Spitfire List | Jim Garrison

FTR #1125 Three-Dimensional Chess and the Covid-19 Outbreak: A Structural Overview

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 15, 2020 ⋅ One comment

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”–Edward R. Murrow

This program is an overview of a number of overlapping considerations in the Covid-19 outbreak, which Mr. Emory calls a “Bio-Psy-Op.” These overlapping areas will be presented in a series of programs: FTR #1126 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 2: The Democracy-Killing Virus; FTR #1127 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 3: The Eugenic Virus; FTR #1128 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 4: The Wealth-Concentrating Virus; FTR #1129 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 5: Walkin’ the Coronavirus; FTR #1130 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 6: Context–The China-Killing Virus; FTR #1131 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse, Part 7: Pinchback’s Perspective and FTR #1132 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 8: The Nazi Virus.

Before discussing the Covid-19 “op,” per se, we memorialized the brilliant Kevin Coogan, author of “Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International,” as well as numerous articles. Kevin passed away on 2/27/2020 in New York City. We do not know the cause. Kevin was a brilliant writer and analyst and will be sorely missed.

In For The Record #233, we examined Kevin’s analysis of “The Order,” a fascist/mystical concept that was formulated, in part by fascist mystic Julius Evola. Evola was a dominant philosophical and ideological influence on Steve Bannon, at the epicenter of the anti-China effort. (Mr. Emory misspoke himself–the program is FTR #233, not #312.)

The concept of three-dimensional chess derives from the old “Star Trek” television series, in which the officers played a variation of chess that involved playing on three different levels. Understanding the “Bio-Psy-Op” similarly involves thinking and awareness on at least three levels.

An op-ed column in The New York Times by Bret Stephens goes to the essence of this “bio-psy-op.” ” . . . . The only certainty is that, in the midst of a crisis, politicians are rarely penalized for predicting the worst possible outcome. If it comes to pass, they seem prophetic. If it doesn’t, they take credit for averting catastrophe. In the meantime, they seek to enhance their powers. . . . we might face not a recession but a full-blown depression, which would be financially ruinous for hundreds of millions and have its own disastrous knock-on effects in mental, emotional, and physical health, including for the elderly and sick who already face the greatest risks from the virus. . . .”

Key points of discussion and analysis, which will be developed at much greater length and in much greater detail in the series of programs noted above, including some of the articles which will figure into the analysis:

1.–Exemplifying the profound psychological aspects of the Covid-19 Psy-Op is the phenomenon of the hoarding of toilet paper. Mr. Emory views this as a deep Freudian/anal response to feelings of helplessness on the part of citizens. Toilet paper is of no help against the virus, but is symptomatic of a deep-seated personality dynamic seeking to manifest some measure of social control. This was the subject of a recent New Yorker piece. ” . . . . ‘Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control,’ Andrea Greenman, the president of the Contemporary Freudian Society, said. ‘The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time. So, I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper, I’ll never be out of control, never be a helpless, dirty child again.’ ’ . . . .”

2.–FTR #1126 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 2: The Democracy-Killing Virus: The Covid-19 “op” is leading to the attenuation or elimination of democracy all over the world. In addition to draconian powers proposed by “ex” CIA officer and Attorney General William Barr, Trump has boasted about powers granted to him “that people don’t even know about.” Abroad, fascists and autocrats from Viktor Orban to Narendra Modi are using the Covid-19 outbreak to cement control. Even Great Britain has manifested emergency powers that one critic termed “Eye-Watering.” Civil liberties are taking a beating, with “Pandemic Surveillance” enabling a massive erosion of privacy that is unlikely to abate. There are questions about whether the elections will be held in November. (“Trump Has Emergency Powers We Aren’t Allowed to Know About” by Elizabeth Gotein and Andrew Boyle; The New York Times; 4/10/2020.; “DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic” by Betsy Woodruff Swan; Politico; 03/21/2020; “Exclusive: Inside the Military’s Top Secret Plans If the Coronavirus Cripples Government” by William M. Arkin; Newsweek; 3/18/2020; “Exclusive: U.S. Military Activates Its Never-Before-Used Federal Response to Combat Coronavirus Outbreak” by William M. Arkin; Newsweek; 2/27/2020.; “For Autocrats and Others, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power” by Selam Gebrikadan; The New York Times; 3/30/2020.; “Media Dissent Fades as Modi Tightens Grip” by Vindu Goel and Jeffrey Gettleman;The New York Times; 4/3/2020.; “Coronavirus Surveillance Is Entering Dystopian Territory” by Eric Lutz; Vanity Fair; 4/9/2020.

3.–FTR #1127 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 3: The Eugenic Virus: The disproportionate damage being inflicted by the pandemic on minorities–African-Americans and Latinos in particular, has received considerable discussion. Economically disadvantaged to a considerable extent and subject to the physiological, psychological and behavioral liabilities stemming from that state of affairs, they are more vulnerable to the ravages of the virus. In addition, “social-distancing” is a luxury that many poor people can not afford. Another major consideration concerns the rationing of health care. People with disabilities are afraid they will be shunted “to the back of the line” when it comes time for them to receive proper treatment. The elderly are falling ill and dying all over the world. (“People with Disabilities Are Afraid They Will Be Discriminated Against Because of Coronavirus” by Rick Jervais; USA Today; 3/26/2020.; “Who Should Be Saved First? Experts Offer Medical Guidance” by Austin Frakt; The New York Times; 3/24/2020.; “Early Data Shows African Americans Contracting and Dying of Coronavirus at an Alarming Rate” by Akilah Johnson and Talia Buford; ProPublica; 4/3/2020.; “Social Distancing Is A Privilege” by Charles Blow; The New York Times; 4/5/2020. ; “Scapegoating New York Means Ignoring Its Desperate Need” by Kim Phillips-Fein; The New York Times; 4/5/2020.

4.–FTR #1128 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 4: The Wealth-Concentrating Virus: In FTR #‘s 1111 and 1112, among other programs, we spoke of the networking and investing of Steve Bannon, J. Kyle Bass and Tommy Hicks, Jr. Bass, you will recall, is asymmetrically invested with regard to the economies in Hong Kong and China. He has certainly made money, as have many others. With the Federal Reserve estimating unemployment at rates that may reach 32% and economist Paul Krugman opining that this downturn will be three to five times as bad as the 2008 financial collapse, those who do have money will be able to buy up assets at pennies on the dollar. An article in The Guardian discusses hedge fund returns of as much as 4,000+ percent for some firms. The possibility of “insider knowledge” of the coming pandemic suggests itself. It should be noted that J. Kyle Bass made his fortune betting against the subprime housing market. In this program, we will discuss his role in helping to bring down Bear Stearns in the 2008 collapse. A former employee of that ill-fated company, Bass leaked damaging information about Bear Stearns to a Wall Street Journal reporter, thereby precipitating the collapse of the firm. (“Coronavirus job losses could total 47 million, unemployment rate may hit 32%, Fed estimates” by Jeff Cox; CNBC; 03/30/2020; “Hedge funds ‘raking in billions’ during coronavirus crisis” by Rupert Neate Wealth and Jasper Jolly; The Guardian; 04/09/2020.; “WSJ: ‘Twas Kyle Bass that Killed Bear Stearns” by Thornton McEnery; Dealbreaker.com; 3/29/2016 [Updated on 1/14/2019.]; “Nassim Taleb-Advised Universa Tail Fund Returned 3,600% in March” by Erik Schatzker; Bloomberg; 04/08/2020; “How A Goat Farmer Built A Doomsday Machine That Just Booked A 4,144% Return” by Antoine Gara; Forbes; 04/13/2020.

