The MO - How JFK Was Killed

The MO - How JFK Was Killed

The Divine Skein at Dealey Plaza – How JFK was killed and How they Got Away with It.

By William E. Kelly, Jr. (billkelly3@gmail.com)

PREFACE 

As my friends and associates well know, I have been studying the assassination of President Kennedy for many years, so the most frequently asked question I get from those who know this is, "Who killed JFK?," but I still can't answer that question.

While I am certain that the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone gunman he has been portrayed to be, and I don't know the identities of those actually responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza, I have, in the words of the Hollywood detective Lieutenant Peter Faulk Colombo, - "I don't know who committed the murder, but I figured out how they did it."

I got the MO down - the Modus Operandi - was that of a covert intelligence operation.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (covert ops) is "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor."

Major General Llewellyn W. Atcheriey - Developed the Modus Operandi - MO - system of maintenance of records and files of classifications and types of crimes and criminals.

Cornelius Francis Cahalane, in his book, The Policeman, wrote “The policeman, upon investigation of a crime in which he found a familiar mode of operation, would look up the records of various thieves who usually committed the crime in a like manner. If such a person were at large, and he had no promising leads in another direction, he eliminated all other suspects and confined his efforts to a scrutiny of the thieves who he knew from past experience used methods of operation similar to those used by the thief who committed the crime under investigation. Policeman who followed this system usually kept the information to themselves; some used a book, while others relied upon their memory. The need of spreading this information to all members of the Force, and of not confining it exclusively to the man making the investigation, prompted the compiling of a system by Major General Llewellyn W. Atcherley, Inspector of Constabulary, Office of the Home Secretary.”

“It is contended for this system that it tends to narrow the search by a process of elimination of those not known to the police, and of those who are known but who do not commit this certain crime, or, if so, have always committed it differently from the manner found in connection with the crime under investigation. This system is helpful in many instances, but too much reliance cannot be placed upon it. There are some instances where thieves have committed the same crime in the same way for years, or until caught and convicted,...This system is helpful, but not infallible….The big thing to be remembered By him is that the information he gathers is to be used as a comparison with other records on file...”

APPLYING THE MODUS OPERANDI SYSTEM TO DEALEY PLAZA

In applying Atcheriey's MO System to Dealey Plaza, the choice is pretty easy, and a very definite line in the sand - and that is whether the assassination of the President was the result of the impulsive, spontaneous actions of one Deranged Lone-Nut Case, whose individual psychosis should be classified in the realm of medical diagnosis, or was it a covert action, a pre-arranged plan that was meant be secret to protect the actual sponsors?

If the former, then we can all go home and let the psychiatrists and psychologists analysis the psychosis of a madman, and the assassination was disconnected to any of the political and historical activities of the day, while if the latter, the murder was connected to the political realities of the day, and therefor can be figured out.

But all of the evidence taken together strongly indicates that whatever happened at Dealey Plaza, the Modus Operandi of the crime was that of a covert intelligence operation, a Black Op designed to remain secret, planned in advance as an illegal act, conducted on a need to know basis using standard covert operational tradecraft and acted out so it was plausibly deniable by the actual sponsors.

Even if Lee Harvey Oswald was the Lone Sniper in the Sixth Floor Window and killed the President in line with the Single-bullet Theory, especially if Oswald was involved in any way, rather than the act of a Lone Mad Man, the assassination must be considered a covert intelligence operation - and investigated as such. 

While the Secret Service study of assassins tried to come up with a common diagnosis, they failed to recognize one specific type of assassin that Oswald fits – what I call the Covert Operative Personality (COP) profile. The COP profile is very specific, as those who fit this personality are trained by the military, usually the Marines, they are fluent in a foreign language, use Post Office boxes, keep an apartment separate from their families, and they utilize what Allen Dulles called the crafts and techniques of intelligence. Oswald sets the pattern for the COP personality but it also fits others such as Watergate burglars Frank Forini Sturgis and Eugenio Martinez, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Tosh Plumley and Felix Rodriguez, to name a few famous ones.

Whenever a COP profile personality is involved in an incident such as what happened at Dealey Plaza or Watergate, that incident should be assumed to be a covert intelligence operation and investigated as such.

The Modus Operandi behind the assassination of President Kennedy must be considered a covert intelligence operation because the facts of the case indicate that, including 1) There were individuals who expressed foreknowledge of the murder; 2) Many if not most of the principle characters were trained in covert intelligence operations, utilized tradecraft and had direct intelligence agency/network associations; 3) deception and traceable disinformation was utilized; 4) There were, as former Senator Richard Schweiker (R.Pa.) put it, "fingerprints of intelligence" all over the place.

As detailed in the study of the use of the Modus Operandi System, it is not perfect, and is only a tool of investigation that eliminates some and narrows down the number of suspects that should be investigated.

The MO System, when applied to Dealey Plaza, does not tell you who was responsible for the crime, but does provide a method for approaching the crime in a way that can lead to its resolution.

Because Covert Intelligence Operations are conducted in a specific way, and those characters involved were also involved in previous covert intelligence operations, both before and since Dealey Plaza, in Guatemala, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam and Chile, the players and suspects are identifiable if not already known.

