Friday, November 8, 2024

New Date Tuesday, January 21, 2025

 Tuesday January 21, 2025 New Date for Release of JFK Records

It seems like they keep kicking the can further down the road, and the new date for the release of the remaining sealed JFK assassination records is Tuesday, January 21, 2025, the day after Donald Trump is inagurated.

Trump has broken his promises before, repeatedly tweeting and saying he would release the records on October 17, 2017, the date prescribed by law – the JFK Act of 1992. But at the very last minute the Dirctor of the CIA and Trump’s own Chief of Staff – USMC Geeral John Kelly, persuaded him to delay the release for at least aother two years, despite Assassination Records Review Board Chairman and Federal Judge John Tunheim’s assuraces that there was nothing worth keeping secret.

General Kelly now says that Trump thought Hitlerwas a good guy and has fascists ambissions himself, but he is no longer there to keep the secrets.

Besides making general promises to release the assassination records, Trump also made a personal promise to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that if he would cease his independent campaign for the presidency and endorse Trump, as he did, he would do three things.

Trump promised RFK, Jr., that the first thing he would do as President would be to issue an Executive Order to release the JFK assassination records that remain sealed, he would appoint RFJ, Jr. to his Transition Team, he would also head an Assassination Investigation Commission that would investigate all political assassiations including the attempts on his own life.  It is also believed that RFK, Jr. will be appointed to an administration post in the health field, and/or even the CIA.

While all of these promises have yet to play out, and maybe won’t, they are in the planning stages, though as they say, all of the plans of mice and men sometiimes go astray.

So now I am looking at Tuesday, January 21, 2025 as the day the remaining sealed records should become available, and the National Archives and Records Asministration should be aware of that and making plans themselves.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

For more on these issues see Jacob G. Hornberger’s article:

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/will-trump-buckle-again-on-the-jfk-records/

Thursday, November 7, 2024

The Situation Room on 11/22/63

Situation Room 11/22/63

While I have been away from JFKCountercoup, I have maintained communication with my key friends and assocites and continue to respond to serious questions, like this one:

Hi Bill
Several years ago, I sent you an email which I saved concerning the call placed from the situation room to the cabinet plane enroute to Japan on 11-22-63. Who placed the call? Was it McGeorge Bundy, Oliver Hallet or someone else? Was it one call or multiple calls? What time were these calls? Who said a suspect is in custody and there was no evidence of conspiracy?
Thanks, Jim Purtell

Hi Jim, good to hear from you.

In answer to your questions, the person who placed the call from the Situation Room in the basement of the White House to the Cabinet plane over the Pacific was code named STRANGER, who orded them to turn around and return to Washington DC immediately.

When Pierre Salinger got that message over the radio, and relayed it to the senior cabinet member aboard Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Rusk asked Salinger who STRANGER was.

When Salinger went to the plane’s safe for the code book, it was missing.

Rusk said they couldn’t take orders from anyone, especially someone named STRANGER, and he requested Salinger identify STRANGER. On the Clifton Air Force One radio transmission tapes, we can hear Salinger request the identity of STRANGER, and shortly there after the name Harold Patterson, a White House Communications Agency (WHCA) officer was named in the clear. Salinger told Rusk he personally knew Patterson and could vouch for him.

When I was transcribing the Clifton tape and combining it with the previously released LBJ Library tape, Harold Patterson was a new name for me, and I located him in Virginia. Calling him on the phone Patterson answered and I told him I was listening to him on the AF1 radio transmission tapes. Patterson confirmed that he was in the Situation Room at the time of the assassination, did use the code name STRAGER, and talked with Salinger over the radio. He also confirmed that the code book on the Cabinet Plane was missing.

We had a pleasant half hour conversation, but when I gave his name and phone number to Jeff Morley a day or so later, Morley called him and Patterson clamed up and wouldn’t talk at all. I suspect someone to him.

While it appears that McGeorge Bundy was the senior official in the Situation Room at the time and was calling the shots, Oliver Hallet was also there. Hallet was a military atache who was also in Snyder’s office at the America Embassy in Moscow when Oswald appeared and turned over his passport to Snyder and announced his defection.  So when Oswald’s name was first announced over the commercial radio news, Hallet knew who Oswald was.

Thereis no mention of Oswald on either of the two versions of the AF1 radio transmission tapes, but according to three respected journalists – William Manchester, Theodore White and Pierre Salinger, who  were permitted to read a transcript of the unedited tapes, there is mention of Oswald and that there was  no conspiracy. LBJ permitted Manchester (The Death of a President) and White (The Making of a President 1964) to read and quote from the transcript at the White House.  Salinger was given a copy by the JFK Library in Boston while he was writing his book of memoirs.

