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This broadcast continues our visits with Jim DiEugenio–author of Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his latest documentary.
We highlight: Jefferson Morley’s observation that recent release of documents by Biden is inadequate—many documents remain classified, including many important ones; The discussion of Admiral Burkley’s aide James Young and his aides Mills and Martinell’s retrieval of material from the limousine; Ruby’s numerous Mob connections, and RFK’s role going after Mafia; The deep politics of Mob involvement in the assassination of JFK, as well as the killing of RFK; The Alliance for Progress: What JFK intended with the policy and LBJ’s steering of the program in a diametrically opposite direction; analysis of JFK’s attempts at establishing a more balanced policy toward the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Topics covered include; JFK’s diplomatic overture to Nasser, to which the Egyptian president was receptive; Kennedy’s discussions with Israel seeking to gain assurance that the Dimona nuclear reactor was for peaceful purposes only.
Continuing our series of interviews about JFK Revisited, we visit with both Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot, the author of Brothers and The Devil’s Chessboard. (We have highlighted information from the latter in FTR#‘s 894, 1162.)
Note that David Talbot is a major contributor to the commentary in JFK Revisited.
The broadcast highlights the many topics of discussion that David Talbot contributes during the program. We also highlight David’s problems getting The Devil’s Chessboard reviewed.
Of note, as well, is David’s discussion of a document that he and Lisa Pease discovered: On the weekend of JFK’s assassination, Allen Dulles had decamped to Camp Peary aka “The Farm”–a major CIA training facility. The document later disappeared.
Our ongoing series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for the documentary JFK Revisited and to write and edit the book derived from the film—presents an extremely enriching guest, John Newman.
Discussion concludes with what Senator Richard Schweiker noted: that there were “the fingerprints of Intelligence all around Oswald.” An important consideration bracketing this discussion concerns the CIA’s counterintelligence search/obsession for a KGB mole within the Agency. John has written, and is writing, about that subject. Oswald’s “defection” to the USSR overlapped that dynamic.
Author of among other titles JFK and Vietnam and Oswald and the CIA, John was deeply involved with Stone’s 1991 opus JFK.
The interviews begin with review of topics previously discussed in this FTR series, including: President Eisenhower’s order to kill Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, reaching a crescendo with Ike’s outburst at a national security meeting demanding aloud Lumumba’s termination; Presidents Trump’s and Biden’s balking at the mandated release of documents pursuant to the ARRB’s mandate; discussion of Operation Northwoods, Lyman Lemnitzer’s and Maxwell Taylor’s planned series of provocations designed to provoke a U.S. invasion of Cuba.
Next, we review JFK’s Vietnam policy (this, too, has been covered in past talks, however we present added depth drawing on John’s expertise and published book JFK and Vietnam.)
We then highlight General Curtis LeMay’s attitude toward and behavior with regard to JFK.
Of particular note is John Newman’s disclosure that no recordings of the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have survived intact!
This broadcast continues our visits with Jim DiEugenio–author of Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his latest documentary.
In these broadcasts, we are additionally privileged by the participation of Paul Bleau, a veteran JFK assassination researcher who is prominently featured in JFK Revisited.
The recent inquiries into the 1/6/2021 insurrection have yielded some journalistic coverage (Washington Post) of Secret Service destruction of records of 1963 threats to JFK from “white supremacist” groups. We begin by presenting Paul’s analysis of the Chicago plot against JFK’s life; with apparent shooters positioned in a high-rise building to eliminate JFK as he traveled in a motorcade.
Next, Paul analyzes the plot against JFK’s life in Tampa.
Following discussion of the previous plots against JFK in 1963, we turn to Oswald’s presence in New Orleans and the cast of characters revolving around Guy Banister’s “detective agency.”
In a previous program, we noted that the term “Conspiracy Theorist” was greatly elevated in its use and intellectual profile by stressing the utility of the moniker in discrediting Warren Commission critics.
Instead of “conspiracy,” the term “networking” is both accurate and resonates positively with the relationships that characterize the JFK assassination landscape.
Among Paul Bleau’s numerous articles available on kennedysandking.com is one about Oswald’s escorts. We delve into some aspects of the networking involving Oswald and the Camp Street milieu in New Orleans.
These programs continue our series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about the Oliver Stone documentary JFK Revisited, for which Jim wrote the screenplay.
Yet another area in which JFK’s policy outlook ran afoul of the prevailing wisdom of the Cold War was with regard to the Congo. A Belgian colony which was the victim of genocidal policies of King Leopold (estimates of the dead run as high as 8 million), the diamond and mineral-rich Congo gained a fragile independence.