Once you view what occurred at Dealey Plaza as an operation, a covert intelligence operation, it doesn't matter what Oswald's role was - lone gunman, co-conspirator or patsy.

Joshia Thompson, a first generation JFK researcher and longtime San Francisco private detective in the Sam Spade tradition, is the author of "Six Seconds in Dallas" and "Gumshoe," that details some of his exploits. Thompson once said that every case he worked on always had a point where a piece of evidence fit the bill, made the case come unraveled and led to its resolution, - except the Kennedy assassination.

Well, I think that point is being reached, not only by me, but by other researchers and writers whose work is coming together, as the previously hidden pieces of the puzzle fall into place, giving us a good picture of what really happened at Dealey Plaza.

I was very disenchanted when I first realized that the crime was not only a complex conspiracy but an even more unfathomable covert intelligence operation that was designed to deceive and remain hidden, and only become visible when they fail, and the Dealey Plaza Operation didn’t fail.  I became disenchanted because I realized that it would take an even more powerful counter-intelligence operation to determine the truth and seek some semblance of justice.

I knew the network responsible for the crime and was getting away with the murder of a president was much more powerful than me or any group I could put together, so I considered the resolution of this crime an unattainable possibility.

Now however, decades later, I can see it happening - the vision comes before reality.

The resolution of the assassination of President Kennedy - to a legal and moral certainty, is now attainable for three reasons - 1) the Power of the Internet gives us a network that makes all knowledge the significant information needed available to us; 2) The JFK Act of 1992 - as it is still in force, legally gives us access to all of the necessary records and evidence in the case; 3) the commitment and perseverance of a small number of very knowledgeable and dedicated independent researchers who are working on this case, many full time. Those three things together wield the power to overcome the intelligence network responsible for the Dealey Plaza operation.

We have the internet network, we have the JFK Act law behind us and we have a dedicated group of individuals who, if they work as a team, can identify, expose and take down the network that was responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza that day.

As I have learned there two types of investigations - criminal investigations and counter-intelligence investigations. Criminal investigations are the kind the police and FBI routinely conduct, the purpose of which is to identify witnesses and evidence that can be introduced into a court of law in a criminal case. On the other hand an intelligence or counter-intelligence (CI) investigation does not need to abide by the laws of the land or what can and cannot be introduced in court as evidence, and can do whatever it must to determine the truth, including tap phones, search through trash, break and enter homes and offices to retrieve information and infiltrate the targets with undercover operatives.

In most CI cases there is no documentary trail mainly because top secret means and methods have been used to catch the culprit, and the case never goes to trial.

Just as Bill Simpich recognized that what happened at Dealey Plaza was a covert intelligence operation, and we must approach it and look at the assassination as such an operation, regardless of the role of the accused assassin.

Russ Baker says that his group of Baker Street Irregulars are conducting a Counter-Intelligence operation, and that's how we must perceive the unraveling of the truth of what happened in Dallas that day.

They - the Opposition, the intelligence network responsible for the assassination, conduct such CI operations all the time, sometimes against us.

The Dealey Plaza Clean-up crew reveal themselves sometimes - as they had infiltrated and compromised every major investigation criminal or otherwise, into their operations, including the Warren Commission, putting James Jesus Angleton as the point man for the CIA. Then there’s Dallas Police Department (Whose Special Services Division consisted mainly of US Army Reservists affiliated with the ACSI), the Secret Service, the FBI, the Dallas Grand Jury, the New Orleans Grand Jury, and the New Orleans District Attorney's office (recently released records show that one of the infiltrating agents was sent to Canada in the Witness Protection Program).

The New Orleans Grand Jury foreman was an informant, and while I don't know of the Church Committee investigation, I'm sure if you look at their internal office records you will find some suspicious persons, as many of their records are missing. But the clincher is the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) where former CIA officer George Joannides was called on to handle and compromise that investigation, and did so admirably.

So in a sense, as we consolidate our research and knowledge of the case, and prepare legal maneuvers, we won't have to go to them, eventually they will come to us.

PART ONE – THE DIVINE SKEIN AT DEALEY PLAZA

Former CIA director Allen Dulles brought a book with him to the first meeting of the Warren Commission.

"American Assassins" by Robert Donovan, portrayed most American political assassins as deranged lone nuts, as opposed to the more rational and ideological European assassins.

Donovan had previously wrote "PT 109," about President Kennedy's World War II exploits in the South Pacific that was made into a major motion picture, and his book on American assassins was popular at the time.

But Warren Commissioner John McCloy took exception to Dulles' suggestion that American assassins were all lone nut cases, pointing out the fact that Lincoln was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy, and a number of people were tried and hanged for their roles.

If Dulles was more interested in the truth rather than promoting the false suggestion that JFK was a victim of a deranged lone nut case, he would have passed around copies of his own then recently published book - "The Crafts of Intelligence," reportedly ghost written by Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt.

In his own book, Dulles details the means and methods used by intelligence networks, crafts that have been used for thousands of years, and as he explains, were first described in one of the oldest books known to man - Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."

In a chapter of "The Art of War" Sun Tzu describes the five different types of spies and secret agents - inside, native, living, double and expendable, each with a different role in the "skein," or net, a network of spies.

