“We now know what
happened at Dealey Plaza to a fairly good degree of certainty. The
motives were piling up – the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam,
the two-track backchannel to Cuba – the motives were piling up to the point
they had to assassinate him. I think it’s now pretty obvious, with the
information we have today, that the mechanism of it came out of the allegiance
between the CIA and the Mafia. They already had an assassination apparatus set
up for killing Castro, and they just switched targets and they killed JFK instead."
- Former FBI agent William W. Turner at Dallas COPA 2003
- Former FBI agent William W. Turner at Dallas COPA 2003
Keeping the CIA plots
to kill Fidel Castro from the Warren Commission was one of the major deficits
of their report and calls into question the primary conclusion that the assassination
of President Kennedy was the work of a lone deranged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald.
It doesn’t matter
whether the Cuban-connected Oswald was a lone shooter or a patsy since the CIA
plots to kill Castro throw a major wrench into the deranged lone nut scenario,
and adds a political motive to the murder.
Besides the
CIA-Mafia plots that began during the Eisenhower administration there were
other CIA plans to kill Castro that came later in the game and have a much more
serious bearing on what happened at Dealey Plaza, especially the Valkyrie
plot.
In his new and
important book "The Devil's. Chessboard" David Talbot
mentions the role Allen Dulles and his agent-mistress Mary Bancroft played in
the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler - code named Valkyrie. [1]
As Talbot points out,
and Dulles suspected would become fodder for conspiracy theorists, Mary
Bancroft was a close personal friend of the mother of Michael Paine, the chief
patron and sponsor of Oswald and his family.
Besides that two
degree of separation between Oswald and Dulles and Bancroft, the Valkyrie plot
to kill Hitler is mentioned a half-dozen times in the course of the
assassination narrative, and while the significance of this has yet to be fully
drawn out, the recurring Valkyrie theme that runs through the JFK assassination
story certainly merits further scrutiny.
As mentioned in my
review of "Devil's Chessboard" [2] when it
comes to killing Castro the Valkyrie plot has been ignored - despite its
numerous direct ties to what happened at Dealey Plaza, beginning with Lee
Harvey Oswald and Volkmar Schmidt.
OSWALD AND VOLKMAR SCHMIDT
OSWALD AND VOLKMAR SCHMIDT
Phillip Shenon devotes
a whole book “A Cruel and Terrible Act” [3] to the subject of a
Mexico City Twist Party where Oswald was supposedly encouraged to kill JFK by
some Cuban Communist diplomats. It's a party that Oswald could not have
possibly attended as I have talked with two other Americans who were also
reported present at the party and write about in my review of Shenon’s book
– "A Cruel and Terrible Twist." [4]
But there was another
party that was attended by Oswald where he was encouraged to commit political
assassination - that of General Walker, which he is also accused of attempting
to do.
It was at a February
1963 gathering at Volkmar Schmidt's Dallas home, a party that George
deMohrenschildts set up specifically for Oswald to meet Michael Paine.
DeMohrenschilts later said he wanted Oswald and Paine to meet because of their
mutual interest in political ideology. Michael Paine's father Lyman Paine was a
founder of the Trotskyite communist party in America and Oswald subscribed to
their magazine The Militant. While Michael Paine wasn’t at the party, his wife
Ruth was and she met Marina and they became famously friends up until the
assassination. It was at that party when Schmidt says he talked privately with
Oswald for over two hours and first brought up the subject of the Valkyrie plot
to kill Hitler.
In a phone conversation with Schmidt [5] he told me that while talking with Oswald he used a reverse psychology technique he learned from a German doctor who knew some of those involved in the Valkyrie coup when Schmidt mentioned the plot to kill Hitler to Oswald.
While discussing right-wing general Walker, Schmidt said he compared Walker to Hitler and asked if Hitler had been assassinated how different the world would be? Schmidt implied Walker should be killed before he became another Hitler.
Born in Germany and raised in his formative years by the German doctor, Schmidt was an oil geologist, as was his friend George deMohrenschilts. Schmidt was recruited in Germany by Magnolia Oil company of Dallas - the company that used the red Pegasus sign as its logo and later merged with major conglomerates. [6]
Schmidt told me that when he learned that Oswald had been accused of taking a shot at Walker and killing JFK he felt terribly guilty, especially every time he drove through Dealey Plaza, as he believed he was responsible for planting the assassination seed in Oswald's mind.
Schmidt said, "naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know.... But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrass Kennedy...I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons."
In a phone conversation with Schmidt [5] he told me that while talking with Oswald he used a reverse psychology technique he learned from a German doctor who knew some of those involved in the Valkyrie coup when Schmidt mentioned the plot to kill Hitler to Oswald.
While discussing right-wing general Walker, Schmidt said he compared Walker to Hitler and asked if Hitler had been assassinated how different the world would be? Schmidt implied Walker should be killed before he became another Hitler.
Born in Germany and raised in his formative years by the German doctor, Schmidt was an oil geologist, as was his friend George deMohrenschilts. Schmidt was recruited in Germany by Magnolia Oil company of Dallas - the company that used the red Pegasus sign as its logo and later merged with major conglomerates. [6]
Schmidt told me that when he learned that Oswald had been accused of taking a shot at Walker and killing JFK he felt terribly guilty, especially every time he drove through Dealey Plaza, as he believed he was responsible for planting the assassination seed in Oswald's mind.
Schmidt said, "naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know.... But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrass Kennedy...I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons."
