Reader Rich Negrete has made this remarkable film based on the information given the Warren Commission by Victoria Adams, Sandy Styles and Dorothy Garner. These three witnesses provided powerful testimony that Oswald was not on the sixth floor at the time of President Kennedy’s assassination. Rich goes into detail as to how the Warren Commission decided to dodge the clear implications of these witnesses. Because they knew it would counter their pre-conceived conclusions, this evidence was altered, ignored, and even destroyed. He does all this with delicacy, accuracy, and forceful effect.
Although a major source is Barry Ernest’s milestone book The Girl onthe Stairs, in some ways Rich Negrete goes beyond that book. For instance in the information about Dorothy Garner and the professional opinion of Dr. Joseph Dolce, who worked for the Warren Commission. The amount of primary source information placed on the screen is copious and potent. It helps show why and how the Commission did what they did with this episode. For a first time film-making effort The Killing Floor is impressive. I personally hope there are more of these to come. And I thank Rich for letting us place it on our web site.
Jean Stafford (1915-1979) is best remembered for writing novels and short stories; she won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1970. But in 1966 she ventured into nonfiction with a profile of Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, Marguerite. This made her a person of interest to me as I researched my book, Praise from a Future Generation (Wings Press, 2007).
Stafford grew up in Boulder, CO, not too far from where I live, and where she later attended the University of Colorado. Today her papers are housed in CU’s Norlin Library. She was only peripheral to my project, and there was already plenty of available data about her. So even though it’s in my back yard, and even though I made regular use of Norlin resources, I never went to the Stafford archive during my own book’s research phase.
Her profile of Marguerite Oswald appeared first as an article in McCall’s magazine, and later as a book, both called A Mother In History. I devoted a few pages to it in Praise From, but a vexing question remained. “[Lee] never did tell me why he went to Russia,” Stafford quoted Marguerite as saying. “I have my own opinion. He spoke Russian, he wrote Russian, and he read Russian. Why? Because my boy was being trained as an agent, that’s why.”
This is a compelling statement. Does it not demand a follow-up question? It seems inconceivable that Stafford would not ask something: if nothing else, “Oh? Tell me more.” Yet her next question, in the published text, is about what Lee might have done with his life had he lived.
A friend recently told me that CU’s archive includes audio recordings of Stafford’s interviews with Mrs. Oswald. They might clarify the matter; they might reveal a follow-up question that, for some reason, had been deleted. So I contacted the archive and scheduled a visit.
•
Before going to the archive I set myself the onerous task of re-reading A Mother In History. The book is short, and mercifully so: short, unpleasant, and mean-spirited. Even one of Stafford’s biographers (there are several) faulted its tone, calling it “profoundly unsympathetic” and “a cruel portrait, executed pitilessly.”
The book is divided into three sections: one for each of the days Stafford spent talking to Marguerite. The opening thirty-odd pages describe the first day, and it is here that Marguerite made the comment about her son being trained as an agent. Also in these early pages, Stafford indicates that the first day was not tape recorded. She wrote that as she got up to leave, “I asked [Marguerite] if she would object to my bringing a tape recorder the following day; she said that on the contrary, she would be glad if I did…”
Throughout A Mother In History, Stafford’s support for the lone nut scenario is never in doubt. Later she characterized her role as a “stenographer” – by implication, an impartial participant. But her point of view is clear, as is her lack of sympathy for Marguerite. Mrs. Oswald spent most of her time “researching the case,” she reported on page five, “studying theories of conspiracy (right-wing, left-wing, wingless, Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Black Muslim, anarchist, fascist, federalist, masterminded by the cops, masterminded by the robbers.)”
This is, of course, an absurd exaggeration. Stafford never seemed to consider that, in the aftermath of the assassination and Lee Harvey’s sensational murder, Marguerite Oswald must have been under enormous emotional strain, especially since the evidence against her son was so flimsy.
•
At the Stafford archive, materials relating to A Mother In History are stored in a single modest container. In it are several typed manuscript drafts, galleys, some of Stafford’s handwritten notes, and the article version from McCall’s. Not included are the audio recordings I’d been told about, though they’re listed on the Finding Aid I consulted. The original tapes have been digitized, the archivist informed me. To hear the audio I must fill out a form, then wait for CU’s Digital Reproductions people to contact me.
Yet I got lucky. I came across a fifty-seven-page interview transcript not listed on the Finding Aid. It appeared to be the original, with the look and feel of a 1960s-era typescript: faded onionskin paper, double spaced with wide margins, and page numbers typed in each upper left corner. The numeral 2 was handwritten at the top right of each page, possibly indicating it’s a second copy. The whole thing was fastened with a plastic-coated, archivally correct paperclip.
What I could not determine was its origin. There was no indication who made the transcript. It was undated; and though the words “A Mother in History” were handwritten in pencil at the top, it was otherwise untitled.
As I waited impatiently to hear the audio, I obtained a PDF of the transcript and relied on it as I drafted this article. After I got it I noticed a missing page. The archivist told me it was missing from the original, too. I did not hear the audio until September, two months after I went to the archive. I compared the two; the transcript is a faithful rendering. (For convenience I’m using the word “transcript” more often than “audio,” but the two align perfectly.)
It has all proven to be quite illuminating. The bottom line? Marguerite Oswald never made the provocative statement Stafford attributed to her: “He never did tell me why he went to Russia. I have my own opinion. He spoke Russian, he wrote Russian, and he read Russian. Why? Because my boy was being trained as an agent, that’s why.”
She didn’t say it! But I must clarify: Marguerite sort of said it. Although the troublesome quote is in A Mother In History’s first section, the day Jean Stafford indicated she did not record, most of the words are, in fact, in the transcript and audio. But they are scattered over four transcript pages, and nearly four minutes in the recording. So Stafford recorded this after all – but seems to have cherry-picked choice selections and stitched them together, without alerting the reader.
Still with me? In the middle of transcript page 25 is this phrase: “He ever did tell me why he went to Russia. I have my own opinion.” (This is not a typo: the transcript says ever, not never.)
Three pages later (and after several more questions from Stafford), at the top of transcript page 28, is another portion of the published quote: “He spoke Russian, he wrote Russian and he read Russian.”
At the top of page 29: “…because my boy was being trained as a agent that’s why.”
These are the elements, with a few missing words, that constitute the quote on page 32 of A Mother In History. In the book it is presented without ellipses or any other editorial device to indicate omitted content. Such editorial devices are, of course, accepted conventions; they imply that what you are reading is edited but trustworthy. Not using them, especially on a subject like this, is unethical and misleading.
How do we interpret this? The quote is compelling by any measure, but Marguerite Oswald didn’t quite say it. Yet it runs contrary to the lone nut myth, which Jean Stafford supports. Why would she cobble it together?
In an early draft of this article I offered up a possible explanation, one that let Stafford off the hook. It was a misguided effort, so I deleted it. I can’t explain the inexplicable. Certainly, the idea of a connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and the U.S. government was not new. Marguerite even told a dismissive Warren Commission her son was an agent when she testified in February 1964. But in 1966, when Stafford’s book was published, it had none of the credibility it has now. I think she introduced it, but failed to explore it, in order to make Marguerite look mentally unstable.
•
In contrast to Jean Stafford’s covert hostility, Marguerite was gracious and friendly. A greeting card in the archive illustrates this. “Please make a schedule to suit your needs,” she wrote Stafford, shortly before their three days together. “I am happy to oblige.”
In addition to the quote that first drew my attention, other sections of A Mother In History are, when compared to the source transcript and audio, demonstrably false. While Jean Stafford’s motives are unknown, it had to have been deliberate. Even allowing for the occasional honest error, the book contains manufactured quotes, and the false implication that the first day of interviews, where a manufactured quote appears, was not recorded. As we have seen, it was recorded. By implying there was no documentation for this part of her interviews, did Stafford mean to deter anyone from checking that quote’s accuracy?
You know how it is with liars: once you know they’ve lied to you, everything else they say is suspect.
•
The pitiless tone of A Mother In History might best be understood (if not excused) when viewed in the context of the times: reassuring anxious readers that there was not a conspiracy, and that the alleged assassin’s mother is a kook you can safely ignore. Still, why did Stafford even bother? A big paycheck might be enough to explain it. But interviewing and writing about Marguerite Oswald should have excited her. The assassination was the biggest story of the era.
Jean Stafford was a bestselling author, widely acclaimed during her lifetime. As far as the Kennedy assassination goes, she is a fringe dweller. A Mother In History is an unimportant book that is best forgotten. It felt dishonest when I first read it years ago, and my recent visit to the CU archive reinforces that view. The book may represent Stafford’s professional nadir, but to be fair it is only a tiny portion of her overall output – as indeed, materials relating to it are but a fraction of the University of Colorado’s Jean Stafford archive.
I regret that, in Praise From a Future Generation, I took so much of A Mother In History at face value. I assumed Jean Stafford’s dishonesty was a matter of spin control. How very naïve of me to not even consider the possibility of calculated distortion.
A far more balanced and sympathetic portrait of Marguerite Oswald may be found in “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald,” by Harold Feldman. It appeared in Paul Krassner’s The Realist in September 1964. Circulation of The Realist, of course, was vastly eclipsed by McCall’s, to say nothing of Stafford’s book publisher Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. But “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald” is highly recommended. A Mother In History is not.
Jim Garrison was not able to prove to a jury that Clay Shaw was part of a plot in the assassination of JFK. But according to Mark Lane, who polled the jury after the trial, he did convince that jury that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
Garrison was up against too many forces from the government, intelligence community and the media. He was overmatched. Two of his top targets died within a day as he was closing in on some of the key perpetrators. David Ferrie, who was thick as thieves with both Oswald and Shaw, mysteriously died, leaving behind two unsigned suicide notes. His Cuban exile, mafia-linked colleague, Eladio Del Valle, was both shot and macheted to death. Garrison saw his offices bugged, his witnesses harassed and intimidated, his subpoenas turned down, and some of his inner circle turned on him. The press and the U.S. justice system gave him a difficult time; he was labelled as crooked, homophobic, ambitious and was harassed to no end before, during and after the trial.
Garrison was so maliciously slandered by the press, no one would even take the time to look at what was in his files. This included two generations of the critical community. Thanks to Len Osanic, we now have those files in zip drive format. Today there can be little question that Garrison did have something. In fact, he had a lot of things
The goal of this article is not to rehash this whole line of argumentation. Diligent researchers like Bill Davy, Joan Mellen and Jim DiEugenio have sealed the deal on this aspect through excellent work and eloquent writing. The goal is to show that there is still more to excavate in these files.
I began reading these files 5 months ago. I am currently creating a lead file for myself. It has over 300 pages in it. I am quite certain that I have missed important clues that would double the size of this file so I hope others will comb through them.
