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  • David Atlee Phillips, Clay Shaw and Freeport Sulphur

    Lisa Pease Reports on Freeport Sulphur:

    Whitney, the Ambassador, and Batista’s Tax Break for Freeport Sulphur

    Freeport Sulphur’s Powerful Board of Directors

    JFK, Indonesia, CIA & Freeport Sulphur

    Maurice Bishop and “The Spook” Hal Hendrix

    “If the CIA has taken over one large corporation, then how many others, perhaps smaller and less likely to be noticed, might it already have taken over? At this moment just how many American corporations are being used at home and abroad to carry out the CIA’s nefarious schemes?”

    – Writer and editor Kirkpatrick Sale, referring to the Hughes Corporation, in a presentation for the Conference on the CIA and World Peace held at Yale University on April 5, 1975, published in Uncloaking the CIA, Howard Frazier, ed. (NY: The Free Press, 1978)

    During my recent interview of MR. JAMES J. PLAINE of Houston, Texas, MR. PLAINE informed me that he had been contacted by a MR. WHITE of Freeport Sulphur in regards to a possible assassination plan for Fidel Castro.

    – New Orleans District Attorney (NODA) Memo from Andrew Sciambra to Jim Garrison, dated 10/9/68

    		  
      A memo in the GUY BANISTER file indicates that there is information which reports that DICK WHITE, a high official of Freeport Sulphur, and CLAY SHAW were flown to Cuba probably taking off from the Harvey Canal area in a Freeport Sulphur plane piloted by DAVE FERRIE. The purpose of this trip was to set up import of Cuba’s nickel ore to a Canadian front corporation which would in turn ship to the Braithwaite nickel plant. The plant was built by the U.S. Government at a cost of about one million dollars. – New Orleans District Attorney (NODA) Memo from Sciambra to Garrison, dated 10/9/68
    One man whose name we first thought to be WHITE apparently is WIGHT, Vice President of Freeport Sulphur who reputedly made the flight. Currently an effort is being made to locate WIGHT, who lives in New York. Despite the fact that the original source of this information was JULES RICCO KIMBLE, a man with a record, this lead keeps growing stronger. From the very outset it had been reported that the flight had something to do with the import of nickle following the loss of the original import supply from Cuba. Recent information developed on WIGHT in a separate memo indicated that he is now on the Board of Directors of the Freeport Nickel Company, a subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur. – NODA Clay Shaw Lead File note, no date  
      [Ken] Elliot then changed the subject and stated that he has a lot of information that he could give to the D.A. but that unless he was assured that he would not be publicly brought into the investigation or be served, he would not come forward. He stated as an example that SHAW and two other persons either purchased or attempted to purchase a nickel ore plant in Braithwaite, Louisiana, after the company was closed because of broken trade relations with Cuba. At this time DAVID FERRIE flew SHAW and his two partners to Canada in an attempt to receive the ore from Cuba but through Canada. – NODA Memo from Sal Scalia to Garrison, 6/27/67
    Cogswell says the Bishop sketch resembles the former president of a Moa Bay subsidiary, Freeport Sulphur of New Orleans. Cogswell doesn’t remember the name of that officer, but says he knew he had very powerful connections and came from Texas. – HSCA Outside Contact Report dated 7/6/78, Gaeton Fonzi’s interview of James J. Cogswell III.  
      Mr. Phillips stated that he “probably” did have some contacts with someone or some persons associated with the Moa Bay Mining Company, but he did not recall any specific names. He also “must have” had some contact with Freeport Sulphur people. “I was fairly socially active at the time and the name of the company is familiar to me.” – HSCA notes from an HSCA interview with David Atlee Phillips, dated 8/24/78.

     

    The quotes at left [above] should raise some serious eyebrows. Could an American-based multinational corporation such as Freeport Sulphur, now Freeport McMoRan, have been involved, however peripherally, in anti-Castro activities in the sixties? Could Freeport have provided cover to employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, employees such as David Atlee Phillips? Could we have imagined there would be a company connecting both Phillips and Clay Shaw, the man Jim Garrison charged with being part of the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy?

    The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the late ’70s pursued this strange lead. It seemed more than mere coincidence that both Clay Shaw’s name and that of Phillips’ purported alias, Maurice Bishop, would show up in conjunction with a little publicized company known then as Freeport Sulphur. Interestingly, in the last few months, Freeport has been making headlines in the Los Angeles Times, Texas Observer, The Progressive and the Austin Chronicle due to allegations of human rights abuses and environmental degradation.

    The HSCA suppressed the files surrounding the investigation of David Phillips’s alleged connection to Freeport Sulphur’s Cuban subsidiary, the Moa Bay Mining Company. The document quoted at left, referencing David Phillips and Freeport Sulphur, has been quietly circulating through the research community, although it had been technically unreleased. The secrecy surrounding David Atlee Phillips and every document, interview, tape and reference to him must end. He is a key suspect, having been fingered by several as the Maurice Bishop that Antonio Veciana saw talking to Oswald in Texas. As the reader will see, the connections here are too compelling to go unexplored. The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) must make every effort to secure the remaining pieces of the investigation of the Freeport Sulphur-David Phillips connection, as well as all documents and testimony relating to the identity and role of Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

    Bill Davy, in his well-documented monograph Through the Looking Glass: The Mysterious World of Clay Shaw, put forth the first public information on Freeport Sulphur’s peripheral relation to a key figure in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. Here, we flesh out the information surrounding this company, as it hosts a startling set of heavy hitters whose policies crossed swords with those of President John F. Kennedy in significant ways.

    Probe is not going to state that Freeport Sulphur was in any way involved in the planning or execution of the Kennedy assassination. But this is a company that connects the CIA, the Rockefellers, Clay Shaw and David Phillips. The company had serious clashes with Castro over an expensive project, and with the Kennedy administration over matters of great monetary significance to Freeport. Allegations of a Canadian connection with New Orleans, and Cuban nickel mining and processing operations fit neatly into Shaw’s reported activities. And this is a company which had at least one director reportedly talking about killing Castro.

    Because this is such an important story, and there is so much to it, this article has been broken into two parts, the second of which will be in the next issue of Probe. There is no quick way to tell this story, as the history and players all need backgrounds to put the nature of the implications in the fullest possible context. So we go back to the beginning.

    Freeport Sulphur’s Early Years with John Hay Whitney

    Freeport Sulphur was born in Texas in 1912. The company later moved the headquarters office to New York. Originally, the principal business was mining sulphur. By 1962, Freeport Sulphur was the nation’s oldest and largest producer of sulphur. In 1962, the fertilizer industry used 40% of the sulphur produced in the world. Other business segments that use sulphur in the production process are chemical, papermaking, pigment, pharmaceutical, mining, oil-refining and fiber manufacturing industries. For most of this period, Freeport was headed by John Hay Whitney.

    In 1927, Payne Whitney, one of America’s richest multimillionaires, died, leaving his only son and future Freeport president an estate valued at over $179 million. At the young age of 22, John Hay Whitney became one of the country’s richest men. Nonetheless, “Jock,” as the press later called him, took a job at Lee Higginson and Co. on a salary of $65 a month. There, he made a fateful friendship with another onetime Lee Higginson employee named Langbourne Williams. Langbourne’s father had originally founded Freeport Texas, then lost control of the business. Langbourne enlisted Jock’s boss at Lee Higginson-J. T. Claiborne-to help in a proxy fight for control of Freeport. Claiborne urged the young Jock to join their efforts. Jock did-to the tune of a half a million dollars. By 1930, the Claiborne-Williams-Whitney team had won control of Freeport.

    Without Jock Whitney’s influence-and of course, money-the future of Freeport may have been gravely different. The Whitney family fortune was legendary not just for its size, but for the power that the Whitneys wielded with it. Republican Whitney money, for example, founded The New Republic. Carroll Quigley, in Tragedy and Hope, has written:

    The best example of this alliance of Wall Street and Left-wing publication was The New Republic, a magazine founded by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney money. . . . The original purpose for establishing the paper was to provide an outlet for the progressive Left and to guide it quietly in an Anglophile direction. . . . The first editor of The New Republic, the well-known “liberal” Herbert Croly, was aware of the situation. . . Croly’s biography of Straight, published in 1914, makes perfectly clear that Straight was in no sense a liberal or a progressive, but was, indeed, a typical international banker and that The New Republic was simply a medium for advancing certain designs of such international bankers, notably to blunt the isolationism and anti-British sentiments so prevalent among many American progressives, while providing them with a vehicle for expression of their progressive view in literature, art, music, social reform, and even domestic politics. . . . The chief achievement of The New Republic, however, in 1914-1918 and again in 1938-1948, was for interventionism in Europe and support of Great Britain.

    Put another way, the Whitney family was accustomed to covert uses of corporate institutions, and especially the media.

    The Whitneys had also been powerful within the government. Whitney’s grandfather, for example, had served under President Grover Cleveland as Secretary of the Navy. Jock Whitney himself followed the path of his predecessors, joining with Nelson Rockefeller in 1942 to take charge of American WWII propaganda in Latin America through the Rockefeller-controlled Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA). Due to the confluence of interests and the similarity in substance, at one time, there was talk of merging the Rockefeller-Whitney CIAA operation with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). Nelson Rockefeller, however, did not wish to relinquish his fiefdom, and the merger never happened. (The history of Nelson Rockefeller’s Latin American operations are well detailed in the book Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett.)

    Whitney himself had significant ties to the OSS and the CIA. During World War II, Whitney had been temporarily detailed to “Wild Bill” Donovan of the OSS. During this time, he was captured by the Nazis, but escaped in a daring jump from a moving train.

    Whitney was second cousin to the famous CIA officer Tracy Barnes, known in the agency as Allen Dulles’s “Golden Boy.” Barnes eventually headed the CIA’s Domestic Operations Division long before it was legal for the CIA to operate domestically. Whitney and Barnes became friends while both were attending the Army Air Corps’ intelligence school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

    Another lifelong Whitney friend and business associate was William H. Jackson, who briefly served as second in command at the newly formed CIA as Deputy Director under Walter Bedell Smith.

    Perhaps it was these associations, or perhaps it was his relationship with the CIA-involved Nelson Rockefeller which persuaded Whitney to collaborate with the Agency on several occasions. For example, the Whitney Trust was financed in part with money from the Granary Fund. The Granary Fund was a CIA conduit.

    Another of Whitney’s many companies, the Delaware corporation Kern House Enterprises, housed the CIA front company Forum World Features, a foreign news service used to disperse CIA propaganda around the world. Forum writer Russell Warner stated that Forum World Features was “the principal CIA media effort in the world.” As for Kern Enterprises, in The Cult of Intelligence, by John Marks and Victor Marchetti, chapter five begins with a comment about Delaware corporations.

    “Oh, you mean the Delaware corporations,” said Robert Amory, Jr., a former Deputy Director of the CIA. “Well, if the agency wants to do something in Angola, it needs the Delaware corporations.”

    By “Delaware corporations” Amory was referring to what are more commonly known in the agency as “proprietary corporations” or, simply, “proprietaries.” These are ostensibly private institutions and businesses which are in fact financed and controlled by the CIA. From behind their commercial and sometimes non-profit covers, the agency is able to carry out a multitude of clandestine activities-usually covert-action operations. Many of the firms are legally incorporated in Delaware because of that state’s lenient regulation of corporations, but the CIA has not hesitated to use other states when it found them convenient.

    The present incarnation of Freeport Sulphur, Freeport McMoRan, is incorporated in Delaware.

    In keeping with the Whitneys’ long-standing British proclivities, Forum World Features was run with the “knowledge and full cooperation of British Intelligence.” Whitney’s friendliness with the British ultimately led to his appointment as Ambassador to Great Britain in 1957. At that time Whitney also controlled, as publisher and later as Editor-in-Chief, the New York Herald Tribune. Whitney worked media deals with Katherine Graham of the Washington Post, and Graham held a 45% share of the New York Herald Tribune’s stock, with an option for 5% more upon Whitney’s death.

    John Hay Whitney and Freeport Sulphur

    Whitney’s solid Eastern Establishment credentials, as well as his cooperation with the CIA, make his long tenure at Freeport Sulphur-both as Director and eventually Chairman of the company-rather interesting. It was Whitney who pushed for diversification of Freeport Sulphur into other concerns. The first diversification move Whitney put through was the purchase of the Cuban-American Manganese Corporation and its manganese reserves in Cuba. Manganese oxide production there ran from 1932-1946, at which point the reserves had been exhausted by the war effort. In late 1943, Freeport opened its Nicaro Nickel Company subsidiary in Nicaro, Cuba. Through its Cuban-American Nickel Company subsidiary, Freeport also developed another subsidiary: Moa Bay Mining Company.

    By the early ’60s, Freeport had divisions and subsidiaries that were diverse and profitable. Freeport Oil Company, a division of Freeport Sulphur, racked up $1,122,000 in 1961, over and above its $772,000 earnings the year before. Freeport International, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur, set out to explore and develop new industrial ventures overseas in Europe, Australia, India and elsewhere. With one other company, Freeport Sulphur shared equally in a 95 per cent share in the National Potash Company, whose earnings in 1961 were triple that of the previous year.

    A company with the diverse assets of Freeport Sulphur, with the ability to provide cover to agents worldwide, would naturally be of intense interest to the CIA. Not surprisingly, there have been allegations of CIA involvement with the Moa Bay Mining Company, Freeport’s Cuban nickel mining subsidiary.