According to Sun Tzu, when all five types of agents are working in tandem together, they are "the treasure of the sovereign," and known as "The Divine Skein," - the Divine Net, as what they accomplish appears to be divine intervention and an act of God, unrecognizable by ordinary mortals who don’t know the trick or how the game is played.

Before JFK was killed a pamphlet was distributed in the Cuban community of Florida that said that an "Act of God" would put a Texan in the White House, a Texan who was friends of the Cuban people, one of dozens of black propaganda incidents that confirm the fact that whatever it is you believe as to what happened at Dealey Plaza, it was the result of a covert intelligence operation that utilized standard disinformation tactics to protect those actually responsible.

As Max Holland, in his book "The Assassination Tapes," quotes LBJ as saying that the assassination of JFK was "divine," implying it was an act of God, and LBJ was called the "accidental" president, as his murder was the result of a divine coincidence.

The head of French Intelligence once said that the assassination of President Kennedy was like a magic trick, complete with smoke and mirrors.

“President Kennedy's assassination was the work of magicians. It was a stage trick, complete with accessories and false mirrors, and when the curtain fell the actors and even the scenery, disappeared. But the magicians were not illusionist but professionals, artists in their own right.”

                 -    Attributed to French Intelligence officers – Philippe de Vosjoli or M. Andre Ducret –in “Fairwell America”

THE STING AT DEALEY PLAZA

General William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency (NSA) and previously the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) of the US Army, said that the best covert operators are like the movie "The Sting."

In his book “Intelligence Wars – American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda,” Thomas Powers relates a story of how met General Odom, at a birthday party for retired intelligence officer Haviland Smith. As Smith's mentor General Odom was the former Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) and later the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdroppers, where he worked with former Army intelligence analyst John Newman.

Odom asked Powers, “Should the Army be trying to run agents at all?”

Well, since the CIA is not legally permitted to operate domestically in the United States, and the Army does, especially the National Guard, the Army was especially active running intelligence and undercover agents during the Civil Rights riots and against anti-Vietnam War activists. Since the Army does so, it’s a mute question of whether they should be doing it.

In the course of the party Thomas Powers asked Odom another question - “What makes a good case officer?”

Odom thought for a second and then answered the question with a question of his own: “Did you see that movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman – The Sting?”

“That's it!” said Odom, “the con!”

The Big Con

Which clearly indicates that Odom took classes in covert intelligence operations with Paul Linebarger at the Center for International Studies.

The assassination of President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza was not an accident, not the act of a deranged loner nor a magic trick or an act of God, but rather was a very distinct and successfully executed covert intelligence operation, and pulling off a Big Con is how they did it.

The idea of the intelligence network - the means, methods and mechanisms of covert operations and the crafts of intelligence are now well known, though they weren't in 1963. Though people were aware of complex confidence games and how con artists work, and were leery of them, even though, as they say, “You can’t cheat an honest man.”

In fact such intelligence networks and covert operations are patterned on the Big Con confidence games of the early 20th century, as portrayed, as Odom suggests, in the movie "The Sting.”

In his book - “Portrait of a Cold Warrior,” Joseph Smith writes about the part of his training as a CIA agent that included taking classes with Professor Paul Linebarger, of the Center for International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. The classes on covert operational methods and techniques were taught at Linebarger’s home in Washington D.C.

Smith relates how Linebarger not only used his own classic text book “Psychological Warfare,” that delineates various levels of propaganda from white to black, with black being clearly though falsely identified as originating from the opposition.

Smith wrote: Black propaganda operations, by definition, are operations in which the source of the propaganda is disguised or misrepresented in one way or another so as not to be attributable to the people who really put it out. This distinguishes black from white propaganda, such as news bulletins and similar statements issued by one side in a conflict extolling its successes, of course, or other material just as clearly designed to serve the purposes of its identifiable authors….the United States was faced everywhere with an enemy that was using an untold array of black propaganda operations to undermine the nations of the world in order to present us with a fait accompli one fine morning when we would wake up to find all these countries under Communist control. Hence, it was vital to understand all about such operations from a defense standpoint if nothing else.

Paul Linebarger’s was a seminar in black propaganda only. He loved black propaganda operations probably because they involved the wit-sharpening he loved to talk about. Also, he was so good at them that his was one of the inventive minds that refined the entire black operations field into shades of blackness. Linebarger and his disciples decided that propaganda that was merely not attributable to the United States was not really black, only gray. To be called black it had to be something more…This left the term black propaganda for a very special kind of propaganda activity. Black propaganda operations were operations done to look like, and carefully labeled to be, acts of the Communist enemy.

Not only was the attribution given the source of the propaganda activity used as a criterion for defining what kind of propaganda it was, but equally important was the kind of message used…Black propaganda operations, being attributed to the enemy, naturally did not (support US policies). In fact, black propaganda, to be believable, supported the enemy’s positions and openly opposed those of the United States….

Besides classes in propaganda, Linebarger also had his students read David Maurer’s book “The Big Con,” also published as “The American Confidence Man,” that gave good insight into how case officers could run operatives and conduct successful covert operations.

David Maurer’s book, originally a linguistic text on the unique language and slang of thieves, con artists and confidence men, led Maurer to uncover and detail the inner workings of the Big Con, and that was the basis of the script for the movie “The Sting,” as referenced by Odom.