In Africa, as well, Kennedy understood the struggle of emerging nations seeking freedom from colonial domination as falling outside of and transcending stereotyped Cold War dynamics.
In the Congo, the brutally administered Belgian rule had spawned a vigorous independence movement crystallized around the charismatic Patrice Lumumba. Understanding of, and sympathetic to Lumumba and the ideology and political forces embodied in him, Kennedy opposed the reactionary status quo favored by both European allies like the United Kingdom and Belgium, as well as the Eisenhower/Dulles axis in the United States.
In 1961, there was another assassination that overlapped events leading up to JFK’s killing. U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was on the same page as JFK with regard to Congolese independence from Belgium, negation of the Belgian-sponsored attempt at getting mineral-rich Katanga province to secede and was of the same mind as JFK with regard to assuring Patrice Lumumba’s survival.
Hammarskjold’s 1961 death in a plane crash was not the accident it was represented as being:
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; Introduction Copyright 2022 by Oliver Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 105.
. . . . The photos of Hammarskjold show his body as the only one not burned or charred. And he had a playing card, reportedly the ace of spades, stuffed into his shirt collar above the know in the tie. Now, due to Susan Williams’ book and new evidence offered by Desmond Tutu and the Union of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there are controversial document that indicate Allen Dulles was involved in the sabotage of the plane. The project was called Operation Celeste and was to be carried out through a secret white supremacist group called SAMIR.
Kennedy’s old mentor Edmund Gullion advised JFK that Hammarskjold’s death was not the accident it was represented as being.
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; Introduction Copyright 2022 by Oliver Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; pp. 402–403.
. . . . Suspicions were everywhere that there had been foul play. The first person on the scene was the US air attache. And there were bullets that he said were in the victims including Hammarskjold. And a close friend of President Kennedy, Edmund Gullion, sent a cable home saying: Contrary to the official explanation for this tragic incident, this was an assassination . . . .
In the Congo, LBJ reversed JFK’s policy stance, and the corporate looting of the Congo resulted under General Joseph Mobutu, himself a beneficiary of the piracy.
LBJ also reversed JFK’s policy toward Indonesia.
In 1955, Sukarno hosted a conference of non-aligned nations that formalized and concretized a “Third Way” between East and West. This, along with Sukarno’s nationalism of some Dutch industrial properties, led the U.S. to try and overthrow Sukharno, which was attempted in 1958.
Kennedy understood Sukarno’s point of view, and had planned a trip to Indonesia in 1964 to forge a more constructive relationship with Sukharno. Obviously, his murder in 1963 precluded the trip.
In 1965, Sukarno was deposed in a bloody, CIA-aided coup in which as many as a million people were killed.
Of particular interest in connection with Indonesia, is the disposition of Freeport Sulphur, a company that had enlisted the services of both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie in an effort to circumvent limitations on its operations imposed by Castro’s Cuba.
It should be noted that Freeport had set its corporate sights on a very lucrative pair of mountains in Indonesia, both of which had enormous deposits of minerals, iron, copper, silver and gold in particular.
Cuba was an area of major conflict between JFK and the Powers That Be.
When JFK gave a green light to the attempted overthrow of Castro via the Bay of Pigs invasion, he had understood that the plan itself was destined to work.
In fact, Allen Dulles knew the plan as formulated would fail, and expected Kennedy to authorize the military to step in and neutralize Castro.
Realizing that he had been lied to, JFK dismissed Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and General C.P. Cabell.
He also spoke of shattering the CIA into a thousand pieces. It is grimly, morbidly ironic that it was Kennedy’s head that was shattered, and that he was “decapitated.”
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK rebuffed the pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to invade Cuba, thereby avoiding the confrontation with Soviet tactical nuclear weapons that had been provided to Castro, unbeknownst to the U.S.
Opting for a blockade, Kennedy also established a quid-pro-quo with Nikita Khrushchev, agreeing to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey.
This was followed by a number of back-door diplomatic attempts at normalizing relations with Cuba.
At the moment that Castro heard JFK had been killed, he was meeting with French journalist Jean Daniel, who had functioned as one of those back-door diplomatic channels to Castro.
After discussion of the “dual front” 531 Lafayette Place/544 Camp Street in New Orleans run by “private investigator” Guy Banister, we review the alleged “leftist” Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement with that organization and his apparently contrived altercation with Carlos Bringuier, the anti-Castro Cuban and member of the DRE, part of the CIA-sponsored fronts operating against Castro.
As we have seen in past programs, George Joannides directed the DRE for CIA during Bringuier’s tenure with the organization. Researcher Jefferson Morley filed a FOIA suit against CIA to precipitate more disclosure about Joannides, who had been the Agency’s liaison with the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Appellate Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh cast a deciding vote negating Morley’s appeal.
