FTR #1037 Interview #7 with Jim DiEugenio about “Destiny Betrayed”

The sev­enth of a planned long series of inter­views with Jim DiEu­ge­nio about his tri­umphal analy­sis of Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and New Orleans DA Jim Gar­rison’s hero­ic inves­ti­ga­tion of the killing, this pro­gram con­tin­ues analy­sis of the devel­op­ment of the leg­end (intel­li­gence cov­er) of Lee Har­vey Oswald.

(Lis­ten­ers can order Des­tiny Betrayed and Jim’s oth­er books, as well as sup­ple­ment­ing those vol­umes with arti­cles about this coun­try’s polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions at his web­site Kennedys and King. Jim is also a reg­u­lar guest and expert com­men­ta­tor on Black Op Radio.)

The pro­gram begins with review and fur­ther devel­op­ment of some of “Com­mu­nist trai­tor” Lee Har­vey Oswald’s curi­ous asso­ci­a­tions upon his (appar­ent­ly unob­struct­ed) return to the Unit­ed States.

Hav­ing threat­ened to com­mit trea­son by dis­clos­ing clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion about U.S. air oper­a­tions, (the U‑2 being the salient item), Oswald is met not by the CIA, not by the FBI, but by Spas T. Raikin, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations. Orig­i­nal­ly called the Com­mit­tee of Sub­ju­gat­ed Nations when it was formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943, the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations became, in turn, an inte­gral part of the Rein­hard Gehlen spy out­fit, a key ele­ment of the for­mer World Anti-Com­mu­nist League, and an impor­tant part of the Repub­li­can Par­ty. It is unthink­able that he would not have been de-briefed by U.S. intel­li­gence and the FBI.

In fact, Jim men­tioned in our pre­vi­ous inter­view that a for­mer CIA offi­cer Don­ald Dene­selya told the House Select Com­mit­tee on Assas­si­na­tions that the CIA did, in all like­li­hood, debrief Oswald. The Agency, how­ev­er, sought to dis­tance itself from the JFK assas­si­na­tion fall guy.

When the sup­posed Marx­ist trai­tor returned to the U.S., he was embraced by the vir­u­lent­ly anti-Com­mu­nist White Russ­ian com­mu­ni­ty in the Dallas/Fort Worth, them­selves with close links to the Gehlen milieu.

Among the peo­ple with which the Oswalds net­worked in Texas were:

1. Max Clark and his wife, the for­mer Princess Sherba­tov, a mem­ber of the Romanov Roy­al fam­i­ly!
2. Peter Gre­go­ry.
3. Paul Raig­orod­sky.
4. George Bouhe.
5. George DeMohren­schildt. 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.

In Des­tiny Betrayed, Jim details the remark­able pedi­gree of both Michael and Ruth Paine and their deep her­itage at the heart of the pow­er elite and the deriv­a­tive intel­li­gence estab­lish­ment:

1. Michael Paine was a Cabot and drew from trust funds bequeathed by both the Cabot and Forbes fam­i­lies, both mem­bers of the “Boston Brah­mins.” His moth­er was Ruth Forbes Young.
2. Michael’s cousin Thomas Cabot was a direc­tor Unit­ed Fruit.
3. Thomas’s broth­er John was–like Thomas–a State Depart­ment vet­er­an, who was exchang­ing infor­ma­tion with Guy Ban­is­ter employ­ee Mau­rice Brooks Gatlin about the impend­ing CIA over­throw of Guatemalan pres­i­dent Jacobo Arbenz, who was pur­su­ing poli­cies detri­men­tal to Unit­ed Fruit’s feu­dal monop­oly in that unfor­tu­nate nation.
4. Dur­ing the ear­ly six­ties, Thomas was pres­i­dent of the Gibral­tar Steamship Com­pa­ny, a Hon­duran-based front that owned no ships but oper­at­ed Radio Swan, a CIA radio sta­tion used in the Bay of Pigs, among oth­er oper­a­tions.
5. Before relo­cat­ing to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Michael Paine had worked for the Franklin Insti­tute, a CIA con­duit.
6. Michael Paine also was appar­ent­ly pos­ing as a left­ist to infil­trate and cat­a­log, Cas­tro sym­pa­thiz­ers, not unlike the work Guy Ban­is­ter was doing in New Orleans in con­junc­tion with, among oth­ers, Lee Har­vey Oswald.
7. His step father was Arthur Young, mar­ried to Ruth Forbes Young. Arthur Young was a devo­tee of “The Nine” and became a major fig­ure at Bell Heli­copter. Arthur got Michael a job at Bell.
8. Ruth Forbes Young was best friend with Mary Ban­croft, Allen Dulles’s sub­or­di­nate and long-time mis­tress while he worked for OSS, Amer­i­ca’s World War II intel­li­gence ser­vice.
9. Ruth Paine’s father was William Avery Hyde, an insur­ance exec­u­tive who had worked for the OSS in World War II and lat­er went to work for the Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment, a fre­quent CIA cov­er.
10. Ruth’s father, like George De Mohren­schildt, worked for the Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tive Alliance.
11. In the sum­mer of 1963, Ruth trav­eled cross-coun­try and vis­it­ed her sis­ter Sylvia Hyde Hoke, who was a CIA psy­chol­o­gist.
12. Sylvi­a’s hus­band John Hoke also worked for the Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment.
13. In the 1980s, Ruth Paine was appar­ent­ly infil­trat­ing and cat­a­loging anti-“Contra” activists with regard to the attempts at over­throw­ing the San­din­ista forces in Nicaragua.

