Friday, March 30, 2018

NARA "No comment." Stormy Daniels "Fake News"

NARA: “No Comment”

The National Archives in Washington D.C. 

National Archives has “no comment” on what agencies requested continual withholding of still secret JFK assassination records, will not issue a statement or hold a press conference on the subject.

On Monday, March 26, David Ferriero – the Archivist of the United States, whose public legacy is open government and transparency, gave his recommendations to the President as to what government records on the assassination of President Kennedy should still be continually withheld past the April 26, 2018 deadline set by Trump himself.

Ferriero’s recommendations would be based on the requests from federal agencies as to what records they requested be continually withheld two weeks earlier, another deadline set by Trump that has gone by.

The National Archive and Records Administration (NARA), the agency of government that Ferriero runs, despite acknowledging that the public response to the late November release of records was so great it took their computer servers down, yet they make no mention of these deadlines or the assassination records on their web site.

When the NARA spokesman was asked how many records did agencies request be continually withheld, they said that it would take two weeks to process them, which tells me that there’s more than a few.

When asked what agencies of government requested JFK assassination records be continually withheld, how many records are involved, when will the others be released, and what the Ambassador recommend, they responded:

“The NARA has no comment. We will not be issuing a statement or holding a press conference.”

The White House held televised sessions with the White House press corps every day all week, but not one of them asked a question about what the Archivist of the United States recommended to the President as to what JFK Assassination Records should be withheld. Instead, very session was dominated by questions about Stormy Daniels and talk about describing Donald Trump’s genitalia. How disgusting, when there are real questions that the White House and NARA should be required to answer about the JFK Assassination records.

Is President Trump’s sex life a diversion to take attention away from more serious news? Like what did Ferriero recommend to the President? What agencies of government have requested records be continually withheld? How many documents we talking about?

And when will the NARA release the rest of the still withheld records that are not being requested withheld?

Well someday we will know the answers to those questions.

And now, Trump’s meeting with the Rocket Boy of North Korea is scheduled for April 27, the day AFTER he must decide if he will continually withhold any JFK assassination records, and if so which ones. 

Do you think that story will take the JFK records off the front page and maybe off the news all together?

Well if its sex that the news makers want, here's the X-rated Harlequin Romance version of the assassination.


THE BABES OF DEALEY PLAZA

Whose Sleeping With Whom at the Dealey Plaza Motel 






The Babes of Dealey Plaza


THE BABES OF DEALEY PLAZA

Whose Sleeping With Whom at the Dealey Plaza Motel

FRANK AND JACK HAVE A PROPOSITION 

Last week, when the Archivist had to give his recomendations to the President as to what JFK assassination records should remain withheld past the April 26 2018 deadline, the NARA had no comment and all the White House Press Corps wanted to talk about was Stormy Daniels. 

Since sex sells, and is often a key determiner as to who is connected to whom in a network web, sex is a key link that if positively established, seals a known relationship and connection.

If Playboy Magazine would run a photo feature on this it would be called The Babes of Dealey Plaza.

Of the key paramours of Dealey Plaza, who somehow got entangled in the JFK assassination story, more than a few stand out and in fact, come into play in the overall narrative as pretty significant relationships.

For starters, was Clare Booth Luce?

CLARE BOOTH LUCE 

Apparently she was because when Old Man Joe Kennedy was the US Ambassador to the Court of St. James at the beginning of World War II, his primary paramour was Claire Booth Luce, the wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time-Life. She was there, right in the thick of things when JFK’s father sided with Nevell Chamberlain in his appeasement of Hitler at Munich, in a last ditch effort to keep the United States out of the war in Europe.

Luce went on to become entangled in the JFK assassination story by co-sponsoring, with the CIA, an anti-Castro Cuban commando team run by the CIA out of their Florida JMWAVE station. Luce’s “boys,” as she called them, were featured in a Life Magazine article she wrote about them, and their team leader, Julio Fernandez, called Luce on the night of the assassination to tell her he had a tape recording of the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and other evidence of his support of Fidel Castro.

At the same time his dad was cavorting with Clare Booth Luce, JFK was working in Washington in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) until it became known that his girlfriend at the time, Danish model Ingrid Avid, had accompanied Hitler to the Berlin Olympics and was on good terms with other top Nazi officials and was considered a spy for them. Kennedy was then reassigned from ONI to a desk job at Charleston, South Carolina, where he continued to communicate with Avid, phone conversations picked up by the FBI, and it was only when J. E. Hoover threatned him did JFK break off his relationship with Avid.

While he was President Kennedy had a few affairs, not only with White House secretaries, but mob moll Judyth Cambell, and a Ellen Rometsch, the wife of a German army officer whose affairs with English politicians caused a scandal that took down some politicians because she was a Soviet spy.



ELLEN ROMETSCH before she lets her hair down.

LBJ’s pal Bobby Baker, who hooked JFK up with Rometsch, a waitress at Baker’s Quorum Club, was later quoted by Politico as saying, “She really loved oral sex…She went to the White House several times and President Kennedy called me and said it’s the best head-job he’d ever had, and he thanked me.”