OSWALDS TO NEW ORLEANS
Shortly after the Walker incident Oswald packed up all his family belongings and was about to suddenly and unexpectedly move his family to his home town of New Orleans. But Mrs. Paine, who was driving them to the bus station, suggested Marina and the daughter should stay with her in Texas while Oswald went on alone to New Orleans, find a job and apartment and then she would drive them there when he was settled in.
And that he did. While reconnecting with his mother's sister, his aunt Muriel and uncle Dutz Murret he got a job at Reily Coffee and an apartment on Magazine Street.
Ruth Paine then drove Marina, the daughter and the Oswald's belongings, including the rifle, to New Orleans, where they settled in. [7]
After an interesting and eventful summer in the Crescent City, the Oswalds considered returning to Texas when Ruth Paine wrote to the pregnant Marina and invited her to come and live with her in Texas until she had the baby. If she agreed, Ruth Paine wrote, Marina should write her a letter “in care of Arthur Young, Paoli, Pennsylvania,” where she would be visiting her husband's mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young. [8]
RUTH FORBES PAINE
YOUNG – MARY BANCROFT AND ALLEN DULLES
Ruth Paine was on a summer station wagon vacation with her kids driving to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and Ohio visiting friends and family. Before driving to the suburban Philadelphia farm of her husband's mother, another one of the places Ruth Paine visited was the Forbes family Naushon Island off Massachusetts.
As described by
yachtsman Walter Cronkite, “Just off Woods Hole is Hadley Harbor on Naushon
Island, a favorite anchorage or cruising boats. At the end of a narrow twisting
passage through huge rocks, it is a scene of bucolic bliss. The Forbes family
(of whom publisher-adventurer-balloonist-sailor Malcolm Forbes is one) owns the
island, and great mansions grace its hilltops like castles on a Scottish moor.”
“The harbor shore
itself, besides the grassy shelf on which horses, cows, and sheep graze, is
lined with the support mechanism for an island population – a slip from which
the Forbes’ small private ferry runs over to Woods Hole, and a boatyard which
cares for the fleet of pleasure craft. The gracious Forbes not only permit
anchorage in their harbor, but they even have set aside one of their small
islands on which visiting yachtsmen are invited to stretch their legs. Hadley’s
quiet a welcome refuge on those many days when strong winds whip up the
comparatively shallow waters of Buzzard’s Bay and justify its notoriety as
perhaps the Atlantic Coast’s roughest sailing round.” [9]
An eccentric heiress
and humanitarian member of Cord Meyer's World Federalists, Ruth Forbes Paine
had married the equally eccentric Arthur Young, genius inventor of the Bell
Helicopter 47A - the MASH helicopter with glass bubble and girders. [10 ]
Michael Paine and Ruth Hyde had met and were married in Philadelphia, and after apprenticing as a helicopter designer with his step-father-in-law, Arthur Young arranged for Michael Paine to get a job at Bell Helicopter in Texas. So it was in care of Arthur Young that Marina wrote to Ruth Hyde Paine agreeing to the new arrangements - Marina would go to Texas to have the baby and wait for Ruth Paine to pick her up in New Orleans.
Most significant however is Michael's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young and her close association with Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles's agent and mistress who was intimately involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler. [11]
In the late 1930s Ruth Forbes Paine traveled with Mary Bancroft on a steamship to Europe when Bancroft met a Swiss businessman who she would marry, putting her in position, when the Second World War broke out, to meet and work in the OSS with Allen Dulles.
While with Dulles, the top OSS chef in Europe, Bancroft met Hans Bernd Gisevius, a Nazi officer who was deeply involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.
Michael Paine and Ruth Hyde had met and were married in Philadelphia, and after apprenticing as a helicopter designer with his step-father-in-law, Arthur Young arranged for Michael Paine to get a job at Bell Helicopter in Texas. So it was in care of Arthur Young that Marina wrote to Ruth Hyde Paine agreeing to the new arrangements - Marina would go to Texas to have the baby and wait for Ruth Paine to pick her up in New Orleans.
Most significant however is Michael's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young and her close association with Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles's agent and mistress who was intimately involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler. [11]
In the late 1930s Ruth Forbes Paine traveled with Mary Bancroft on a steamship to Europe when Bancroft met a Swiss businessman who she would marry, putting her in position, when the Second World War broke out, to meet and work in the OSS with Allen Dulles.
While with Dulles, the top OSS chef in Europe, Bancroft met Hans Bernd Gisevius, a Nazi officer who was deeply involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler.
THE VALKYRIE PLOT TO
KILL HITLER
Years in the making the Valkyrie assassination and coup plan stemmed mainly from disgruntled military officers and fell to Claus Von Stauffenberg to carry out on July 20, 1944, leaving a briefcase bomb under a map table next to Hitler in the Wolfsschanze Wolf's Lair bunker in Bavaria.
In drawing up the Valkyrie plan Von Stauffenberg broke it into two parts - Phase One would be the order to have the home national army seize all key government and communication buildings in response to a revolt by the foreign slave labor, the part of the plan that would be approved by Hitler himself. Phase Two, the secret part, was the assassination of Hitler.
The control of the radio and media centers was an instrumental part of the plan, as Von Stauffenberg put it, "the conspiracy alone must speak."
A third part of the plan was a psychological warfare twist to blame the assassination on the SS and Gestapo, whose leaders would be rounded up by the real coup planners, the military generals.