Philadelphia attorney Vince Salandria wrote extensively about this in his Tale of the Tapes, and he communicated with Salinger, who told Salandria he returned his copy to the JFK Library, but when Salinger asked them about it he was told they no longer have the transcript. The Dealey Plaza Clean Up Crew was working overtime.

Both John Judge and I attended the University of Dayton, near Wright-Pat Air Force Base where JFK’s AF1 is now located. John said that while attending a reception at Wright-Pat he met some B-52 bomber pilots who told him that when they learned of the assassination they immediately went to the plane’s safe to get the code books but they were missing. Other B-52 pilots said they had the same experience. So the case of the missing code books was not confined to the Cabinet Plane.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

For more on this see:

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/11/thursday-november-21-2013-rebroadcastof.html

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/05/stranger-missing-code-books.html

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/01/tale-of-tapes-by-vincent-salandria_31.html

Thaniks to Dave Ratcliff for posting this: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FalseMystery/Original-TaleToldByTwoTapes.pdf

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Alfred Goldberg - Author of the Warren Report Dies

 Alfred Goldberg – Author of the Warren Report Dies

                                       Alfred Goldberg DOD Historian - Washington Post Photo

Alfred Goldberg, the US Air Force and Pentagon historian, who wrote the Warren Report, dies at the age of 102.

Years ago, when I called him at the Pentagon, Goldberg told me that he was about to retire.  As he had also wrote the history of the Air Force during WWII and the Pentagon on 9/11, I told him my father had served as a waist gunner on a B-17 in the 8th Army Air Force during the war, and my godmother’s brother, Admiral William Fallon, was in the Pentagon when it was hit on 9/11.

When I asked him about his role on the Warren Commission he explained to me that Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren had called him in and told him he didn’t want the final report to read like a lawyer’s brief, as each chapter would be written by different attorneys, so Gold berg was hired to write the narrative of the report so normal people could read and understand it.

Goldberg said he also wrote the entire Appendex 12 called Speculations and Rumors that he tries to set straight, although Joachim Joestein had a few words to say about that.

Joachim Joestein:  https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/?m=1           

Washington Post Obit:  Washington Post

Boston Globe Obit: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/10/metro/alfred-goldberg-historian-who-helped-probe-jfk-assassination-dies-105/

WR Appendex  12  - Speculation and Rumors:  https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-12.html

JFKCountercoup 2013 – DOD Historians Alfred Goldberg and Rudolph Winnacker: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/09/alfred-goldberg-and-rudolph-winnacker.html?m=1

Alfred Goldberg (Col. USAFR)

http://www.history.defense.gov/goldberg.shtml


Chief DOD Historian 34 years

Alfred Goldberg

Past Chief Historian

October 28, 1973 – November 28, 2007
 

Dr. Alfred Goldberg, an eminent and respected military historian, served as the Chief Historian for the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 34 years. He began his service to the United States in 1942 with the U.S. Army, rising from the rank of private to captain and deploying overseas with the Army Air Forces to England and France. He worked in various capacities, ultimately as a field historian. He left active duty in 1946, but remained in the reserves and retired from the Air Force in 1978 as a colonel.

From 1946 to 1965, Dr. Goldberg worked for the U.S. Air Force Historical Division as a senior historian. During that period, in addition to earning a Ph.D. in history from The Johns Hopkins University in 1950, he was a Visiting Fellow at Kings College, University of London in 1962–63; a lecturer at the University of Maryland for many years; and a recipient of a Social Science Research Council Fellowship. In 1964 Chief Justice Earl Warren brought him onto the Warren Commission staff, where Dr. Goldberg served as a historical advisor and as co-author and co-editor of the Warren Commission Report. From 1965 to 1973, Dr. Goldberg was a senior staff member at RAND and also lectured at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles.

In 1973, Dr. Goldberg assumed duties as the chief historian with OSD. He received the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award and the Presidential Meritorious Award. He was a long-time member of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, whose members include distinguished historians, archivists, and members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Keenly aware of the historic significance of the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Dr. Goldberg joined with other military historians in documenting the event and its effect on the Pentagon and the military and civilian workforce.

