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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 378–379.
. . . . 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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 368–371.
. . . . 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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 54.
. . . . 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:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 208–209.
. . . . 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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 374–375.
. . . . 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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 28–29.
. . . . 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.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 372–373.
. . . . 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.
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass; Touchstone Books [SC]; Copyright 2008 by James W. Douglas; ISBN 978–1‑4391–9388‑4; pp. 242–243.
. . . . 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.
The fourth 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 with discussion of the cast of characters that figure in Garrison’s investigation and their relationship to anti-Castro Cuban intrigue.
(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.)
Continuing discussion from FTR #1033, the program highlights activities of Bay of Pigs and Watergate participant E. Howard Hunt. One of the primary CIA officers in the abortive Bay of Pigs, Hunt loathed Kennedy, helped ghost-write the Charles Murphy apologia for Allen Dulles & Company in Fortune magazine (see FTR #1032), and may have been involved with the JFK assassination.
E. Howard Hunt was also present in Dallas, Texas on 11/22/1963, as revealed in a memo crafted by James Angleton.
A subject that will be discussed at greater length in future conversations with Jim is the manifestations of Kerry Thornley:
1.–One of the Marine Corps buddies of Oswald the Marxist Marine.
2.–Reinforced the Oswald the Commie meme.
3.–Was involved with Oswald’s alleged pro-Castro leafleting originating from Guy Banister’s office.
4.–Was apparently involved with most of Oswald’s associates in the New Orleans area.
5.–Wrote two contradictory books about Oswald decades apart.
6.–Supplementing discussion of Gordon Novel from FTR #1033, the program foreshadows future discussion of infiltrators into Garrison’s investigation. An electronics expert involved with CIA and the Bay of Pigs operation, Novel was involved with infiltrating Garrison’s office and supplying information to Garrison’s enemies.
Also carrying over from FTR #1033, the program highlights Guy Banister’s so-called “detective agency,” from which Oswald operated his one-man New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. Sam Newman–the owner of the Newman building which housed that operation, was evasive about Oswald operating from an office there. Newman’s statements in that regard are contradictory. Oswald’s presence there has been substantively confirmed.
Of significance is the fact that Corliss Lamont of the pro-Castro FPCC authored a pamphlet for the organization in 1961, while Oswald was in the Soviet Union. It was the 1961 edition of the pamphlet that Oswald was handing out when he had his altercation with Carlos Bringuier. This suggests that Oswald got his edition of the pamphlet from the CIA. (Recall that David Phillips and James McCord headed the CIA’s anti-FPCC effort.)
Program Highlights Include:
1.–Review of JFK’s stripping of Charles Murphy of his Air Force Reserve commission and Murphy’s statement that he didn’t mind because his real allegiance was to Dulles.
2.–Discussion of Guy Banister’s detective agency as a far right/fascist intelligence service, infiltrating liberal and leftist political milieux.
3.–Richard Nixon’s presence in Dallas on 11/22/1963 and the profound connections between Watergate and the JFK assassination.
We have spoken for years about The Crusade For Freedom, a covert operation with both foreign and domestic venues. Abroad, the CFF was a vehicle for financing the use of Eastern European Third Reich alumni as “fascist freedom fighters” in paramilitary operations in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Domestically, the CFF spawned a Nazi branch of the Republican Party, with roots in the Third Reich and the Reinhard Gehlen spy organization. Many of CFF’s members figure in the milieu of the JFK assassination:
” . . . . Members of the Texas Crusade for Freedom would become a who’s who of Texans connected to the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In addition to Neil Mallon, members included [Paul] Raigorodsky, Lewis W. MacNaughton, Everette De Golyer, and Dallas mayor Earle Cabell, brother of Charles Cabell, who was Allen Dulles’s deputy CIA director [fired by JFK for his conduct in the Bay of Pigs operation along with Dulles himself]. Another member was D. Harold Byrd, who owned the building in downtown Dallas that would become known as the Texas School Book Depository. Another member was E.M. “Ted” Dealey, publisher of “The Dallas Morning News,” who was a harsh critic of Kennedy. . . .”
In 1986, we recorded Miscellaneous Archive Show M4, dealing with feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s relationship with the CIA. Recorded at too high a level, the program makes difficult listening. We are publishing a transcript to supplement our FTR series on “Weaponized Feminism.”