5.–FTR #1129 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 5: Walkin’ The Coronavirus: In the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk–which we have discussed for decades–the SS go underground (which they did), buy into the opinion-forming media (which they did) and, infiltrate the military (which they have done), and, after a terrorist attack by genetically-engineered viruses decimates large parts of the United States, martial law is declared and the Nazis take over. From Serpent’s Walk: “. . . . ‘Yes. Well. ‘Pacov’ stands for ‘Pandemic Communicable Virus,’ one of the uglier results of military experimentation with recombinant DNA. Do you know what that is?’. . . . ‘Very well, let me tell you in layman’s terms.’ Mulder extended a hand to shush Wrench, who had started to speak. ‘Pacov consists of two separate re-workings of two DNA chains of existing viruses. It’s a piggy-back weapon, a two-stage operation. You send in the first stage. The vectors . . . agents of transmission . . . for Pacov‑1 are extensive. It travels through the air, the water, or directly from person-to-person and is highly contagious. It spreads for hundreds of miles, if conditions are optimal. Pacov‑1 produces only a mild, flu-like infection that disappears within a day or two. Public health authorities would overlook it, never consider it a serious epidemic, and even if they did they’d have to look carefully to isolate it. Once a victim is over the ‘flu,’ Pacov‑1 becomes dormant and almost undetectable. A month or two later, you send in the second stage: Pacov‑2 is also a virus, just as contagious as the first, and just as harmless by itself. It reacts with Pacov‑1 to produce a powerful coagulant. . . . you die within three minutes. No warning, no vaccine, no cure. Those not exposed to both stages remain unharmed. . . . Pacov‑2 goes inert, like Pacov‑1 within a week or two. Then you get your victim’s country, all his property, in undamaged condition. . . . and a lot of corpses to bury.’ . . . .”

6.–FTR #1130: Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 6: Context–the China-Killing Virus: Analyzes the Covid-19 outbreak in the context of the anti-China, full-court press, highlighted in, among other, programs, FTR #‘s 1089 through 1095, 1103, 1104, 1105. (“Unleash the Privateers” by Colonel Mark Cancion (USMC—Retired) and Brandon Schwartz; U.S. Naval Institute Magazine; April 2020 [Vol. 146/2/1,406; “Inside the World Uyghur Congress: The US-backed right-wing regime change network seeking the ‘fall of China’” by Ajit Singh; The Gray Zone; 03/05/2020; “Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare” by Joshua Cho; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; 3/6/2020.)

7.–FTR #1131 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse, Part 7: Pinchback’s Perspective: ” . . . .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. . . .”

8.–FTR #1132 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 8: The Nazi Virus: This program will synthesize the various aspects of the “Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now” series, demonstrating how the various conceptual components set forth herein constitute a Nazi “Full-Spectrum Dominance.”

FTR #1123 The Past Is Prologue: Further Reflections on the Covid-19 Outbreak and the Genesis of the Military-Medical Complex

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 23, 2020 ⋅ 3 comments

In this program we highlight important elements in the development of the amalgam of forces that, in our opinion, helped to precipitate the Covid-19 “Bio-Psy-Op.”

In Miscellaneous Archive Show M31, we examined the military inquiry into the killing of Wehrmacht Corporal Johannes Kunze, whose anti-Nazi sentiments were punished by his fellow prisoners with murder. In the inquest, it became clear that American officers had permitted their German POW counterparts to screen the mail of their fellow prisoners, which provided them the means to identify and kill Corporal Kunze.

The military prosecutor in the case–Leon Jaworski–exercised what was politely termed judicial restraint, and did not investigate the U.S. officers whose conduct led directly to the murder of Kunze.

Jaworski later participated in trials of Third Reich alumni accused of war crimes, including the trial of Dachau medical personnel, some of whom, after experimenting on concentration camp inmates, were awarded contracts to work for the U.S. under Project Paperclip. Again, he apparently exercised “judicial restraint.”

“. . . . Col. Leon Jaworski, who will be in charge of the trial, estimates that at least 5,000 Jews died at Dachau from ordinary mistreatment and torture, while anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 died as a result of medical experiments performed upon them. . . .”

The gruesome Dachau medical experiments:

1.–Were performed by five doctors who were on the Project Paperclip payroll by the time Jaworski manifested judicial restraint: ” . . . . Five doctors working at the center starting in the fall of 1945 were on the list: Theodor Benzinger, Siegried Ruff, Konrad Schafer, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, and Oskar Schroder. Instead of firing these physicians suspected of heinous war crimes, the center kept the doctors in its employ and the list was classified. . . .”
2.–Involved trials by four of the Paperclip recruits of two processes aimed at purifying seawater for drinking, with gruesome results for the Dachau “Untermenschen”: “. . . . Dr. Oskar Schroder, head of the Luftwaffe Medical Corps, was thrilled. Konrad Schafer had ‘developed a process which actually precipitated the salts from the sea water,’ Schroder later testified. . . . The effectiveness of both the Schafer process and the Berka method would be tested on the Untermenschen at Dachau. A Luftwaffe physician named Hermann Becker-Freyseng was assigned to assist Dr. Schafer, and to coauthor with him a paper documenting the results of the contest. The senior doctor advising Becker-Freyseng and Schafer in their work was Dr. Siegfried Ruff. . . .”
3.–Were filmed and screened for SS chief Heinrich Himmler by the fifth Paperclip recruit, Dr. Theodor Benzinger: ” . . . .This was the same Dr. Benzinger who had overseen for Himmler the film screening at the Reich Air Ministry, in Berlin, of Dachau prisoners being murdered in medical experiments. . . .”
4.–Became part of an experimental continuum, in which the Nazi research on Aeromedical Medicine performed at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute proceeded uninterrupted under U.S. Army Air Force command: ” . . . . The Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg . . . only a few months prior . . . had been the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, a bastion of Nazi science where chemists and physicists worked on projects for the Reich’s war machine. At its front entrance, the Reich’s flag came down and the U.S. Flag went up. Photographs of Hitler were pulled from the walls and replaced by framed photographs of Army Air Forces generals in military pose. Most of the furniture stayed the same. In the dining room, German waiters in white servers’ coats provided table service at mealtimes. A single 5” X 8” requisition receipt, dated September 14, 1945, made the transition official: ‘This property is needed by U.S. Forces, and the requisition is in proportion to the resources of the country.’ The mission statement of the project, classified Top Secret, was succinct: ‘the exploitation of certain uncompleted German aviation medical research projects.’ Dr. [Hubertus] Strughold [who was the top researcher in the Dachau projects] was put in charge of hiring doctors, ‘all of whom are considered authorities in a particular field of medicine.’ . . . .”