It's a head job all right.

President Kennedy was concerned enough that he would become publicly embroiled in the affair that he asked his Ambassador to England former OSS officer David Bruce, to keep him appraised of the news of the scandal in Britain. Rometsch also reportedly had an affair, arranged by Baker, with Rep. Gerald Ford, who served on the Warren Commission and authorized the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA activities.

Then there’s Judyth Campbell, who married golf pro Dan Exner, and was the key intermediary in the Frank Sinatra – John Rosselli – Sam Giancana trio and President Kennedy.

JUDYTH CAMPBELL EXNER 

Campbell, a startling brunette with a classy style, first dated Sinatra but knew Rosselli and Giancana and became Giancanna’s girlfriend at the same time she was bedding President JFK, primarily at his New York City hotel apartment when Jackie was out of town. She delivered sealed envelopes between JFK and Giancana – who was instrumental in winning West Virginia and Illinois for JFK in the primaries and the election. Kennedy only broke off the relationship when Sinatra fell out of favor and J. E. Hoover warned him that the affair would go public if it didn’t end.

Campbell comes into the assassination story in other ways as well, as an FBI report of a stakeout of her Las Vegas apartment says that they saw it broken into by two young men, Robert and William Hale. In fact they were twins, as their car was traced to their father, former FBI agent Insall Bailey “I.B.” Hale – then working for Dallas defense contractor General Dynamics. The boys weren’t arrested or even questioned about the break in, as their father got them off the hook. They later got into even more trouble though – as one of them acidently killed a daughter of John Connally (I couldn’t make this stuff up).

Then comes the clincher – their mother Virginia Kingsbery Hale – worked at the Texas Employment Commission – and was involved in helping Oswald obtain jobs at the welding company and Jaggers-Chiles-Stoval graphics arts firm, where he allegedly forged the fake Alex Hidel ID and documents.

In April 1961, while Oswald was in Russia, Guy Bannister’s crew of misfits was sent to Houma, Louisiana to retrieve some weapons, ammo and dynamite that was stored in bunker owned by the Schlumberger, a French company directed by Jean DeMenil, one of the White Russians who would take Oswald under their wing when he returned from the Soviet Union. Among those who went on this mission were David Ferrie, Layton Martins, Luis Rabel Nunes - a Cuban who borrowed a laundry truck from the Catholic Welfare Society, Gordon Novel and his wife Marlene Mancuso - who takes their wife with them on a mission? 

Joan Mellen knew Marlene Mancuso, as she writes: "Another of my favorite witnesses was Marlene Mancuso, former wife of Gordon Novel who had infiltrated Garrison’s investigation at the request of Walter Sheridan, Bobby Kennedy’s right hand man. Mancuso told Jim Garrison how Sheridan, under cover as a journalist for NBC, had attempted to bribe her with a job in Los Angeles if only she would lie to Garrison. Sheridan had gone to New Orleans to 'scuttle' Jim Garrison’s investigation. He was one of many.

“'I told Mr. Garrison that I wasn’t going along with any of that,' Marlene told me, as she described the affidavit she signed against Sheridan. Given Sheridan’s connections to Bobby Kennedy and to Herbert J. Miller, Jr., Sheridan wasn’t going to jail, just as he wasn’t going to face charges for bribing witnesses in the Hoffa trial in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Marlene came forward because it was the right thing to do. When I went up to a nursing home in East Feliciana Parish, tracking down Gladys Palmer, whom several witnesses had observed in Oswald’s company during the summer of 1963, Gladys Palmer and Gloria Wilson, Marlene went with me. Gladys’ Ragland sister felt more comfortable talking with someone who was native to Louisiana."

This all deserves mention because Gordon Novel’s wife. Marlene Mancuso, was a real babe, a Miss America beauty pageant contestant – Miss New Orleans, but she didn’t make it to Atlantic City. Her family however, is said to be related to the Mancuso’s Restaurant in the same building that housed Bannister’s office and Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and where Bannister’s bozo crew hanged out when they weren't on a mission.

Bonus points and a feather in your cap for anyone who can come up with a photo of Marlene Mancuso.

And we have a Winner! Gary Shaw gets bonus points and a feather for his cap by providing a nice photo of Miss New Orlenes Marlene Mancuso, that I will post ASAP.

And it wouldn't be a covert crew on a mission without a guy like Andrew Blackmon, an Oswaldian character – ex-USMC who dry fired his Mauser rifle and, on the way back to Bannister’s office with the arms, threw let dynamite from the truck, thinking that was funny. These bozos could not have pulled off the Dealey Plaza operation - a clean, well planned and executed and successful mission, though they somehow got entangled in it. But Blackmon was also good pals with the Air Force Colonel who ran the Silver Dollar emergency communications and command plane that was over Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. 

