FTR#‘s 1360 & 1361: Byrds of A Feather, Parts 1 and 2

Intro­duc­tion: We begin with read­ing and analy­sis of an arti­cle by Jere­my Kuz­marov about David H. Byrd and his pur­chase of stock in LTV on the run-up to the Viet­nam War (that stock appre­ci­at­ed enor­mous­ly due to the Viet­nam War).

Byrd was also the founder of the Civ­il Air Patrol. A unit of the CAP was also the first asso­ci­a­tion between David Fer­rie and Lee Har­vey Oswald, as well as Iran-Con­tra drug smug­gler Bar­ry Seal, who may have been fly­ing a get­away plane from Dal­las on 11/22/1963.

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis include:

“. . . .Byrd’s right-wing sen­si­bil­i­ties were evi­dent when he trav­eled to Nazi Ger­many sev­er­al years before World War II and had a brief meet­ing with Hitler. When Byrd returned to the U.S. after that encounter, he spoke pos­i­tive­ly of Hitler’s ‘sin­cer­i­ty’ and ‘basi­cal­ly sound poli­cies.’. . .”
“. . . .Byrd sub­se­quent­ly devel­oped a close friend­ship with one of Hein­rich Himmler’s for­mer assas­sins, Wern­er von Alvensleben, a dou­ble agent in World War II who owned and oper­at­ed the big game hunt­ing com­pa­ny that Byrd alleged­ly trav­eled to Mozam­bique with at the time of the JFK assas­si­na­tion. . . .”
” . . . . Byrd was also friends with Ernest Udet, the #2 man at the Ger­man Nazi Luft­waffe appoint­ed by Her­man Goer­ing. Udet was in charge of research and devel­op­ment for the Luft­waffe dive-bomber [the JU87 or ‘Stu­ka,’ a favorite air­craft of Hans Ulrich Rudel–D.E.]. . . .”
Gen­er­aloberst Ernst Udet
Pho­to Cred­it: Wikipedia

Not includ­ed in the orig­i­nal broad­cast, we present excerpts of Luft­waffe Gen­er­al Ude­t’s Wikipedia entry. As out­landish as it might ini­tial­ly appear, the curi­ous deaths of high-rank­ing Luft­waffe offi­cers who were on their way to attend Ude­t’s funer­al fol­low­ing his Novem­ber, 1941 sui­cide should be viewed with sus­pi­cion. Was the “sui­cide” used to mask Ude­t’s pos­si­ble defection/collaboration with the West?

Note that Udet was accus­tomed to hunt­ing in East Africa, as were D.H. Byrd and the younger Wern­er von Alvensleben.

Note also Albensleben’s asso­ci­a­tion with Nazi cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Len Riefen­stahl and his pilot­ing of a Cur­tis air­craft. In AFA#1, we not­ed how the Navy tech­nique of dive bomb­ing was betrayed to the Axis through demon­stra­tions using such air­craft.

” . . . . Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 Novem­ber 1941) was a Ger­man pilot dur­ing World War I and a Luft­waffe Colonel-Gen­er­al (Gen­er­aloberst) dur­ing World War II. . . .”
” . . . . Udet and anoth­er wartime comrade—Suchocky—became pilots to an African film­ing expe­di­tion. The cam­era­man was anoth­er vet­er­an, Schnee­berg­er, whom Udet called ‘Flea,’ and the guide was Sieden­topf, a for­mer East African estate own­er. . . . Udet engaged in hunt­ing while in Africa. . . .”
” . . . . He appeared with Leni Riefen­stahl in three films: The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (1930), and S.O.S. Eis­berg (1933). . . .”
” . . . . In the Berlin 1936 Sum­mer Olympics Udet entered the arts com­pe­ti­tion lit­er­a­ture cat­e­go­ry with his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Mein Fliegerleben (My Fly­ing Life) (pub­lished 1935). . . .”
” . . . . Udet joined the Nazi par­ty in 1933 when Her­mann Göring promised to buy him two new U.S.-built Cur­tiss Hawk II biplanes (export des­ig­na­tion of the F11C‑2 Goshawk Hell­div­er). The planes were used for eval­u­a­tion pur­pos­es and thus indi­rect­ly influ­enced the Ger­man idea of dive bomb­ing aero­planes, such as the Junkers Ju 87 (Stu­ka) dive bombers. They were also used for aer­o­bat­ic shows held dur­ing the 1936 Sum­mer Olympics. . . .”
” . . . . Udet became a major pro­po­nent of the dive bomber, tak­ing cred­it for hav­ing intro­duced it to the Luft­waffe. On 9 June 1936 he had, through his polit­i­cal con­nec­tions, been named Chief of the Tech­ni­cal Office, T‑Amt, (the devel­op­ment wing of the Reich Min­istry of Avi­a­tion). . . .”
” . . . . On 17 Novem­ber 1941, Udet shot him­self in the head. . . . On their way to attend Ude­t’s funer­al, the World War II fight­er ace Wern­er Mölders died in a plane crash in Bres­lau, and the high Luft­waffe exec­u­tive Gen­er­al der Flieger Hel­muth Wilberg died in anoth­er plane crash near Dres­den. . . .”