This “judicial restraint” directly anticipates his work for the Warren Commission, his work as Watergate Special Prosecutor (and a VERY special prosecutor he was) and his work heading the “investigation” into the Korea-gate scandal.

Following President Kennedy’s assassination, Jaworski became both a Warren Commission counsel and, with Judge Robert Storey, headed the Texas Court of Inquiry, the Texas judicial body charged with investigating JFK’s murder. As discussed in the linked Guns of November, Part 3, Jaworski sat on the board of directors of the M.D. Anderson Fund, a documented CIA domestic funding conduit.

In an earlier professional incarnation, Storey–as Colonel Robert Storey–passed along the word that the de-Nazification edict was to be “relaxed” during the Nuremberg trials. ” . . . . Colonel Robert Storey, the U.S. executive trial counsel at the International Military Tribunal and a senior aide to Robert Jackson, has ‘passed the word down that the denazification directive was to be relaxed,’ . . . .”

Two key Warren Commission members were Allen Dulles–whose Nazi links stretch back before World War II and for decades thereafter–and John J. McCloy, former U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and complicit in the “rehabilitation” of many heinous Nazis and the employment of many of them by U.S. intelligence.

With people like McCloy and Dulles on the U.S. “investigation” and Storey and Jaworski heading the Texas “investigation” (and Jaworski working with the Warren Commission as well), it is not surprising that the Nazi and fascist links to the JFK assassination did not emerge into public view.

It seems probable that the selection of the composition of both the Warren Commission and the Texas Court of Inquiry was shaped, in part, by the perceived necessity of concealing the many Nazis under the American bed.

In numerous programs, we have accessed the brilliant, consummately important work of Ed Haslsm. Ed has developed a compelling thesis linking: research into a cancer-causing monkey virus contaminating the polio vaccine; a soft-tissue cancer epidemic; the development of AIDS; the assassination of JFK and the development of a biological warfare weapon.

Ed noted the presence in the research milieu in New Orleans of Colonel Jose Rivera, a biological warfare specialist and member of Douglas MacArthur’s staff. In light of the incorporation of Japan’s Unit 731 into the U.S. biological warfare establishment, we view this as very significant.

We conclude with discussion of the supervision of Ft. Detrick personnel of Dr. Kurt Blome, the Deputy Surgeon General of the Third Reich and another individual incorporated into the U.S. biological warfare establishment.

We have discussed Blome in, among other programs, FTR # 1012 and AFA #39.

(We misstated that both Erich Traub and Blome oversaw the Serratia marcesscens experiments. It was only Blome.

Both Blome and Traub reported directly to Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler during World War II.

FTR #1115 Review of Some Information about AIDS as a Biological Warfare Agent

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ February 25, 2020 ⋅ Post a comment

Against the background of our discussion of the Covid-19 outbreak as what Mr. Emory has termed a “Bio-Psy-Op,” we present archival material about the development of AIDS as a biological warfare agent.

(Programs containing information on AIDS as a BW weapon include: AFA #s 16 and 39, as well as FTR #‘s 16, 19, 63, 317, 324, 557, 597, 606, 642, 644, 682, 820, 912, 1012.)

The program begins with review of an interview with Dr. Wilbert Jordan of Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles (from AFA 16.) Done in December of 1984, it gives perspective on the epidemiological aspects of AIDS–information that undermines the prevailing theories at the time concerning the origins of the disease.

Noting that a disease as lethal as AIDS was at the time (before anti-virals developed to treat HIV infection), Dr. Jordan is dismissive of the notion that such a lethal ailment could have been present in either Zaire or Haiti and then retrospectively traced there after being discovered in the U.S.

The notions of Haiti and/or Zaire being the point of origin of the disease played into the anti-immigrant/xenophobic dynamic that has become prevalent in the era of Donald Trump.

Dr. Jordan concludes by hypothesizing that the disease was created in a laboratory, in all probability in the United States.

Next, the program highlights information from FTR #686, setting forth information about the National Cancer Institute’s Special Viral Cancer Research Project.

After the [official] abandonment by the U.S. of offensive biological warfare research, the Nixon administration declared a “war on cancer” in 1971. As part of the War on Cancer Nixon turned Fort Detrick (the Army’s top BW research center) over to the National Cancer Institute for its Viral Cancer Project. The Viral Cancer Project was inextricably linked with biological warfare research and may well have served as a cover for ongoing BW work. (Listeners interested in this material are encouraged to check out, among other programs, FTR #‘s 606, 682.)

For the purposes of the present discussion, it is worth noting that it was the National Cancer Institute’s VCP that was at the epicenter of AIDS research in the United States.

The VCP/NCI biological warfare connection utilized strong connections to university research facilities. The Naval Biosciences Laboratory (managed by the University of California), as well as Fort Detrick were profoundly involved with the NCI’s VCP. The Cell Culture Laboratory at the Naval Biosciences Facility provided the seed stock for the production of vast quantities of carcinogenic and immunosuppressive viruses that were generated by the National Cancer Institute.

The production of those viruses for the NCI was overseen by Drs. James Duff and Jack Gruber, both longtime veterans of Fort Detrick and its biological warfare research.

The aerial transmission of deadly pathogenic agents was a major focal point of the NCI’s VCP, apparently overlapping BW research projects. Two other key researchers for the NCI, Drs. Alfred Hellman and Mark Chatigny also had biological warfare research backgrounds, including work with aerial transmission of pathogenic agents.

Yet another component of the NCI/VCP/BW connection was the incorporation of pharmaceutical companies in the research programs. The Pfizer company produced viruses for the NCI’s VCP, including the immunosuppressive Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, like HIV, a retrovirus.

Among the most significant and alarming aspects of the NCI’s VCP program is the fact that, when Fort Detrick was converted to the Frederick Cancer Research Center, it was administered by Litton Bionetics, a biotechnology subisidiary of Litton Industries. Litton was a major defense contractor and a frequent vehicle for covert operations.