Then there’s Lee and Marina – Lee Oswald and his Russian wife Marina. Before Marina Oswald dated – the daughter of his Minsk factory foreman, a Russian Jew who immigrated to Russia from South America, where he had previously worked for an American corporation.

Marina raised by her uncle, a MDV – military officer, was familiar with another American defector Robert Webster, and Marina is described in the files recently released under the JFK Act as being a “Swallow,” as in the bird, intelligence lingo for a women who uses her natural attributes to obtain otherwise hard to acquire information, though she has denied it.

Besides Marina, there’s Sylvia Odio and Sylvia Duran, both of whom had intimate relations with key players in the JFK assassination story. In Odio’s case she was intimate with the young and handsome Catholic Priest Father Walter Machann, the patron of the Dallas Cuban community in exile. The good father, who shared the stage with John Martino when Martino was promoting his book, “I was Castro’s Prisoner.” Martino was in on the Bayo-Pawley mission, and expressed foreknowledge of the assassination. Father McChann also played around with other young, impressionable parishioners, including Maryanne Sullivan, whose book Kennedy Ripples was best described as the “Harlequin Romance,” version of the assassination.

Since Sylvia Odio had confessed to Father McChann that two Cubans and Oswald had visited her apartment, and talked about killing the President, after the assassination the Secret Service had Father McChann (then hiding out at a Seminary in New Orleans) call Sylvia Odio on the phone and ask her to identify the two Cubans while a Secret Service agent listened in. [The SS agent said she identified one of the Cubans as Eugenio Cisneros, but later recanted that ID]

Then there is Sylvia Duran, the Mexican national who worked at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, who Oswald dealt with when he asked her for a visa to Cuba, enroute to Russia.


After the assassination it was alleged by Viola June Cobb – another Swallow – this time a CIA one, that Oswald had an affair with Duran and she introduced him to Cuban embassy officials who encouraged him to kill JFK. 

You can read more about June Cobb and her entanglements with the CIA and Castro in John Newman's new series of books on the JFK Assassination - Where Angels Tread Ligtly and especially Countdown to Darkness.


CIA Agent June Cobb 

Among other intrigues, Cobb alleged that the accused assassin LHO attended a twist party hosted by Sylvia Duran that included an American film actor and Cuban embassy personnel - who could have encouraged Oswald to kill the President, as former New York Times reporter Phil Shennon would have you believe.

While Duran herself publicly says that she never met Oswald outside of the Embassy, others who know her say that besides the twist party, Duran privately confessed that she was intimate with Oswald, met him for lunch at Sanborns Restaurant, a place Oswald was known to frequent, and she took Oswald to a very fancy restaurant where he personally met the Cuban Ambassador to Cuba, who encouraged him to kill Kennedy. 

Of course these are all extensions of the black propaganda operation, a very distinct disinformation campaign to frame Oswald and blame the assassination conspiracy on Castro, an aspect of the Dealey Plaza operation that fail and has been exposed, giving us some insight into the intelligence network that was behind the murder. 

It was also alleged that during her violent interrogation by Mexican police Duran admitted she had a sexual affair with Oswald, but she has denied that to journalists who have questioned her.

It is unlikely she had an affair with Oswald but it is possible she was intimate with the American film actor who is said to have attended one of her twist parties, Richard Beymer, the star of the movie West Side Story where he played opposite Natalie Wood.

While Beymer recently acknowledged being in Mexico at the time, attending a film festival and trying to get a visa to Cuba, he doesn’t recall a twist party, - though that is something he would have done. Nor did he recall Sylvia Duran, who he dealt with at the Cuban embassy in his quest, ala Oswald, in getting a visa to Cuba.

In her interviews with reporters – Anthony Summers – Phil Shennon and others, she denied seeing Oswald outside the embassy but acknowledge hosting twist parties, and that at the one Oswald was alleged to have attended, there was an American film actor present, but she refused to name him because he was still alive and she didn’t want to get him involved. So she tried to protect him.

But CIA records recently released under the JFK Act say that the American film actor Richard Beymer requested a visa to Cuba, and CIA wiretaps picked up his phone conversations with Duran.

While Duran tried to protect Beymer, and he failed to recall her by name, CIA documents released in the last batch of records in 2017, indicate that Beymer did know Syliva Duran by name, because after the assassination, while he was still in Mexico City, he called the Cuban embassy, asked for her by name, and asked if she was all right, apparently knowing she was taken into custody by the Mexican police and violently interrogated.

It may be of no significance at all if Duran and Beymer had a twist at a twist party, that may be personal information that has no bearing on the story, except for the fact that Duran tried to protect Beymer from getting involved in all this assassination stuff, and Beymer denied recalling her name at all, when in fact, as another record anayst put it – “he lied.”

Was she trying to protect him and did he deny knowing her personally because of their possible trist, or something more? 

Some of the relationships are key to really understanding the assassination. Like to you think it was just a coincidence that Oswald was sent to request a visa to Cuba from Duran? Or was it a set up? I ask this because, Syliva Duran definitely had an affair of significance with Carlos Lechuga, the former Cuban Ambassador to Mexico who went on to New York to serve as the chief middle-man in the top secret JFK-Castro back channel communications that were in progress at the time of the assassination.