Discussion concludes with analysis of how two visual events keyed major events in the investigation of JFK’s assassination: a 1975 TV program, on which Geraldo Rivera–featuring comedian Dick Gregory and Robert Groden–aired the Zapruder film. The uproar following that led to the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassination.
The “crawl” at the end of Oliver Stone’s JFK, informing the audience that the HSCA had classified key documents until 2029, generating further outrage and leading to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board.
Beginning with discussion of the genesis of JFK Revisited, we highlight a 2013 conference in Pittsburgh, PA, at which Jim DiEugenio delivered a power point presentation about President Kennedy’s foreign policy program and the decisions that resulted from that.
Because the address drew a standing ovation from the audience, one of the attendees brought the material in the presentation to the attention of Oliver Stone, which, in turn, led to the launching of this documentary project.
Citing the routine rhetorical dismissal of the realities of the JFK assassination as a coup d’etat, journalists and politicians routinely employ the rhetorical device “Conspiracy Theory.” Meaning, in effect, a “deranged, lone nut,” the term has its applied origins in an internal CIA discussion about how to counteract Warren Commission critics!
We discuss the MSM’s conflation of the Q‑Anon types with researchers such as Mr. DiEugenio and Mr. Emory.
Immediately following the release of the documentary (along with the DVD’s of the material and the book JFK Revisited), author Tim Weiner penned a piece for Rolling Stone magazine in which he represented the arguments presented in the film (and in the accompanying book, by extension) as stemming from Soviet disinformation.
We note that this type of misrepresentation is in line with the widely distributed propaganda assertion scapegoating Russia and Vladimir Putin for this country’s problems and those of the world in general.
Suffice it to say that none of the material in the documentary is Soviet/Russian.
By way of demonstrating the nonsensical nature of the contention that “Soviet/Russian propaganda” underlies the arguments presented by Stone/DiEugenio, we review a key element from Jim’s magnum opus Destiny Betrayed.
When Richard Helms, head of the CIA at that time, convened a group to discuss Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw, Ray Rocca, the top aide to Agency Counter-intelligence chief James Angleton, opined that Garrison would obtain a conviction of Shaw. Rocca was the acknowledged expert at CIA on Garrison/JFK assassination.
Not even Tim Weiner could dismiss the CIA’s number two counterintelligence official as “a Soviet agent/propagandist.”
Attempts at portraying the JFK assassination as a Soviet conspiracy continue to this day with former CIA chief James Woolsey having authored the recently-released Operation Dragon, which uses the allegations of a former Romanian intelligence agent to pin responsibility for the assassination on the U.S.S.R.
Attempts to attribute the JFK assassination on the Soviet Union and/or Fidel Castro’s Cuba are not new.
The war in Ukraine is a direct echo of an aspect of attempting to “paint Oswald Red.”
The Nazis and fascists in control of the reins of national security power in Ukraine are directly descended from the OUN/B of Stephan Bandera, whose forces collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II.
This political and historical dynamic is set forth in a number of programs, including FTR#876.
After Oswald’s return to the U.S., he was met by Spas T. Raikin, Secretary General of the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. This despite the fact that Oswald had proposed giving military secrets to the Soviet Union.
After the death of Bandera, the OUN/B was headed by Yaroslav Stetzko, the head of the WWII Nazi collaborationist government, which implemented Hitler’s ethnic cleansing programs. The OUN/B dominated the ABN, which was originally named the Committee of Subjugated Nations, when it was formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943.
Echoes of the Bandera organization and the ABN are present in the destabilization of China, as well.
LBJ successfully used the fears of a Third World War that might stem from the perception that the USSR and/or Cuba was behind the assassination in order to persuade Earl Warren, among others, that they should serve on the commission. We discussed “the painting of Oswald Red” in numerous programs, including FTR#‘s 925, 926.
For much of this year, the nation’s attention has been focused on the January 6 Hearings. Noteworthy is the fact that the nation’s lawful government was overthrown on 11/22/1963.
When Biden intones that “our democracy is under fire,” he is “a day late and a dollar short.”
“Our democracy” was, literally, under fire on that Friday in Dallas, and democracy has been a mere façade in the time since.
Members of Congress have sounded grave warnings about the Secret Service and apparently “lost” communications concerning the assaults of 1/06/2021.
As these talks progress, we will highlight the Secret Service and their performance vis a vis the assassination of JFK. Congress, too, is “a day late and a dollar short.”