Prior to assuming stewardship of Fort Detrick for the NCI, Litton Bionetics had employed Dr. Robert Gallo (the “discoverer” of HIV).

Of paramount importance in this investigation is the fact that the NCI’s VCP program involved numerous experiments and operations designed at getting organisms to “jump species.” Prominent researchers familiar with these efforts expressed alarm and the conviction that such work should be outlawed, lest it lead to the creation of new, deadly organisms that would infect humans.

Obviously, this broadcast and the line of inquiry approached in Mr. Emory’s decades-long investigation of AIDS as a man-made disease highlight the possibility/probability/near certainty that HIV is just such an organism.

The program concludes with review of an excerpt from testimony before a House appropriations subcommittee that was drawing up the defense budget for the following year. (The hearings were in 1969.) The testimony discusses the possibility of using genetic engineering to produce a disease that would be “refractory” to the immune system. This is virtually the clinical definition of AIDS. It is worth noting that the project was funded, and just such a disease—AIDS—appeared in just the time frame posited. It is also worth noting that, in the 2002 edition of A Higher Form of Killing, this passage is omitted!!

A Higher Form of Killing; Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman; Hill and Wang [SC]; ISBN 0–8090-5471‑X; p. 241 (p. 266 in e‑book).

. . . As long ago as 1962, forty scientists were employed at the U.S. Army biological warfare laboratories on full-time genetics research. ‘Many others,’ it was said, ‘appreciate the implications of genetics for their own work.’ The implications were made more specific that genetic engineering could solve one of the major disadvantages of biological warfare, that it is limited to diseases which occur naturally somewhere in the world. ‘Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective micro-organism which could differ in certain important respects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease.’ [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The possibility that such a ‘super germ’ may have been successfully produced in a laboratory somewhere in the world in the years since that assessment was made is one which should not be too readily cast aside. . . .

Program Highlights Include: Litton Bionetics’ work on the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus while under contract to the NCI and when it employed Dr. Robert Gallo; research emphasis on “zoonoses” (diseases that jump from animals to humans) by the joint military/civilian consortium; Gallo’s work with NCI VCP/Ft. Detrick veteran Dr. Jack Gruber in a mass viral inoculation program undertaken by Litton Bionetics; the use of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus in the Litton Bionetics mass inoculation program.

Nuremberg Redux: The Deep Political Context of the Texas Court of Inquiry

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ June 18, 2019 ⋅ Post a comment

In Miscellaneous Archive Show M31, we examined the military inquiry into the killing of Wehrmacht Corporal Johannes Kunze, whose anti-Nazi sentiments were punished by his fellow prisoners with murder. In the inquest, it became clear that American officers had permitted their German POW counterparts to screen the mail of their fellow prisoners, which provided them the means to identify and kill corporal Kunze. The military prosecutor in the case–future Watergate and Koreagate “Special Prosecutor” Leon Jaworski–exercised what was politely termed judicial restraint, and did not investigate the U.S. officers whose conduct led directly to the murder of Kunze. Jaworski later participated in trials of Third Reich alumni accused of war crimes, including the trial of Dachau medical personnel. “. . . . Col. Leon Jaworski, who will be in charge of the trial, estimates that at least 5,000 Jews died at Dachau from ordinary mistreatment and torture, while anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 died as a result of medical experiments performed upon them. . . .” The gruesome Dachau medical experiments: 1) Were performed by five doctors who were on the Project Paperclip payroll by the time Jaworski again manifested judicial restraint: ” . . . . Five doctors working at the center starting in the fall of 1945 were on the list: Theodor Benzinger, Siegried Ruff, Konrad Schafer, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, and Oskar Schroder. Instead of firing these physicians suspected of heinous war crimes, the center kept the doctors in its employ and the list was classified. . . .” 2) Involved trials by four of the Paperclip recruits of two processes aimed at purifying seawater for drinking, with gruesome results for the Dachau “Untermenschen”: “. . . . Dr. Oskar Schroder, head of the Luftwaffe Medical Corps, was thrilled. Konrad Schafer had ‘developed a process which actually precipitated the salts from the sea water,’ Schroder later testified. . . . The effectiveness of both the Schafer process and the Berka method would be tested on the Untermenschen at Dachau. A Luftwaffe physician named Hermann Becker-Freyseng was assigned to assist Dr. Schafer, and to coauthor with him a paper documenting the results of the contest. The senior doctor advising Becker-Freyseng and Schafer in their work was Dr. Siegfried Ruff. . . .” 3) Were filmed and screened for SS chief Heinrich Himmler by the fifth Paperclip recruit, Dr. Theodor Benzinger: ” . . . .This was the same Dr. Benzinger who had overseen for Himmler the film screening at the Reich Air Ministry, in Berlin, of Dachau prisoners being murdered in medical experiments. . . .” 4) Became part of an experimental continuum, in which the Nazi research on Aeromedical Medicine performed at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute proceeded uninterrupted under U.S. Army Air Force command: ” . . . . The Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg . . . only a few months prior . . . had been the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, a bastion of Nazi science where chemists and physicists worked on projects for the Reich’s war machine. At its front entrance, the Reich’s flag came down and the U.S. Flag went up. Photographs of Hitler were pulled from the walls and replaced by framed photographs of Army Air Forces generals in military pose. Most of the furniture stayed the same. In the dining room, German waiters in white servers’ coats provided table service at mealtimes. A single 5” X 8” requisition receipt, dated September 14, 1945, made the transition official: ‘This property is needed by U.S. Forces, and the requisition is in proportion to the resources of the country.’ Again, then Colonel Jaworski apparently exercised “judicial restraint.” Following President Kennedy’s assassination, Jaworski became both a Warren Commission counsel and, with Judge Robert Storey, headed the Texas Court of Inquiry, the Texas judicial body charged with investigating JFK’s murder. As discussed in the linked Guns of November, Part 3, Jaworski sat on the board of directors of the M.D. Anderson Fund, a documented CIA domestic funding conduit. In an earlier professional incarnation, Storey–as Colonel Robert Storey (above, right)–passed along the word that the de-Nazification edict was to be “relaxed” during the Nuremberg trials. ” . . . . Colonel Robert Storey, the U.S. executive trial counsel at the International Military Tribunal and a senior aide to Robert Jackson, has ‘passed the word down that the denazification directive was to be relaxed,’ . . . .” It seems probable that the selection of the composition of both the Warren Commission and the Texas Court of Inquiry was shaped, in part, by the perceived necessity of concealing the many Nazis under the American bed.