Next, we present a mas­ter­ful analy­sis by the bril­liant Russ Bak­er decon­struct­ing D.H. (“Dry Hole”) Byrd’s cov­er sto­ry of being on Safari in Mozam­bique at the time of the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

We then excerpt a very impor­tant analy­sis by Dan Alcorn, link­ing David H. Byrd with a milieu involv­ing a for­mer assas­sin for the S.S. and David H. Byrd. Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion include:

” . . . . The sec­ond [FOIA] request  is  Wern­er  von  Alvensleben,  who  had  been  an intel­li­gence asset – a dou­ble agent  for the  U.S.  OSS  in  World  War  II, and  who  was  asso­ci­at­ing  with  David  Harold  Byrd,  the  own­er  of  the  Book  Depos­i­to­ry  build­ing  around  the  time  of  the  assas­si­na­tion. . . .”
” . . . . We have  not  been  able  to  get  access  to  the  oper­a­tional  files  of  the  CIA;  they’ve  refused  to  give  us  access  to  any  of  the  oper­a­tional  files  about  these  three  sub­jects  of  the  inves­ti­ga­tion.  This  is  impor­tant  to  us  because  we  have  sourc­ing  from  the  Dal­las  Morn­ing  News  that  Wern­er  von  Alvensleben  was  in  Dal­las  in  late  1963  as  the  guest  of  David  Harold  Byrd. And  this  is  impor­tant  as  we  get  into  the  back­ground  of  Wern­er  von  Alvensleben  because  at  one  time,  ear­li­er  in  his  career  in  1933,  he  had  been  an  assas­sin  for  Hein­rich  Himm­ler,  the  Nazi  leader  in  Hitler’s  Ger­many,  and  that  makes  it  rel­e­vant  to  explor­ing  what  was  going  on  in  1963. . . .”
” . . . . Among oth­er  peo­ple,  our  research  has  found–  were  known  to  David  Harold  Byrd,  was  an  Ernst  Udet.  U ‑D ‑E ‑T, and he  was  the  num­ber  two  in  the  Luft­waffe  to  Her­mann  Göring  in  Nazi  Ger­many.  Byrd  describes  Udet  as  a  close  friend  in  Byrd’s  auto­bi­og­ra­phy,  and  Udet  was  in  charge  of research  and  devel­op­ment  for  the  Luft­waffe,  which  is  the  theme  that  seems  to  run  through  some  of  these  con­nec­tions:  the  for­ward ‑look­ing  research  and  devel­op­ment  process  for  avi­a­tion  and  aero­space.  Avi­a­tion  was  the  basis  for  the  rela­tion­ship  between  Byrd  and  Ernst  Udet  of  the  Luft­waffe. . . .”
” . . . . In  research­ing  Wern­er  von  Alvensleben  and  his  big  game  hunt­ing  oper­a­tion,  I  came  across  the  infor­ma­tion  that  von  Alvensleben ‘s  favorite  rifle  was  the  Mannlich­er-Schoe­nauer  rifle. Of  course,  I  was  famil­iar  with  the  Mannlich­er ‑Car­cano  because  that’s  the  rifle  said  to  have    been  used  to  kill  Pres­i­dent  Kennedy.  I  wasn’t  aware  of  the  Mannlich­er-Schonauer.  I  did  some  research  and  it  turns  out  that  the  Mannlich­er-Schonauer  was  the  finest  hunt­ing  rifle  of  that  era,  it  was  an  Aus­tri­an  rifle. . . .”
” . . . . It  was  said  on  numer­ous  sites  devot­ed  to  guns  and  ammu­ni­tion.  that  the  Mannlich­er-Schonauer  and  the  Mannlich­er-Car­cano  rifles  used  essen­tial­ly  iden­ti­cal  ammu­ni­tion. Very  dif­fi­cult  to  tell  the  two  car­tridges  apart.  There  are  sources  among  the  blogs  that  say  the  ammu­ni­tion, some  ammu­ni­tion  was  man­u­fac­tured  with  the  pur­pose  of  being  used  inter­change­ably  between  the  two  rifles.  Well, this  rifle  was  the  favorite  rifle  of  Wern­er  von  Alvensleben,  the  big  game  hunter.  It  was  also  favored  by  oth­er  big  game  hunters  of  the  time because  of  its  abil­i­ty  to  stop  large  ani­mals;  that  was  what  it  was  par­tic­u­lar­ly  effec­tive  for.  In  research­ing  the  Mannlich­er-Schoe­nauer  rifle  I  came  across  tes­ti­mo­ny  to  the  War­ren  Com­mis­sion; it came  up  before  the  War­ren  Com­mis­sion in the fol­low­ing way: War­ren  Com­mis­sion­er  John  McCloy  was  at  a  ses­sion  in  which  the  FBI  bal­lis­tics  expert, Robert  Fra­zier,  tes­ti­fied.  John  McCloy  inter­rupt­ed  the  ques­tion­ing  to  ask  his  own  ques­tion,  which  was  whether  the  three  hulls (car­tridges)  that  were  found  on  the  sixth  floor  of  the  Book  Depos­i­to­ry  build­ing  could  have  been  fired  by  a  Mannlich­er-Schonauer  rifle  rather  than  a  Mannlich­er-Car­cano  rifle.  . . .” 