    Nickel Mining in Cuba, Processing in New Orleans

    According to Cuban lawyer Mario Lazo, whose firm represented Freeport Sulphur in Cuba, the Nicaro project was conceived just two months after Pearl Harbor. The strange Cuban nickel-cobalt ore required a special extraction process. Freeport had developed a new chemical process-and Washington approved the financing-to aid the development of nickel (used in the manufacturing of steel) for the war effort. The Nicaro nickel plant cost American taxpayers $100,000,000. At one point, the plant produced nearly 10% of all the nickel in the free world.

    New Orleans became home to a special plant Freeport set up just outside the city to process the nickel-cobalt ore. When the Moa Bay Mining project was conceived, Freeport Nickel, a wholly owned Freeport Sulphur subsidiary, put up $19,000,000 of $119,000,000 to develop the Cuban nickel ore. The rest of the money came from a group of American steel companies and major automobile makers. (Freeport’s pattern of putting in a small portion of total cost is a recurrent one.) $44,000,000 of the original funds went into Louisiana for the development of the New Orleans nickel processing facility at Port Nickel.

    Batista, Castro and the Moa Bay Mining Company

    In 1957, two things happened that allowed Freeport to develop nickel not just through the government-owned Nicaro nickel plant, but for itself. The first was a break on taxes, won through negotiations with Batista, for the proposed Moa Bay Mining Company. The second was a government contract in 1957 in which the U.S. Government committed itself to buying up to $248,000,000 worth of nickel. Both of these would lead to public criticism of Freeport in the years to come. The tax break led to charges that the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and Langbourne Williams of Freeport Sulphur made a special deal with Batista. (See the box on page 19.) The contract would eventually lead Freeport into a Senate investigation and a confrontation with President Kennedy over the issue of stockpiling.

    Phillips, Veciana, Moa Bay Mining Company and Cuba

    During the Church committee hearings, Senator Richard Schweiker’s independent investigator Gaeton Fonzi stumbled onto a vital lead in the Kennedy assassination. An anti-Castro Cuban exile leader named Antonio Veciana was bitter about what he felt had been a government setup leading to his recent imprisonment, and he wanted to talk. Fonzi asked him about his activities, and without any prompting from Fonzi, Veciana volunteered the fact that his CIA handler, known to him only as “Maurice Bishop,” had been with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas not long before the assassination of Kennedy. Veciana gave a description of Bishop to a police artist, who drew a sketch. One notable characteristic Veciana mentioned were the dark patches on the skin under the eyes. When Senator Schweiker first saw the picture, he thought it strongly resembled the CIA’s former Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division-one of the highest positions in the Agency-and the head of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO): David Atlee Phillips.

    In an HSCA interview of David Phillips, an unnoted committee member wrote-in a document circulated throughout the research community-the following:

    When asked about his relationsip [sic] with Julio Lobo, he became a bit upset and said he thought he had covered that adequately in his deposition. He says as far as he can recall he met Lobo only one time, perhaps it was even in Madrid and not Havana, he doesn’t recall, and he had no substantial dealings with him.

    Julio Lobo was a Cuban banker and sugar king who later lived in Spain. He was also Veciana’s employer at the time Veciana first met Bishop. He gave funding to the DRE, set up by a man named Ross Crozier for the CIA as part of the operations against Cuba. Crozier says he did not, however, set up the New Orleans branch and that that was run by Carlos Bringuier. Crozier, referred to as “Cross” by the HSCA, was one of the people who identified David Atlee Phillips as Maurice Bishop. With this established, Phillip’s next recorded comment immediately after being asked about Lobo is significant:

    He [Phillips] wanted to know if Veciana’s story about Bishop is still being considered and if any decision about his being Bishop had be [sic] conclusively arrived at. He said he doesn’t like living under the fear and tension of possibly being called before the television cameras and having Veciana suddenly stand up and point his finger at him and say that he is Bishop and that he saw him with Oswald.

    Why would Phillips be so worried if there was no chance he was Bishop?

    Veciana, in his earliest interviews, spoke of receiving his intelligence training in an office building in which a mining company’s name was displayed and which also housed a branch of the Berlitz School of Languages. Could that mining company have been Nicaro Nickel, or Moa Bay Mining Company? And in one of those curious coincidences that infest the Kennedy assassination, Steve Dorrill, a writer for the British magazine Lobster, noted that in Madrid, a recent director of the Berlitz School of Languages was CIA officer Alberto Cesar Augusto Rodriguez, who was also the man responsible for the photographic surveillance of the Cuban Embassy at the time of the “Oswald” visit there. Recall that the CIA sent the Warren Commission pictures of a man who could never be mistaken for Oswald as evidence that Oswald had been to the Cuban embassy.

    Probe recently interviewed a former CIA pilot who knew Veciana from the Miami area and reported that Veciana was a guy whose word among the exile community was “as good as gold.” Fonzi felt that Veciana-by that time well out of prison and eager to get back into anti-Castro action-might lie out of loyalty to his greatest benefactor, “Maurice Bishop.” Veciana gave indications that Phillips was Bishop, but refused to identify him as such. (For yet another identification of David Atlee Phillips as Maurice Bishop, see Maurice Bishop and “The Spook” Hal Hendrix.)

    Perhaps because of the following account, David Atlee Phillips was questioned by the HSCA about his possible relationship with both Freeport Sulphur and Moa Bay Mining Company. While working for the HSCA, Fonzi interviewed James Cogswell III, in his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Cogswell presented Fonzi with various leads he felt were important to the case, one of which was the following:

    Cogswell says the Bishop sketch resembles the former president of a Moa Bay subsidiary, Freeport Sulphur of New Orleans. Cogswell doesn’t remember name of that officer, but says he knew he had very powerful connections and came from Texas.

    When Phillips, who came from Texas, was asked about Freeport, the HSCA staffer noted this response:

    Mr. Phillips stated that he “probably” did have some contacts with someone or some persons associated with the Moa Bay Mining Company, but he did not recall any specific names. He also “must have” had some contact with Freeport Sulphur people. “I was fairly socially active at the time and the name of the company is familiar to me.”

    Note that Phillips did not deny an association, but left it to the investigators to find more. Steve Dorrill reported in the Lobster article mentioned previously that one of the pilots of the Moa Bay Mining Company was Pedro Diaz Lanz, a hotshot pilot who defected from the head of Castro’s air force and subsequently befriended both Frank Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt, both of whom have also been closely associated with David Phillips. Another employee of the Moa Bay Mining Company, Jorge Alfredo Tarafa, listed Freeport Nickel Company, Moa Bay Cuba as his place of employment from 9/21/59 to 4/8/60 on his job resume. Tarafa was identified as a delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Front (FRD) in New Orleans, headed by Sergio Arcacha Smith. The FRD was the group that E. Howard Hunt set up with exiled Cuban leader Tony Varona to sponsor anti-Castro activities.

    Arcacha, Banister, and “Mr. Phillips”

    Probe has turned up a long lost transcript of a deposition of a person whose name would be instantly recognized by anyone who has studied the Kennedy assassination. It is our hope to reveal the source of this deposition to the ARRB if and when they come to the West Coast.

    In this deposition, we find the following startling information. Picking up where the witness was telling how Sergio Arcacha Smith, one of Garrison’s original suspects in the Kennedy assassination planning, had invited the witness to a meeting in Guy Banister’s office:

    Q: Did you go alone to that meeting?

    A: As I recall, I did, yes.

    Q: Who was there?

    A: Mr. Banister, Mr. Arcacha Smith, and Mr. Phillips.

    Q: Do you know his first name [meaning Phillips]?

    A: No.

    Q: Had you seen him before?

    A: No.

    Q: Was he a Latin?

    A: No.

    Q: What was his interest in the meeting?

    A: He seemed to be running the show.

    Q: Telling Banister and Arcacha Smith what to do?

    A: His presence was commanding. It wasn’t in an orderly military situation, you know. It was just they seemed to introduce Mr. Phillips.

    Q: How old a man was he?

    A: I would say he was around 51, 52 [Note: the speaker is young.]

    Q: American?

    A: American.

    Q: Was he identified as to his background?

    A: No.

    Q: Were hints dropped as to his background?

    A: Just that he was from Washington, that’s all.

    Q: Did you assume from that he was with the CIA?

    A: I didn’t assume anything, I never assume anything. . . .I think someone mentioned something about this conversation isn’t taking place.

    The project that Banister and Arcacha and Mr. Phillips were working on, according to the witness, was to be a televised anti-Castro propaganda program, something that would have been in the direct purview of David Phillips as chief of propaganda for Cuban operations at that time.

    The Seizing of the Moa Bay Mining Company by Castro

    Unfortunately for Freeport’s board (see Board members on page 24), the Moa Bay Mining company was short-lived in Cuba. With $75,000,000 invested in that operation, one can see how vital the special tax exemption leftover from Batista’s reign was to Freeport’s Moa Bay operation. And since the deal was negotiated under Batista’s regime, one can also see how this must have stuck like a craw in the throat of Castro’s revolutionaries as they took control of Cuba in 1959. The Castro government wanted to end the special tax exemption. Freeport wanted to keep it. By March of 1960, Freeport Nickel (parent of Moa Bay Mining, subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur) threatened the Cuban government with an ultimatum: If their special tax status was revoked, the Moa Bay and Nicaro nickel facilities would be shut down.

    Freeport knew that Cuba needed the jobs and even partial income that Freeport’s nickel operations provided. Freeport must have thought it could bluff this one through, largely due to the particular quality of the Moa Bay ore. The ore was an unusual combination of cobalt and nickel, elements which needed to be separated through a highly complex chemical process, handled at that time by Freeport’s New Orleans processing plant. Industry observers were quoted as saying the best thing Cuba could do was to negotiate a compromise, because Cuba could not afford to build the kind of plant Freeport owned. Even the instructions for the process were not kept in Cuba.

    Deliberations with the new Cuban government fell apart in August of 1960. According to an “unimpeachable source” in the New York Times, the Cuban government felt negotiations should be suspended because of the tense situation between Cuba and the United States. Cuba performed what they characterized as an “intervention,” a temporary measure of stepping in and taking control of the mining facility, rather than outright nationalization. This was reported as Cuba trying to leave the door slightly open for some sort of negotiated settlement. But Freeport considered the takeover a battle cry and wanted to invoke international law to protect its rights to the plant.

    Cuba ended up retaining the plant, and the United States ending up attempting to invade Cuba under the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation. One of the planners of the Bay of Pigs, as well as an advocate for assassinating Castro, was Admiral Arleigh Burke. Burke later become a director of Freeport Sulphur.

    “Mr. White” of Freeport Sulphur

    During New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of Clay Shaw, evidence developed that connected Shaw to Freeport Sulphur. James Plaine of Houston, Texas, told Andrew Sciambra, one of Garrison’s assistants, that a Mr. “White” of Freeport Sulphur had contacted him regarding a possible assassination plan for Fidel Castro. Plaine also said that he distinctly remembered either Shaw or David Ferrie talking about some nickel mines which were located at the tip of Cuba. Corroboration for an association between Shaw, Ferrie and “White” came from a witness whose CIA file has only been seen by the CIA and HSCA: Jules Ricco Kimble. Kimble told Garrison’s office that “White” had flown with Shaw in a plane believed to be piloted by David Ferrie to Cuba regarding a nickel deal. Another source, a former New Orleans newscaster, told Garrison’s team that Shaw and two other persons were attempting to purchase, or had already purchased, an ore processing plant in Braithwaite, Louisiana in the aftermath of the U.S. Government’s decision to break off trade relations with Cuba. He said that Ferrie had flown Shaw and two partners to Canada to attempt to arrange for the import of Cuban ore through Canada, as Canada was continuing its trade with Cuba.

    The New York Times of March 8, 1960, confirms that the Freeport Louisiana special ore processing plant was to be shut down:

    Freeport Nickel Company, known in Cuba as the Moa Bay Mining Company, confirmed yesterday that it was closing down operations at its $75,000,000 nickel-cobalt mining and concentrating facilities at Moa Bay in Cuba’s Oriente province.The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur Company, said a recently passed Cuban mining law together with “other Cuban developments” had made it impossible to obtain the funds necessary to continue operations.Robert C. Hills, president of Freeport Nickel, said the company had invested $44,000,000 in related refining facilities in Louisiana. These facilities also will be made idle, as a result of the Cuban situation, he indicated.

    In this light, the most significant Garrison memo is one which says that Freeport Sulphur, Shaw and “White” were together going to buy the Braithwaite plant (built with U.S. government money) to process ore that would be purchased through a Canadian front company, and then shipped back to the Louisiana plant for processing.

    Finding Mr. Wight

    Garrison finally found the key to “Mr. White,” and wrote it up for the Clay Shaw lead file under the heading “Shaw’s Flight to Canada (or Cuba) with Ferrie:

    One man whose name we first thought to be WHITE apparently is WIGHT, Vice President of Freeport Sulphur who reputedly made the flight. An effort is being made to locate WIGHT, who now lives in New York, by a contact of Mark Lane’s. Despite the fact that the original source of this information was JULES RICCO KIMBLE, a man with a record, this lead keeps growing stronger. From the very outset it had been reported that the flight had something to do with the import of nickel following the loss of the original import supply from Cuba. Recent information developed on WIGHT in a separate memo, indicates that he is now on the Board of Directors of Freeport Nickel Company, a subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur.