Just as linguist David Maurer learned the secrets of the Big Con through the study of the unique language of the con artists, we can only learn the means and methods of the covert operators by learning the terminology they use in crafting their covert operations - the Lingo of Dealey Plaza.

As Smith wrote: “I want you all to go out and get a copy of David Maurer’s classic on the confidence man. It’s called ‘The Big Con,’ and its available now in a paperback edition,” Paul continued. “That little book will teach you more about the art of covert operations than anything else I know.”

“Your job and the confidence man’s are almost identical…Of course, your motives and those of the confidence men are different. He wants to fleece his mark out of his money. You want to convince a Chinese, Filipino,…a Thai, that what you want him to believe or do for the good of the U.S. government is what he thinks he himself really believes and wants to do.”

“Maurer’s book will give you a lot of ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they’re no use to you any longer. Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all.”

"We were all soon reading 'The Big Con,' The tales it told did, indeed, contain a lot of hints on how to do our jobs. For me one sentence seemed to sum it all up beautifully, “The big-time confidence games,” wrote Maurer, “are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast EXCEPT THE MARK knows his part perfectly.” 

He had two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wished us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow. One was Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, the OPC station chief in Manila, and the other was E. Howard Hunt, the OPC station chief in Mexico City. Both of them had what is called “black minds,” and the daring to defy bureaucratic restraints in thinking up and executing operations. He had a number of stories to tell about the exploits of both….

 A note of caution that Linebarger added to these discussions of black operations sounds like a bell down the years. He would explain, after someone had come up with an especially clever plan for getting the Communists completely incriminated in an exceedingly offensive act, that there should be limits to black activities.

“I hate to think what would ever happen,” he once said with a prophet’s voice, “if any of you ever got out of this business and got involved in U.S. politics. These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would come apart.” 

Well these kinds of dirty tricks were used before Watergate, including what happened at Dealey Plaza, and the whole system came apart.

The Argot of Dealey Plaza - How to define and talk about what happened there.

It now should be established and accepted as a fact that the Modus Operandi (MO) of the assassination of President Kennedy was not that of a deranged loner, but rather that of a covert intelligence operation.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (covert ops) is "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor."

Just as David Maurer learned the peculiar language of the confidence men and con artists before he understood the inter working mechanisms of the Big Con "Sting," we have to decipher and learn the intelligence terminology of the covert action operators to come to an understanding of the Dealey Plaza Operation.

David Maurer: “Over a period of years I have explored the secret and semi-secret communications system of professional criminals…Very early I discovered that the technical language of criminals, which is called ‘argot,’ cannot be studied in terms of language alone. These speech-systems have to be viewed in light of the subcultures which produced them….In other words, before one can write about criminal argot, he must learn how professional criminals live…”

One of the unique attributes of covert intelligence tradecraft is to give the mission an operational code name - the 1954 Guatemalan coup was Operation Success, and while those few who planned it used another name, I refer to it as the Dealey Plaza Operation (DPO).

Because, as we have learned from Joseph Smith and Paul Linebarger, some of the psych war and covert intelligence operational techniques developed by the Army and CIA came from the criminal underworld, whose argot was chronicled by linguist David Maurer, some of the terminology as well as techniques are interchangeable.

Just as the Big Con games had the Inside Man, the star of the show, the covert operators had their Inside Men, Outside Men, Spotters, Ropers, Fixers and the Big Store itself.

As in the Big Con Sting, the Inside Men are the best of the lot and run the show. CIA men such as Allen Dulles, Ted Shackley, Desmond Fitzgerald and Richard Helms were the best Inside Men, and they had their Big Store - JMWAVE.

The largest CIA station in the world at the time - at the University of Miami, went by the cover of Zenith Technological Enterprises, as US Army Ranger Bradley Ayers describes in his books "The War that Never Was" and "The Zenith Secret."

As Ayers describes it, they set it up just like the Big Con artists set up a Big Store as a fake gambling joint or stock broker's office.

 "Monday morning we met the station chief, Ted Shackley," Ayers wrote. "As we sat in his outer office, waiting a little nervously, I saw they had missed no detail in setting up the false front of Zenith Technological Enterprises. There were phony sales and production charts on the walls and business licenses from the state and federal governments. A notice to salesman, pinned near the door, advised them of the calling hours for various departments. The crowning touch was a certificate of award from the United Givers' Fund to Zenith for outstanding participation in the annual fund drive."

The Inside Man, like Paul Newman's Gondorf in "The Sting," must be a good actor and polished professional with charisma, as Ted Shackley and Desmond Fitzgerald clearly fit that persona.

The Inside Men seldom leave the office, and handle administrative and bureaucratic affairs as well as devising the game plans and pulling the strings of the street operators, that he does through his Outside Men - the covert operators, case officers and their agents and assets.

Gordon Campbell, the mysterious JMWAVE chief of Maritime activities (until he died), once told Ayers, "The fewer people out there (at a remote training base) the better....My Outside Man Karl will help you with logistics..."

The Outside Men are a bit more crude and street wise than the prim and polished Inside Men. Guys like William Harvey, David Morrales and George Joanedes dealt directly with the Cubans and mobsters, and utilized many of the same techniques as well as the lingo of Con artists. 