Dulles and Gisevius had opposed the use of a bomb, preferring a pistol up close or a sniper in a motorcade ambush as more likely to succeed and their fears proved true. Gisevius supported the coup but was against the bomb plot, as he told Von Stauffenberg: "I just I have the feeling we'll never succeed. I'm not speaking through fear. But I have a feeling very few of us will be alive this time next year, regardless of what happens with your bomb."
The bomb failed to kill Hitler and hundreds, some say thousands were subsequently rounded up and executed, but Gisevius escaped with the assistance of Bancroft and Dulles, who provided him with fake credentials.
After the war Bancroft translated Gisevius' account of the Third Reich and following Gisevius’ testimony against the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg, which sent them to the gallows, Dulles brought Gisevius to Washington as a CIA consultant. In Washington Dulles arranged for the ex-Nazi officer to stay with his deputy Tom Braden, who lived with his wife and their eight children in a big house next to RFK's Hickory Hill. Braden would write a book "Eight Is Enough" that would be made into a popular family TV show and pattern for The Brady Bunch. An episode on the ex-Nazi living with all those kids would certainly be entertaining. And as Talbot notes, Braden also interviewed Allen Dulles for the Kennedy Presidential Library. [12]
So after visiting Michael's mother, Mary Bancroft's good friend in Philadelphia, where she got Marina's letter, Ruth Paine drove to DC and visited her sister, who worked at the CIA, and then went on to Ohio to see her father before picking up Marina in New Orleans. [13]
Arriving in New Orleans in late September Ruth Paine stayed the night and the next day took Marina, the daughter and the Oswald's belongings, including the rifle, and drove them to Texas. Early the following morning Oswald slipped out of New Orleans and went to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet embassies.
THE JOINT CHIEFS ARE
BRIEFED ON THE VALKYRIE PLAN
The same September 25th day in Washington DC CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were temporarily chaired by Air Force Chief Gen. Curtis LeMay while Gen. Taylor was on a special mission to Vietnam.
Fitzgerald reported to the Joint Chiefs on the CIA's Cuban covert operations with emphasis on how the military could support them, an assignment given USMC Gen. Victor H. "Brute" Krulak, Special Assistant for Counter Insurgency Activities, whose aide Colonel Walter M. Higgins, Jr. was in attendance. Higgins' memo of the meeting, released under the JFK Act, includes the bullet point that Fitzgerald mentioned the CIA was studying the Valkyrie plot and adapting it to use against Castro. [14]
As Higgins wrote in
his memo on FitzGerald’s briefing: “He commented that there was nothing new in
the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in
getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and
stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are
talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that
degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in
history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being studied in
detail to develop an approach.”
September 23-25, 1963 was a busy time on the Devil's Chessboard as there were many moves by key players besides Ruth Paine moving Marina and the rifle to Texas, Oswald leaving for Mexico and Fitzgerald briefing the Joint Chiefs.
On September 23, JFK signed National Security Action Memo 261 approving "Project Four Leaves," assigning the "highest national priority category for development and production" a military communications "in response to a recommendation from the Secretary of Defense," an order that remains classified. [15]
THE CONSERVATION TOUR
JFK then he left September 25 on a "Conservation Tour" with his Secretary of Interior, the first stop in northeast Pennsylvania to visit Mary Pinchot Meyer's mother in Milford, Pennsylvania. Mary Pinchot had met JFK thru his schoolmate William Attwood, who would later become an intermediary between JFK and Castro. Mary had married Cord Meyer, an ex-Marine who founded the World Federalists – an international organization in support of a strong United Nations, one that included Philadelphia college student Priscilla Johnson, Michael's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Walter Cronkite. Cord Meyer joined the CIA in 1951 and became one of Dulles' top assistants, replacing Tom Braden as chief of the International Organizations Division. [17]
While Mary Meyer had separated from Cord Meyer, she maintained her friendship with JFK and she accompanied him on the first leg of the Conservation Tour that took JFK to her mother's house in Pennsylvania. JFK then moved on to Wisconsin and the Mid-West during which the details of the president's November trip to Texas were officially announced to the press. [18]
D. H. BYRD’S TSBD AND
AFRICAN SAFARI
When Oswald returned to Texas from Mexico in early October he stayed at the YMCA before taking out a room at the Beckley Street rooming house, at both places using the same O. H. Lee alias he used to sign in at the hotel in Mexico City.
By mid-October Ruth Paine had made a phone call and helped arrange for Oswald to get a job at the Texas School Book Depository, a building owned by D.H. Byrd, a founder of the Civil Air Patrol in Texas, an organization Oswald was affiliated with in New Orleans. Byrd was a Texas oil man who was on the board of directors of LTV and good friends with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay. [19]
At the time of the
assassination, when Oswald was allegedly shooting at Kennedy from his building,
Byrd was on an African Safari with a German Barron Werner von Alvensleben, who
used a high powered Mannlicher rifle to hunt. [20]
His father was an
assassination expert and an avid supporter of the Valkyrie plot. The father was
sentenced to prison and concentration camps with those who were arrested for
their participation in the plot. He also wrote a manifesto supporting the plot
after it failed. [21]
So besides Volkmar
Schmidt using the Valkyrie plot to instigate Oswald to shoot Walker, Michael
Paine’s mother was a close personal friend of a key participant in the Valkyrie
plot – Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles’ mistress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were
briefed on the CIA’s adaption of the Valkyrie plot to use against Castro, and
the owner of the TSBD building from which shots were fired was at the time on a
safari in Africa with a German Barron who used a Mannlicher rifle to hunt with
and was the son of an assassination expert who wrote a manifesto in support of
the Valkyrie plot and served time in prison with some of its
participants.