Dr. Goldberg is the author or editor of numerous historical books and articles, many of which have earned special recognition and prizes. Most notably, he is co-author of the Army Air Forces in World War II (7 volumes); editor and co-author of A History of the U.S. Air Force 1907–1957; co-editor of the Department of Defense: Documents on Establishment and Organization, 1947–1978; co-author of The Department of Defense, 1947-1997—Organization and Leaders; author of The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years; general editor, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (5 volumes); and co-author of Pentagon 9/11. In 2011, Dr. Goldberg received the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis Award for distinguished contributions to public history.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

Thursday, July 25, 2024

November 22, 1963 2pm EST

November 22, 1963 2 pm EST

To begin at the beginning, it was a cool, soft day in the fall when I was at 12 year old sitting in a 7th grade St. Joe's school class looking out the window at the leaves falling when the principle, a nun, came on the public address system and said the President had been shot. School would be let out early, even if it was only an hour early..

I walked the five blocks home through my East Camden, NJ neighborhood and since both my parents were working I went into the backyard to play, climbing on the wheeping willow tree and swinging on its branches when the phone in the house rang. I ran in the back door and picked up the wall phone in the kitchen . 

It was my father, a Lieutenant in the Camden Police Department, who said, "The President has been killed. Stay where you are and don't leave the yard. We don't know what this is all about."

I stopped and thought about it for a few moments, wondering how the murder of a President could remotely affect a school kid climbing a tree in his backyard. 

And I'm still wondering, even though I know it has.

BillKelly3@gmail.com

Saturday, July 20, 2024

JFKCountercoup Update

 JFKCountercoup Update

Many thanks to the few longtime readers of this blog who inquired as to my health and situation with the absence of posts over the pa=st few months. I am okay, just stuck in a serious funk over the deaths of a number of close friends and associates, working a few weeks with the military, and a number of other things that I won't get I into.u

For starters, the deaths of one of my primary JFK mentors Dr. Cyril Wexht was not unexpected. He lived a good 93 years, the same as my mother, and as I predicted in my blog post Why CAPA is Kaput, there is no one capable of filling Dr. Wecht's shoes. CAPA secretary, Glenda DeVaney, who took over the position from me, and at my recommendation, has assumed the chair of CAPA director, even though she is not a researcher, has never been to the Archives, hasn't read the books and only gets her information from the internet. She also lied when she claimed the CAPA board voted me off the board for not supporting or promoting CAPA, when I was the person who was instrumental in organizing CAPA after the dissolution of COPA, and am the single person who has done more than anyone else to support and promote the organization I started. There was no vote by the CAPA board to remove me because I asked them and they were never asked to vote, and they would not have voted me off if a vote was taken.

DeVaney also lied when she posted that the CAPA board voted her chair to replace the late, great Dr. Wechet, when  there never was such a vote.  The bottom line is CAPA is Kaput, and I will be writing a brief history of both COPA and CAPA with all the sad details as soon as other more important things are taken care of.

I was honored to be the only independent researcher asked to submit an affidavit in support of the Mary Ferrell - vs. President Biden and NARA suit filed in San Francisco Federal Court. When I asked Bill Simpich, one of the attorneys involved, why? He said because I was one of the few researchers who filed document requests to NARA under the JFK Act, rather than FOIA, that most others do. 

As an example he cited my calling attention to the head of the JFK Collection at NARA to the reference in Gerald Blaine's book The Kennedy Detail, that he had boxes of Secret Service documents under his bed, including the missing Tampa Advance Report that he wrote. When NARA obtained the documents from Blaine they sent me some 30 pages, including the Tampa Advance Report, that I read closely looking for reasons the SS destroyed their official copy AFTER Congress passed the JFK Act in 1992.

The things that stood out were the fact that they had report of an anti-Castro Cuban plot to kill the President during the motorcade, and that the SS had enlisted the cooperation  of the Tampa Sheriff's office to supply officers with shotguns to man every overpass and snipers with high powered rifles with scopes to the rooftops of major skyscrapers. Of course that wasn't done in  Dallas as Sheriff Bill Decker had his deputies stand down and stand out on the street to observe the Assassination and be the first into the TSBD afterwards.

That was what I was thinking after the sniper attack on Donald Trump. 

While some associates have questioned my working for the military helping to train Army Reservists before they are deployed overseas, I enjoy the work and feel it is my duty and service in support of our national security.

And while working with first class snipers a few years ago, I learned that the only way to counter a sniper is for another sniper to shoot him. Knowing that, the third class sniper with a third class disposable weapon in the TSBD sixth floor window, placed boxes of books along the window sill,  not to use as an arm rest, but to protect him from return fire that never came.

I have also been asked to compare my Covert Operational Personality profile to the accused and killed sniper, though it doesn't appear he fits the profile, not using an alias,  no P.O. box, foreign language or travel, but despite knowing everything about Oswald within a few hours of the Assassination, we still don't have a detailed and accurate portrait of this kid.

