Valkyrie at Dealey Plaza - Revisited

VALKYRIE AT DEALEY PLAZA 

By William Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com)

THE CUBAN CONNECTIONS AND THE PLOTS TO KILL CASTRO

Those who take up a study the assassination of President Kennedy quickly notice that there are many Cuban connections to the murder and most independent researchers eventually recognize that the Cuban angles are the key to understanding the crime.

While Cuba provides common events and recurring characters who figure in the Dealey Plaza drama, the focus has rightly been on the plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The Warren Commission’s ignorance of the plots to kill Castro is often sited as the single most important reason behind the Commission’s failure to determine what really happened at Dealey Plaza. 1.

“We now know to a fairly good degree of certitude what happened,” said former FBI agent Bill Turner. “First of all the motives were piling up – JFK had supposedly withdrawn air cover during the Bay of Pigs, failed to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and proceeded to withdraw troops from Vietnam. JFK was also on a second track to Cuba, which was to secretly carry on negotiations with Castro to bring about a détente. The motives were piling up to the point they had to assassinate him. I think it’s pretty obvious, with the compilations of the information that we have today, that the whole thing, the mechanism of it came out of the allegiance between the CIA and the web of Cuban exiles and the Mafia. They already had an assassination apparatus set up for killing Castro, and they just switched targets, and they killed Kennedy instead.” 2.

Turner’s take – that the mechanism for the assassination of JFK was the same apparatus set up for killing Castro is supported by others, including David Atlee Phillips, who is quoted as stating that, “I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald…we gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro of Cuba…I don’t know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president’s assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt.” 3.

Of the over six hundred documented plots to kill Castro, the ones that are most discussed are the CIA-Mafia plots that began during the Eisenhower administration and were ostensibly terminated in 1962. 4.

Of the many plots to kill Castro, a half dozen or so had direct connections to Dealey  Plaza, 5.

But one of them stands out conspicuously –especially the Valkyrie Plot. The Valkyrie plot was ostensibly based on the July 20, 1944 attempt to kill Hitler and was adapted by the CIA for use against Castro in Cuba. If any of the plots to kill Castro were redirected to kill JFK at Dealey Plaza, the Valkyrie plot is the one. This is an analysis of the Valkyrie Plot and its relationship to the assassination of JFK.

THE VALKYRIE PLOT AT DEALEY PLAZA

Volkmar Schmidt was the first to bring up the subject of the July 20, 1944 Hitler assassination plot when he mentioned it to the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at a private party one evening in February of 1963.  6.

Schmidt said that while growing up in Germany he was best friends with the son of Professor Whilhelm Kuetemeyer, who became somewhat of a surrogate father and mentor. According to Schmidt, Kuetemeyer was also involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, as were two of his associates.

Schmidt explained that it was a reverse psychology technique taught to him by Professor Kuetmeyer that he used on Oswald during a three hour conversation in which he also mentioned the plot to kill Hitler.

 [For entire interview: Volkmar Schmidt  http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html ] 

Kelly: You mentioned General Walker when you talked with Oswald?

Schmidt: Yes, Professor Kuetemeyer told me you know, to deal with people like this who are disturbed, you have to use empathy, be slightly over zealous yourself to link up with them and [bring] that total insanity towards reality. When I heard how hateful he was towards Kennedy and Cuba, which was kind of irrational, I tried to say "hey, there’s something much more real to be concerned about," because I don’t know about Castro, but I know about this Walker, he’s kind of a Nazi, yea? Not so bad as those Nazis in Germany, but I had specifically mentioned to Lee Harvey Oswald, that Walker had given a speech to the students at the Mississippi campus and those guys went off and killed a couple of journalists.

K: So do you think your conversation with Oswald about Walker may have instigated Oswald to take a pot shot at Walker?

S: Yes, he did, and naturally it was a terrible responsibility, and for years when I drove past the underpass I literally had to cry because, you know. But I exonerate myself completely because I had the best intent, embarrass Kennedy, and I certainly didn’t tell him to take a pot shot at him...I may have triggered it. Actually, a few days after I talked with him, he bought his weapons.