Of all the sparrows in this nest and network, Mary Bancroft is the key link to everything.

While Wiki isn’t a normally a source worth citing, this from Wiki says it all, though they don’t bother to tell you that Ruth Forbes Paine (Young), Mary Bancroft’s best friend and traveling companion, is the mother of Michael Paine, the accused assassin’s chief benefactor.

According to Wiki: Mary Bancroft (October 29, 1903, Boston – January 10, 1997, New York City was an American novelist and spy and a member of the Bancroft family, which at one time owned Dow Jones & Company. In 1942, while living in Switzerland, Bancroft was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, and both worked and had a romantic relationship with Allen Dulles. Her most important work was with Hans Bernd Gisevius, a German military intelligence officer who supplied her with details of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. After the war, Bancroft settled in New York and became a novelist.

Born in Boston and brought up there by her stepgrandfather Clarence W. Barron, Bancroft studied at Smith College in Massachusetts, but dropped out after a year.

During 1926-1932, Mary Bancroft resided in New York City, New York and spent some of that time attending socials at the apartment of her friend from Massachusetts, Ruth Forbes Paine, and Paine's husband, George Lyman Paine Jr. After divorcing her first husband Sherwin Badger she went on a boat trip to Europe in summer 1933 together with her still married - but now separated - friend, Ruth Forbes Paine known more simply as Ruth Paine, where she met a Swiss accountant, Jean Rufenacht, who became her second husband. She moved to Zurich, Switzerland in 1934, where she learned excellent French and German, and became a close friend and student of Carl Jung, who cured her of chronic attacks of sneezing.

Following the US entry into World War II, Bancroft was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, although she was not initially aware of the fact, being asked by a US Embassy contact to write analyses of German policy based on German public sources for Swiss and American newspapers.She was then introduced to (Allen) Dulles in Zurich in December 1942 and went on to have a romantic relationship with him, based on Dulles' proposition that "We can let the work cover the romance, and the romance cover the work." Dulles assigned Bancroft to work with Hans Bernd Gisevius, a German military intelligence officer who supplied her with details of the planned 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler; Bancroft soon developed a romantic relationship with Gisevius too.  After the war, with her relationship with Dulles cooling, Bancroft became close friends with Dulles' wife Clover, who told her she was aware of their relationship and approved. She remained close friends with Clover until the latter's death in 1974.

After the war Bancroft settled in New York and became close friends with Henry Luce….(End Wiki)

Ah, yes, Henry Luce, the publisher of Time-Life whose wife fooled around with Old Man Joe in London and published Clare Booth Luce’s article about her anti-Castro Cuban “boys” who ran commando missions to Cuba, attacked Russian ships in the Havana harbor and had a tape recording of the accused assassin on the night of the assassination. Oh yea, he’s the guy who bought the Zapruder film and suppressed it for a decade.

Bancroft also admitted to bedding Gisevious, the German Gestapo officer who she helped escape from Germany after the failure of the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, which the CIA "studied in detail" to develop a similar plan to use against Castro. 

And it isn’t just the assassination of President Kennedy that these events are entangled with. In her book “Autobiography of a Spy,” Bancroft notes that her first husband worked for United Fruit and they spent a year in Batista’s Cuba, that set the stage for the United Fruit in Guatemala to seek U.S. intervention in Operation Success in 1958. 

And according to Bancroft, her stepgrandfather Hugh Bancroft, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, expressed foreknowledge of the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding, who it is believed, was poisoned in the dining car of a train.

In any case, the intimate relations exhibited by the players in this drama say a lot for understanding the big picture, as we try to put it all together.

And if it is sex that sells the news, then these interlocking relationships should be of interest to more than those who read Playboy or the National Enquirer, and we should pay more attention to the still sealed records that can fill in some of the blanks to these stories. 

                                                                                                

Monday, March 26, 2018

D-Day for Continued Secrecy of JFK Assassination Records

It''s D-Day for the Archivist of the United States David Ferriero, who must inform the President today - Monday March 26, 2018, what government records on the assassination of President Kennedy should remain withheld from the public, as required by the JFK Act and the President. 

Image result for David Ferriero AOTUS
AOTUS David Ferriero and the Constitution 

The Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero is responsible for recommending what JFK Assassination Records should be continually withheld, as set forth in this Presidential Memorandum. 

It was issued on October 26, 2017 -  the day that the The JFK Act of 1992 stipulated that all government records on the assassination of President Kennedy be released in full, twenty five years after the resolution was unanimously passed by Congress and signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush. 

President Bush however, included a rider that gave the President - and only the President the authority to authorize continued withholding of records beyond that date. And after tweeting repeatedly that he would release all the records, after pressure from his chief of staff former US Marine Gen. John Kelly, President Trump issued the following Memorandum          
              :
On October 26, 2017 - President Trump issued 
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Temporary Certification for Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The American public expects -- and deserves -- its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records (records) so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event. Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted. At the same time, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns. I have no choice --today -- but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation's security.