Important Link Between JFK and MLK Assassinations and a Fateful Meeting on 11/21/1963

In FTR #962, we high­light­ed an alleged meet­ing at the Dal­las home of Texas oil man Clint Murchi­son, on 11/21/1963. In his recent book “The Plot to Kill King,” William Pep­per flesh­es out details con­cern­ing those in atten­dance: Osten­si­bly, it was an event to hon­or J. Edgar Hoover, who was a close friend of Murchi­son, H.l, Hunt, and the oth­er Texas oil giants. The guest list includ­ed John McCloy, chair­man of Chase Man­hat­tan Bank [and a future mem­ber of the War­ren Commission–D.E.] ; Richard Nixon, George Brown, of the Brown and Root Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny; R.L. Thorn­ton, pres­i­dent of the Mer­can­tile Bank; and Dal­las may­or Ear­le Cabell, broth­er of Gen­er­al Charles Cabell, for­mer Deputy Direc­tor of the CIA, who was fired by Pres­i­dent Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. Pep­per also informs us of paper­work found by a for­mer FBI agent in a car linked to the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King that con­nects James Earl Ray’s han­dler “Raul” with Jack Ruby, H.L. Hunt and [pos­si­bly] the Atlanta office of the FBI: ” . . . One piece came from a 1963 Dal­las, Texas, tele­phone direc­to­ry. It was part of a page that had been torn out. The tele­phone num­bers on the page includ­ed those of the fam­i­ly of H.L. Hunt, but more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, in hand­writ­ing at the top of the page, was the name “Raul,” the let­ter “J” and a Dal­las tele­phone num­ber, of a club in Dal­las which at the time was run by Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Har­vey Oswald. The sec­ond piece of paper con­tained sev­er­al names; along­side of each were sums of mon­ey. It appeared to be some sort of pay­off list, and at the bot­tom was Raul’s name and date for pay­ment. Wil­son also said that he recov­ered a third piece of paper, on which was writ­ten the tele­phone num­ber and exten­sion of the Atlanta FBI field office. . . .”

FTR #994 What Was Old Is New Again

This broad­cast recaps mate­r­i­al from pre­vi­ous pro­grams, under­scor­ing key points of infor­ma­tion from cur­rent devel­op­ments.

Last week, we opened our pro­gram with an arti­cle from Con­sor­tium News about some alarm­ing devel­op­ments in Ukraine–a piece of leg­is­la­tion approved by the Rada (the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment) that might augur World War III.

One of the few media out­lets that has cov­ered the return to pow­er of the OUN/B’s suc­ces­sor fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine, Con­sor­tium News was found­ed and head­ed by Robert Par­ry.

Par­ry passed away last week­end.

Mr. Emory post­ed the fol­low­ing com­ment on the Con­sor­tium News arti­cle about Robert’s pass­ing:

A very, very sad occa­sion. It was my priv­i­lege to have inter­viewed Robert a num­ber of times over the years, includ­ing an interview–scheduled days before–that took place on the day he learned of Gary Webb’s death.

It was also my priv­i­lege to have used many arti­cles from Con­sor­tium News in my week­ly broad­casts, includ­ing, and espe­cial­ly, his reportage about the return to pow­er of the OUN/B suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine.

Very few have man­i­fest­ed the courage and integri­ty to report hon­est­ly on those events.

Now, there will be few­er.

Rest in peace, Robert.

Next, we return to the sub­ject of Peter Thiel, of “Team Trump,” Face­book and Palan­tir.

We have cov­ered Peter Thiel in numer­ous pro­grams, begin­ning with our warn­ing about him in FTR #718.

