officer in Berlin, that "We had long since decided that Berlin is not a vital interest which would warrant determined recourse to force to protect and sustain." This angered Clay as it signified that Kennedy laced backbone. Kennedy was pragmatic concerning the Berlin Wall: "It's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war."
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In his book, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, Richard Mahoney noted that President Kennedy considered Edmond Gullion his most trusted third world ambassador so he sent him to Congo in 1961. Gullion represented Kennedy support of the UN policy of a united and independent Congo, to the dismay of the multinational corporations working hard to carve up the country and control its rich resources. Kennedy felt that the US should support the process of change by allowing each country to find its own way. Thereby preventing the spread of the Cold War and improve its own security. In September 1961 and again in December 1962, Kennedy rejected his State Department and Joint Chiefs’ proposal for direct US military intervention in the Congo.
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Another reason they killed Kennedy was Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s increasing the number of attorneys in the Criminal Division from 15 to 60 and tasking them against the nation's leading mafia bosses. (The Strength of the Wolf, Douglas Valentine, Wolf, p. 253)
In New York in 1963, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was closing in on Meyer Lansky and other mafia members, all who were linked to drug trafficking and the CIA’s assassination operations against Castro. Booby Kennedy‘s star witness in the war on crime, Joe Valachi, was revealing the mafia‘s secrets. (The Strength of the Wolf, p. 307)
A senior official in Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department asked CIA officer John Whitten to investigate numbered bank accounts in Panama because Las Vegas gamblers were using them to smuggle cash, "which they skimmed off the top of their daily take." This investigation would have lead to whole lot of crimes by CIA officers who believed the ends justified the means.
Whitten testified to the Church Committee that CIA’s Deputy Director James Angleton on at least one occasion intervened to prevent another part of the CIA investigating Lansky’s banking account because he was not reporting to the IRS the total profits he was making operating casino(s) in Las Vegas.
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In July 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Geneva Agreements on Laos, theoretically terminating their military operations in that chaotic region. Although American US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) were withdrawn by October as specified, the CIA devised a number of deceptions to continue its covert activities. All of the CIA operatives moved to adjacent areas of Thailand but returned almost every day by helicopter or plane to direct guerrilla operations. Civilian personnel were not covered by the Geneva Agreements, and so many Amry Special Forces were recruited in to the CIA. For example, in December 1962 CIA officer Edgar Buell trained Hmong guerrillas in demolition techniques and directed the dynamiting of six bridges and twelve mountain passes near Ban Ban. The US Embassy declared that Air America flights to Hmong villages, which carried armaments as well as refugee supplies, were "humanitarian aid" and as such were exempted from the Geneva Agreements.
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From 1957 to 1958, the CIA had been fomented an armed rebellion in Indonesia by supplying arms and a used fleet of airplanes to bomb Sukarno’s troops. Airplanes were flown by US citizen working for CIA. President Kennedy wanted to work with Sukarno, not kill or overthrow him. In 1961 to 1962 Kennedy brokered an agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands, its former colonial master. The CIA felt Kennedy was aiding and abetting the enemy by backing Indonesia’s claim over West Irian, a territory of Indonesia and the Western half of the island of New Guinea. In November 1963 JFK said he was willing to accept Sukarno’s invitation to visit Indonesia in the spring of 1964, a very visible sign of Kennedy’s support of third world nationalism.
On May 18, 1958, an American CIA contract pilot, Allen Pope was shot down while flying a CIA front company airplane and captured by the Indonesian government He was release in 1962. (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, pgs. 118-136)
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Other reasons why they wanted to kill Kennedy
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer was wearing out Kennedy and McNamara's patience. After a National Security Council meeting in June 1962, the president took the general aside and told him he wanted to send him to Europe to become NATO's new supreme allied commander. Kennedy would replace Lemnitzer as the nation's top military man with the more amenable Max Taylor. He would have one less warmonger to harass him about Cuba.
On March 13, 1962, Lemnitzer proposed a secret plan for another invasion of Cuba, named Operation Northwoods. The Pentagon and the CIA were desperate for a war with Cuba. Desperate enough to plan “to lure or provoke Castro, or an uncontrollable subordinate, into an overt hostile reaction against the United States; a reaction which would in turn create the justification for the US to not only retaliate but destroy Castro with speed, force, and determination “
The Northwoods war plan called for attacks against American bases, equipment and personnel and involved conducting a terrorist campaign in Miami, other cities in Florida and in Washington DC and blaming it on Castro. It call for the dressing up of American trained Cubans as Communists to make the attacks on American bases and to manufacture an airplane that looked like a Russian MIG to shoot down a “drone aircraft with the pretense that it was a charter flight carrying college students on a holiday” American airliner. This plan had to be conducted in the next 9-10 months, “but before Cuba could establish relations with Russia that might ‘directly involve the Soviet Union.’“ (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 96-98)
Kennedy was not amused. He fixed Lemnitzer with a hard look and "said bluntly that we were not discussing the use of US military force," according to Lansdale's notes on the meeting. The president icily added that Lemnitzer might find he did not have enough divisions to fight in Cuba, if the Soviets responded to his Caribbean gambit by going to war in Berlin or elsewhere.
Despite the president's cold reaction, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lemnitzer persisted in his war campaign. About a month after the White House meeting, Lemnitzer convened his fellow service chiefs in "the tank," as the JCS conference room was called. Under his direction, they hammered out a stern memo to McNamara insisting "that the Cuban problem be solved in the near future." That would never be accomplished by waiting around for Ed Lansdale's fairy-tale popular uprising, the memo made clear. There was only one way of getting the job done: "The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that a national policy of early military intervention in Cuba be adopted by the United States."
The Soviets may have believed due to the hawkish attitude within the US military that the US may be planning for a second invasion and this may have been the reason Khrushchev deployed the missiles in Cuba.
It is possible the Soviet moles inside the CIA learned that the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy had a “winning strategy” as a top secret military priority. One spy or mole who worked inside the CIA was KGB -coded name SASHA. He was Igor Orlov and he spied on the US from 1945 until he was uncovered in 1978. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 475)
President Kennedy had repeated clashes with General LeMay who wanted to do a first nuclear attack on Russia before they built up their ICBM and bomber missile forces. LeMay also disagreed with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Maxwell Taylor.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis at a meeting of the Joint Chief in October 1962, Gen. Curtis LeMay, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, clashed again with President Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that the Air Force should be allowed to bomb the nuclear missile sites in Cuba and he opposed the naval blockade. Even after the crisis, he suggested that Cuba should be invaded anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. Kennedy refused and LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis "the greatest defeat in our history.”
Kennedy's military advisers, (two of which were General Earle Wheeler Army Chief of Staff, General David Shoup Marine Corps Commandant) continued to press him to do a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviets. Generals Lemnitzer and General LaMay wanted Kennedy to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in both Berlin and Southeast Asia. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 109)
On October 26, 1962 the US Air Force launched the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base to the Marshall Islands. The Soviet Union could have easily seen this as the beginning of a nuclear attack. The US forces were already near the top rung of the nuclear war status, Defensive Condition (DEFCON -2). Also Strategic Air Command airborne-alert bombers deliberately flew past their customary turnaround points. This was unambiguous threat that Soviet radar operators would certainly have recognized and report. These events may have been due to chance or bad luck, and things just getting out of hand, as Kennedy feared, or the military was playing very dangerous games to get a war going. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 24-29)
Unknown to the US, the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch—the only time such authority was delegated by the Soviet’s higher command. They had twenty nuclear warheads for medium-range R-12 ballistic missiles capable of reaching US cities (including Washington) and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers had launched them, many millions of US citizens would have been killed.
In the fall of 1962, Kennedy sent James Donovan to negotiate with Fidel Castro the release
of the Bay of Pigs prisoners, so they could return to their families in Miami and elsewhere. In early April 1963, James Donovan returned to Cuba to negotiate the release of more Bay of Pigs prisoners of war. Castro raised with Donovan the issue of future US policy. Castro said, the “ideal government was not to be Soviet oriented,” and asked how diplomatic ties with the US might be resumed.
In 1962, James Donovan was the Kennedy-backed Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in the state of New York. He lost the election to Jacob Javits a Republican, who was originally allied with Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
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On January 17, 1963, President Kennedy presented his proposals for tax reform. This included relieving the tax burdens of low-income and elderly citizens. Kennedy also claimed he wanted to remove special privileges and loopholes. He even said he wanted to do away with the oil depletion allowance. It is estimated that the proposed removal of the oil depletion allowance would result in a loss of around $300 million a year to Texas oilmen. "Numerous studies showed that the oilmen were getting a tax break that was unprecedented in American business. While other businessmen had to pay taxes on their income regardless of what they sold, the oilmen got special treatment."
President Kennedy became concerned about people like the Texas oilman, H. L. Hunt were using tax exemptions to spread right-wing propaganda. A strong opponent of Fidel Castro, H.L. Hunt helped to fund the Cuban Revolutionary Council, a group that worked with the mafia and the CIA in an effort to remove Castro from power. Hunt established the Placid Oil Company in 1935, had a headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and in 1948 a newspaper reported he was the richest man in the United States. It estimated the value of his oil properties at $263 million and the daily production of crude from his wells at 65,000 barrels.
"An oilman drills a well that costs $100,000. He finds a reservoir containing $10,000,000 worth of oil. The well produces $1 million worth of oil per year for ten years. In the very first year, thanks to the depletion allowance, the oilman could deduct 27.5 per cent, or $275,000, of that $1 million in income from his taxable income. Thus, in just one year, he's deducted nearly three times his initial investment. But the depletion allowance continues to pay off. For each of the next nine years, he gets to continue taking the $275,000 depletion deduction. By the end of the tenth year, the oilman has deducted $2.75 million from his taxable income, even though his initial investment was only $100,000."
(Source: Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate, by Robert Bryce)
According to Texas Governor John B. Connolly Jr. large sums of money was given to US Senator Lyndon Johnson throughout the 1950s for distribution to his political friends and a great deal of this came from oilmen like Clint Murchison. Connolly's principal legal client was the Texas oil tycoon Sid W. Richardson. As Robert Bryce pointed out in his book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate: "Johnson's 1948 race ...the money flowed to Johnson like an inexhaustible river. By befriending Richardson, Murchison, Hunt, and other oilmen, Johnson assured himself of nearly unlimited funding." http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmurchison.htm
On March 11, 1933, at the Fort Worth Stock Show, Sid Richardson was introduced to Elliott Roosevelt, the 23-year-old son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Four months later, Elliott moved to Fort Worth. In 1937, when FDR stopped by for a visit, the presidential yacht Potomac anchored off the Gulf Coast island of Matagorda, where the president dined and fished for tarpon with Clint Murchison and Sid.
Later, it came to light that Richardson had set up Elliott Roosevelt with some Texas radio stations. Coincidentally or not, one of Clint’s oil subsidiaries was allowed to plead no contest and pay a modest fine instead of facing tougher federal charges regarding illegal oil selling, relates author Bryan Burrough in The Big Rich.
In 1941, Richardson was on a train to Washington to take part in a meeting of Roosevelt’s petroleum commission when he happened to share a car with a general named Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the war, Richardson flew to Paris and offered millions of dollars of Texas money to back Ike’s White House bid. Later, Richardson secretly funneled even more cash into Eisenhower’s beloved farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Murchison long knew the value of gifts to high officials and their relatives. “Money is like manure,” he repeatedly said. “If you spread it around, it does a lot of good.”
On October 16, 1962, John Kennedy was able to persuade Congress to pass an act that removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad. While this law applied to industry as a whole, it especially affected the oil companies. It was estimated that as a result of this legislation, wealthy oilmen saw a fall in their earnings on foreign investment from 30 per cent to 15 per cent. On January 17, 1963, Kennedy presented his proposals for tax reform. This included relieving the tax burdens of low-income and elderly citizens. Kennedy also claimed he wanted to remove special privileges and loopholes. He even said he wanted to do away with the oil depletion allowance. It is estimated that the proposed removal of the oil depletion allowance would result in a loss of around $300 million a year to Texas oilmen.
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKconnally.htm
The local Catholic hierarchy also joined with Archbishop Phillip M. Hannan of New Orleans and Dean A.E. Papale of Loyola University (Jesuit) Law School. INCA also received endorsements from New Orleans Mayor De Lesseps Morrison and Congressman Hale Boggs, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Rep. Boggs signed the Southern Manifesto condemning desegregation in the 1950s and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was a member of the Warren Commission. Henry Neil Mallon was also most likely tasked by the CIA to work as the personal assistants of the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Francis Spellman. Spellman who was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, enlisted priests in Latin American countries as spies and he passed intelligence to both CIA and to the FBI. Cardinal Spellman wrote about his actions in his biography “as an agent of the United States government.”
Mallon was the longtime chairman of the board of Dresser Industries Inc., based in Houston. Roland and W. Averell Harriman (of Brown Brothers Harriman bank) were also part owners of Dresser. Mallon was a close family friend of Senator Prescott Bush and he gave George H. W. Bush his first job in the oil business as a salesman for International Derrick and Equipment Company, a subsidiary of Dresser. Dresser Industries, like other worldwide corporations, volunteered to allow the CIA to routinely plant undercover officers within their business pretending to be employees. Declassified CIA documents state unequivocally that Herman and George Brown, as well as a long list of Brown & Root executives, were contract agents working for CIA’s clandestine services from December 3, 1953 and continuing until February 15, 1966. Herman Brown died in December 1962. https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?14816-The-CIA-in-New-Orleans-Joan-Mellen
http://joanmellen.com/wordpress/literary-matters/books-and-books-presentation/#sthash.SNZQpAH8.dpu
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Kennedy signed a Presidential Executive Order 11110, on June 4, 1963 that gave the US government back its power to issue currency, while stripping the Federal Reserve of the power to loan money to the government at interest. Silver certificates were printed and put into circulation. This was not an attempt by Kennedy to do away with the Federal Reserve. It was only a housekeeping law giving the Secretary of the Treasury some of the routine duty the President had by law been required to do. The truth is Kennedy was a good friend of the banksters (international bankers). (Source: The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
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Another reason why they killed Kennedy was his June 10, 1963 speech at American University, the “peace speech”. He was trying to reverse the 18 years of US-Soviet polarization and pressure from the Pentagon for a preemptive strike on the Soviets. Kennedy’s speech talked about the history of World War Two where 20 million Russians lost their lives, that millions of Russians homes and farms were burned and sacked, a third of the nation’s territory including nearly two thirds of its industrial base was turned into a wasteland—a loss equivalent to the devastation of everything east of Chicago in the USA. He said, “Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.” He reiterated the consequences of nuclear war, the fear and dangers of radioactive fallout. This was the first time since the beginning of the Cold War that any US President had made a speech wherein he spoke favorably about Russia. (JFK and the Unspeakable, (pp. 35, 42-45, and 51)
On July 26, 1963, Kennedy made a television appeal to the nation for support of limited, nuclear weapons, test ban treaty. On September 24, 1963 the US Senate voted to ratify the treaty by 80 Senators to 19. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 49-54)
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Kennedy moved for a Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Joint Chiefs of Staff declared themselves, “opposed to a comprehensive test ban under almost any terms.” The Limited Test Ban Treaty outlawing nuclear tests “in the atmosphere, beyond its limits, including outer space, or underwater, including territorial waters or high seas.” On July 26, 1963, he made a television appeal to the nation for support of the test ban treaty. On September 24, 1963 the US Senate voted to ratify the treaty by 80 Senators to 19. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 49-54)
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On May 6, 1963, Kennedy order 1,000 US troops removed from South Vietnam by December 31, 1963. On October 11, 1963, Kennedy issued a secret order for a US withdrawal from Vietnam in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM 263). Kennedy had decided to pull all of them by the end of 1965.
Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman in charge of the State Departments Vietnam Desk precipitated a decision for US support of a coup against Diem. They and Henry Cabet Lodge, the Ambassador to South Vietnam, had manipulated Kennedy into supporting a coup by South Vietnamese Generals. Lodge was a Republican who had run for election to the Senate and lost and was Nixon’s Vice Presidential Candidate in the run for President against Kennedy. The Pentagon and Joint Chiefs dragged their heels on finishing the Vietnam withdrawal plan.
(JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 93 to 94, 125, and 181).
In the early summer of 1963, Kennedy had kept his military and CIA advisers out of his discussion on Vietnam. According to then Assistant Secretary of Defense William P. Bundy, Kennedy consulted on Vietnam with just a few advisers in the State Department and White House, thereby leaving out representatives of the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA. These advisers knew they had been left out of other key decisions, as Kennedy had done with his decision on the test ban treaty. The reason was simple. Kennedy knew the military-intelligence elite were opposed to all his efforts to end the Cold War. Kennedy felt that his own demise was increasingly likely if he continued to buck his military advisers. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 180-186)
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This may not be a reason for killing Kennedy, but it shows how the dynastic oligarchy of the US was behaving in the lead up to and during the Kennedy Administration.
Between 1936 and 1941, the La Follette Civil Liberties US Congressional sub-committee, began as an inquiry into a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigation of the use of industrial espionage, private police agencies, strikebreaking services and employers' associations to break strikes and to disrupt legal union activities in other ways. The Committee investigated the five largest detective agencies: the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, the National Corporation Service, the Railway Audit and Inspection Company, and the Corporations Auxiliary Company. Most of the agencies subpoenaed, including the Pinkerton Agency, attempted to destroy their records before receiving the subpoenas, but enough evidence remained to "piece together a picture of intrigue". It was revealed that Pinkerton had operatives "in practically every union in the country". Of 1,228 operatives, there were five in the United Mine Workers, nine in the United Rubber Workers, seventeen in the United Textile Workers, and fifty-five in the United Auto Workers that had organized General Motors.
The La Follette Civil Liberties Sub-Committee reported that as late as 1937, its census of working labor spies from 1933 to 1937 totaled 3,871 for the period. Private security firms like the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and Burns (security) Company were employed to infiltrate labor unions. The Committee concluded that espionage was "the most efficient method known to management to prevent unions from forming, to weaken them if they secure a foothold, and to wreck them when they try their strength.”
American Liberty League was a group angry with about the New Deal programs under FDR. Its main contributors were the DuPont family, representative of the Morgan interests, Robert Clark, Pew Family (Sun Oil) and Rockefeller Associates. The DuPont’s employed the Black Legion a sort of northern KKK, which would terrorize workers, bomb union halls, and torture and murder organizers.
They built and operated the plant for the Manhattan project and built all the facilities for atomic bomb production including the facility at Oak Ridge Tennessee. Dupont technicians and engineers ran the show, and by the 1960s the Dupont’s effectively had control of the whole atomic energy industry. (Source: The Northwoods Conspiracy chapter “Aftermath and Beyond, by Ken Hudnall)
The American Liberty League also was associated with the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation It was incorporated in December 1927 in Chicago and founded and operated by Harry Jung. The group maintained files and spied on radicals and pacifists, selling information about them to businesses. In April 1933 the Federation began to accept members who were expected to gather information on subversive activities which could be political, religious, social, or anything else that would threaten cultural norms.
After retiring from the FBI in 1953, Lee R. Pennington joined the American Legion, where he did similar work as he had done for the FBI, That is, gathering information on "subversives". After retiring from the American Legion, Pennington went to work for the American Security Council (ASC). Years later it came out that Pennington was a CIA officer. He was close to James McCord, the former CIA officer who headed the Watergate burglary, and was instrumental in destroying files linking McCord to the CIA. A co-chairman of the ASC's national strategy committee was Lloyd Wright, who worked for Wackenhut Company. He had been the committee's initial sole chairman when it was put together back in 1961.
Working under Pennington at the ASC's Washington office was retired Rear Admiral Chester C. Ward. Not long after joining the American Security Council, Ward became one of the nation's most intense fear mongers, together with co-author Phyllis Schlafly. In 1964 the duo published the book The Gravediggers, in which they attacked the New York bankers, claiming it was undermining elections and was exposing the country to danger by reducing defense spending. In 1974 they published the best-seller Kissinger on the Couch, criticizing Kissinger's policy of détente and claiming he was an instrument of the Soviets.