As for the association to those in the plot to kill Hitler, Schmidt mentions Professor Kuetemeyer, who "…was certainly, and many of his friends were in the circle of those who tried to kill Hitler, - Stauffenberg, and several of his close friends were executed, and one of the sons of his friends, lived at his house and became and is still a very close friend of mine - Fritz from Holland. Fritz first name Frederick, Von - the symbol of nobility, Von Halen. He was actually arrested before the plot came out. He knew about the plot and was tortured to death. And another gentleman who was involved was Von Trott, a friend of Kuetemeyer."

A few years ago I wrote an article about how some of those individuals involved in this plot to kill Hitler were also entwined with the events at Dealey Plaza, [July 20, 1944 - November 22, 1963] in which I detail the associations between five people who were entwined in both plots – Schmidt, Kuetmeyer, Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft and Hans Bernd Gisevius. 7.

[For full article see:http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/1344

/ http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/july-20-1944-november-22-1963.html]

HANS BERND GISEVIUS, ALLEN DULLES & MARY BANCROFT

Among those involved in the plot to kill Hitler was one Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius, a Gestapo officer who tried to get the OSS officer in Switzerland - Allen Dulles, to help a high level cabal of German military officers eliminate Hitler, broker a separate peace with the Western Allies, and then fight the Russians together. This plot evolved into the operation code named Valkyrie that resulted in the July 20, 1944 bomb explosion at the Fuhrer’s “Wolfschanze” bunker headquarters near Rastenburg, Germany.8.

We know this from Mary Bancroft, the stepdaughter of the founding publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who was Allen Dulles’ agent and mistress at the time, and served as an intermediary between Dulles and Gisevius.

As related in her book “Autobiography of a Spy,” Mary Bancroft was also a close personal friend of Michael Paine’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young. Their friendship dated from the late 1920s when Ruth Forbes Paine was married to New York architect Lyman Paine, one of the founders of the Trotyskite movement in the U.S. and father of Michael Paine. In her book Bancroft recalled her many prohibition era cocktail conversations with Lyman Paine and visiting the Forbes family island off Massachusetts with Ruth.

[For relevant excerpts of Bancroft’s book: JFKCountercoup2: Mary Bancroft "Autobiography of a Spy"  ]

Bancroft and Ruth Forbes Paine were traveling overseas together on an ocean liner when Bancroft met her future husband, a Zurich businessman. In Switzerland, she hooked up with Dulles, became his personal assistant, translated Gisevius’ manuscript, (a history of the Third Reich), and helped support the Valkyrie Plot.

After a number of failed attempts, on July 20, 1944, Col. Claus Schenk Grav von Stauffenberg planted a briefcase bomb under the map table next to Hitler, left the bunker, witnessed the explosion and then flew back to Berlin where he met with Gisevius. Together they drew up press releases to counter Goebel’s propaganda, but when it became clear that the bomb failed to kill Hitler, those implicated were rounded up and executed. But Gisevius escaped, using false identification provided by Allen Dulles, through his personal assistant Mary Bancroft.

Since Hitler survived the explosion and the plot failed, hundreds, some say over a thousand Germans were rounded up and executed, or were given the opportunity to commit suicide, as Field Marshall Erwin Rommel did. For those who say that hundreds of people can’t conspire to keep a secret, the Valkyrie Plot is a good example of a complex conspiracy, a covert operation that almost succeeded, but in failing, led to the execution of many people.

If JFK had not been killed with the fatal head shot, and had survived, a similar investigation, led by his brother, would have quickly uncovered the fact that the alleged weapon was owned by Oswald, who had spent the previous night at the home of Michael Paine, whose mother was best-friends with Allen Dulles’ chief agent in the Valkyrie Plot to kill Hitler. But with Dulles on the Warren Commission, the CIA plots to kill Castro as well as the Paine’s relationship with Mary Bancroft were kept from the Commission.

Chief among Bancroft’s chores for Dulles was to serve as liaison to Hans B. Gisevius, a major player in the Valkyrie Plot.