As will be detailed later in this series, both Presidents Trump and Biden delayed release of the ARRB records at the designated junctures.
Another interesting “Team Trump” link to the assassination investigation concerns Jefferson Morley’s FOIA suit to learn more about George Joannides, who managed the Carlos Bringuier-linked DRE for the CIA.
Morley’s appeal was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh casting the deciding voter, just before decamping for his hearings on his qualifications for the Supreme Court.
One of JFK’s stances that put him greatly at odds concerning national security and foreign policy was his view toward, and actions in conjunction with, the former Soviet Union.
In that regard, we note: Kennedy’s authorization of the atmospheric test ban treaty, the first substantive arms limitation agreement with the former Soviet Union—bitterly opposed by key members of the national security establishment; JFK’s refusal to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which, combined with his refusal to utilize the military to assist the Bay of Pigs invasion, cemented the view among key national security players that he was a traitor/Communist; Kennedy’s June 1963 speech at American University, in which he recognized the USSR’s enormous contribution toward the defeat of Nazi Germany and called for a new relationship with the USSR; JFK’s proposal that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. undertake joint space exploration.
Bridging discussion that will be continued in our next programs, we note a key quote from the book and documentary by Lisa Pease, noting that JFK stood apart from the Eisenhower/Dulles view that non-alignment among the former colonial territories that achieved independence was the equivalent of pro-Communist orientation.
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 352.
. . . . Lisa Pease: His [JFK’s] approach was a radical break from his predecessor. In an oral history interview that Sukarno gave after John Kennedy’s death, he said words to the effect that what made Kennedy special is that he believed non-alignment was not amoral as it had been under John Foster Dulles. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. . . .
In the conclusion to FTR #1068, we ruminated about the possibility of a post-World War II “Boseian” or “Boseist” underground in India. We also speculated about the possibility of a Serpent’s Walk scenario, in which revisionist historical claims about Subhas Chandra Bose being the real liberator of India–not Mahatma Gandhi, would be a point of entry for the re-branding of fascism as “anti-imperialist” or “anti-colonialist.” (An article in the periodical of the Liberty Lobby’s Holocaust revisionist Institute of Historical Review makes that claim.)
In Serpent’s Walk, the Nazi SS go underground, buy into the opinion-forming media and, after a series of terrorist incidents involving WMD’s devastate the U.S., martial law is declared and the SS descendants take over. The Third Reich and the Axis go down in history as the “good guys.”
In this program, we highlight the ongoing, operational legacy of Subhas Chandra Bose, its links to contemporary India and Germany, its presence in the German commercial landscape dominated by the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, and the networking between this Boseian underground and Japanese elements.
Key aspects of this milieu include:
1.–Narendra Modi’s networking with Surya Kumar Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew, promising to declassify files on Bose.
2.–Surya Bose’s presidency of the Indo-German association. ” . . . . Surya, who has a software consultancy business in Hamburg and is president of the Indo-German Association . . . .”
3.–The genesis of the Indo-German association in Germany during World War II: ” . . . . ‘The DIG was set up on September 11, 1942, by Subhash Chandra Bose at Hotel Atlanta in Hamburg.’ . . . . Bose recounts, adding that the DIG today is the largest bilateral organisation in Germany, with 27 branches. As a consultant he often guides Germans keen on working in the booming Indian IT sector. He is also a founder-member of the German-Indian Round Table, an informal gathering that seeks to further mutual business interests. . . .”
4.–Surya Kuma Bose’s networking with Alexander Werth, the German translator for Subhas Chandra Bose’s German forces, which were folded into the Waffen SS at the end of World War II. ” . . . . Back in the day, Netaji’s stay in Germany had proved instrumental in shaping his struggle. Decades later, that legacy would play a pivotal role in shaping his grandnephew’s career. Bose came to Germany on the advice of Alexander Werth, Netaji’s German interpreter in the Indian Legion. . . .”
5.–The collaboration of Surya Kumar Bose, Alexander Werth and World War II associates of Subhas Chandra Bose in both Germany and Japan in the compilation of a biography that fundamentally revises the history of “the Netaji.” ” . . . . Its six parts deal with his experiences in India, Germany and Japan and have been co-authored by people who either worked with, or were close associates of, his during his stay in their respective countries. The aim of the biography is to place Subhas Chandra Bose in a correct historical perspective with regard to his much publicized revolutionary activities, and to provide an understanding of an extremely complex man, much maligned by Britain and greatly misunderstood by her allies. . . .”