VALKYRIE IN CUBA
VALKYRIE IN CUBA
Based mainly on the Higgins Memo reference of the Desmond Fitzgerald briefing the JCS Washington attorney Jim Lesar, director of the Assassinations Archive and Research Center, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CIA documents related to the CIA study of the Valkyrie plot that was to be used against Castro. [22]
But we don’t have to wait until we get those records as we can see for ourselves from other records how the CIA tried to adapt the Valkyrie plan to be used against Castro, as they did try to recruit some disenchanted Cuban military officers who were close to Castro including Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) and Gen. Almeida, both of whom have been reviewed and analyzed elsewhere. [23]
Among the differences in the Valkyrie plan and the post-Mafia CIA plans to kill Castro we find that the idea of using a bomb was discarded in favor of a sniper attack on Castro while he was riding in an open Jeep, a common situation.
Other aspects of the Valkyrie plan that were adopted to be used against Castro, besides using the military, the murder of Castro and the takeover of the Cuban government in a coup was the control of the media and the Northwoods style psych-war media campaign to blame the assassination on communists. [24]
When news of the CIA's plans to kill Castro were made public it was at first suggested that Castro retaliated and killed JFK before the CIA could kill him, and some like John Rosselli even claimed that one of the teams sent in by the CIA by boat was captured by the Cubans and turned and sent back to kill JFK. [25]
But others like Bill
Turner claim it was more likely that one of the CIA plans to kill Castro was
redirected to kill JFK instead, and that’s what former CIA officer David Atlee
Phillips privately surmised. [26]
If that was the case
then it must have been a CIA plan that utilized a sniper attack on an open car
motorcade, one of a number the CIA had on the shelf ready to go, waiting for
the right situation to present itself.
Among the CIA plans to kill Castro that utilized snipers attacking an open car in a motorcade were the Hemingway House affair [27] - discussions after the fact, and the Pathfinder plan to shoot Castro when he visited a north shore resort he was known to frequent. [28]
Both required accurate high powered rifles with scopes, similar to the ones they offered to Cubela and attempted to infiltrate into Cuba on October 31, 1963 when the CIA raider ship The Rex deposited anti-Castro commandos with high powered rifles with scopes who were captured and paraded on Cuban TV the next day. The story made the front page of the November 1, 1963 New York Times, and the names of the captured commandos are mentioned in "Red Friday," the book written by Carlos Bringuier, the DRE Cuban Oswald was arrested with in New Orleans. [29]
One important aspect of the Valkyrie plan was a psych war operation to blame the assassination of Hitler on the SS and Gestapo, and monitor and control the media so "only the conspiracy speaks," just as the Dealey Plaza operation included blaming the assassination on Castro and a psych war campaign using CIA media assets that continues today.
Besides the assassination and psych-war aspects of the Valkyrie plot that could have been adapted to use against Castro and may have been redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, there was one other important part of the Valkyrie plan that could have been used - getting the victim to sign off on the operation.
Von Stauffenberg drew up the Valkyrie plan as a response to a possible revolt by slave laborers by mobilizing the home guard to quell the revolt and seize key government buildings and communications facilities. Hitler approved and signed off on the plan without knowing the secret Phase that required his elimination. [30]
If this part of the Valkyrie plan was adapted for use against Castro it should be noted that the National Security Council and JFK did approve a number of violent covert operations against targets in Cuba, but JFK rejected the assassination plans. RFK however, did pressure Des Fitzgerald and others to step up their Cuban ops against Castro and RFK was personally introduced to some of the anti-Castro commandos who were being sent to Cuba to attack strategic installations and infiltrate rifle teams. [31]
The National Security Action memo authorizing a special military communications project Four Leaves could also be revealing once it is declassified.
The use of Phase One and Phase Two parts of the plan is another interesting parallel between Valkyrie and Dealey Plaza as they are the same terms used by Von Stauffenberg for Valkyrie and Peter Dale Scott to describe the official response to the assassination of JFK.
Among the CIA plans to kill Castro that utilized snipers attacking an open car in a motorcade were the Hemingway House affair [27] - discussions after the fact, and the Pathfinder plan to shoot Castro when he visited a north shore resort he was known to frequent. [28]
Both required accurate high powered rifles with scopes, similar to the ones they offered to Cubela and attempted to infiltrate into Cuba on October 31, 1963 when the CIA raider ship The Rex deposited anti-Castro commandos with high powered rifles with scopes who were captured and paraded on Cuban TV the next day. The story made the front page of the November 1, 1963 New York Times, and the names of the captured commandos are mentioned in "Red Friday," the book written by Carlos Bringuier, the DRE Cuban Oswald was arrested with in New Orleans. [29]
One important aspect of the Valkyrie plan was a psych war operation to blame the assassination of Hitler on the SS and Gestapo, and monitor and control the media so "only the conspiracy speaks," just as the Dealey Plaza operation included blaming the assassination on Castro and a psych war campaign using CIA media assets that continues today.
Besides the assassination and psych-war aspects of the Valkyrie plot that could have been adapted to use against Castro and may have been redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, there was one other important part of the Valkyrie plan that could have been used - getting the victim to sign off on the operation.