Sort of as a trial balloon, I have sent some interesting pieces to some of the best in the business. The reactions have been very positive from a savvy group.
While I am not yet prepared to put a degree of certainty on the following affirmations, let me suggest the following:
Oswald was assigned at least one Cuban escort
David Ferrie admitted his part in the plot to a room-mate
Clay Shaw was not only a well-paid CIA asset, he was likely known by, if not connected to, Allen Dulles
There is an interesting continuum of Oswald babysitters who link Dallas to New Orleans
The 1963 ITM is an organization of interest
David Ferrie may have been a provider of young males for Shaw
We can add another potential patsy to a fairly large list of candidates I discuss in my Prior Plots articles.
The list of people who frequented 544 Camp Street is much better documented and incriminating
We know more about INCA than ever before
There is stronger evidence of Ruby`s links to New Orleans
In this first article we will discuss Clay Shaw, the 544 Camp Street Network, and the FPCC front for Oswald.
Case 1) Further evidence that Clem Bertrand is Clay Shaw
Many witnesses have confirmed that Clem and Clay Bertrand were Clay Shaw aliases. He used this name in an airport lounge (Materials Clay Shaw 2 Page 20) and in a moment of absent-mindedness gave it away to policeman Aloysius A. Habighorst after he was arrested. (See line ten to the left in Alias box)
Just for good measure, let us add the following signed statement, which speaks for itself:
And how about this signed statement by a witness (key passages):
Add to this Oswald’s lawyer Dean Andrews being backed by Clay Shaw under the alias Clay Bertrand, plus compelling declassified FBI witness testimony. But let’s have fun anyway. Hardly a slam-dunk on its own, the comparison of the Clay Shaw and Clem Bertrand signatures provides more primary data.
Clay Shaw was involved in real estate and was the director of the International Trade Mart. His signatures can be found in the Garrison files. Here are a few taken from copies of documents he signed:
We can also find this Library card made out to, and signed twice by, Clem Bertrand of the ITM:
At first this card was dismissed by the Garrison team because the phone numbers did not match the destinations. However, they decided to reconsider this piece of evidence:
I wondered what a hand-writing expert might say about these signatures, one who had solid credentials, with no dog in the race, one who might like to weigh in simply to help out with no agenda, nor any fees. Luckily, I was able to find such a person. The following is just a small part of her pedigree:
Here are the signatures I asked her to compare:
Here is what she responded:
“Hello Mr. Bleau,
I have reviewed the signatures you sent me. I must first tell you that these signatures are not of good quality. They are copies of copies of copies…. Ideally, I should examine originals or first-generation copies, i.e. made from the original.
Despite everything, I can tell you that there are several similarities between these signatures on several levels:
• Movement
• Tilt
• Proportions
• Spacing
• Continuity
• Graphic level
This makes it possible to retain the hypothesis (subject to) that they were executed by the same hand.
I am surprised to see the use of French names (Lavergne and Bertrand) in the signatures.
Sincerely,”
This opinion concurs with that of the illustrious handwriting expert Elizabeth McCarthy who testified at the Clay Shaw trial: and she did have originals and first generation copies to work from. McCarthy stated that, in over three decades, she had been certified to testify in 28 states and three foreign countries. She worked on as many as two cases per day with about a quarter of them going to court. So the dissenting opinion about this subject is by a dyed in the wool FBI man and J. Edgar Hoover loyalist: Charles Appel. This article is not meant for those who would support the FBI in the Kennedy case.
Today, it is well-nigh indisputable that Clay Shaw and Clay or Clem Bertrand are the same person and that this high-level intelligence asset was trying to get Dean Andrews to represent Oswald, someone he clearly knew. Why do I say this about Shaw’s intel status? Because Malcolm Blunt has just discovered that in CIA documents, contrary to what many had tried to say about Shaw, his expenses were being paid by the Agency while doing those many overseas reports. This is even more evidence that Shaw lied to the public and under oath at his trial about his association with the CIA.
In a future article, this author will argue that Shaw, because of his links to the ITM and Permindex, must have been known to Allen Dulles. Thus adding a third Oswald babysitter to Ruth Paine and George DeMorenschildt as Dulles-linked persons of interest. The Old Man had his fingers in many pies.
The 544 Camp Street network
After writing a seventy-page, two-part article on Exposing the FPCC, I did not think that I could add very much to expose a charade of Oswald provocateur activity in New Orleans. I was wrong. The Garrison file sources, provided me with even more heavy artillery to fully dismantle this cover, and to shine light on Oswald’s network partners.
The revelation of the 544 Camp Street address stamped on Oswald’s FPCC flyers caused lone-nutters fits. Because anti-Castro Cuban exiles, rabid right wingers, Guy Banister, David Ferrie and other people who revolved around Oswald during the Summer of 1963 were frequently seen in the same building. These flyers were a major problem which was admitted to by the HSCA. We also know that this address had housed another one of Banister’s anti-Castro partners in the name of the Cuban Revolutionary Council led by Sergio Arcacha Smith; who in late 1961 was part of a quasi-anti-FPCC riot in Tampa which came to be known as the Marti-Park incident.
From Jim DiEugenio’s article there is not much more that we need to add to show that Oswald was a member of a network playing the role of a provocateur. As Jim DiEugenio points out in this reply to Alecia Long, at least seven witnesses either saw Oswald at 544 Camp Street, or with Guy Banister on the streets in New Orleans. This included three people who worked for Banister, and two INS agents. When one adds in the layer of intrigue placed over this by the ARRB, the logic becomes pretty ineluctable. For the declassified record has shown that the Board proved both the CIA and FBI had ongoing counter-intelligence campaigns against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). Oswald was the only member of the New Orleans contingent. And he stamped Banister’s address on one, or more, of his leaflets that summer. A fact which Banister was quite upset about. (HSCA interview with Delphine Roberts of 7/6/78). And then there was the ITM connection to Oswald’s leafleting activities. Let us quote from Jim DiEugenio’s reply to Alecia Long’s column in the Washington Post.
Another important aspect of Oswald in New Orleans that Long discounts is Oswald’s leafleting in front of Shaw’s International Trade Mart in mid-August. This also had some interesting telltale points to it. First, [Carlos] Bringuier and his right-hand man Carlos Quiroga said that they went to see Oswald in an attempt to infiltrate his FPCC “group” after the ITM incident. The visit occurred before it happened. And Quiroga arrived with a stack of flyers about a half foot thick. In other words, the DRE appears to have been supplying Oswald with his leaflets in preparation for the incident. Secondly, the reason we have films of the event is that Shaw’s first assistant at the ITM, Jesse Core, had summoned the cameras. (Davy, Let Justice be Done, p. 38) Beyond that, it was this leafleting episode that caused George Higginbotham to alert Banister, and his reply was “One of them is one of mine.” (Oswald had hired two helpers from the unemployment office to aid him.) But there was something else to note. In addition to calling the cameras for the ITM incident, Jesse Core picked up a pamphlet from the prior Canal Street episode, the one which got Oswald arrested. He noted that it had Banister’s address on it. He mailed it from the Trade Mart to the FBI with a message attached: “note the inside back cover.” (John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 568) This would suggest that both Shaw and Core knew about Oswald’s mistake. How would they know unless they were aware of Banister’s operation? Which recalls the work done for Banister by Bill Wegmann and Guy Johnson. But further, the FBI then knew about Oswald at 544 Camp Street before the assassination.
Wegmann and Johnson were part of Clay Shaw’s defense team.
On August 27, 1978, Banister’s secretary Roberts was re-interviewed by HSCA Investigator Robert Buras. She said she
believes that LEE OSWALD came into the office to be interviewed for a job, but doesn’t remember anything specific, because so many people came in for interviews. At a later date Banister introduced Marina and OSWALD to her in his office, but they walked right out and she did not talk to them. She could not recall hearing Marina speak, or how they were dressed. On several occasions LEE OSWALD would come in and go into Banister’s office and she could not hear any conversation from that room. She believed that OSWALD was either working, or attempting to work, for Banister. She does remember hearing Guy Banister holler at Jim Arthus and Sam Newman about letting OSWALD the second-floor room and about keeping the Fair Play for Cuba Committee literature from his office. Arthus used to come into the office and put leaflets on Banister’s leaflet table as a joke because all the other literature was anti-communist.
Scott Malone reported: “Delphine is definitely a kook, but I found someone else to corroborate her story. She told Mary Brengel about having seen OSWALD in Banister’s office two weeks after the assassination. She did not mention Marina’s presence.”
Even more telling, if we are to believe a 1979 Dallas Morning News article from the Garrison files, it is Banister who, according to his secretary and girlfriend Delphine Roberts, helped Oswald settle into his Camp Street locale:
The list
Lone-nut backers have used the tired tactic of trying to distance 544 Camp Street from Guy Banister and David Ferrie offices by shielding it with a wall and a floor or two. The other deflection is to insist on the separation in time between Oswald and the previous occupiers: The Cuban Revolutionary Council. As the above section demonstrated, there can be no doubt about Oswald’s links to Banister and Ferrie, and no architectural imagining can elide it. When analyzing the following lists made available in the Garrison files, we will see that the time argument to try and create separation between Oswald and the nest of anti-Castro militants holds no water… Something that both the HSCA and Richard Schweiker of the Church Committee fully understood.
Their mission touched a hot button in New Orleans:
This author is still analyzing the list of names that we can closely connect to this address. What he has found so far is quite incriminating.
Consider the following profiles of some of the crusaders:
William T. Walshe:
One of Mr. Walshe’s important credentials was that he was secretary of the New Orleans based Mississippi Valley World Trade Center (MPWTC) which links him closely to its Secretary: None other than Clay Shaw according to the following listing.
Mississippi Valley World Trade Conference Annual Award 1955
Name: MISSISSIPPI VALLEY WORLD TRADE COUNCIL
Type Entity: Non-Profit Corporation
Status: Not Active (Action by Secretary of State)
2006 Annual Report/Reinstatement form is required in order to reinstate Print Annual Report/Reinstatement Form for Filing
Mailing Address: 124 CAMP ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130
Domicile Address: 124 CAMP ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130
File Date: 09/05/1956
Registered Agent (Appointed 9/05/1956): C. C. WALTHER, 3524 GENTILLY BLVD., NEW ORLEANS, LA 70119
Registered Agent (Appointed 9/05/1956): CLAY SHAW, 505 DAUPHINE ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA 70116
President: C. C. WALTHER, 3524 GENTILLY BLVD., NEW ORLEANS, LA
Vice President: WILLIAM T. WALSHE, 1208 WEBSTER ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA
Secretary: CLAY SHAW, 505 DAUPHINE ST., NEW ORLEANS, LA
To understand the status of this organization, one simply needs to note the following:
From January 4th to January 20th, First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan of the Soviet Union visited the U.S. During his stay, Mikoyan met Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and President Eisenhower and was profiled by Allen Dulles head of the CIA. One of the organizations that was debriefed by Dillon was this MPWTCA highlighting further the proximity between Dulles and Shaw. In 1961, President Kennedy, appointed Republican Dillon Treasury Secretary which put him in charge of the Secret Service.