    Charles A. Wight was Chairman of the Executive Committee and a Director of Freeport Sulphur, according to his Who’s Who in America entry from 1954-1955. Yale educated, he had previously been a Vice President for Bankers Trust Company, first in the London office from 1931-1935, then in the New York headquarters office 1936-1948 (see the Whitney, the Ambassador, and Batista’s Tax Break for Freeport Sulphur for a curious Bankers Trust link to the Bay of Pigs operation.) The 1963 Moody’s guide lists Wight as Vice Chairman under Langbourne Williams. Wight was a key person at Freeport Sulphur. He was still with the company when the HSCA looked into it, in 1977.

    It would be hard to imagine that Freeport, under the circumstances, did not work any deals with members of the CIA in an attempt to find a way around its-in the words of its president-“Cuban situation.” One should recall here that John McCone, former CIA director and at the time a board member of ITT, told a Senate committee quite frankly that yes, he had discussed getting rid of Allende in Chile, when ITT’s properties were at risk due to nationalization efforts. Corporate leaders voicing concerns and urging “executive action” against leaders in other countries is neither new nor, unfortunately, particular shocking. Witness the recent report (Washington Post 1/30/96) where members of the CFR were complaining openly about provisions prohibiting actions supportive of coup attempts against foreign leaders and calling for the lifting of existing restrictions on the CIA.

    Given the evidence that Freeport’s Wight may have been pursuing a Castro assassination plot, we cannot overlook this item from Peter Wyden’s book Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. According to the CIA’s own Inspector General report, Johnny Rosselli was one of the CIA’s mobsters involved in Castro assassination plots. According to Wyden, at one of his earliest meetings after having taken on the task of getting rid of Castro, Rosselli told his Cuban contacts that he represented Wall Street financiers who had “nickel interests and properties around in Cuba.” Was Rosselli ever paid by or through Freeport Sulphur or any of its subsidiaries? Or had he just been given the reference as a cover? Had he pulled nickel interests out of a hat? Only more file releases on Rosselli can hope to answer those questions.

    In Thy Will Be Done, there is another startling implication of a Freeport/anti-Castro/CIA collaboration:  Castro was targeted for assassination as early as December 11, 1959, by Nelson’s old friend from the CIA days, J. C. King, now the CIA’s Chief of Clandestine Services in the Western Hemisphere. Even before Castro had forced Fulgencio Batista to flee Havana, King and Adolf Berle had met to ponder the fate of Freeport Sulphur Company’s mining project at Nicaro, in Oriente province. Now the Nicaro deposits and sugar plantations were facing nationalization. It was clear to King that a “far left” government existed in Cuba. “If permitted to stand,” he wrote CIA Director Allen Dulles, it would encourage similar actions against American companies elsewhere in Latin America. One of King’s “recommended actions” was explicit:

    “Thorough consideration [should] be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro. None of those close to Fidel, such as his brother Raul or his companion Che Guevara, have the same mesmeric appeal to the masses. Many informed people believe that the disappearance of Fidel would greatly accelerate the fall of the present Government.”

    Which brings us to a crucial point. Freeport Sulphur is a company Wall Street considers a “Rockefeller” company. There are numerous Rockefeller ties to the board of directors (see Freeport Sulphur’s Powerful Board of Directors). There is a significant tie that led to the stockpiling investigation. And Adolph Berle and J. C. King, as well as John Hay Whitney, were all very closely tied to Nelson Rockefeller himself. So the revelation that J. C. King and Adolph Berle were conversing about the fate of a Rockefeller-controlled company is significant, credible, and highlights the ties between these players and the CIA, where J. C. King-and in later years David Atlee Phillips-presided as Chiefs of the Western Hemisphere Division. In a strange twist of fate, Rockefeller’s good friend King was the authenticating officer on a cable giving authority to kill Castro’s brother Raul. Interestingly, Whitney’s cousin and friend Tracy Barnes sent the cable rescinding the original order a couple of hours later.

    Freeport versus Kennedy:  The Stockpiling Investigation

    Already reeling from its losses over Castro’s appropriation of the Moa Bay plant, Freeport found itself under attack from a new quarter: a Senate investigation into stockpiling surpluses, requested by President Kennedy himself.

    In 1962, President Kennedy asked Congress to look into the war-emergency stockpiling program, stating it was “a potential source of excessive and unconscionable profits.” He said he was “astonished” to discover that the program had accumulated $7.7 billion worth of stockpiled material, exceeding projected needs by $3.4 billion. Kennedy also pledged full executive cooperation with the investigation, mentioning specifically $103 million in surplus nickel.

    The Senate pursued an investigation into stockpiling surpluses. Special attention was paid to three companies in which the Rockefeller brothers had substantial holdings: Hannah Mining, International Nickel, and Freeport Sulphur. A December 18, 1962 headline in the New York Times read “U.S. Was Pushed into Buying Nickel, Senators Are Told.” The article opened with this:

    A federal official told Senate stockpile investigators today that the U.S. Government got a bad deal in a 1957 nickel purchase contract with a potential $248,000,000 obligation.

    John Croston, a division director in the General Services Administration, testified that he had strongly opposed the contract with the Freeport Sulphur Company.

    But, he said, officials in the agency “knew that the contract was in the bag from the beginning.” Pressure for it, he said, came from the Office of Defense Mobilization, then headed by Arthur S. Flemming.

    Dr. Arthur S. Flemming was regularly a part of the National Security Council under Eisenhower. Right after Ike’s election, in November of 1952, Dr. Flemming served with Ike’s brother Milton on the three-member President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization, headed by Nelson Rockefeller. Perhaps it was his friendship with Nelson that caused some to accuse Dr. Flemming of some arm-twisting on Freeport’s behalf. The New York Times (12/19/62), reported:

    The subcommittee was told yesterday by officials of several Government agencies that they opposed the contract because they felt the need for nickel was exaggerated.

    These officials said, however, that Dr. Arthur S. Flemming, then head of the Office of Defense Mobilization, was determined that the contract be signed.

    One witness said Mr. Flemming had indicated that competition against the International Nickel Company, the giant in the field, should be encouraged.

    But what Flemming apparently didn’t know, or hadn’t shared if he did, was that both Freeport and International Nickel Company (INCO) shared some of the very same investors: the Rockefellers.

    Croston said he had opposed the contract with Freeport from the beginning, stating “there was no real shortage of nickel at any time” and that cobalt “was running out of our ears.” Freeport’s earlier 1954 contract with the government caused the U.S. to spend $6,250,000 to help build that special Louisiana nickel-cobalt ore processing plant so necessary to the Cuban mining operations. Another contract obligated the government to buy up to 15,000,000 pounds of nickel at a premium price, as well as 15,000,000 pounds of cobalt.

    The committee’s head, Senator Stuart Symington, reported that it was John Whitney who exerted his influence from Freeport’s end to get the government contract for the nickel.

    Freeport’s Chairman, Langbourne Williams, defended the contract, claiming the contract had saved the Treasury money, and had not been entered into for the purposes of stockpiling, but rather to increase nickel production capacity. He contended that the government ended up not having to purchase any nickel under the contract because Freeport had been able to sell to other buyers the nickel and cobalt produced at Moa Bay before Castro took it over.

    But the controversy flowed over into 1963, and Press Secretary Pierre Salinger stated that the Kennedy administration planned to make stockpiling an issue in the 1964 campaign. As we know, JFK didn’t live long enough to fulfill that promise.

    Original Probe article

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  • Whitney, the Ambassador, and Batista’s Tax Break for Freeport Sulphur

    Lisa Pease Reports on Freeport Sulphur:

    David Atlee Phillips, Clay Shaw and Freeport Sulphur

    Freeport Sulphur’s Powerful Board of Directors

    JFK, Indonesia, CIA & Freeport Sulphur

    Maurice Bishop and “The Spook” Hal Hendrix

    In the September 12, 1960 issue of The New Republic, Professor Samuel Shapiro wrote an article about Cuba, Castro, and American business involvement. Shapiro wrote that the former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, Earl E. T. Smith, owing his apppointment largely to the support of John Hay Whitney (by that time former Chairman of Freeport but still a large stockholder), negotiated a substantial tax reduction for the Moa Bay Mining Company with Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. Smith wrote a belligerent letter back, published in the October 3, 1960 issue, stating:

    This is a clear and grave charge that I employed my official position and influence as US Ambassador to Cuba for the private profit of the Moa Bay Mining Company.  This is utterly untrue.

    Smith then went on to cite a State Department release from 1959 that had stated that:

    neither the State Department nor the American Embassy ever intervened during the negotiations of the new industry concessions granted by the Cuban Government to Moa Bay Mining Company in August 1957. Negotiations were completed in July 1957, before Ambassador Smith’s arrival in Cuba, and the subsequent decree granting the concessions was published in August, 1957.

    One of Freeport’s vice presidents, John C. Carrington, added:

    This tax treatment . . . came under a principle of law predating Batista and honored by Castro. . . . Ambassador Smith had nothing whatever to do with the matter and in fact did not even come to Cuba until July 1957.

    In his rebuttal also published in the October 3, 1960 issue, Shapiro responded:

    Sirs:

    Neither the Batista Government nor Moa Bay officials ever made public the details of the special tax treatment granted the company. In view of the extremely cordial relations that existed between Ambassadors Gardner and Smith and the dictatorship, documented at great length in such books as Jules Dubois’ Fidel Castro, it is most difficult to believe that the subject was never brought up. As Mr. Carrington himself indicates, the tax reduction was held up for over a year, and though approved “in substance” in July, 1957, the month of Ambassador Smith’s arrival in Havana, did not actually go into effect until some time later; furthermore, the tax cut could have been withdrawn at any time. The specific charge that Ambassador Smith used his influence on behalf of Moa Bay was made in a special number of Bohemia, something of a Cuban equivalent of Life, in January, 1959. Ambassador Smith resigned on January 10 after seeing an advance copy but before the issue went on sale. The statement Ambassador Smith and Mr. Carrington quote was thus made after Ambassador Smith’s departure from Cuba.

    In my article I did not intend to single out the Freeport Sulphur Company as particularly reprehensible in its dealings with the dictatorship. Every businessman in Cuba had to get along by the use of influence and bribes. If Moa Bay really got its tax reduction without political or diplomatic pressure, and without the distribution of money in the right places (and Carrington does not say that it did), this was an example of generosity almost without parallel in the history of Cuba.

    In his response to Shapiro’s parenthetical comment, published a month later, Carrington wrote:

    I now state, for Mr. Shapiro’s future reference, that Moa Bay obtained its new industry tax exemption without the distribution of money, and I repeat that it did so without political or diplomatic pressure. . . In sum, there is no ground for Mr. Shapiro’s accusation-by-innuendo against our company. . . and I request that a proper retraction be made.

    Shapiro had the last word in his final response to Carrinton:

    I am happy to accept Mr. Carrington’s assurance, but as both he and Ambassador Smith have denied that the Ambassador used political or diplomatic pressure to secure the grant of new-industry tax status to the Moa Bay operation, it may be pertinent to quote the notice that appeared in The New York Times on August 17, 1957:

    “Work on a project for mining and refining nickel and cobalt at Moa Bay in Oriente Province will start immediately, the Presidential Palace said today. The announcement was made following talks by Earl E. T. Smith, United States Ambassador, L.M. Williams, President of Freeport Sulphur Company and other officials of the enterprise with President Fulgencio Batista.

    “About $75,000,000 will be invested in the Moa Bay project, officials said. The way was cleared for the start of construction when President Batista granted the project a classification as a new industry with tax exemption. Production is scheduled to begin within two years.”  [. . . ]

    I believe it should be said that Mr. Smith showed poor judgement in interceding with the dictator on behalf of an American company seeking a tax concession. But then, Mr. Smith was a political appointee with no previous diplomatic experience. He had contributed $3,800 to the Republican campaign chest in 1956. . . .

    In 1956, John Hay Whitney, Freeport’s then Chairman and significant investor as well as Ambassador Smith’s promoter, was Chairman of the United Republican Finance Committee.

  • Case Distorted: Posner, Connick, and the New York Times

    From the March-April, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 3) of Probe

    When the New York Times published Gerald Posner’s article entitled, “GARRISON GUILTY: Another Case Closed” (New York Times Magazine, August 6, 1995), they managed to convict a second person without benefit of a trial-the first being Lee Harvey Oswald, whose guilt the Times has trumpeted over the years by virtue of its unwavering support of the Warren Report. The Times certainly picked the right person for the job of ferreting out contradictions in the late Jim Garrison’s files. Posner’s book, Case Closed, is rife with contradictions, sloppy research, and distortions. What is surprising is that the Times found all of this newsworthy. The contradictions found in the files of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) would fill volumes. Where were the Times and Posner when the HSCA released their files in 1993? Had they been at the National Archives they would have found suppressed evidence supporting the Garrison case. Was Posner too busy at the time to examine these files? Apparently he now has more time on his hands to allow him to first attend the Assassination Records and Review Board hearings in New Orleans and then to examine Garrison’s files.