6.–The Nehru government’s surveillance of Aniya Nath Bose–very close to Subhas Chandra Bose–while Aniya was in Japan, an epicenter of the Subhas Chandra’s World War II operations. ” . . . . Documents accessed by author Anuj Dhar for his book ‘India’s Biggest Cover-up’ show that Nehru, in a letter dated November 26, 1957 to the then foreign secretary Subimal Dutt sought to know what Bose’s nephew Amiya Nath Bose was doing in Tokyo. . . . Amiya Bose, son of Subhas’s brother Sarat Chandra Bose, was known to be close to Netaji. . . .”
7.–An article in the Holocaust revisionist periodical of the Institute for Historical review that attributes the liberation of India to–you guessed it–Subhas Chandra Bose, not Gandhi: ” . . . . When the new version of the history of the Twentieth Century India, and especially the episode of the country’s unique struggle for independence comes to be written, it will no doubt single out but one person who made the most significant and outstanding contribution among all his compatriots toward the emancipation of his motherland from the shackles of an alien bondage. During World War II this man strode across two continents like a colossus, and the footsteps of his army of liberation reverberated through the forests and plains of Europe and the jungles and mountains of Asia. His armed assaults shook the very foundations of the British Empire. His name was Subhas Chandra Bose. . . .”
As discussed in the first eight programs of this series, Saikat Chakrabarti is the power behind throne, so to speak, for AOC. Both of the political action committees he founded are fundamental to the political ascent of AOC. Those PAC’s–Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress–contributed $900,000.00 on AOC’s behalf to a political consulting firm also headed by Chakrabarti. Chakrabarti is AOC’s chief of staff and was her campaign manager. Saikat Chakrabarti idolizes Subhas Chandra Bose!
Fundamental to an understanding of the criticism Mr. Emory has expressed of the Bernie Sanders and AOC phenomena is the strategic use of anti-Communism by the Underground Reich and related elements.
In the early 1960’s, there was a plot afoot on the part of Nazi elements to use anti-Communism to enslave America. Might some of the elements we have seen in this series have coalesced in such a context? One cannot use anti-Communism to enslave America without Communists. Is this why we see far-right and explicitly fascist elements grouped around Bernie Sanders and AOC?
General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy by Jeffrey H. Caufield, M.D.; Moreland Press [HC]; Copyright 2015 Jeffrey H. Caufield; ISBN-13: 978–0‑9915637–0‑8; pp. 86–87.
. . . . Garrison did not provide an explanation for all of the [David Ferrie] note’s subject matter. However, he did know the meaning of “flying Baragona in the Beech.” “Beech” refers to the model of Ferrie’s airplane, a Beechcraft. Baragona was a Nazi from Fort Sill. . . .
. . . . Garrison also obtained a transcript of a letter written by Ferrie to Baragona. Next to Baragona’s name, Garrison wrote: “Note Baragona is important.” The letter had been sent to Garrison by Glenn Pinchback, and a carbon copy was sent to Mendel Rivers, a congressman from Georgia. (Pinchback worked in the Operations Command at Fort Sill, where he intercepted mail.) In the letter, Ferrie shared his dream of the re-unification of Germany and living in a world where all the currency was in Deutschmarks. Pinchback’s summation of the letter described a “Neo-Nazi plot to enslave America in the name of anti-Communism,” and “a neo-Nazi plot gargantuan in scope.” The Ferrie letter spoke of the need to kill all the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . Pinchback also reportedly obtained a letter from David Ferrie to Baragona confessing his role in the assassination of Robert Gehrig, who was a Nazi and Fort Sill soldier. . . .”
The true character of Saikat Chakrabarti’s apparent idol Subhas Chandra Bose’s politics is to be found in his 1935 networking with Mussolini: “. . . . Netaji Bose, by his own admission in his book, ‘Indian Struggle’ (published in 1935 in London), believed India needed a political system that was a mix of fascism and communism — something that he called samyavad. Netaji made a special trip to Rome in 1935 to present a copy of his book to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whom he greatly admired and whose ideals he would follow for the rest of his life. . . .”
Subhas Chandra Bose’s politics were the antithesis of what we would expect from the AOC camp: “. . . . In a speech the same year in Singapore, Bose spoke about India needing a ruthless dictator for 20 years after liberation. Then Singapore daily, Sunday Express (now defunct), printed his speech where he said, ‘So long as there is a third party, ie the British, these dissensions will not end. These will go on growing. They will disappear only when an iron dictator rules over India for 20 years. For a few years at least, after the end of British rule in India, there must be a dictatorship…No other constitution can flourish in this country and it is so to India’s good that she shall be ruled by a dictator, to begin with . . . .”