Walther himself was rather connected, with links to General Cabell: (New Orleans Times-Picayune May 10, 1961 S1-P3)
CIA Must Keep Quiet — Cabell General Cites Strides of Reds in Science
The Central Intelligence Agency, because of the sensitive nature of its activities, must maintain a policy of silence at all times in regard to its knowledge of the participation in United States affairs, the deputy director of the CIA said in New Orleans Tuesday [9th] night.
Air Force Gen. C. P. Cabell said that he therefore could not “rise to the defense of the CIA” in regard to its reported connection with the recent Cuban invasion, a connection which has come under repeated fire from many quarters.
Gen. Cabell arrived in New Orleans late Tuesday to address the International Relations Association of New Orleans, previously called the Foreign Policy Association of New Orleans. At a meeting held at the Sheraton-Charles Hotel, he discussed “Communism and Science.” He left shortly after the meeting to return to Washington.
Interviewed at International House shortly before his talk, Gen. Cabell refused to comment on the Cuban invasion and the CIA’s role in the affair.
“This is a sensitive subject, certainly, and one which should be discussed only by President Kennedy and Secretary of State Rusk,” he said. “The Central Intelligence Agency is not a policy making agency; we merely serve the policy makers.”
Therefore, it would make matters only worse, he continued, if officials of the CIA and other like agencies continued to make comments concerning the Cuban situation.
“It could very possibly occur that these comments would differ in meaning and suggestion from those made by the only two people who should be commenting on it – the President and the Secretary of State,” he said.
Discussing the scientific accomplishments of the Communists in his talk before the International Relations Association, Gen. Cabell said that “there is no reason at all to belittle or magnify the accomplishments of scientists living under Communistic regimes, and there is no reason to draw invidious comparisons between our efforts and their efforts.
“What we must realize is that the accomplishments are real,” he continued, “and that their successes so far have led them to place even more emphasis on scientific research and development in what Khruschev calls ‘the splendid years under Communism.”
Cabell said that science is the servant of Communism and that, stripped of all its usual verbiage, “Communism is a future social order being constructed out of present-day socialism through the application of science.
“We must recognize the vast scientific resources of the Soviet Union and the growing strength of China are being integrated with their political ambitions to reconstruct society in the Communist countries and eventually in the entire world.”
He concluded that “we should stand forewarned that every resource available to being used by the Communists to advance their political ends.”
The International Relations Association changed its name from the Foreign Policy Association Tuesday night because, according to its president, C. C. Walther, the group is no longer affiliated with its originator, the Foreign Policy Association of New York.
It has been reported by eminent author Donald Gibson that Clay Shaw was present during Cabell’s speech. (Davy, p. 293)
Harold K. Marshal and wife Mrs. Naomi Marshal has her own links to Clay Shaw according to excerpts from this 2013 notice written by her son. article in NoLaVie
My mother, known to our neighbors to the south as “La Mujer del Norte” (the woman from the north), traveled extensively in Latin America on business during those heady days in the 1940s and ’50s, when New Orleans was dubbed “Gateway to the Americas” — long before Miami, Atlanta and Houston opened economic sluices to the south, effectively shutting New Orleans’ wrought-iron-laced gates for years to come.
On her way to prominence in foreign trade, Mother shattered several glass ceilings, becoming the first woman officer of the New Orleans Board of Trade and a member of the city’s Export Managers Club. She was an avid supporter of the original International Trade Mart, a five-story modernist block of offices and displays of foreign government trade offices, spearheaded by Clay Shaw, its first director, which was demolished to make way for the New Orleans Sheraton hotel.
Her life was full, including her idea to locate the ITM tower at the foot of Canal Street, rather than in the new Duncan Plaza (City Hall) complex.
Clay Shaw moderated a panel that featured Gilbert Mellin
On October 23, 1959 Clay Shaw moderated a panel discussion that included local business leader and CRC backer Gilbert Mellin; a gathering where anti-communist attitudes were in full view.
Manuel Gil
Was employed as Production Manager by INCA. Authorized to sign checks for “Cuban Revolutionary Council”, and a charter member of INCA. (WC Vol 26, p. 769; CE 3119; CD 87 SS 517 p. 3 DTR 00-381; CD 407, p. 15; Oswald in New Orleans, Weisberg, pp. 343, 345, 356, 362-363)
INCA was run by Ed Butler who was friendly with Lloyd Cobb and Clay Shaw of the ITM, who in turn cooperated with him in his anti-communist endeavors. Ed Butler also contributed in the sheep-dipping of Oswald into his Warren Commission, pro-Castro persona. Of course, Gil was in close contact with Sergio Arcacha Smith.
William Monteleone
Monteleone’s hotel is where Shaw was the moderator for Anti-Communist panel discussion featuring Mellin.
According to this CIA file, an informant of unknown reliability claimed that Shaw was linked to one of the Monteleone girls in situations of gross immorality with overtones of sexual deviancy. While this admittedly is of little worth in terms of evidence, it is interesting that this even exists in a CIA file. Is this CIA profiling of U.S. citizens even legal? Unless perhaps they were keeping an eye on one of their own.
According to the manager of the Newman building, a “young Monteleone” ran the CRC (Garrison Files):
In 1951 Provosty Arthur Dayries, who was working for the VA at the time, became assistant superintendent of police—a political appointment by New Orleans Mayor deLesseps “Chep” Morrison. This was after the retirement of Milton Durel, and aimed to bring internal crime within the police department to a stop. At the time, many police captains were part of an underground lottery, gambling, prostitution, and drinking network within the city, which was designated as a “vice” or “graft” investigation (the terms are used interchangeably throughout the materials). He was promoted to superintendent in 1954, following an investigation into the former superintendent of police, Joseph Scheuring, and his lack of leadership in working to end the police network.
Prior to the hiring of Dayries as assistant superintendent, Mayor Morrison hired a former FBI agent from Chicago–though originally from Louisiana–named Guy Banister to handle the internal affairs investigation from within the mayor’s office. When Dayries was promoted to superintendent, he hired Banister to serve as his assistant. The two repeatedly came into conflict. Banister would often speak to the media before statements had been cleared by Dayries or Mayor Morrison. Additionally, Banister would routinely overstep his bounds within the police department regarding his leadership. At one point he attempted to take over Dayries’s job while he was in Florida speaking at a conference, before being reprimanded by the mayor.
While Banister at one time did claim Dayries was corrupt, they certainly frequented the same personages.
The Rodriguez clan
According to this information in the Mary Ferrell files Arnesto Napoleon Rodriguez y Gonzalez worked with ONI in the 1930s. Father of Arnesto, Jr., an FBI informant who was in communication with Lee Oswald in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. AMJUTE-1 is named as Arnesto Napoleon Rodriguez y Gonzalez on a list of cryptonyms. Arnesto’s other son, Emilio Rodriguez was also a CIA asset based in Mexico City, after being a stay behind agent in Cuba.
Arnesto Napoleon Rodriguez told an investigator for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that Oswald “came to the Berlitz School of Languages on one occasion and attempted to talk to him about the possibility of taking a language course, and about Cuba in general. He said he told OSWALD he was busy at the time; if he would return at a later date, they could discuss the situation. OSWALD, however, never returned.” He denied having any tapes of Oswald. [CIA 79, 166-78, 113-48, 72; Sciambra to Garrison 2.14.67 interview with ER Sr.] According to Larry Hancock Arnesto, father and son, were both in the court-room when Oswald got arrested for his fight during his leafletting activities, and Emilio was well connected to the JM. Wave crowd.
Carlos Crimadier (or Grimader on the list)
He was the auditor for the Crusade. Here is how the HSCA describes him:
Richard D. Reily
If the name Richard D. Reily rings a bell, it is because he is a family member of the same family who owned the Reily Coffee Company where Oswald worked for a few weeks during the summer of 1963 in the Crescent City.
Ronnie Caire
According to Ronnie Caire’s testimony to the HSCA, the Ronnie Caire advertising agency provided marketing services for the CRC. Caire also interviewed Oswald during the summer of 63 when he applied for work. (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/weberman/nodule11.htm) Caire says he had been approached by Sergio Arcacha Smith and that he knew both Banister and E. Howard Hunt. He stated that the CIA approached him through the CRC because he was politically connected. (https://www.jfk-online.com/jpsasfrd.html) (For more information, click here.) According to Arnesto Rodriguez Senior, Caire was the principal organizer of the Crusade and was very close to Smith. In fact, he said that Caire’s offices served as the HQs for the Crusade. If this is the case, then this places Oswald in offices occupied by the CRC and the Crusade. Hmmm.
It is interesting to note that Oswald also applied for work at United Fruit (Garrison: Oswald Miscel. Files, Bercham Exhibit 1), and Michoud Assembly Facility (NASA) where Shaw tenant William Kloepfer worked. He also applied in photography for Jules Weiss who was close to Shaw and also Warren Bernados who also knew him. The funny thing is that Bernados and Weiss had been partners but split, yet Oswald put the partnership company on his unemployment job search report, and both claimed he had passed by to apply for work after they split up. (Garrison Files Shaw Leads 2) Was Oswald really looking for work? … or was he simply being fed names he could use for his unemployment insurance claims? He told Dean Andrews that he was being paid $20 a day to hand out FPCC leaflets. In the Garrison files, we can see all the names of the employers where Oswald supposedly applied. It would be interesting to see how many of these tie into the network we are describing.
Arcacha Smith
Smith was head of the CRC at this time and figures on this list in a major way. Sergio Arcacha Smith His links to David Ferrie, Guy Banister, Layton Martens, Carlos Quiroga, Carlos Marcello, Carlos Bringuier, Arnesto Rodriguez, Ronnie Caire, Warren DeBrueys of the FBI who monitored the FPCC in New Orleans, and a host of well-connected anti-Castro operatives (many of whom relate directly to Oswald and Clay Shaw) is well documented… So is his theft of fund-raising revenue, and his determination not to cooperate with Jim Garrison.