Unlike the other victims of the failed assassination attempt, Gisevius survived, spending weeks in hiding until he received the identify documents sent to him by Dulles and Bancroft that allowed him to escape to Switzerland. After the war Gisevius testified against other Nazis at Nuremberg and helped send some to the gallows. Then, on a $5,000 a month CIA retainer arranged by Dulles, Gisevius came to America and moved in with Tom Braden, head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division. 9.

When Gisevius came to America he moved in with the CIA’s Tom Braden, while Oswald, upon returning home from the Soviet Union with his Russian wife, fell in with George DeMohrenschildt and a tight-knit community of anti-Communist White Russians, and the Oswald family eventually moved in with the Paines.

Oswald met Volkmar Schmidt at the same February 1963 party set up specifically for the Oswalds to meet the Paines. At the party Schmidt gave Oswald a three hour history lesson, applying the Hitler assassination analogy to General Walker, while Oswald’s wife would meet Ruth Paine, Michael’s wife, who would become the Oswald family's chief benefactor. 10.

Just think, Schmidt asked Oswald, how history would have changed if Hitler had been assassinated? 

It seems the CIA was thinking exactly the same thing at the same time – as reported in an important memo written by Col. Walter Higgins, which details what occurred at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 25, 1963. 11.

That was the day President Kennedy left on his Conservation Tour, Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico City and Ruth Paine drove Marina and Oswald’s daughter to her home in Irving, Texas.

THE HIGGINS MEMO – CIA BRIEFING OF JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

At a September 25, 1963 Pentagon meeting chaired by Air Force General Curtis LeMay, Desmond FitzGerald, the officer in charge of the CIA’s Cuban desk, briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the CIA’s Cuban operations, including one patterned on the Valkyrie Plot.

But the convoluted way in which we come to know about the Joint Chief’s briefing is a lesson in itself. It was gossip columnist Liz Smith who first called attention to it indirectly because of the Tom Cruise movie “Valkyrie.”

Around the same time the 2008 Valkyrie movie came out, Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman published a book “Legacy of Secrecy,” a follow-up on their previous book “Ultimate Sacrifice,” which surmises that the Mafia hijacked one of the CIA plots to kill Castro to assassinate Kennedy. 12.

In one of a number of columns Liz Smith devoted to promoting Waldron’s work, the New York Post columnist mentioned the plots to kill Castro. She said one was specifically designated by the CIA to get some disenchanted Cuban military officers to stage a coup, which would prompt the US government to support the dissident officers once Castro was removed from power, ostensibly by way of assassination.

In her column Liz Smith gave Waldron's “Legacy of Secrecy” a thumbs up when she wrote, "You may wonder why the FBI and CIA withheld information from the committee. By the time of JFK's murder, dozens of (Carlos) Marcello associates had infiltrated a CIA operation code-named AMWORLD, a project started by JFK himself. Writer Waldron revealed this back in 2005. This was the CIA's top-secret plan to cooperate with Cuba's army commander, Juan Almeida, to stage a coup against Fidel Castro on Dec. 1, 1963. That was 10 days after JFK's trip to Dallas.” 13.

The books by Hartman and Waldron, while important in some respects, wrongfully blame the Mafia for killing Kennedy by hijacking the CIA plot to kill Castro, and names Juan Almeida as the leader of the coup, while documents released under the JFK Act clearly show that on the December 1 date in question, Almeida was on a flight to Africa and not in position to lead a coup against Castro. 14.

Smith then wrote: “(The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff even referred to the World War II plot to kill Hitler as their role model for getting rid of Castro. You can see that story told by Tom Cruise in the new movie ‘Valkyrie’).”

I had already pointed out the similarities of common characters at both the Wolf’s Lair and Dealey Plaza, but was quite surprised to learn from Liz Smith’s column that “the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff even referred to the World War II plot to kill Hitler as their role model for getting rid of Castro.”