In addition to reorganizations at the American Security Council, members in 1963 were also involved in setting up Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba (CCFC). ASC board members as Edward Teller and Claire Boothe Luce were among the directors. Another, Spruille Braden, soon became chairman. Even John Fisher joined the board in 1964. Leo Cherne was there, a mentor to William Casey and a pioneer in CIA operations through private institutes. Admiral Arleigh Burke and Nicholas Duke Biddle of the elite Pilgrims Society sat on the board. Colonel Raymond Sleeper was one of ASC’s national strategy committee members. Executive director was Paul D. Bethel a former CIA officer who was close to David Atlee Phillips and the anti-Castro Cuban underground that carried out sabotage and terrorist attacks against Castro's Cuba. Paul Bethel joined the United States Army and served in Germany at the same time as William Harvey, the CIA chief of station in Berlin. Bethel moved to Miami where he worked closely with anti-Castro exiles including Alpha 66. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbethelP.htm
General Curtis LeMay, his deputy at Strategic Air Command, Thomas S. Powers, and Joint Chiefs chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer, another later ASC strategy board member, were also supporters of the first Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) which called for a massive retaliation of the entire U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal on Russia, China and all Soviet-allied states, even when the Soviet Union alone attacked the United States. Kennedy resented the plan and McNamara ordered it revised in 1962.
It was in this period, in the early days of days of the Cold War, that some senior military officers flirted with the idea of attacking the Soviet Union "preventively", because they were certain that Stalin was going to attack the West as soon as he had produced a significant arsenal of nuclear weapons. The strategy designed under Project Control in the early 1950s at the U.S. Air War College was preferred by this group. It gave the Soviet Union six months to capitulate under terms outlined by the Americans. If the Soviet Union would refuse to comply, the United States would attack it with nuclear weapons.
General LeMay, always eager to start a new world war, had actually begun to implement aspects of Project Control on his own. "Central to Project Control was overflights by LeMay's spy planes to police Soviet airspace. Even before the plan had been shown to the politicians, LeMay ordered a test run of this central tenet. On May 8, 1954, a converted B-47 bomber took off from RAF Fairford in Oxfordshire. It flew round the coast of Norway to Murmansk. There, it suddenly turned south and flew deep into the Soviet Union, photographing airfields and military installations. The Soviets were furious.”
"The pilot of this provocative mission, Colonel Hal Austin, had been personally briefed by the general. "LeMay said, 'Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get world war three started.' ... If Austin thought LeMay's remark might be a joke, an encounter between the two men 30 years later showed it was not. "His (LeMay's) comment there again was, 'Well, we'd have been a hell of a lot better off if we'd got world war three started in those days.”
"By late 1954, Project Control had received a major political knockback when the State Department rejected it. Then followed another blow. The Air War College war-gamed the idea for many months into 1955 and a letter to LeMay tells of the result: the Red Team (acting as the USSR) launched a preventive nuclear strike on the Blue Team (acting as the US). "Blues large-scale overflights of Red territory triggered off the conflict."
"Despite this, in 1956, LeMay undertook a major series of spyflights over the Soviet Union. In April alone there were three sets of nine simultaneous penetrations of the USSR's northern borders. There are believed to have been many more such flights that year, though no record of President Eisenhower being informed has ever been found."
In 1973 the ASC moved its headquarters to the tiny town of Boston, Virginia, located about 70 miles south-east of Washington. The ASC took their database of alleged subversives with them, placing the records in the Sol Feinstone Library for the Survival of Freedom.
Western Goals Foundation was caught in the early 1980s collecting police files on everything from civil liberties groups and anti-nuclear protestors to left-wing judges and politicians. Anthony Kubek, Thomas Moorer, General John Singlaub, General Lewis Walt, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, all members of ASC, also sat on the board of Western Goals. In 1991 General John Singlaub was a member of ASC's strategy board. http://www.isgp.nl/American_Security_Council
FBI Director Hoover was completely on the side of American corporations. He ran a massive counter-intelligence program, known as COINTELPRO beginning in August 1956. . With it he infiltrated and disrupted labor unions, civil rights groups, anti-segregation outfits and kept tabs on various left-wing politicians. It had the mission to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party (CPUSA). Evidence seems to point to the fact that the American Security Council (ASC) was a joint venture between Hoover's FBI and corporate America. The early American Security Council had roughly the same aim as COINTELPRO. Private companies financed the American Security Council. US companies were able to use the library of the ASC to screen new or existing employees. Companies using ASC information about US persons seeking employment grew to about 1,500 corporations in the early 1970s. Since 1937, the Church League of America, a right wing anti-communist research and advocacy group, collected these research files from other creators with a similar political outlook and professional activities, for example, the American Business Consultants Inc., Burns Detective Agency, and the Wackenhut Corporation. All of these creators had connections to the intelligence agencies of the United States government, kept detailed research files on individuals and organizations, and were part of a right-wing research and information network that monitored Communists and other perceived threats to their interpretation of the American way of life.
Although the ASC wouldn't allow any outsiders to view the files, by the early 1970s it was reported that the ASC had information on about six million individuals. It is also not known if the FBI cooperated and with Harry Jung’s American Vigilant Intelligence Federation. I assume in providing Jung with information the FBI had learned about Americans. What is also known is that in one case a private investigator Guy Banister was hired by American Security Council "for security checks about political backgrounds with special interest in any communist type activities". Jung later relocated to New Orleans where he associated Guy Bannister where they infiltrated unions, left wing groups, and universities. http://www.isgp.nl/American_Security_Council
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This is an important reason they wanted to kill Kennedy.
In a secret June 5, 1963 memorandum, Richard Helms wrote that CIA had just received a report that, “at the request of Khrushchev, Castro was returning (from his visit with the Soviet leader) to Cuba with the intention of adopting a conciliatory policy toward the Kennedy administration ‘for the time being’.”
This was not what the anti-communist hawks wanted to happen. They want to defeat Castro to make him an example to any other Latin American leaders whose policies were too socialistic. Let the end of this book I have included a statement by one of the top bosses within the CIA saying the CIA felt John Kennedy was a traitor and therefore had to be killed. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 67-69)
On September 20, 1963, Kennedy gave secret approval for William Attwood, a distinguished journalist, “to make discreet contact” with Dr. Carlos Lechuga, Cuba’s UN ambassador in order to explore a possible dialogue with Castro. This started a secret dialogue toward an actual rapprochement with Castro. Castro felt that Kennedy was a man he could talk to. Castro responded positively, saying it was “a step forward toward reduction of the danger of crisis and war.” This was going on while the CIA was working to assassinate Castro. I bet the CIA knew about this repproachement operation. (Ibid. pp. 6, 70, and 84- 89)
Cuban officials arrest Miguel A. Orozco Crespo, a leader of a group of CIA contract special forces guerrillas, who had infiltrated Cuba on October 20, 1963. He admitted to at least 25 missions in Cuba throughout the year, Orozco tells Cuban police about CIA operations throughout Cuba, and explains that his CIA case officers in Florida are Rip Robertson and Robert Wall.
The Evidence the CIA and the Joint Chief of Staff plotted to kill JFK
First let me start with a deeper look at Lee Harvey Oswald. He was born in New Orleans on October, 18 1939. Lee had stayed with his aunt Lillian Murret and her husband when he was a young boy until the time that he was about 2 years old. The Murret’s daughter, Marilyn D. Murret was about 11 or 12 years old at that time. After President Kennedy was killed, she was questioned and stated that she thought Oswald’s mother had to work at a hosiery shop or at department stores and her mother and father kept him. And Oswald’s father had died before he was born and his brothers had lived in an orphan home here in New Orleans.
Marilyn Murret said, “He was adorable, and his personality, he was just--well, he was very bright, you know, very observant, and he was just a darling child….He didn't have the same interests with the other children. I mean, he liked to read, and he loved nature… he read encyclopedias like somebody else would read a novel….he wanted to play ball, and he didn't have the money to buy the equipment…. and I can't remember whether my brothers or somebody gave him some equipment, and he was very appreciative, very thankful, you know. And I mean I guess he couldn't do what the other children did, because he couldn't afford it. I mean he was interested in sports at that time.”
Marilyn heard from others about Lee, “…they ridiculed him at the school. I don't know if it was because of the way he was dressed or not, but I actually didn't see anything wrong with his appearance, and so, he was riding in the streetcar one day, I believe, and he sat next to some negroes. Well, when he got out of the streetcar, or bus, or whatever it was, these boys ganged up on him, and hit him in the mouth, and loosened his front teeth, I believe. But this I only know from my mother.” After the assassination, her mother told her that the rumors slandering Oswald as to him being, “always in fights… that she didn't think it was his fault, because she remembered those particular incidents.”
Q: And he gave no indication of any behavior problems? No indication of any behavior problems?
A: Marilyn Murret. No; he was darling. And very pleasant, you know, not the type of child who if he didn't get his way would start screaming-- never any of that. He was just a very pleasant child. (Source: Legend: The Second World of Lee Harvey Oswald , by Edward Jay Epstein, (1978) http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/murret_m.htm
School records of show Lee's admission into the first grade in Fort Worth, TX on October 31, 1945 at age five years and nine months old. He was present on 82 school days and absent on 15, and received all A's and B's but he had not completed the work of the first grade. He was enrolled for a second time into the first grade in Covington, LA. When his parents moved back Fort Worth he was withdrawn on January 23, 1947. In May 1947 he completed the first grade at a Fort Worth elementary school and got B's in every subject except physical education and health, in which he received A's. In the fall, he entered the second grade in the same school June completed the second grade with a record mostly of B's and A's.
Lee entered the third grade at the Arlington Heights Elementary School. He remained at Arlington Heights for the entire school year, completing the third grade with a satisfactory record, which included A's in social studies, citizenship, elementary science, art, and music, and a D in spelling. In September 1949, he transferred to the Ridglea West Elementary School, where he remained for the next three years. Lee's record at Ridglea is not remarkable in any respect. In the fourth and fifth grades, he received mostly B's; in the sixth grade, B's and C's predominate. He received D's in both the fifth and sixth grades in spelling and arithmetic; in the fourth and sixth grades, C's are recorded for Spanish, which may account for his rudimentary familiarity with that language later on. In the fourth grade his IQ was recorded at 103; on achievement tests in each of the three years, he twice did best in reading and twice did worst in spelling.
Lee is generally characterized as an unexceptional but rather solitary boy during these years. A fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Clyde I. Livingston, described him as a lonely boy, quiet and shy, who did not easily form friendships with other students. But Richard W. Garrett has stated that he was a classmate of Lee in the fourth or fifth grade and found him easy to get along with. He recalled playing with Lee often at school and sometimes walking home together with him. Livingston recalled that at Christmas 1949, Lee, now ten years old, gave her a puppy and afterward came to her home to see the puppy and talk to her and her family.
Lee's relationship with his two older brothers was good, but limited by the difference in their ages. He still had a dog, but there were few children of his age in the neighborhood and he appears to have been by himself after school most of the time. He read a lot, had a stamp collection, and played chess and Monopoly with his brothers. Mrs. Murret remembered that on a visit to her home in New Orleans, Lee refused to play with other children or even to leave the house. He preferred to stay indoors and read, mostly funny books or listen to the radio. Hiram Conway, a neighbor on Ewing Street, thought Lee was an intelligent child, who picked things up easily.
In August, 1952 Lee (age 13) moved to New York City with his mother. On March 12, 1953 a school attendance officer filed a petition in court that Lee had been excessively absent from school between October and January, that he had refused to register at Public School 44 or to attend school there, and that he was "beyond the control of his mother insofar as school attendance is concerned.”
On April 16, 1953, Justice Delany declared him a truant, and remanded him to Youth House until May 7, 1953 for psychiatric study. In accordance with the regular procedures at Youth House, Lee took a series of tests and was interviewed by a staff social worker and a probation officer.
During the few weeks of school which remained, Lee attended school regularly, and completed the seventh grade with low grades in all his academic subjects. He received a failing grade in a home economics course. His conduct was generally satisfactory and he was rated outstanding in social-participation. The record indicates that he belonged to a model airplane club and had a special interest in horseback riding.
On September 14, 1953, Lee entered the eighth grade at Public School 44. Although Lee was attending school regularly, his conduct was unsatisfactory. Teachers reported that he refused to salute the flag, did little work, and seemed to spend most of his time sailing paper planes around the room. He received passing grades in most of his subjects. His report card also contains notations by his teachers that he was "quick-tempered," "constantly losing control," and "getting into battles with others.”
While Lee was in the eighth and ninth grades, his mother worked at two shoe stores. One of these stores hired Lee as a part-time stock boy and he worked mostly on Saturdays.
Lee was briefly a member of the Civil Air Patrol and occasionally. He was not unusually argumentative or belligerent, but he seems not to have avoided fights if they came; they did come fairly frequently, perhaps in part because of his aloofness from his fellows and the traces of a northern accent in his speech. His only close friendship, with Edward Voebel, arose when Voebel helped him tend his wounds after a fight. He played pool or darts with this friend.
Lee entered the 10th grade of High School, but after about a month, (October 1955) he faked a note pretending to be from his mother, saying she and Lee were moving to San Diego. Now 16 years old, he worked for the rest of the school year. His military record subsequently described his prior civilian jobs as follows: Performed various clerical duties such as distributing mail, delivering messages and answering telephone. Helped file records and operated ditto, letter opening & sealing machines. According to his mother's testimony, Lee spent the next year reading and memorizing the US Marine Manual.
Lee became 17 years old on October 18, 1956 and on October 24th he enlisted in the US Marines. On March 18, he reported to the Naval Air Technical Training Center at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla. For the next 6 weeks he attended an Aviation Fundamental School, in which he received basic instruction in his specialty, including such subjects as basic radar theory, map reading, and air traffic control procedures. This course, as well as his next training assignment at Keesler Air Force Base, required Oswald to deal with documents classified, “confidential.” He was granted final clearance up to the "confidential" level on May 3, 1957. He completed the course on the same day, ranking 46th in a class of 54 students and was promoted to private, first class (E-2). At Jacksonville, he received ratings of 4.7 in conduct and 4.5 in proficiency on a scale of 1 to 5.
Next Oswald attended the Aircraft Control and Warning Operator Course in Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. which included instruction in aircraft surveillance and the use of radar. He finished the course 17th in a class of 30 Marines on June 17, to qualify for the job as a radar operator. His ratings at Keesler were 4.2 in conduct. and 4.5 in proficiency. A fellow Marine, PFC Daniel P. Powers said Oswald read a lot from the books in his free time. Powers thought he read "a good type of literature," remembering in particular Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."
On September 12, 1957 Oswald arrived at his next assignment at Atsugi, Japan about 20 miles west of Tokyo. He directed aircraft to their targets by radar, communicating with the pilots by radio. His squadron also had the duty of scouting for incoming foreign aircraft, such as straying Russian or Chinese planes, which would be intercepted by American airplanes.
On October 27, when Oswald opened his locker to remove some gear, a .22 caliber, derringer pistol fell to the floor and discharged; the bullet hit him in the left elbow. Paul Edward Murphy, a fellow marine who was in the next cubicle, heard the shot, rushed in, and found Oswald sitting on the locker looking at his arm; without emotion, Oswald said to Murphy, "I believe I shot myself." He was in the naval hospital at Yokosuka for about a month.
The officer in command of the radar crew, Lt. John E. Donovan, found him "competent in all functions," and observed that he handled himself calmly and well in emergency situations. Donovan thought Oswald was not a leader but that he performed competently on occasions when, as the senior man present, he served as crew chief. Lt. Donovan said Oswald was thought to be an intelligent person, somewhat better educated and more intellectually oriented than other men on the base.
The Judge Advocate General concluded that Oswald had "displayed a certain degree of carelessness or negligence" by storing a loaded revolver in his locker, but that his injury was incurred "in the line of duty" and was not the result of his own misconduct." He was, however, charged with possession of an unregistered privately owned weapon in violation of general orders. A court-martial followed on April 11, 1958, when Oswald's unit returned from maneuvers, and on April 29 he was sentenced to be confined at hard labor for 20 days, to forfeit $25 per month for 2 months, and to be reduced to the grade of private. The confinement was suspended for 6 months, after which that portion of the sentence was to be remitted.
Oswald was court-martial-ed a second time on June 27, for using "provoking words" to a sergeant on June 20, at the Bluebird Cafe in Yamato, and assaulting the officer by pouring a drink on him. The findings were that Oswald spilled the drink accidentally, but when the sergeant shoved him away, Oswald invited the sergeant outside in insulting language. Oswald admitted that he was rather drunk and had invited the sergeant outside, but did not recall insulting him. He was sentenced to be confined at hard labor for 28 days and to forfeit $55.00; in addition, suspension of the previous sentence of confinement was withdrawn. He was in confinement until August 13th. (Source: Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, (Warren Commission Report) Appendix 13: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, pages 669 to 689) http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-13.html
Allen R. Felde enlisted in the US Marine Corps in October 1956. He went to the San Diego for basic training and there he met another recruit Lee Oswald. Felde told the FBI that he and Oswald remained in California (San Diego & Camp Pendleton) until May, 1957, and were they both were transferred to the A&P school in Jacksonville, FL. Felde recalled that Oswald continually discussed politics. Oswald was argumentative and frequently took the opposite side of an argument just for the sake of a debate. He was a good talker and had an excellent vocabulary. He was also a voracious reader spending much of his time reading in base libraries as well as in his quarters. He became unpopular, and his company was avoided if possible. Oswald continually wrote to Senators in Washington about various left wing issues. One senator in particular who was in receipt of a number of his letters was Senator Strom Thurman. Oswald expressed dislike for people of wealth and he championed the cause of the working man. (Source: Marine Corps Unit Diary #104-57 (pp 719, 724) confirms that Felde arrived in Jacksonville, FL on May 2, 1957 http://harveyandlee.net/Marines/Marines.html
US Army Captain Richard C. Nagell said he became aware of Lee Oswald in November 1957, when Oswald and another American visited the Soviet embassy in Tokyo. According to Nagell, Oswald was photographed by the Japanese as he entered the embassy. Nagell claimed that he and Lee Oswald frequented the Queen Bee, a Tokyo nightclub rumored to have been a hotbed of KGB activity. Nagell claimed that he and Oswald met soon after this, when each allegedly played a role in a CIA operation to convince Soviet Colonel Nikolai Eroshkin to defect to the US.
A former CIA finance officer, James Wilcott, testified to the House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) that colleagues told him that Lee Oswald was a contract agent for a US government spy agency in Japan while stationed in Japan at a secret U2 base as a radar operator. The Committee decided not to believe Wilcott's hearsay information. Oswald was being used to do operational security or to spy on other US persons associated with secret military operations. (Crossfire, p. 104)
Jim Wilcox worked in the financial branch of the Tokyo CIA station from 1960 to 1964. As a CIA finance officer, Jim Wilcox said he paid-out CIA funds to a CIA case officers who ran contract agents and he gave this case officer funds for “the Oswald project” on at least two or three times. In a 1978 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Jim Wilcott said, “It was common knowledge in the Tokyo CIA station that Oswald worked for the agency.” CIA officer Elsie Wilcott (his wife) said, “Right after the President was killed people in the Tokyo station were talking openly about Oswald having gone to Russia for the CIA. Everyone was wondering how the agency was going to be able to keep the lid on Oswald. But I guess they did.” CIA officers told Jim Wilcott that the CIA was involved in assassinations.
Jim Wilcott wrote, “ (Oswald) had been trained at Atsugi Naval Air Station, a plush super secret cover base for Tokyo Station special operations…becoming a double agent assignment to the USSR…More than once, I was told something like ‘so-and-so was working on the Oswald project back in the late 1950s. … (and) Oswald knew the Russians were on to him from the start and this made him angry.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 146-147)
In late January 1959 Oswald took a series of high school level general educational development tests on March 23 and received an overall rating of "satisfactory." Oswald served in Taiwan and the Philippines before returning to a base in California.
The Marine Corps knew in advance Oswald was going to the Soviet Union. An unknown US government agency had spent two years preparing him for the journey. The Warren Commission had learned that Oswald had spent time at the Defense Language Institute. It is likely he was studying Russian there. (Source: JFK researcher Martin Shackelford ) http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/14th_issue/leads_releases.html
A former long time, CIA contract pilot, William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee stated, “I first meet Lee Oswald at a secret base called Illusionary Warfare Training at Nagshead, North Carolina in 1959. This was prior to him going to (Russian) language school and going to Russia. When I later learned that Oswald had been arrested as the lone assassin, I remembered having met him on a number of previous occasions which were connected with intelligence training matters, first at Illusionary Warfare Training in Nagshead, North Carolina, then in Honolulu at a radar installation and at Oahu's Wheeler Air Force Base.
http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/toshfiles.htm
In Dick Russell's book about the Kennedy assassination, The Man Who Knew Too Much, he wrote about a Second Lieutenant Richard Case Nagell. Nagell was assigned to Field Operations Intelligence from 1955 to 1959 in both Korea and Japan. It was a US military intelligence organization which had the job of trying to recruit human sources. The Field Operations officers were not part of the counter intelligence mission within the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps, (CIC).
In 1946, another Army-wide reorganization dissolved the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and reestablished the Military Intelligence Division as an operating agency to MG Robert A. Schow, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) in 1956.