With Trump having re-focused attention on GOP immigration policy with his recent comments about Haiti and Norway, we review the Crusade For Freedom, an illegal domestic and foreign covert operation executed by the elite of the post-World War II Republican Party: Allen Dulles, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, William Casey and George H.W. Bush. The program provided for the legal entry of Nazi SS into the country. ” . . . . There is a very high correlation between CIA domestic subsidies to Fascist ‘freedom fighters’ during the 1950’s and the leadership of the Republican Party’s ethnic campaign groups. The motive for the under-the-table financing was clear: Nixon used Nazis to offset the Jewish vote for the Democrats. . . . In 1952, Nixon had formed an Ethnic Division within the Republican National Committee. Displaced fascists, hoping to be returned to power by an Eisenhower-Nixon ‘liberation’ policy signed on with the committee. In 1953, when Republicans were in office, the immigration laws were changed to admit Nazis, even members of the SS. They flooded into the country. Nixon himself oversaw the new immigration program. . . .” 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. 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.
The title of the program comes from a Robinson Jeffers poem, reproduced at the beginning of this description. It sums up Mr. Emory’s feelings about Charlottesville and much of what has transpired since the ascension of the Trump administration.
With the mainstream media, the so-called “alternative media,” the so-called “progressive sector” and the GOP beating their breasts over Donald Trump’s predictably equivocal reaction to the violence in Charlottesville (Virginia), we highlight the profound complicity with all of these elements with the very white supremacist, Nazi and Neo-Confederate movements that are at the foundation of the events in question.
Particularly grotesque is the righteous posturing of the GOP, whose members have scrambled to go “on record” decrying racism and Nazism, intoning that such things are “un-American,” or words to that effect. In fact, the GOP is joined at the hip with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, formed in 1943 by Adolf Hitler as the Committee of Subjugated Nations. A consortium of Eastern and Central European fascist groups, the ABN became a major player in the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization.
The marriage of the GOP and the ABN was effected under the auspices of the Crusade for Freedom, a dual-sided covert operation with the GOP/ABN nexus at the root of a domestic political operation and the combat support afforded guerrillas from the OUN/B and other Eastern European fascist fighting by the Office of Policy Coordination (which morphed into the CIA’s Directorate of plans): ” . . . . There is a very high correlation between CIA domestic subsidies to Fascist ‘freedom fighters’ during the 1950’s and the leadership of the Republican Party’s ethnic campaign groups. The motive for the under-the-table financing was clear: Nixon used Nazis to offset the Jewish vote for the Democrats. . . .
. . . . In 1952, Nixon had formed an Ethnic Division within the Republican National Committee. Displaced fascists, hoping to be returned to power by an Eisenhower-Nixon ‘liberation’ policy signed on with the committee. In 1953, when Republicans were in office, the immigration laws were changed to admit Nazis, even members of the SS. They flooded into the country. Nixon himself oversaw the new immigration program. [This is a Republican pro-immigration program–D.E.] . . .”
The key figures in the CFF became the cream of the Reagan administration. ” . . . . As a young movie actor in the early 1950s, Reagan was employed as the public spokesperson for an OPC front named the ‘Crusade for Freedom.’ Reagan may not have known it, but 99 percent for the Crusade’s funds came from clandestine accounts, which were then laundered through the Crusade to various organizations such as Radio Liberty, which employed Dulles’s Fascists. Bill Casey, who later became CIA director under Ronald Reagan, also worked in Germany after World War II on Dulles’ Nazi ‘freedom fighters’ program. When he returned to New York, Casey headed up another OPC front, the International Rescue Committee, which sponsored the immigration of these Fascists to the United States. Casey’s committee replaced the International Red Cross as the sponsor for Dulles’s recruits. . . .
. . . . It was [George H.W.] Bush who fulfilled Nixon’s promise to make the ‘ethnic emigres’ a permanent part of Republican politics. In 1972, Nixon’s State Department spokesman confirmed to his Australian counterpart that the ethnic groups were very useful to get out the vote in several key states. Bush’s tenure as head of the Republican National Committee exactly coincided with Laszlo Pasztor’s 1972 drive to transform the Heritage Groups Council into the party’s official ethnic arm. The groups Pasztor chose as Bush’s campaign allies were the émigré Fascists whom Dulles had brought to the United States. . . . ”
We note that the GOP “ethnics” are inextricably linked with the Gehlen spy outfit–itself an extension of the Third Reich’s national security establishment–and the Bormann flight capital network, an underground perpetuation of the Third Reich.