To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days. At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note) (the "Act").

Accordingly, by the authority vested in me as President and Commander in Chief by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby certify that all information within records that agencies have proposed for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act must be temporarily withheld from full public disclosure until no later than April 26, 2018, to allow sufficient time to determine whether such information warrants continued postponement under the Act. This temporary withholding from full public disclosure is necessary to protect against harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.

I hereby direct all agencies that have proposed postponement of full disclosure to review the information subject to this certification and identify as much as possible that may be publicly disclosed without harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations.

Any agency that seeks to request further postponement beyond this temporary certification shall adhere to the findings of the Act, which state, among other things, that "only in the rarest cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection of such records." The need for continued protection can only have grown weaker with the passage of time since the Congress made this finding. Accordingly, each agency head should be extremely circumspect in recommending any further postponement of full disclosure of records. Any agency that seeks further postponement shall, no later than March 12, 2018, report to the Archivist of the United States (Archivist) on the specific information within particular records that meets the standard for continued postponement under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act. Thereafter, the Archivist shall recommend to me, no later than March 26, 2018, whether the specific information within particular records identified by agencies warrants continued withholding from public disclosure….

END OF TRUMP MEMORANDUM

So here we are, Monday 26 March, 2018.

According to the JFK Act and the President’s Oct. 26 Memo, the agencies of government had to inform the Archivist of the US (AOTUS) David Ferriero what JFK assassination records they want continually withheld by March 12, the first day of Sunshine Week – celebrating, transparency, open government and shining a light into the dark corners of our history.

Two weeks ago the NARA said that it would take two weeks to process the requests, and now, two weeks later, we expect to know how many and which agencies requested records be continually withheld, how many records are being requested to be continually withheld, and when they will release those still withheld records that are not being requested to be withheld.

And by the end of the day – March 26, 2018, the NARA should be able to tell us what his recommendations are.

So the President, who is the only person with the ultimate authority to continue to withhold records passed the ball – or hot potato to the AOTUS – David S. Ferriero, who today will make his recommendations as to what JFK assassination records he thinks should be continually withheld.

Who is David S. Ferriero? According to the NARA web site he is a champion of open government.

David S. Ferriero was confirmed as 10th Archivist of the United States on November 6, 2009. Early in 2010 he committed the National Archives and Records Administration to the principles of Open Government—transparency, participation, and collaboration.

To better position NARA to fulfill these goals, Mr. Ferriero initiated an agency transformation in 2010. The transformation restructured the organization and set goals to further our mission, meet the needs of those who rely on us, and find new, creative ways to approach the agency's work.

Openness and access drive NARA's actions in a variety of ways. The agency has embraced a number of social media tools—Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Tumblr, and others—to reach a wider and broader audience. NARA uses this digital engagement as a two-way street. Early in his tenure, Mr. Ferriero celebrated the contributions of "citizen archivists," and he encourages public participation in identifying historical Federal records and sharing knowledge about them….

Previously, Mr. Ferriero served as the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries (NYPL). He was part of the leadership team responsible for integrating the four research libraries and 87 branch libraries into one seamless service for users, creating the largest public library system in the United States and one of the largest research libraries in the world. Mr. Ferriero was in charge of collection strategy; conservation; digital experience; reference and research services; and education, programming, and exhibitions. Before joining the NYPL in 2004, Mr. Ferriero served in top positions at two of the nation's major academic libraries, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, and Duke University in Durham, NC. In those positions, he led major initiatives including the expansion of facilities, the adoption of digital technologies, and a reengineering of printing and publications. Mr. Ferriero earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English literature from Northeastern University in Boston and a master's degree from the Simmons College of Library and Information Science, also in Boston. Mr. Ferriero served as a Navy hospital corpsman during the Vietnam War.

Like me – the AOTUS is a blogger that he updates every few weeks. Here’s the last one he did on the JFK records, but he fails to tell you of the President’s directive to require him to be the middle man between him and the agencies that want records continually withheld.


According to the AOTUS BLOG from the day after the law required the release of all the records, and handed him the ball on recommending what should be continually withheld and what released, he wrote:

The National Archives released 2,891 records on Thursday related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that are subject to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (JFK Act). These records are available for download online.

The President has also ordered that all remaining records governed by section 5 of the JFK Act be released, and thus additional records will be released subject to redactions recommended by the executive offices and agencies. NARA will process these records for release as soon as possible on a rolling basis.

Based on requests from executive offices and agencies the President has allowed the temporary withholding of certain information that would harm national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs. The President also ordered agencies to re-review their proposed redactions and  only redact information in the rarest of circumstances where its withholding “is made necessary by an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

These instructions will allow the National Archives to release as much information as possible by the end of the temporary certification period on April 26, 2018. Following the release yesterday, our website saw nearly 44,000 active users, and our ten most active pages were related to the release of these additional documents.