Program Highlights Include: Review of the Unification Church as an extension of the Japanese Patriotic and Ultranationalist Societies, with which Subhas Chandra Bose networked; discussion of the contrast between Gandhi’s asceticism and Bose’s personal extravagance and self-glorification; summary review of the fascist antecedents of the Hindutva fascism of Narendra Modi, the RSS and the BJP.
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the twenty-second in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
This program continues examination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Eventually, the collaborationist mainstream media began an assault on Richard Sprague and the work of the committee. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post began the assault, which quickly drew blood. . . .
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 333–334.
. . . . The only time he ever had his credentials questioned was during the six months he agreed to swerve as counsel to the HSCA. And that is simply because he was going to supervise a real investigation of the JFK case. Yet, the same thing happened to him as happened to Jim Garrison. In fact, like Garrison, Sprague was also even accused of being in bed with the Mafia. When the first press attacks began. HSCA staffer Chris Sharrett remembers thinking, ‘It’s Garrison all over again.’ Or, as Joe Rauh, who knew Sprague from Philadelphia and had a front row seat to the controversy in Washington said, ‘You know, I never thought the Kennedy case was a conspiracy until now. But if they can do that to Dick Sprague, it must have been.’ With Sprague’s resignation, the House Select Committee survived. The interim Chief Counsel was Tanenbaum with Al Lewis, a friend and colleague of Sprague’s as his deputy. . . .
In the interim, between Sprague’s resignation and the ascension of G. Robert Blakey to the Chief Counsel position, George DeMohrenschildt died of a shotgun wound to the head.
DeMohrenschildt: was part of the family that managed the Nobel Oil Fields for the Czar; was the cousin of Baron Konstantin Maydell, in charge of Abwehr operations in the United States for a time (Abwehr was German military intelligence); was a suspected Nazi spy in World War II; was an associate of George H.W. Bush; was a longtime CIA asset; was a petroleum geologist.
DeMohrenschildt implemented the Oswalds’ introduction to the White Russian milieu in Dallas. Of particular significance for our purpose is the fact that he made contact with the couple at the suggestion of J. Walton Moore, who was the primary CIA officer in the Dallas area!
The White Russians appeared to be working to separate Marina and Lee, and were involved in handling Marina after the assassination.
A long-standing CIA asset, DeMohrenschildt had worked with the agency on numerous projects in Yugoslavia, Haiti and elsewhere. Suspected of having spied on the Aransas Pass Coast Guard Station (in Texas) for the Third Reich, DeMohrenschildt was the cousin of Baron Kontantin Maydell, who oversaw Abwehr operations in the U.S. for a time. (The Abwehr was German military intelligence.)
As discussed in FTR #712, we highlighted DeMohrenschildt’s links to former CIA director George H.W. Bush, for whom CIA headquarters is named. In that same program, we covered Bush’s involvement in the JFK assassination. LIke DeMohrenschildt and many of the White Russians who associated with the Oswalds in the Dallas area, Bush had roots in the petroleum industry.
Noteworthy in the context of Oswald’s presence in Dallas, is that this alleged traitor was employed by Jaggars, Chiles and Stovall, a firm that did classified work for the military, including projects associated with the U‑2 spy plane! That the “traitor” Oswald, who offered to disclose classified information about the U‑2 and U.S. aviation operations to the Soviets could be employed by such a firm is unthinkable, IF we are to take the official version of Oswald at face value.
Ultimately, DeMohrenschildt handed the Oswalds–Lee and Marina–off to the “Quaker liberals” Michael and Ruth Paine.
DeMohrenschildt’s death was ruled a suicide, but the circumstances surrounding his demise are noteworthy.
At the time he died, DeMohrenschildt was networking with a Dutch journalist named Willem Oltmans, who began spreading disinformation after DeMohrenschildt’s demise. DeMohrenschildt was also networking with journalist Edward Epstein, who pressed the “Soviets did it” meme for a time and whose behavior vis a vis DeMohrenschildt is questionable.
Prior to his death, DeMohrenschildt was undergoing psychiatric treatment, apparently including electro-shock therapy, from a Dallas physician named Mendoza. DeMohrenschildt’s widow thinks the treatments may have had something to do with her husband’s death.
The physical evidence in connection with DeMohrenschildt’s death suggests the distinct possibility of foul play.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 337.