Von Stauffenberg drew up the Valkyrie plan as a response to a possible revolt by slave laborers by mobilizing the home guard to quell the revolt and seize key government buildings and communications facilities. Hitler approved and signed off on the plan without knowing the secret Phase that required his elimination. [30]
If this part of the Valkyrie plan was adapted for use against Castro it should be noted that the National Security Council and JFK did approve a number of violent covert operations against targets in Cuba, but JFK rejected the assassination plans. RFK however, did pressure Des Fitzgerald and others to step up their Cuban ops against Castro and RFK was personally introduced to some of the anti-Castro commandos who were being sent to Cuba to attack strategic installations and infiltrate rifle teams. [31]
The National Security Action memo authorizing a special military communications project Four Leaves could also be revealing once it is declassified.
The use of Phase One and Phase Two parts of the plan is another interesting parallel between Valkyrie and Dealey Plaza as they are the same terms used by Von Stauffenberg for Valkyrie and Peter Dale Scott to describe the official response to the assassination of JFK.
According to Scott's
analysis the original Phase One is the disinformation cover story to blame the
assassination of JFK on Castro, that could have instigated a full scale US
military attack on Cuba, which was subsequently superseded by the Phase Two
promotion of the deranged lone assassin being responsible for the act. [32]
DES FITZGERALD BETS AGAINST CASTRO
As the CIA officer responsible for covert operations against Cuba, Des FitzGerald was the person who briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the CIA's "detailed" study of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler. FitzGerald was also the case officer for Rolando Cubela (AMLASH), one of the military officers they were recruiting to kill Castro.
DES FITZGERALD BETS AGAINST CASTRO
As the CIA officer responsible for covert operations against Cuba, Des FitzGerald was the person who briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the CIA's "detailed" study of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler. FitzGerald was also the case officer for Rolando Cubela (AMLASH), one of the military officers they were recruiting to kill Castro.
So it is interesting
that FitzGerald, like the military officers in the fictional "Seven Days
in May" used a bet and a gamble on the Preakness stakes as a way of
communicating their willingness to go along with the coup plans.
In “The Very Best
Men” – Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA" Evan Thomas
writes: “….Halpern, FitzGerald’s assistant, regarded him (Cubela) as an
assassin and claims that FitzGerald did as well.”
Sam Halpern: “Des was
really more interested in starting a coup, and he hoped that Cubela could
organize other army officers. But in coups, he understood, people die. The way
to start a coup is to knock off the top man. Des felt it was a long shot, but
it might work. We were desperate. Des was willing to try anything.”
Evan Thomas writes:
“FitzGerald did not think it was such a long shot that he was unwilling to make
a small bet, giving reasonable odds. Just six days before he formally signed
off on a high-powered rifle for AMLASH (Cubela), he accepted a little wager
from Michael Forrestal, an official on the National Security Council staff who
was a member of the Georgetown crowd (his father, James V. Forrestal, had been
the first secretary of defense). A memo in FitzGerald’s personal files records
a $50 bet with Forrestal on ‘the fate of Fidel Castro during the period 1
August 1964 and 1 October 1964. (Apparently, Fitzgerald saw a window of
vulnerability for the Cuban leader that was roughly coincidental with the 1964
U.S. presidential election campaign.)”
“Mr. Forrestal offers
two-to-one odds ($100 to $50) against Fidel’s falling (or being pushed) between
the dates 1 August and 1 October 1964. In the event that such a thing should
occur prior to 1 August 1964 the wager herein cancelled. Mr. FitzGerald accepts
the wager on the above terms.”
Memo is dated November
13, 1963, “One day after FitzGerald briefed Kennedy on the progress of the
Cuban operation and one day before the Special Group approved his plan of
continued covert operations against the Castro Regime.”
Thomas: “Nine days
later the assassination of John F. Kennedy dramatically increased the odds that
FitzGerald would lose his bet.”
According to Thomas,
“On November 22, 1963, Des FitzGerald had just finished hosting a lunch for an
old friend of the CIA, a foreign diplomat, at the City Tavern Club in
Georgetown, when he was summoned from the private dining room by the maître d’.
FitzGerald returned ‘as white as a host,’ recalled Sam Halpern. Normally erect
and purposeful, FitzGerald was walking slowly, with his head down. ‘The
President has been shot,’ he said.”
“The lunch immediately
broke up. On the way out the door Halpern anxiously said, ‘I hope this has
nothing to do with Cubans.’ FitzGerald mumbled, ‘Yea, well, we’ll see.’ In the
fifteen minute car ride back to Langley, FitzGerald just stared straight ahead.
He was well aware that in Paris, at almost the moment Kennedy was shot in
Dallas, one of his case officers had been handing a poison pen to a Cuban agent
to kill Castro. It was at the very least a grim coincidence. FitzGerald knew
that, in September, Castro threatened to retaliate against attempts to kill
him. ‘United States leaders should think that if they are aiding in terrorist
plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe,’ the Cuban
leader had publicly declared.”
“The warning that
Cubela might be a ‘dangle,’ that he might be secretly working for Castro, took
on an ominous new meaning. Now FitzGerald had to wonder: Had Castro killed
Kennedy before Kennedy could kill him?” [33]
Or, as WillIam Turner
suggested, was one of the plans to kill Castro turned on Kennedy at Dealey
Plaza?