Some of the points we have made about him include:

1.-His fam­i­ly back­ground in the Frank­furt (Ger­many) chem­i­cal busi­ness. Prob­a­bly I.G. Farben/Bormann, in that con­text.
2.-His pri­ma­ry role in Palan­tir, appar­ent­ly the mak­er of the PRISM soft­ware at the epi­cen­ter of L’Af­faire Snow­den.
3.-His role as the pri­ma­ry financier of Ron Paul’s super PAC. (Paul is an unabashed white suprema­cist, joined at the hip with David Duke and the neo-Con­fed­er­ate move­ment. He was the Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of choice for Eddie “The Friend­ly Spook” Snow­den and Julian Assange.)
4.-Thiel’s net­work­ing with movers and shak­ers from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s high-tech ven­ture cap­i­tal firm.
5.-Thiel’s active anti-immi­grant stance.
6.-Thiel’s sem­i­nal net­work­ing with oth­er tech titans and ven­ture cap­i­tal firms, includ­ing some with polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal trib­u­taries lead­ing back to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

With Thiel among the can­di­dates to head Trump’s Pres­i­den­t’s Intel­li­gence Advi­so­ry Board, we note that his apoc­a­lyp­tic, anti-Enlight­en­ment ide­ol­o­gy draws on, among oth­er influ­ences, Carl Schmitt. Arguably the prime mover behind the Ger­man Con­ser­v­a­tive Rev­o­lu­tion, Schmitt was also: “. . . . a Nazi and the Third Reich’s pre­em­i­nent legal the­o­rist. For Thiel, Schmitt is an inspir­ing throw­back to a pre-Enlight­en­ment age, who exalts strug­gle and insists that the dis­cov­ery of ene­mies is the foun­da­tion of pol­i­tics. . .”

There has been a fair amount of buzz about the release of addi­tion­al, pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied, doc­u­ments about the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

An inter­est­ing doc­u­ment came to light in the recent release of files relat­ing to the assas­si­na­tion of JFK. Jack Ruby told an FBI infor­mant to “watch the fire­works” in Dealey Plaza that day.

“Jack Ruby, the man who even­tu­al­ly shot Lee Har­vey Oswald, told an FBI infor­mant to ‘watch the fire­works’ on the day Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy was killed, accord­ing to new records the Nation­al Archives released Fri­day. . . . ‘The infor­mant stat­ed that on the morn­ing of the assas­si­na­tion, Ruby con­tact­ed him and asked if he would ‘like to watch the fire­works,” an FBI record dat­ed April 6, 1977, says. ‘He was with Jack Ruby and stand­ing at the cor­ner of the Postal Annex Build­ing fac­ing the Texas School Book Depos­i­to­ry Build­ing at the time of the shoot­ing. . . .”

This might be eval­u­at­ed against the back­ground of FTR #963, relating–among oth­er things–a read­ing of Jack Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion tes­ti­mo­ny. (A read­ing of Ruby’s tes­ti­mo­ny is re-broad­cast in this pro­gram.)

When inter­viewed by the War­ren Com­mis­sion, Jack Ruby indi­cat­ed that he had been part of a con­spir­a­cy to kill Kennedy and that he feared for his life. The War­ren Com­mis­sion turned a deaf ear to his desire to go to Wash­ing­ton and “spill the beans.”

Ger­ald Ford (who suc­ceed­ed Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes com­mit­ted), Leon Jawors­ki (a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was a direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit and who was select­ed by Nixon to be Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor) and Arlen Specter (anoth­er War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate affair) were present at Ruby’s de fac­to con­fes­sion.

War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel J. Lee Rankin is also present at this inter­view. Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”

We con­clude with dis­cus­sion of anoth­er aspect of the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

Jane May­er’s Dark Mon­ey has received con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion and media play over the last cou­ple of years. In past dis­cus­sion of the Koch fam­i­ly, we not­ed that patri­arch Fred Koch worked with Hitler build­ing one of Nazi Ger­many’s most impor­tant refineries–one capa­ble of refin­ing the high-octane fuel need­ed by fight­er planes.

In addi­tion, we not­ed that Fred Koch was one of the first mem­bers of the John Birch Soci­ety.

May­er notes that Fred Koch helped finance ads in the wake of the JFK assas­si­na­tion that pinned respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime on the Sovi­et Union–one of the pri­ma­ry lev­els of dis­in­for­ma­tion.

” . . . . In a hasty turn­about, soon after the assas­si­na­tion, Fred Koch took out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Wash­ing­ton Post, mourn­ing JFK. The ads advanced the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that JFK’s assas­sin, Lee Har­vey Oswald, had act­ed as part of a Com­mu­nist plot. The Com­mu­nists would­n’t “rest on this suc­cess,” the ads warned. In the cor­ner was a tear-out order form, direct­ing the pub­lic to sign up for John Birch Soci­ety mail­ings. . . .”