    The $64,000 Question

    Why was Posner allowed access to these files? New Orleans District Attorney, Harry Connick, is on record as stating only representatives of the government would be allowed to review these records. Does Posner qualify under this criteria? According to his article, Posner was personally invited by Connick to review the files. [For more on Connick’s role in this affair, see Probe Vol. 2, No. 5].

    It is difficult to comment on the specific allegations that Posner raises without benefit of actually seeing the files. However, it is possible to rebut some of the most egregious distortions. First it might be instructive to look at what Posner claims he examined.

    Tracking the Garrison Files

    In 1978 two investigators from the HSCA were dispatched to Connick’s office to inventory the Garrison files. It took the HSCA staffers four days to inventory the five-drawer file cabinet. The inventory list itself is 23 pages long. Assuming Posner did not graduate Summa Cum Laude from Evelyn Wood, did he have enough time to adequately review all of the files? Even if he did, the Connick files represent only a small portion of the entire Garrison probe output. The Garrison family had approximately a dozen boxes of the late DA’s files. (These were turned over to the ARRB). Garrison himself submitted hundreds of pages of documents to the HSCA in the late 1970’s (available at the National Archives since 1993). Additional Garrison materials fill several file cabinets at the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, D.C. The Georgetown University Library is home to the Richard Billings Papers, yet another vast collection of Garrison work product. This, combined with the 3,000+ page transcript of the Clay Shaw trial and the newly found Grand Jury testimony, amounts to an avalanche of investigative materials. Did Posner examine all of the above mentioned materials in order to put the Connick files in the proper context? Doubtful.

    The Posner Spin

    Posner begins his article by confidently informing the reader that “on the eve of the public release of some of Garrison’s files, it is finally possible to settle whether the case against Shaw was a fraud.” Consider what Posner is saying here. He can finally settle the case by looking at some of the files. One wonders if he employed this same methodology while writing Case Closed.

    Continuing with the article, we are told:

    Garrison persisted in following leads even when they were quickly discredited: that an eccentric homosexual, David Ferrie, taught Oswald how to shoot and had visited Texas on the evening of the assassination; and that Oswald, together with some flamboyant homosexuals, had visited a local attorney, Dean Andrews, who claimed his legal bill was paid by a man known only as “Clay Bertrand.” Using these assertions, Garrison soon said the plot to kill the President was “a homosexual thrill-killing.” (He claimed that Oswald was a “switch-hitter” and that Jack Ruby was gay.

    Assertions? It is now a documented fact that Oswald was in Ferrie’s Civil Air Patrol unit. A photograph showing the two at a CAP barbecue was presented during a PBS documentary [Frontline 11/16/93, “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?”] Furthermore, Ferrie would occasionally drill his cadets in the use of firearms. It is a matter of public record that Ferrie visited Texas on the evening of the assassination. Ferrie, himself, admitted this. Oswald’s visits to attorney Dean Andrews’ office are not taken from Garrison, but rather from Andrews’ sworn testimony before the Warren Commission. The bit of business about the plot being a “homosexual thrill-killing” is from an article by James Phelan supposedly quoting Garrison. Readers of Probe will recall that Phelan has some credibility problems. I don’t doubt that Garrison suspected Oswald was a “switch-hitter.” Given his association with aggressive homosexuals like Clay Shaw and David Ferrie, one would have to at least consider the hypothesis. Norman Mailer certainly gave it serious consideration in Oswald’s Tale. There also appears to be indications that Ruby was indeed gay, but so what.

    …

    The full article from Probe

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  • Bob Woodward

    From the January-February, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 2) of Probe

    Robert Upshur Woodward rose from obscure reporter working for the Washington Post to become one of the most famous journalists of recent times for his role, with that of Carl Bernstein, in “breaking” the Watergate story. Together, “Woodstein” broke one of the biggest news stories of all time: a chain of abuse by the Executive office of the Presidency that led to calls for impeachment, and the eventual resignation, of President Richard Nixon.

    Immortalized by Robert Redford in the movie based on the book All the President’s Men, the real Woodward is quite an enigma. Adrian Havill, in his recent book Deep Truth, presents the most comprehensive biography to date of both Woodward and Bernstein. He also details some of the fabrications that passed for nonfiction in the book from which the film was based. Most importantly, he gives us a great wealth of background on who Woodward really is, where he comes from, and what his connections are.

    A Yalie and a Secret Society Member

    The staunchly conservative Bob Woodward grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. A good student at Yale, he was ultimately one of fifteen seniors “tapped” for one of that university’s secret societies, Book and Snake, a cut below the more infamous Skull and Bones, but the top of the second-tier fraternities. Woodward had his first journalistic experience working for the Banner, a Yale publication. In his 1965 yearbook he was referred to as a “Banner mogul.” Havill writes,

    Certainly, with the CIA encouraged to recruit on the Yale campus, particularly among history majors and secret societies, it is more than reasonable to assume Bob may have been one of those approached by the agency, or by a military intelligence unit, especially after four years of naval ROTC training. Although it would answer a lot of questions that have been raised about Bob Woodward, at this point one can only speculate as to whether he was offered the chance to become a “double-wallet guy,” as CIA agents who have two identities are dubbed. It would certainly be understandable if he decided not to adhere to the straight and accepted the submerged patriotic glamour and extra funds that such a relationship would provide. It would also explain the comments of Pulitzer Prize-winning author J. Anthony Lukas, when he wrote in 1989 that Bob Woodward was “temperamentally secretive, loathe to volunteer information about himself,” or the Washingtonian‘s remarks in 1987: “He is secretive about everything.” As Esquire magazine put it, summing up in its 1992 article on Bob, “What is he hiding?”

    The “Floating Pentagon” Assignment

    Three days after graduating from Yale, Woodward was sent by the U.S. Navy to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was commissioned as an ensign by none other than U.S. Senator George Smathers from Florida. Bob’s assignment was to a very special ship, called a “floating Pentagon,” the U.S.S. Wright. The ship was a National Emergency Command Ship-a place where a President and cabinet could preside from in the event of a nuclear war. It had elaborate and sophisticated communications and data processing capabilities. It had a smaller replica of the war room at the Pentagon. It ran under what was called SIOP-Single Integrated Operation Plan. For example, in the event of nuclear war, the Wright was third in line to take full command if the two ahead of it, the Strategic Air Command in Omaha (SAC) and NORAD, were rendered incommunicado. Woodward-straightfacedly-told authors Colodny and Gettlin (Silent Coup) that he guessed he was picked for the ship because he had been a radio ham as a kid.

    Aboard the Wright, Woodward had top secret “crypto” clearance-the same clearance researcher Harold Weisberg found had been assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was himself in the Marines. Such clearance in Woodward’s case gave him full access to nearly all classified materials and codes on the ship. Woodward also ran the ship’s newspaper. Woodward has insisted that possessing a high security clearance is not necessarily indicative of intelligence work.

    The Wright carried men from each of the military services, as well as CIA personnel. One of Havill’s government sources reported that the CIA would likely have had additional informants on a ship of such sensitivity, adding that “the rivalry between the services was intense.”

    After a two and a half year stint on the Wright, Woodward was assigned to go to Vietnam. Woodward wrote the Pentagon asking to serve on a destroyer. The wish was granted. One naval captain told Havill that it seemed reasonable Woodward would have a little pull from his previous duty to avoid getting assigned to Vietnam. Another former naval officer disputed that, saying “Nobody got out of going to Vietnam in 1968.”

    But Woodward did. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Fox, based in Southern California. The personnel on board the Fox included an intelligence team, many of whom had studied Russian and Asian languages at the famous armed services language school in Monterey, California.

    By 1968, Woodward ran the ship’s radio team. In 1969, Woodward was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for his communications work. From there, Woodward moved on to a Pentagon assignment, a job that included briefing top officers in the government. Admiral Thomas Moorer and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird are both on record noting that Woodward briefed Al Haig at the White House during this period. What is suspicious is Woodward’s semi-admittance to Hougan that he had done some briefing, and his complete denial to Colodny and Gettlin that he had ever briefed anyone at the White House. Havill notes:

    Considering the evidence, Bob Woodward’s denial more strongly suggests intelligence than it does his uninvolvement in White House briefings.

    Woodward’s secrecy about his past, his choice of associates, and what is known of his activities caused Havill to write:

    The question, then, begs itself once more. Was Bob Woodward ever a free-lance or retained Central Intelligence Agency liaison officer, informant or operative . . . ? This author got various forms of affirmative opinions from intelligence experts. It would explain his assignment to the Wright and his misleading statements to interviewers. It would make understandable his being able to get out of going to Vietnam in 1968, his extension for an additional year at the Pentagon, his being chosen to brief at the White House and his denials as well. It would also help explain his subsequent high-level friendships with leaders of the U.S. military and the CIA.

    It would also explain the role Woodward and Bernstein wittingly or unwittingly played in keeping the CIA’s nose clean while making sure the world saw the President’s nose was dirty.

    The Legacy of Deep Throat

    Whatever his background, whatever his connections, one cannot trust what Woodward says as fact. Take, for instance, his account in Veil of his last interview with dying CIA Director William Casey. Havill tracked down Casey’s family, friends, hospital security staff and CIA guardians and found that the visit Woodward described was impossible. First of all, Casey was under 24 hour guard by several layers of security: CIA members, hospital security, and Casey’s family. And Woodward had already been stopped once while trying to see Casey. According to one of Havill’s sources, Woodward was not merely asked to leave, as Woodward reported in his book, but was forcibly shoved into the elevator. And Woodward’s story kept shifting. Woodward told a Knight-Ridder reporter that he had gotten in by flashing his press pass. To Larry King, Woodward claimed he just “walked in.” But even assuming he somehow managed to get by all of that security, Woodward would still have been the only person to claim that Casey had uttered intelligible words in those last hours. The only other person to make such a claim was Robert Gates, who himself became CIA Director. The family, doctor and medical staff said Casey could not make words at this point, only noises. At least Gates questioned whether he might have been imagining he heard words. Woodward has never retracted his “conversation.” In addition, Woodward once said that Casey sat bolt upright, which would seem highly implausible given his rapidly deteriorating state. Onetime CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward’s since 1966, said Woodward told him he’d walked by Casey’s room and Casey had waved to him. Casey’s bed was positioned in such a way in the room as to make that impossible too.

    Likewise, Woodward does not seem to demand authenticity from subordinates. Under his watch as Assistant Managing Editor of the Metro desk, the Post suffered a humiliation of the highest proportions at the hands of one of his hires, Janet Cooke. It was this incident that knocked the Post from its perch as “America’s leading newspaper,” as it had been called in the wake of its Watergate reporting.

    Janet Cooke was a gifted writer with a knack for capturing the essence of the streets of D.C. She went to the Post for a job, and Woodward hired her. More illustrator than reporter, she painted vivid images, if not entirely accurate ones. The latter trait soon brought her trouble.

    Cooke’s crowning glory-and worst disaster-was a story called “Jimmy’s World,” about an eight year old heroin addict. The story brought both praise and outrage: praise for the vivid writing, outrage that a reporter could just stand by and watch a kid taking drugs. The controversial story managed to earn a Pulitzer, but only after some arm twisting by the committee head, who overruled the committee’s first choice for the prizewinner to pick “Jimmy’s World.” Some of the committee members hadn’t even read the story, but not wanting to appear divisive, they stood together, for better or for worse. Made bold by the award, Janet Cooke’s fabrications grew even larger and more personal. She started making up a history for herself that she didn’t possess, including training in languages she couldn’t speak. Several at the Post, including Woodward, were worried that her story of Jimmy may not be true. They pressured Cooke to produce “Jimmy.” Losing the battle to protect her source, it rapidly became clear that she had no source. There was no Jimmy. And for the first time ever, a Pulitzer was returned. The Post was thoroughly embarrassed by a woman under Woodward’s direct supervision at the paper.

    But Woodward’s most stunning deceptions come from the work that launched his career, his tracking of the Watergate story as retold in the supposedly nonfiction work All the President’s Men. Adrian Havill found curious discrepancies between accountings of incidents as reported in the book, and the rest of the available facts (see Deep Throat).

    Given his role in the Watergate cover-up, and the misrepresentations in his own work, it remains to us a huge mystery why this man is treated with the reverence he is. Considering his behavior, his background, his credibility, and his connections, we now feel compelled to join Adrian Havill in asking who is Bob Woodward? Whom does he serve? Is his career sustained for the purposes of those with a “secret agenda”?

  • Adrian Havill, Deep Truth

    Deep Throat: The Deceptions of «All the President’s Men»

    From the January-February, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 2) of Probe

    Had the book been presented as fiction, readers could not complain. However, the book sits on non-fiction shelves around the world. Maybe it shouldn’t.

    In his book Deep Truth, author Adrian Havill presents several events in All the President’s Men that are, to put it generously, highly suspect. One example is the scene in which Woodward and Bernstein have made their first egregious mistake. They sourced Hugh Sloan’s grand jury testimony for a story that Sloan had never told the Grand Jury, showing that Haldeman was one of the inner group at CREEP controlling the mysterious slush fund. In the book, the dejected Woodward and Bernstein walk home in the rain, beaten both physically and symbolically by the elements, with only newspapers over their head to keep them dry. Havill did some checking. It never rained that day. That might seem an inconsequential detail to some, but others will understand that it was a device created to bring drama. How many other “events” were merely fictional devices? Havill found several. For instance, at one point, Carl Bernstein is about to be subpoenaed by CREEP, and Ben Bradlee advised Carl to go hang out at a movie until after 5:00 p.m., then to call into the office. According to the book, Carl went to see Deep Throat, hence the reason for the name “Deep Throat” having been given to Woodward’s secret source. But there was no Deep Throat playing anywhere in D.C. at that time. In fact, the theaters were being very cautious, having recently been raided by law enforcement authorities. Not one theater in town was showing Deep Throat.

