Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Warren Commission' is associated with 8 posts.

FTR#‘s 1262 and 1263 Interviews #1 and #2 with Jim DiEugenio about “JFK Revisited”

Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of the gen­e­sis of JFK Revis­it­ed, we high­light a 2013 con­fer­ence in Pitts­burgh, PA, at which Jim DiEu­ge­nio deliv­ered a pow­er point pre­sen­ta­tion about Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s for­eign pol­i­cy pro­gram and the deci­sions that result­ed from that.

Because the address drew a stand­ing ova­tion from the audi­ence, one of the atten­dees brought the mate­r­i­al in the pre­sen­ta­tion to the atten­tion of Oliv­er Stone, which, in turn, led to the launch­ing of this doc­u­men­tary project.

Cit­ing the rou­tine rhetor­i­cal dis­missal of the real­i­ties of the JFK assas­si­na­tion as a coup d’etat, jour­nal­ists and politi­cians rou­tine­ly employ the rhetor­i­cal device “Con­spir­a­cy The­o­ry.” Mean­ing, in effect, a “deranged, lone nut,” the term has its applied ori­gins in an inter­nal CIA dis­cus­sion about how to coun­ter­act War­ren Com­mis­sion crit­ics!

We dis­cuss the MSM’s con­fla­tion of the Q‑Anon types with researchers such as Mr. DiEu­ge­nio and Mr. Emory.

Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the release of the doc­u­men­tary (along with the DVD’s of the mate­r­i­al and the book JFK Revis­it­ed), author Tim Wein­er penned a piece for Rolling Stone mag­a­zine in which he rep­re­sent­ed the argu­ments pre­sent­ed in the film (and in the accom­pa­ny­ing book, by exten­sion) as stem­ming from Sovi­et dis­in­for­ma­tion.

We note that this type of mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion is in line with the wide­ly dis­trib­uted pro­pa­gan­da asser­tion scape­goat­ing Rus­sia and Vladimir Putin for this country’s prob­lems and those of the world in gen­er­al.

Suf­fice it to say that none of the mate­r­i­al in the doc­u­men­tary is Soviet/Russian.

By way of demon­strat­ing the non­sen­si­cal nature of the con­tention that “Soviet/Russian pro­pa­gan­da” under­lies the argu­ments pre­sent­ed by Stone/DiEugenio, we review a key ele­ment from Jim’s mag­num opus Des­tiny Betrayed.

When Richard Helms, head of the CIA at that time, con­vened a group to dis­cuss Jim Garrison’s pros­e­cu­tion of Clay Shaw, Ray Roc­ca, the top aide to Agency Counter-intel­li­gence chief James Angle­ton, opined that Gar­ri­son would obtain a con­vic­tion of Shaw. Roc­ca was the acknowl­edged expert at CIA on Garrison/JFK assas­si­na­tion.

Not even Tim Wein­er could dis­miss the CIA’s num­ber two coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence offi­cial as “a Sovi­et agent/propagandist.”

Attempts at por­tray­ing the JFK assas­si­na­tion as a Sovi­et con­spir­a­cy con­tin­ue to this day with for­mer CIA chief James Woolsey hav­ing authored the recent­ly-released Oper­a­tion Drag­on, which uses the alle­ga­tions of a for­mer Roman­ian intel­li­gence agent to pin respon­si­bil­i­ty for the assas­si­na­tion on the U.S.S.R.

Attempts to attribute the JFK assas­si­na­tion on the Sovi­et Union and/or Fidel Castro’s Cuba are not new.

The war in Ukraine is a direct echo of an aspect of attempt­ing to “paint Oswald Red.”

The Nazis and fas­cists in con­trol of the reins of nation­al secu­ri­ty pow­er in Ukraine are direct­ly descend­ed from the OUN/B of Stephan Ban­dera, whose forces col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Third Reich dur­ing World War II.

This polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal dynam­ic is set forth in a num­ber of pro­grams, includ­ing FTR#876.

After Oswald’s return to the U.S., he was met by Spas T. Raikin, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Amer­i­can Friends of the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations. This despite the fact that Oswald had pro­posed giv­ing mil­i­tary secrets to the Sovi­et Union.

After the death of Ban­dera, the OUN/B was head­ed by Yaroslav Stet­zko, the head of the WWII Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment, which imple­ment­ed Hitler’s eth­nic cleans­ing pro­grams. The OUN/B dom­i­nat­ed the ABN, which was orig­i­nal­ly named the Com­mit­tee of Sub­ju­gat­ed Nations, when it was formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943.

Echoes of the Ban­dera orga­ni­za­tion and the ABN are present in the desta­bi­liza­tion of Chi­na, as well.

LBJ suc­cess­ful­ly used the fears of a Third World War that might stem from the per­cep­tion that the USSR and/or Cuba was behind the assas­si­na­tion in order to per­suade Earl War­ren, among oth­ers, that they should serve on the com­mis­sion. We dis­cussed “the paint­ing of Oswald Red” in numer­ous pro­grams, includ­ing FTR#‘s 925, 926.

For much of this year, the nation’s atten­tion has been focused on the Jan­u­ary 6 Hear­ings. Note­wor­thy is the fact that the nation’s law­ful gov­ern­ment was over­thrown on 11/22/1963.

When Biden intones that “our democ­ra­cy is under fire,” he is “a day late and a dol­lar short.”

“Our democ­ra­cy” was, lit­er­al­ly, under fire on that Fri­day in Dal­las, and democ­ra­cy has been a mere façade in the time since.