We have cov­ered the “paint­ing of Oswald Red” in numer­ous pro­grams, includ­ing FTR #‘s 925 and 926.

Jack Ruby to FBI Informant: Watch “the Fireworks” in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963

An inter­est­ing doc­u­ment came to light in the recent release of files relat­ing to the assas­si­na­tion of JFK. Jack Ruby told an FBI infor­mant to “watch the fire­works” in Dealey Plaza that day. This might be eval­u­at­ed against the back­ground of FTR #963, relating–among oth­er things–a read­ing of Jack Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion tes­ti­mo­ny. All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve. Dave offers his pro­grams and arti­cles for free–your sup­port is very much appre­ci­at­ed.

Fred Koch, the John Birch Society and the JFK Assassination

Jane May­er’s Dark Mon­ey has received con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion and media play over the last cou­ple of years. In past dis­cus­sion of the Koch fam­i­ly, we not­ed that patri­arch Fred Koch worked with Hitler build­ing one of Nazi Ger­many’s most impor­tant refineries–one capa­ble of refin­ing the high-octane fuel need­ed by fight­er planes. In addi­tion, we not­ed that Fred Koch was one of the first mem­bers of the John Birch Soci­ety and remained an impor­tant mem­ber of the group after that. May­er notes that Fred Koch helped finance ads in the wake of the JFK assas­si­na­tion that pinned respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime on the Sovi­et Union–one of the pri­ma­ry lev­els of dis­in­for­ma­tion. We have cov­ered the “paint­ing of Oswald Red” in numer­ous pro­grams, includ­ing FTR #‘s 925 and 926. All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve. Dave offers his pro­grams and arti­cles for free–your sup­port is very much appre­ci­at­ed.

FTR #963 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 3

As com­par­isons between the Water­gate scan­dal and “Rus­sia-gate” sat­u­rate the media (in the sum­mer of 2017), the pro­gram reviews infor­ma­tion about con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. Nixon told aides that he did­n’t want to release the White House tape record­ings because he was afraid “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” might come out. Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man said in his book “The Ends of Pow­er” that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word in the Nixon White House for the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. (It should be remem­bered that Nixon was in Dal­las on 11/22/63, yet he told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that he had left Dal­las two days pri­or to Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion.)

When inter­viewed by the War­ren Com­mis­sion, Jack Ruby indi­cat­ed that he had been part of a con­spir­a­cy to kill Kennedy and that he feared for his life. The War­ren Com­mis­sion turned a deaf ear to his desire to go to Wash­ing­ton and “spill the beans.” Ger­ald Ford (who suc­ceed­ed Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes com­mit­ted), Leon Jawors­ki (a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was a direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit and who was select­ed by Nixon to be Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor) and Arlen Specter (anoth­er War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel who was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate affair) were present at Ruby’s de fac­to con­fes­sion.

War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel J. Lee Rankin is also present at this inter­view. Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”

It is inter­est­ing to con­tem­plate the text of a let­ter that Jack Ruby smug­gled out of prison. In the let­ter, Ruby hints that Nazis and Japan­ese fas­cists par­tic­i­pat­ed in the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. Cer­tain­ly, ele­ments of what were to become the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (includ­ing the Asian Peo­ples Anti-Com­mu­nist League) were involved.

” . . . Don’t believe the War­ren [Com­mis­sion] Report, that was only put out to make me look inno­cent. . . . I’m going to die a hor­ri­ble death any­way, so what would I have to gain by writ­ing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of peo­ple that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Naz­i’s [sic], and that is who is in pow­er in this coun­try right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South Amer­i­ca is also full of these Naz­i’s [sic]. . . . if those peo­ple were so deter­mined to frame me then you must be con­vinced that they had an ulte­ri­or motive for doing same. There is only one kind of peo­ple that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Mas­ter Race. . . .”

The late inves­tiga­tive reporter and “What’s My Line” pan­elist Dorothy Kil­gallen pub­lished Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion Tes­ti­mo­ny and had told asso­ciates she would “break this case wide open.” Short­ly after­ward, she was found dead of alco­hol and bar­bi­tu­rate poisoning–suicide and acci­den­tal death have both been put for­ward as rea­sons for her demise. Her wid­ow­er refused pub­lic com­men­tary on her death and even­tu­al­ly “com­mit­ted sui­cide” him­self.