Both Oswald and Nagell worked in an intelligence operation while in Japan, codename Hidell. Oswald would years later use the alias, Alek James Hidell. Oswald had been stationed at Atsugi Air Force Base, Japan form September 1957 to November 1958. The Hidell operation may have been a counterintelligence operation using Oswald to hanging out in bars in order to find out if any US personnel associated with the U2 operation were talking about classified information or where security risks, and if the spies attempted to recruit Oswald as a spy.
Oswald was a Marine radar operator who had had access to classified information about the operation of U2 flights. He held a crypto, top secret security clearance and he had had access to the authentication codes used by US military planes to prevent them being shoot down by US Air Defenses or missiles. He knew secrets regarding the capabilities of US radars and radios. High-altitude U2 spy planes began making reconnaissance flights over the USSR in 1956, giving the U.S. its first detailed look at Soviet military facilities. Lt. John E. Donovan who had been Oswald’s Marine Corp supervising officer in Japan, testified at the Warren Commission, but he wasn’t asked anything about Oswald access to operational information about of the U2s. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 37-39 and Crossfire, p. 303-304)
During orientation at Far East Headquarters in Japan in the 1940s, US Army, Second Lieutenant Nagell said he was familiarized with "simple and intricate weapons to be used in assassinations." He said he was advised that in the event he was apprehended, killed or compromised during the performance of his secret Intelligence duties the Army would publicly disclaim any knowledge of or connection with his behavior.
Nagell left the Army in October 1959 and worked as an investigator for the State of California. Nagell suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome symptoms from being seriously wounded twice in the Korean War. After the war, he received a head injury while flying in an airplane that crashed. He was in and out of VA mental hospitals the rest of this life. He stated that he had been recruited by Soviet foreign intelligence/KGB, and became a double agent working for the CIA. Knowing what we know today about post traumatic stress disorder, seeking help from psychologists, may not mean Nagell was moon-bat crazy (psychotic). I write more about his connection to the assassination and Oswald later in this account. (Ibid., p.153)
Oswald, age 20, was obligated to serve three years on active duty until December 7, 1959. On August 17, he submitted a request for a dependency discharge, on the ground that his mother needed his support. The request was accompanied by an affidavit from Mrs. Oswald and corroborating affidavits from an attorney, a doctor, and two friends, attesting that she had been injured at work in December 1958, and was unable to support herself. Oswald had previously made a voluntary allotment of part of his salary to his mother. On September 11, 1959 he was released from active duty from the Marine Corps at Air Station El Toro, Southern California and transferred to the Marine Corps Reserve. He was expected to serve until December 8, 1962.
On September 4, 1959, Oswald applied for a passport. On March 19, 1959, Oswald applied to Albert Schweitzer College in Churwalden, Switzerland, for admission to the spring term in 1960, and his application was accepted. Schweitzer College is a small school, which specializes in courses in religion, ethics, science, and literature. Albert Schweitzer College was a known CIA front at that time. (Sources: The Ordeal of Otto Otepka, by William J. Gill) http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10074&st=15
After a three-day stopover in Texas with his mother, on Sept. 20, 1959 Oswald took a freighter to Le Havre, France and he may have got a job on this ship. (Crossfire, p. 111 and 118)
Oswald journey to Moscow was a very unorthodox manner. He went via France, England, and to Helsinki, Finland. Oswald probably applied for a visa at the Russian consulate in Helsinki, Finland. The visa was issued on October 14. 1959 for a six day visit to the USSR and then he traveled by train, arriving in Moscow on October 16, 1959. (Crossfire, p. 118 -119 and. JFK and the Unspeakable).
Gregory Golub was Soviet consul in Helsinki, Finland and he granted visas for travel into Russia. Golub told the CIA that Moscow had given him the authority to give Americans visas without prior approval from Moscow as long as he was convinced the American was all right. Oswald got his visa in two days when it normally took five to seven days. This may indicate that the CIA knew Helsinki was an easier way to get US citizen into the USSR. (Source: Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi)
Oswald wrote a letter to the Supreme Soviet requesting that he be granted citizenship. On October 19, Oswald was interviewed by a man named Lev Setyayev, who said that he was a reporter for Radio Moscow seeking statements from American tourists about their impressions of Moscow. Setyayev was most likely acting for the KGB. On the following day Oswald was notified that the "Pass and Visa Department" wanted to see him, and on October 21, he was interviewed by an official concerning his application for citizenship. The Soviet official offered little information, no encouragement and told Oswald only that he would check to see if the visa could be extended. Oswald returned to his Hotel. That afternoon, he was notified that his visa had expired and that he had to leave Moscow within two hours. Allegedly Oswald responded by cutting himself above his left, wrist, in an apparent suicide attempt. Oswald’s female Intourist Guide, found him unconscious in his hotel room and had him taken to the Botkinskaya Hospital.
For three days Oswald was confined in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. He was examined by a psychiatrist, who concluded that he was not dangerous to other people and Oswald was discharged. Hospital records contained the results of the examination and stated that Oswald came to Russia in order to apply for citizenship, and "in order to postpone his departure he inflicted the injury upon himself." The records note that Oswald understood some Russian and, presumably based on information which he provided, that he had "graduated from a technical high school in radio technology and radio electronics." The record states: "He claims he regrets his action. After recovering he intends to return to his homeland."
Oswald began keeping a diary around this time. It was given to the Warren Commission to read and is available for historians. When he returned to the US a few years later, Oswald planned to use this diary to write a book, but he never did so.
On October 31, 1959, Oswald went to the US Embassy in Moscow attempting to renounce his US citizenship. He turned in his US passport there. His action displayed a sophisticated knowledge of the legal subtleties concerning the revocation of one’s citizenship. He was interviewed by Richard E. Snyder, senior consular official and with Snyder's assistant, John A. McVickar. Oswald told them that he had already offered to tell a Soviet official what he had learned as a radar operator in the Marines. (Source: Warren Commission Report, Appendix 13, page 694)
Snyder stated that he assumed Oswald was referring to the U2. Snyder concluded that Oswald was assuming that the KGB had bugged the American Embassy, and “was speaking for Russian ears in my office.” Snyder appears to have stalled Oswald to allow him time to think about what he was doing. He told Oswald because it was Saturday it was required for him to come back during normal weekday business hours and at that time he would have the papers prepared for him. Oswald never came back to complete the process.
Joan Hallet, the wife of an assistant naval attaché, worked as a receptionist at the Embassy and she said Snyder and a security officer (John A. McVickar) took Oswald upstairs to the working floors. Upstairs was a secure area where the Ambassador and military officers worked. She stated visitors would never get up there unless he was on official business.
From November 1959 Oswald seldom left his Moscow hotel room where he had arranged to take his meals, except perhaps for a few trips to museums. He wrote in his diary that spent most of his time studying Russian. The KGB monitored him with an infra-red camera.
In November 1959, the FBI counter-espionage section put a FLASH alert (a police-style, all-points bulletin) into affect after Oswald made contact with the US Embassy in Moscow and renounced his US citizenship. Put his name on a watch list. Fully alert to Oswald and to possibly that some sort of espionage game was being played out.
On November 16, 1959, Priscilla Johnson, a reporter for the North American News Alliance (NANA), visited the American Embassy to pick up her mail when John McVickar approached her and told her that "there's a guy in your hotel who wants to defect, and he won't talk to any of us here." She later told the Warren Commission: "John McVickar said he was refusing to talk to journalists. So I thought that it might be an exclusive, for one thing, and he was right in my hotel, for another." Oswald allowed her to interview him. She later testified that they talked from between nine until one or two in the morning. Oswald’s family read about his appearance at the Embassy in the newspapers and they tried to contact him.
On May, 6, 1958, the CIA’s Chief of CI/OA submitted a request for operational approval on Priscilla Johnson. The covert operation for which she was being considered is still classified. And during the Second World War she worked for the OSS’s Office of Special Operations in 1943 and 1944. A declassified CIA memo written on December 11, 1962 by Donald Jameson stated,"I think that Miss Johnson can be encouraged to write pretty much the articles we want. Another CIA document dated February, 5, 1964, noted an eleven hour long meeting with Johnson by CIA officer Gary Coit. Coit told her he would "probably be back to see her from time to time to see what she knows about specific persons whose names might come up, and she at least nodded assent to this." So she was worked from time to time as a CIA officer or agent, undercover as a reporter. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19103
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKjohnsonPR.htm
On January 4, 1960, Oswald was summoned to the Soviet Passport Office and given Identity Document for Stateless Persons. Oswald had wanted to attend Moscow State University, but he was sent to Minsk to work as a lathe operator at the Gorizont Electronics Factory, which produced radios, televisions, and military and space electronics.
Oswald was treated very well by the Soviets after he defected to them. They gave him use of a luxurious apartment which normally is restricted to high ranking Soviet military officers and perks available only to members of the KGB or the Soviet elite. Years later, Angleton became convinced that this very special treatment of Oswald showed that the Soviets did not think he was moon-bat crazy. Or it could be the Soviet KGB was sending a message that our spies would be treated like POWs well by them in the (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 221)
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So what was going on in Russia at this time?
In the early morning hours of February 25, 1956, Khrushchev delivered what became known as the "Secret Speech" to a closed session of the Congress limited to Soviet delegates and in so doing, he demolished Stalin's reputation. Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that the "congress listened to me in silence. As the saying goes, you could have heard a pin drop. It was all so sudden and unexpected.” Khrushchev told the delegates: “… Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.
The Secret Speech, while it did not fundamentally change Soviet society, had wide-ranging effects. The term "Secret Speech" proved to be an utter misnomer, because by March 5, copies were being mailed throughout the Soviet Union, marked "not for the press" rather than "top secret” and soon entire country became familiar with the speech.
Khrushchev's speech was followed by a period of liberalization known as Khrushchev's Thaw. In 1961 the body of Stalin was removed from public view in Lenin's mausoleum and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The speech was a major cause of the Sino-Soviet split, in which the People's Republic of China (under Mao Zedong).
Khrushchev let Soviets travel (over 700,000 Soviet citizens travelled abroad in 1957) and allowed foreigners to visit the Soviet Union, where tourists became subjects of immense curiosity. In 1957, instructed Komsomol officials to "smother foreign guests in our embrace."
A Komsomol was something like the Boy or Girl Scouts and the Young Democrats in the US. The Komsomol sought to provide Russian youth leisure activities that promoted the improvement of society, such as volunteer work, sports, and political and drama clubs to prevent hooliganism.
Khrushchev founded several academic towns outside of Moscow and Leningrad. The premier believed that Western science flourished because many scientists lived in university towns such as Oxford, isolated from big city distractions, and had pleasant living conditions and good pay. He sought to duplicate those conditions in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev's attempt was generally successful, though his new towns and scientific centers tended to attract younger scientists, with older ones unwilling to leave the big cities where the Soviet elite lived (I guess, as I am not sure about this assumption.)
Khrushchev also proposed to restructure Soviet high schools. While the high schools provided a college preparatory curriculum, in fact few Soviet youths went on to university. Khrushchev wanted to shift the focus of secondary schools to vocational training: students would spend much of their time at factory jobs or in apprenticeships and only a small part of their time at the schools. In practice, what occurred is that schools developed links with nearby enterprises where students went to work for only one or two days a week.
In 1959, during Vice President Nixon's visited the Soviet Union. Khrushchev arrived in Washington, DC on his first visit to the United States on September 15, 1959, spending thirteen days. Khrushchev brought his wife, Nina Petrovna, and adult children with him, though it was not usual for Soviet officials to travel with their families. The premier visited New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco (visiting a supermarket), Pittsburgh, and a farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa. While visiting an IBM facility in California, Khrushchev greatly admired the self-service cafeteria, and, on his return, introduced self-service in the Soviet Union. He concluded the visit with a meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David. They agreed that there would be a summit to try to resolve the issue of Berlin. Khrushchev returned from the US convinced that he had achieved a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower (who in fact was unimpressed by the Soviet leader) and that he could achieve détente with the American. He pushed for an immediate summit, but it was frustrated by French President Charles de Gaulle, who postponed the four-power until 1960, a year in which Eisenhower was scheduled to pay a return visit to the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev's US visit resulted in an informal agreement with Eisenhower that there would be no firm deadline over Berlin, but that there would be a four-power summit to try to resolve the issue, and the premier left the U.S. to general good feelings. Khrushchev returned from the U.S. convinced that he had achieved a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower (who in fact was unimpressed by the Soviet leader) and that he could achieve détente with the Americans.
In January 1960, Khrushchev took advantage of improved relations with the US to order a reduction of one-third in the size of Soviet armed forces.
After working for over a year at a Soviet electronics factory in Minsk, Oswald returned to the US Embassy in Moscow. There he was welcome back by American officials with open arms and the US made no move to prosecute him. The embassy gave him a loan to return to the country and he was given a new US passport overnight. All this was highly usual after a U2 was shot down on May 1, 1960 when a Soviet surface-to-air missile exploded near his plane, causing it to drop to a lower altitude and a second missile scored a direct hit. May 1st (May Day) became the occasion for large military parades in Red Square by the Soviet Union and attended by the top leaders of the Kremlin.
Oswald was a Marine radar operator who had had access to top secret information about the operation of U2 flights. Sylvia Meagher in her book, the Warren Commission, Accessories after the Fact, she concluded: “Decision after decision, the (State) Department removed every obstacle before Oswald on his path from Minsk to Dallas – a defector and would –be expatriate, self-declared enemy of his native country, self-proclaimed discloser of classified military information.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 37-39)
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Former CIA officer, James Angleton, alleged that Oswald defected to the Soviet Union and that Oswald knew details of U2 radar images, flight trajectories, capabilities, and runway distances that the U2 required. All this was information the Soviets needed to aim their not-so-accurate, SAM missiles if they were ever going to shoot down the U2. U2 flights took off in Peshawar, Pakistan, and landed in Bodo, Norway.
Soviets sent Oswald to Minsk and gave him a luxurious apartment by Soviet standards, pay equaling that of a top military officer and perks available only to members of the KGB or the Soviet elite. Years later, Angleton became convinced that this very special treatment was Oswald’s reward for disclosing classified facts about the U2 spy plane. (Crossfire p. 221)
What the Soviets lacked was the detailed altitude information on the U2 that would have allowed them to accurately control their missiles at high altitudes. Lee Oswald, who served as a radar operator at Atsugi, Japan, one of the staging areas for the U2 flights, had that information. He defected in Moscow six months before the U2 was shoot down.
When Oswald’s Marine Corp supervising officer, Lt. John E. Donovan, testified at the Warren Commission, he wasn’t asked anything about Oswald access to operational information about of U2s. ((JFK and the Unspeakable p. 38)
Moscow had been tipped off about the U2 over flights by two National Security Agency (NSA) analysts, mathematicians Bernon F. Mitchell and William H. Martin. Mitchell flew to Mexico City in December 1959 where he asked for political asylum, but the KGB persuaded him to stay in place, so that it could learn more about NSA operations. On June 25, 1960, Mitchell and Martin left the US for Mexico and then sailed to the USSR on a Russian freighter. They both believed the US was risking nuclear war by sending spy planes across the borders into the Soviet Union and China/PRC. They said "we would attempt to crawl to the moon if we thought it would lessen the threat of an atomic war." They defected together to the Soviet Union in 1960.
Between 1950 and 1960, about 75 US Navy and Air Force airmen in 10 separate incidents were killed on these reconnaissance missions. NSA had been sending Air Force, RB-47 reconnaissance flights over the USSR. An RB-47 had a crew of six. They photographed Soviet installations while other equipment monitored Soviet radars capabilities looking for gaps where radar could not see a future US Air Force attack. What was learned was that the US could attack with devastating results by bombers flown over the North Pole from Greenland (Project Homerun). http://www.rockythedog.net/spooky/NROp1.html
In the summer of 1959, Khrushchev visited the United States. President Eisenhower had scheduled a full-fledged summit in Paris for mid-May 1960 which it was hoped would produce a limited nuclear-test-ban treaty. Both Khrushchev and Eisenhower seemed to have wanted to ease the tensions between their two countries. It was foreseen as the first major accord of the cold war. But this summit didn't happen as a result of the U2 being shot down in May 1, 1960. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 114).
The U2 spy plane was shot down six months after Oswald defected to the Soviet Union. Historians David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace in The People’s Almanac noted: It is possible that certain US military leaders deployed (U2 CIA pilot Francis) Powers purposely to sabotage the peace talks which Eisenhower himself acutely desired.”
Colonel Fletcher Prouty stated that CIA pilot Francis Powers’ U2 spy plane was sent on a route over a very heavily defended by Soviet air defense rockets. Also he wrote that a top secret camera had been removed from his U2 and replaced with an older camera used in World War Two. This information may indicate that someone may have known Powers’s plane was not coming home and someone did not want the Soviets to get this advanced camera technology. Prouty was the US Air Force officer in charge of Military Support of the US Clandestine Operations from 1955 till 1964, and retired, 1973. (Source: Krushchev's Challenge: The U-2 Dilemma, Chapter 20 of The Secret Team, The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty)
On January 17, 1961, three days before Kennedy took office, President Eisenhower gave his farewell address to Congress wherein he coined the phrase "military-industrial complex" and warned against potential abuses by such an entity. Was it possible that Eisenhower realized that his plan for easing tensions with the communist was sabotaged by right-wing, anti-communist elements within the military and CIA? That is it had been sabotaged by a CIA/military plot to allow the Soviets to shoot down a U2?
Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti told author Anthony Summers about a CIA-connected Navel intelligence program in 1959, that same year Oswald defected to the USSR. In 1959, the US was having real difficulty in acquiring information out of the Soviet Union. An Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) program which involved three dozen, maybe 40 young men who were made to appear disenchanted, poor, American youths. These men were sent into the Soviet Union or into Eastern Europe as fake defectors (US spies). These fake defectors (US double agents) were trained at various naval installations both in the US and abroad, but the operation was being run out of Nagshead, North Carolina. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 117 and JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 40)
According to author Anthony Summers, who studied documents from both the State Department and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, in the 18 months prior to January 1960, no fewer than nine US enlisted men defected to the Soviet Union, five of them were US Army men from West Germany, two Navy men, and at least three civilians. All these defectors had backgrounds in the military or in sensitive defense work. It is known that, like Lee Oswald, at least four of these returned to the US after a few years. (Crossfire, p. 116)
Another defector, Robert Edward Webster, a Navy veteran, defected two weeks before Oswald - and returned to the US two weeks before Oswald. Webster, a materials specialist, was used to learn more about the Soviet needs for plastic and fiberglass in their missile program. Webster learned during his stay that "Soviet plastics technologies on a commercial and application basis were about ten years behind those of the US." The US intelligence community also knew that the Soviets had requested information concerning fiberglass and plastics by their spies.
US Air Force intelligence had given Webster a security clearance and followed his work with plastic and fiberglass at the Rand Development Corporation. Naval and Marine intelligence pretended that they didn’t care about either Webster or Oswald. The CIA and military intelligence was closely watched both Webster and Oswald, and declassified documents indicate that they kept an eye on Oswald in particular. Special agent F. L. Jones at the FBI’s foreign liaison unit and FBI agent Marvin Gheesling with counterintelligence continued to watch both men during their three years in the USSR.
On January 4, 1961, one year after Lee Oswald got his stateless" residence permit to say in USSR, he was summoned to the passport office in Minsk. They asked him if he still wanted to become a Soviet citizen. He replied that he did not, but asked that his residence permit be extended for another year.
In early 1961 Stanislov Shushkevich a student engineer who often translated English-language technical articles, was assigned to tutor Oswald in Russian at the Gorizont electronics factory in Minsk. Shushkevich stated, "I was not a party member, but one day the plant party secretary came to me and said I was to be given this big honor, a commission from the party, to teach Oswald Russian. I was not allowed to ask him about his past, who he was, or anything like that. And we were never left alone. There was always another English-speaking person present."
Working as a lathe operator or some kind of work at the electronics factory, Oswald’s total income was about equal to that of the director of the factory. He had received a government-subsidized, fully furnished studio apartment in a prestigious building and an additional supplement to his factory pay which was far higher wages and benefits by working-class Soviet standards. As time passed, Oswald grew disillusioned with the regimentation of Soviet life, the requirement to work on weekends, and the lack of things to buy in Minsk shops. In January 1961, he wrote in his diary: "I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough." Oswald later described his work in a shop which he worked, called the "experimental shop."
Oswald’s future wife, Marina was born Marina Nikolaievna Prusakova. She met Lee in Minsk, where he worked in an electronics factory. She was then 19 years old. Her father had been killed in the World War Two. Marina was raised by her maternal grandmother during World War Two and later lived with her stepfather.