So it isn’t a lack of public interest in the subject that is not mentioned at all on the NARA web site News, or total silence from their public affairs office.

By the end of this day they should be able to answer a few simple questions:

1)     How many agencies of government requested JFK assassination records be continually withheld?

2)     How many records were requested be continually withheld?

3)     When will the remaining withheld records not requested to be continually withheld be released?

4)     What did the AOTUS David S. Ferriero recommend to the President today?

5)     Why isn’t any of this on the NARA web site under News? 


NARA responded to my questions at 1 pm, Monday 26 March, 2018 with following email: 



""Mr. Kelly - NARA has no comment. We do not intend to issue a press release or hold a news conference at this time." 


The next significant date is Thursday April 26, 2018 when the President must decide what records will be continually withheld.  

Sunday, March 25, 2018

AARC v. CIA Re: The CIA's Detailed Study of the Hitler Plot

AARC v. CIA Re: The CIA’s detailed study of the Hitler Plot to be used against Castro.

Image result for Gisevius at nuremberg ww2

Valkyrie was the code name given to the German military plot to kill Hitler that resulted in the July 20, 1944 bombing at Hitler's "Wolf's Lair" headquarters near Rastenburg in that failed to kill him. A September 25, 1963 memo of the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reports that the CIA was engaged in a "detailed study" of this plot for possible use against Fidel Castro. In August 2012 Jim Lesar and the Assassinations Archives and Research Center (AARC) filed a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) for the CIA records on this study, a case that remains unresolved in court today.

AARC director Jim Lesar recently presented his oral argument on the significance and public interest in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case of Jeff Morley v. the CIA regarding the files of CIA officer George Joannedes (1). It should be noted that Lesar and the AARC also involved in three other related civil cases.

These cases include the decades-old request by the late Carl Oglesby for the US Army files on Nazi general Reinhard Gehlen , David Talbot's request for CIA officer William Harvey's travel records (2), and the six year old request for the CIA’s “detailed study” of the July 1944 plot to kill Hitler that was to be used against Castro.(3)
As Jim Lesar notes on the record I was one of the first to call attention to the relevant document – what I call “Smoking Document (#1), I was also requested to submit to a legal deposition in the case. (4)
The document, known as the “Higgins Memo,” because it was written by Col. Walter Higgins, was released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) under the JFK Act of 1992 (5) and can be located in the records posted by Rex Bradford at the Mary Ferrell web site among the Joint Chiefs of Staff's papers. (6)
This document is Colonel Walter Higgins’ notes of the September 25, 1963 meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when they were briefed on the CIA’s covert operations against Cuba by Desmond FitzGerald.
Higgins was a chief aide to U.S. Marine General Victor H. Krulak, then Special Assistant for Counter Insurgency Activities (SACIA) and responsible for US military assistance to the CIA in the conduct of its covert operations, especially against Cuba. (7)
There are a number of other interesting and significant items mentioned in the Higgins memo that still warrant further research, such as the “Pendulum system” and the letter from McGeorge Bundy that was so secret it had to be silently read and then returned to Roswell Gilpatrick, “who did not want written communication by SACSA, but to put this out orally.” (8) We still don’t know what the Pendulum system was or what was in the secret communication from Gilpatrick and Bundy over fifty years later.

The key item that is being contested in court is the report in the “propaganda field,” in which Higgins quoted FitzGearld as saying that 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.”

The fact that “this plot (was) being studied in detail to develop an approach,” prospectively to be used against Castro unambiguously indicates that the military plot against Hitler was “studied in detail,” and something must have been written down, but the CIA at first contended that they could find no relevant records in the CIA files about the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Later they backtracked and offered one, a propaganda advisory on the twentieth anniversary of the bomb plot, a July 1964 report that recommended how to use the story of the Hitler plot to counter communist propaganda. (9)

James Lesar, Esq. and Dan Alcorn, Esq. were the authors of the legal briefs, and Alcorn has provided additional research contributions that are still being developed. 

In his written argument to the court Jim Lesar contended that the CIA's search for relevant records was inadequate for a number of reasons, including:

“First, CIA has provided contradictory information as to the results of its search, initially claiming it found no records, then withdrawing that letter as it was sent in error, then resending that letter, and finally conducting another search once litigation was initiated that found responsive records….” (10)

Lesar wrote that, “…it is illogical and contrary to history that the CIA has only one record related to the 1944 plot to kill Adolf Hitler, which CIA director (and Warren Commissioner) Allen Dulles was in contact with at the time. The Fact that the one document produced in this case, the Propagandist’s Guide, relates to the twentieth anniversary of the plot to kill Hitler supports the importance of the event. Even an anniversary was important enough to receive written discussion in CIA records, yet we are to believe that a detailed study of the event to develop an avenue to deal with Fidel Castro was not important enough to create records? Nor was any record created about this event in the history of the CIA other than a document related to the twentieth anniversary. Such a result is illogical and contrary to history.”