Codes, ciphers, false flags, black propaganda and putting in the fix are utilized by both the con artists and covert operators, so an understanding of one gives insight into the other, as Paul Linebarger taught his psych war students.

Acronyms, aliases, pseudonyms, code names and ciphers are all keys that must be deciphered and understood before you can even begin to read many of the CIA cables and memos that use them.

Lists of such items that have been deciphered by veteran researchers like John Newman, Bill Simpich, Malcolm Blunt, Larry Hancock, Jerry Shinley and Rex Bradford are filed at the Mary Farrell web site where many of the released records are also posted on line for easy access.

As Malcolm Blunt recently noted: “Better we should look at the documents being released and work on what I’m sure to most is irrelevant minutiae. Although most of these releases are going to be absolutely meaningless to Post and Times reporters, really we are being given missing pages from an incomplete dictionary. Agency cryptonyms, pseudonyms, internal systems and management. Very valuable.”

CIA Cryptonyms at Mary Ferrell:  https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php

Glossary and Acronyms: Glossary and Acronyms — Central Intelligence Agency

Spy Museum Language of Espionage: Language of Espionage · International Spy Museum

Urban Dictionary: CIA Urban Dictionary: CIA

MLK at Mary's Cafe - As the Story Unfolds

MLK at Mary's Café and Camden - By William Kelly


753 Walnut Street, Camden, N.J.

Atlanta, Selma, Birmingham and Memphis are all places that are associated with Martin Luther King, Jr.; But Maple Shade and Camden, New Jersey were not, until now.

In June 1950, a young seminary student named Michael King signed his name to a legal complaint against a Maple Shade, New Jersey bar owner for refusing to serve him and listed his legal residence as 753 Walnut Street, Camden.

More than 65 years later, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Camden residence has been saved from demolition—thanks in large part to the efforts of local car salesman Patrick Duff, an amateur historian who documented of the home’s historic significance. The two-story, attached house in one of Camden’s most blighted neighborhoods was to be razed; instead, the city has given the house historic designation and a movement is afoot to restore the structure and turn it into a civil rights museum.

King lived on and off in the nondescript Camden house from 1950 to 1951, while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

His Camden residency had been all-but forgotten until Duff, investigating an unrelated matter, happened upon the legal complaint signed by the future Civil Rights leader following the June 1950 incident in nearby Maple Shade.

Duff’s first clue was a newspaper article describing how King and his Camden roommate, fellow Crozer student Walter McCall, and two other individuals were refused service and at gun point were tossed out of Mary’s Place, a Maple Shade bar on what is now a Route 73 clover leaf. King and his companions went to the local police station and filed a civil complaint against the owner of the bar Ernest Nichols, a German born immigrant who had served in the German army during World War I and was married to Mary, who gave the bar its name.

It is believed the Maple Shade incident is the first time King took legal action in the name of civil rights. Renown Camden doctor Wiggins, and a NAACP lawyer and Camden prosecutor helped King pursue the case, which was dismissed after the bar owner pleaded guilty to one of the two charges and paid a small fine. Nichols was represented by a well-known Burlington County lawyer whose obituary mentions the incident. While King was not famous at the time, the lawyer said he heard King respond to the question of why he made civil rights a part of his ministry by saying the incident in New Jersey sparked his interest in the issue.

Mary’s Place was purchased by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and torn down several years ago, but through Duff’s efforts, an historic marker will be placed at the site.

As for the Walnut Street house, Duff’s research led him to Jeannette Hunt, a cousin of McCall’s and the current owner of the now boarded-up building, once owned by her father-in-law. She recalls King and her uncle Walter McCall living in an upstairs room at the house when she was a little girl.

Armed with the legal documents and news clippings, Duff sought to convince the city that the house should be preserved. His work got the attention of Camden mayor Dana Redd and local Congressman Donald Norcross, both of whom wrote letters to the state requesting the historical designation. John Lewis, a Congressman from Georgia and a close friend and associate of King’s, also expressed support. All three spoke at a press conference in September 2017 in front of the house calling for its preservation. 

“This place of historic real estate must be saved for generations unborn,” said Lewis. “Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t just help change America; he helped change the world.”

The New Jersey state Senate passed a resolution 36-0 urging the home be placed on the state historic registry; the city of Camden gave the house the historic designation needed to obtain the funds to restore it; and the Coopers Ferry Partnership assumed title of the property to ensure its preservation. The attention also led to the cleanup of Walnut Street and the clearing of an adjacent lot. “It looks like a different street,” says Duff, somewhat bewildered that his hard work is bearing fruit.

Since then the Coopers Ferry Partnership received a six figure grant to work on the property, but never announced it or used it, and state gave Stockton University over $20,000 to study the facts and determine if MLK actually lived in Camden at all.

In the meantime the roof of 753 Walnut was falling in and some neighbors fixed it on their own.

Then the Stockton "study" failed to interview any living witnesses and only reviewed the published literature and what Duff had sent them. They concluded that the lack of any published references to King's time in Camden went against the possibility of him living there as a residence, but given all the known facts that he stayed there is the most probable alternative. Not a great endorsement that would enhance the NJ state historical certification needed.