She moved to live to Minsk and was living with her uncle. He was a colonel in the MVD, the Russian Interior Ministry security service. At that time, the MVD which was a mixture of a national police force and the FBI and carried out several functions, from running large parts of the Gulag and to serving as an internal security force. With a rank of colonel, he clearly had substantial responsibilities. According to Marina's testimony to the Warren Commission, Oswald visited her regularly at her uncle's apartment after his release.
Apparently her uncle Colonel Prusakov was not disturbed by the fact that Lee Oswald was an American defector and did not disapprove of her seeing him. Clearly Soviet Intelligence regarded Oswald with suspicion. Having an American defectors visit his apartment in 1961 should have concerned Colonel Prusakov a lot and he would certainly have reported this to his superior.
The problem was that in order for Marina to marry Oswald, they needed to get special permission from the state, because he was a foreigner. She told the Warren Commission, her aunt and uncle became upset and stopped speaking to her. But Oswald wasn't just a foreigner, he was an American defector. They are married on April 30.1961. Given the Soviet bureaucracy, someone in Moscow was going to have to sign off on this one and it had to have kicked off a major security review in her uncle's office.
When Lee and Marina decided to go back to the US, Marina met with a MVD colonel, Nicolay Aksenov, who in ten days approved the exit permit. This makes little sense if her uncle opposed her departure. About six weeks after applying, she received her exit visa from the Soviet Union, as did Oswald. That is an understatement. This was unheard-of in the USSR at the time. Marina told the Warren Commission that she was surprised to receive permission.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mystery_marina_oswald
I suspect the reason Marina Nikolaievna Prusakova got such special treatment was of her royal Romanov blood line and the Soviets wanted to get rid of any genealogical link to inherited wealth. I suspect Marina Oswald was given her first name from Princess Marina Petrovna of Russia. She was a daughter of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia and his wife, Grand Duchess Militza Nicholaevna, born Princess of Montenegro and grew up in the last period of Imperial Russia. Militza Nikolaievna Petrovic-Njegoš, Princess of Montenegro was born on July 14, 1866, a great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. She married Petr Nikolaievich Romanov, Grand Duke of Russia.
In March 1961, Oswald met Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova, a 19-year-old pharmacology student. They were married in less than six weeks later on April 30, 1961. The Oswalds' first child, June, was born on February 15, 1962.
On April 18, 1961 New Orleans FBI agent James Quigley had reviewed Oswald’s Navy file at the Naval Air Station, in Algiers, Louisiana on the orders of the Dallas FBI office. Yet Lee Oswald did not arrive back in the US until June 1962.
Oswald returned to the US Embassy and told them that he had "learned a hard lesson the hard way" and had acquired a new appreciation of the United States and the meaning of freedom. On June 1, 1962 the US Embassy gave Oswald a repatriation loan of $435.71 and returned his US passport. (Source: Warren Commission Report, Appendix 13: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 698)
One of the people Oswald spoke to at the American Embassy in Moscow was Captain Alex Davison. The address of Davison's Russian-speaking mother was also found in Oswald's address book when he was arrested. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9803
On June 13, 1962, Oswald returned to the US after over a year factory in Minsk. Oswald’s was allegedly debriefed by the CIA for one day. In contrast, the debriefing of Robert Webster occurred over several weeks. CIA Russian translator Donald Deneselya revealed that Oswald had been debriefed. Deneselya stated that he witnessed a debriefing report detailing how a man, a defector, (his name was not mentioned), had been working at a radio factory in Minsk and the defector return to the United States. He stated this debriefing report was signed by a CIA officer named Anderson (Major Andy Anderson). Deneselya did not remember the first name of Anderson. Donald Deneselya in 1962 worked in the CIA’s Intelligence analysis Division’s Soviet section.
Deneselya was threatened by the CIA after being fired in 1964 from the CIA. He alleges that the CIA had been harassing him and later his associates. A FBI counterintelligence agent said there was no question that he was harassed at first. “To this day, we don’t know why the CIA was so concerned about him.” https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19800331&id=gHE-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=E1oMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4308,6281157&hl=en
A US Navy Commander Anderson indeed was assigned to the CIA working at the New York City field office of the Office of Naval Intelligence. The Commander Anderson was assigned to the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division branch 6 (SR6), which was responsible for debriefings. "Anderson" was a pseudonym used by a woman named Eleanor Reed, a deputy chief of the Section 6 Soviet Russia research branch who was near the age of retirement. Reed joined SR6 in 1956 and transferred out in 1964; she retired in 1970).
Additional evidence that CIA debriefed Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union resides in the un-redacted version CIA document numbered 435-173A, dated November 25, 1963, by the same Thomas B. Casasin. Casasin wrote in a message, "There were some type of special design plants in Minsk which were of interest to the CIA." Casasin adds that CIA "had some type of encyclopedic information at the agency on the radio factory in Minsk where Oswald worked." He is talking about a component of CIA called the "Industrial Registry." Thomas Casasin was the Chief of the Soviet Russia Division, SR6. The function of Branch 6 was operations support of the Soviet Division of the CIA, including classical espionage work.
On June 13, 1962, Oswald was welcome back by American officials with open arms. The US made no move to prosecute him. In his book, the Warren Commission, Accessories after the Fact, Sylvia Meagher concluded: “Decision after decision, the (State) Department removed every obstacle before Oswald – a defector and would-be expatriate, self-declared enemy of his native country, self-proclaimed discloser of classified military information…on his path from Minsk to Dallas.” (JFK and Unspeakable, p. 38)
When Lee Oswald returned from the USSR, the US Navy’s Office Naval Intelligence was conducting tight surveillance of him. A confidential source stated this fact to authors Lamar Waldron and Tom Hartmann. This source said, he had helped compile the surveillance reports made by ONI special agents who did the surveillance and there was a note on the top of the file jacket that said to contact the CIA if Oswald was arrested or got into trouble. Also he said he and a co-worker, “'on the day of the assassination were called back to their office in Washington (DC) and after receiving the orders from their commander, and they were told to “destroyed and sanitized lots of the Oswald file.” (Ultimate Sacrifice /Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron and Tom Hartmann p. 164)
Oswald, his wife, Marina and infant daughter were greeted at the ship’s dock on arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey by CIA contract agent Professor Spas T. Raiken. He helped Oswald’s family pass smoothly through immigration and customs and he later arranged contact with Lee's brother, Robert. Robert sent the couple $200 to pay for plane fare to Fort Worth, Texas.
Raiken was an unlikely person to meet the Oswald family at the ship to help them pass smoothly through immigration and customs on arriving back to the US, given Lee was an alleged traitor. Raiken was the Secretary General (leader) of the White Russian immigrant community called the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc. Raiken had been sponsoring a long line of Bulgarian refugees for work assignments for the CIA.
The term “White Russians” refers to those Russians who opposed the Red Russians, or Communists, during the period of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and continuing long afterwards. Mostly members of the aristocratic, capitalist, military and professional classes, these White Russians were forced to flee the country at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1920 in scattered enclaves in Europe, China, Australia, South America, and the United States. One political arm of the community was the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS) or just Solidarists, an organization aligned with an anti-Soviet movement whose aim was to oust the Bolshevik government by more sophisticated, clandestine means than outright warfare. Solidarism was/is a quasi-fascist ideology like that of Benito Mussolini. After World War Two, the CIA recruited members of the Solidarists to spy for the United States. William Blum, the author of Killing Hope, wrote that the Solidarists provided the best intelligence analysis about the Soviet Union.
As the Nazi SS advanced into Eastern Europe and they recruited Russian Nazis fleeing their homeland into a group called the VorKommando Moskau. They were a forward unit of SS intelligence on the Soviet front. Its primary mission was anti-Communist intelligence, but it was also responsible for security screening of the occupied populations in the broad sector of the Eastern Front. The VorKommando Moskau did not kill the Jews or the Slavs. They hired collaborators, who then recruited the executioners who killed them. From 1940 to 1942 this one small unit acted as an employment agency for the architects of the Nazi genocide in Eastern Europe." They primarily hired Eastern Europeans.
The CIA use of these White Russian groups to run agents, gather information, or whatever could be valuable to the cause. Psychological warfare officers were familiar with the main characters in the Russian Orthodox scenario, and Radio Free Europe (an acknowledged CIA front) would broadcast religious messages into the Communist bloc on behalf of various Christian groups, but especially the Synod. The Synod was another group associated with the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. This community was supported by the Romanovs and other escaped Russian royalty. During World War Two, this group was pro-Nazi, seeing in the Nazis potential liberators of the motherland.
The CIA’s White Russian networks from North Africa to Scandinavia, obtained intelligence from Soviet seamen, tourists, officials, athletes, even Soviet soldiers in East Germany, induced them to defect, and to recruit them as spies. At its peak the Solidarists organization there were about 100,000 members of this group (not all working for the CIA). Their organizations headquarters was near Berlin in post war Germany.
Author John Loftus discovered how the White Russians in the VorKommando Moskau were heavily recruited by the US government to fight the Soviets and how all documentation of their Nazi past was well hidden from prying eyes. Many of the White Russian Nazis had been resettled in the town of South River, New Jersey. Allen Dulles resettled most of the Vorkommando Moskau’s elite leadership group in the New York - New Jersey area.
In 1950, the FBI recruited every White Russian Nazi it could find in the New York - New Jersey area. In the 1960’s when a New York reporter, Charles Allen, began his accusations that Nazis were living in the US, the FBI investigated him and labeled him a Russian pawn.
Certainly the Solidarists would not have been pleased with JFKs apparent rapprochement with Khrushchev, or his lack of aggression toward Castro. From the White Russian point of view, the assassination of JFK may well have been viewed as a late action of the Russian Civil War.
In 1959 Oswald admitted his connections were White Russians. This Solidarist tutor/agent came from the San Francisco office of the Federation of Russian Charitable Organizations. An element within the White movement in Russia opposed to Communism and seeking a Christian alternative to collectivism was called the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists. Just prior to going to Russia in 1959, Oswald received a Solidarist agent during a long visit at Santa Ana, California, who tutored him on the Russian language.
Support of the Eastern churches was an essential element of the Cold War, as they provided a moral and cultural context for the fight against the Soviet Union. It was far easier to say that Soviets were “Godless,” were atheist bent on destroying Christ's church. This meant that the struggle against Communism was a war of Light against Darkness.
(Source: Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 272-273)
By 1963, the State Department was helping National Alliance of Russian Solidarists to send radio broadcasts in Russian to Soviet troops in far-flung places such as the Dominican Republic. Some of them worked for the US propaganda radio stations. Radio Free Europe broadcast propaganda into East European nations of the USSR, while Radio Liberty focused on the USSR itself. Upon their arrival back in the US, Oswald and his family received help from the White Russian community.
Spas T. Raikin’s small but vigorous group of White Russians and right-wing Eastern Europeans were in direct touch with the FBI, Army intelligence and with the Gehlen spy organization in West Germany; the Kuomintang in Taiwan, (anti-communists in South Vietnam), and right-wing Cubans students in the DRE. Raikin's personal correspondents in Taiwan (the Asian People's Anti-Communist League) were intelligence agents involved in the Kuomintang's narcotics trafficking. Raiken had extensive intelligence connections included contact with Cuba trained lawyer Carlos Bringuier and his Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC). He had contact with intelligence operations of E. Howard Hunt and of the CIA supported Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) with whom Oswald later had consistent contact. Several documents withheld from government and private JFK assassination researchers appear to indicate a possible link between Raikin and a 1962 plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Raikin also associated with elements of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). This World Anti-Communist League had contacts with anti-Communists in New Orleans, in the Camp Street building where Guy Banister and the CIA's Cuban Revolutionary Council had offices. (Source: Deep Politics and the Assassination of JFK, Peter Dale Scott, pp. 78-80)
Members of the White Russian émigré community were Max Clark the security director of Convair and General Dynamics, George A. Bouhe, and Paul Raigorodsky the director of the Tolstoy Foundation. The Tolstoy Foundation that performed secret missions for the US government in Europe. Allegedly it was at the Fort Worth, Texas Employment Commission’s office that Oswald received the phone number of Max Clark. His phone number allegedly led to Oswald getting a job at the Leslie Welding Company in Fort Worth in July 1962. When Oswald was arrest in Dallas he had Mrs. Max Clark’s phone number in his address book. She was also a Russian immigrant.
According to Tommy Bargas, Oswald's employer at the Leslie Welding Company, he had been a good employee, with potential, and had shown no sign of temper or violence. Oswald disliked the work and quit after three months.
In 1962, the Chief of the CIA’s Domestic Contact Service office in Dallas, J. Walton Moore tasked George De Mohrenschildt to meet and assist Oswald and his wife. According to author Edward Jay Epstein, De Mohrenschildt stated that J. Walton Moore asked him to find out about Oswald's time in the Soviet Union.
By the early fall 1962, Lee and Marina Oswald's marriage was already devolving into constant bickering and domestic violence. On October 10, 1962 Oswald had suddenly left his job at a Fort Worth metal factory, bid a temporary farewell to his family, and traveled alone the thirty miles to Dallas. He was immediately hired by a company that had contracts with the US Army Map Service. This company was doing highly classified work. Some of the maps they made were of a Cuba. The Cuban missile crisis was beginning on October 16th. Staying for a few days at a YMCA and he opened his first of several post office boxes. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 46 to 49) http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKepstein.htm
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdemohrenschildt.htm
In October 1962, a White Russian named George Bouhe introduced Oswald to a Dallas businessman, George de Mohrenschildts, who was also a member of the White Russian community in Dallas, Texas. De Mohrenschildt had worked for the CIA each time he took a business trips to Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. In late 1961, the Chief of the CIA’s Domestic Contact Service office in Dallas, J. Walton Moore tasked George De Mohrenschildt to meet and assist Oswald and his wife on their return to the US from Russia. Prior to then, George De Mohrenschildt had worked for the CIA each time he took a business trips to Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. (Crossfire, the plot to kill Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, p. 200)
Count George De Mohrenschildt was born a Russian before the revolution. His father after the Russian Revolution was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks had run De Mohrenschildt family off their home in Russia when he was five or six years old. In 1921 his father and family were sent to Siberia but they managed to escape to Poland. By 1941 De Mohrenschildt was involved with German and Japanese intelligence, the OSS, and Nelson Rockefeller, who was then coordinator of information for Latin America. De Mohrenschildt thrived in a world of political shadows, appearing at various times to be working for Polish intelligence, the Nazis, the French Resistance, the British, the Americans,and the Rockefellers. After the World War Two, De Mohrenschildt got a degree in petroleum engineering and entered the joint worlds of oil exploration and the CIA.
By the end of World War Two, the FBI had concluded De Mohrenschildt had been a Soviet NKVD agent. FBI files indicate that in 1941, De Mohrenschildt was arrested for making a sketch of a naval facility in Port Arkanas, Texas. Presumably De Mohrenschildt was recruited by the OSS and had a relationship with the CIA dating back to the end of World War Two. De Mohrenschildt developed a reputation as a top petroleum geologist for Texas oil companies and because he travel into the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe the CIA and FBI used him to report on what he saw or heard during these business trips. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 258)
De Mohrenschildt had a long history working for the OSS and CIA going back for more than twenty years. In 1956, CIA officer Thomas Schreyer was his case officer who worked for Cord Meyer, the CIA’s Deputy Director of the International Organizations Division. According to Gregory Burnham, George de Mohrenschildt was an active member of two CIA front organizations: The Dallas Council on World Affairs and The Crusade for a Free Europe. Other members included Abraham Zapruder, Clint Murchison, David Byrd, George H. W. Bush, Neil Mallon and Haroldson L. Hunt. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKepstein.htm
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdemohrenschildt.htm
On June 26, 1962, two Dallas-based FBI special agents interviewed Lee Oswald about his life in the Soviet Union. Oswald was uncooperative. He denied being approached by Soviet Intelligence while in Russia and he refused to take a polygraph. He defiantly walked out of the interview. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 257)
The CIA intercepted a letter to Marina Oswald from a KGB official in Europe. Angleton’s subordinates notified the FBI of this letter to Marina. On July 2, 1962, the FBI intercepted a letter from Marina Oswald to Vitaly A. Gerasimov, a KGB official at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. In this letter, Marina requested permission to return to the Soviet Union. The FBI found it significant that Marina had chosen Gerasimov to write to because he was a top KGB officer. On August 16, 1962, two FBI agents followed Lee Oswald to a parking lot in Dallas. They tried to interview him, but he was even more hostile and uncooperative than he was in June. (The Secret History of the CIA, pp. 257-258)
During the 1950s and 1960s, an illegal (CIA) program, code name HT/LINGUAL, was intercepting and reading letters from the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. In December 1974, William Colby leaked the CIA's mail opening campaign to the New York Times and forcing CIA Deputy Director James Angleton out of the CIA into retirement, putting the blame for the secret program on him. Only the FBI was (is ?) authorized to intercept and conduct a search of mail (covertly opening and reading) of letters sent to and from the US and then only per a warrant based on probable cause if a crime. (Ibid., p. 410)
De Mohrenschildt’s wife and daughter told the Warren Commission that it was de Mohrenschildt who had arranged for Oswald's employment as a photo print trainee at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall, photo-lithography firm in Dallas, TX. Oswald worked there from October 7, 1962. (JFK and the Unspeakable, James W. Douglass, pp. 46 to 49)
One of this company's contracts involved doing classified work for the US Army Map Service. In this context, employees set type for place names on maps of Cuba. Just days after Oswald got hired at the Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall company; they received pictures taken by a U2 spy plane confirming the existence of Soviet missile launching pads during the October 16, 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis. In sworn testimony at the US Attorney Office in Dallas, it was stated that Oswald stopped working for the Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall Company in Dallas on April 6, 1963. After this Oswald sought employment at Padgett Printing Co.--Padgett Printing and Lithographing Co., Dallas, TX. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald
Sam Ballen had hired Lee Oswald to work at this company. He later said he was unable to conceive of Oswald harboring any hostility toward the President; it was his impression that, Oswald had warm feelings for him. Ballen, like George De Mohrenschildt, considered Oswald a man "with no hatred in him." When he heard of Oswald's arrest, Ballen felt there must have been a mistake. He did not believe Oswald capable of such a crime, in spite of the force of the circumstantial evidence. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/stova_ro.htm
On October 30, 1962 Oswald applied for membership in the Socialist Workers Party. In December he sent a letter to the Hall-Davis Defense Committee, a communist front in New York and on December 15, 1962 Oswald subscribed to The Militant (a socialist newspaper) and other newspapers of this kind. The FBI was searching the mail of left wing American groups and tracking Oswald’s mailing addresses. (Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth about the Unknown Relationship ...by John Newman pp. 271- 276)
Over the next few months George de Mohrenschildt took Oswald to anti-Castro meetings in Dallas. CIA pilot, William R. “Tosh” Plumlee says in 1962 he came back to the Dallas, TX area and learned about two CIA safe houses in Dallas that were run by anti-Castro Cubans in association with Alpha 66. One of these safe houses was directly behind and across the alley from the building where Oswald had rented a room. Plumlee stated that he saw him there briefly and did not talk to him. (Drugging America – the Trogan Horse by Rodney Stich) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKjmwave.htm
http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/toshfiles.htm
On January 1, 1963, Oswald had ordered several political pamphlets from the Trotskyite Pioneer Press and soon began checking out books about Marxism, Trotskyism, and American mperialism in Latin America, especially Cuba.
In the spring of 1963, De Mohrenschildt went to Washington. A record shows that on May 7, 1963 De Mohrenschildt made a phone call to the Army Chief of Staff for intelligence. (Source: Marina and Lee, by Priscilla MacMillan (aka Johnson), (1977), p. 205)
CIA and the US Army’s 902nd Military Intelligence Group, kept de Mohrenschildt on what looks like twenty-four hour surveillance. His dinner parties, which were frequent, were attended by CIA’s man, “Conrad V. Rubricius,” most likely a CIA pseudonym.
CIA boss James Angleton saw to it that every piece of de Mohrenschildt’s mail in Haiti was copied to the Agency. Some letters turned out to be from the new husband of one of de Mohrenschildt’s ex-wives. Then each of de Mohrenschildt’s correspondents was subjected to an investigation by the FBI. Hoover was irritated at having to perform this task, but the FBI complied. https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?14816-The-CIA-in-New-Orleans-Joan-Mellen
In May of 1963, Prescott Bush's banking firm Brown Brothers & Harriman gave Lee Oswald's closest friend, George de Mohrenschildt a $300,000 line of credit, when de Mohrenschildt's credit was extremely bad.