Since I have both the first edition hardbound and second, expanded softbound versions of Waldron and Hartman’s “Ultimate Sacrifice” and their follow up “Legacy of Secrecy,” which Liz Smith was ostensibly writing about, I carefully searched all three volumes without finding any references to Hitler or the Valkyrie Plot.

I did, however, locate the relevant passage that Liz Smith referred to in another book – Gus Russo’s “Brothers In Arms,” which continues to promote the original cover story of the Dealey Plaza operation – that Castro was behind the assassination. Despite the book’s deceptively false conclusions, this reference is significant. 15.

The reference to the official documentation on this point is buried in a footnote that is referenced from the following paragraph (p. 294):

“….Joseph Califano, of the Pentagon’s Cuban Coordinating Committee, was being pressed by Des Fitzgerald for all the Defense Department intel he could get on key Cuban military officers, scoping for a “mole’ within the regime. Fitzgerald was about to brief the Joint Chiefs and, although Califano was excluded from the meeting on September 25, Des and the Agency were, according to memos later released, studying how German generals had plotted to kill Hitler in order to develop a way to organize high-ranking Cuban officers to kill Castro.”

“At the meeting that day, Des announced that they were having ‘great success’ in finding such officers, and ‘that there were at least ten high-ranking military personnel who were talking to the CIA but as yet [were] not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence [had not] yet developed.”

Thanks to Russo’s footnote, I was able to track down the Higgins Memo in the Mary Ferrell archives and found it to be as close to a smoking document as I have yet seen. While the entire memo is extremely important for more than one reason, and deserves a more thorough and separate analysis, the reference to the plot to kill Hitler is telling.

In his memo, under bullet point 13, Colonel Higgins wrote: “13. He [FitzGerald] commented that there was nothing new in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being studied in detail to develop an approach.”  16.

If the Valkyrie Plot was seriously being studied in detail in 1963 in order to develop a similar “approach” to be used against Castro, the CIA didn’t have to go very far to find some experts who knew about the Valkyrie Plot, as Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft and Hans Bernard Gisevious were all readily available to advise them. Although they were all alive at the time, today we are left only with written reports and documents, some of which were used in the making of the Tom Cruise movie “Valkyrie,” which made an attempt to be historically accurate.

                         VALKYRIE – THE MOVIE & THE PLOT

The movie Valkyrie was not a box office sensation but it was financially successful, it was in the popular mainstream, and it called attention to the German heroes behind the plot, although in Germany Tom Cruise’s Scientology background made it quite controversial.

The movie also garnered favorable reviews, including one by Phil Villarreal, who noted that "There is a certain satisfaction in watching the plot come together. Amazingly it was actually Hitler who signed off on his own potential death warrant by authorizing changes in a contingency plan that set reserve troops into action to suppress a government takeover. Von Stauffenberg and his confederates wanted to use the troops to stifle the SS after Hitler's death." 17.

A generic description of the movie says: “Valkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolph Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country.” It also notes that, “Stauffenberg is stunned to learn that no plans exist on the subject of what is to be done after Hitler's assassination…(He) gets the idea of using Operation Valkyrie, which involves the deployment of the Reserve Army to maintain order in the event of a national emergency. The plotters carefully redraft the plan's orders so that they can dismantle the Nazi regime after assassinating Hitler. …with the rewritten Operation Valkyrie orders signed by Hitler…” 18.

The word “valkyrie” stems from old Norse mythology, and is composed of two words, the noun valr, meaning to be slain on the battlefield, and the verb kjosa, meaning “to chose,”  and refers to female Norse god Valkyrja – the “chooser of the slain,” who decides who dies and wins in battle. 19.

The original Valkyrie plan was designed to deal with internal disturbances in emergency situations, was written by General Friedrich Olbricht, in his capacity as head of General Army Office, and was approved by Hitler.  20.