    And speaking of “Deep Throat” . . .

    One of the most astonishingly bald-faced inventions was the process by which Woodward and “Deep Throat” allegedly made contact when they needed to speak to one another. In the book, much is made of the spooky, clandestine meetings between “Deep Throat” and Woodward. When Woodward needed to ask “Deep Throat” something, he was to put a flower pot with a red flag in it on his sixth floor balcony, which, we are supposed to believe, this high level source checked daily. When “Deep Throat” wanted to speak to Woodward, a clock would supposedly be drawn in his copy of the New York Times designating the meeting time. But neither of these scenarios fits the reality of where Woodward lived. Woodward, who could remember the exact room number (710) where he met Martha Mitchell just once, evidently had trouble remembering the address at which he had lived. In an interview he once said it was “606 or 608 or 612, something like that.” However, Havill found that Woodward’s actual address was 617. This is important, because the balcony attached to 617 faced an interior courtyard. Havill poked around and found that the only way to view a flower pot on the balcony was to walk into the center of the complex, with eighty units viewing you, crane your neck and look up to the sixth floor. Even then, a pot would have been barely visible. There was an alley that ran behind the building that allowed a glimpse of the apartment and balcony, but at an equally difficult angle. And in both cases, we are to believe that this source, who strove hard to protect his identify, would walk up in plain view of the eighty apartments facing the inner courtyard or the alley on a daily basis, on the chance that there might be a sign from Woodward. When Havill tried to poke around, just to look at the place, residents of the building stopped him and inquired who he was and what he was looking for. Unless “Deep Throat” was well known to the residents of the building, his daily visits seem to preclude being able to keep his identity a secret.

    As for the clock-in-the-paper, the New York Times papers were delivered not to each door, but left stacked and unmarked in a common reception area. There was no way “Deep Throat” could have known which paper Woodward would end up with each morning.

    Havill, in fact, believes that “Deep Throat” is no more real than the movie episode or the rain, but rather, a dramatic device. It certainly worked well. And Woodward’s and Bernstein’s editor at Simon and Schuster, Alice Mayhew, urged them to “build up the Deep Throat character and make him interesting.” While it is now clearly known that at least one of Woodward’s informants was, in fact, Robert Bennett, the suggestions from Colodny and Gettlin in Silent Coup about Al Haig and Deborah Davis’s suggestions in Katherine the Great about Richard Ober may not be contradictory. Other names that have been suggested have included Walter Sheridan (Jim Hougan in Spooks) and Bobby Ray Inman (also in Spooks). If Havill is correct and there is no “person” who was known as “Deep Throat”, it is possible that any or all of the above were passing along information, explicitly not to be sourced or credited to them in any way, on deep background.

    Havill asks, and then answers, his own questions as to the dishonesty in All the President’s Men:

    Why would Bob and Carl invent or embellish such seemingly incidental details of their book? Why would they make up meetings with a character named Deep Throat? The answer is Bob was consumed by naked ambition, anxious to prove that he could succeed at his newly chosen profession. There was money and fame at stake. . .

    And maybe a cover story to protect as well.

  • James Phelan

    From the January-February, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 2) of Probe

    James Phelan was a nationally known and distributed reporter for over 20 years, from about the mid-50’s to the late 70’s. He semi-retired in the early 80’s and today is fully retired and living in Temecula, California. At the peak years of his career, Phelan wrote for True, Time, Fortune, The Reporter, Saturday Evening Post, and New York Times Magazine. Although Phelan liked to refer to himself as a free-lancer, he was a staff writer for the Saturday Evening Post for about seven years in the 1960’s. In the seventies, he was writing almost exclusively for New York Times Magazine.

    As anyone with knowledge of the CIA and the media will know, those two publications, as well as the Luce press Phelan contributed to, have been exposed as having ties to the intelligence community. For example, they are prominently mentioned in Carl Bernstein’s famous Rolling Stone article entitled “The CIA and the Media.” It should also be noted that Saturday Evening Post has had ties to the FBI. For instance, correspondent Harold Martin was used by the Bureau as a friendly conduit for favorable stories to be passed to.

    Because of his writings on the Kennedy assassination in the Post, New York Times, and his book Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, many have harbored suspicions about Phelan’s independence as a writer. What makes him even more suspicious is the company he has kept throughout the years. For instance, his editor at Random House was the infamous Bob Loomis. According to Jim Marrs, Loomis is formerly CIA, and he edited the recent Norman Mailer and Gerald Posner books depicting Oswald as a lone gunman (Phelan was a source for Posner). Tom Wicker, longtime Warren Commission defender, wrote the introduction for Phelan’s 1982 book. While reporting on Garrison over a period of years, Phelan indiscriminately chummed around with people like Hugh Aynesworth, Walter Sheridan, Rick Townley, and David Chandler. Yet if one questions his bona fides, Phelan vehemently denies that he is tied to the FBI, CIA or any government agency. He often intimates possible lawsuits in the face of these suggestions.

    With the release of new documents under the JFK Act, Phelan will now have a hard time using these tactics. So far, two full documents and a partial one have been released revealing that Phelan was informing to the FBI and turning over documents to them as a result of his interviews with Garrison in early 1967. The most interesting contact sheet is the one uncovered by Anna Marie Kuhns-Walko and included in CTKA’s collection of her work. In this April 3, 1967 memo by R. E. Wick to Cartha DeLoach, Wick writes that he agreed to see Phelan reluctantly: “Although we have stayed away from [Phelan’s name crossed out] it was felt we should hear what he had to say and Leinbaugh in my office talked to him.” Phelan seems to have tried to pump Garrison for details about his New Orleans investigation and been disappointed when Garrison would not stay on that topic but would return to the faults of the Warren Report.

    Phelan has also written much on Howard Hughes. In fact, his first piece for the Post was about Hughes. In 1962, Phelan wrote a story detailing a “loan” from Hughes to Nixon’s brother Donald. This story hurt Nixon in his losing race against Pat Brown for governor. But Phelan’s most famous work on Hughes was his 1976 “instant book” on the eccentric, invisible billionaire, Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years. To say the least, it is a curious work. It came out within months of Hughes reputed death. Phelan states that two lower level members of Hughes entourage, spilled out the story of the reclusive loner’s last years to Phelan in an apartment he rented for them near Long Beach, Phelan’s home at the time. Phelan’s editor was again, Loomis and it was a top secret project of Random House. Only Loomis and one other person there knew about it. All dealings between New York and California were done either in person or by hand delivery, no mail or phone contact.

    The result is a book out of Dickens. It is a picaresque observation of an eccentric slowly slipping into dementia with touches of humor slipped in occasionally. Phelan seems to have bought everything the two assistants told him and relied on it en toto. The book has no footnotes or bibliography. Not even an index. Phelan begins by decrying the “cult of conspiracy” that had grown up around Hughes and, ironically, chides Norman Mailer who in a recent essay had noted Hughes’ close ties to the CIA. This was a point that many had commented on at the time. Peter Scott had written that it is difficult to delineate where Hughes’ companies ended and the CIA began. Robert Maheu, a friend and source for Phelan, had gone from the Company to Hughes. But, incredibly, in the entire book, after the Foreword, the CIA is mentioned in only two passages. The first is when Maheu’s role as Hughes CEO is introduced and then again when the Glomar Explorer episode is sketched in. In an interview he did in Penthouse in 1977 Phelan was asked about Woodward and Bernstein and the possibility that Robert Bennett-Mullen Company executive, Hughes employee, CIA asset throughout the Watergate affair-was “Deep Throat.” Phelan discounted this. He said that Bennett “inherited E. Howard Hunt” and Mullen served as a “cover for two CIA agents working abroad.” He said he had interviewed Bennett “and found him to be very forthcoming.”

    As the CIA documents presented in this issue reveal, Phelan didn’t do his homework in regard to any of these subjects. In that same interview, Phelan praises the work of Woodward and Bernstein, who were being deliberately led off the trail of the CIA by Agency asset Bennett. In Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, Phelan chalks up Watergate solely to Nixon’s obsessive and quirky personality. This was well after the publication of Fred Thompson’s book (see page 29) which details the role played by the Mullen Company and Bennett in the Watergate affair.

    As with his 1967 caricaturing of Garrison, those interested in what really happened at Watergate and what really transpired between the CIA and Hughes had to settle for personality sketches, vague generalities, and Phelan’s own cleverly disguised biases. On the two great traumatic shocks to the system-Watergate and the JFK conspiracy-Phelan has been anything but what Random House billed him as: an investigative reporter.

  • On Company Business: Light in the Darkness

    […] every once in awhile something good manages to slip through. The Blockbuster video rental chain is another example of a behemoth targeting and then wiping out the corner merchant. Wayne Huzienga now has the biggest video chain in the country. He now sponsors college football bowl games and owns the Miami Dolphins. But at some of his stores, you can actually rent the best film ever made about the CIA. This splendid documentary is called “On Company Business”, and from its opening scenes with Senator Frank Church confronting Bill Colby with a flechette pistol designed for assassination, one knows that this will be an unflinching look at what the Company’s business has wreaked. We won’t detail the many jewels of this program. Trust us and run, don’t walk, to get it. We would like to describe some of the travails of the film’s director, Allan Francovich, and how he encountered two of the research community’s more familiar characters.

    When Francovich completed “On Company Business” in 1980, he had a predictably tough time getting it shown in America. Finally, it got shown on WNET in New York. The CIA insisted on debating the merits of the program afterwards since they realized the show would create a public sensation, which it did. The man chosen to debate Allan was David Phillips. Since “On Company Business” candidly deals with the Agency’s use of assassination as a tool, the moderator asked Phillips how he could condone such acts. Phillips reportedly replied “Murder is such a harsh word. Can’t you use something else?”

    Francovich has recently done another documentary, this one on the downing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland in 1988. The CIA originally stated that Syria and the Iranians were responsible. Later, they changed the official story to blame the Libyans. Why? Because Syria became an ally against Hussein in the Gulf War. The Francovich film blames the original perpetrators. So when it was scheduled to be shown in London, again a debate had to take place. Who spoke for the official U.S. “Libya did it” line? Oliver “Buck” Revell, FBI point man on, among other things, the Kennedy assassination. When Francovich’s film then showed in Australia, who showed up to debate him via satellite? Again, it was Revell. The same man, who, as revealed in last month’s Probe, insists there was no relation between Oswald and the FBI. It should be noted that, while in the Navy, Revell became their liaison to the Warren Commission. It is here where he became acquainted with the FBI. He liked the organization and decided to join up when he got out. To this day, he defends the official Warren Report line he helped formulate.

  • Silencers, Sniper Rifles & the CIA

    From the November-December, 1995 issue (Vol. 3 No. 1) of Probe

    “It’s curious that no one seems to have mentioned this characteristic in connection with the John F. Kennedy assassination, in which both the number and direction of shots fired are still debated. If a silencer was used in combination with another, unsilenced rifle, witnesses located in different parts of the caravan and Dealey Plaza would have heard the shots coming from different directions. Unanimity would have been impossible on the subject of the gunfire’s origin.” 

    – Jim Hougan, Spooks (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978.)

    There has been no consideration given by the research community over the past 30 years regarding the possible use of silencers in the JFK assassination. This article hopes to remedy that intriguing possibility. Both conspiracy theorists and lone gun proponents at least agree on one point: that there are differing opinions amongst Dealey Plaza witnesses as to just how many shots were fired on November 22, 1963. All witnesses presumed that having “heard” a given number of shots, then there must have been an equal number of actual shots so as to coincide with what they heard, whether it be 2, 3 or 4 sounds or even more than 4 as some witnesses have claimed.

    If there were 4 or more shots, then it follows that there was more than one gun for even the lone assassin proponents agree that Oswald could not have fired off 4 shots within the given time frame generally accepted. Consequently, a great deal of effort has been expended pinpointing the location of the witnesses in order to determine which ones may have had a better vantage point for discerning the “real” number of shots. For a brief time it was hoped that the dictabelt evidence would settle the matter once and for all. The HSCA spent a significant amount of time and money grappling with this acoustical evidence but to no avail.

    Considering Possibilities

    Three gunshots, of course, is in keeping with a lone assassin theory – or is it? If there exists the possibility that silencers could have been utilized by one or two additional gunmen, then the earwitness testimony may very well become irrelevant no matter how many shots were “heard.” Acting on the assumption that a multi-gunmen crossfire, if one existed, would have to be carefully planned and executed, this researcher considered the means by which ballistic evidence could be manipulated. I tried to imagine how a triangulated gunfire could succeed while implicating one lone shooter in the Texas School Book Depository. My research led to the consideration of silencers and the characteristics of typical sniper weapons available in the year 1963. The results of this research should give pause for thought and cause us to re-examine the ballistics evidence and the medical evidence from a different perspective.