DeMohrenschildt was also friendly with H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, John Mecom, Robert Kerr and Jean De Menil of Schlumberger. According to Jim Marrs' interviews with Jeanne DeMohrenschildt after her husband's death, George was making regular trips to Houston from Dallas during 1962-1963 on oil business with Mecom and De Menil. George's Russian friends in the Tolstoy Foundation told Marrs that he was going to Houston to see George and Herman Brown. (Crossfire, p. 282)
George De Mohrenschildt said he liked and respected Oswald stating, "Lee Harvey Oswald was smart as hell. They make a moron out of him...Lee was the most honest man I knew. He was ahead of his time really, a kind of hippie of those days....I'll tell you this, he did not shoot the President…You hear the way I speak English. I've been here 35 years and still I have a foreign accent. And Lee hardly had a foreign accent in Russian, a much more difficult language than English.” (Ibid, p. 278)
De Mohrenschildt wrote in a manuscript saying. “Lee is innocent of Kennedy’s assassination …and we proved that he was rather an admirer of Kennedy’s.” That Oswald spoke almost flawless Russian, and other Russians “were amazed by Lee’s almost perfect command of the language…Lee’s English was perfect, refined, and rather literary, sounding like a very educated American. But to know Russian as he did was remarkable - to appreciate serious literature - was something out of the ordinary. (High Treason, pgs. 163 to 164)
The Oswald’s were welcomed by the local White Russian immigrant community. Most members of the Russian-speaking community in Dallas, including those who were not fond of Oswald, were astounded by the news of his arrest.
After helping Lee Harvey Oswald and his family six months George de Mohrenschildt returned to Haiti where he spied on the Papa Doc Duvalier regime for the CIA. CIA was worried Papa Doc Duvalier human rights violations and death squads would trigger a socialist revolution.
In the 1950s, George de Mohrenschiltd worked for David H. Byrd’s Three Sisters Oil and Gas Company.
Byrd along with Clint Murchison, Haroldson L. Hunt and Sid Richardson, was part of the Big Oil group in Dallas. One of the main concerns of this group was the preservation of the oil depletion allowance. Byrd became involved in the Suite 8F Group, a collection of right-wing businessmen and the group helped to coordinate the political campaigns in the South. (Blood, Money & Power, by Barr McClellan)
Byrd was the owner of the Texas Book Depository, the building in which Lee Oswald was working the day JFK was assassinated. Byrd knew David Ferrie via the Civil Air Patrol. During the Second World War Byrd commanded an antisubmarine base for the Civil Air Patrol at Beaumont. Byrd was also friends with General Charles Cabell who was former Deputy Director of the CIA. Cabell was fired by President Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. (Byrds, Planes, and an Automobile by Richard Bartholomew)
An investigator from the House Select Committee on Assassination had attempted to contact De Mohrenschildt on March 29, 1977. Three hours later, De Mohrenschildt was dead from a shotgun blast to the head. His death was ruled a suicide. (Crossfire, p. 200)
In March 1963, Oswald subscribed to the communist newspaper, Worker and he received in the mail a copy of The Daily Worker. On April 19, 1963 the Fair Play for Cuba Committee ‘s New York office sent Oswald more literature. (Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth about the Unknown Relationship ...by John Newman pp. 271- 276)
Marina Oswald and Lee Oswald were introduced to Ruth and Michael Paine by George De Mohrenschildt at a party in February 1963. The Paines befriended Lee and Marina. On April, 24, 1963, Marina and her daughter went to live with Ruth Paine.
Ruth Paine had been studying Russian since 1957. JFK assassination researcher Steve Jones uncovered documented evidence that the CIA had approached Ruth Paine’s father, William A. Hyde, in 1957, “to run an educational co-operative alliance in Vietnam” called the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Much of the questioning of Ruth Paine before the Warren Commission came from Allen Dulles. Dulles never revealed at the time that he had known Ruth Paine’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine and her family personally. (New Evidence Regarding Ruth and Michael Paine, Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 4 issue 4, by Steve Jones)
Hyde's USAID field reports had been routed through the CIA. A former USAID director John Giligan admitted, “At one time, many USAID field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. It was pretty well known in the agency who they were and what they were up to.” According to Steve Jones, Ruth Paine admitted to a close friend that her father had worked for the CIA as an “executive agent.” What she did not tell her friend was that her sister, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, was also employed by the CIA. Steve Jones found documented evidence that Sylvia had worked for the CIA as a staff Psychologist in 1961. (JFK and the Unspeakable, James W. Douglass, p. 170)
Michael Paine’s mother was connected to Allen Dulles through her lifelong friendship with Mary Bancroft who worked side by side with Allen Dulles as an OSS spy in Switzerland and became his mistress. Allen Dulles served on the Warren Commission. (Ibid., p. 169)
As a routine matter, County prosecutor Jim Garrison wanted to examine the income tax returns of Ruth and Michael Paine, but he was told that they had been classified as secret. In addition to the Paine’s income tax reports, Warren Commission documents 212, relating to Ruth Paine, and 218, relating to Michael Paine, documents 258, relating to Michael, and 508, relating to Michael Paine’s sister, and Commission documents 600 through 629, regarding relatives of Michael Paine. Garrison asked, “What was so special about this particular family that made the federal government so protective of it?” (On the Trail of the Assassins, by Jim Garrison (1988)
Michael Paine's grandmother's family (the Cabots) were huge stockholders in United Fruit Company; both sides of the family—Cabot and Forbes—had owned land in Cuba that had been expropriated by Fidel Castro. Dulles and his brother, John Foster Dulles had previously been attorneys for the United Fruit Company. Michael Paine’s cousin Thomas D. Cabot, former president of United Fruit Company, had offered their Gibraltar Steamship as a CIA front company during the Bay of Pigs. Another cousin was Alexander Cochrane Forbes, a director of United Fruit and trustee of Cabot, Cabot, and Forbes.
According to JFK assassination researcher, Gus Russo, FBI and ONI documents reveal that Ruth Paine was making inquiries about Lee Oswald in 1957, six years before the Warren Commission report claimed they had met.
When Marina Oswald was called before a grand jury, a citizen asked her if she still associated with Ruth Paine. Marina replied that she didn't. When asked why not, Marina stated that it was upon the advice of the Secret Service. She then elaborated on this by explaining that they had told her it would look bad if the public found out the "connection between me and Ruth and CIA." An assistant DA then asked, "In other words, you were left with the distinct impression that she was in some way connected with the CIA?" Marina replied, "Yes." (JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass (2008), p. 173)
Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission testified to having called the Paine household at about the time Oswald was referred by Ruth -- via a neighbor-- to the Texas School Book Depository for a position. He called and was told Oswald was not there. He left a message for Oswald to come down and see him since he had a position available as a cargo handler at a Trans Texas Airways cargo airline. Interestingly, this job paid about one third more than the job Oswald ended up with at the Texas School Book Depository - $310 per month or about $100 per month more than he would earn at the depository.
He called again the next day to inquire about Oswald and the position again. He was now told that Lee had already taken a job. Ruth was questioned about the Robert Adams calls by the Warren Commission's Albert Jenner. At first she denied ever hearing of such a job offer saying, "I do not recall that." She then backtracked, saying she may have heard of the offer from Lee. This statement seems to contradict the testimony by Adams. If Oswald was cognizant of the better paying offer, why would he take the lower paying job? (Ibid., p. 172)
Allegedly Ruth Paine had called Roy S. Truly, the superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository, helping to procure work for Oswald.
Michael Paine, Paul Gregory and George De Mohrenschildt testified that Oswald was an admirer of President Kennedy and had praised him. Anna Meller was "completely shocked" at the news of Oswald's arrest and could not believe that he had done such a thing. Elena Hall had never regarded Oswald as dangerous or mentally unstable; she was incredulous when he was arrested. Buell W. Frazier, a co-worker of Oswald at the Texas Book Depository carpooled to work every day and he said he liked Lee. http://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/hasty.htm
Lee Oswald had rented a room in Dallas and New Orleans and he stored some of his possessions in Ruth Paine’s garage. The sheriff’s deputies who searched the Paine garage found the famous, faked photo showing Oswald holding a rifle, documents that had been faked using the name fake Alex Hiddel, and copies of the Communist newspaper. They also found three expensive cameras, and a photo of retired Major General Edwin Walker house. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2544
One of the cameras was a Minox, pocket-size camera that has a history of being used by spies. Ruth Paine told differing stories about the Minox camera over time and they don't coincide with each other. Sheriff Deputy Buddy Walthers also reported he noticed metal filing cabinets full of letters, maps, records, and index cards with names of pro-Castro sympathizers. This is strong evidence that Michael and/or Ruth Paine would spying on anti-communist students. (Source: Brush with History by Eric Tagg and Someone Would Have Talked by Larry Hancock, p. 552)
The Assassination Record Review Board declassified a FBI report about a man talking to certain college students at Luby's Restaurant near Southern Methodist University in Dallas in April 1963. The man would approach students, and then praise the Castro revolution to them, while protesting America's policies towards Cuba. The man claimed he know a communist, an ex-Marine who had recently returned to the USA with a Russian wife. The FBI showed students a picture of Michael Paine and the student said Paine was the suspect.
Marina Oswald was cut off from Ruth Paine within days of the assassination. Marina swore under oath before the New Orleans grand jury, “Seems like (Ruth Paine) she had friends over there and it would be bad for me if people find out a connection between me and Ruth and CIA.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass, p.173)
http://themysteriesofdealeyplaza.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-are-paines.html
During the Warren Commission two character witnesses for the Paines were Frederick and Nancy Osborn. His father Frederick Osborn, Sr. worked with Allen Dulles in the organization of the National Committee for a Free Europe. The funding for this group eventually came from the CIA. (A Certain Arrogance, by George Michael Evica, pp. 251 to 254)
In July 1986, Ruth Paine was one of several people to take part in a made-for-television, mock trial of Lee Oswald. Vincent T. Bugliosi role-played prosecution and trial lawyer Gerald L. "Gerry" Spence representing the deceased defendant, Lee Oswald. Ruth Paine testified as if she was rally in court and said, she was teaching Oswald to drive a car. She stated with contempt that Oswald thought of himself as special. After Oswald was arrested as a suspect in the assassination, Ruth Paine said he called her asking her for help in getting a lawyer, he protested too much, and she was angry because he sounded so innocent. http://on-trial-lho.blogspot.com/
You can listen and watch Ruth Paine on a u-tube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pwBSL2-1rc .
Author Steve Jones said he met a woman who said she had worked with Ruth Paine in Nicaragua in the 1990. This woman said she knew Ruth very well while working for an organization called Pro-Nica, but everyone was suspicious of her. "Ruth was taking photographs of people all the time, she was always taking notes, and asking people a lot of personal questions. After being bombarded with agent- provocateur or spies, the peace workers were getting good at picking out who was phony. Ruth Paine was someone they very quickly determined was not legit." This woman asked Jones not disclosed her name.
Jones says this woman described how after returning from Nicaragua some six months earlier, the FBI had openly tailed her, "in a very open, brazen (way as if to) attempt to intimidate her." Similarly, she said that while in Nicaragua, CIA infiltrators would play mind games with peace workers there. http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/26th_Issue/paine.html
On April 10, 1963, Major General Edwin A. Walker allegedly was sitting in his study when a bullet entered his house through a window frame and struck the wall close to his head. The Dallas police investigated this incident and found that one steel–jacketed 30.06, caliber bullet fired by a high–powered rifle. There were no witnesses to this, except Walker. The only rifle and bullets associated with Oswald were of a different type and size. Tests showed that this bullet fragment was made from a different lead alloy than the bullet fragments found in President Kennedy’s car. The only eyewitness to this shoot incident near Walker’s house saw two men driving away in two cars on or about this time of this incident. Oswald could not drive. Rumors have put the blame on Oswald. Romors! (Source: FBI HQ Oswald File, 105–82555–174) (FBI HQ Oswald File, 62–109060–22).
The Warren Commission was well aware that Oswald was on the FBI payroll to the tune of $200 per month from September 1962 until November 1963, when JFK was assassinated. The Warren Commission’s general counsel J. Lee Rankin was told by Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, “that Oswald was an undercover (contract) agent of the FBI.” This information remained classified top secret for decades after 1963. (JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 64)
CIA officer Hunter C. Leake III admitted that the CIA used Oswald as a courier and that Oswald came to New Orleans in April 1963 because the CIA office there intended to use him for certain operations. He admitted that he personally paid Oswald various sums of cash for his services. Oswald was on the CIA payroll, and Leake himself paid Oswald his CIA salary. Leake allegedly was the second in command of the CIA office in New Orleans. Years later Leake explained why there was no documentation on Oswald’s employment with CIA in New Orleans because after Kennedy’s assassination, he personally drove the files regarding Oswald to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He also said he was ordered to do so by Richard Helms. He said the files on Oswald were so voluminous that he had to rent a trailer to transport them.
(Source: The Assassination Debates by Michael Kurtz (PhD History).
http://coverthistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/oswalds-cia-connections-confirmed-from.html
http://www.wf.net/~biles/jfk/viproom.html
On April 25, 1963, Lee Oswald moved from Texas to New Orleans and he moves in with his mother’s sister’s house. Lillian Murret and stayed there for a week or so. Oswald's aunt said that he liked the President and admired his Jackie Kennedy. Her daughter Marilyn Murret confirmed that Oswald had spoken favorably of the President. Marilyn felt strongly that Oswald was not capable of having committed the assassination and that he had no motive for such an act; and she disagreed completely with theories that Oswald resented authority or craved a place in history.
Helen P. Cunningham, an employment counselor, had found no indication of emotional problems in her contacts with Oswald.
In Sylvia Meagher”s book, Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities and the Report, she says Oswald was responsible and devoted to his two children. He was conscientious in his punctuality and his work, completed military service satisfactorily, paid his bills and repaid his debts promptly, and managed his practical affairs capably. (Source: Me & Lee: How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth V. Baker (1998) http://stuartjeannebramhall.com/2014/04/22/me-and-lee-harvey-oswald/
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/judyth.htm
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=515
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10662
http://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/hasty.htm
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/murret_m.htm
(Source: Legend: The Second World of Lee Harvey Oswald, by Edward Jay Epstein, (1978)
Shortly after arriving in New Orleans, Judyth Baker and Oswald were both hired at the Standard coffee company a subsidiary of Reily Coffee roasting company. They were both hired on the same day and for twelve weeks after which they both were transferred across the street to Riely Coffee (an alleged CIA front company).
Baker said she suspected her first meeting with Oswald was planned. She said, “I never thought it was anything but an accident at the time. “We started talking (as) we left the post office…Lee arrived in New Orleans on the 25th (April 1963) - the day before …He picked up the fallen newspaper, we start to talk, and out together we went… (I was) a 19-year-old girl in a strange city where a nice-clean-cut guy says ‘hi,’ and turns everything in your head upside down!” Judyth Baker and Oswald rode to work on the same bus for eleven weeks and during the. She and Oswald both were in unhappy marriages and they ended up falling in love.
Judyth Baker stated her job at the Reily Coffee Company was to fake Oswald’s time card when he was around to punch the time clock, but off on assignments on secret missions. She did not go public about her association with Oswald, etc. until 1998 out of fear. She wrote that she know Oswald got paychecks from both the FBI and CIA, and she was never totally clear what his assignment is, but seems to be a kind of errand boy, both for the CIA and the Mafia. She said one of his assignments involved a shipment of weapons that he smuggled into New Orleans for the anti-Castro Cubans the CIA was training as paramilitaries.
The reason Judyth Baker had come to New Orleans was because she was invited to work at Dr. Alton Ochsner’s cancer research clinic in association with the Tulane University Medical School. Baker had been doing cancer research in high school when Ochsner discover how smart she was. Dr. Ochsner promised Baker he could help her education by letting her do an internship with Dr. Mary Sherman in her bone cancer lab. Dr. Sherman however, was worked on a secret CIA project to secretly kill people with a fast acting cancer, for example, Fidel Castro. Baker did not know this at first.
Baker’s work involved culturing viruses in the hope of finding the strongest possible strains of lung cancer. Dr. Sherman stated that she was growing cancer tumors and producing a fast acting and deadly cancer virus. Judyth Baker accidentally learned about the clandestine side of the research and she was willing participant in the unethical project because she was partriotic and because of the threat of nuclear war by the Soviets. She said that Dr. Ochsner was testing these new cancer viruses on prison inmates transferred to a mental hospital. Baker said she saw one man dying shortly after an injection.
These new viruses were made by exposing them to high intensity radiation, fluorides, or toxic metals to speed up the likelihood of mutations. Ochsner research project had been provided with a rare and extremely expensive x-ray machine that could only have been obtained due to CIA covert funds. Another scientist working at Tulane University Medical School was Dr. Robert Heath. He was Chairman of Department of Neurology and Psychiatry and was famous for using LSD in his research (most likely part of the CIA MK/ULTRA project. Dr. Alfred Butterworth, MD revealed that there was a special psychiatric ward at the East Louisiana State Mental Hospital where they secretly administered LSD. (Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, by James DiEugenio, Chapter 5, p. 93)
Baker wrote that her job at the cancer lab was to raise and kill 50 mice every week which have been injected with SV-40 viruses. She then grinds up the most aggressive tumors, extracted the viruses and delivered them to Dr Sherman’s lab. The labs were devoted to “the medical side of subversive matters,” that is, a form of biological warfare.
David Ferrie also worked for this cancer research center and he had set up a lab at his apartment house where he raised mice. According to Baker, Oswald arranged for her to meet David Ferrie. In early May, Baker was told Dr. Ochsner had set up cancer lab in Ferrie’s house and another smaller lab in the apartment of Dr. Mary Sherman. After Kennedy’s assassination, she alleges she received a phone-call from David Ferrie warning her that she would be killed if she told anyone about her knowledge of these events. (Source: Dr. Mary's Monkey, by Edward T. Haslam and published Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory by Haslam)
Oswald and Ferrie transported the cancer viruses to the East Louisiana State Mental Hospital, where they inject it into prisoners at the Angola Penitentiary. Baker was initially told the inmate already suffers from terminal cancer, but she learned Ochsner was experimenting on people without their informed consent. After confronting Ochsner, he immediately fired her and forbids her, on pain of death, from any further contact with Oswald. Baker then returned to her husband in Florida.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/judyth.htm
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=515
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10662
When Judyth Baker went public in 1998, many JFK assassination researchers/authors accused her of lying. On February 28, 2010, author James H. Fetzer stated he was at a loss to explain why Google, YouTube, and even Wikipedia, have done such a massive effort to virtually erase from public records what she has been saying about her association with Oswald. He said, Judyth Baker is "the real deal.” Jim Marrs and Nigel Turner, among others, are also among those who believe she is telling the truth. He stated, “That is not the same thing as to claim that everything she has to say about Lee is therefore true. If she is the person she claims to be in relation to him, then it would make sense that there would be a disinformation operation to demonize her and attempt to convince the public--but especially those within the JFK research community--that she is not worth taking seriously. I see signs of such an operation and that it has largely succeeded.”
Fetzer also said that his You Tube interview with her was removed minutes after it had been put up and afterwards, he received a death threat. And now he cannot get comments posted or submissions even received by papers and magazines. He believes this censorship speaks volumes about the authenticity of Judyth's account.
Wealthy Dutch researcher and film producer Wim Dankbaar investigated Baker and her witnesses for six years and fully supports her story. JFK assassination researchers, Jim Marrs, Martin Shackelford, Wim Dankbaar, Howard Platzma have seen most or all her original evidence files and defend her as being truthful.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15559&page=2
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/03/14-reasons-to-believe-in-judyth-vary.html
Reily Coffee Company was owned by William B. Reily a wealthy supporter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council. A former US military officer and CIA contact agent Gerry P. Hemming confirmed that Reily had worked for the CIA for years. He alleged that Reily would hire and interviewed Cuban refugees that were cycled thru the factory. Winning their trust, he would extract from them the names of people knew back in Cuba.
Eustis Reily, the brother of William Reily and Dr. Ochsner personally donated thousands of dollars to INCA. Ochsner and Edward “Ed” S. Butler enlisted as many New Orleans business and political leaders for example, the heirs of the Sears, Roebuck & Company, Edgar and Edith Stern were members of Information Council of the America (INCA). INCA was a public relation outfit for crony capitalism, doing propaganda directed at US persons. Ochsner's persuasiveness helped Ed Butler recruit United Fruit Company's Joseph W. Montgomery, Delta Steamship Line's John W. Clark, International Trade Mart's William Zetzmann and William B. Reily. According JFK assassination researcher James DiEugenio, Ed Butler was also in close contact with Charles Cabell, Deputy Director of the CIA, and Edward Lansdale. (Ed Butler: Expert in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare by James DiEugenio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFPe5iApfuI
In 1961 and 1962, the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council occupied an office in the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street. This was the building where anti-Castro activist and William “Guy” Banister, also had his office. Banister had plenty of experience during his sixteen years as FBI Special Agent in Charge in Indianapolis, Butte, Minneapolis and Chicago and in running an anti-communist intelligence network. He had relied on Igor and Natalie Voshinin of the White Russians community in Chicago. After his retirement from the FBI in 1954, Banister served a stint as deputy police chief of New Orleans. Lee Oswald and his wife after returning from Russia also had associated with members of the White Russian community in New Orleans.