We note that the same hypocrites–GOP, mainstream media, “alternative” media and the so-called “progressive” sector–who stridently postured against racism/fascism after Charlottesville have remained dutifully silent about the re-instatement of the OUN/B in Ukraine, as well as that regime’s resonance with the Aryan Nations milieu in the U.S.
The hypocrisy of the GOP in their mealy-mouthed condemnations of racism and Trump’s reaction to it exceed even the marrow-deep hypocrisy of the mainstream media and the so-called “progessive sector,” which have spent years lionizing the very “Alt-right” forces that manifested in Charlotesville. Those very “Alt-right” forces we saw in Charlottesville–including the Neo-Confederate movment–are embodied in Eddie Snowden, WikiLeaks, Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar, as discussed in–among other programs–FTR #‘s 755, 756, 888, 889, 917.
Concluding the program, we reviewed information about Bernie Sanders and his right-wing connections, noting that:
1.-The ideological petri dish in which Sanders was cultured was the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyite political party that was so infiltrated by Nazis and spooks establishing a “left cover” that it was little more than a fascist intelligence front. Lyndon LaRouche was cultured in the same petri dish.
2.-Trotskyite politics was seen by Hitler as a useful paradigm for underground infiltration of a targeted political milieu.
3.-Sanders’ campaign was financed by Karl Rove.
4.-Sanders proposed to have all Democratic Presidential primaries “open,” meaning Republicans could vote in the primary, permitting the GOP to select the Democratic Presidential candidate. It is a safe bet that this was a major reason for Rove’s financial backing of Sanders.
5.-Tulsi Gabbard is joined at the hip with Sanders. Gabbard is a left-cover Hindutva fascist, as discussed in FTR #‘s 941, 942, 945.
6.-Jeremy Christian (Portland, Oregon) and James Hodgkinson (allegedly shot Steve Scalise) were both Sandernistas. Are fascists infiltrating the Sanders movement, to give themselves a “left cover” for the perpetration of violence, much as they had the SWP?
With the mainstream media, the so-called “alternative media,” the so-called “progressive sector” and the GOP beating their breasts over Donald Trump’s predictably equivocal reaction to the violence in Charlottesville (Virginia), we highlight the profound complicity with all of these elements with the very white supremacist, Nazi and Neo-Confederate movements that are at the foundation of the events in question.
For the last several years, the mainstream media, the so-called “alternative media,” and the so-called “progressive sector” have manifested an almost erotic obsession with the overlapping activities of Eddie the Friendly Spook (Snowden), Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Glenn Greenwald and Greenwald’s media financial angel Pierre Omidyar.
All of the focal points of their collective adulation are at one with the very white supremacist, Nazi and Neo-Confederate forces that coalesced on behalf of the preservation of the Confederate memorials in Charlottesville. Key points of discussion and analysis include:
1.-Eddie Snowden’s strong links to the Ron Paul political milieu. Snowden gave money to Paul’s campaign, whose super-PAC was capitalized largely by Peter Thiel, a key Trump supporter.
2.-The fact that Ron Paul has been networking with David Duke for decades. (Duke was prominent at Charlottesville.)
3.-The fact that Snowden’s first attorney (and the attorney for the Snowden family) was Bruce Fein, the chief legal counsel for Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential campaign.
4.-Fein also networked with the German-based Schiller Institute, run by the fascist organization of Lyndon LaRouche.
5.-Ron Paul is very close to the Neo-Confederate movement and the heavily-overlapped Ludwig von Mises Institute.
6.-Ron Paul aide Walter Block, another of Paul’s supporters and a resident scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute is not only supportive of the neo-Confederate movement but advanced a theory of “voluntary slavery.” Voluntary slavery could be viewed as the ultimate collateralized debt obligation!
7.-Julian Assange is also a big Ron and Rand Paul fan. Furthermore, Assange and his fascist aide, doctrinaire Holocaust-denier Joran Jermas (aka “Israel Shamir”) are inextricably linked with a Swedish, Russian and Ukrainian fascist milieu that enfolds Carl Lundstrom, Daniel Friberg and David Duke.