Then Duff located yet another newspaper article from the 1980s that quotes one of the residents of 753 Walnut, a young man at the time who had joined the Army, who said that it was his bedroom in the back of the second floor where King and his cousin lived while he was away in the service.

In fact, it was the day he returned in June 1950 when King said they were going to a place in Maple Shade for something to eat, a place known for its good sandwiches. The returning vet warned King not to go as blacks were not welcome there, but King replied, "We have to change that so we can go anywhere."

So this newly discovered report, not included in the Stockton study, clearly indicates King and his friends didn't just stumble on Mary's Place, as was previously assumed, they went there expecting they would be denied service, and were prepared to do something about it.

Now the city of Camden, the state of New Jersey, Stockton University and Coopers Ferry Partnerships should end their hesitation to move on this and properly designate the property as historical, budget the money to restore and preserve the building, and establish the civil rights museum and center that deserves to be there.

— William E. Kelly

Kelly Declaration AARC v. CIA Re: Detailed Study of Hitler Plot

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

____________________________________

ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES AND        :

RESEARCH CENTER                                 :

Plaintiff                                                         :

v.                                                                    :            Civil Action No. 17- 00160(TNM)                    

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY     :

 Defendant.                                                    :                                                            

  __________________________________  :          

Declaration of William E. Kelly, Jr.

     I hereby declare and state that:

1. I am a journalist, historian and author of two published regional history books, who has spent considerable time, since 1969, tracking down and interviewing JFK Assassination witnesses.

2.   In the course of my research in January 1995 I interviewed Volkmar Schmidt over the telephone, a conversation taped with his permission and subsequently transcribed and posted on the internet.

3.   In that interview Schmidt told me that he hosted a February 22, 1963 party at his Dallas residence for the expressed purpose of introducing Lee Harvey Oswald to Michael Paine.

4. While Michael Paine did not attend that party, his wife Ruth Hyde Paine did and met Oswald’s Russian wife Marina, and they became close friends until the day of the assassination.

5. At the same party Volkmar Schmidt said he had an extended 2-hour conversation with Lee Harvey Oswald in which he used a “reverse psychology” technique taught to him by his surrogate father, doctor Whilhelm Keutemeyer, professor of psychosomatic medicine at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. 

6.   Keutemeyer, Schmidt said, had two associates who were part of the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler, Herr Von Halen and dr. Adam von Trott zu Solz, both executed for their roles in the plot.

7. Schmidt admitted mentioning the July 20, 1944 plot to Oswald and suggested right wing General Edwin Walker should be killed, much like Hitler should have been.

8.   Not long after their conversation Oswald purchased a rifle through the mail using the alias “Hidel” traceable to him when he could have bought an untraceable weapon at any Dallas sporting goods of department store with no identification.

9.   Oswald is accused of taking a shot at Walker through a window at his home on April 10, 1963, a shot that missed, with the remains of the bullet in the Kennedy Collection at the National Archives. 

10.  Shortly after the Walker shooting Oswald relocated to his hometown of New Orleans where he got a job and an apartment while his wife Marina resided with Ruth Hyde Paine in Irving, Texas, before Ruth H. Paine drove Marina and the rifle to New Orleans.

11.  CIA Cuban Desk chief Desmond FitzGerald, looking for disenchanted Cuban military officers or anyone close to Castro, met with Dr. Rolando Cubella Secades (AMLASH) to encourage him to kill Castro, and another CIA case officer met with Cubella in Brazil on September 7, 1963.

12. On September 7, 1963 Fidel Castro visited the Brazilian embassy in Havana and denounced US backed commando raids and attempts to kill Cuban leaders, as reported in an Associated Press dispatch published on September 9, 1963, ostensibly read by Lee Harvey Oswald in the New Orleans newspaper. 

13.  In September 1963 Ruth Hyde Paine visited her relatives, including her husband Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young - a close personal friend and traveling companion of Mary Bancroft.

14.  During World War 2 Mary Bancroft worked closely with Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer Allen Dulles in Switzerland and they were closely associated with Nazi military intelligence officer Hans Bernd Gisevius, a major participant in the failed July 20, 1944 plot, assisting him in his escape from Germany. 

15.  While visiting the Youngs in September 1963, Ruth Hyde Paine wrote to the pregnant Marina in New Orleans suggesting she return to Texas and live with her in Irving until the baby is born. For her response Marina was instructed to write to her in care of “Arthur Young – Paoli, Pa.”. 

16.  Marina accepted and on September 24, 1963 Ruth Paine left the Young’s farm and drove to New Orleans, picked up Marina and the rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City.

17.  The following day, September 25, 1963, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chaired by Air Force Chief of Staff General LeMay (while General Taylor was in Vietnam), met at the Pentagon where they were briefed on CIA covert operations in Cuba by Desmond FitzGerald.

18.  A memo/ minutes of the meeting was written by Col. Walter M. Higgins, Jr., assistant to General Victor H. Krulack, who was SACSA – Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities. In his memo Higgins wrote that FitzGerald reported that the CIA was preparing a “detailed study” of the July 20, 1944 plot against Hitler to be adapted for use against Castro in Cuba. Higgins wrote that FitzGerald, “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 were 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.” (emphasis added).