Guy Banister had worked for US Senator James O. Eastland’s very secret Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS-y). This was a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee and was the Senate equivalent to the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was formed in 1951 and was abolished in 1977. SISS shared J. Edgar Hoover’s near total obsession with communist influence in American life, and equally important, Hoover could rest assured the committee would protect the confidentiality of bureau sources. The FBI works only for the Attorney General and not the US Senate. In 1956, FBI officials separated itself from SISS-y and began it’s our anti-commie outfit called COINTELPRO.
During this period, Banister associate Sergio Arcacha Smith was the official delegate for the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council. This was a group of ten Cuban organizations composed of those who fled Cuba and its members were anti-Castro and anti-Batista from the center of the political spectrum. CIA contract employee Gerry Patrick Hemming confirmed that Reily had worked for the CIA for years.
Guy Banister was running guns for a terrorist group of anti-Castro Cubans called, Alpha 66.Jerry Milton Brooks told authors Warren Hinckle and William Turner in 1969 that "Banister collected information on the left from every imaginable right-wing source" and that Brooks himself "regularly couriered this data over to the New Orleans FBI office, which incorporated it into its files." Brooks was a former Minuteman who worked for Banister in the 1960s. He also said Banister was the Minutemen's Louisiana coordinator. A CIA memo described Banister as aligned with Kent Courtney, the owner of the ultra-right newspaper The Independent American. Courtney was a member of the segregationist Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission. Banister’s secretary and mistress, Delphine Roberts, was associated with the racist wing National States Rights Party. (Deadly Secrets, Hinckle and Turner, p. 231)
Banister’s office was close to the Reily Coffee Company and other New Orleans intelligence community offices. Banister’s secretary and confidante Delphine Roberts said Oswald was given an office on the second floor of the same building which Banister’s office was in. Roberts said she had noticed that Oswald had pro-Castro leaflets in his office and she later saw him passing them out on the street. At the same time, she also informed Banister about this. According to her, he allegedly he told her not to worry about that behavior by Oswald. “He’s with us. He’s associated with the office.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, p.62)
Dr. Alton Ochsner was also a close friendship with Clint Murchison of the wealthy Texas oil family. Clint Murchison helped fund various right-wing organizations.
The anti-communism Information Council of the America’s (INCA) was founded in 1961 in New Orleans at Loyola University. New Orleans county (parish) DA Jim Garrison’s original intention was to arrest the whole gang at INCA and squeeze them until they talked. His staff, however, felt that strategy was too risky and might backfire. Garrison compromised and arrested only Clay Shaw, in the hope that Shaw’s association with Oswald would be more tangible and could be proved more easily.
In May 1967 when New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison turned up the heat by doing his JFK investigation, Ochsner feared his own arrest. In response the INCA corporate records were mailed to California and Ed Butler put them "under lock and key." Ed Butler was the Executive Director of INCA. Butler became friendly with Clay Shaw International Trade Mart and persuaded him to help fund his anti-communist campaigns. This included the establishment of two organizations: Free Voice of Latin America (FVLA) and the American Institute for Freedom Project (AIFP). Butler employed Guy Banister to work for the AIFP.
Ochsner did not take Garrison’s investigation lying down. He was very vocal about his opinion that Garrison’s probe was unpatriotic because it eroded public confidence and threatened the stability of the American government. Ochsner promoted the idea that Garrison was crazy. He even managed to get a copy of Garrison’s military medical records. These showed that Garrison, a front line pilot, who flew behind enemy lines during the World War Two invasion of Europe, had suffered from mental exhaustion, was grounded temporarily due to and had received psychological counseling. Source: Dr. Mary's Monkey, by Edward T. Haslam, pp. 169 to 189)
Arthur Carpenter in his article, Social Origins of Anticommunism: The Information Council of the Americas claimed that Ochsner launched a propaganda campaign against Garrison. It was all part of the “he-must-be-crazy” tactic. Ochsner sent the file to a friend who was the publisher of the Nashville Banner. (Louisiana History, Spring 1989)
Ed Butler and Ochsner also attempted to discredit Mark Lane, who was assisting the Garrison investigation. Ochsner passed word to US Representative Edwin E. Willis, D-LA to dig up "whatever information you can" on Lane. Rep. Willis was and Chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbutlerED.htm
Frederick Osborn Sr. was a friend and associate of Allen Dulles. Osborn Sr. was in charge of US propaganda during World War Two. He and Allen Dulles also co-founded an organization called Crusade for Freedom. Crusade for Freedom was a US government project whose funding was shared among several agencies, and the chain of command was ambiguous. The Psychological Strategy Board assumed ultimate control over the project (along with other propaganda and psychological warfare operations) in May 1952.
Corporate members were many and included Henry Ford II and Gardner Cowles, executive of the Farfield Foundation (another CIA front), donor to the Gardner Cowles Foundation, and sponsor of the journal History. The Crusade also gained the support of religious leaders such as Rabbi Bernard J. Bamberger, president of the Synagogue Council of America, and Archbishop Francis Spellman.
The Crusade for Freedom benefited from the direct collusion of the American media including the New York Times and the San Francisco Examiner. They knew of its CIA connections but chose not to report them. The Crusade was patterned after Radio Free Europe, with which it eventually merged in 1962.
Guy Banister attended the meeting of Crusade for Freedom as did retired MG Edwin Walker and the Kent Courtney as the leader of the States’ Rights Party. General Clyde Watts, Major Archibald Roberts, and General Pedro del Valle were a member of the Council for Statehood and Crusade for Freedom according to Willie Somersett (who also attended). Some 700 people attended this meeting and 75 to 90 percent of them belonged to the John birch Society. Banister and Courtney served on the American Legion Un-American Activities Committee. (Source: Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New ...by Jeffrey H. Caufield, MD, pp. 140 to 145, and 147)
Judyth Baker claims that she and Oswald planned to divorce their respective spouses and marry in Mexico after he had done all he could to help thwart the plans of an assassination ring. And Bker says he was volunteering to investigate. Also Oswald said he suspected or was aware that the mafia, rich Texas oil men, and conservative racists put up money to finance an assassination criminal conspiracy.
Bakers said that Oswald was actually a sociable, highly intelligent, a very, disciplined individual, and “he was her lover.” Oswald told her about his long history of undercover operations, about him being recruited by the Office of Naval Intelligence, his defection to the Soviet Union, and that he was working for the CIA at the time in New Orleans. She also said Oswald was serving as an informant for the FBI. She said that Oswald really liked President Kennedy, and he knew that there were people planning to assassinate him. (Source: Me and Lee by Martha Rose Crow - Judyth Baker’s closest friend)
Oswald became deeply involved with the anti-Castro movement in New Orleans and with a number of Cuban émigrés who associated with mafia boss of New Orleans, Carlos Marcello. Oswald openly associated with rabid right-wing people involved in Operation Mongoose, including David Ferrie, a CIA contract pilot who flew flying these Cubans to CIA training camps. Oswald spent time at a New Orleans bar which was a hangout of the most extreme anti-Castro Cuban emigres/refugees. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, pp. 259, 499 to 500)
Oswald’s street-theater continued into August 1963 in order to build a public picture of him being pro-communism and who associated with socialist/communist students at a local university. He began telling associates he considered Castro’s revolution more true to Marxism than the Soviet system. (JFK and the Unspeakable pgs. 63-66)
Author Peter Dales Scott’s analysis to justify his hypothesis that Lee Oswald was working for the FBI, and Scott’s theory that anti-Castro Cubans involved in CIA assassination operations from 1963 to the mid-1980s in the Iran Contra operation, as well as anti-Castro Cubans who were closer to the North American mafia as oppose to loyal to the CIA. For the audio tape of Scott’s hypothesis see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDshV7DBdRY&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1jr5WJaY4Rwn41rYuNf41nkp5q-ytYxkcN7KFEhbh3d49E9fUGmqxxLZ4
According to Judyth Baker, she was fired from Rielly Coffee Company after a photo was published in the newspaper showing Oswald passing out leaflets. She was also in the photo. She and Oswald fired from Riely Coffee Company on or about the day he was arrested. She also said Oswald told her that he was secretly working for Guy Banister and that Bannister had told him the purpose for passing out these leaflets was so Bannister could secretly photograph the people who did not throw them away. In other words, if they kept the leaflets than he suspected they might be a communist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew6SQTloEL8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qf9CD_9Wt4
After Ochsner fired Judyth Baker from his cancer research project, she returned to the University of Florida. She was afraid and kept her affair with Oswald a secret. She and she raised five children and studied for a degree in anthropology at the University of Houston and a degree in creative writing at the University of Central Florida. Her husband Robert Baker divorced her in 1987. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbakerJ.htm
On August 16, 1963 Oswald was filmed with another guys passing out leaflets. You can view this film and a copy of the writing on these leaflets at this Internet link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1F_G5ku7KM
This film was made by WDSU TV in New Orleans in front of the International Trade Mart and this Internet link is a film of Oswald being interview where he admits he is a Marxist, but not a Communist. Five days later Oswald debated the issue of Fidel Castro and Cuba with Bringuier and Ed Butler on the Bill Stuckey Radio Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYNp1orPM5c
Judyth Baker in her 2014 book , David Ferrie: Mafia Pilot, Participant in Anti-Castro Bioweapon Plot, Friend described the education and ethical behavior of David Ferrie which greatly disagrees with that displayed Joseph R. "Joe" Pesci, the actor in Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK. Ferrie was a homosexual who allegedly had sex with young men and he had a disease that prevented hair from growing anywhere else on his body, so he used false eyebrows and a wig.
Ferrie told Baker that he had in 1951 acquired information while working as an insurance examiner, about J. Edgar Hoover’s homosexual behavior with Clyde Tolson.
A photograph taken in 1955 established that Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Oswald when Ferrie who was 37 years old. Ferrie conducted classes to Civil Air Patrol cadets. On July 27, 1955 at 15-year-old, Lee Harvey Oswald joined this Civil Air Patrol unit. Jerry Paradis a former instructor for the New Orleans Lakefront Civil Air Patrol Unit told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that he specifically remembered seeing Ferrie and Oswald together there. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14379
In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigators found six witnesses who said that Oswald had been present at Civil Air Patrol meetings headed by David Ferrie.
Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer who worked as the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA, claimed that David Ferrie was connected to the CIA prior or during the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. Marchetti told author Anthony Summers that "...he observed consternation on the part of then CIA Director Richard Helms and other senior officials when Ferrie's name was first publicly linked with the assassination in 1967." Marchetti said that he asked a CIA colleague and they told him that "Ferrie had been a contract agent to the Agency in the early sixties and had been involved in some of the Cuban activities.” (Not in Your Lifetime, by Anthony Summers, (I998), p. 233)
According to Judyth Baker, David Ferrie told her as a child he was molested by a priest and it continued for several years. When he eventually confessed this rape, he was called a liar. In spite of this, he ended up wanting to become a Catholic Priest. He admired the writers Thomas Aquinas, John Milton, and Aristotle and he tried to talk young men into joining the priesthood and US military. According to author Edward T. Haslam, Ferrie entered John Carroll University, a Catholic Jesuit university where he got A’s and B’s in studying Greek, Latin, History and Government. He was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, German, New Testament Greek, Classic and Medieval Latin.
He did not continue the senior year at the university and instead spent two more years at Saint Mary Seminary, but then was asked to leave the seminary because “he believes that faith is enough for enough for salvation, but adherence to a moral code is not necessary” (or something to that affect/effect). According to Judith Baker, Ferrie told her that while he was trying to become a priest, his homosexuality became fully developed. “I could not fight it anymore.”
After three years of college and some two years in a Catholic seminary, Ferrie continued his college studies and graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College with a BA in Philosophy.
According to author Stephen Roy, Ferrie’s younger brother Parmely was shot down over France and parachuted to safety in World War Two. Ferrie suffered from depression, a common result from growing up with religion induced guilt from being homosexual sinner. And so during World War Two, he was rule unfit for military draft (4F). He was spent three years in college and two more years in a Catholic seminary and later after still wanting to do his patriotic duty in the US military, in 1947 Ferrie becomes a Civil Air Patrol Cadet Instructor in Cleveland, OH and flight instructor.
From 1962 to 1963, Ferrie worked for G. Wray Gill a lawyer and one of his clients was mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Marcello was the mafia boss of Miami, New Orleans, and Texas. The New Orleans police often looked the other way regarding Ferries homosexual activities because of his association with Carlos Marchello. According to Judyth Bakers, David Ferrie told her that Lee did not kill JFK. (Source: David Ferrie: Mafia Pilot, Participant in Anti-Castro Bioweapon Plot, Friend, by Judyth V. Baker (2014).
According to Adele Edisen, Judyth Baker met Dr. Jose Rivera, MD in April 1963, at a biomedical scientific conference and he asked her when she arrived home in New Orleans to call Lee “Oswald at 899-4244 and tell him to “kill the chief. We're just playing a little joke on him.”
Edison said Rivera's conversation at times was difficult to follow and she suspected he was somewhat mentally ill. She said,”When he spoke of President Kennedy, Rivera was extremely critical of Kennedy's position on civil rights. ..."I wonder what Jackie will do when her husband dies? Rivera made many disparaging remarks about black people and the civil rights movement." In New Orleans Rivera was in charge of handing out research grants from National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Tulane Medical School in New Orleans.
Adele Edisen earned a PhD in physiology and in 1963 she had begun a third-year level postdoctoral fellowship granted by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness of the National Institutes of Health at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine.
From 1961 to 1963 Rivera worked on classified projects under Dr. Carl Lamanna. Lamanna isolated the crystaline form of the botulinum toxin (the most poisonous poison) at Fort Detrick and did research on Anthrax in the 1950s. Dr. Richard E. Shope says that Lamanna was with the Scientific Defense Biological Warfare Program at Ft. Detrick Both Lamanna and Rivera were assigned to a joint Navy-Army research project at Monteray, CA. Lamanna was part of the Military Representatives to the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board in 1965.
In early May 1963 Adele Edisen spoke to Oswald on the telephone, but he denied knowing Jose Rivera. Two days after Kennedy’s assassination, Adele Edisen told the Secret Service and FBI all this. This looks like Rivera meant to set up Oswald as a pasty.
Rivera was the person who gave Dr. Mary S. Sherman Oswald’s name and his New Orleans phone number. Oswald may have been hired by Sherman to help Judyth Baker to get her a job at the Raily Coffee Company and keep an eye on her as she was the 19 year old and just out of high school. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKedisen.htm
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3883
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10662
On May, 26, 1963, Oswald wrote to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and proposed renting a small office at his own expense for the purpose of forming a Fair Play for Cuba Committee branch in New Orleans. Three days later, without waiting for a reply, Oswald ordered 1,000 copies of a handbill/leaflet from a local printing company. The leaflets read: "Hands Off Cuba! Join the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, New Orleans Charter Member Branch, Free Literature, Lectures, Everyone Welcome!"
The co-director of Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Richard Gibson, it turns out, had a CIA PRQ number and a personnel file that indicated he was a contract agent for a US government agency, maybe the CIA. A declassified secret CIA document lists five CIA cables from a sensitive source in operations regarding Gibson's connections with Lee Oswald. After the Swiss Federal Police wiretapped of Gibson's hotel room, they heard Gibson referred to Oswald.
http://www.joanmellen.net/truth-3.html
In May, Oswald was observed leaving Fair Play for Cuba Committee literature at the Tulane Library, On June 16th, he was passing out these leaflets to sailors where the US Navy ship USS Wasp was docked in New Orleans. What Oswald was doing was counterintelligence work. The purpose was finding US Navy sailor who may be vulnerable to being recruited by the USSR. You can be sure US Naval intelligence was watching him and they had probable cause to arrest him for subversion. but did not. Subversion is federal crime under the espionage law.
Oswald had also managed to align himself with the New Orleans Committee for Peaceful Alternatives which were doing protest marches. (Source: General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New … by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D. Chapter 21, pp. 34 and 649 - 652)
One day in May 1963, history professor Michael L. Kurtz, PhD attended an informal meeting of students at Louisiana State University in New Orleans discussing the issue of integration. This university was one of the first racially integrated universities in the South. Guy Banister was at this meeting Banister for the purpose of debating against integration arguing for a return to full segregation and criticizing the group for attending an integrated school. Banister was introduced by a student named George Higganbothan. Kurtz knew of Banister; he'd seen him on campus on perhaps a half-dozen occasions to this and would see him a few times more. Guy Banister brought a Lee Oswald to the meeting with him.
Two people remember Oswald as being one of the participants in a discussion of the racial issue. The discussion, which took place on the campus of Louisiana State University in New Orleans, involved Oswald and Guy Banister debating federal immigration policies with a number of students.
In Michael L. Kurtz’s book, Crime of the Century, he stated that there were a few additional sightings of Oswald in the company of Ferrie. George Wilcox told Kurtz and that he recognized Ferrie after Jim Garrision’s investigation became public. Wilcox told Kurtz he had seen Ferrie and Oswald near Lake Pontchartrain in September 1963 where they and Cubans were doing military training. (Source: Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK, by Hinckle and Turner, (1993) pp.234-235)
One feature of Oswald life while living in New Orleans for five months was that he attended at lot of liberal political meetings.
Author James DiEugenio wrote that Oswald made several trips to Baton Rouge in the summer of 1963. According to witnesses, “Leon” Oswald accompanied a prominent leader of the White Citizens' Council (aka the Citizens’ Council) and other white supremacist organizations to Baton Rouge six or eight times in July and August. The group was founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also supported segregation of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and occasionally violence against civil-rights activists.
On July 31, 1963, the FBI raided the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Party and Minutemen. California Attorney General officials said that undercover officers had infiltrated the Minutemen group and following Oswald return from the Soviet Union, he was connected with far right extremist groups. These officers were startled to hear members of the gun-toting cadre heap praise on Oswald and embrace him as one of their own. “He was not the sniveling little Communist everyone thought him to be. The leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell's name was in Oswald's address book after he was arrested as the suspect of Kennedy’s murder. (Legacy of Doubt, by Peter Noyes)
A New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews said in the summer of 1963 a group gay Mexicanos were sent to him by Clay Bertrand (aka Shaw) for help with their charges for lewd behavior. “After the youths (the gay guys) left, the other man, Lee Oswald stuck around and chatted with the attorney (Andrews) about some of his legal problems; his military discharge (which had been lowered to undesirable because of his defection), his own citizenship, and the citizenship of his Russian wife.” Andrews said Oswald visited his office three to five times that summer. Once with one of the gay boys who were with him the first time. Clay Shaw had previously sent other gay young men to Andrews who got into trouble with the police. Andrews said he also saw Oswald leafleting downtown on Canal Street.
Of course theWarren Commission’s report did not match up with the massive 25 volumns of testimony, rather testimony by witnesses told stories full of flashing red lights pointing to a criminal conspiracy and not a lone assassin. Another example of badgering witnesses to change their story was that testimony of the Dallas police officer who was order to guard the enterence to the Dallas police station and who said Jack Rudy entered at that location. The Warren Commission called a recess and had the court report leave the room, whereupon the Commission attorney told this officer that he could not allow him to say that. The officer ignored that order and told the truth. (Source: May 2016 lecture by Daniel Sheehan at the University of California; Santa Cruz, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r6Xshd8Jp4&feature=share
In July 1963, Oswald checked out of the New Orleans Public Library, Portrait of a President Kennedy, by William Manchester and JFK’s own Profiles in Courage. Oswald told his wife Marina that he liked and approved of the President and believed that for the United States and that Kennedy was the best President the country could hope for. https://riversong.wordpress.com/the-too-many-faces-of-lee-harvey-oswald/
Oswald had a friendly on-going association with Adrian Alba the owner of a car repair garage near the Raily Coffee Company. After he was fired, he visited him to say goodbye. Alba said that he "certainly didn't impress me as anyone capable or anyone burdened with a charge of assassinating the President . . . let alone any individual, for that matter." (Conspiracy, by Anthony Summers, 1989, p. 284)
Harry Jung later relocated to New Orleans from Chicago and became an associate of Banister’s private detective business. The American Vigilant Intelligence Federation headquartered in Chicago and operated by Harry Jung. Jung was instrumental in being one of the first to distribute The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in America. This was an anti-Semitic publication claiming world domination by International Jewry. The group maintained files and research on radicals and pacifists, selling their information to businesses.