In conclusion, if the
CIA plans to kill Fidel Castro had anything to do with the assassination of JFK
at Dealey Plaza then the CIA's detailed study and proposed adaption of the
Valkyrie plot to be used against Castro is one that should be given close
examination.
Notes – Valkyrie
at Dealey Plaza Revisited - “The conspiracy alone must speak.”
1) Talbot,
David. “The Devil’s Chessboard” (HarperCollins, 2015) Re: Valkyrie,
p. 134. “Dulles arranged for Mary….to work with the tall, imperious double
agent Hans Bernd Gisevious….(who) became involved in the July 20, 1944 bomb
plot against Hitler, barely fleeing with is life to Switzerland when it
failed.”
2) Kelly, William.
Review of Devil’s Chessboard: [http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-devils-chessboard-and-new-political.html ]
3) Shenon, Phil
– “A Cruel and Shocking Act” (Picador, 2015)
4) Kelly, William.
Review of Phil Shenon’s “Cruel and Shocking Act.”
5) Kelly, William.
January 1995 Telephone conversation with Volkmar Schmidt.http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html.
Schmidt said that Dr. Wilhelm Keutemeyer of Heidelberg served as a foster
father whose associates Frederick von Halen and Von Trott were directly
involved in the Valkyrie plot. Schmidt: “….naturally it was a terrible
responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had
to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the
best intent, embarrassed Kennedy, and I certainly didn’t tell him to take a pot
shot at him.”
6) Magnolia Oil. Jim
Braden, who was arrested as a suspect at Dealey Plaza, and his associate Victor
Pierre were evicted from Dallas by Sheriff Bill Decker and branded the
“Honeymooners” for trying to swindle the heiress of a founder of Magnolia Oil.
Volkmar Schmidt lived with two others who worked for Magnolia Oil, including
the son of a Radio Free Europe administrator.
7) Warren
Report, p. 730. Ruth Paine drove Oswald’s family and belongings to New
Orleans and back to Texas in late September. Also see Ruth Paine’s Summer
Vacation report by Carol Hewett, Barbara Lamonica and Steve Jones, 1995 COPA
Conference presentation.
8) Ford, Gerald,
with John Stiles “Portrait of the Assassin” Re: Marina’s letter to
Ruth Paine in care of Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa. (BK: This is the only published
reference I know of that mentions this letter).
9) Cronkite,
Walter. “North by Northwest” (Tabletop book) Also note that Woods
Hole nautical acoustics lab was a very busy place on April 10, 1963 when Oswald
was supposedly taking a shot at General Walker, the USS Thresher submarine went
down. Later a group Justice for the Crew of the Thresher (JFCOTT) reportedly
threatened JFK.
10) Young, Arthur.
Inventor of the Bell Helicopter 47A.http://www.arthuryoung.com/about.html
(BK: I also have an extensive three hour tape recorded interview with Young
from when I sat with him for hours in his library.)
11) Bancroft,
Mary. “Autobiography of a Spy” (Wm. Morrow, 1983) p. 55, for Ruth
Paine Forbes’ association with Mary Bancroft. (p. 202-240) for the roles
Dulles, Bancroft and Gisevius played in the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie Plot to kill
Hitler.
12) Braden,
Tom. Talbot, David."Devil's Chessboard" (p. 369, p.547 JFK
Library interview), p. 553 (Rockefeller financial support for covert
ops). Bancroft, Mary. “Autobiography of a Spy” (Wm. Morrow,
1983)
13) Hewett, Lamonica,
Barber. Ruth Paine’s Summer Vacation. – The Confessions of Ruth
Paine- DPQ http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/steve-jones-confessions-of-ruth-paine.html /http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/dparchiv1.htm
- RUTH
14) Higgins
Memo: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/04/higgins-memo-numbered-w-bullet-points.htm - 13. "He commented that
there was nothing new in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had
been great success in getting closer to the military personnel who might break
with Castro, and stated that there were at least ten high-level military
personnel who are talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each
other, since that degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it
as a parallel in history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being
studied in detail to develop an approach."
15) Four Leaves http://whd.jfklibrary.org/Diary/ - White House Diary - For Monday
September 23 1963 – SUBJECT: Assignment of Highest National Security Priority
to Project FOUR LEAVES. In response to a recommendation by the Secretary of
Defense, the president, under the authority granted by the Defense Production
Act of 1950, today established the program listed below as being in the highest
national security priority category for development and
production. “President Kennedy assigns the highest national security
priority to Project FOUR LEAVES to develop and produce a military
communications system.” FOUR LEAVES McGeorge Bundy THE WHITE
HOUSE DIARY SEPTEMBER
23 1963
17) Meyer,
Cord. “Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA.” Also see: [https://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/jfk-and-mary-p-meyer/ ]
18) Texas Trip
officially announced. “President Kennedy’s trip to Dallas was first announced
to the public in September 1963.” – Associated Press Timeline.