Comedian Mort Sahl in 1976: The CIA Staffs the Left

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ May 30, 2019 ⋅ 2 comments

One of several role models who inspired Mr. Emory to do his life’s work is political comedian Mort Sahl. One of Jim Garrison’s investigators, Sahl paid the price for his engagement. From an entertainment and media superstar, he became relegated to the margins of exposure and earning power. In his 1976 autobiography Heartland, he chronicled some suspicious violent events in New Orleans that immediately preceded Garrison’s campaign for re-election. Sahl surmised that this was probably part of a CIA campaign to destroy Garrison. In our long series on Jim DiEugenio’s Destiny Betrayed, we noted that former CIA director Richard Helms committed the Agency to destroying Garrison’s efforts before, during and after the trial of Clay Shaw. That these events may have been part of the “after” is something to be carefully considered. In his text, Sahl also notes that part of the CIA’s task is ” . . . . to staff the left. They don’t staff the right–that’ll take care of itself; they staff the left. They give a fellow a liberal credential, they’ll let you trust him, and they’ll always give you a cookie. A guy writes an article for Ramparts and says, ‘The Gulf Oil company wants to start a war so they can drill offshore in Vietnam.’ The reader says, ‘Wow, what revelations.’ that’s your cookie. . . .”

David Sarnoff’s Axis Connection: Background to NBC and the Walter Sheridan Broadcast

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ May 27, 2019 ⋅ Post a comment

In our long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his masterwork “Destiny Betrayed,” we highlighted veteran intelligence officer Walter Sheridan’s broadcast hatchet job on New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison’s investigation of the JFK assassination. The TV hit piece was broadcast on the NBC network. In our discussion of the Sheridan broadcast, we noted the efforts of RCA chief David Sarnoff in resurrecting the Nazi Radio France station and presiding over its conversion to Radio Free Europe. (RCA is the parent company of NBC, which aired the Sheridan broadcast.) In resurrecting Radio France and midwiving its conversion to Radio Free Europe, Sarnoff, who is Jewish, was building on profound and treasonous Axis connections he maintained during the war. In “Trading with the Enemy,” Charles Higham chronicled the deep involvement of David Sarnoff with the Transradio Consortium, which joined the Axis nations with the Western Allies in a telecommunications cartel that provided vital–and lethal–intelligence to the Axis during the war. Key points of analysis and discussion include: 1.–David Sarnoff’s successful efforts to restore and expand the Nazi Radio France Station and re-brand it as “Radio Free Europe.” ” . . . . In 1944, Sarnoff worked for the complete restoration of the Nazi destroyed Radio France station in Paris until its signal was able to reach throughout Europe. It was then retitled Radio Free Europe. He later lobbied the White House to expand the range and reach of Radio Free Europe. At about this point, Radio Free Europe became a pet project of Allen Dulles. Sarnoff’s company, Radio Corporation of America, became a large part of the technological core of the NSA. . . . Robert was president of RCA, NBC’s parent company, at the time Sheridan’s special aired. David was chairman. . . .” 2.–Sarnoff’s RCA was part of the Transradio Consortium, something of a broadcast cartel melding Axis and Western Allied broadcast establishments: ” . . . . RCA was in partnership before and after Pearl Harbor with British Cable and Wireless; with Telefunken, the Nazi company; with Italcable, wholly owned by the Mussolini government; and with Vichy’s Compagnie Generale, in an organization known as the Transradio Consortium, with General Robert C. Davis, head of the New York Chapter of the American Red Cross, as its chairman. In turn, RCA, British Cable and Wireless, and the German and Italian companies had a share with ITT in TTP (Telegrafica y Telefonica del Plata), an Axis-controlled company providing telegraph and telephone service between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Nazis in Montevideo could telephone Buenos Aires through TTP without coming under the control of either the state-owned system in Uruguay or the ITT system in Argentina. Messages, often dangerous to American security, were transmitted directly to Berlin and Rome by Transradio. Another shareholder was ITT’s German “rival,” Siemens, which linked cables and networks with Behn south of Panama. . . .” 3.–Transradio Consortium was the vehicle for lethally treasonous communications during the war: ” . . . . But the public, which thought of Sarnoff as a pillar of patriotism, would have been astonished to learn of his partnership with the enemy through Transradio and TTP. The British public, beleaguered and bombed, would have been equally shocked to learn that British Cable and Wireless, 10 percent owned by the British government, and under virtual government control in wartime, was in fact also in partnership with the Germans and Italians through the same companies and proxies. . . . Simultaneously, the Transradio stations, according to State Department reports with the full knowledge of David Sarnoff, kept up a direct line to Berlin. The amount of intelligence passed along the lines can scarcely be calculated. The London office was in constant touch with New York throughout the war, sifting through reports from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile and sending company reports to the Italian and German interests. . . .”

FTR #1069 Socialists for Trump and Hitler, (The “Assistance”), Part 9: Walkin’ the Snake in India

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 18, 2019 ⋅ One comment

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?

. . . . 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.

FTR #1058, FTR #1059 and FTR #1060 The Christian West, Parts 1, 2 and 3: Contextual Foundation of the Jim DiEugenio Interviews

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 6, 2019 ⋅ One comment

Reviewing past material in order to refresh and reinforce understanding of the historical context and foundation of the recent Jim DiEugenio interviews, this program reviews information relevant to the concept of the Christian West. “The Christian West” is explained in the description for AFA #37: ” . . . . When it became clear that the armies of the Third Reich were going to be defeated, it opened secret negotiations with representatives from the Western Allies. Representatives on both sides belonged to the transatlantic financial and industrial fraternity that had actively supported fascism. The thrust of these negotiations was the establishment of The Christian West. Viewed by the Nazis as a vehicle for surviving military defeat, ‘The Christian West’ involved a Hitler-less Reich joining with the U.S., Britain, France and other European nations in a transatlantic, pan-European anti-Soviet alliance. In fact, The Christian West became a reality only after the cessation of hostilities. The de-Nazification of Germany was aborted. Although a few of the more obvious and obnoxious elements of Nazism were removed, Nazis were returned to power at virtually every level and in almost every capacity in the Federal Republic of Germany. . . .”

Against the background of Allen and John Foster Dulles’ long, overlapping careers as lawyers for Sullivan & Cromwell, as well as government operatives, we note the decisive role of cartels in precipitating fascism and the position in the political and macro-economic landscape of the events stemming from that.