    Manipulating Reality

    It is possible for a shooter to manipulate or eradicate reliable ballistic evidence through a variety of techniques. These include, but are not limited to, the use of barrel inserts, sabots, undersized ammunition, expanding or exploding ammunition, and cartridge conversions. These techniques will impact upon the science of ballistic markings and render matchmaking to a particular weapon impossible. Manipulating the sound of a gun shot can be accomplished in varying degrees through the use of sub-sonic ammunition, suppressors, muzzle flash protectors and silencers. These techniques manipulate the perception of any earwitnesses to a shooting. This article will focus solely on silencers as a manipulative technique.

    Firing a gun results in several distinct and separate noises of various intensity. First there is the detonation itself, followed by the muzzle blast of expanding gases, which is then followed by the shock wave-or sonic boom-created by the bullet’s velocity. Add to this the echo effect created by natural or man-made canyons, i.e Dealey Plaza, and it is hardly surprising that there would be disagreement amongst ear witnesses as to the precise number of shots, as well as the disagreement over the perceived direction of shots. Since one’s position in relationship to the direction of the shot also serves to complicate perceptions, earwitness testimony, especially that coming from Dealey Plaza, is inherently problematic.

    Rifle Silencers?

    Generally, people associate silencers with handguns rather than rifles. This is because the sonic boom of a high velocity weapon such as a rifle, is very difficult to silence and thus handgun silencers have been more prevalent in the past. Even if the muzzle blast sounds from the rifle itself were silenced, that still leaves the sound of the shock wave created by the high velocity bullet as it passes through the air. Silencers are nothing more than bafflers that muffle the sound, much like a muffler on a car. The greater the report or noise generated by a weapon, the larger the silencer needs to be. Silencers can thus be large bulky devices and difficult to conceal. Silencers have been and continue to be illegal for civilian use, although legal for military use. Despite the engineering difficulties in devising silencers for rifles, the utility of silenced weapons was not lost on the U.S. military; a silenced rifle would serve as a most useful instrument for shooting a sentry or guard from a distance.

    Patented Silencer

    designs for rifles appear as early as 1901. But it was not until WWII that our military devoted serious attention to engineering silencers for rifles after observing the Germans making effective use of them. Two silenced sniper rifles emerged from these war efforts: 1) a modified version of the M-1 .30 caliber carbine, standard issue for the U.S. military, and a modified version of the .30 caliber 1903 30.06 Springfield rifle, also standard issue.

    Figure 1: Silenced M-1 .30 Caliber Carbine (top)
    compared to the regular G. I. issue (bottom)

    The silenced M-1 .30 caliber carbine was developed in England for the United States in 1945. It came equipped with an integral non-detachable silencer which had been developed by Bell Laboratory. Its barrel had a 6 groove, right-hand twist rifling pattern. This weapon is pictured in figure 1.

    The modified Springfield rifle was a variation of the standard bolt action which was originally developed in 1903. The silenced sniper version is designated as a Springfield M1903A4 and was developed in the United States in 1947 under a special contract with the Remington Arms Company arsenal in Ilion, New York. This .30 caliber rifle came equipped with a detachable Maxim silencer and had a 4 groove, right-hand twist rifling pattern. See figure 2 (below).

    Figure 2: Silenced Springfield M1903A4

    The M-1 .30 caliber carbine had an effective range of 100 yards while the Springfield M19103A4 rifle had an effective range of 300 yards. Thus both weapons would have readily found their prey in the kill zone of Dealey Plaza. Our Army was nevertheless disappointed in these weapons because neither weapon succeeded in producing a completely silenced shot. The firing of the M-1 carbine, for instance, sounded like a sharp handclap followed by a distinctive hissing sound. Accordingly, the weapons were not manufactured on a large scale basis and it is believed that only 1000 trial weapons were ever manufactured.

    CIA Acquires Silenced Rifles

    Because of their acoustical shortcomings, these silenced weapons were turned over to the CIA. The precise date is unknown, and some gun authorities believe that the English produced M-1 carbine had been developed in the first place for the CIA’s predecessor, the OSS. Whatever the origin, it is clear that by 1963 the CIA possessed these silenced sniper weapons. The rifles added to the CIA’s existing arsenal of silenced handguns. Still highly reliable in 1963 was the High Standard .22 caliber silenced pistol which was standard issue for the OSS during WWII. This silenced handgun was amongst the personal items recovered by the Russians when Gary Powers, a CIA contract agent, was shot down over Russia in 1960 while flying the CIA’s secret U-2 spy plane. (See page 15, figure 3.)

    Figure 3: High Standard .22 Caliber Silenced Pistol

    As of 1963, the best available silenced rifles were still the modified vintage WWII weapons described above. Silencer technology remained at a virtual standstill throughout the Korean War and into the 1960’s. We know this from the results of a 1968 Army study which concluded that the best silenced rifles continued to be the M-1 .30 caliber carbine and especially the Springfield M1903A4. It was after this report that the quest for better silencers developed in earnest. During the late 1960’s and 1970’s, Mitchell Livingston Werbell III, a gun dealer whose name surfaces frequently in assassination research, would become the preeminent designer of the modern day silencer for military weapons and is credited with enabling widespread and effective use of silenced sniper rifles in the Vietnam War.

    The inherent limitations to completely silencing a high velocity weapon means that some measure of sound will remain depending upon where the earwitness is positioned in relationship to the direction of the shot. This is best illustrated by figure 4 (see page 15) which is borrowed from schematics used by Werbell’s arms company, the Military Armaments Corporation.

    Figure 4: Chart from Military Armament Corporation.
    The muzzle blast spread from a suppressed weapon
    shows deception and confusion resulting from
    attempts to locate sound origina from
    weak fixed source at various angles
    from the source.

    Other Evidence of Multiple Guns

    Silencers may explain why different witnesses reported hearing differing numbers of gun shots. But what other evidence is there for more than one gunman? At least four pieces of tangible firearm evidence have surfaced since the Warren Commission’s Report which suggest the presence of gunshots in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd from a weapon other than Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano. This evidence consists of two bullets, one bullet fragment and one shellcasing. Each of these items of evidence are consistent with one or the other general characteristics of the two CIA sniper weapons discussed above.

    1. The Barbee Specimen: This intact bullet was found imbedded in the roof of a building located at 1615 Stemmons Free-way by William Barbee in the summer of 1966. The building, which was located about a 1/4 mile from the TSBD, happened to be in the line of fire from where Oswald allegedly shot. Mr. Barbee turned the bullet over to the FBI for analysis in December, 1967, when current publicity about the assassination caused him to wonder if this bullet might be relevant evidence. The FBI lab determined the bullet to be a .30 caliber full metal jacketed military bullet. Its rifling pattern of 4 grooves, right hand twist was the same as that produced by the U.S. government .30 carbine. The FBI took little interest in this bullet once having determined that it came from a weapon other than Oswald’s rifle. Apparently, the thought of a second gunmen was never entertained. Yet this bullet is consistent with that which could be shot from the CIA’s silenced M-1 .30 caliber carbine. One can speculate that this bullet was shot out in the suburbs by a hunter engaged in target practice. Consider, however, that M-1 .30 caliber carbines were not prevalent amongst the civilian population as they had only been released by the government for civilian use in mid-1963. Furthermore, it was and continues to be illegal to use full metal jacketed military ammunition for hunting purposes.
    2. The Haythorne Specimen: The second piece of evidence was a bullet found in 1967 on top of the Massey building by Rich Haythorne, a roofer doing work on the building. The Massey Building was located about 8 blocks away from the TSBD in the 1200 block of Elm Street. It has since been torn down. The bullet remained in the possession of Haythorne’s attorney, until it was delivered to the HSCA for examination. The HSCA utilized the services of the Washington, D.C. police department, where it was determined that the bullet was a jacketed, soft-point .30 caliber bullet, weighing 149 grains which was consistent with the .30 caliber ammunition produced by Remington-Peters. Such ammunition was a popular hunting load and many gun manufacturers chambered their rifles to accommodate this ammunition. The 6 groove, right hand twist rifling marks on the bullet indicated that the bullet was not shot from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Cacano.
    3. The Lester Specimen: The third specimen was a bullet fragment found in Dealey Plaza by Richard Lester in 1974. Its precise location was reported to be 500 yards from the TSBD and 61 paces east of the triple overpass abutment. Mr. Lester turned the fragment over to the FBI for analysis in December, 1976. The FBI reported its findings in July, 1977, and concluded that the fragment, which consisted of the base portion of a bullet and weighed 52.7 grains, was consistent with the diameter of a 6.5 mm bullet. It was also determined that the fragment came from a metal jacketed soft point or hollow point sporting bullet. The rifling characteristics did not match those of a Mannlicher-Carcano. Even though the bullet exhibited the same 4 grooves, right hand twist pattern as Oswald’s Mannlicher-Cacano, the lands between the grooves were spaced further apart than his Carcano. Once again, no one ventured to suggest that the fragment might represent the work of a second gunman.
    4. The Dal-Tex Specimen: The fourth piece of firearm evidence consists of a rusted shell casing found on the rooftop of the Dal-Tex Building in 1977 by an air-conditioning repair man. The Dal-Tex Building is just east of the TSBD, across Houston Street. Assassination researchers have long speculated that a second gunman was positioned at that building. Judging by the rusted condition of the shell case, it had been there for quite some time. What was unique about this case was the crimped edges along the neck suggesting that either the shell had been handloaded or had been used in conjunction with a sabot. Specimens 1), 2) and 3) could conceivably have been shot from locations other than Dealey Plaza by some careless hunter. However, this shell casing meant that the rifle was shot where the shell was expended and it is unlikely that deer hunters ever had occasion to position themselves on a rooftop in downtown Dallas.

    One cannot rule out the possibility of a hoax or freakish accident to explain the presence of these specimens. Yet the unresolved questions surrounding the nature of the wounds, trajectory disputes and debate over the number of gunshots require that any evidence of other missiles be taken seriously.

    The ballistic evidence, thus far, falls short of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano fired bullets on November 22nd that wounded Governor Connally and killed President Kennedy. The limousine fragments and magic bullet #399 appear to have come from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano. Yet they had no residue of blood or tissue and thus cannot be linked to human wounds. The HSCA’s neutron activation analysis links the wound fragments only to the limousine fragments and to bullet #399 – not to the weapon. The major gap in the chain of evidence, then, is the inability to link the wound fragments to the weapon. Moreover, when one considers the testimony of the HSCA firearms expert Vincent P. Guinn that at least four other types of ammunition shared the same composition of trace elements as the 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition, the neutron activation analysis leaves the door open to other realistic possibilities.

    One such possibility is that an expanding bullet with the same composition of trace elements as the 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition was shot from a different weapon, perhaps a silenced weapon. Another possibility is that the 6.5 ammunition was fired and recovered from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Cacano and then shot out of another larger bore weapon with the aid of sabots, barrel inserts or cartridge conversions. Yet another possibility is that bullets or fragments from other weapons were in fact recovered from Kennedy’s body but were suppressed following the autopsy. Consider, for instance, the report from a top FBI administrator, Alan Belmont, to Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s second in command, in which Belmont on the night of November 22nd advises that a bullet has been found lodged behind the President’s ear.

    The existence of silenced rifles and the belated discovery of other ballistic evidence in and around Dealey Plaza still does not prove conclusively that more than one gunman was involved in the Kennedy assassination. The point of this article, however, is to encourage researchers to think about other possibilities that are not only realistic and but fall within the capability of the military and intelligence apparatus in the fall of 1963.

    Sources:

    1. Truby, Silencers, Snipers and Assassins: An Overview of Whispering Death (1972)
    2. Minnery, Firearm Silencers, Vol II (1981)
    3. U. S. Department of Army, “Silencers: Principles and Evaluations, Report #R-1896” (August 1968)
    4. War Department Technical Manual, Ordnance Maintenance, U.S. Rifles, Caliber .30, M1. M1C (Sniper’s), and M1D (Sniper’s)
    5. War Department Technical Manual, Ordnance Maintenance, The Springfield Rifle, M1903, M1903A1, M1903A3, M1903A4
    6. Nonte, Firearms Encyclopedia (1973)
    7. Hearings before the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, (1978):
      a) Volume 1, p. 495 et seq re: neutron activation analysis (incredibly the HSCA never asked the firearms expert Vincent P. Guinn to identify the four other types of ammunition that matched Oswald’s 6.5 Western Cartridge bullets.)
      b) Volume 7, p. 357 et seq re: the Lester and Haythorne specimens (The HSCA makes passing reference to the “Walder” bullet that was also submitted for testing; the author could find no other mention of this particular item of evidence. Is it possible that the HSCA was referring to the bullet which Deputy Walthers was rumored to have found in Dealey Plaza?)
    8. The Dal-Tex specimen: The author has never seen a document substantiating this claim and has also heard that the shell casing was discovered on the rooftop of the book depository, not the Dal-Tex building; she would welcome information from other researchers concerning this evidence
    9. FBI Document #62-109060-5898 (12/13/67) re: the Barbee specimen
    10. FBI Document #62-109060-1431 (11/22/63) re: the statement “I told Shanklin FBI has one of the bullets, the other is stuck behind his ear” is consistent with the writing on the Sibert/O’Neill evidence envelope enclosing a “missile” that had been removed from JFK’s body. It is inconceivable that these FBI agents would mistakenly use the word missile or bullet if what in fact was recovered was merely a small fragment.
  • Pierre Finck & the Secret Team: Jim DiEugenio interviews John McCarthy

    Pierre Finck & the Secret Team: Jim DiEugenio interviews John McCarthy

    From the November-December, 1995 issue (Vol. 3 No. 1) of Probe

    In the following pages Probe explores an area of the medical evidence that has been virtually untouched. Many articles and books have been written about the facts of the autopsy. Very little has been revealed about who the medical doctors are. Of late, some interesting facts have come to light about Dr. Luis Alvarez which helps explain his findings and involvement on the Kennedy case. Full disclosure is key in this regard since, as Fletcher Prouty wrote in his milestone book The Secret Team, “there are other military personnel working with the CIA who are really Agency employees” and “who for special reasons” assume a “military uniform” but “are really Agency employees.” This possibility has yet to be explored in relation to the medical practitioners on this case. It should be.