. . . . Even though a coroner’s inquest ruled his death as self-inflicted, there are some serious questions about DeMohrenschildt’s demise. First, according to the crime scene report and the autopsy, there was not any exit wound to the rear of the skull. Yet DeMohrenschildt allegedly placed a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It’s true that shotgun shells disperse more quickly than jacketed bullets. But his shot was almost within contact distance. Neither the maid nor the cook heard the shotgun blast, even though both women were right below the room that DeMohrenschildt was in at the time. The police also had problems explaining the blood spatter on the wall. When a blood spurt hits a flat surface, it creates a different pattern than if it hits a surface that is perpendicular to it. In looking at photographs of the spatter pattern, it appears that the bathroom door was closed at the time the shooting took place, because the blood pattern looked continuous. But the police said this was not the case. The bathroom door was open at the time. The testifying officer demeaned the jurors for asking this question and then jumped to a new topic. But it would appear that someone altered the crime scene afterwards. The final oddity about the scene is the position of the weapon after death. It fell trigger side up, parallel to the chair DeMohrenschildt was in, with the barrel resting at his feet and the butt of the rifle away from him and to his left. The police had a problem with this issue and so did the inquest jurors. As author Jerry Rose has noted, this strange positioning of the rifle suggests it was “placed” by someone.
Ms. Tilton was not at home at the time of DeMohrenschildt’s death. But she had left strict instructions for the maid to record her favorite TV programs. The home had an alarm system which caused a quiet bell to ring, anytime an outside door or window was opened. During the hearing, the tape of the program was played. When it was the alarm bell went off and then the gun blast was heard. . . .
Subsequently, writer Jerry Policoff felt that Oltmans was threatening him and that the Dutch journalist was a malefactor.
An initial candidate to replace Richard Sprague was former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, who had been JFK’s Secretary of Labor.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 339.
. . . . Former Justice of the Supreme Court Arthur Goldberg was one candidate who turned down the job. Al Lewis had talked Goldberg into filling the position. But Goldberg had one reservation. He wanted to know if the CIA would cooperate with him. Lewis suggested calling up Stansfield Turner, President Carter’s CIA Director. So Lewis called him and told him Goldberg wanted to talk with him. He put Goldberg on the line and the candidate asked Turner if he could guarantee the Agency would cooperate if he became Chief Counsel. A long silence ensued. It got so long and so quiet that Goldberg turned to Lewis and said, ‘I’m not sure if he’s there anymore.’ Lewis suggested that he say something. So Goldberg asked if he was still on the line and Turner said he was. Goldberg asked him for an answer to his question. Turner said, ‘I though my silence was my answer.’ . . . .
Eventually, the HSCA settled on G. Robert Blakey as Chief Counsel and Richard (Dick) Billings as a key aide. Both had been involved with tarring Jim Garrison with the Mafia brush in a 1967 Life Magazine series.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 276.
. . . . But [David] Chandler’s most serious blast against Garrison and his inquiry was a two-part article written for Life in the fall of 1967. This appeared in the September 1 and September 8 issues of the magazine. The pieces masqueraded as an expose of Mafia influence in large cities in America at the time. But the real target of the piece was not the mob, but Garrison. The idea was to depict him as a corrupt New Orleans DA who had some kind of nebulous ties to the Mafia and Carlos Marcello. There were four principal participants in the pieces: Chandler, Sandy Smith, Dick Billings, and Robert Blakey. Smith was the actual billed writer. And since Smith was a long-time asset of the FBI, it is very likely that the Bureau was the Bureau was the originating force behind the magazine running the piece. . . .
. . . . It was the work of Chandler, a friend of both Clay Shaw and Kerry Thornley, which was the basis of the completely phony concept that Garrison was somehow in bed with the Mafia and his function was to steer attention from their killing of Kennedy. . . .
Blakey:
1.–Effectively eclipsed the New Orleans leads developed by Jim Garrison.
2.–Bought into the Magic Bullet Theory.
3.–Eclipsed evidence about “Oswald’s” sniper’s nest in the Texas School Book Depository.
Most importantly, Blakey gave the intelligence services the right to veto what information would go into the committee’s report.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 350.
” . . . . When Robert Blakey took charge of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he agreed to do something that Richard Sprague would not. In return for access to classified materials, members and employees f the committee signed agreements pledging not to disclose any information they garnered while doing their work. Then, when Blakey, Gary Cornwell, and Dick Billings edited the report and volumes, the agencies they made agreements that [the agencies] were allowed to veto what information was included in the published volumes. This is the reason that the HSCA report on Mexico City–assembled by two law students of Blakey’s from Cornell–was not part of the published volumes in 1979. For when it came time to vet the report for release, Blakey, Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway met with the CIA representatives. The Agency made so many objections, it took four hours to get through the first two paragraphs. The report is over 300 pages long. It was therefore classified until the ARRB was created. And then it had to go through several reviews. But even today, an annex to the report, ‘Was Oswald an Agent of the CIA’ has not been released. This long classified report confirms that, as Garrison wrote in 1968, the Commission version of what happened in Mexico City was deliberately covered in mist. . . .
