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.

FTR#‘s 1353, 1354, 1355 & 1356 Conversations with Monte

Intro­duc­tion: These broad­casts con­tin­ue explo­ration of the evo­lu­tion of Domes­tic Stay-Behind Oper­a­tions and the ter­ror­ism and vio­lence that are the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the oper­a­tions of “Team Trump.”

(This line of inquiry was intro­duced in FTR#‘s 1347 & 1348.)

In addi­tion, we recap key aspects of our research into Covid-19 as a bio­log­i­cal war­fare weapon.

After Monte presents a “smok­ing gun” about the suc­cess­ful estab­lish­ment of “Domes­tic Stay-Behind” net­works, the broad­casts present infor­ma­tion about the ter­ror­ism appar­ent­ly com­ing from “Team Trump” being direct­ed at elec­tion offi­cials, mete­o­rol­o­gists, hur­ri­cane relief work­ers and civic offi­cials in places like Spring­field, Ohio.

In addi­tion, we present doc­u­men­ta­tion of the res­o­nance between Trump’s racist ide­ol­o­gy, eugen­ics and the social and polit­i­cal philoso­phies of Adolf Hitler.

FTR#‘s 1347 & 1348 Conversations with Monte

Intro­duc­tion: Tak­ing a respite from the pro­ject­ed long series of pro­grams on U.S. Asian pol­i­cy, these pro­grams begin with Mon­te’s dis­cus­sion of a link between Guy Ban­is­ter’s “detec­tive agency” and the coa­les­cence of the Process Church of the Final Judg­ment, a focal point of a four-part Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Series on “The Ulti­mate Evil.

A close for­mer asso­ciate of Ban­is­ter incor­po­rat­ed the Process Church, which appears to have served as an intel­li­gence front, to an extent.

The associate–Tommy Baumler–was a Nazi.

In this analy­sis, Monte uti­lized a book titled The Mad Bish­ops.

The bulk of the pro­grams con­sist of analy­sis of the lat­est “attempt” on Trump’s life, as well as the appar­ent Nazi gen­e­sis of the “Haitians eat­ing dogs and cats” meme.

It is our con­sen­sus that the “attempts” on Trump’s life are intend­ed to pro­voke vio­lence against Trump’s polit­i­cal oppo­nents.

Ryan Wes­ley Routh also net­worked with the Azov Bat­tal­ion.

FTR#‘s 1325 and 1326 “Chokeholds” and the Oswald Impersonators, Parts 1 and 2

Intro­duc­tion: These pro­grams con­tin­ue pre­sen­ta­tion the legal con­cept of “Choke­holds” on the JFK assassination–dynamics that prove, legal­ly, that there was a con­spir­a­cy.

These do not nec­es­sar­i­ly res­onate pre­cise­ly with aspects of the his­tor­i­cal record, which embraces, but does not delin­eate, prin­ci­ples of law.

In these broad­casts, Jim DiEu­ge­nio, Paul Bleau and Mr. Emory are joined by Matt Crump­ton, one of the con­trib­u­tors to the book, a lawyer and author of a bril­liant chap­ter of the vol­ume deal­ing with the Oswald imper­son­ators.

We con­clude the first broad­cast with a trib­ute to the recent­ly-deceased Cyril Wecht and Dr. William F. Pep­per.

Key Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: A detailed unpack­ing of the Ralph Yates inci­dent; Yates pick­ing up a hitch­hik­er with “cur­tain rods;” Drops off hitch­hik­er near NTSB; Hitch­hik­er dis­cuss­es pos­si­bil­i­ty of killing Pres­i­dent from a high-rise build­ing; Asked Yates if he knew the President’s motor­cade route; Yates tells FBI; Yates sticks to his sto­ry; FBI com­mits him to men­tal insti­tu­tion; Numer­ous shock ther­a­py treat­ments; He dies eleven years lat­er; Con­tention about the “cur­tain rods”—there was already a sto­ry about how Oswald got the “cur­tain rods/rifle” into the TSBD; Oswald seen run­ning down the back of the TBSD at a time when Oswald was sup­pos­ed­ly on a bus; Sev­er­al wit­ness­es saw this, includ­ing Roger Craig; A “Latin-look­ing” per­son in the car; Oswald often seen in com­pa­ny of Latin; Craig’s “sui­cide;” An “Oswald” seen at the Dobbs House; Exchanged glances with J/D. Tip­pitt; Same man seen by Yates?; Seen at Sports Drome prac­tic­ing shoot­ing; One sight­ing saw him driving—Oswald sup­pos­ed­ly didn’t dri­ve; Once again, some saw “Oswald” in the com­pa­ny of a Latin; ”Oswald” at shoot­ing range near Dal­las con­flicts with WC said Oswald was doing; Dewey Brad­ford saw “LHO” at Morgan’s Gun Store; WC doesn’t inves­ti­gate; At a car deal­er­ship; “LHO” drove very fast; LHO didn’t dri­ve; “LHO” talked about get­ting a car in Rus­sia; Marina’s tes­ti­mo­ny to WC con­flicts with reports of “LHO” at car deal­er­ship; Sergeant Vinson’s account; Plane lands at a dirt airstrip; “LHO” boards plane with a Latin; No dis­cus­sion with oth­er pas­sen­gers; Plane stops at Roswell AFB; Sees air­craft with CIA logo; FBI ask­ing ques­tions about Vin­sons; Vin­son then gets job with SR71 project; Was that so CIA could keep an eye on him?; While Oswald was in USSR, “LHO” buy­ing trucks for Friends of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cuba; Guy Ban­is­ter co-founds orga­ni­za­tion; Oth­er incor­po­ra­tor of the group also employed Oswald at one point; “LHO” at Red­bird Air­port try­ing to char­ter a pri­vate plane; “LHO” at Texas Employ­ment Com­mis­sion; “LHO” in El Chico restau­rant after real Oswald arrest­ed; License plate trace­able to Carl Math­er; Math­er a nation­al secu­ri­ty oper­a­tive who installed radio on Air Force Two; Math­er tight with J.D. Tip­pitt; “LHO” exit­ing rear of Texas The­ater? “LHO” buy­ing beer and can­dy (!) in Dealey Plaza; “LHO” at Leonard Hutchinson’s gro­cery store try­ing to cash a check; “LHO” chang­ing postal for­ward­ing order in New Orleans; “LHO” apply­ing for job at South­land Hotel garage; Unhinged “LHO” in Wash­ing­ton D.C.; Dis­cus­sion of the pos­si­ble mean­ing of the “unhinged” LHO imper­son­ators; Con­clud­ing with legal analy­sis of why this was a “Choke­hold.”

FTR#1288 Interview #25 with Jim DiEugenio About JFK Revisited

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FTR#‘s 1283 & 1284 Interviews #20 and #21 with Jim DiEugenio about JFK Revisited

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.

FTR#‘s 1281 and 1282: Interviews #18 and #19 with Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot

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.

FTR#‘s 1279 and 1280: Interviews #16 and #17 with Jim DiEugenio and John Newman

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!

FTR#‘s 1275 & 1276 Interviews #14 and #15 with Jim DiEugenio and Paul Bleau about “JFK Revisited”

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.

FTR#‘s 1266 and 1267 Interviews #5 and #6 with Jim DiEugenio about “JFK Revisited”

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.