Others known to have come into contact with Oswald and Newman Building occupants, include Cuban exiles of interest like Carlos Bringuier of the DRE who, according to his book, had met Bill Stuckey for the first time in August 1962 (Crime Without Punishment, page 101); and Celso Hernandez and Frank Bartes (who replaced Sergio Arcacha Smith in the CRC). These Cuban exiles all had touch points with Oswald. The FPCC and DRE were monitored by David Phillips (CIA) as well as Warren DeBrueys (FBI) and George Joannides (CIA). The CRC was under Howard Hunt’s watchful eye. Bringuier associate Miguel Cruz also came into contact with Oswald and is identified as informant T-2 as mentioned in DeBrueys’ FPCC file. (Blakey letter to Attorney General of U.S., October 16 1978)
Joan Mellen’s research indicates that after his brawl on Canal Street with Bringuier, Hernandez and Cruz, Oswald, while under arrest, asked to meet DeBrueys. Warren was out of the office and his associate met Oswald for hours. Which sounds like overkill for a small disturbance. The following file (see bottom right) shows that a Ramon Hernandez complaint about Oswald hand-outs also reached the FBI’s top FPCC dog in New Orleans:
If the picture one gets from this is that Shaw, Ferrie, Banister and Oswald’s multiple connections to this network of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, right-wing extremists and intelligence actors was not coincidental, then you are beginning to see quite clearly. If you are not quite there yet perhaps the story of one of the last well-connected Cubans to appear on this list will seal the deal. His name is Carlos Quiroga, co-chair of the youth wing of the Crusade to Free Cuba, second in command at the CRC, well-connected to Smith, Bringuier, Bartes, Ferrie, Banister… and Oswald.
His testimony to Garrison was polygraphed… His lies were plentiful, blistering and confirmed by another polygraphed witness. Quiroga deserves a section of his own.
Carlos Quiroga
Oswald`s landlady Jesse Garner saw Quiroga meet Oswald at his apartment. Quiroga claimed that he was trying to infiltrate the FPCC. This could have been done by filling out one of the flyers that Oswald was distributing. According to Jesse Garner in her Warren Commission testimony, Quiroga seems to have brought way more than one application: Note how both lawyer Wesley Liebeler and Jim Garrison underscore the quantity of flyers Quiroga brought with him:
Another false claim made by Quiroga was that this had been the only time that he had met Oswald.
The following lie detector test results reveal that: Quiroga met Oswald a number of times. He also knew that Oswald`s association with the FPCC was but a front and that Oswald was part of an anti-Castro operation. That he knew that David Ferrie knew Guy Banister and he had seen Oswald with at least one other Latino subject.
The exchange below between Quiroga and Jim Garrison, provides corroboration to the damning test results, in that two witnesses–one who had also been polygraphed–contradicted Quiroga`s statements.
David Lewis, a roommate of Banister employee Jack Martin, witnessed Quiroga with Oswald a number of times. While his testimony and character have been the subject of numerous attacks, there was no denying that his own polygraph results bolster the proof of deception brought forward by Quiroga’s polygraph. We can also add Ricardo Davis as one other witness who accompanied Quiroga when he was with Oswald on an occasion.
The motive of Latinos to be involved in the Crusade is self-explanatory. The Anglo-Saxon members most likely had business motivations. New Orleans was the gateway for North South trade. The last thing they wanted was a Castro stimulated revolution of Central and South American states that would disrupt markets and supply chains. After discussing with a member of the research community from New Orleans, who briefly perused the list, he concluded that a number of multi-millionaires were represented and wanted Castro out.
One example is Mrs. R. G. Robinson, who was likely the wife of Robert Gibson Robinson, son of the founder of Robinson Lumber Company (1893). Robert Gibson, was instrumental in the internationalization of this stellar family-run company. (See this link its website,
Robert Gibson Robinson, his son, upon recognizing the declining supply of export quality Heart Pine, began the company’s first foreign manufacturing facility in Nicaragua in 1942 to supply Pitch Pine to Robinson’s customers around the world.
After World War II, Jack, Charlie, and Sam, the third generation of Robinsons entered the business, expanded into hardwoods and began operations in Honduras and Brazil.
Mexico was also an important supplier of product. Just like with United Fruit, a communist take-over in these areas would have been disastrous.
Consider this about a Stockton B. Jefferson:
If this is the CPA husband of Mrs. Stockton B. Jefferson from the list, we can link another member of the Crusade who saw Castro as an existential risk. Note the association with Avondale Shipyards. One of the founders of Avondale Shipyards was a newspaper owner and father of Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries. Harry Koch
Oswald letter to FPCC
In one of my articles for Kennedysandking, Oswald’s Last Letter, I presented strong evidence that a letter to the Russian Embassy was a fake designed to paint Oswald in cahoots with Russia for the assassination. A very early researcher has convinced me that at least one of Oswald’s letters to the FPCC was done with close assistance. For this important clue, we need to go back to 1964 and quote directly from Harold Feldman, OSWALD and the FBI.
After presenting arguments that Oswald was an FBI informant, Harold astutely makes the following points: “If the FBI did not employ Oswald or work with him, then who wrote the letters he addressed to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York? Oswald alone certainly didn’t. Whoever wrote the letters to New York was coherent, commanded a good vocabulary, rarely misspelled a word, and punctuated decently. Oswald himself wrote English that a sixth-grader would blush to acknowledge. Here is a letter he wrote to his mother from Russia on June 28, 1963. I preserve the original spelling and punctuation:
Dear Mother.
Received your letter today in which you say you wish to pay me back the money you used last year, that, of course, is not nessicary however you can send me somethings from there every now and than.
If you decide to send a package please send the following:
One can Rise shaving cream (one razor (Gillet)
Pocket novels westerns and scienace fiction — Time or Newsweek magazine
Chewing Gum and chocolate bars.
That’s about all. Ha-ha
I very much miss sometime to read you should try and get me the pocket novel “1984” by Wells.
I am working at the local Radio plant as a mettal worker. We live only five minutes from there so it is very conveinant.
Well thats about all for now. I repeat you do not have to send me checks or money!
Love XX
Lee P.S. Marina sends a big Hello to you also
Now compare this semi-literate effusion with the following addressed to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee about two years later. (A New York Times report on the letters to FPCC indicates that they were handwritten, so presumably no public stenographer improved their style.)
Dear Mr. Lee:
I was glad to receive your advice concerning my try at starting a New Orleans F.P.C.C. chapter.
I hope you won’t be too disapproving at my innovations but I do think they are necessary for this area.
As per your advice I have taken a P.O. Box (N.O. 30061).
Against your advice I have decided to take an office from the very beginning.
I u c [apparently meaning, as you see] from the circular I had jumped the gun on the charter business but I don’t think it’s too important. You may think the circular is too provocative, but I want it to attract attention even if it’s the attention of the lunatic fringe. I had 2,000 of them run off.
The major change in tactics you can see from the small membership blanks, in that I will charge $1 a month dues for the new Orleans chapter only and I intend to issue N.O. F.P.C.C. membership cards also.
This is without recourse to the $5 annual F.P.C.C. membership fee.
However, you will lose nothing in the long run because I will forward $5 to the national F.P.C.C. for every New Orleans chapter member who remains a dues paying member for 5 months in any year. . . .
And so on for several more well-integrated paragraphs. He now spells “receive” and “necessary” correctly. He has mastered the apostrophe. His ideas cohere. He tackles words like “innovations,” “provocative,” “recourse,” “disapproving,” “approaching,” and “application” with success, something that would have been clearly beyond the powers of the voluntary exile in Minsk.
Until the authorship of the letters to the FPCC is settled, I think it reasonable to suppose that Oswald did not compose them, at least not without help. Who, and where, is the invisible scribe? No associate of his New Orleans period has been found, or even hinted at. If Oswald was employed by the FBI to operate in “Castro groups,” as the news report suggests, it is also reasonable to suppose that in the letters to FPCC his pen was guided by the FBI.”
In the following you will see that the actual hand-written version indicates a few differences with the above typed version (example its vs it`s). In my view the analysis by Mr. Feldman remains valid and astute given what he had to work with. He is correct in saying that this letter is so much better in grammar, word selection and style than other Oswald correspondence.
The FPCC in 1963
In my first prior plots article, I based my research on author Van Gosse’s work to estimate maximum FPCC membership to be between 5 and 7 thousand in 1961 and argued that such a low number made it impossible for persons of interest like Richard Case Nagell, Oswald, Policarpo Lopez, Vaughn Marlowe, Harry Dean, John Glenn, Santiago Garriga–who were potential patsies to varying degrees–to all be coincidently linked to the FPCC; especially for those in the Deep South where the FPCC had much less activity. Based on recent data that I have obtained, the odds are astronomically worse than what I first thought.
According to Malcolm Blunt, Vincent T. Lee, who was the last head of the organization, stated that the number of members had plummeted to about 1500 by mid-1963, finances were very poor and that the other FPCC officers were no longer even answering to him. Even the Treasury Department noted that the FPCC was almost inactive. Furthermore, members in the Deep South tended to be disproportionately African American, and the FPCC was riddled with informants.
In other words, the statistical probability of seeing a white person in the Deep South genuinely involved with such a vegetative outfit was rather small… seeing seven of the subjects profiled… well, no comment.
Framing Oswald
Two persons both Garrison and Blunt included in their files are the Buchanan brothers, Jerry and Jim Buchanan. They appear to be part of the large number of frame-up artists (FBI Report of Joseph Boston). Jerry claimed he had a fight with Oswald in early 1963 while he was distributing FPCC flyers in Miami.
Here is the capper: Both Jerry and Jim were officers of the International Anti Communist Brigade, where one of the Blame it on Castro Kings, Frank Sturgis, left his alpha male scent.
Birds of a feather
In article 2 of its formation documents, the International Trade Mart specifies one of its roles as “the development, promotion and maintenance of trade and commerce between the people of the United States of America and the people of the world, particularly the other American republics.”
It goes without saying that a communist country like Cuba, that was nationalizing many of its industries, was not in tune with the ITM mission.
In 1968, its president, the CIA connected Lloyd Cobb, went even further by stating: “the aims of the new International Trade Mart would be: to act as a catalyst to develop trade and not be just a display area for foreign goods; to encourage and stimulate U.S. investors into joint enterprises with Latin Americans; to counter Communist propaganda…” (The Story of the International Trade Mart, page 15).
Since the assassination, the ITM has gone through a merger and a multitude of changes, moves and expansion– making it an entirely different post-Cold War entity today. It is safe to say that during the Red Scare and Missile Crisis, New Orleans and its captains of industry where a tight-knit bunch who worked in synch with one another to target communist threats. The omni-present intelligence network was a partner in this economic and national security danger. This is why Oswald set up an office in the heart of one of the major anti-communist blocs in North America at the time and played a provocateur role using the brain-dead FPCC as a front: to work with a network in rooting out communists. A network which included Guy Banister, Cuban exiles, David Ferrie, INCA, WSDU, the CRC, The Friends of Democratic Cuba, The DRE, the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean, intelligence actors and Clay Shaw who was a well-paid CIA contract agent. This is why we have seen so much interaction between persons on the list with Oswald and Shaw. Given the role of the ITM, how could Shaw not be well connected and work in symbiosis with the apparatus countering communism as well as with the New Orleans power elite.