Near the end of his investigation, Blakey was on the receiving end of some questionable behavior from CIA liaison Regis Blahut:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 340.
. . . . Toward the end, when CIA liaison Regis Blahut was caught mishandling Kennedy’s autopsy photos while they were secured in a safe, the Agency offered Blakey four ways to do an inquiry of what had happened. The main object being to see if Blahut was part of a larger operation to undermine the HSCA. One option was to do the inquiry through the D.C. police, another was through the FBI, and the third was an internal HSCA inquiry. The last was to have the CIA do it. Even though the Agency officers at this meeting strongly encouraged Blakey not to choose them to do the investigation, he still did. The reporting officer, Haviland Smith, made the only conclusion he could from this meeting He wrote that his interpretation of what Blakey wanted was the Agency ‘to go ahead with the investigation of Blahut and that he expects us to come up with a clean bill of health for the CIA.’ Which, of course, they did despite the fact that Blahut flunked three polygraph tests. When the author talked to HSCA staffer Eddie Lopez about this matter, I told him that in reading these memoranda, I was struck by how friendly Blakey was with these CIA officers. That is, what a seemingly easy rapport he had with them. I said, ‘You know, Eddie he talks to them . . . “Lopez interrupted me in mid-sentence and completed the thought for me: ‘He talks to them like he’s one of them.’ . . . .”
We note that, during the early phase of the HSCA’s investigation, George H.W. Bush was in charge of the CIA. George Joannides, who managed the DRE for CIA, was the Agency’s main liaison to the HSCA.
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the twenty-first in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
This program undertakes examination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The HSCA coalesced after a showing of the Zapruder film on television cued a dramatic increase in people who were interested in the JFK assassination. Representative Tom Downing of Virginia was instrumental in realizing the project.
Ultimately, respected Pennsylvania prosecutor Richard Sprague became the committee’s Chief Counsel, recruiting skilled aides like the late Gaeton Fonzi and Robert Tanenbaum. Networking with, among others, Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker, Sprague, Tanenbaum, Fonzi et al quickly concluded that the Warren Commission was covering up the assassination and highlighted the ridiculous nature of CE399–the so-called “Magic Bullet,” which is the evidentiary core of the Warren Commission’s thesis.
Initially, the HSCA began doing some serious work, investigating and analyzing the New Orleans connections that Garrison investigated. In addition to the Shaw, Banister, Ferrie Oswald relationships, the role of David Phillips, aka “Maurice Bishop,” became a substantive focal point of their work.
Gaeton Fonzi’s work for the committee focused on:
1.–CIA officer Bernardo DeTorres’ professional career, including his work with Mitchell Werbell.
2.–David Phillips/“Maurice Bishop.”
3.–The Rose Cheramie foreshadowing of the assassination.
4.–Sergio Arcacha Smith’s numerous links to the assassination, including his possible work running guns with Jack Ruby and CIA contract agent Tomas Eli Davis.
5.–Freeport Sulphur, its networking with both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie and its ownership by the Eastern Elite.
6.–The role of Jock Whitney in Freeport Sulphur.
The publisher of The New York Herald Tribune, Whitney worked late into the evening of 11/22/1963, apparently on an editorial that featured the book The Assassins, which claimed that America’s assassinations were the work of “crazed individuals.” The book was later distributed to members of the Warren Commission by none other than Allen Dulles.
The program goes into the discovery made by researcher John Hunt of the handling of the Magic Bullet, CE399.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 345.
. . . . And the proof is that both the Warren Commission and the HSCA signed onto the ludicrous Single Bullet Theory. A theory that has been rendered even more risible today than it was in the sixties and seventies. For researcher John Hunt has proven with declassified documents that the so-called Magic Bullet was at the FBI lab in Washington at 7:30 p.m. on the night of the twenty-second. But how could this be if that bullet was not turned over by the Secret Service to FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd until 8:50 p.m.? In other words, lab technician Robert Frazier had booked CE399 into his reords one hour and twenty minutes before it was given to him by agent Todd. But further, Todd’s initials were said by the FBI to be on this bullet he dropped off with Frazier that night. Hunt saw the blow up photos of the entire circumference of CE 399 at the National Archives. The FBI lied on this key issue. For Todd’s initials are not on the bullet.
All one needs to know about the efficacy of the HSCA is that it never took the time to do what John Hunt did. . . .
Eventually, the collaborationist mainstream media began an assault on Richard Sprague and the work of the committee. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post began the assault, which quickly drew blood. . . .
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