8.-Glenn Greenwald spent years running legal interference for Nazi murderers and the “leaderless resistance” strategy Mr. Fields used to fatally-injure one of the demonstrators in Charlottesville. Greenwald worked pro-bono.
9.-In addition to lionizing Snowden, Assange and Greenwald–all of whom are, basically, “Alt-Right,” the mainstream media, the so-called “alternative media” and the so-called “progressive” sector have oozed all over Pierre Omidyar and his media undertakings, which have been the foundation for Snowden, Greenwald and Assange’s media presentations.
10.-Omidyar helped finance the coup in Ukraine, which brought OUN/B successor organizations to power and also aided in the rise of Narendra Modi in India. Modi’s BJP Party is a cat’s paw for the Hindu nationalist/fascist RSS, the organization that murdered Gandhi. Roy Prosterman, Omidyar’s primary administrator of his philanthropic undertakings, was a veteran of the Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam.
11.-Particularly grotesque is the righteous posturing of the GOP, whose members have scrambled to go “on record” decrying racism and Nazism, intoning that such things are “un-American,” or words to that effect. In fact, the GOP is joined at the hip with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, formed in 1943 by Adolf Hitler as the Committee of Subjugated Nations. A consortium of Eastern and Central European fascist groups, the ABN became a major player in the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization.
The marriage of the GOP and the ABN was effected under the auspices of the Crusade for Freedom, a dual-sided covert operation with the GOP/ABN nexus at the root of a domestic political operation and the combat support afforded guerrillas from the OUN/B and other Eastern European fascist fighting by the Office of Policy Coordination (which morphed into the CIA’s Directorate of plans): “. . . . Frustration over Truman’s 1948 election victory over Dewey (which they blamed on the “Jewish vote”) impelled Dulles and his protégé Richard Nixon to work toward the realization of the fascist freedom fighter presence in the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach organization. As a young congressman, Nixon had been Allen Dulles’s confidant. . . .
. . . . Vice President Nixon’s secret political war of Nazis against Jews in American politics was never investigated at the time. The foreign language-speaking Croatians and other Fascist émigré groups had a ready-made network for contacting and mobilizing the Eastern European ethnic bloc. There is a very high correlation between CIA domestic subsidies to Fascist ‘freedom fighters’ during the 1950’s and the leadership of the Republican Party’s ethnic campaign groups. The motive for the under-the-table financing was clear: Nixon used Nazis to offset the Jewish vote for the Democrats. . . .
. . . . In 1952, Nixon had formed an Ethnic Division within the Republican National Committee. Displaced fascists, hoping to be returned to power by an Eisenhower-Nixon ‘liberation’ policy signed on with the committee. In 1953, when Republicans were in office, the immigration laws were changed to admit Nazis, even members of the SS. They flooded into the country. Nixon himself oversaw the new immigration program. [This is a Republican pro-immigration program–D.E.] . . .”
The key figures in the CFF became the cream of the Reagan administration. ” . . . . As a young movie actor in the early 1950s, Reagan was employed as the public spokesperson for an OPC front named the ‘Crusade for Freedom.’ Reagan may not have known it, but 99 percent for the Crusade’s funds came from clandestine accounts, which were then laundered through the Crusade to various organizations such as Radio Liberty, which employed Dulles’s Fascists. Bill Casey, who later became CIA director under Ronald Reagan, also worked in Germany after World War II on Dulles’ Nazi ‘freedom fighters’ program. When he returned to New York, Casey headed up another OPC front, the International Rescue Committee, which sponsored the immigration of these Fascists to the United States. Casey’s committee replaced the International Red Cross as the sponsor for Dulles’s recruits. . . .
. . . . It was [George H.W.] Bush who fulfilled Nixon’s promise to make the ‘ethnic emigres’ a permanent part of Republican politics. In 1972, Nixon’s State Department spokesman confirmed to his Australian counterpart that the ethnic groups were very useful to get out the vote in several key states. Bush’s tenure as head of the Republican National Committee exactly coincided with Laszlo Pasztor’s 1972 drive to transform the Heritage Groups Council into the party’s official ethnic arm. The groups Pasztor chose as Bush’s campaign allies were the émigré Fascists whom Dulles had brought to the United States. . . . ”
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.
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.
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.)
Recent Comments