Indeed, on the July 1954 tenth anniversary, a Washington newspaper reported that the CIA director Allen Dulles had an anniversary dinner with former Nazi officer Hans Bernd Gisevious, who Dulles and his agent and paramour Mary Bancroft, assisted in escaping from Germany with forged documents. At the very least this newspaper item, or other documents related to Dulles and Gisevious should be in the CIA files, as the CIA arranged for Gisevious to come to America after he testified at Nuremberg.

Hans Bernd Gisevious testifying at Nurenberg trials, sending Nazis to the gallows. 

Since the CIA has not disclosed any records of this in their files consider this one from the public record.

The Associated Press headline read: “Key Man in Plot to Kill Hitler Dines Here with Allen Dulles.” (11)

Allen Dulles 

The story reads: “Two men whose countries were at war against each other 10 years ago met here last night to relive in memory the roles they played in the attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944. They were Allen Dulles, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevious, one of the few German conspirators who escaped death when the plot failed. Mr. Dulles invited Dr. Gisevious to dinner for ‘a sort of anniversary party’ recalling one of the most amazing intrigues of World War II.”

“The story began when Mr. Dulles went to Switzerland late in 1942 to organize an American espionage center. In Berne he met Dr. Gisevious, who then was German Vice Consul and actually a member of the Nazi intelligence organization, the Abwehr. Dr. Gisevius was anti-Nazi and convinced, as were many of his countrymen, that Hitler was leading the nation to destruction. He put Mr. Dulles in touch with the anti-Nazi underground and the two men secretly worked together in encouraging the plot that finally was climaxed by the attempt on Hitler’s life.”

“Through Dr. Gisevius, Mr. Dulles was able to keep his government advised of the activities of the German underground which reached high into the German military.”

“Hitler survived the bomb that exploded in his secret headquarters in East Prussia and ordered a blood purge of the conspirators. Dr. Gisevius, then in Germany, hid from Hitler’s agents until Mr. Dulles managed to smuggle forged identification papers to him. Then as, ‘Dr. Hoffman,’ Dr. Gisevius eluded the Gestapo and made his way to Switzerland…”

As I mention in my declaration to the court, one of the direct connections between the 1944 plot to kill Hitler and the assassination of JFK is the fact that Allen Dulles’ assistant and paramour Mary Bancroft was the OSS contact with Gisevius and she went on to translate Gisevius' histories of the Third Reich. (12)

    Mary Bancroft 
Mary Bancroft was also the best friend and traveling companion of Ruth Forbes Paine Young, Michael Paine’s mother, who Michael Paine’s wife visited before picking up Marina and the rifle in New Orleans and taking them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. (13)



Paine's station wagon used to transport the rifle to and from New Oreans and Ruth and Michael Paine

As both Dulles and Bancroft were working for the OSS at the time of the July 20, 1944 assassination and coup attempt against Hitler, perhaps it is not only in the CIA records where they should look for the CIA’s “detailed study” of the Hitler plot, but also in the OSS archives. (14)
In his response to the court Lesar said, “In addition to the explicit references in the Higgins memo, AARC has provided references to the Church Committee investigation and an unrebutted declaration from author William E. Kelly, Jr. as to his findings as to show where the plot to kill Hitler appears in the circumstances surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy." (15)

Some but not all of the dozen or so associations between the Hitler Plot and the JFK Assassination are mentioned in the Kelly Declaration supplied to the court. Further elaboration on them and other developments in this case will appear in another article.
The CIA's contention that there are no other records of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler among the CIA files is preposterous, especially in view of the documents that a "detailed study" was undertaken 
and reported to the Joint Chiefs. 

Lesar stated that: “The documentary record of the Higgins Memorandum evidences the likelihood of more of documentary record than the CIA has provided to date. The Higgins memo records a briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military by the CIA’s head of Cuban activities during a period in which the US relationship with Cuba was one of the highest priority items of the US foreign policy. The CIA’s detailed study of the 1944 plot to kill Hitler in order to develop an approach to Fidel Castro (emphasis added) was therefore one of the most important activities of the US government at the time. Yet the CIA has failed to produce any such records or explain the failure to do so.”
Lesar requested a discovery be conducted to learn exactly what areas of the CIA archives the search included, suggested other places they should look, and in noticing that the CIA’s chief historian David Robarge assisted in this search, asked the court that Robarge be deposed under oath to answer questions as to his knowledge of these records. (16)
Lesar wrote, “the CIA withholds the crucial information that would document its search and results by withholding the contents of five documents that record the search process…AARC must be allowed to take discovery in these searchers and errors, including the deposition of CIA chief historian David Robarge.” (17)
Robarge, Lesar notes, wrote a biography of John McCone, CIA Director at the time of the assassination, and he was consulted in the course of the search for these records, and even searched his own records for any that were responsive to the request. (18)
Lesar also called the court’s attention to President Trump’s propensity to want to release records, especially CIA and assassination records saying, “President Trump has recently utilized the public interest provision of Executive Order 13526 to release Top Secret classified information in other contexts, in particular release of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report on compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.” (19)
“FOIA requires CIA to pursue these compelling leads and information,” Lesar said, “and does not require the AARC to prove (what) CIA has in its possession but cannot find.”
In conclusion Lesar wrote, “Further AARC prays the Court for an order compelling CIA to release to plaontiff the material withheld improperly under exemption claims as set forth above.” 