The pro­gram con­cludes with an excerpt from Joseph McBride’s book Into the Night­mare: My Search for the Killers of John F. Kennedy and Offi­cer J.D. Tip­pit con­cern­ing the role of tele­vi­sion in cog­ni­tive­ly and polit­i­cal­ly shap­ing the pub­lic’s view of the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

R.I.P. Daniel Hopsicker

Over many years, it was Mr. Emory’s priv­i­lege and hon­or to have inter­viewed Daniel Hop­sick­er fre­quent­ly and at length. In the wake of his pass­ing from can­cer on 8/22/2023 at the age of 72, we mourn the loss of this pro­fes­sion­al, and yet can be very glad for his hav­ing shared his work with us. Dr. Jef­frey Sachs “pret­ty con­vinced” Covid came from a U.S. Bio-Lab. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE. Mr. Emory emphat­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash dri­ve con­tain­ing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fas­cist books on easy-to-down­load PDF files.

Tricky Treats: Is This Mitch McConnell’s Idea of “Affordable Health Care”?

The off-year elec­tions approach, with the GOP pro­ject­ed to take con­trol of the Sen­ate, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader-to-be Mitch McConnel­l’s fam­i­ly is in the news for the wrong rea­sons. (Most of McConnel­l’s for­tune appar­ent­ly comes from his in-laws.) His father-in-law (James Chao) has pros­pered because of his found­ing and pro­pri­etor­ship of a ship­ping line, The Fore­most Group. That com­pa­ny has an opaque struc­ture, with many of its ships reg­is­tered in coun­tries that make com­pli­ance with mar­itime reg­u­la­tions eas­i­er to skirt. Now, one of Fore­most’s ships (the Ping May) has been bust­ed sail­ing from Colom­bia for Ams­ter­dam with 40 kilo­grams of cocaine aboard. How much of Fore­most’s largesse (and, by exten­sion, the McConnell clan’s wealth) is derived from shady enter­pris­es? All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 10/2/2014–Dave Emory’s 35+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve.

Falling to Earth: September 11th Flight School Operator Rudi Dekkers Arrested for Drug Trafficking

Long able to escape legal ret­ri­bu­tion for his actions, Huff­man Avi­a­tion oper­a­tor Rudi Dekkers appears to have run out of luck. The Dutch/German pilot who ran the flight school through which 9/11 hijack­er Mohammed Atta and his Ger­man and Aus­tri­an asso­ciates infil­trat­ed the Unit­ed States has been arrest­ed in Hous­ton for drug traf­fick­ing. It remains to be seen what comes of this inves­ti­ga­tion, but the impli­ca­tions are poten­tial­ly stag­ger­ing.

The Iran-Contra Scandal, the Killing of Judge Vance and the Don Siegelman Case

The vic­tim of a GOP polit­i­cal frame-up cour­tesy of Karl Rove and com­pa­ny, for­mer Alaba­ma gov­er­nor Don Siegel­man’s legal trou­bles actu­al­ly had their gen­e­sis with the cov­er-up of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and the Chris­tic Insti­tute’s suit against some of the con­spir­a­tors. Accord­ing to Way Mad­sen Report and the Leg­tal Schnau­zer blog, Siegel­man began inves­ti­gat­ing some of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s drug and arms smug­gling air­lines in the ear­ly 1980’s while serv­ing as Alaba­ma Attor­ney Gen­er­al. A cur­rent fed­er­al fed­er­al judge, Mark Fuller, was alleged­ly hired to keep the lid on the oper­a­tion.
Cen­tral to this analy­sis is the mail-bomb assas­si­na­tion of Judge Robert Vance, Siegel­man’s for­mer law part­ner.

No Surprise Here, Either: DEA Laundering Profits from Mexican Cartels

Some ele­ments of DEA long known to be com­plic­it in drug traf­fick­ing. Is this laun­der­ing REALLY to help fight the drug traf­fic?

FTR #684 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker: Business as Usual in South Florida

9/11 hijack­ers were part of a vast inter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal net­work; Ger­mans, East­ern Euro­peans at the hub of that net­work; drug-traf­fick­ing, mas­sive fraud schemes are their stock in trade.

FTR #577 Truth and Consequences—Interview with Ed Haslam and Daniel Hopsicker

Evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries stretch from Jim Gar­rison’s New Orleans inves­ti­ga­tion of JFK’s assas­si­na­tion to an epi­dem­ic of soft tis­sue can­cer, AIDS, and the 9/11 attacks.

FTR #554 Conversation with Daniel Hopsicker

Doc­u­ment­ing the career of Makram Chams.

FTR #542 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker – Catching up with the Boys in Florida

In Venice, Flori­da, Mohamed Atta & com­pa­ny were immersed in an inter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal milieu involv­ing orga­nized crime, ele­ments of the CIA and Ger­mans, Swiss and Austrians–the lat­ter almost cer­tain­ly belong­ing to the Bor­mann group.