A private detective Joseph S. Newbrough Jr. who work for Guy Bannister, said Bannister’s investigators got help from the Office of Naval Intelligence’s (ONI) commander in New Orleans, Guy P. Johnson. Newbrough said Bannister borrowed an infrared camera, listening devices, and cameras from ONI.
Banister’s New Orleans office was in the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street which was close by to the Reily Coffee Company where Oswald was working. Banister was associated with Sergio Arcacha Smith the official delegate for the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (anti-Castro Cuban government in exile within the US) and Arcacha had an office in this 544 Camp Street building. Banister was also a member of the Minutemen and he was head of the Anti-Communism League of the Caribbean after he came to New Orleans in 1955.
Thomas Beckham, a runner for David Ferrie, Banister, Clay Shaw, Sergio Arcacha-Smith, and Grady Durham, told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that Ferrie came to meetings at Banister's office dressed in his green fatigues directly from the training camps at the Lake. Beckham once flew to Miami with Arcacha and Louis Rabel with a large suitcase of money and delivered it to Eugenio Martinez, E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. On July 24 a group of anti-Castro Cubans from Frank Sturgis' International Anti-Communist Brigade (Miami) arrived in New Orleans and joined one of the training camps on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Eugenio Martinez, E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were arrested during the Watergate burglary. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3132
Declassified documents show that Lee Oswald collected intelligence for Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. The US Senator James Eastland exercised vast control over the Mississippi Delta for over four decades. This Commission was a secret state police force operating from 1956 to 1977 to suppress the civil rights movement and maintain segregation. Known as a notorious political extremist, Guy Banister was hired to set up an even tighter domestic spying system throughout this Mississippi secret spy agency. This outfit kept files, harassed and branded many as communist infiltrators by using retired FBI, CIA and military intelligence.
As the state's official tax-funded agency to combat activities of the Civil Rights Movement, the Mississippi Sovereignty Committee spied on and setting up African Americans for crimes they did not commit and as well as white folks who tried to help them. For example, Dr. Horace Germany who returned to Mississippi in 1956 to help African American farmers, left when he was beaten severely for his efforts.
The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission officially dissolved until 1977. In January 1977, Mississippi legislators introduced bills to abolish the commission and dispose of its records and equipment." After much heated debate, the legislature voted to keep its records (what was left of them) sealed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History until July 1, 2027."
http://mississippisovereigntycommission.blogspot.com/2013/11/did-mississippi-us-senator-james-o.html (Source: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, By David E Kaiser, pp. 216 to 220).
Delphine Roberts, Guy Banister’s secretary and girlfriend said she was in the office when Banister suggested that Lee Oswald should establish a local Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Her daughter also confirmed this. Roberts was a anti-communist, white supremacist. She met Oswald during this period and said Oswald was given an office on the second floor of the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street.
Former Banister investigator Vernon Gerdes said he had seen Oswald and Ferrie together with Banister. Veron Gerdes worked as a private investigator for attorney Stephen Plotkins. According to Plotkins, Gerdes told him he had seen Oswald and Ferrie together with Banister.
David Lewis worked on and off for Guy Banister. Lewis and his wife Anna went on double dates with Lee Oswald and Judyth Baker in New Orleans.
Leander D’Avy who worked as a doorman at a restaurant, said in early November 1963, he saw the restaurant manager, Eugene C. “Gene” Davis, Lee Oswald, David Ferrie, a Cuban and three unidentified men together in an upstairs storeroom and used as a makeshift apartment. Davis was an active informant of the New Orleans FBI (numbered 1189-C as of October 1961). The National Archives refused to release any documents on Davis, saying most of them were “postponed in full” until some later date (which means they are still classified as of 2015).
By early 1961, Ferrie was working with anti-Castro Cuban Sergio Arcacha-Smith. In early 1962, both Banister and Arcacha-Smith maintained offices in the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street that also had the address of 531 Lafayette Street, New Orleans. In January 1961, a New Orleans arms dealer and CIA contract agent, William W. Dalzell, offered Arcacha Smith $200,000 from Carlos Marcello to aid in the overthrow Castro in exchange for gambling concessions and citizenship in a post-Castro Cuba. (Source: David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 112).
Anti-Castro Cuban exile Sergio Arcacha Smith was the head the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (FRD). In December 1960, Sergio Arcacha- Smith opened an office in the Balter Building at 403 Camp Street, Room 207. This was the same building that Guy Banister also had his office. Crusade to Free Cuba Committee was founded in December 1961 by Sergio Arcacha to raise funds for the CIA-backed Cuban Revolutionary Council. He was the official delegate for the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Revolutionary Council.
In September 1961, Sergio Arcacha was implicated in a 1961 raid on a munitions depot in Houma, Louisiana, "...in which various weapons, grenades and ammunition were stolen." In October, he introduced David Ferrie to Carlos Bringuier, leader of the New Orleans branch of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), an anti-Castro organization.
While living in New Orleans Sergio Arcacha-Smith joined with David Ferrie to establish the Cuban Democratic Liberation Front and also an associate of Guy Banister. David Ferrie's close friend Raymond Broshears told prosecutor Jim Garrison about Sergio Arcacha-Smith and that in the late 1960, Sergio Arcacha-Smith became head of the New Orleans chapter of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (also known as the Cuban Revolutionary Council). Sergio Arcacha-Smith had worked as an assistant manager of the America Hotel in Houston, became friends with H.L. Hunt and retired Major General Edwin Walker.
Daniel “Dan” Campbell also saw Oswald in Banister’s office. Campbell, an ex-Marine, assisted Banister by doing small arms training for the anti-Castro Cubans for $50.00 per week. As a Louisiana State University student, Campbell also worked for Banister infiltrating left-wing groups on college campuses to spy on them. He confirmed that "Banister was a bagman for the CIA and was running guns to Alpha 66 in Miami." Dan Campbell told Jim Garrison’s Assistant prosecutor, Andrew Sciambra, that he was involved in anti-Castro activity with Al Perrin and his wife Rose Marie and Ralph Latapie in the summer of 1963. Perrin had a boat named the Mariner and that he and Perrin and Latapie actually used this boat to bring supplies close to the Isle of Cuba where they were met by other boats which took the supplies into Cuba. He also said that the supplies were being furnished by the CIA and actually had the “United Stated Government” stenciled on the boxes. https://archive.org/stream/nsia-CampbellDan/nsia-CampbellDan/Campbell%20Dan%2001_djvu.txt
Allen Campbell, Dan’s brother, also worked for Banister in 1958, 1959, 1962 and 1963, and according to him Guy Banister’s said of Lee Oswald, "Don’t worry about him (Oswald). He’s a nervous fellow, he’s confused. He’s with us, he’s associated with the office." This cavalier attitude by Banister regard the threat of Oswald being really a commie was confirmed by George Higginbotham, another college student spying for him. Like the Campbells, Higginbotham was also assigned to infiltrate supposed communist groups. (In History's Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley, by Joe G. Biles)
Allen Campbell said that Banister worked closely with Ray Huff of the CIA. This alleged Ray Huff maybe his real name or was using a CIA alias. I could not find his name associated with being a CIA officer or contract agent.
Campbell told House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigators that Sergio Arcacha-Smith spent a lot of time at the camps, and that many of the guns used for training the exiles were furnished by the Mardi Gras Corporation. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3132
Dan Campbell also recalled seeing Oswald’s buddy from his Marine Corps days, Kerry Thornley, pop in and out of Banister’s office (Sources: 544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 128 and Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, byJim Marrs (1989), p. 497)
In early 1959, Thornley served for a short time in the same radar operator unit as Lee Oswald at MCAS El Toro in Santa Ana, California. Both men had shared a common interest in society, culture, literature and politics, and whenever duty placed them together, had discussed such topics as George Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and the philosophy of Marxism, particularly Oswald's interest in the latter. (Warren Commission Hearings, Volume XI, pp. 84 and 87–90) http://www.ctka.net/LetJusticeBeDone/chapter4.htm
Perish (county) prosecutor Jim Garrison in his 1967 investigation found at least eight witnesses who said they saw Oswald with Kerry Thornley in the summer of 1963. Two of these witnesses, Bernard Goldsmith and Doris Dowell said that Thornley told them Oswald was not a communist. Myrtle LaSavia, who lived within a block of Oswald in New Orleans, said she and her husband saw Thorney a lot at Oswald’s apartment. An FBI report noted other neighbors of Oswald picked out photos of Thornley as a frequent visitor to Oswald’s apartment.
Kerry Thornley was an extreme right-winger who hated Kennedy. He also denied knowing anti-Castro Cubans Bringuier and Ed Butler of Information Council of the America’s (INCA) even though he had applied for a job at INCA. Every one of these denials turned out to be false and Thornley later admitted to he lied. He was also once employed by Alton Ochsner’s Information Council of the America the private or CIA propaganda operation and that had sponsored Oswald’s debate with anti-Castro Cuban leader Carlos Bringuier.
According to Dan Campbell a former Guy Banister employee, Thornley was one of the young fanatics who frequented Banister’s office at 544 Camp Street. Harold Weisberg stated that two employees who worked at the Jones Printing Company picked out photos of Kerry Thornley, not Oswald as the person who picked up the “Hands off Cuba” leaflets. (Never Again by Harold Weisberg)
Thornley told one of Garrison’s investigators that he had never met Shaw, Ferrie, or Oswald. This may have been an example of the CIA or others trying very hard to derail Jim Garrison’s 1967 JFK investigation. When Garrison investigator Jim Rose tried to locate Thornley he found him living in Tampa, FL. He discovered Thornley had two houses, one in Tampa that had a one acre lot, and one in Miami. He also discovered he own two cars. This did not add up given Thornley was employed as a waiter and doorman up to that time. (Source: Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, by James DiEugenio)
Tommy Baumler, another of Banister’s student spies, told JFK researcher Bud Fensterwald that Oswald worked for Banister. He stated that Banister give out letters of marquee, so that if arrested by the police as communist, the letter clear would declare them not communists.
After some peace marchers left Montreal, Canada, they reached Scranton, Pennsylvania on July 22, 1963 and the Friends Peace Committee protesters spent several days there doing demonstrations on a street corner of Courthouse Square. A minister named Irwin Tucker alleged that Oswald was among this protest group passing out leaflets. Tucker remembered him in particular, for he got into a heated discussion with him. Oswald kept "running down the country" and he was arguing that "President Kennedy was not doing right by Cuba." Tucker lost his patience with this unpatriotic tirade and told the young man that if liked Castro's Cuba so much, he ought to move over there.
Carlos Jose Bringuier was a lawyer and an anti-Castro Cuban exile. On August 5, 1963, Lee Oswald visited Bringuier at his clothing store on Canal Street in New Orleans. Oswald stated he was a friend of the anti-Castro Cuban exiles offered to join the fight against Castro. He added that he had been trained in the US Marine Corp. The next day, Oswald again visited the store, but Bringuier was not present so he left a copy of the book, Guidebook for Marines. Bringuier the New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro group, Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) (code named AM/SPELL) and was placed in charge of publicity and propaganda. Brinquier's New Orleans store became the local headquarters for anti-Castro Cubans. The Warren Report failed to mention that Bringuier’s Student Revolutionary Directorate organization had for years been covertly funded by the CIA. The DRE was penetrated by spies in Castro’s foreign intelligence service. In October 1961, Sergio Arcacha-Smith introduced David Ferrie to Carlos Bringuier.
On August 9, 1963, Oswald was spotted by a friend of Bringuier handing out pro-Castro, Fair Play for Cuba leaflets near Bringuier’s store. Bringuier and three his associates decided to confront Oswald. These anti-Castro Cubans got into a fist fight with Oswald and a crowd began to gather. Bringuier attempted to incite the crowd saying that Oswald was a communist and supporter of Castro. Three Cubans associated with Bringuier were also arrested for disturbing the peace. (Source: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, By David E Kaiser, pp. 216 to 220)
Oswald was arrested and after three day in jail, on August 12, 1963, Oswald pleads guilty to the charge of disturbing the peace, fined $10.00. Celso Hernandez was also arrested with Oswald at this incident. In the fall of 1962, New Orleans police officer Charles Noto arrested Lee Oswald and Celso Hernandez. They were in a truck owned by Celso's employer. Oswald identified himself to the police as a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and said he was living in the Dallas area. They were brought to the police station, questioned and released. Throughout this era, Hernandez was under close scrutiny by anti-Castro Cubans because they suspected he was possibly a pro-Castro spy/infiltrator.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-JFK-CASE--THE-TWELVE-by-Bill-Simpich-120825-173.html
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/walker.txt
Before leaving the police station, Oswald asked to speak to FBI agent Warren de Brueys. He didn't show up but De Brueys sent FBI special agent John Quigley, who spent over an hour talking to Oswald. Quigley wrote a five page report and in his report he said Oswald gave him background information and his attempt to form a Fair Play for Cuba Chapter. Quigley found absolutely no indication that Oswald was dangerous or potentially violent. On April 18, 1961 Quigley had reviewed Oswald’s Navy file at the Naval Air Station, in Algiers, Louisiana at on orders per his Dallas FBI office.
Corroboration of Oswald’s association with the FBI was confirmed by Orestes Pena, who ran the Habana Bar in New Orleans and he was a confidential informant of Dallas FBI agent Warren DeBrueys. Pena testified that he saw Oswald and DeBrueys talking on a number of occasions. He said, DeBrueys had introduced Oswald to anti-Castro Cuban who worked for the CIA. Pena, who was from Cuba, had tried to join the anti-Castro groups, Cuban Revolutionary Council. According to author Mark Lane, Pena said "the CIA was aware of the relationship and DeBrueys had introduced Oswald to contacts known by Pena to be CIA through his service in providing lodging for anti-Castro Cuban (refugee) defectors."
(Plausible Denial by Mark Lane (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991, pp. 55-56.)
Orestes Pena an FBI confidential informat testified to the House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) he saw Oswald with FBI agent Warren DeBrueys, CIA officer David Smith and US Customs Officer Wendall Roche leave a Greek restaurant together and walk over to the Customs building together. (Sources: William Walter and L.J. Delsa).
Pena said he watch FBI agents taking photographs from across the street as Oswald was passing out the leaflets. Oswald hired Charles Steele to help him pass out these leaflets. Steele was described as confidential informant codenamed T-14 in the FBI documents. Even 15 years later, he refused to say if he knew Oswald prior to that day, or if he ever saw him again. Interestingly, OS Customs special agent Roache was investigating David Ferrie and he figured Oswald was investigating Ferrie.
So explosive was Pena's revelations about Oswald's relationships with US Customs officers that Pena's files were systematically ordered destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover. A European FBI agent sent a teletype (cable) directed to J. Edgar Hoover, dated January 14, 1976, and entitled, "Rome file regarding Orestes Pena: IS-Cuba Destroyed." Pena's record was sealed (classified) for 25 years. This was part of the CIA and FBI cover up.
In 1963, CIA officers were operating under the official-cover playing the role as US Customs agents as part of a special CIA unit in Houston. This CIA unit worked with anti-Castro Cubans. Neither Customs, nor the Coast Guard, nor the FBI, nor Texas state narcotics bureau revealed the existence of a Galveston drug ring to the FBN with connections to the anti-Castro Cubans. (The Strength of the Wolf, p.313)
William Walter worked at the New Orleans FBI office as the security clerk, testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, that on the day FBI agent Quigley visited Oswald, Walter was ordered to check the security indices to determine if there was an existing file on Oswald. Walter did indeed find a file on Oswald and he recalled carried seeing a notation “informant” classification. He also recalled that Special Agent Warren DeBrueys’ name was on the jacket of that file.
On August 21, 1963 J. Edgar Hoover sent an order to the New Orleans and Dallas FBI offices and ordered the Dallas office to find out what Oswald’s job was and to determine whether or not to interview Marina.
New Orleans police lieutenant Francis Martello who worked at the city’s intelligence unit against left wing groups, he interviewed Lee Oswald at length while he was in jail. He said Oswald was very open or friendly in his answers to Marello’s questions. Martello said had formed the impression that he liked President Kennedy and he considered Oswald not to be potentially violent. He said Oswald was, ". . . not at all. Not in any way, shape, or form violent . . . as far as ever dreaming or thinking that Oswald would do what it is alleged that he has done, I would bet my head on a chopping block that he wouldn't do it."
Oswald had asked Lt. Martello, "Call the FBI. Tell them you have Lee Oswald in custody."
Martello looked at Oswald’s pocket size address book and found a piece of paper with a Moscow phone number written on it and made a photo copy of it. The phone number was for a Michael Jelisavcic who was a manager of an American Express office in Moscow. http://oswaldinholland.weblog.nl/geen-categorie/jelisavcic/
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmurretC.htm
On August 17, 1963, Bill Stuckey from radio station WDSU visited Oswald and asks him to appear on his radio program, Latin Listening Post. Oswald makes a four and a half minutes broadcast at 7:30 p.m. that evening. On August 19th, Oswald accepts Stuckey's offer to debate Bringuier on a live radio program. On August 21st, Oswald debates Bringuier and Ed Butler on a live radio program the program Conversation Carte Blanche, which runs from 6:05 to 6:30 PM. http://stuartjeannebramhall.com/2014/04/22/me-and-lee-harvey-oswald/
Delphine Roberts said she had noticed that Oswald had pro-Castro leaflets in his office and she later saw him passing them out on the street. When she complained to Banister about this, he told her not to worry about him, “He’s with us. He’s associated with the office.” (JFK and the Unspeakable, p.62)
One of the ways JFK assassination researchers have corroborated that the CIA was behind Guy Banister’s operations, was they discovered that some of the leaflets Oswald was handing out had been printed by the CIA in June 28, 1961. These leaflets were printed as part of a previous CIA propaganda program started in 1960 against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
(Oswald and the CIA, by John Newman, pp. 95 and 241)
Oswald had put the address “544 Camp Street” onto some of the leaflets. Banister got angry when he learned that Oswald had done this. He most likely became angry because his office was widely associated with people who were anti-Castro, white supremacists, and White Russian anti-communist and by linking Fair Play for Cuba Committee with this address put at risk of someone discovering the truth. (Source: (Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann, pp. 481 to 498)
The Church Committee learned that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had the task of tracking Cuban refugees which included anti-Castro Cuban refugees. INS agents Wendell Roache and Ron Smith told the Church Committee that they were keeping an eye on David Ferrie since he was often with Cubans. They discovered that Oswald had a room in the 544 Camp street building.
In all, there were dozens of people who saw Oswald and Jacob “Sparky” Rubenstein (aka Jack Ruby) together in the summer of 1963. William Crowe, Wally Weston, Dixie Lynn, and Kathy Kay who were employees of Ruby said they saw Oswald at Ruby's Carousel Club. http://alt.assassination.jfk.narkive.com/c03Xm5PO/june-july-1963-lee-oswald-with-jack-ruby-in-dallas
Dorothy Marcum who had been dating Jack Rugy and said she was certain that Oswald associated with Ruby in June and July of 1963. When Ruby’s Oldsmobile needed work, mechanic Robert Roy said it was Oswald who several times delivered and picked up the car. Frances Irene Hise said she saw Oswald enter through the back door at the Carousel Club. She heard Ruby say, “Hi Ozzie” and told him to go to the back room. Dozens of people saw Oswald and Ruby together in the summer and fall of 1963.
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On September 26, 1963, a man impersonating Lee Oswald traveled by bus thru Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City. The fake Oswald left Mexico City by bus on October 2, 1963.
On September 27, 1963 and again on October 2, 1963, someone posing as Oswald went to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City. The CIA's Mexico City Station had three photo surveillance sites nearby the enterance gate to the Soviet embassy and used vehicles from which to take pictures. Everyone entering or exiting the embassy was photographed (aka operation codenamed LI/EMPTY). The impostor Oswald entered and exited the Cuban or Soviet embassies three times from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, giving the photo surveillance CIA agents six chances to photographing him.
This CIA was doing photo surveillance of the Czech, Polish, Cuban and Yugoslov embassies. In addition the CIA had been monitoring 30 telephone wiretaps on these embassies and other CIA targets. Also targets were Mexicans who were political adversaries of President Adolfo López Mateos, as well as members of the Communist Party of Mexico.