Program Highlights Include: American recruitment of Nazi Eastern Front intelligence officers in August of 1944 (far earlier than generally supposed); The Gehlen “Org“ ‘s incorporation into the CIA with the consent of a Nazi chain of command that was still in existence; the role in the Gehlen Org of Eastern European fascist organizations including the OUN/B, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Croatian Ustachi, the Bulgarian National Front and the SS Baltic Legion; the incorporation of those same Gehlen-controlled Eastern European fascists into the GOP via the Crusade For Freedom (CFF); the pivotal role of Gehlen/Nazi/CFF personnel in the postwar GOP (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, William Casey and George H.W. Bush); the re-institution of Nazis in the “New” Federal Republic of Germany; the control of the “New” Federal Republic of Germany by an underground Nazi fuehringsring and a command center in Madrid; the role of Canadian nickel interests in John Foster Dulles’ cobbling together of I.G. Farben; Garrison investigative target Clay Shaw’s networking with Canadian nickel interests; the role of both Dulles brothers in frustrating the interdiction of the Bormann flight capital program; the [apparently successful] negotiations between OSS chief William Donovan, his aide Allen Dulles and representative of the SS to realize the Christian West concept; the role of Crusade For Freedom personnel in the assassination of President Kennedy; Garrison investigative target Clay Shaw’s friendship with Nazi Finance Minister Hjalmar Schacht; Foster Dulles’ professional intimacy with Schacht; Shaw’s links to Permindex and the SS-linked Schroeder banking empire; the decisive role of Allen Dulles, George Herbert Walker (W’s great grandfather and the grandfather of George H.W. Bush), Prescott Bush, Sr. (the father of George H.W. Bush and the grandfather of W) in laundering U.S. capital investment in Nazi Germany and the return of those Nazi monies to the U.S.; Nazi steel magnate Fritz Thyssen’s close relationship to: Allen Dulles, Prescott Bush, Martin Bormann and the Schroeder banking interests; Allen Dulles’ “go-to” relationship with Senator Prescott Bush (senior) while serving as head of the CIA.

FTR #1054, FTR #1055 and FTR #1056 Interviews #23, #24 and #25 with Jim DiEugenio about “Destiny Betrayed”

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ February 14, 2019 ⋅ One comment

These are the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth (and concluding program) in a 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.

The first interview begins with a telling editorial written for “The Washington Post” by former President Harry Truman.

. . . . On December 22, 1963, Harry Truman wrote an editorial that was published in the Washington Post. The former President wrote that he had become “disturbed by the way the CIA had become diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of government.” He wrote that he never dreamed that this would happen when he signed the National Security Act. he thought it would be used for intelligence analysis, not “peacetime cloak and dagger operations.” He complained that the CIA had now become “so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue–and a subject for Cold War enemy propaganda.” Truman went as far as suggesting its operational arm be eliminated. He concluded with the warning that Americans have grown up learning respect for “our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over out historic position and I feel hat we need to correct it.” . . . .

Former CIA Director (and then Warren Commission member) Allen Dulles visited Truman and attempted to get him to retract the statement. He dissembled about then CIA chief John McCone’s view of the editorial.

The focal point of the first two programs is the dramatic changes in U.S. foreign policy that occurred because of JFK’s assassination. Analysis in FTR #1056 continues the analysis of Kennedy’s foreign policy and concludes with riveting discussion of the striking policy undertakings of the Kennedy administration in the area of civil rights. Jim has written a marvelous, 4‑part analysis of JFK’s civil rights policy.

Discussion of JFK’s foreign policy and how his murder changed that builds on, and supplements analysis of this in FTR #1031, FTR #1032 and FTR #1033.

Lyndon Baines Johnson reversed JFK’s foreign policy initiatives in a number of important ways.

When the United States reneged on its commitment to pursue independence for the colonial territories of its European allies at the end of the Second World War, the stage was set for those nations’ desire for freedom to be cast as incipient Marxists/Communists. This development was the foundation for epic bloodshed and calamity.

Jim details then Congressman John F. Kennedy’s 1951 fact-finding trip to Saigon to gain an understanding of the French war to retain their colony of Indochina. (Vietnam was part of that colony.)

In speaking with career diplomat Edmund Gullion, Kennedy came to the realization that not only would the French lose the war, but that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh guerrillas enjoyed great popular support among the Vietnamese people.

This awareness guided JFK’s Vietnam policy, in which he not only resisted tremendous pressure to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam, but planned a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.

Perhaps the most important change made after JFK’s assassination was Johnson’s negation of Kennedy’s plans to withdraw from Vietnam.

LBJ cancelled Kennedy’s scheduled troop withdrawal, scheduled personnel increases and implemented the 34A program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Executed by South Vietnamese naval commandos using small, American-made patrol boats, these raids were supported by U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were electronically “fingerprinting” North Vietnamese radar installations.

The electronic fingerprinting of North Vietnamese radar was in anticipation of a pre-planned air war, a fundamental part of a plan by LBJ to involve the United States in a full-scale war in Southeast Asia.

. . . . Clearly now that the withdrawal was imminent, Kennedy was going to try and get the rest of his administration on board to his way of thinking. Not only did this not happen once Kennedy was dead, but the first meeting on Vietnam afterwards was a strong indication that things were now going to be cast in a sharply different tone. This meeting took place at 3:00 p.m. on November 24. . . . Johnson’s intent was clear to McNamara. He was breaking with the previous policy. The goal now was to win the war. LBJ then issued a strong warning: He wanted no more dissension or division over policy. Any person who did not conform would be removed. (This would later be demonstrated by his banning of Hubert Humphrey from Vietnam meetings when Humphrey advised Johnson to rethink his policy of military commitment to Vietnam.) . . . . The reader should recall, this meeting took place just forty-eight hours after Kennedy was killed. . . .

. . . . Therefore, on March 2, 1964, the Joint Chiefs passed a new war proposal to the White House. This was even more ambitious than the January version. It included bombing, the mining of North Vietnamese harbors, a naval blockade, and possible use of tactical atomic weapons in case China intervened. Johnson was now drawing up a full scale battle plan for Vietnam. In other words, what Kennedy did not do in three years, LBJ had done in three months.

Johnson said he was not ready for this proposal since he did not have congress yet as a partner and trustee. But he did order the preparation of NSAM 288, which was based on this proposal. It was essentially a target list of bombing sites that eventually reached 94 possibilities. By May 25, with Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater clamoring for bombing of the north, LBJ had made the decision that the U.S. would directly attack North Vietnam at an unspecified point in the future. But it is important to note that even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Johnson had ordered the drawing up of a congressional resolution. This had been finalized by William Bundy, McGeorge Bundy’s brother. Therefore in June of 1964, Johnson began lobbying certain people for its passage in congress. . . .

National Security Memorandum 263

. . . . Johnson seized upon the hazy and controversial events in the Gulf of Tonkin during the first week of August to begin he air war planned in NSAM 288. Yet the Tonkin Gulf incident had been prepared by Johnson himself. After Kennedy’s death, President Johnson made a few alterations in the draft of NSAM 273. An order which Kennedy had never seen but was drafted by McGeorge Bundy after a meeting in Honolulu, a meeting which took place while Kennedy was visiting Texas. . . .