We excerpt The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 2, high­light­ing Kil­gal­len’s death. Inter­est­ing­ly and sig­nif­i­cant­ly, “What’s My Line” host and mod­er­a­tor John Charles Daly was Earl War­ren’s son-in-law, as dis­cussed in FTR #190. Did Daly pur­pose­ful­ly or inad­ver­tent­ly con­vey infor­ma­tion to War­ren about Kil­gal­len’s inves­ti­ga­tion? Was that in any way con­nect­ed with her death?

On the Daly/Warren in-law relationship–note that Daly worked as a White House cor­re­spon­dent and globe-trav­el­ing reporter for CBS radio news, a vice-pres­i­den­cy at ABC in charge of news and also head­ed the Voice of Amer­i­ca, which had strong links to the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. Those jour­nal­is­tic posi­tions, as well as his role as direc­tor of VOA may well have brought him into the fold of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty.

The late inves­tiga­tive reporter and “What’s My Line” pan­elist Dorothy Kil­gallen pub­lished Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion Tes­ti­mo­ny and had told asso­ciates she would “break this case wide open.” Short­ly after­ward, she was found dead of alco­hol and bar­bi­tu­rate poisoning–suicide and acci­den­tal death have both been put for­ward as rea­sons for her demise. Her wid­ow­er refused pub­lic com­men­tary on her death and even­tu­al­ly “com­mit­ted sui­cide” him­self.

Next, the pro­gram excerpts FTR #253, fea­tur­ing an intrigu­ing com­men­tary by the late, vet­er­an CIA offi­cer Gor­don Nov­el. High­lights of that pro­gram include:

1. The broad­cast high­lights the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Richard Nixon’s White House tapes. These tape record­ings were, ulti­mate­ly, the vehi­cle for forc­ing his exit from the White House. That event was the cul­mi­na­tion of the Water­gate affair. There was dis­cus­sion in the fall of 2000 among elec­tron­ics experts con­cern­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of uti­liz­ing advanced, high-tech equip­ment to recov­er mate­r­i­al from a famous 18 ½ minute era­sure on one of the tapes.
(The San Fran­cis­co Exam­in­er; 9/22/2000; p. A2.)
2. The sub­ject of whether or not the era­sure had been delib­er­ate was a sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of con­tro­ver­sy dur­ing the Water­gate affair. (Nixon’s sec­re­tary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed that she “acci­den­tal­ly” erased the tape. Most experts reject­ed her ver­sion of events. Inter­est­ing­ly, the tape that was erased was a record­ing of a con­ver­sa­tion between White House aide H.R. Halde­man and Nixon. In an auto­bi­og­ra­phy about the Water­gate affair, Halde­man wrote that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word with­in the Nixon White House for the JFK assas­si­na­tion. Nixon refused to release the Water­gate tapes for fear that release would lead to expo­sure of “the whole Bay of Pigs thing.”
3. Much of the pro­gram con­sists of excerpts from oth­er broad­casts. In an excerpt from G‑3, the broad­cast high­lights a vet­er­an covert intel­li­gence oper­a­tive and pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor named Gor­don Nov­el. Among Novel’s many tal­ents is elec­tron­ic coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence. His name crops up in the con­text of both the JFK case and the Water­gate scan­dal. Nov­el was the source for an impor­tant piece of infor­ma­tion that fig­ured in the Jim Gar­ri­son inves­ti­ga­tion. That report con­cerned a raid on a muni­tions cache to obtain arms for anti-Cas­tro activ­i­ties, the CIA’s Bay of Pigs inva­sion, in par­tic­u­lar.
(“Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?”; Bernard Fen­ster­wald and the Com­mit­tee to Inves­ti­gate Assas­si­na­tions; copy­right 1976 by Zebra Books, a divi­sion of Kens­ing­ton Pub­lish­ers.)
4. This oper­a­tion alleged­ly involved David Fer­rie and Guy Ban­nis­ter, two of the key fig­ures in Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Nov­el was lat­er con­sult­ed by White House aide Charles Col­son con­cern­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of elec­tron­i­cal­ly eras­ing the tapes. (Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?)
5. Novel’s tan­gen­tial involve­ment in the Water­gate inves­ti­ga­tion sur­faced in a mag­a­zine called Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed. In 1983, the mag­a­zine ran an arti­cle about Novel’s pres­ence at a gath­er­ing of vet­er­an covert intel­li­gence oper­a­tives, includ­ing con­vict­ed Water­gate bur­glar G. Gor­don Lid­dy.
(“Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed”; 4/83.)
6. In a let­ter to the edi­tor, Mr. Nov­el took issue to some of the com­ments about him in the April issue.
(Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed; 7/83.)
7. In that let­ter, Nov­el made ref­er­ence to his ultra high tech­nol­o­gy role “to erase the Water­gate tapes.” (Idem.)
In 1984, Mr. Emory was a guest on a late-night com­mer­cial talk show and Mr. Nov­el phoned in, tak­ing issue with Mr. Emory’s descrip­tion of his posi­tion in Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion.
(The Express Way show with Lar­ry John­son on KOME-FM in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia; 10/29/1984.)
8. Most of the sec­ond side of this pro­gram con­sists of an excerpt­ing of the con­ver­sa­tion with the late, for­mi­da­ble Nov­el. In his con­ver­sa­tion with Mr. Emory, Nov­el denied any involve­ment in Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and crit­i­cized Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion. (Idem.)
9. When the sub­ject of Water­gate came up, Mr. Emory asked Mr. Nov­el if he denied actu­al­ly hav­ing erased the Water­gate tapes. Nov­el replied “only because they didn’t pay me.” (Idem.)
When pressed fur­ther, Nov­el clar­i­fied his state­ment, say­ing he didn’t erase any por­tions of the Water­gate tapes. He did state that he was one of a pan­el of experts who ana­lyzed the 18 ½‑minute gap and stat­ed that it could have been made acci­den­tal­ly. (Idem.)
10. Intrigu­ing­ly, Nov­el added that he was also on the pan­el of elec­tron­ics experts that tes­ti­fied that the Dic­ta­phone record­ing from a Dal­las police motor­cy­cle was accu­rate in its reveal­ing of a fourth shot–which neu­tral­ized the sin­gle bul­let the­o­ry.
11. In FTR #190, Nov­el con­firmed his role in the bur­glary of the Schlum­berg­er facil­i­ty and main­tained that he was involved with a plan to give anti-Cas­tro Cubans [Cas­tro] army uni­forms to wear while attack­ing the U.S. Marines at Guan­tanamo, there­by trig­ger­ing a U.S. inva­sion of Cuba.
12. After Mr. Nov­el­’s death, it emerged that he was serv­ing as a mole in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion, fun­nel­ing infor­ma­tion to Allen Dulles.