    John McCarthy is a former Army Special Forces Captain who served in various parts of the globe over a long period of time in the service of his country. John’s career encompasses Eastern Europe, China, Okinawa, Vietnam and Cambodia. These last two spots furnish the backdrop for this part of his four hour interview videotaped by a friend of CTKA.

    In Southeast Asia in the mid-sixties, John was involved in the latter stages of a top secret project aimed at destabilizing Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia. While John was decommissioning a Cambodian asset, the ally was shot and killed by sniper fire. Inexplicably, John was accused of the killing and forced to undergo a court-martial.

    In a very strange proceeding, of which McCarthy maintains a transcript, John was convicted of the crime. Upon appeal, and the surfacing of new evidence dealing with the autopsy, the government decided to dismiss the charges.

    finckThe case is highly relevant to everyone, including those who care about the Kennedy case since it involves the ubi-quitious Dr. Pierre Finck. At about the same time McCarthy’s appeal process was going on, Finck was prepping to appear at the Clay Shaw trial where, as readers know, he underwent a withering, historic cross-examination by Garrison’s assistant Al Oser.

    With McCarthy’s never before printed revelations, Finck’s background in the accompanying sidebar, and the reproduced withheld HSCA document, we now have enough evidence to truly question who Pierre Finck is. We would also like to ask Robert Blakey why the HSCA did not dig into his background so they could question him on it under oath. The Review Board, which gets Probe, should now reserve his seat and start readying the questions.

    The following is the transcript by Dave Manning of Jim DiEugenio’s interview with John McCarthy concerning McCarthy’s court martial trial for murder, in South Vietnam, January 29-31, 1968 and the involvement of Colonel Pierre Finck in a cover-up of exculpatory evidence. This interview took place on August 17, 1995.

    JD: The Pentagon would actually try and “booby-trap” or sabotage a Special Forces operation because they knew they weren’t in control of it?

    JM: Yes.

    JD: Can you remember any examples?

    JM: Well, my court martial to begin with. There was such glee that there was going to be a court martial for premeditated murder of a captain, Special Forces, that was facing the death penalty, that these people were bending over backwards to get this to trial. And then they went through all the efforts they did to fabricate information in order to obtain a conviction. Then they modified that information to maintain the conviction. We can talk about the way we found out about these things a little later. McKernan’s object in trying to close any or all of the portions of the trial to the public was designed to prevent the exposure of “Project Cherry.” In fact, when the trial did start and the government witnesses mentioned “Project Cherry,” McKernan about had a heart attack. And the judge noticed this and there were many side-bar conferences to discuss what was and what was not classified. And the judge threatened to close even the prosecution side of the case, on numerous occasions. Fortunately, a portion of it was left open.

    JD: So, in other words the truth would have been too terrible.

    JM: Well, the truth in the government’s argument, that it would seriously affect further prosecution of the war, means that had the truth come out, the war in Vietnam may have stopped in January of 1968 and would have inevitably saved thousands of lives on the allied side and hundreds of thousands of lives on the Asian side.

    JD: So, they had to limit the trial to make the case against you stick?

    JM: They had to limit what was held in open court. Fortunately, enough information was held in open court that it showed how little was necessary for a military conviction under the United States military judicial system.

    JD: Let’s talk about Mason’s actual testimony. Mason testified in court that his autopsy showed that the bullet fired into Jimmy had to be either a .22, or at the outside limits a .25. Correct?

    JM: That’s correct.

    JD: If those were his findings, how could they possibly pin it on you?

    JM: By Mason’s expert testimony that the wound was a contact wound. Even though there was an absence of powder burns or powder tattooing at the wound periphery or the entrance wound, there was nothing but microscopic particles that were in the wound track, which we have no idea how they got there. Since Mason didn’t perform a nitrate test (for his own reasons) we don’t know what those black spots were that were in the wound track itself. But, this information allowed Mason to conclude that a weapon firing a .22 was held tightly or loosely against the back of Jimmy’s neck.

    JD: How did they ever connect you with a .22?

    JM: They didn’t ever connect me with a .22.

    JD: How did they try and connect you with a .22?

    JM: By reason of association. The government assumed that since there were .22 caliber devices known as “stingers” that were available, that I most likely must have had one.

    JD: Did you?

    JM: No, I did not have one!

    JD: What was a “stinger?”

    JM: It is an assassination weapon which the Agency contracted an American manufacturer of firearms to construct. It looks like a pipe lighter or a large tube of lipstick. It’s silver in color. It has a threaded barrel which can be unscrewed and a .22 caliber short round is inserted and when the barrel is screwed back on, the whole thing can be held in the palm of the hand and utilized for an assassination at a public place where a lot of noise is occurring, such as a sporting event. It’s an assassination weapon that is provided by the CIA. I didn’t have one.

    JD: Did you ever have one?

    JM: No. I’ve never had one, I’ve never owned one. I saw one in 1969 at Fort Holabird when I went to visit some people who were on “Project Cherry” during 1967. That was the first and only time I’ve ever seen one in my life.

    JD: Did the government ever produce a witness who testified that you had one or who would testify to seeing you with one?

    JM: No.

    JD: So, in other words, Mason’s contention, his theory was basically always just a theory?

    JM: Mason’s theory (for whatever motivation he had) was only that. But, he was an expert. The court, in no uncertain terms recognized that he was an expert witness In fact, when Mason finished his testimony, rather than withdrawing from the courtroom, he took a seat in the spectator section. That was noted by Captain Davis who brought it to the attention of the judge. The judge said, “Well, do you expect him to be brought back to the witness stand?” He asked this question of the prosecutor, Captain Lee and Captain Lee said he did not. Then the judge said (in the presence of the jury), “Well, I consider Dr. Mason a friend of the court. We’ve been on many courts martial before. As far as I’m concerned, he can stay and listen to this the rest of the trial, if he wants to.” And that was that! So, Mason in effect, listened to every other testimony that came about as a result of that court martial.

    JD: Why do you think Mason decided to stay in the courtroom?

    JM: I think he was caught up in this theory of his and was trying to justify it in his own mind. After the trial, there were certain elements taking place by the post-trial review board, which was handled by the Judge Advocate General’s office (the lawyers who worked for USARV). Mason’s theory didn’t work. The post-trial review countermanded Mason’s expert testimony. Captain Lee, in summarizing his case before the jury, said, “It is the position of the United States government that a weapon employing a .22 was used to kill Inchin Lam.” [Note: Inchin Lam or “Jimmy” refers to the victim. – Ed.] The post-trial review said, “Science cannot say under any facts or circumstances, that a .38 could not have caused the wound in question.” Now, which position of the government had we been defending against? The investigator who test-fired my weapon had presented his results before the court. Mason had presented his theory before the court. People of common sense know that you can’t put a .38 through a 5 millimeter hole or a 9mm through a 5mm hole. So, that’s where this thing stood-in limbo-until three or four months after the trial.

    JD: So, Mason was step-by-step, tailoring his testimony to fit the circumstances.

    JM: Tailoring his testimony to fit a theory which provides for my guilt, even though it’s contrary to all of the other evidentiary testimony that’s taking place at trial.

    JD: You don’t think he was under orders to stay there, do you?

    JM: I think he was under some strong influence to come up with this theory to make a conviction possible. I think he was told to come up with something much more substantial, other than a .22 and a 5mm hole, which are not conducive to the .38 that I had, in order to obtain a conviction. Now, who he got this directive from (if he got such a directive) I don’t know.

    JD: What was the excuse overheard outside the courtroom, for convicting you on such flimsy evidence?

    JM: Well, Colonel Entrekin was discussing the fact that this was the first time in history that anybody had been sentenced under those particulars. He made the statement, “We don’t know how he did it but we think he did it.” During this conversation Captain Mason (who testified as an expert witness) the pathologist, was overheard to say to Stewart Davis, “Well, you should have asked me certain questions that you didn’t ask!” And Davis said, “Are you playing word games with me, when we’re talking about a man’s life being at stake?!” And Mason said “Well, you should have talked a little bit more about “formalin.” This is a fixative that is used on these thin slices of tissue that were excised from the wound track. Mason also brought out at court, that he had excised a bullet fragment from the left nasal pharynx of Inchin Lam and he had shipped that to the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C. for analysis.

    JD: Your attorney did not know that at the time, correct?

    JM: He knew as a result of testimony in court, but he had never been advised before the court that that bullet fragment had been transferred to Washington, D.C.

    JD: As far as you and lawyer Stewart Davis knew, at the time of the trial there was no FBI report?

    JM: That’s true, there wasn’t. It was issued on the 9th of February, 1968.

    JD: Did the prosecution know about the report?

    JM: The prosecution couldn’t have had knowledge about it because it wasn’t issued until the 9th of February, which was ten days after the trial.

    JD: What is the purpose of having the FBI examine the bullet, if their analysis is not going to be introduced at trial?

    JM: Well, they didn’t know what the response was going to be from the FBI. As it turned out, the FBI report could not conclude the type, manufacturer, make or size of bullet that this fragment came from. The report further states, that a particle of quartz was stuck to the tip of the bullet fragment. The FBI shipped this bullet fragment with the particle of quartz attached to it back to Captain Mason, in Vietnam. He, in turn, shipped it to the chief of forensic pathology for the United States military, at Bethesda naval hospital, which was under the command of Colonel Pierre Finck. [Note: Finck’s precise title appears in the “Backstory” appended below.] But, when Richard Mason received this report from the FBI on the 12th or 14th of February, 1968, he didn’t think that report was important enough to let the defense counsel know about it or the fact that there was some quartz on the tip of this bullet fragment.

    JD: So, even after the report is in the hands of the army, neither you nor Stewart Davis see it, right?

    JM: That’s correct. Neither Davis nor myself were aware that the report even existed.

    JD: But, Mason and his commanding officer, Pierre Finck do see it.

    JM: It was in Pierre’s file.

    JD: What was Pierre Finck’s position at this time?

    JM: He was chief of forensic pathology for all the military services of the United States. [Again, note correct title in the “Backstory” below.]

    JD: In 1967 Finck is actually in Vietnam so, he has to know about your case. Then, he has the entire case file (which includes the pathologist’s report) after your trial, correct?

    JM: Mason’s autopsy report and the complete medical file with regards to the testimony was later located in Pierre Finck’s office, under very unusual circumstances.

    JD: And you were not able to see this during the entire time of the trial, during your incarceration, up until the time of your appeal?

    JM: The FBI report which was sent to Mason in Vietnam was then sent to Colonel Finck, by registered mail. Somehow, that bullet fragment with the particle of quartz stuck on the tip of it, was lost. My lawyers were never able to have that fragment tested or analyzed. That information would have been exculpatory. What it really means is that that bullet hit something before it hit Inchin Lam and that fact would have cleared me. This report was found in Pierre Finck’s office files in February of 1970! Two years after my conviction! Also included in this file, was a recantation (in writing) by Dr. Richard Mason wherein he says he was mistaken about the contact wound theory, during his expert testimony at trial.

    JD: And so now he had changed his story to what?

    JM: He had now changed the story to say that the .38 that I had carried could have caused the wound in question, fired from several inches away into the back of Inchin Lam’s neck and that the size of the wound was due to the fact that the epidermis had shrunk between the time that he was killed and the time that Mason viewed the remains.

    JD: As far as you know, is that possible?

    JM: No, as far as I know it is not possible. And those two documents were in a file which also contained copies of letters from Pierre Finck back to Richard Mason in Vietnam, asking Mason to get on board with this .38 theory because the post-trial review had found that a .38 could have caused the wound in question.

    JD: In essence, as Mason’s commanding officer, Finck was directing him to change his story.

    JM: Yes. And to change his story by recanting his sworn testimony which compelled the jury to convict me!

    JD: Now, if there had been a second trial, wouldn’t Mason have had to explain the two different stories or theories?

    JM: Yes, he would have had to explain why he flip-flopped on his theory. Now, a year after the trial Stewart Davis contacted Pierre Finck in an attempt to ascertain the whereabouts of Richard Mason. The last information we had about him was that he was in the San Francisco Bay area. Finck told Davis he had no idea where Mason was, but that he had left the service.

    JD: But Finck had been Mason’s commanding officer, right?

    JM: Yes, he was Mason’s commanding officer.

    JD: And Mason, had been involved in a very important case, about which Finck had recently communicated with him, correct?

    JM: That’s correct.

    JD: So, does Finck’s story about not knowing Mason’s whereabouts make sense?