. . . . On August 2, the destroyer Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Although torpedoes were launched, none hit. The total damage to the Maddox
was one bullet through the hull. Both Johnson and the Defense Department misrepresented this incident to congress and the press. They said the North Vietnamese fired first, that the USA had no role in the patrol boat raids, that the ships were in international waters, and there was no hot pursuit by the Maddox. These were all wrong. Yet Johnson used this overblown reporting, plus a non-existent attack two nights later on the destroyer Turner Joy to begin to push his war resolution through Congress. He then took out the target list assembled for NSAM 288 [from March of 1964–D.E] and ordered air strikes that very day. . . .

. . . . For on August 7, Johnson sent a message to General Maxwell Taylor. He wanted a whole gamut of possible operations presented to him for direct American attacks against the North. The target date for the systematic air war was set for January 1965. This was called operation Rolling Thunder and it ended up being the largest bombing campaign in military history. The reader should note: the January target date was the month Johnson would be inaugurated after his re-election. As John Newman noted in his masterful book JFK and Vietnam, Kennedy was disguising his withdrawal plan around his re-election; Johnson was disguising his escalation plan around his re-election. . . .

In addition to noting that Hubert Humphrey, contrary to popular misconception, was an opponent of Johnson’s war strategy, we note that Robert McNamara was also opposed to it, although he went along with the Commander in Chief’s policies.

After detailed discussion of the human and environmental damage inflicted on Vietnam and the strategy implemented by LBJ after Kennedy’s assassination, the discussion turns to Johnson’s reversal of Kennedy’s policy with regard to Laos.

The fledgling nation of Laos was also part of French Indochina, and Jim notes how outgoing President Eisenhower coached President-Elect Kennedy on the necessity of committing U.S. combat forces to Laos.

Again, Kennedy refused to commit U.S. ground forces and engineered a policy of neutrality for Laos.

. . . . At his first press conference, Kennedy said that he hoped to establish Laos as a “peaceful country–an independent country not dominated by either side.” He appointed a task force to study the problem, was in regular communication with it and the Laotian ambassador, and decided by February that Laos must have a coalition government, the likes of which Eisenhower had rejected out of hand. Kennedy also had little interest in a military solution. He could not understand sending American troops to fight for a country whose people did not care to fight for themselves. . . . He therefore worked to get the Russians to push the Pathet Lao into a cease-fire agreement. This included a maneuver on Kennedy’s part to indicate military pressure if the Russians did not intervene strongly enough with the Pathet Lao. The maneuver worked, and in May of 1961, a truce was called. A few days later, a conference convened in Geneva to hammer out conditions for a neutral Laos. By July of 1962, a new government, which included the Pathet Lao, had been hammered out. . . .

Whereas JFK had implemented a policy affording neutrality to Laos–against the wishes of the Joint Chiefs, CIA and many of his own cabinet, LBJ scrapped the neutralist policy in favor of a CIA-implemented strategy of employing “narco-militias” such as the Hmong tribesmen as combatants against the Pathet Lao. This counter-insurgency warfare was complemented by a massive aerial bombing campaign.

One of the many outgrowths of LBJ’s reversal of JFK’s Southeast policy was a wave of CIA-assisted heroin addicting both GI’s in Vietnam and American civilians at home.

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:

. . . . In Chapter 1, the author introduced Freeport Sulphur and its subsidiaries Moa Bay Mining and Nicaro Nickel. These companies all had large investments in Cuba prior to Castro’s revolution. And this ended up being one of the ways that Garrison connected Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. This came about for two reasons. First, with Castro taking over their operations in Cuba, Freeport was attempting to investigate bringing in nickel ore from Cuba, through Canada, which still had trade relations with Cuba. The ore would then be refined in Louisiana, either at a plant already in New Orleans or at another plant in Braithwaite. Shaw, an impressario of international trade, was on this exploratory team for Freeport. And he and two other men had been flown to Canada by Ferrie as part of this effort. More evidence of this connection through Freeport was found during their investigation of Guy Banister. Banister apparently knew about another flight taken by Shaw with an official of Freeport, likely Charles Wight, to Cuba. Again the pilot was David Ferrie. Another reason this Freeport connection was important to Garrison is that he found a witness named James Plaine in Houston who said that Mr. Wight of Freeport Sulphur had contacted him in regards to an assassination plot against Castro. Considering the amount of money Freeport was about to lose in Cuba, plus the number of Eastern Establishment luminaries associated with the company–such as Jock Whitney, Jean Mauze and Godfrey Rockefeller–it is not surprising that such a thing was contemplated within their ranks. . . .

LBJ reversed Kennedy’s policy vis a vis Sukarno. 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.

. . . . Shortly after, his aid bill landed on Johnson’s desk. The new president refused to sign it. . . .

. . . . In return for not signing the aid bill, in 1964, LBJ received support from Both Augustus Long and Jock Whitney of Freeport Sulphur in his race against Barry Goldwater. In fact, Long established a group called the National Independent Committee for Johnson. This group of wealthy businessmen included Robert Lehman of Lehman Brothers and Thomas Cabot, Michael Paine’s cousin. . . . Then, in early 1965, Augustus Long was rewarded for helping Johnson get elected. LBJ app[ointed him to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. This is a small group of wealthy private citizens who advises the president on intelligence matters. The members of this group can approve and suggest covert activities abroad. This appointment is notable for what was about to occur. For with Sukarno now unprotected by President Kennedy, the writing was on the wall. The Central Intelligence Agency now bean to send into Indonesia its so called “first team.” . . . .

. . . . Suharto now began to sell off Indonesia’s riches to the highest bidder. Including Freeport Sulphur, which opened what were perhaps the largest copper and gold mines in the world there. . . . Freeport, along with several other companies, now harvested billions from the Suharto regime. . . .

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.

. . . . By 1960, a native revolutionary leader named Patrice Lumumba had galvanized the nationalist feeling of the country. Belgium decided to pull out. But they did so rapidly, knowing that tumult would ensue and they could return to colonize the country again. After Lumumba was appointed prime minister, tumult did ensue. The Belgians and the British backed a rival who had Lumumba dismissed. They then urged the breaking away of the Katanga province because of its enormous mineral wealth. Lumumba looked to the United Nations for help, and also the USA. The former decided to help, . The United States did not. In fact, when Lumumba visited Washington July of 1960, Eisenhower deliberately fled to Rhode Island. Rebuffed by Eisenhower, Lumumba now turned to the Russians for help in expelling the Belgians from Katanga. This sealed his fate in the eyes of Eisenhower and Allen Dulles. The president now authorized a series of assassination plots by the CIA to kill Lumumba. These plots finally succeeded on January 17, 1961, three days before Kennedy was inaugurated.