19.   In October 1963 Ruth Hyde Paine helped Oswald obtain a job at the Texas School Book Depository, a building owned by D. H. – David Harold Byrd, a close personal friend of Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay, who chaired the September 25, JCS meeting at the Pentagon. 

20.   On November 22, 1963 D. H. Byrd was in Africa on a safari with Werner von Alvensleben, a German hunter who wrote an essay in support of the July 20, 1944 coup plotters and whose father was identified in an OSS document as an “assassination specialist.” Werner von Alvensleben’s favorite rifle was a Mannlicher-Schonauer, the Greek version of the Mannlicher rifle allegedly used in the assassination of President Kennedy.  In December 1963 von Alvensleben visited Byrd in Dallas. 

21.   On November 22, 1963 at the time of the assassination, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were meeting with the German General Staff that included two former Nazi officers who were directly involved in the July 20, 1944 plot, including Gen. Hans Speidel and Gen. Adolf Heusinger.

22.   D. H. Byrd later told friends, including the president of the Dallas Morning News, that he had removed the southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, from which he believed the shots that killed the president to have originated, and displayed it in his home with his animal trophies, “where it became the centerpiece of many social gatherings”.  

23.  The request for these records are not broad, but very precise, and they should be looked for among the records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Asst. Army Sec. Joe Califano, Gen. Krulak’s papers, the files of Desmond Fitzgerald and Rolando Cubella, as well as any of those involved in planning for the covert operations in Cuba in 1963. When the CIA says that the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler “is being studied in detail to develop an approach,” to kill Castro, then it is impossible for there to be no documentary record of this “detailed” study.  And considering the numerous other associations between the July 20, 1944 plot within the JFK assassination narrative, its significance cannot be over stated.

      I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed on November 12, 2017.                 _____/s/ William E. Kelly, Jr. ____(Signature)

The Plots Against Hitler by Danny Orbach

The Plots Against Hitler (Eamon Dolan/ Houghton Mifflin 2016) by Danny Orbach of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs - (p. xv):

“Guilt, no other word carries so much significance when considering German history. Even the drama of July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler, staged by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and his confederates in the anti-Nazi resistance movement, is fraught with guilt and a maelstrom of other emotions, which we view through the thick fog of myth and memory.”

“The story of the anti-Nazi underground in the German army and its various attempts to assassinate Hitler has been cast and recast in books, movies, screenplays, and TV shows. That is hardly surprising, as the story contains elements of a thriller: nocturnal meetings in frozen fields; the elaborate drama of military conspiracies; bombs hidden in briefcases and liqueur bottles; and the dramatic day of July 20, 1944, with its abortive assassination and final, desperate attempt at a coup d’etat.”

“In ten-years of research prior to the publication of Valkyrie, my Hebrew-language monograph on the resistance, I examined every primary and secondary source I could find. My research took me to some thirteen archives in Germany, England, Russia and the United States. At times I was shocked by my own findings...The representation of the resistance by such scholars is often a caricature, a ‘crooked mirror’ that teaches us more about the political bias of the scholars than about the German resistance itself.”

“The story of the German resistance conspirators, however, was essentially a military one…Previous studies have tended to focus on groups or individuals in the resistance, but almost none of them, as far as I have been able to establish, have adequately analyzed the interactions between members of these groups….How did the conspiratorial networks operate in reality, and how did different leadership styles affect the outcome of plots and their chances of success? Most importantly, we shall see how certain individuals, whom we shall call brokers and connectors, kept the networks alive by ensuring that information flowed within them.”

“In addition, we shall deal with the complexities involved in the decision of the German resistance fighters to assassinate Hitler. On the one hand, such an action offered the enormous temptation to change the course of history with one stroke. On the other, murdering one’s sovereign leader was, for most conspirators, ideologically, legally, and morally problematic. How did the leaders of the resistance, devout Christians as they were, justify the killing of their hierarchical superior, to whom they swore an oath of allegiance?”

"A particularly important source is the almost inexhaustibly rich trove of documents collected by the late professor Harold C. Deutsch and preserved among his papers at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pa."

Orbach discusses Marinus van der Lubbe - a Ditch citizen who was blamed for the Reichstag fire and was considered by many to be, like Oswald, a patsy framed for the crime.

"The only model that could work for a coup d' etat under totalitarian conditions would be an elitist underground with access to arms, and a very limited number of powerful members."

"In this book, the network structure of the German resistance movement, guided by the rule of revolutionary mutation, has been discussed."  

 “Until that fateful day, Stauffenberg and his coconspirators had been preparing, down to its last detail, the coup d’etat’s operational plan. They treated it – as they were trained to – as staff work, and applied careful concealment procedures.”

“When Beck, for example, visited Olbricht for consultations, he took pains to shake off Gestapo agents on his tail. First, he went to the train station and waited on the platform as if he were going to take an express train. When the train came, he sneaked into the tunnel between the platforms and took an exit to a side street, where Olbricht’s son-in-law, Fredrich Georgi, was waiting in a military vehicle. Likewise, Olbricht followed strict procedures when meeting Gisevius….”