FTR #962 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 2

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our review of the pro­found con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. For pur­pos­es of con­ve­nience and con­ti­nu­ity, we recap an overview of some of these links from the descrip­tion of FTR #961:

With Water­gate being bruit­ed about by our media in con­junc­tion with the “inves­ti­ga­tions” into Trump and “Rus­sia-gate,” we are tak­ing time to dig into the archives and recap infor­ma­tion about one of the fac­tors that under­lay the Water­gate scandal–the Assas­si­na­tion of JFK.

The first of these pro­grams excerpts The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3 (record­ed on 11/15/1983) at length. From the descrip­tion for that pro­gram:

Richard Nixon’s polit­i­cal demise came through the Water­gate scan­dal. Nixon ini­ti­at­ed the Water­gate cov­er-up because he feared that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. In his polit­i­cal mem­oir The Ends of Pow­er, Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man wrote that the phrase “Bay of Pigs” was a code-word with­in the Nixon White House for the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion.

The pro­gram doc­u­ments many of the areas of over­lap between the Water­gate and Kennedy inves­ti­ga­tions.

Nixon him­self was in Dal­las on Novem­ber 22, 1963, as a lawyer for Pep­si­co (the par­ent com­pa­ny of Pep­si Cola.) Fly­ing out of Dal­las rough­ly two hours before Kennedy was slain, Nixon told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 had been “two days pri­or to the assas­si­na­tion.” This bla­tant lie is negat­ed by a wire ser­vice inter­view Nixon gave in Dal­las on Novem­ber 21. Text of the inter­view ran in the New York Times and oth­er major news­pa­pers.

(A Pep­si Cola exec­u­tive said that Nixon was present in Dal­las at a com­pa­ny meet­ing when the announce­ment came that Pres­i­dent Kennedy had been killed.)

Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Leon Jawors­ki was select­ed by Nixon to replace the ille­gal­ly fired Archibald Cox. Jawors­ki had pre­vi­ous­ly served as a War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel, while at the same time serv­ing as direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit.

Nixon named for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber Ger­ald Ford to replace Vice Pres­i­dent Agnew. Ford then replaced Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes he may have com­mit­ted. . . .

. . . . The pro­gram dis­cuss­es evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing numer­ous oth­er fig­ures to the both inves­ti­ga­tions, includ­ing Water­gate Judge John Sir­i­ca and Water­gate bur­glar Frank Stur­gis.