    JM: Finck’s denial of any knowledge of Mason’s whereabouts or of knowledge of any other information which would have been useful to the defense, is a flat-out lie. A year later, after Davis had left Vietnam and gone back to the Pentagon, I requested he be reassigned to my defense again, because he was so familiar with all the aspects of my case up to that point. Charles Morgan, who was then my civilian attorney agreed, because by that time Davis had been reassigned to the prosecution side of JAG at the Pentagon.

    JD: So, Finck had declared to Davis both that he was unaware of Mason’s location and that there was nothing in the case file which would have been helpful to the defense?

    JM: There was no file!

    JD: He denied the existence of a file?

    JM: He denied the existence of a file. As a forensic pathologist, Pierre Finck had to know and understand the significance of expert testimony at trial, the ramifications of a recantation of that expert testimony and its impact on the judicial system. In the meantime, I was sitting in Leavenworth. In November of 1969, I was released under the first opportunity to exercise military “bail.” I was still under a conviction and I was reassigned to another military post in Arizona. In March of 1970, Stewart Davis was having coffee in the cafeteria at the Pentagon and a lawyer who worked in the forensic pathology department (Colonel Finck’s department, still), approached Davis and asked him if he had seen the McCarthy file. Davis was surprised to say the least, in as much as he had been told no file existed. This attorney escorted Davis over to Finck’s office. He was shown where the file was and then he was told that the copy machine was just down the hall but, that he should be careful because there was also a sergeant there.

    JD: Was Davis then left alone?

    JM: Stewart Davis was left alone with the file.

    JD: A file that Pierre Finck said did not exist?

    JM: That’s correct.

    JD: He’s left alone and the copy machine is pointed out to him?

    JM: Exactly. As he opened the file the first page was Mason’s recantation of his testimony, dated August, 1968. The next pages in the file were letters from Finck to Mason suggesting that he get on board (with the .38 theory) and another letter congratulating him for recanting his testimony. Also in the file was the FBI report dated the 9th of February, 1968, which was exculpatory evidence. So, the FBI knew there was exculpatory information, Pierre Finck knew there was exculpatory information, the prosecutors knew there was exculpatory information and nobody did a damn thing about it.

    Finck Backstory

    Pierre Finck is not the only one in his family to have done high-profile work. His grandfather, a professor of legal medicine, performed the autopsy on Elizabeth, Empress of Austria in 1888. Finck himself gained noteriety as the only professional to attend the autopsies of both President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy.

    Finck served in the US Army Medical Corps from 1955-1975. He was a member of the Academy of Forensic Sciences and at the time of the autopsy was an Army Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Wound Ballistics Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP).

    His background shows a deep connection to the national security establishment. He appeared as an expert medical witness before the International Commission of Jurists in Panama, 1964. His role there was to show that the gunshot victims were not killed by American soldiers. In Germany he testified in a case involving the killing of an American officer. He was also a consultant to the FBI.

    The most curious association is Finck’s connection to the International Police Academy (IPA), formerly the Inter-American Police Academy, founded in Panama by the CIA’s station there. Later, the Academy moved to Washington. CIA-controlled and using AID cover, the International Police Academy was engaged in training police forces from the Third World. Finck was a lecturer there.

  • The Formation of the Clark Panel: More of the Secret Team at Work?

    From the November-December, 1995 issue (Vol. 3 No. 1) of Probe

    The Clark Panel was the medical panel convened almost immediately after Ramsey Clark had been approved for his appointment as Attorney General in 1967. The panel was clearly convened to put to rest the growing doubts caused by the exposures of Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, other researchers and even in late 1966, LIFE magazine itself. All of the above talked about the evidence of conspiracy, and the implication is that the medical evidence would either show conspiracy, or else, signs of tampering. What brought it to a crux was Jim Garrison’s all-out investigation of the assassination, which, in 1967, was making official story proponents very nervous. One of the key questions raised by the New Orleans DA was this: Why hadn’t the Warren Commission members examined the autopsy photographs and X-rays?

    Political Agendas

    To examine what had been brushed over by the Warren Commission, an official panel was created to conduct an inquiry into the medical evidence. The Panel convened in February of 1968 to examine the medical evidence in the case. In only two days of work, the Panel reached what surely seems to have been the preordained conclusion: the X-rays and autopsy photos revealed no evidence of conspiracy. The Report was held back in what can only be construed as a matter of strategic timing. The information was released in early 1969, just as the trial of Clay Shaw was finally getting underway after two years of delays. To call the timing of the release of the Panel’s conclusions, delayed for 11 months, mere coincidence is stretching credulity past the breaking point.

    If one goes under the assumption that the panel’s conclusions were the desired result, how could such results be guaranteed? How were the panelists chosen?

    Ramsey Clark went to four members of the academic community to get their recommendations on the doctors to use for the panel. Those people then nominated the actual panel participants. Close scrutiny of the nominators for the participants reveals a bevy of interesting characters.

    Purely 100% Brazilian?

    “I am particularly concerned with the part you may have played, if any, in encouraging, promoting, or causing that overthrow,” the senator asked Lincoln Gordon, former Ambassador to Brazil, at his confirmation hearings for the office of assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs in 1966.

    “The answer to that, Senator, is simple. The movement which overthrew President Goulart was a purely, 100 percent-not 99.44-but 100% purely Brazilian movement. Neither the American Embassy nor I personally played any part in the process whatsoever.”

    Lincoln Gordon may have his own definition of “personal involvement.” But to most, the events indicate that Gordon perjured himself before Congress. “Top Secret” communiquÈs from the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a different story. The Pentagon was relying on Gordon and his staff to direct the U.S.’s role in the coup. Ammunition was stashed and held, awaiting the okay from Gordon. A carrier task force complete with guided missiles, tanks, destroyers, and a helicopter sat offshore and waited on instructions from Gordon.

    If one goes under the assumption that the panel’s conclusions were the desired result, how could such results be guaranteed? How were the panelists chosen? Close scrutiny of the nominators for the participants reveals a bevy of interesting characters.

    In 1964, Lincoln Gordon, together with the CIA station chief in Brazil, very much involved themselves in the plans for a coup against Brazilian President Goulart. The station chief, General Vernon Walters, would later become, if briefly, Deputy Director of the CIA under Nixon. The CIA had spread anywhere from $5,000,000 (according to Gordon) to $20,000,000 (according to Philip Agee) to foment a military coup in Brazil against a popular President. Gordon’s cables to Rusk were also cc’d to J. C. King, Nelson Rockefeller’s great friend and CIA Division Chief of the Western Hemisphere. Gordon was both informing on the coup’s progress as well as requisitioning support in case the CIA-sponsored ‘native’ coup attempt failed. As backup, the CIA and Pentagon put together “Operation Brother Sam,” complete with aircraft carrier, guided missiles, tanks, destroyers, and 6 tons of ammunition to be used if needed. When it became evident that the military was having no trouble ousting Goulart, Operation Brother Sam was ordered to perform a pre-planned cover action instead.

    Gordon’s involvement did not end with the coup itself. Gordon cabled Washington that the coup had been “a great victory for the free world” but suggested “the avoidance of a jubilant posture.” After a victory parade a few days later, Gordon noted that “the only unfortunate note was the obviously limited participation in the march by the lower classes.” He then went on to encourage a popular politician, Juscelino Kubitschek, to persuade the Brazilian congress to give a legal stamp to the coup that had been effected.

    A Question of Character

    Evaluating the character of this Rhodes Scholar, Oxford graduate, Harvard professor, former Ambassador to Brazil, mentor to McGeorge Bundy and President of John Hopkins University is important, since he nominated a doctor to the Clark Panel. What sort of practioner would a man like this nominate? One that might reach a verdict that would shake the official story to its roots? Or one who had a more warped view of “patriotism” that would allow a cover-up to continue for the sake of a cause?

    John Hannah and the CIA

    John A. Hannah, another of the academics chosen by Ramsey Clark to nominate a doctor for the panel, has twice been on record having denied knowledge of CIA participation in two institutions he headed during the time of the involvement. In April of 1966, Ramparts magazine revealed that Michigan State University had been running a police training program for the CIA, a program which also provided cover for key CIA officers. Hannah, then President of Michigan State University, denied all knowledge of CIA involvement in the program. But the CIA’s Inspector General, Lyman Kirkpatrick, said the university had signed the $25,000,000 contract knowing full well that the program was the CIA’s.

    True to form, in the 70’s, Hannah was once again denying knowledge of CIA involvement, this time from his post as Director of the Agency for International Development (AID). Publicly, he denied the CIA had used AID for cover anywhere other than in Laos. In fact AID was providing cover at that time to CIA in Thailand. AID was later exposed to have collaborated with the CIA in many other countries as well.

    Twice Hannah claimed ignorance of the CIA’s involvement with an institution he headed. Again, one must wonder what sort of doctor Hannah would suggest to head a panel whose conclusions, given honestly, might open a path directly to those he had protected in the past.

    More Cold Warriors

    Another Cold War advocate among the nominators was J. Wallace Sterling. Sterling was so rabidly anti-Communist that he went so far as to say that communists should not be allowed to teach in schools since it was inconceivable that they could be operating independent of the direct control of the Communist Party. This disturbing statement came from a President of one of the country’s most esteemed educational establishments, Stanford University. Sterling’s name also shows up in Asia Foundation financial records. The Asia Foundation has long been acknowledged to have provided a conduit for CIA funds for covert activities.

    The Chief Counsel of the Clark Panel and the man who collaborated in the preparation of the Report, Bruce Bromley, was an employee of the Dulles brothers’ infamous law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell.

    The Justice Department had tried to remove Sullivan and Cromwell from defending the oil companies in an anti-trust suit brought against them by the Justice Department because of a variety of questionable activities.The attempt was unsuccessful, thanks in part to the efforts of the newly hired Bruce Bromley.

    It’s clear that the people mentioned so far have a record of integrity that is, to put it generously, questionable. But what of the doctors they chose? No one appears to have dug into their respective backgrounds to see what might come out. At least one of the doctors has a very questionable incident in his past.

    The Curious Death of John Paisley

    Russell S. Fisher, M.D., was both a professor of Forensic Pathology at the University of Maryland, as well as the Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Maryland. In the latter position he ruled on the controversial death of a high-level CIA officer named John Paisley. For the fullest account of the curious life and death of John Paisley, see Widows by William Corson, Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento (New York: Crown, 1989.) A short but well-written summary appears as an appendix in Jim Hougan’s excellent book Secret Agenda (New York: Random House, 1984.)

    Paisley was a high ranking CIA officer with nearly unprecedented freedom within the Agency. Officially reported at the time of his death to be “a low-level analyst,” insiders report he was a high-level counterintelligence operative. Tad Szulc once reported that Paisley was one of Angleton’s recruits, but Angleton vehemently and repeatedly denied ever having met Paisley. In 1976, Paisley was the executive director of “Team B”. At the time of Watergate, Paisley was the liaison between the Office of Security and the infamous Nixon White House “Plumbers.” According to Hougan’s sources, Paisley had been approached at one point by the KGB, reported this to CIA, and was told to work with the Soviets as a double agent, feeding them disinformation and reporting back to the CIA. Paisley had extensive radio broadcasting equipment on his boat and frequently took to sea for long trips alone. What he did there we can only speculate about.

    Paisley was also involved with an individual well known to students of the JFK assassination: Yuri Nosenko. Paisley’s death came on the heels of CIA officer John Hart’s testimony championing Nosenko and his bona fides to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In the words of his wife, Paisley played a role in the “indescribable debriefing” of Nosenko.

    The facts of Paisley’s death are curious. Paisley was found floating in Chesapeake Bay a few days after he had mysteriously disappeared. He had last been seen taking his boat out to sea. His last radio call to a friend had been calm, with no hint of anything sinister to come. The County Coroner who conducted the autopsy, Dr. George Weems, found that Paisley’s death had been caused by a gunshot wound to the head, behind the left ear. Paisley was right-handed, which makes suicide extremely implausible. In addition, Dr. Weems told reporters that the body had marks on the neck which seemed to indicate a rope had been around it or the neck had been squeezed in some other fashion. The body was also weighted with two straps of diving belts. As one investigator into the case pointed out, shooting oneself and putting on the diving belts is a case of serious overkill, pardon the expression. No evidence of blood, brain tissue or cartridges from a gun were found on the boat, indicating that the gun may have been shot at a different location and the body dumped from there into the sea. To make matters even more muddied, the body was four inches too short to be Paisley, was devoid of features with which he could be positively identified, and his wife was convinced that the body found was not that of her husband’s.

    Incredibly, Dr. Russell Fisher, the Clark Panelist, ruled the death a suicide. The only reasonable justification for such a ruling seems to be that to rule Paisley’s death a murder instead of a suicide would open a can of worms that could necessitate an inquiry into who killed him and why. Or, worse, if it wasn’t really Paisley who was it, and where was Paisley? These areas would have proved highly sensitive and potentially embarrassing to the CIA, which was spared such an inquiry by Fisher’s extraordinary ruling.

    Knowledge of the background of men like Fisher, Gordon, Hannah, Sterling and Bromley make it increasingly difficult to swallow the comment from the Clark Panel’s report that “each has acted with complete and unbiased independence, free of preconceived views as to the correctness of the medical conclusions reached in the 1963 Autopsy Report and Supplementary Report.” More believable is the conclusion that we experienced yet another manifestation of the Secret Team at work.

    Original Probe article

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