Amen.

3)     AARC v. CIA – Re: Detailed Study of Hitler Plot to be adapted against Castro – Filed August 25, 2012. It should be noted that DC attorney Dan Alcorn has contributed greatly to developing the research and writing the legal briefs on this case. http://aarclibrary.org/aarc-files-cross-motion-for-summary-judgement-in-lawsuit-against-cia/    / http://aarclibrary.org/doc-26-reply-in-support-of-aarcs-cmsj-opp-to-cias-msj-180220/

5)     JFK Act of 1992 - https:/m/www.archives.gov/research/jfk

6)     Higgins Memo - Mary Ferrell – JCS Records - https://www.dropbox.com/s/sa33xligmx1inlb/JCS mtg 9-25-63 Hitler plot.pdf?dl=0

8)     Pendelum, McGeorge Bundy and Roswell Gilpatrick –  Note last two items. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10296 - relPageId=3&tab=page

“     After the JCS meeting Admiral Riley called Colonel Higgins into his office and read a letter from Mr. McGeorge Bundy which discussed secrecy measures necessary related to Cuba CIA operations. Admiral Riley directed Colonel Higgins to have the nature of this letter put out through SACSA control to SACSA contact points to insure an adequate system for secrecy within the military services. Admiral Riley stated he was returning the letter to Mr. Gilpatric as he did not want written communication by SACSA, but to put this out orally. This was transmitted to Colonel Wyman who will take the action to prepare an appropriate memorandum for the record to be filed with General Ingelido in accordance with further direction by Admiral Riley.”

“General Wheeler, Chief of Staff of the Army, called and questioned us concerning SACSA's access for the knowledge of such operations as mentioned in the McGeorge Bundy letter. I advised him that our Pendulum system was in being but that I would look into it in greater detail to determine that it met the letter as well as the spirit of the memorandum. I stated I believed this was so but had not had reason to do it until this date and therefore did not give him a positive answer at that time.”

10)  No other responsive records – It is logically impossible that the CIA has no documents in all of its archives that relate to the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie Plot to kill Hitler, an incident that directly involved former CIA director Allen Dulles, who celebrated the 10th anniversary over dinner with Has Bernd Gisevious, one of the few plotters who survived the resulting purge, testified against the Nazis at Nurenberg and came to America to work for Dresser Industries in Dallas.

11)  Dulles and Gisevius dine on July 20, 1954 – Washington Star, July 21, 1954. The full AP report is published above.

12)  Bancroft, Mary. Autobiography of a Spy (William Morrow, 1983) Bancroft writes that she was accompanied by Ruth Forbes Paine (Young) on a steamship trip to Europe when she met her husband, a Swiss businessman, which put her in position to assist Dulles during the war. She was the intermediary between Gisevius and Dulles, assisted in Gisevius’ escape from Germany and translated his histories of the Third Reich.

13)  Ford, Gerald. Portrait of the Assassin. (Simon and Schuster, 1965). In this book Ford mentions a letter Ruth Hyde Paine wrote to Marina Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, inviting the pregnant Marina to move in and live with her in Texas until the baby was born. If she agreed, Marina was instructed to write to her in care of “Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa.,” the husband of Michael Paine’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young. She apparently agreed because Ruth H. Paine picked up Marina, the daughter and their belongings (including the rifle) on September 24, 1963, a date coinciding with the CIA briefing of the JCS, and took them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico.

14)  OSS Archives –  https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-226-oss . Among the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Archives is a document that reflects the fact that two OSS officers were to be sent to China on a mission together – G. Walton Moore – the CIA Domestic Contacts Division officer who was George deMohrenschildt’s contact, and Charles Ford – the CIA officer who was said to be assigned to be the cut-out liaison between RFK and the mobsters – John Rosselli and Sam Giancana.

16)  Discovery of CIA search methods and records of the search are included in five records not released, that Lesar requested.


18)  Robarge biography of McCone and DCI McCone and the Assassination of President Kennedy from National Security Archive. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB493/docs/intell_ebb_026.PDF

19)  President Trump – “President Trump has recently utilized the public interest provision of Executive Order 13526 to release Top Secret classified information in other contexts, in particular release of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report on compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”  http://aarclibrary.org/update-doc-26-2-aarc-foia-suit-on-cias-1963-study-of-plots-to-assassinate-adolf-hitler/

20. If you want to support James Lesar and the ASRC you can do so at their web site.

You can also support Mary Ferrell at Maryferrell. Org

You can support Bill Kelly`s research by joining CAPA-HQ.org.