To attempt selec­tive era­sure of the all-impor­tant Water­gate tapes, Nixon sought the assis­tance of Gor­don Nov­el, a vet­er­an intel­li­gence agent, elec­tron­ics expert, anti-Cas­tro vet­er­an and a fig­ure in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion in New Orleans. At least one key tape was par­tial­ly erased (the famous 18 1/2 minute gap), though no cul­prit was ever iden­ti­fied.

In this sec­ond broad­cast of the series, we draw on Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M59–Richard Nixon’s Great­est Hits: High­lights of Richard Nixon’s Polit­i­cal Career. In that pro­gram (record­ed on 5/1/1994), we reviewed an adden­dum to the orig­i­nal The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3. That addendum–recorded in June of 1972 (the 20th anniver­sary of the orig­i­nal Water­gate break-in)–builds on the infor­ma­tion from FTR #961.

After review­ing infor­ma­tion about Nixon’s pres­ence in Dal­las, Texas on 11/22/1963, the pro­gram presents research by the late Penn Jones that main­tains that Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, among oth­ers, were present at a gath­er­ing at oil­man Clint Muchison’s home the evening before the assassination–a meet­ing Jones felt was a plan­ning ses­sion for the JFK assas­si­na­tion.

The bulk of this pro­gram is gleaned from Bernard J. Fen­ster­wald’s Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy. (Fen­ster­wald was Water­gate Bur­glar James McCord’s chief defense attor­ney.)

Among the many links between Water­gate and the JFK assas­si­na­tion are the War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­bers and coun­sels who were tabbed by Nixon and/or oth­er fig­ures in the inves­ti­ga­tion to serve in var­i­ous capac­i­ties:

a) Nixon first select­ed J. Lee Rankin to serve as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Rankin was sub­se­quent­ly tabbed to review the Water­gate tapes and deter­mine which would be released. Rankin was the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s liai­son between the com­mis­sion and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key pro­po­nent of the so-called “Mag­ic Bul­let The­o­ry.”
b) War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Arlen Specter, the author of the “Mag­ic Bul­let Theory”–was Nixon’s first choice as his per­son­al defense attor­ney in the Water­gate case.
c) Nixon also attempt­ed to req­ui­si­tion War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber John J. McCloy as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor.
d) For­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Albert Jen­ner was Nixon’s first choice to serve as the GOP’s minor­i­ty coun­sel before the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee. Jen­ner lat­er with­drew from that posi­tion.
e) John Dean select­ed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Charles Shaf­fer as his attor­ney.
f) White House aide John Ehrlich­mann tabbed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Joseph Ball to rep­re­sent him.
g) Nixon’s sec­re­tary Rose Marie Woods select­ed for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel Charles Rhyne to rep­re­sent her in a pos­si­ble inves­ti­ga­tion of the famous 18 1/2 minute gap in one of the tapes.
h) Nixon Trea­sury Sec­re­tary John Con­nal­ly’s obstruc­tion of Jim Gar­rison’s extra­di­tion request for Ser­gio Archacha Smith.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.The Nixon White House­’s inter­est in the assas­si­na­tion attempt on George Wal­lace, which elim­i­nat­ed the Alaba­ma Gov­er­nor as a pos­si­ble third-par­ty threat to Nixon’s so-called “South­ern Strat­e­gy.” Exact­ly who shot Wal­lace remains a mys­tery, but it was most assured­ly NOT Arthur Bre­mer.
2. Two long-time Nixon friends and polit­i­cal asso­ciates’ spon­sor­ship of the fam­i­ly of Sirhan Sirhan into the Unit­ed States. Sirhan did NOT kill Robert F. Kennedy, how­ev­er the cre­ation of the false cov­er sto­ry to set up the pat­sy is impor­tant. Nixon, of course, won the 1968 elec­tion, after Robert Kennedy’s mur­der elim­i­nat­ed him as a front run­ner.
3. The role of for­mer Lock­heed direc­tor of secu­ri­ty James Gold­en as chief of secu­ri­ty for Nixon’s 1968 cam­paign. Many researchers of the RFK assas­si­na­tion believe that the actu­al shoot­er of Robert Kennedy was Amer­i­can Nazi Thane Eugene Cae­sar, who was employed at Lock­heed’s Bur­bank facil­i­ty, in an area involved with the U‑2 spy plane project. (Oswald was also involved with the U‑2.)
4. A ver­i­ta­ble trove of War­ren Com­mis­sion let­ter and mem­o­ran­da per­tain­ing to the above fig­ures involved in the War­ren Com­mis­sion and tabbed by the Nixon team for roles in Water­gate that were miss­ing from the Nation­al Archives.