His first week in office, Kennedy requested a full review of the Eisenhower/Dulles policy in Congo. The American ambassador to that important African nation heard of this review and phoned Allen Dulles to alert him that President Kennedy was about to overturn previous policy there. Kennedy did overturn this policy on February 2, 1961. Unlike Eisenhower and Allen Dulles, Kennedy announced he would begin full cooperation with Secretary Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations on this thorny issue in order to bring all the armies in that war-torn nation under control. He would also attempt top neutralize the country so there would be no East/West Cold War competition. Third, all political prisoners being held should be freed. Not knowing he was dead, this part was aimed at former prime minister Lumumba, who had been captured by his enemies. (There is evidence that, knowing Kennedy would favor Lumumba, Dulles had him killed before JFK was inaugurated.) Finally, Kennedy opposed the secession of mineral-rich Katanga province. . . . Thus began Kennedy’s nearly three year long struggle to see Congo not fall back under the claw of European imperialism. . . . ”

In the Congo, as in Indonesia, LBJ reversed JFK’s policy stance, and the corporate looting of the Congo resulted under General Joseph Mobutu, himself a beneficiary of the piracy.

. . . . But in October and November [of 1963], things began to fall apart. Kennedy wanted Colonel Michael Greene, an African expert, to train the Congolese army in order

to subdue a leftist rebellion. But General Joseph Mobutu, with the backing of the Pentagon, managed to resist this training, which the United Nations backed. In 1964, the communist rebellion picked up steam and began taking whole provinces. The White House did something Kennedy never seriously contemplated: unilateral action by the USA. Johnson and McGeorge Bundy had the CIA fly sorties with Cuban pilots to halt the communist advance. Without Kennedy, the UN now withdrew. America now became an ally of Belgium and intervened with arms, airplanes and advisers. Mobutu now invited Tshombe back into the government. Tshombe, perhaps at the request of the CIA, now said that the rebellion was part of a Chinese plot to take over Congo. Kennedy had called in Edmund Gullion to supervise the attempt to make the Congo government into a moderate coalition, avoiding the extremes of left and right. But with the Tshombe/Mobutu alliance, that was now dashed. Rightwing South Africans and Rhodesians were now allowed to join the Congolese army in a war on the “Chinese-inspired left.” And with the United Nations gone, this was all done under the auspices of the United States. The rightward tilt now continued unabated. By 1965, Mobutu had gained complete power. And in 1966, he installed himself as military dictator. . . . Mobutu now allowed his country to be opened up to loads of outside investment. The riches of the Congo were mined by huge Western corporations. Their owners and officers grew wealthy while Mobutu’s subjects were mired in poverty. Mobutu also stifled political dissent. And he now became one of the richest men in Africa, perhaps the world. . . .

In FTR #1033, we examined JFK’s attempts at normalizing relations with Cuba. That, of course, vanished with his assassination and the deepening of Cold War hostility between the U.S. and the Island nation, with a thaw of sorts coming under Barack Obama a few years ago.

There is no more striking area in which JFK’s murder reversed what would have been historic changes in America’s foreign policy than U.S.-Soviet relations.

JFK had implemented a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, bitterly opposed by the Pentagon, In a June, 1963 speech at American University, JFK called for re-evaluating America’s relationship to the Soviet Union, and cited the U.S.S.R’s decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany during World War II.

JFK was also proposing joint space exploration with the Soviet Union, which would have appeared to be nothing less than treasonous to the Pentagon and NASA at the time. After JFK’s assassination, the Kennedy family used a backchannel diplomatic conduit to the Soviet leadership to communicate their view that the Soviet Union, and its Cuban ally, had been blameless in the assassination and that powerful right-wing forces in the United States had been behind the assassination.

Perhaps JFK’s greatest contribution was one that has received scant notice. In 1961, the Joint Chiefs were pushing for a first strike on the Soviet Union–a decision to initiate nuclear war. JFK refused, walking out of the discussion with the disgusted observation that “We call ourselves the human race.”

In FTR #‘s 876, 926 and 1051, we examined the creation of the meme that Oswald had been networking with the Cubans and Soviets in the run-up to the assassination. In particular, Oswald was supposedly meeting with Valery Kostikov, a KGB official in charge of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere.

This created the pretext for blaming JFK’s assassination on the Soviet Union and/or Cuba. There are indications that JFK’s assassination may well have been intended as a pretext for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.

. . . . As JFK may have recalled from the National Security Council meeting he walked out of in July 1961, the first Net Evaluation Subcommittee report had focused precisely on “a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions.” Kennedy was a keen reader and listener. In the second preemptive-war report, he may also have noticed the slight but significant discrepancy between its overall time frame, 1963–1968, and the extent of its relatively reassuring conclusion, which covered only 1964 through 1968. . . .

. . . . In his cat-and-mouse questioning of his military chiefs, President Kennedy had built upon the report’s apparently reassuring conclusion in such a way as to discourage preemptive-war ambitions. However, given the “late 1963” focus in the first Net Report that that was the most threatening time for a preemptive strike, Kennedy had little reason to be reassured by a second report that implicitly confirmed that time as the one of maximum danger. The personally fatal fall JFK was about to enter, in late 1963, was the same time his military commanders may have considered their last chance to “win” (in their terms) a preemptive war against the Soviet Union. In terms of their second Net Report to the President, which passed over the perilous meaning of late 1963, the cat-and-mouse game had been reversed. It was the generals who were the cats, and JFK the mouse in their midst.

The explicit assumption of the first Net Report was “a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions.” The focus of that first-strike scenario corresponded to the Kennedy assassination scenario. When President Kennedy was murdered in late 1963, the Soviet Union had been set up as the major scapegoat in the plot. If the tactic had been successful in scapegoating the Russians for the crime of the century, there is little doubt that it would have resulted in “a period of heightened tensions” between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Those who designed the plot to kill Kennedy were familiar with the inner sanctum of our national security state. Their attempt to scapegoat the Soviets for the President’s murder reflected one side of the secret struggle between JFK and his military leaders over a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union. The assassins’ purpose seems to have encompassed not only killing a President determined to make peace with the enemy, but also using his murder as the impetus for a possible nuclear first strike against that same enemy. . . .

With the GOP and Trump administration openly suppressing voting rights of minorities, African-Americans in particular, the stellar efforts of JFK and the Justice Department in the area of civil rights is striking. JFK’s civil rights policy was exponentially greater than what had preceded him, and much of what followed.

The conclusion of the discussion in FTR #1056 consists of Jim’s discussion of his marvelous, 4‑part analysis of JFK’s civil rights policy.

FTR #1053 Interview #22 with Jim DiEugenio about “Destiny Betrayed”

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ January 29, 2019 ⋅ Post a comment

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. . . .

. . . . 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.

. . . . 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.

. . . . 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.

. . . . 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.

” . . . . 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:

. . . . 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.