It is also necessary to report that the Supreme Court decided not to review the AARC v. CIA case requesting the CIA's Operational Files on D.H. Byrd, the owner of the TSBD at the time of the Assassination, his African safari hunting partner Werner Von Alveslaben, and USAF Gen. James Doolittle, the primary author of the Doolittle Report on CIA Covert Operations commissioned by President Eisenhower. 

The Mary Ferrell v. Biden and NARA case continues to be active, with appeals filed opposing the judge's decision to drop the charges against President BIden, but his rulings to require the NARA to release ALL Congressional records, and force them to produce a clear guide to the JFK Collection are major victories that we must ensure will be followed.

And finally, at the request of numerous others, I am preparing my own book, based mainly on my JFKCountercoup blog posts over the past few decades, along with some new material, and if I can't find a publisher I will have it printed myself, with a tentative working title of - JFKCountercoup - How JFK was Killed and How they Got Away With it.

Thank you for your patience, and I hope to be back in the Deep End of JFK Research big-time, soon.

Billkelly3@gmail.com



Sunday, June 16, 2024

AARC v. CIA

AARC v. CIA

There are two important active court cases concerning JFK assassination records including the Mary Ferrell v. Biden and NARA filed in federal court in San Francisco by attorneys Bill Simpich and Larry Schnapf. So far the judge has required the release of all Congressional records and the National Archives and Records Administration to create a working public guide to the JFK Collection as the JFK Act of 1992 requires.

The other case is now being appealed before the Supreme Court. 

Initially filed by Jim Lesar under the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), Lesar's long time associate Dan Alcorn is now the lead attorney since Jim Lesar is ill.

The case will be considered  by the Supreme Court this Thursday, shortly before they take the summer off, like most of the federal government in Washington, so if it is accepted they won't make any further decisions until they reconvene in the fall.

The case is an important one however, and their consideration of it gives us the opportunity to review the details and why they are significant.

For starters, the case revolves around three key individuals - Air Force General Doolittle, whose Doolittle Committee, appointed by President Eisenhower, reviewed CIA covert intelligence operations and recommended they be continued and increased, in order to oppose similar operations being run by the Communists against us. Another member of the three man committee was William Pawley, who JFK assassination researchers are familiar with as an Havana industrialist before Castro, and leader of the Bayo-Pawley raid to Cuba using his private yacht that also included John Martino and Rip Robertson.

The other two individuals involved in this case are D.H. Byrd, the big oil man owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination, and Weiner Von Alverslaben, a German who ran an Africa  safari that included Byrd at the time of the assassination. As Jim Lesar learned from OSS records, Von Alveslaben's father was described as an "assassination expert" and wrote an essay in support of Von Staufenberg's failed July 20, 1944 bombing plot to kill Hitler, that according to the CIA's Desmond FitzGerald was being used as an example of how to kill Fidel Castro. 

In my conversation with German Volkmar Schmidt, who hosted the house party set up for the Oswalds to meet Ruth and Michael Paine, Schmidt claimed to use a reverse psychology technique taught to him by his step father psychologist in Heidelberg, telling Oswald that it would be a good idea to kill fascist General E. Walker like Hitler should have been killed before he got to powerful. Schmidt told me that his stepfather knew two of the Valkyrie plotters including Von Trott, and that the Von prefex before their names was a sign of German royalty.

One of those whose CIA records were requested D.H. "Dry Hole" Byrd was an early aviation pioneer and in 1941 a founder of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), along with Cord Meyer, Sr., father of Cord Meyer, Jr. a close lieutenant of CIA director Allen Dulles. Among CAP cadets in New Orleans was Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of the President. Besides marrying Mary Pinochott Meyer, a fiend and paramour of President Kennedy, Cord Meyer, Jr. was founder of the World Federalists, established to support the work of the United Nations. Among those who became members of the World Federalists were Michael Paine's mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young, a European traveling companion of Mary Bancroft, who documents their association and her relationship with Allen  Dulles as his OSS secretary and paramour.

Byrd,  was also the owner of the TSBD, was on a safari with Von Alverslaben  at the time of the assassination, and Von Alveslaben's nephew, a professional photographer, took many photos including some of the animals Byrd and company killed.

Byrd had also gone on African safaris with Air Force General Doolittle, While Doolittle is best known for his daring bombing raid over Tokyo, he is also the author of the forementioned Doolittle Commission report that recommended the CIA increase its covert intelligence operational capabilities.

After returning to Dallas from Africa, Byrd added some new animal heads to his trophy room collection in his mansion, and had Von Alveslaben visit as a guest for a few weeks, as the Dallas newspapers reported.