Just how invested the ITM, or at least some of its governance members were, in controlling the environments capitalists dealt in is not known. The Garrison files do offer some clues which the research community should pour into. Let us look at some of the people who were involved in with the ITM some sixty years ago.
We can begin with what Garrison himself observed when questioned on May 27, 1969 (Garrison Files: Crusade to Free Cuba, file 2, page 38)
Article 4 of the ITM foundation papers lists the original board directors in 1945. While a 1963 list would be worth analyzing, this one is already very revealing, especially when comparing with INCA members and operatives:
We know Shaw was close to Butler and Ocshner of INCA and that Philbrick was Oswald’s idol. Garrison was obviously intrigued by certain names such as Eustis Reily on the INCA list. This author finds the Stern names (WDSU) interesting. Since William Stuckey had a weekly radio program at the station and they allowed Walter Sheridan to work out of their offices while doing his NBC hatchet job on Garrison in 1967.
Declassified files prove that Lloyd Cobb, Theodore Brent (top dogs at the ITM) and Clay Shaw, who joined later, were intel connected . For instance, Cobb was on a panel of CIA cleared lawyers in New Orleans. (William Davy, Let Justice be Done, p. 182) According to Joan Mellen, Brent’s Mississippi Shipping Company ended up being a CIA proprietary. (Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 131) Oliver Stone’s film, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, proves that Shaw was a highly valued contract agent and had a covert security clearance for the Agency. The last name on the ITM list William G. Zetzmann also figures on a partial list of INCA members almost 20 years later.
A New Orleans based researcher sent me the following information: “I spoke with Paul Fabry, head of Radio Free Europe and other CIA organizations and later with his secretary, who told me that it was always their understanding that the ITM was “an agency operation”. The bronze plaque in the lobby of the ITM listed Alton Ochsner, James Coleman and a guy named Wm. Norman (atty and spook).”
Now let us see what we can peace together in terms of ITM occupants, employees and visitors.
According to the Story of the ITM: A list of first tenants included David Kattan, Otis McAllister Co., Hemisphere Trading Co. (of which Alonzo G. Ensenat was Manager), United China & Glass Co., W. R. Grace & Co , S. Jackson & Son, Inc., Dictaphone Corp., Lily-Tulip Co., and Lucky Tiger Co.
It would be helpful if researchers could profile these occupants of the ITM and others who were there in and around the time of the assassination. For instance, J. Peter Grace presided over W.R. Grace & Company as of 1945 for many decades. He is profiled this way by Source-watch: The name J. Peter Grace (1913-1995) “is found in the Council for National Policy (CNP) Membership Directory for 1984-85 and 1988. Grace holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University (1936). Grace “started in 1936 as Assistant Secretary at W. R. Grace, in 1945 became President and CEO. Grace is a member of the Newcomen Society, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Knights of Malta: American Chapter of the Board of Founders, Knights of Malta President, 114 Avenue of the Americas [Who’s Who in America (1976-77, 1992-93)]. Grace was involved in Project Paperclip — a post-World War II CIA arrangement to remove classified information from dossiers so that former SS members and 900+ Nazi scientists could emigrate to the U. S. Hundreds of war criminals would find employment within government agencies and companies such as W.R. Grace chemical company whose president was J. Peter Grace.”
Alonzo Ensenat certainly has strong ties to Clay Shaw. He was president of Hemisphere Trading Co. in New Orleans until founding Ensenat & Co., an import-export firm, in 1947. He was president of the company until retiring in 1980.
Mr. Ensenat was a member of the committee that organized International House in New Orleans in 1943 and was on its first board of directors. This is where Shaw went to work on his return from World War II. The chain of International Houses was started by the Rockefellers and spread worldwide as part of their globalist, one world vision. The chairman of the Board of Trustees was John McCloy, a frequent Rockefeller lawyer. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, p. 383) In 1945, Ensenat was an organizer of the International Trade Mart and was one of its first tenants when the building opened at 2 Canal St. in 1963. International House and the International Trade Mart later merged to form the World Trade Center of New Orleans. In 1946, Mr. Ensenat was an organizer of the Foreign Trade Zone, a duty-free zone that helped increase traffic through the Port of New Orleans after World War II.
Ensenat was on the executive committee of the Mississippi Valley World Trade Council (Secretary, Clay Shaw), which sponsored annual conferences in New Orleans to promote American exports in the 1950s and ’60s. He was president and general chairman of the conference in 1960 when it received the U.S. Department of Commerce’s “E” Award for excellence in promoting exports. He also was a charter member and past president of the World Trade Club of New Orleans. As opposed to this globalist goal, as Professor Donald Gibson has shown, Kennedy was a nationalist, both for the United States and largely in the Third World. This was a distinct break in policy between him and Dwight Eisenhower. (See DiEugenio, Chapter 2)
But beyond the uplinks to the Eastern Establishment, the ITM and Shaw had downlinks into the Crescent City. Aura Lee was a former secretary to Shaw at the ITM. After watching a press conference by Shaw where he denied knowing David Ferrie, she stated to Dr. Charles Moore, that she had seen Ferrie enter Shaw’s office at the Trade Mart several times. It happened so often the she thought Ferrie had privileged entry into his office. (DiEugenio, p. 209)
Bill Gaudet had an office in the ITM. According to Harold Weisberg, it was adjacent to two vacant offices. He published the Latin American Reports. Weisberg described him as C.I.A affiliated. (Andrew Sciambra Assistant D.A., interview with Weisberg on 4/14/1969). According to Sciambra, Cuban exiles often reported that Gaudet was CIA or FBI. Gaudet witnessed Oswald talking to Banister. (DiEugenio, p. 112)
On March 31, 1967, Betty Parrot told Garrison’s assistant DA Andy Sciambra, that Bill Dalzell lived in her home and that he was involved in a group called the Friends of Cuba with Sergio Arcacha Smith, BILL CRAIG, GRADY DURHAM, an individual named LOGAN who was also a member of the C.I.A., BILL KLINE, an attorney, REGIS KENNEDY, a member of the FBI, an individual named HOFFMAN and an individual named EASTERLING.
She also stated that “this group later moved from their office in the Balter Building and moved into an office in the International Trade Mart and then operated under the name of The Voice of Cuba or The Friends of Democratic Cuba.”
Layton Martens, listed as second in charge of the CFC after Arcacha Smith, knew David Ferrie through the Civil Air Patrol very well and also knew Clay Shaw but claimed Ferrie did not know Shaw. Here is what he told Garrison’s Assistant D.A. Alvin Oser when questioned on March 12, 1967, when asked: Have you ever been at the International Trade Mart?
LM: Yes.
AO: When was that?
LM: Well, a couple of vacations, a girlfriend’s mother worked there and I used to stop in and see her. I used to tell her hello. I did some soliciting there for funds for the F.R.D. and I went once with CLAY to see the plans for the new building.
Another ex-Civil Air Patrol cadet under Ferrie, Lawrence Fox, told assistant DA Jim Alcock (April 14, 1967) that he also solicited funds for the Crusade to Free Cuba at the ITM with David Ferrie. He said he was involved with Layton Martens and Arcacha Smith. (Garrison Files Miscellaneous reports 2 page 20)
In a report (described as relatively accurate but unconfirmed) about CIA leads in New Orleans dated May 24, 1967 to Jim Garrison by Assistant D.A. William Martin, he describes a Dave Baldwin who was hired by Shaw:
“(DAVE) BALDWIN) formerly of this City and a former newspaper reporter for the New Orleans States Item, was a covert member of the Central
Intelligence Agency and operated in India during the years of 1950, 1951 and_l952. Subsequent to his service in India Mr. BALDWIN returned to this city and was employed by CLAY SHAW as Public Relations Director for the International Trade Mart from 1952 through 1955…
…It was told to me that, during his employment at) the Trade Mart, DAVID BALDWIN succeeded in recruiting CLAY SHAW for C.I.A. operations, or, conversely, that CLAY SHAW had already been recruited by the C.I.A. by the time of BALDWIN’s employment, and that his employment of BALDWIN was suggested or sponsored by the C.I.A. During his operations in India. Mr. BALDWIN used as a cover his employment as a correspondent for North American Newspaper Alliance, the Louisville courier Journal, and the New Orleans Item.”
And there was Jesse Core, who replaced Baldwin. Core became Clay Shaw’s aide-de-camp at ITM. Core happened to pick up a flyer while Oswald was leafleting on Canal Street. He brought it back to the ITM. From there, he mailed it to the FBI office. He noted the part of the flyer which had Guy Banister’s office listed on it. This would suggest that he and Shaw knew this was a problem for Oswald, Banister and the FBI. Further, it was Core who notified WDSU TV about Oswald’s leafleting event outside the ITM. (DiEugenio, p. 161)
And we have this report that is so information-packed that I will share it intact:
In other words, at about the time Garrison’s inquiry was being exposed against his will by local reporter Rosemary James, The Times pulled the plug on their own inquiry.. When, in fact, they had leads in their files that backed up the DA. This parallels what Time-Life did through editor Holland McCombs, due to his friendship with Clay Shaw. (Click here for details https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/last-second-in-dallas-part-1)
Respected researcher David Boylan sent me this provocative piece of information about another interesting occupant: “I’m not sure if you guys have seen this. EAR’s (Emilo A. Rodriguez) statement just before he became a full-time employee. Page 6 is pretty interesting. He worked for the Berlitz School located at the ITM. His brother Arnesto would later run the Berlitz school and attempt to teach Oswald Spanish.”
“The signature is still redacted but I’m sure it was signed by David Morales. Morales had been working with EAR and Sforza in Cuba and exfiltrated them both in June 1961.Szorza would get an office but Morales wanted to keep EAR away so that EAR could continue his deep cover work.”
Summary
In parts 1 and 2 of this series, it was demonstrated that when Oswald started an FPCC chapter in New Orleans, he did so to infiltrate it as an informant.
In part 3 of this series of articles we have not only sealed the deal on proving that Oswald’s FPCC activities were simply a role he was playing as part of city-wide anti-Castro offensive that had national backing. We also show how Oswald and Clay Shaw’s work environments overlap in terms of contacts, mission and activities.
It was in the ITM’s DNA of that day to support anti-Castro efforts through propaganda, funding, organizing and networking as covertly as possible. Clay Shaw and Oswald’s intelligence fingerprints go back years before their appearances in New Orleans. Richard Schweiker of the Church Committee famously stated that everywhere you look with Oswald you find the fingerprints of intelligence. Shaw let his spook-slip show a number of times through his reckless socializing and hobnobbing with David Ferrie as well as through his anti-Communist support activities, network links and association with Permindex. Which in those day were not just a patriotic duty: in the New Orleans business community, it was part of people like Clay Shaw’s understood job description.