19) Byrd,
David Harold. [http://spartacus-educational.com/MDbyrdDH.htm ]; [https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fby13 ]
20) Von Alvensleben,
Werner. ‘‘Baron In Africa‘‘ - "Hunting history is rife with the
tales of derring-do with 6.5mm cartridges. W.D.M. Bell whacked many elephants
and Werner von Alvensleben slew hundreds of buffalo with what they termed a
“small-bore rifle,” namely, the 6.5×54 Mannlicher-Schönauer." Read
more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/12/gun-test-alexander-arms-6-5-grendel-hunter/#ixzz3qMkGtu2F
Dallas Morning News
1-9-64; 1-19-64; “Time Out From Safaris”
Also see: OSS X2
Report on Werner von Alvensleben (Code name DRAM - the father as assassination
expert) [http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2015/10/oss-x-2-report-on-werner-von-alvensleben.html ]
21) Metacas,
Eric. "Bonhoeffer – Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy"(Thomas Nelson
Pub. 2010 p. 502)
Among those there (in prison) were "....the nearly seventy year old Count Werner Von Alvensleben, who in 1934 had refused to take the infamous oath of allegiance to Hitler, and who had been persona non grata with the Nazis ever since." (p. 507) At Buchenwald "Count Von Alvensleben was in cell number four...was typical of many arrested after the July 20 plot in that he had done nothing more than be on friendly terms with some of the plotters. Thousands had been arrested for this crime. Anyone related by blood was guilty of Sippenhaft (liability of kin), whereby relatives of the accused were arrested and punished: wives, parents, and children too. Some small children were taken away from their parents, never to be seen again."
22) Lesar, Jim. AARC
FOIA Request to CIA for records related to the study of the Hitler plot as mentioned
in the Higgin’s report of Desmond FitzGerald’s briefing of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, September, 1963.
23) Waldron, Lamar.
Series of books on JFK of how CIA plot to kill Castro was hijacked by mobsters
– “Ultimate Sacrafice,” “Legacy of Secrecy” and “The Hidden
History of the JFK Assassination.” Also note: “John Rosselli said it
was also his theory that Castro was behind the assassination…He said he knew
that a team had been sent to kill Castro, had been captured and tortured, and
turned to kill Kennedy.” – Bayard Stockton in "Flawed Patriot – The Rise
and Fall of CIA Legend Bill Harvey" (Potomac Books, 2006)
24) Psych War aspect
to the plan. Dan Hardway: “You have to look at the JFK assassination as an
operational plan….with disinformation. (If) the assassination was a mob hit, it
wasn’t a mob hit like the ones they had done previously. They used a different
MO in JFK, they used a patsy, and they used disinformation, both of these
techniques they had learned from the Agency.”
Peter Dale Scott:
on Managed Oswald Stories: “In the days after the murders in
Dallas, the U.S. Was flooded with dubious stories, most of them swiftly
discredited, linking Oswald to either a Cuban or Soviet conspiracy. Those which
most preoccupied the FBI and CIA all came out of Mexico. These stories
exhibited certain common characteristics. 1. They all came from
either directly from an intelligence source, or from someone in the hands of an
intelligence agency. Nearly always the agency involved was the Mexican DFS or
secret police. The DFS, along with the Nicaraguan intelligence service, which
was also a source, were under CIA tutelage. 2. The Stories changed over time,
to support either a pro-conspiratorial hypothesis (“Phase One”) or a rebuttal
of this (“Phase Two”). 3. The Warren Commission was led to believe that
the“Phase One”stories were without basis. In fact a number of unresolved
anomalies suggest that behind them was some deeper truth, still not revealed.
4. As just noted, the two main sources, Silvia Duran and Gilberto
Alvarado, gave varying stories while detained by the DFS. Of the two, Duran was
actually tortured, and Alvarado reportedly threatened with torture… In
retrospect, these stories should not have been taken seriously. In fact the CIA
was able to rely on them, not as a source of truth, but as a source of coercive
influence over the rest of the government. It will help us to understand what
was going on if we refer to the stories, not as ‘information’ or even as
‘allegations,’ but as MANAGED STORIES."
25) The Rex. New York
Times, November 1, 1963, page 1. [http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/04/rex-blows-collins-radio-cia-cover.html ]
26) Phillips, David
Atlee: “I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald.
After working to establish his Marxist bona fides, we gave him the mission of
killing Fidel Castro in Cuba. I helped him when he came to Mexico City to
obtain a visa, and when he returned to Dallas to wait for it I saw him twice
there. We rehearsed the plan many times: In Havana Oswald was to assassinate
Castro with a sniper's rifle from the upper floor window of a building on the
route where Castro often drove in an open jeep. Whether Oswald was a
double-agent or a psycho I'm not sure, and I don't know why he killed Kennedy.
But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus
the CIA did not anticipate the President's assassination but it was responsible
for it. I share that guilt.” From unpublished novel.
27) Hemingway
House; The Old Man and the CIA: A Kennedy Plot to Kill Castro? The
Nation. [http://www.thenation.com/article/old-man-and-cia-kennedy-plot-kill-castro/ ]
28) Pathfinder
Documents. Dupont Estate. Re: Pathfinder records - ARRB interviews with NPIC
employes stationed at JMWAVE, where the CIA officers kept the Pathfinder
documents filed separately from regular station files by keeping them in the
NPIC section.
ARRB Memo: (a) A
folder, stored in the Photo Interpretation...Area at JMWAVE contained materials
related to a plan to assassinate Castro in the Bay of Pigs Resort area where he
maintained a yacht and was known to vacation. The plan, possibly with the
code word PATHFINDER...apparently had been disapproved and not under active
consideration at the time. Our people did not participate actively in the plan
in any regard. (b) While assigned to the Imagery Analysis Service, a
number of our photo interpreters supported Carl Jenkins of the DD/P concerning
a plan to assassinate Castro at the DuPont Veradero Estate, east of Havana.