FTR #961 Watergate and the Assassination of President Kennedy, Part 1

With Water­gate being bruit­ed about by our media in con­junc­tion with the “inves­ti­ga­tions” into Trump and “Rus­sia-gate,” we are tak­ing time to dig into the archives and recap infor­ma­tion about one of the fac­tors that under­lay the Water­gate scandal–the Assas­si­na­tion of JFK.

The first of the pro­grams excerpts The Guns of Novem­ber, Part 3 (record­ed on 11/15/1983) at length. From the descrip­tion for the pro­gram:

“Richard Nixon’s polit­i­cal demise came through the Water­gate scan­dal. Nixon ini­ti­at­ed the Water­gate cov­er-up because he feared that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. In his polit­i­cal mem­oir “The Ends of Pow­er,” Nixon aide H.R. Halde­man wrote that the phrase “Bay of Pigs” was a code-word with­in the Nixon White House for the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion.

The pro­gram doc­u­ments many of the areas of over­lap between the Water­gate and Kennedy inves­ti­ga­tions.

Nixon him­self was in Dal­las on Novem­ber 22, 1963, as a lawyer for Pep­si­co (the par­ent com­pa­ny of Pep­si Cola.) Fly­ing out of Dal­las rough­ly two hours before Kennedy was slain, Nixon told the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964 that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 had been “two days pri­or to the assas­si­na­tion.” This bla­tant lie is negat­ed by a wire ser­vice inter­view Nixon gave in Dal­las on Novem­ber 21. Text of the inter­view ran in the New York Times and oth­er major news­pa­pers.

Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Leon Jawors­ki was select­ed by Nixon to replace the ille­gal­ly fired Archibald Cox. Jawors­ki had pre­vi­ous­ly served as a War­ren Com­mis­sion Coun­sel, while at the same time serv­ing as direc­tor of a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit.

Nixon named for­mer War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber Ger­ald Ford to replace Vice Pres­i­dent Agnew. Ford then replaced Nixon as Pres­i­dent and par­doned him of all crimes he may have com­mit­ted. . . .

. . . . The pro­gram dis­cuss­es evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing numer­ous oth­er fig­ures to the both inves­ti­ga­tions, includ­ing Water­gate Judge John Sir­i­ca and Water­gate bur­glar Frank Stur­gis (aka Frank Fior­i­ni).

To attempt selec­tive era­sure of the all-impor­tant Water­gate tapes, Nixon sought the assis­tance of Gor­don Nov­el, a vet­er­an intel­li­gencer, elec­tron­ics expert, anti-Cas­tro vet­er­an and a fig­ure in Jim Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion in New Orleans. At least one key tape was par­tial­ly erased (the famous 18 1/2 minute gap), though no cul­prit was ever iden­ti­fied.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Leon Jaworski’s role as Kore­a­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor, which per­mit­ted the eclips­ing of the Moon orga­ni­za­tion’s links to the CIA; the role of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church–the Moon organization–in gen­er­at­ing sup­port for Nixon dur­ing Water­gate; Jude Sarah Hugh­es’s involve­ment with a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit; Hugh­es’s admin­is­tra­tion of the oath of office to LBJ on the plane fly­ing back to Wash­ing­ton DC; Judge Sir­i­ca’s elec­toral sup­port for Richard Nixon (“Max­i­mum John” Sir­i­ca was the Judge in the Water­gate case); the fact that the suit by JFK researcher Harold Weis­berg and attor­ney James Lesar sought infor­ma­tion from the War­ren Com­mis­sion, part of the exec­u­tive branch of gov­ern­ment; that body was a Pres­i­den­tial fact-find­ing com­mis­sion with no legal sta­tus what­so­ev­er; Sir­i­ca’s rul­ing against the plain­tiffs was a con­tra­ven­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion; Jaworski’s role as one of two heads of the Texas Court of Inquiry, the body formed by the state of Texas in order to inves­ti­gate the assassination;“ex” CIA offi­cer James McCord’s deci­sive role in both betray­ing the Water­gate bur­glars and in see­ing to it that the inves­ti­ga­tion would go for­ward; Frank Stur­gis and his role (as Frank Fior­i­ni) in run­ning the Mob’s casi­nos in Cuba pre-Cas­tro; Stur­gis’s role in gen­er­at­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion point­ing toward Cas­tro as the archi­tect of the assas­si­na­tion; an arti­cle from a 1983 tech­nol­o­gy pub­li­ca­tion in which Gor­don Nov­el dis­cuss­es his ultra high-tech­nol­o­gy role “to erase the Water­gate tapes” (this will be dis­cussed at greater length in future pro­grams.)

FTR #108 Jack Ruby’s Warren Commission Testimony

Con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of JFK.