Byrd also had a sixth floor window from the TSBD removed and added to his trophy room collection.

One key aspect of the AARC suit being considered by the Supreme Court is the long standing exemption of CIA Operational records, the primary excuse that the CIA is using to exempt their records regarding Doolittle, Byrd and Von Alveslaben, which means they were not just used as sources of information, but as operatives in covert intelligence operations.

The Assassination of President Kennedy was most certainly an operation, what I refer to as the Dealey Plaza Operation, and the idea that the CIA could continue keeping it's "Operational Files" from the public would mean that we would never know the full truth of the CIA's relationships with Dootlittle, Byrd and Von Alvenslaben, let alone William Harvey, John Rosselli, Cord Meyer, Jr., David Atlee Phillips and others involved in the Assassination of President Kennedy who were key CIA operatives.

The Supreme Court will review this case this Thursday, June 20th, so we should know soon.

Billkelly3@gmail.com 






Thursday, May 30, 2024

Dr. Cyril Wecht RIP - May 13, 2024 - Age 93





Dr. Cyril Wecht RIP - May 13 2024 - Age 93

I first met Dr. Wecht in the mid-1980s when I was visiting Pittsburgh and stopped into his Forensic Pathology office to introduce myself. We talked for over an hour and got to know each other. A few years later in 1990, at the first organizational meeting of COPA – the Coalition on Political Assassinations at the Quaker Meeting Hall on Capitol Hill, Dr. Wecht was the only one nominated to be director and chairman of the organization that was the primary oversight of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) and is mentioned in their final report. 

With the death of COPA Secretary John Judge, his closest associates at the time decided to disband COPA, and remove his huge collection of papers, books and John’s dream The Hidden History Museum, to rural York, Pennsylvania, where it is now truly hidden in a closed strip mall shop. So I obtained a free conference call phone number and organized a conference call among the top 20 assassination researchers in the country, and we formed CAPA – Citizens Against Political Assassinations, and Dr. Wecht was the only one nominated to be chairman. 

For the first four years I served as secretary, kept minutes of twice monthly meetings and wrote out agendas. Gerry Policoff served as the original treasurer, but after he had a falling out with the organization and died in a car crash shortly there after, Mike Nurko succeeded him as treasurer The CAPA board had twice monthly conference call meetings and I participated for over 7 years, and Dr.Wecht ran a good meeting, sticking to the agenda and often tinged his comments with some comic relief. Another aspect of Dr. Wecht’s personality not brought out in most reports was his temper that flared up when he was mad and his obscene vocabulary that ocassionally came out. 

At the 2013 anniversary conference at the Wecht Institute in Pittsburgh, organized by Dr. Wecht’s son Ben. I presented my combined transcript of the Air Force One radio transmission tapes, the cassettes from the LBJ Library and the reel to reel tapes found among the effects of General Clifton, the President’s military aide. I also presented Ed Premieu’s combined tape of both recordings that he also cleaned up, eleminating static and noise so it is more clear than the origionals. I also attended a magnificant dinner at Dr. Wecht’s house and met his wonderful wife Ingrid, and mingled with the other presenters, an amazing affair. 

I considered him my spiritual Godfather.

Although Dr. Wecht had actively and publicly argued and imposed WC attorney Arlen Specter, they remained friends to the end, with Specter even making a presentation at the 2013 Wecht Conference in Pittsburgh. It reminded me of Vince Salandria and Specter making amends over lunch shortly before Spector died.

Since his death Dr. Wecht came to me in a dream. He was joyful, happy and laughing and was glad to see me. I promised him I would carry on our work, a promise I intend to keep, and was about to ask him what it was like on the other side of life, but I suddenly woke up before I could ask him. BK NOTES: This is a work in progress and I will be adding tidbits to it as needed, and I will be writing a comprehensive history of both COPA and CAPA soon.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/triblive-online-only/name/cyril-j-d-obituary?id=55096

 https://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2024/05/13/cyril-wecht-jfk-allegheny-county-pittsburgh/stories/202403220106 Show #1199 May 16 2024 

My segment is Part H: beginning at 2:19:49 https://www.blackopradio.com/archives2024.html

https://www.kennedysandking.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/us/cyril-h-wecht-dead.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/05/13/cyril-wecht-jfk-conspiracy-dead-obituary/ 

Noted defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey called Dr. Wecht the “single most important spearhead of challenge” to the Warren report. A public memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 30 from 1-4 p.m. at the Temple Sinai 5505 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA and will be available on Zoom and Facebook Messenger. Request zoom link from benwecht@aol.com