There has been a lot of discussion about the close physical proximity of 544 Camp Street to Banister and right-wing activists. Thanks to the Garrison files, we can work on proximities within the networks Oswald and Shaw shared. It is within these associations–which in the mind of their members were noble and deemed essential–that a few key people on a need to know basis exchanged money, orders and words that contributed to the murder of a President who was not in tune with a national mission, and thus considered a national threat. There was also a need to cover up and create distance between network members and Oswald.
One member of this network that has not been discussed yet was a muscular Latino who was often seen accompanying Oswald, or perhaps an Oswald double. He was considered so suspicious that the whole Garrison team was on the look-out for him. He was never identified. He was seen so often and described in corroborative terms that can leave no doubt that Oswald, the supposed lone-nut drifter, had at least one escort.
As most of you know, Edward Epstein rather quickly did a 180-degree somersault on the JFK case. After writing his valuable book Inquest in 1966, he then turned around and turned Warren Commission defender in quite a hurry. According to Vince Salandria, it was about a year or so later. And he never let up. He wrote one of the first anti-Jim Garrison books called Counterplot, that was first excerpted in The New Yorker.
Because of that book, Epstein was in the front ranks of Oliver Stone’s attackers when his film JFK came out in 1991. For instance, at a public debate in New York, sponsored by The Nation, he was Victor Navasky’s lead attack dog against Stone. This was pretty much a witless farrago, since Navasky had never had very much interest in or sympathy for critics of the Warren Commission. Between Epstein and the late Chris Hitchens, the event was really an intellectual disgrace.
When Jim Garrison passed on a year later, Epstein wrote an article smearing him in The New Yorker. About a year after that, he wrote another hit piece for The Atlantic. The excuse for this one was that Stone was coming out with a double tape VHS box of JFK. Because of this widened focus for the second article, Epstein could now use the occasion to broaden his focus to the celebrated director and one of his chief consultants, namely Fletcher Prouty. (For my reply click here)
After trying to attack Prouty, and—as I proved in my reply pretty much falling on his face—Epstein tried to say that Fletcher thought that Leonard Lewin’s 1967 book Report from Iron Mountain was a work of non-fiction. According to Len Osanic, the expert on Prouty, this is simply not the case. (Click here here for Len’s website on Prouty) And in fact, when Len was setting up his fine Fletcher Prouty site, Fletcher insisted that he include a link to a 1972 New York Times story with Lewin saying the book was a satiric novel. Len also has a show in his Archives—Program 825—in which Prouty says four times that the book is a novel.
But Fletcher appreciated the satiric edge of Lewin’s book, which was the idea that if a lasting peace could be achieved, it would not be in the best interests of society to achieve it. War was a basic part of the American economy. Lewin’s book was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages. US News and World Report (11/20/67) stated they had confirmation that the report was real and that President Johnson hit the roof when he read it. John Kenneth Galbraith was one of the advisors to the book and he tried to further the deception about it in an article in The Washington Post. ( 11/26/67)
Fletcher Prouty appreciated the point of the satire. Since he knew officials at the Pentagon who acted and spoke like the people in Lewin’s book: We cannot abandon the warfare state. And, in JFK, he used some of these dictums voiced through Donald Sutherland as Mr. X in the famous scene in Washington where X tries to explain why John Kennedy was killed. Mr. X of course was based on Prouty.
Fletcher Prouty also wrote about the transformation that took place after Kennedy’s death. For instance, concerning the war in Indochina and how that fed the war machine. And conversely how that would not have happened if JFK had lived. Reader James Finn has clipped two valuable stories from the MSM that illustrate the point Fletcher was making, namely that Kennedy’s withdrawal plan was already impacting the war economy. And the second story shows how his death turned that deceleration around in a hurry. Predictably, it appears that Epstein was wrong about that and Colonel Prouty was correct. One more posthumous feather in Fletcher’s cap. And thanks to Mr. Finn.
As we know, prior to the opening of Oliver Stone’s film JFK, there was a deliberate attempt to sandbag the picture. This included efforts both inside and outside the critical community. On May 14, 1991—a full seven months before the premiere—Jon Margolis wrote a hatchet job on a film he had not seen for the Dallas Morning News. On May 19th, George Lardner in the Washington Post—supplied with a bootleg copy of a script by the late Harold Weisberg—did the same. Lardner included a blast at the film’s Vietnam withdrawal thesis. He wrote, “That there was no abrupt change in Vietnam policy after JFK’s death.” When Stone was allowed to reply to this, he and Lardner continued to argue over that withdrawal thesis. (Washington Post, June 2, 1991) The man who brought the Vietnam withdrawal concept to Stone was retired Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty. Prior to the film’s mid-December 1991 opening, the November issue of Esquire magazine published a long cover story on the film. It was written by the late journalist Robert Sam Anson.
In 1975, Anson had written a book on the assassination entitled, “They’ve Killed the President!” If any editor at Esquire had read it, they should have thought twice about giving Anson the assignment, because Anson’s book contains one of the worst smears in the literature on New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. And since Stone based his film on Garrison’s book, he was the protagonist of the picture.
Clearly, Anson had a dog in this fight. His article, “The Shooting of JFK,” accused Garrison of being “closely associated with organized crime” and also of leaving out of his book, On the Trail of the Assassins, his trial for bribery and income tax evasion. As Bill Davy pointed out, Garrison had no such mob association. (Let Justice Be Done, pp. 149–67) And Garrison had written about that trial, which resulted in his acquittal. (Garrison, pp. 254–72) But Anson had an agenda: Kennedy was likely killed by a conspiracy, but Stone and Garrison were not the people to tell us what really happened.
Anson described Prouty as a writer for “one of the raunchier porno magazines.” He then wrote that Prouty’s by-line and association with the Joint Chiefs of Staff changed often over time. Neither of these were accurate. And Prouty’s singular achievements—his penning of the classic book The Secret Team, the fact that his many essays contained a remarkable amount of new and valuable information—this was all cast aside by Esquire. Fulfilling his agenda, Anson dutifully played off historian John Newman against Prouty, with Newman as the white hatter in Stone’s consulting crew and Prouty as the black hat.
Anson’s article had some notoriety in the MSM. So when the film opened, Prouty had a bleeding 3 inch gash over his right eye. And since he was responsible for originating the film’s overarching thesis—namely that President Kennedy was leaving Vietnam when he was killed—he became a target. The fact that the MSM had completely missed the idea that the Vietnam War would not have happened if Kennedy had lived—that was something they did not want to face up to.
II
To fully understand the second stage of the issue at hand, one has to look back at Douglas Horne’s 5 volume series, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. Horne included an important 15-page section in the first volume entitled “The Culture of the ARRB.” (Horne, pp. 9–24) This was an eye-opening, sometimes startling, section of that series.
Horne is at pains to describe a kind of ‘future shock’ upon his arriving in Washington to work for the ARRB. With the exception of Jack Tunheim, none of the five Board members were really familiar with the case. (Horne, p. 10) When Doug suggested a series of briefings to bring them up to speed, Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn advised against it:
He said they had little interest in the evidentiary conflicts that characterized the JFK assassination and had demonstrated great impatience with him on more than one occasion when he had attempted to discuss the ambiguity in the medical evidence arena. Furthermore, Jeremy told me that none of the Board members believed there had been a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy. (Horne, p. 10, italics in original)
And this is where Horne’s disclosures become even more interesting and they dovetail with the subject of this essay. Horne estimates that as much as 2/3 of the staff believed the Warren Commission was correct. This is remarkable, especially since the Board was operating in the wake of the national uproar created by Stone’s film. Most polls from that time period would have shown that upwards of 75% of the public believed Kennedy had been killed as a result of a conspiracy. In sum, concerning this question, the Board was not a representative cross section of the populace.
Horne writes there was strong prejudice, a kind of arrogance, toward any colleagues or independent researchers who questioned the Warren Commission’s verdict. (Horne, p. 11) He then extended this attitude to David Marwell, the staff director, which suggests that one reason the Board appointed Marwell may have been because he agreed with them. (Horne, p. 12) And the decisions on hiring—which Marwell had some control over—were also an echo of this thinking. (Horne, p. 13)
There can be little doubt about Marwell’s mindset. In a newspaper interview he did in 1994, he said he found Gerald Posner’s Case Closed a valuable book on Kennedy’s murder. But beyond that, Marwell was on cordial terms with Posner and with Commission advocates Max Holland and Gus Russo. (ibid) Horne writes that the majority of the staff felt the problem with the JFK case was Cold War secrecy, “not the evidence itself.” He characterizes this split between him and most of his colleagues like this:
The ongoing battle in our society over how to understand the Kennedy assassination, between the critical research community on the one hand, and the establishment’s historians and media organs on the other, was being played out in microcosm within the ARRB—and the deck was stacked in favor of the conservative views of the Board members and the Executive Director. (Horne, p. 14)
If the reader needed more evidence on this score, consider what Board member William Joyce told the LA Times on August 20, 1997: he said he thought the Commission did a “very good job.” Recall, this is after the Board secured the evidence that Gerald Ford, with a stroke of a pen, altered the Warren Report and moved up JFK’s back wound into his neck. The late Kermit Hall made similar statements around this time: namely that Oswald fired all the shots, there was no conspiracy. (Maryland Law Review, Vol. 56 No. 1) Board member Henry Graff told Penthouse Magazine, “I have found nothing to suggest there was anything but a single gunman. What put him up to it…I don’t think we’ll ever know.” (January, 1997)
To summarize this general attitude, on page one of the ARRB’s Final Report, these words appear in reference to Stone’s feature film: “While the movie was largely fictional…” No one who was objective, or in command of the facts of the JFK case, could write such a phrase. This is quite close to the type of boilerplate that the likes of Hugh Aynseworth or the late Vincent Bugliosi would bandy about. In my book The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, I do a scene-by-scene analysis of the first third of the film. In light of the documents the Review Board opened, in many instances Stone looks rather conservative in his composition of the picture. (DiEugenio, pp. 189–94) Therefore, whoever wrote that part of the report was either uninformed or rather biased. We can consider that comment a kind of parting shot by the Board at the screenwriters, Stone, and Zach Sklar.
III
As mentioned above, Horne observes that Marwell and the Board chose a staff that was largely neutral or sided with the Krazy Kid Oswald crowd. Upon going to work, Horne’s first direct supervisor was Tim Wray. Wray was the chief of the Military Records Team. He was a recently retired Army infantry colonel and was a veteran of the Pentagon. Horne said about Wray, “Tim was an open Warren Commission supporter.” (Horne E-mail, 4/23/22) Wray bragged to Horne about knowing “Goldberg over in the Pentagon,” the guy who actually wrote the Warren Report. (Arthur Goldberg is named on page v of the Warren Report as a staff member.)