Mem­bers of Con­gress have sound­ed grave warn­ings about the Secret Ser­vice and appar­ent­ly “lost” com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­cern­ing the assaults of 1/06/2021.

As these talks progress, we will high­light the Secret Ser­vice and their per­for­mance vis a vis the assas­si­na­tion of JFK. Con­gress, too, is “a day late and a dol­lar short.”

As will be detailed lat­er in this series, both Pres­i­dents Trump and Biden delayed release of the ARRB records at the des­ig­nat­ed junc­tures.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing “Team Trump” link to the assas­si­na­tion inves­ti­ga­tion con­cerns Jef­fer­son Mor­ley’s FOIA suit to learn more about George Joan­nides, who man­aged the Car­los Bringuier-linked DRE for the CIA. 

Mor­ley’s appeal was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh cast­ing the decid­ing vot­er, just before decamp­ing for his hear­ings on his qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the Supreme Court.

One of JFK’s stances that put him great­ly at odds con­cern­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty and for­eign pol­i­cy was his view toward, and actions in con­junc­tion with, the for­mer Sovi­et Union.

In that regard, we note: Kennedy’s autho­riza­tion of the atmos­pher­ic test ban treaty, the first sub­stan­tive arms lim­i­ta­tion agree­ment with the for­mer Sovi­et Union—bitterly opposed by key mem­bers of the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment; JFK’s refusal to invade Cuba dur­ing the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis, which, com­bined with his refusal to uti­lize the mil­i­tary to assist the Bay of Pigs inva­sion, cement­ed the view among key nation­al secu­ri­ty play­ers that he was a traitor/Communist; Kennedy’s June 1963 speech at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty, in which he rec­og­nized the USSR’s enor­mous con­tri­bu­tion toward the defeat of Nazi Ger­many and called for a new rela­tion­ship with the USSR; JFK’s pro­pos­al that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. under­take joint space explo­ration.

Bridg­ing dis­cus­sion that will be con­tin­ued in our next pro­grams, we note a key quote from the book and doc­u­men­tary by Lisa Pease, not­ing that JFK stood apart from the Eisenhower/Dulles view that non-align­ment among the for­mer colo­nial ter­ri­to­ries that achieved inde­pen­dence was the equiv­a­lent of pro-Com­mu­nist ori­en­ta­tion.

JFK Revis­it­ed: Through the Look­ing Glass by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse Pub­lish­ing [HC]; Copy­right 2022 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 352.

. . . . Lisa Pease: His [JFK’s] approach was a rad­i­cal break from his pre­de­ces­sor. In an oral his­to­ry inter­view that Sukarno gave after John Kennedy’s death, he said words to the effect that what made Kennedy spe­cial is that he believed non-align­ment was not amoral as it had been under John Fos­ter Dulles. I thought that was an inter­est­ing way of putting it. . . .


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


FTR #778 The OUN/B File, Part 2

This pro­gram details more of the back­ground of the OUN/B, a Ukrain­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion whose polit­i­cal heirs are front and cen­ter in the Ukrain­ian cri­sis. After set­ting forth the role of Sen­a­tor Thomas Dodd in the dis­sem­i­na­tion of the dis­in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing links between the sup­posed KGB assas­sin Oswald and the alleged Sovi­et mur­der of OUN/B leader Ban­dera, the pro­gram high­lights the evo­lu­tion of the OUN/B dur­ing the Cold War. After becom­ing a major ele­ment of the GOP’s eth­nic out­reach orga­ni­za­tion, the OUN/B played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the Free Con­gress Foun­da­tion and, through that rela­tion­ship, the desta­bi­liza­tion of the Sovi­et Union. After the breakup of the USSR, Yka­te­ri­na Chumachenko–a key play­er in the OUN/B’s top U.S. front group and also Ronald Rea­gan’s Deputy Direc­tor of Pub­lic Liaison–married Vik­tor Yuschenko, the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the “Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.”


FTR #777 The OUN/B File, Part 1

This is the first of two broad­casts detail­ing the back­ground of the OUN/B, a Ukrain­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion allied with the Third Reich dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. The OUN/B con­tin­ued their oper­a­tions in coop­er­a­tion with ele­ments of CIA and West­ern intel­li­gence dur­ing the Cold War. Staffing SS, Gestapo and Ein­satz­grup­pen ranks dur­ing World War II, the OUN/B was a sig­nif­i­cant par­tic­i­pant in the hor­rors of the East­ern Front and the Holo­caust. As World War II drew to a close, the Third Reich formed gueril­la war­fare units, which con­tin­ued the com­bat behind the lines of the advanc­ing Red Army. The OUN/B was a piv­otal ele­ment of that gueril­la cadre. Con­tin­u­ing their war­fare until the ear­ly 1950’s, the OUN/B’s activ­i­ties were sup­port­ed by the CIA and its sub­sidiary ele­ment the OPC (Office of Pol­i­cy Coor­di­na­tion) under Frank Wis­ner. The sec­ond side of the pro­gram details the assas­si­na­tion of OUN/B leader Stephan Ban­dera. Blamed on the KGB, the killing was–in all likelihood–performed by BND or oth­er Under­ground Reich-con­nect­ed ele­ments. Much of the broad­cast cen­ters on dis­in­for­ma­tion (dis­sem­i­nated by W.A.C.C.FL.-related ele­ments. ) point­ing to Lee Har­vey Oswald as a KGB-trained assas­sin.


FTR #108 Jack Ruby’s Warren Commission Testimony

Con­nec­tions between the Water­gate scan­dal and the assas­si­na­tion of JFK.