Castro was known to frequent the estate and the plan was to use a high powered
rifle in the attempt. The photo interpreter support was restricted to providing
annotated photographs and line drawings of the estate. To our knowledge this
plan was never implemented
29) Bringuier,
Carlos. "Red Friday" (C. Hallberg, 1969)
30) Forman,
James. “Code Name Valkyrie – Count Von Staufenberg and the plot to kill
Hitler,” who quotes Gisevius: “I just have the feeling we’l never succeed.
I’m not speaing through fear. But I have a feeling very few of us will be alive
this time next year, regardless of what happens with your bomb.”
31) Ayers,
Bradley. “The War that Never Was” (Bobs-Merrell);“The Zenith
Secret” (Vox Pop/Drench Kiss Media); [Excerpts:http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/12/excerpts-from-zenith-secret.html ]
32) Scott, Peter
Dale. “Deep Politics” Series, the most recent being “Dallas ’63: The
First Deep State Revolt Against the White House.” [ http://www.amazon.com/Dallas-63-Against-Forbidden-Bookshelf-ebook/dp/B013S42VFQ ]
33) Thomas, Evan. “The Very Best Men – Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA"(Simon & Schuster, 1995 p. 303)
33) Thomas, Evan. “The Very Best Men – Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA"(Simon & Schuster, 1995 p. 303)
Valkyrie II at Dealy
Plaza
As a research technique, while reading the HSCA volumes, I began opening files on subjects that came up repeatedly in diverse areas - more than twice - taking Ian Fleming's adage - "First time is happenstance, second time is coincidence, but a third time is enemy action."
That's how I got onto Collins Radio, Pan Am Bank of Miami, Southland Center, International Rescue Committee and now Valkyrie.
In the course of my research the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler has come up five times - in diverse areas and makes me think I may be on to something.
1) The first time the Valkyre plot came up was in a phone conversation I had with Volkmar Schmidt, who acknowledged that in his February 1963 conversation with Oswald at a party at his house, he mentioned the Valkyrie Plot and suggested to Oswald that General Walker should be assassinated as Hitler should have been. Schmidt said he personally knew some of the participants in the Valkyrie plot.
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html
2) Then I read Mary Bancroft's "Autobiography of a Spy," in which she details her role in Valkyrie - assisting Dr. Hans Bernt Gisevius escape and then translating his memoirs.
http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/mary-bancroft-autobiography-of-spy.html
3) In late September 1963 Ruth Hyde Paine visited her husband Michael's mother - Ruth Forbes Paine Young, who was Mary Bancroft's close friend and traveling companion to Europe. After leaving the Young's residence near Philadelphia Ruth Paine drove to New Orleans and picked up Marina and the rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico.
4) On the same day Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico, the CIA's Desmond Fitzgerald briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Gen. LeMay presiding - on covert ops against Cuba that needed military assistance - including a plan to adapt the Valkyrie Plot to use against Castro.
(See Higgins Memo - http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/04/higgins-memo-numbered-w-bullet-points.html )
5) The 11/22/63 alibi for the owner of the TSBD - D. H. Byrd was that he was on a hunting safari in Africa with a German "Baron" whose father was reported by OSS X-2 to possibly be an "assassination expert" and after World War II lived with one of the ministers selected for the new government after Hitler's overthrow and was a valuable double agent for OSS in Africa who co-authored a manifesto in support of the Valkyrie plotters.
Now my threshold for bingo was three but here we have five separate cases where the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler comes up in the course of events surrounding the assassination of JFK.
Also see: https://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/valkyrie-at-dealey-plaza/
Now these are not six degrees of separation- they are two degrees - and they are not happenstance or coincidence - but clearly enemy action.
Now I just got James Forman's book "Code Name Valkyrie - Count Von Stauffenberg and the plot to kill Hitler"
http://hub-e.com/content/james-d-forman-fb2-ebook-get-code-name-valkyrie-count-von-stauffenberg-and-plot-kill-hitler
– that notes:
"The plan had a code name Valkyrie, and it would be developed at two levels with two sets of orders. Officially Valkyrie was a scheme to activate units of the Home Army to seize population centers in case of a rebellion by the foreign slave laborer sin Germany. Behind this facade the plan was to evolve into a complete takeover of the government by the Army.
"Phase One - plan for mobilizing the Reserve Army. Purpose: to crush mutiny of slave laborers.
This part of the plan was submitted through channels and approved by Hitler himself.
"Phase Two - the second, secret plan: Item 1- Disposal of Hitler. Item 2 - Preparation of orders upon Hitler's death...Direct the Reserve Army to undertake the following - Occupy first the city of Berlin...Principle objectives: Imprisonment of key Nazi and SS officials, occupation of vital government buildings, railroad stations and other government centers, especially broadcast stations. Immediate command of the mass media, newspapers, wireless radio - cannot be over stressed. The conspiracy alone must speak. Orders from Hitler's East Prussian HQ must be entirely isolated and contained."
"The conspiracy alone must speak."
Another twist to the Valkyrie plan was a Psychwar aspect to blame the assassination of Hitler on the Gestapo and SS as an excuse to round them up.
Forman says that while Dulles agent Gisevius supported the coup he was against the bomb plot. He told Von Stauffenberg "I just I have the feeling we'll never succeed. I'm not speaking through fear. But I have a feeling very few of us will be alive this time next year, regardless of what happens with your bomb."
And he was right.
But the adaption of Valkyrie as carried out at Dealey Plaza succeeded.