According to Horne, “Tim used to needle me a lot about the psychology of JFK researchers and what he called their slipshod methodology, etc. I simply endured it (had to!) and ended up taking his job.” This last refers to Wray’s departure in 1997, which was not explained. Horne also includes the following revelation about Wray, “I tried to get him to read JFK and Vietnam, but he said he ‘couldn’t finish it’ and returned it to me with coffee stains all over the pages.”
The last disclosure is relevant to the main point of this essay. For this reason: it was initially Fletcher Prouty who had informed Oliver Stone about President Kennedy’s intent to withdraw from Vietnam. Prouty worked with and under General Victor Krulak. Krulak had been to Vietnam in September of 1963 and, as opposed to his trip partner, diplomat Joseph Mendenhall, he had given Kennedy a rather benign report about the progress of the war.
The next month, Kennedy was ready to enact his withdrawal plan. It had been prepared by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as far back as 1962. McNamara had given instructions to the overall commander in Vietnam, General Paul Harkins, to tell each department in Saigon to prepare withdrawal schedules. These schedules had been given to the Secretary at the May Sec/Def conference of 1963 in Hawaii. Krulak was supposed to be on the journey to Saigon with McNamara and Joint Chiefs Chairman Max Taylor that fall, but he was not. The McNamara/Taylor Report was prepared with electronic exchanges between Saigon and Washington. In Washington, Krulak prepared the final report under Bobby Kennedy’s supervision. (John Newman, JFK and Vietnam, 2017 edition, p. 408) That report was designed to serve as President Kennedy’s exit plan from Saigon. The pretext was that since the war was going alright, Americans could now depart.
Working under Krulak gave Colonel Prouty an unusual window into Kennedy’s plan to leave Vietnam and the Colonel wrote and spoke about this more than once after he left his position in the Pentagon. His writings and utterances on Indochina are both comprehensive and incisive to anyone who has read them. And thanks to Len Osanic, who runs the best Prouty web site there is, we have access to them. (See Len’s site at prouty.org) In fact, years before Newman published JFK and Vietnam, Prouty was aware of most of the salient points that John would address in that milestone book, for example: falsification of intelligence reports by the CIA, the importance of the McNamara/Taylor report, its relation to NSAM 263, etc.
IV
As we have seen, Tim Wray had no time or use for any of this rather bracing information about Kennedy’s intent to leave Indochina. Somehow, the fact that Vietnam would not have happened if Kennedy had lived apparently did not interest him. What he really wanted to hone in on was the Prouty information about the 112th Unit at San Antonio being unable to provide further security for President Kennedy’s upcoming trip to Dallas. Looking at the ARRB documents collected on this subject by Malcolm Blunt, it appears that Wray recruited his colleague Chris Barger and chief counsel Jeremy Gunn to accompany him on this mission. (Horne assured this writer that Barger was not the instigator on this.)
In an ARRB memo secured by Blunt of February 28, 1997, the reader can see that the Board entitled this mission “The 112th Military Intelligence Project.” What is odd about this whole effort is that, although it was apparently designed to discredit Prouty, that was not actually the end result of the Board’s efforts. For example, investigator Dave Montague got in contact with former Lt. Stephen Weiss, who was with that detachment in 1963 but was now retired. He told Montague that Colonel Robert Jones had requested they get in contact with the Secret Service and offer them supplementary protection for President Kennedy in Dallas. Weiss was surprised that the Secret Service declined. He said the word was that a man, who’s name phonetically sounded like [Forrest] Sorrels, declined the offer. (ARRB memo, p. 1) Another person with that detachment, Ed Coyle, had been in on regular interagency group conferences, for example with the FBI and local police groups. He also thought that the 112th would be asked to supplement the Secret Service for Dallas. He was also surprised when the offer was declined. (ARRB memo, p. 2, this was written in handwritten notes of 7-19-96)
In other words, there were two independent sources who confirmed that the information conveyed by Prouty was accurate in its outlines, in other words, the 112th offered help in protecting the president and it was declined. The Board then tried to discredit Jones. Wray insisted he was not an Operations Officer but an Intelligence Officer and, therefore, somehow that put him out of the loop. He compared that position to someone who just figured out the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—in 1945, after their surrender.
I don’t think most people would agree with that characterization, because, for example, the HSCA termed Jones as an Operations Officer. In certain FBI documents, he was described as an Operations Officer on 11/22/63. (E-mail, Blunt to the late Ed Sherry, 1/19/07) The Secret Service also labeled him as such on 11/30/63. (Blunt to Sherry, 1/18/07) In an article that Larry Hancock and Anna Marie Kuhns Walko wrote for the Dealey Plaza Echo, they referred to him as that. (Vol. 5 No. 2, July 2001) Further, according to a handwritten note on the ARRB memo, Jones said he could prove this himself.
Another way in which Wray and the ARRB tried to impeach Prouty’s information was by writing that, except in very rare situations, military intelligence did not supplement the Secret Service. In the memo noted above, Wray gives credit to Dennis Quinn for that information, which brings us to another notable choice by the Board.
Quinn, a former lawyer for the Navy, also was of Wray’s persuasion. He opposed any Board inquiry into the medical evidence, saying it would muddy the record, not clarify it. Quinn supported the Warren Commission’s conclusions very strongly. Like Wray, he was dismissive and belittling of the critical community. He went as far as trying to get David Marwell to stop the ARRB investigation of the medical evidence. After Quinn attended the James Humes deposition, he left the medical review team, thereby leaving just Gunn and Horne on that inquiry. Quinn then left the ARRB in about a year. (E-mail from Horne of May 4, 2022)
The Hancock/Walko article tended to contradict the Wray/Quinn information about the Secret Service using the supplementary aid of military protection. Hancock and Walko wrote that prior to Dallas, there were such supplements in Miami, Tampa, and San Antonio. This writer cross checked that information with Secret Service expert Vince Palamara. He affirmed it was accurate. (E-mail communication with Vince, May 3, 2022) He sent me photos and other evidence from his site, which back up his case. But, in addition, Vince went further. He also sent evidence that there were military supplements to Secret Service protection for Kennedy in Pueblo, Colorado and San Diego, California that year. (Palamara e-mail of May 4, 2022.) Therefore, in its haste to nab Prouty, it appears that the ARRB was wrong in one of its initial assumptions. They simply did not do the proper study of the past motorcades and they did not consult the proper sources of information.
V
Fletcher Prouty was accustomed to alleged inquiries into the JFK case that were, let us say, not as rigorous or straightforward as they seemed. He had been through this with the Rockefeller Commission. That body had been appointed by President Gerald Ford. As revealed in Oliver Stone’s documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed, when asked why he appointed such conservative mainstays to the commission— such as Lyman Lemnitzer and Ronald Reagan—Ford said it was to conceal some sensitive operations. When asked “Like what?”, he said “Like assassinations!” In keeping with that dictum, Ford appointed Commission lawyer David Belin as executive director for that inquiry. Prouty was called in as a witness by them. He was asked to go off the record at an interesting point in his interview by Commission lawyer Marvin Gray. They were discussing the issues of deniability and compartmentalization. (Interview of 5/15/75, p. 4) Toward the end, Prouty got into some utterly fascinating material about the Nhu brothers, Trujillo, and the U2,bits of which are still redacted to this day. But, to put it mildly, there was very little follow up. As he later revealed to Len Osanic, when Prouty then went into his pre-interview for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), he felt the same disappointment. He was probably the only man in the building who would recognize who former CIA officer George Joannides was and why he was really there. He only did the pre-interview and that was it for him. He recognized what was going on under the surface.
Therefore, when he was called in for an ARRB interview, from the first couple of questions asked, he understood what they were up to. When he got home, he called Len Osanic, who was running a forerunner of his web site. He told Len about the experience. Fletcher said he could not believe the spin, so he decided to play along and participate in their game. (Osanic interview, May 5, 2022) For example, when asked if he had any notes of his information about the 112th, Prouty said no.
The fact is he did make notes and he kept them. Len Osanic has them on his site today. They are from one Bill McKinney who served with the 112th right after the JFK assassination. Bill said the controversy about the non-reinforcement in Dallas was still going on at that time and, again, this witness contravenes another ARRB assumption. (ARRB memo, p. 6) McKinney said that he did get training in protective services. He said this was attained at Fort Holabird in Maryland. McKinney said that the 112th’s offer of protection was refused point blank, even though people there knew that Dallas was dangerous.
Mr. McKinney now makes three witnesses that buttress Prouty’s statement about the denial of supplementary services, but there was actually a fourth. After Oliver Stone’s film was in circulation, a young woman called up Len Osanic. She said she was the daughter of one of the commanding officers of the 112th. She said that on the night of the assassination, she was at home. In the kitchen of their house, a heated discussion was going on. She recalled the term “stand down,” because it seemed odd to her. She had only heard the term “stand up.” Watching the film JFK and the mention of that term made her retroactively realize what the heated discussion was all about. (E-mail communication with Osanic of May 5, 2022. This woman was in a high position in the government, so she will remain anonymous.)
To put it mildly, the weight of the evidence contravenes what the ARRB Special Project about the 112th was about. In fact, with this new evidence, it is difficult to find anything that the ARRB Special Project was right about in this particular dispute over JFK and Fletcher Prouty. Their research seems to have been less than thorough. And those who have tossed about the Prouty/ARRB interview as a way of smearing both the Colonel and Stone’s film have been shown to have fallen for some rather incomplete and unfounded information. Let me add: this includes Jeremy Gunn who, the last time I talked to him in 2019, seemed to still be taking that whole misguided exercise seriously.
Fletcher Prouty was one of the few people inside the rings of power in Washington who dared to speak out about what he knew. He wrote a quite valuable book, The Secret Team. He and Dave Ratcliffe cooperated on a book of interviews, Understanding Special Operations, which is also quite valuable. (Click here for details) Finally, his series of essays that were published in the seventies and eighties are a formidable achievement in understanding how the shadow government operates. (Click here for details)
Such a figure did not deserve to have his reputation sullied by those who were allegedly pursuing the factual record about the murder of President Kennedy.
(The author would like to extend his thanks to Len Osanic, Malcolm Blunt, Doug Horne, and Vince Palamara for their help in the composition of this article. It would not exist in this form without them.)
As our readers know, I wrote a column not long ago on Noam Chomsky’s appearance on a podcast called Green and Red. Chomsky and the podcast co-host, Bob Buzzanco, were fulminating about how Oliver Stone’s recent media appearances were misleading the left about both President Kennedy and the whole issue of what America’s role was in Vietnam. I replied to both of them. (Click here for that column) When Buzzanco later challenged the people behind JFK Revisited to a debate, I decided to oblige him. I would not do so on his show, since it would help him raise his audience, which I had moral reservations about. I said I would do so on Aaron Good’s American Exception podcast, a neutral site.