Ah Gisevius. A key agent and operative of Allen Dulles and his cohort Mary Bancroft, who controlled Gisevius out of Switzerland.

“Originally the Valkyrie orders were designed to reinforce the eastern front in case of a sudden military collapse. Valkyrie II, a revision drafted by Olbricht’s office in the spring of 1942, authorized the Home Army to promptly deploy its units locally in case of a paratrooper attack, an uprising of foreign workers, or another emergency inside the Reich. On July 31, 1943, Olbrich dramatically revised the orders for the purpose of the coup d’etat. According to the revision, which was duly authorized by General Fromm, the commander of the home front had the authority to deploy not only his own troops but all detachments and soldiers within reach, including military schools, personnel on leave, and units in training and reorganization. They were to be organized within six hours into combat detachments and to be moved as quickly as possible, using all available means, wherever they were needed. All other existing security measures and plans were to be carried out exclusively in accordance with Valkyrie.”

“By carefully redrawing the plan along these lines, the conspirators, whose bastion was the Home Army, secured for themselves unlimited control over the Wehrmacht in Germany, most importantly in the Greater Berlin area. They also took care to practice, drill, and rehearse the plan multiple times in different military districts to improve performance and, above all, the reaction time of the troops. Wisely, it was decided that ‘the preparations must be carried through as secretly as possible. By no means should authorities or individuals outside the Wehrmacht be informed about the intentions or the preparations.’ The idea was, of course, to keep the prying eyes of the SS, Gestapo and SD away from the plans.”

“The leaders of the resistance decided that immediately upon the Fuhrer’s death, the Valkyrie orders would be sent to all Wehrmacht district commanders.”

“Hence, the conspirators of July 20, 1944, failed not because they were dilettantes but rather because they were excessively professional. A military revolt has some elements in common with a military operation, and it presumes a certain kind of ordered, methodical work; but, at the end of the day, it is very different from a military operation. More than order, it requires improvisation, even wildness – an ability to ignore good caution and to leap into the unknown. The conspirators were educated soldiers, not revolutionaries. No one had any training in the art of the coup d’etat….Professionals they were – just not the right profession.”

 “After the execution of Beck, Stauffenberg, Mertz, Olbricht, and Haeften, the Bendlerstrasse was combed by SS teams lead by Skorzeny and Kaltenbrunner. They had the conspirators chained to each other, and brought them to the notorious Gestapo headquarters at Prinz Albrecht Strasse. Many were greeted with beatings…”

“Gisevius was still roaming around Germany. As creative as he was daring, he tried to hide in the most improbably place: Berlin. It seems, though, that for all his resourcefulness, what really helped him was the fact that, unlike those of the others, his personal networks went far beyond the conspiracy. Temporarily, he took refuge with friends while trying to contact the most useful, but also the remotest, part of his network: contacts with the American OSS.”

“Gisevius, as usual, had been luckier than others. While he was hiding in a Berlin safe house, his friends from the American OSS worked to save his life. ‘Good news came from Switzerland for me personally. Help was on the way. I had friends there – and friends helped. A ‘book’ given to intermediaries was to serve as confirmation to me that I could trust the messenger.  A week passed – two, three, four. Then it came.’”

“In addition, Gisevius was informed that help would arrive ‘shortly.’ After months of nerve-racking anticipation, a mysterious women came into the hideout and asked him if ‘everything was all right.’ A few moments later, the doorbell rang again. Gisevius rushed out, only to see a blacked-out car racing away. A package was waiting for him in the mailbox. There, he found a Gestapo ID and a forged passport under the name Dr. Hoffmann, complete with a top-secret document from the Gestapo in Berlin. Gisevius must have been astonished: Dr. Hoffmann, it was written there, was an agent going to perform confidential and important duty in Switzerland. All officials of the government and the party were required to help him as much as they could. Gisevius left for the train station immediately. Resourceful and ruthless as ever, he showed the ID, declared himself a Gestapo agent, and secured a comfortable seat. A few hours elapsed, and he arrived at the Swiss border.”

“In conclusion, the model of connected cliques substantially increased the chance of assassinating Hitler and putting a coup d’etat in motion. However, despite the continuous efforts of talented brokers like Schlabrendorff and Kaiser, the chronic problems of coordination decreased the likelihood of success, even if Hitler was successfully knocked off stage. An improvement in one aspect increased the risk in others.

"Stauffenberg's wheel conspiracy was an attempt to increase both revolutionary autarky and control without damaging overall security. According to the pattern mentioned earlier, the task was difficult, if not impossible. On the one hand, to bolster autarky, there was a need for more confidants and partners. On the other, when the conspiracy expanded, control and security suffered." 

“Stauffenberg tried to square the circle through a unique, charismatic style of leadership and ability to command….Stauffenberg set strict laws of secrecy and compartmentalization to ensure that the arrest of one member would not expose the whole network. The results were mixed.”

“The expansion of the conspiracy decreased control, as expected, but Stauffenberg’s charisma created an illusion of increased control. So great was the illusion that the conspirators believed,…that ‘both the Wehrmach and the civilian population would cheer them along. It never crossed their mind that they might encounter resistance.’ The illusion blinded Stauffenberg to the disloyalty of some officers. When it became clear that Hitler was alive, his power dissolved completely.”