The CIA recorded a telephone call and the Oswald impostor spoke broken Russian. Oswald was fluent in Russian. The CIA learned that the impostor’s visits and phone calls to the Soviet and Cuban embassies that he was applying for a travel visa to Cuba. Also the CIA learned this impostor talked to Valery Kostikov, the KGB officer who was believed to be in charge of assassinations of Department 13 of the KGB. In January 22, 1964, the CIA leaked to the Warren Commission that Oswald had contacted Valery Kostikov at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City was the head of the KGB assassinations, sabotage, and terrorism (most likely for USSR operation in Latin America or North and South America). This so frightened Warren Commission that they were content to take the CIA's word for Oswald's Mexico visits to embassies. (Crossfire, p.193)
This CIA wiretap/audio surveillance (aka operation codenamed LI/ENVOY) was done with the help of the Mexican Security Service (Directorate of Federal Security or Dirección Federal de Seguridad - DFS). During 1958 Winston H. “Win” Scott, the CIA’s chief of station, met socially with some of associates of the Mexican President elect Adolfo Lopez Mateos. As a result, the CIA recruited the DFS into helping with these photo surveillance and wiretapping missions. One of the main missions of the CIA in Mexico was to try and get Mexico to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba. I should be stressed that the US State Department and especially the US Ambassodors to Mexico and South Vietnam, were nominated because of their anti-communism political views and willingness go along with CIA’s ends justifying the means actions.
Both of these CIA operations employed 16 agents and some were career agent/translators speaking Russian, Czech, polish and Spanish, in addition to CIA staff officers and case officers and CIA TSD wiretapping specialists worked for the CIA station in Mexico City.
LI/EMPTY-1 was Ramón Joseph Alvarez Durant born in New York City and a dual citizen, American/Mexican. He was recruited into the CIA in Mexico City and was employed from October 1955 until 1970. He was recruited just prior to his graduation from Mexico City College to surveillance team and investigator. He became a basehouse keeper in audio operation and processor of tapes recordings and spotting operational leads.
Beginning in 1958 Alvarez worked as a main cutout and principal agent for photo surveillance. Ramón Joseph Alvarez was most likely the one person who took photos of the impostor Oswald, and the CIA made sure the House Select Committee on Assassination did NOT find him and interview him.
LI/ONION was a photo surveillance operation targeting Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, also referred to as LI/ERODE. It was alleged that LI/ONION installation failed to capture a picture of Lee Oswald in September 1963. LI/TAMIL-9 was Luis Alberu Souto, the Cuban Cultural Attache in Mexico City, working as a double-agent for the CIA. LI/TAMIL-9 identified people for the CIA photographs taken during LI/ONION.
LI/HABITA base used to conduct photographic surveillance targeting the Soviet allied Czechoslovakian Embassy in Mexico City.
LI/MOTOR An "eyes and ears" project using American students at Mexico City universities to observe the operations of the Soviet intelligence service and to determine which American students were Soviet targets.
Sourc: New Assassiantion Record Review Board documents reveal how the CIA made sure a key player in Mexico City photographic surveillance project was never interviewed by the HSCA http://merdist.com/wp/2019/04/26/the-big-fish-that-got-away/
In September 1955 President Eisenhower appointed Mann as the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. Mann had been a long-time friend of Lyndon Johnson and in 1961 he persuaded Kennedy to appoint Mann as Ambassador to Mexico. In this post he developed a close relationship with Winston Scott, the CIA chief in Mexico City. Mann worked very closely with the military government of Adolfo Lopez Mateos. Mann told the Adolfo Lopez that the US administration was willing to provide covert assistance to help anti-communist groups in Mexico. https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmannT.htm
When Oswald was in custody after JFK’s assassination, FBI special agents in Dallas received the audio tapes recordings from the Mexico City CIA station, allegedly to be the voice of a man using the name, Lee Oswald. These FBI agents on listening to the voice on this tape knew right away realized it was not Oswald’s voice, because they had already being interrogating Lee Oswall after JFK had been killed.
The CIA career agent/translators who were Russian language translators who listened to audio tapes of telephone conversations by the impostor (Mr. and Mrs. Tarasoff - Boris and Anne) stated that the imposter spoke with barely decipherable Russian. Oswald was fluent in speaking Russian. Years later during the investigation by the Congressional Select Committee on Assassinations (September 1976 to 1978) the stated “the CIA could never identify Lee Oswald in the tapes that they heard.”
The impostor was about 35 years old, 5 foot 3 inches with a receding hairline and balding top. Oswald was not quite 24 years old, 5 foot ten inches, with light, brown wavy hair. This impostor went to the Cuban embassy three times and the Soviet embassy two times September, 27 and 28, 1963.
The lack of photos of the real Oswald was/is key evidence to uncovering the CIA’s involvement in the JFK assassination and proof they had set up Oswald as a patsy. It appears the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were making it appear Oswald had killed Kennedy on behalf of Castro ad/or the Soviet Union. (JFK and the Unspeakable, pp. 75 to 84)
The CIA years later admitted that the man photographed visiting the Soviet and the Cuban embassies was not Oswald, but they refused to say who it was. (The Secret History of the CIA, p. 260)
A Mexican citizen, Silvia Tirado de Duran worked at the Cuban embassy. She reported that the impostor Oswald arrived at 11.00 a.m. on Friday, 27th September, 1963, a young American entered the Cuban emabassy office. He said his name was Lee Harvey Oswald and that he needed a Cuban transit visa and that he planned to leave in three days' time and stay in Cuba for a couple of weeks. He then intended to move onto the Soviet Union. She said Oswald showed her his passport, correspondence with the American Communist Party, his membership card for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a newspaper clipping about his activities in New Orleans and a photograph of Oswald in custody, accompanied by two police officers.
Duran said she could not understand why Oswald had not applied in advance by contacting the Communist Party in Cuba. Duran told him that he would need a passport photograph to apply for a visa for Cuba. The impostor Oswald then returned an hour later with the photograph. Duran then told Oswald she could not issue a transit visa without confirmation that he had clearance for travel to the Soviet Union. Oswald was told it would be at least seven days before his transit visa could be issued. Oswald replied that he could only stay for three days.
The impostor Oswald next went to the Soviet embassy, but Vice Consul Oleg Nechiperenko informed him that the visa application would be sent to the Soviet embassy in Washington and would take about four months. Oswald then returned to the Cuban consulate at 4.00 pm and told Duran that he had been to the Soviet Embassy and that they were willing to give him a visa straight away. Duran phoned the Soviet embassy and was told that Oswald was lying. She said after a brief argument the impostor Oswald left the consulate.
On or about October, 7, 1963, the CIA Chief of Station in Mexico City Win Scott, sent a cable to CIA headquarters asking for any photos of Oswald. Scott reported the a man called Lee Oswald had spent five nights in Mexico City and departed from the Mexican capital on October 2, 1963. On reading this cable Jane Roman knew this was impossible because the FBI reported Oswald’s activities New Orleans during the late in September 1963. She worked for James Angleton’s Counterintelligence Division (spying on the spies).
Win Scott, asked CIA headquarters. “Who was Oswald?" CIA replied in the cable saying, "We don't know." In effect, don’t worry. In fact CIA had received a 16-month old cable from a diplomat in Moscow concluding that Oswald’s marriage and two year residence in the Soviet Union had had a maturing effect on him.
In fact, that was not the CIA's latest information. Jane Roman acknowledged that she helped draft this cable. What the cable's authors deliberately omitted, among other things, was mention of a September 1963 FBI report on Oswald's encounters with the anti-Castro Cuba group DRE in New Orleans. Roman and the CI staff drafted a response to the Mexico City station. Their draft was reviewed and endorsed by five senior CIA officers, who are identified on the last page of the cable. These CIA officials were Tom Karamessines, John M. Whitten (CIA aliases John H. Scelso), Jane Roman, and Betty Egeter. Karamessines was the trusted deputy to Dick Helms. Bill Hood oversaw all covert operations in the Western Hemisphere.
CIA officer John M. Whitten who worked in Mexico City became puzzled regarding October 10, 1963 cable as it had signed off on by someone so senior in the CIA leadership as Tom Karamessines (assistant Deputy Director of the CIA’s clandestine operations). It was standard CIA operating procedures involving reporting on Americans abroad who visited a foreign embassy. Such a cable was considered very, very routine. Whitten said, “it did not normally require such high-level attention.” What he meant was something really big was being done and he did not have the need to know. Or based on what we now know, this cable is a smoking gun that more than likely proves that Karamessine was behind the CIA plot to set Oswald up as a pasty.
John Whitten’s career within the CIA from then on started to go bad and he eventually took an early retirement.
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK_Assassination
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/conspiracy/newman.html
CIA station in Mexico prior to September 27th had already monitoring Silvia Duran. The CIA was planning to use her sexual affair to blackmail a former Cuban ambassador in Mexico City into spying for the CIA. This Cuban diplomate in 1963 was serving as Castro’s ambassador to the United Nations.
When Lee Oswald was arrested in Dallas shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, Duran immediately recognized him as the man who visited her at the Cuban embassy. This was reinforced by the discovery of Duran's name and phone number in Oswald's address book.
The Cuban Consul Eusebio Azcue Lopez was questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations 15 years later and he testified that he also help the impostor Oswald. Azcue said, The man who went to the consulate was a man over 30 years of age and very thin, very thin faced.”…” He always had a face which reflected unhappiness. He was never friendly. He was persistent. And he was not pleasant.”… And the individual I saw in the movie (of Jack Ruby shooting Oswsald) was a young man, considerably younger, and a fuller face. He (the impostor) was blond, dark blond.” … “ The individual who visited the consulate is one whose physiognomy or whose face I recall very clearly. He had a hard face. He had very straight eyebrows, cold, hard, and straight eyes. His cheeks were thin. His nose was very straight and pointed. (The real Oswald) looks like he is somewhat heavier, more filled, his eyes are at an angle with the outside of his eye, at an angle with his face. I would have never identified him or recognized him.” … “I remember what I saw on the film and also what I saw on TV later or maybe before. I remember that moment when he was killed and I remember I did not recognize him.” (Source: HSCA report, Volume III Page 128 http://whokilledjfk.net/eusebio_azcue.htm
In 1963 Oscar Contreras was studying to be a lawyer at Mexico City's National University. He belonged to a left-wing student group which supported the Castro revolution and had contacts in the Cuban Embassy. One evening in late September 1963, he and two of his like-minded friends were sitting in a university cafeteria when a man at a table nearby struck up a conversation.
Author Anthony Summers was told by Oscar Contreras and he said he could not understand how, of all the thousands of students in Mexico City, the impostor Oswald picked on him and his two friends. He was suspicious about how did the American know that these particular students might be able to help him?
Contreras remembered that he and his friends were drinking coffee, after a discussion in the philosophy department, when the strange American accosted them. The impostor Oswald introduced himself curiously, "Lee Harvey Oswald." That made Contreras and his friends laugh, because “Harvey” and “Oswald” were more familiar as the names of characters in a popular cartoon about rabbits. That was the main reason his name stuck in his mind. With minor variations, "Oswald" gave the students a familiar story.
The impostor Oswald said he was a painter, had to leave Texas because the FBI was bothering him, and declared that life in the United States was not for him. He wanted to go to Cuba, but for some reason the Cuban consulate was refusing him a visa. Could the students help-through their friends in the Embassy? Contreras and his friends said they would try. That night they talked to their Cuban contacts, including Cuban Consul Eusebio Azcue himself. Cuban officials said they were suspicious of Oswald and believed he was trying to infiltrate left-wing groups. When Oswald next came to see them, Contreras and his friends told him that the Cubans did not trust him and would not give him a visa. "Oswald" continued trying to ingratiate himself and ended up spending the night at their apartment.
The impostor Oswald left next morning still begging for help in getting to Cuba, and the next time Contreras heard the name Oswald was after the assassination. He made no secret of the recent encounter but did not bother to report it to the American Embassy. Like many ordinary Mexicans, Contreras has little love for the American authorities. His story became known only in 1967, after he mentioned it in conversation with the local US consul." Congress' Assassinations Committee failed to locate him.
Oscar Contreras had become a successful journalist, was the editor of the local newspaper, El Mundo of Tampico. The details he supplied add to the suspicion that the Oswald who visited the Cuban consulate was an impostor. Like Eusebio Azcue, Contreras said the "Oswald" he met looked more than thirty years old. Like Sylvia Duran, he recalled very positively that Oswald was short-he too thought at most 5' 6". He said he would normally be reluctant to be so specific, but his recall on this point is persuasive. Contreras himself is only 5' 9" tall, and he clearly recalled looking down at the man he calls "Oswald the Rabbit." http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/4152-silvia-duran-and-william-seymour-in-mexico/
Soon after the assassination of John Kennedy Chief of Station Win Scott contacted Luis Echeverria Álvarez and asked his men to arrest Duran. Luis Echeverria (LI/ENVOY-2) was the CIA’s Mexian contract agent for their telephone wiretapping operation. Luis was the son of Rodolfo Echeverria and he was in charge of the Mexican DFS. Luis held several important posts in government and the Mexian right-wing polical party PRI and in 1964 he was appointed Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary of the Interior in Mexico was the public ministry concerned with the country's domestic affairs, the publication and certain issues of national security (aka the DFS). Luis was elected President of Mexico from 1970 to 1976.
Win Scott also told Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (LI/RAMA) Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior that Duran should be be held incommunicado until she gave all details of her contacts with Lee Oswald. Scott had developed a friendship with Gustavo Díaz.
Scott then reported his actions to CIA headquarters. Soon afterwards, John M. Whitten, head of the Mexican and Central American desk at CIA, told Scott that Thomas H. Karamessines (assistant head of CIA clandestine operation) ordered Duran not to be arrested. This was too late. Silvia Duran, her husband and five other people had already been arrested. Duran was interrogated forcefully and badly bruised.
Karamessines followed up by sent a telegram that began: “Arrest of Sylvia Duran is extremely serious matter which could prejudice US freedom of action on entire question of Cuban responsibility.”
Luis Echeverria reported to Chief of Station Scott that Duran had been “completely cooperative” and had made a detailed statement. This statement matched the story of the audio surveillance transcripts. Duran was saying the man who visited the Cuban consul's office had "blond-haired" and had "blue or green eyes". Neither of these details matched with the real description of Lee Oswald. These controdicting statements allegedly never reached reached the Warren Commission.
After two days in jail, Duran was released from police custody. Then she started making public statements that a man calling himself Oswald, came to the Cuban Embassy. Word of this caused CIA Director John McCone to send a cable the CIA station in Mexico City ordering the secret arrest by Mexico of Silvia Duran. This message was dated or sent on November 23, 1963 and it was an order by McCone to keep Duran’s arrest absolutely secret and that no information from her is published or leaked. Sylvia Duran and her entire family were having a party when they were arrested. Duran blamed a relative for her arrest, so the CIA was not connected by her to her arrest, and the telephone wire taps were still secret. Duran was never interviewed by the Warren Commission. Duran was interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. This testimony was classified. I suspect that was because of the CIA wiretapping. However, in 1979 Duran told author Anthony Summers that she told the HUCA that the man who visited the office was about her size (5 feet 3.5 inches). This created problems as Oswald was 5 feet 9.5 inches.
After some 50 years, JFK assassination researcher have been able to get many of these cable declassified which are the source of the above information.
On September 17, 1963, Oswald applied for a travel visa to Mexico at the Mexican Consul's office in New Orleans. (Source: He Was Expendable: National Security, Political and Bureaucratic Cover Ups ...By James Kelleher)
September 20, 1963: Ruth Paine visited the Lee Oswald’s wife Marina and it was decided that Marina would return with her to Irving, TX to have her second child.
Judyth Baker, Lee Oswald’s girlfriend alleges that Oswald told her despite their promise to transfer him to Mexico City, said his superiors order him to return to Dallas to spy on “right wing nuts” interested in killing Kennedy. On October 3, 1963 Oswald relocated to Dallas. He and Judyth Baker continue to maintain phone contact. She said Lee told her the CIA was trying to set him up to look like a pro-Castro agent in the plot against JFK. (Source: Me & Lee: How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth V. Baker (1998)
These orders were probable done after President Johnson decided to shut down any talk about Oswald links to the Soviet and the assassination and these messages were never shown to the Warren Commission. (Crossfire, The Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Jim Marrs, pp.193 to 194)
President Johnson had made taped recorded his phone conversations. Years later it was discovered from these audio tapes that Johnson was told by J. Edgar Hoover that the FBI had learned someone had impersonated Oswald in Mexico City.
The FBI also had recruited a spy, a KGB officer (cryotonom AE/DURBILL), working inside the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City (aka FBI operation TUMBLEWEED) and he or she reported that an American male identifying himself as Lee Oswald had visited the Soviet Embassy. AE/DURBILL was a subordinate of two other Mexico City KGB officers working at the Soviet embassy. AE/DURBILL was one of the KGB officers who worked for Soviet KGB, Vice-Consul, Valeriy Kostikov. He was known by the CIA and FBI as a member of the KGB’s Department 13 (the assassination, sabotage, and terrorism outfit).
(The Man Who Knew Too Much. pgs. 318 to 322
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CIA officer Jane Roman who worked in James Angleton’s Counterintelligence Division at CIA, she got FBI Agent Hosty’s report about Oswald’s activities in Dallas and New Orleans on or about September 25, 1963. This FBI report was not put into Oswald’s CIA 201 file where all the previous FBI and State Department reports on Oswald had been filed, but were diverted into another file number 100-300-11 file.
Also in this file was a report dated April 21, 1963 noting Oswald had sent a letter to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York City. This date was when Oswald moved from Fort Worth to Dallas. The CIA also knew that Oswald's claim to have stood on a Dallas street with a placard around his neck that read "Hands Off Cuba-Viva Fidel." (Source: Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth about the Unknown Relationship, pgs. 320- 370)
An FBI agent in New Orleans wrote another report on Oswald that would arrive at the CIA on October 2, 1963 about Oswald's recent Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans. On October 4, CIA officer Jane Roman read this latest FBI report.
Jane Roman said: "I'm signing off on something that I know isn't true." She went on and tried to explain it with this: "I wasn't in on any particular goings-on or hanky-panky as far as the Cuban situation ... to me it's indicative of a keen interest in Oswald, held very closely on a need-to-know basis." ((Oswald and the CIA, by John Newman, pp. 402 and 405)
Those who designed the plot to make a pasty out of Lee Oswald had to have access to all of the information on Oswald at CIA headquarters. The person who designed this plot had to have the authority to alter how information on Oswald was kept at CIA. Those who designed this plot had the authority to alter how information on Oswald was kept at CIA headquarters. The person who designed this plot had to have access to project Tumbelweed, the sensitive joint agency operation against the KGB assassin, Valery Kosikov. The person who designed this plot had the authority to instigate a counterintelligence operation in the Cuban affairs staff (SAS) at CIA headquarters. There is only one person whose hands fit into these gloves: James J. Angleton, Chief of CIA's Counterintelligence Staff.
Whoever Oswald's direct handlers were, we must now seriously consider the possibility that Angleton was probably their general manager. No one else in the CIA had the access, the authority to manage this sophisticated plot. No one else had the means necessary to plant information in Oswald's CIA files and they keep it dormant for six weeks until the president's assassination. Whoever was ultimately responsible for the decision to kill Kennedy, their reach extended into the national intelligence apparatus to such a degree that they could call upon a person who knew its inner secrets and workings so well that he could design a failsafe mechanism into the fabric of the plot. The only person who could ensure this CIA plot to kill JFK and cover it up was James Angleton. (Source: Oswald and the CIA, by John M. Newman, 2008)
Author David Talbot describes how James Angleton appeared to have blackmailed his way into his position of Chief of Counterintelligence by promising not to expose Dulles’s hiding of Nazi funds. That would explain how Angleton rose to such a key position despite his dubious fitness for the job. The paranoid Angleton ruined the lives of many intelligence officers whom he suspected falsely of being foreign spies, while missing the fact that his good friend in British intelligence, Kim Philby, was a Soviet double-agent. But Allen Dulles was ever Angleton’s protector.
For almost two years after JFK had fired him, Allen Dulles was still holding meetings with government officials and influencing US policy, essentially creating a secret government that prioritized a corporate agenda over the rule of democracy in the US — including plotting the assassination of Kennedy, who they saw as a barrier to that agenda.
Talbot said Allen Dulles spent the entire weekend of Kennedy’s murder at the CIA training Camp Peary, Virginia (aka The Farm or at Mitch Werbell’s 60 acre weapons development laboratory in Georgia. (Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents,
by Jim Hougan, p. 29)
He used it when he was director of the CIA as a kind of an alternate command post. The CIA refused to publicly release travel documents of CIA officials who have been identified for having a possible role in Kennedy’s death. Talbot claims that Dulles had multiple meetings with government officials also investigated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a Congressional effort begun in 1976 to examine lingering questions about the killings of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A good example of Allen Dulles’ lack of character was that he ignored or downplayed the reports he was receiving from escapees and journalists regarding the burning of Jews and Poles in concentration camps. Dulles had been receiving similar reports for more than two years and had done nothing about it. (The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot)
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