That debate did take place. (Click here for that debate) When Oliver Stone heard it, he immediately called me, as he was excited about the result. The problem with debates, of course, is trying to balance out the positive points you wish to make with the necessity of playing defense, that is negating the charges being made by the other side. Therefore, in addition to doing a follow up show with Aaron on this, I would like to make some comments on that score here.
First of all, to dispose of the last part of the debate, Buzzanco had said that there was little discovered about Oswald’s intelligence ties since the days of the House Select Committee (HSCA), which is an utterly false statement. John Newman wrote a whole book about this area which, contrary to what Buzzanco tried to imply, was not directly explored by the HSCA. In Oswald and the CIA, Newman discovered that both the CIA and FBI had anti Fair Play for Cuba Committee campaigns ongoing in the summer of 1963, which, of course, Oswald’s activities in New Orleans would seem to fit neatly into both. In addition to missing this, there was no place in those volumes where Oswald’s relationship with either the CIA or FBI was examined in any formal way. It turns out that the work of the HSCA’s Betsy Wolf, who was studying Oswald’s relationship with the CIA, was not declassified into the new millennium. To put it mildly, her work created a new plateau in this field. (Click here for details)
In the last part of the debate, it is hard to comprehend how someone who likes to pontificate about the impact of JFK’s murder could declare he knows little or nothing about the actual circumstances of his assassination, but like Noam Chomsky, such is the case. Suffice it to say that what happened during Kennedy’s autopsy—both the main one and the supplementary—would appear to indicate just what Chomsky says did not occur: a high-level plot. In the film JFK: Destiny Betrayed, we show that:
The photos of Kennedy’s brain cannot be of Kennedy’s brain, simply not possible.
In all probability, General Curtis LeMay was in attendance that night and tried to disguise how he got there.
Buzzanco is apparently ignorant of all this, as is Chomsky, which is no surprise really. What they lack in knowledge, they make up for in arrogance and snark.
Like so many leftist critics of Kennedy, Buzzanco said that somehow I should watch myself in talking about JFK’s civil rights program. This shows that, in addition to swallowing Chomsky, he has bought into the almost incessant and deceptive MSM campaign to bury what Kennedy did on civil rights. I made it a purpose of mine to go back into the record and find out what the truth was about this issue. Why? Because a while back, someone said to me words to the effect: Jim what you did with Kennedy’s foreign policy, you could probably do with all the other aspects of his presidency.
That turned out to be accurate. After a long four-part analysis, which surveyed literally dozens of books on the subject, I concluded that President Kennedy had done more for civil rights in less than three years than Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower did in three decades. In fact, it was not even close. Kennedy went to work on the issue the night of his inauguration. He was disappointed that there were no African Americans in the Coast Guard parade that day. He called up Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon and asked him about it. When Dillon said he had no idea why that was, Kennedy told him: Well, find out what the problem is.
The result of this was two affirmative action orders within a year. The first taking place in March, just two months after his inauguration. That first order dealt with employees in the federal government. There was a second one about purchases by the federal government, that is any contracting, with say the Pentagon or State Department, by a private vendor made that company also responsible for affirmative action guidelines.
What had happened was this: Kennedy was disappointed with the Civil Rights Commission set up by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson while he was in the senate. Although Kennedy voted for it, he thought it was toothless. So, he decided to enlist the Commission’s lawyer, Harris Wofford, as a campaign advisor in 1960. After Kennedy was elected, he instructed Wofford to write out a program for civil rights. Wofford specifically wrote that the president should not even think of trying to pass an overall bill in the first or even the second year since it would be stymied by the southern filibuster. Wofford advised Kennedy to try and get some momentum through executive orders, the Justice Department and perhaps the courts.
And that is what Kennedy did. For example, differing with Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, Attorney General Robert Kennedy said the administration would support the Brown vs. Board decision. Bobby Kennedy then indicted the Secretary of Education in Louisiana for resisting that ruling. In Prince Edward County Virginia, the state would not support an integrated school system. The Kennedys collected contributions from wealthy donors and William Vanden Huevel actually built a new school system from scratch—superintendent, principal, counselors, teachers, and buildings—so that the local children could register for classes. (Click here for that story)
I could go on and on, for example funding voting drives, integrating both state and private universities in the south, filing suits against voting rights violations. No previous president went as far on as many fronts than JFK did. It’s not even close. And this was before he submitted his omnibus civil rights bill to congress in February of 1963. (For all the details, click here) As with Indochina, Buzzanco drank the Kool-Aid on this one.
Buzzanco also said that in my claim that Kennedy was much more reformist than what is made out to be, all I had to back me was Richard Mahoney’s book JFK: Ordeal in Africa, which shows that Buzzanco has not read this site very often. On the concept of President Kennedy’s reformist foreign policy, Robert Rakove’s book, Kennedy, Johnson and the Non-Aligned World is one of the best. That was published in 2013, decades after Mahoney’s 1989 book. On just the area of Africa, there is Philip Muehlenbeck’s fine work, Betting on the Africans. That volume was published in 2012, again decades after Mahoney. Decades prior to Mahoney, there was Roger Hilsman’s book To Move A Nation, which was astute on Kennedy’s foreign policy ideas, particularly about Indonesia. About the 1965 Indonesian upheaval, there is Bradley Simpson’s book Economists with Guns. Simpson says in that 2010 book, as he did for Oliver Stone in JFK: Destiny Betrayed, the epochal overthrow of Sukarno would not have happened if Kennedy had lived. Greg Poulgrain says the same thing in his book, JFK vs Allen Dulles:Battleground Indonesia, which was published in 2020.
As far as Indochina goes, it is just as bad for Buzzanco. Since the film JFK came out, there have been books by Howard Jones, David Kaiser, James Blight, and Gordon Goldstein which all agree with the views of that film: that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death. There is also John Newman’s second edition of his milestone work JFK and VIetnam. In my view, that version is even better than the 1992 edition. There is also Richard Parker’s biographical work on John K. Galbraith. Galbraith was one of the strongest influences advising Kennedy on this issue, and the president took his advice to begin his withdrawal plan. (Click here for details)
Considering all this new scholarship, what is hard to understand is this: Why is Buzzanco still abiding by Noam Chomsky’s badly dated and intellectually shabby 1993 book? Because in the face of over 800 pages of new information declassified by the ARRB, no one else is. Need I add that since Chomsky’s book came out, both Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy (posthumously) published scholarly tomes in which they said the same thing: Kennedy was not going into Vietnam. Just how much evidence, how many witnesses, and how many scholars does one need in this regard?
Like the late Alexander Cockburn, Buzzanco wants us to think that somehow President Kennedy was involved in the Ramadan Revolution of February 1963. This was the overthrow of the Iraq leader Karim Qasim and his (temporary) replacement by the Baath party. Since I found Cockburn about as convincing as Chomsky on the issue of Kennedy’s foreign policy, I did some research on this. I read three works on the issue—one book and two Ph. D. dissertations—and none of them agreed with either Cockburn or later the work of Vincent Bevins on this score. All three writers stated that, unlike Eisenhower, the Kennedy administration was not all that interested in Qasim. For instance, the interagency committee Eisenhower had on Iraq was more or less dropped under Kennedy. And by late 1961, Qasim had turned on the communists, so there was no Cold War motive to dethroning him.
Where Qasim got into trouble was with the British and the Kurds. The former was over an oil rights dispute, the latter was over a territorial rebellion in the north. After the Kurds inflicted some defeats on the army, the Baath Party infiltrated the military and negotiated with the Kurds. And that is what set the stage for the overthrow in February of 1963. There is no credible evidence that the CIA or State Department commandeered the plot. (Peter Hahn, Missions Accomplished? p. 48) And unlike what Cockburn tried to imply, Saddam Hussein was not even in the country at that time. (For a longer treatment click here and scroll to part 6)
Buzzanco also brought up the overthrow in Brazil. It is true that Kennedy was worried about Brazil, but this is due to the horrible advice he was getting from Lincoln Gordon, who he should never have approved as ambassador. But it’s also true that he sent Bobby Kennedy to Brazil to advise Joao Goulart to moderate his government to avoid any conflict. Gordon had actually told JFK that Brazil was in danger of becoming a new Red China. (See Merco Press, April 8, 2022) We do not know what Kennedy would have eventually done in Brazil, but it was President Johnson and Warren Commissioner John McCloy who actually arranged for the overthrow in 1964. The Brazilian military was given aid by Vernon Walthers of the CIA. Operation Brother Sam was done hand-in-glove with the Rockefeller interests in Brazil, which is why McCloy was the front man for it. (The Chairman, by Kai Bird, pp. 550–53) I would like to add that, in reference to Latin America, Kennedy did not recognize rightwing takeovers in either Dominican Republic or Honduras. Also, unlike what Buzzanco said, the American embargo of Cuba did not start under Kennedy. Its initial stages began first in 1958, under Eisenhower. Ike extended it in 1960 to include most exports. Kennedy expanded it again in 1962. It’s quite surprising that a history professor could be inaccurate about something as simple as this.
My last point would be about the concept of what Rakove called “engagement.” This was his word for how Kennedy approached the concept of neutrality. Kennedy felt that if a country wanted to remain neutral in the Cold War, that was their decision. We could still send them aid and, in fact, we should send them as much as possible in order to keep them away from the communists. As Rakove notes, this was a large jump from John Foster Dulles, who did not want to deal with the concept of neutrality at all. With him, there was no neutral ground in the Cold War: you were either for the USA or against the USA. (See Rakove, pp. 6–11). A good example of this would be Kennedy’s attitude toward Nasser in Egypt versus Foster Dulles’ and, later, Johnson’s stance toward the charismatic pan-Arab leader. Any history scholar should be able to discern this wide difference. Nasser certainly did, as did most of the leaders in Africa. (Muehlenbeck, pp 227–228) For Buzzanco to say I agreed with him on this issue shows a combination of political spin and his lack of knowledge on who Foster Dulles was.
I would like to append one last point about how leftist ideology clouds the picture of who Kennedy was. Peter Scott wrote an essay for the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers back in 1971. That essay was one of the earliest efforts to detect that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death. The editors of that series were Chomsky and Howard Zinn. They did not want to print that essay, because to them it would indicate that whoever is president makes a difference. I do not know any clearer way of showing that Chomsky’s concept amounts to writing history according to ideology. And to me, that is not writing history. Its polemics.
John F. Kennedy was not a perfect president. We have never had a perfect president and there never will be one, but the best brief characterization of Kennedy was made by Richard Mahoney. He used Edward Gibbon’s description of the Byzantine general Belisarius as a point of comparison: “His imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues were his own.”