In The Secret War Against Hitler, William Casey wrote:

“….Inside Germany, Abwehr chief Canaris had persuaded Hitler that the presence of millions of foreign workers required a plan to deal with them if they rioted or revolted. General Friedrich Olbricht, chief of staff at the headquarters of the Home Army inside Germany, had developed the emergency plan, called Valkyrie, not so the Home Army could suppress a possible revolt by foreign workers (that was merely a cover for the Home Army to take over security in Berlin), but so the Home Army could be used to suppress the Nazi party and the Gestapo and seize power throughout the German domain. The code word Valkyrie had only to be promulgated and army units would protect or take over all public facilities, and the command post of the Home Army would have the power to impose martial law with complete authority over all other services, including the SS…”

Indeed, besides some of the same characters being involved in both Valkyrie and Dealey Plaza, specific attributes of the Valkyrie plan can be seen to have been adapted and configured into the Dealey Plaza operation, including having the intended victim actually approve the covert operations that would be used against him (The Rex missions) as well as a Northwoods-style false flag variation to blame the assassination on the others (Oswald and Castro).

During World War II the German conspirators convinced Hitler to alter the contingency plans for a national emergency, what we now know as the Continuity of Government (COG) plans, to permit the Army Reserves to assume control, thus checkmating the SS and Gestapo.

Kennedy too, was convinced to approve certain special emergency and contingency plans as well as specific covert actions against Cuba that were used against him at Dealey Plaza. These specific operations were administratively approved by JFK, but also personally exposed to RFK as the coordinator of the Cuban operations, effectively compromising him and checkmating him from properly responding to his brother's assassination by making any moves against the assassins.

In The Making of the President 1964, T.H. White noted that, “Of all the things Kennedy did for Johnson, none, however, was perhaps more instantly important on the weekend of Nov. 22 than a minor decision Kennedy made months before. He had decided that, in the secret and emergency planning for continuity of American government in the happenstance of a nuclear attack, Johnson should be given a major role. Through Major General Chester V. Clifton, who acted as White House liaison with the Department of Defense, all emergency operational planning was made available to the Vice President in duplicate. These plans, envisioning all things – from the destruction of all major cities to the bodily transfer of governing officers to an underground capital – included, of course, detailed forethought of the event of the sudden death of a President.” 21.

“Because he had participated in all these plans,” wrote White, “…the Vice President; on the night of Nov. 22, 1963,…knew exactly all the intricate resources of command and communications at his disposal. Beneath this lay the experience of a man who had spent 30 years observing the work of the federal government, while beneath that lay the instincts of a Texas country boy. Now it was him to act.”

But according to Jim Bishop, in The Day Kennedy Was Shot, "Officials at the Pentagon were calling the White House (WHCA) switchboard at the Dallas-Sheraton Hotel asking who was now in command. An Officer grabbed the phone and assured the Pentagon that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the Joint Chief of Staff ' are now the President.” 22.

While everyone knows that the Constitutional lines of authority descend from the President to the Vice President, according to the National Command Authority (NCA), the ability to order the military to undertake a nuclear attack goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense, and then to the Deputy Secretary of Defense (then Roswell Gilpatrick).

It has been noted that, “In the wake of the Berlin crisis, White House and national security staff reviewed emergency planning procedures that had been established during the Eisenhower administration. As part of the single integrated operation plan (SIOP) that would be used by the U.S. government and armed forces in the case of a nuclear attack, Eisenhower’s staff and advisors had also designed civil defense contingency plans for civilians. An essential element in Eisenhower’s military planning was the National Command Authority (NCA) nuclear…. release authority that would have decisive control over the use of nuclear weapons if the President were disabled or killed. According to Thomas B. Allen, of War Games, the nuclear…release authority passes from a dead or disabled President to the Secretary of Defense, and then, if necessary, to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Allen was unable to determine who would be next in the chain of command since no two authorities consulted agreed to the passing of authority beyond the Deputy Secretary of Defense…The NCA is not an abstraction. It is a real concept embodied in military doctrine, especially the doctrine that governs control over nuclear weapons.” 23.

If the President is unable to employ his authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, the National Command Authority does not follow the Constitution’s line of succession, but the release authority passes from a disabled or dead President to the Secretary of Defense, and then, if necessary, to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

While the NCA only controlled the use of nuclear weapons, part of the Dealey  Plaza operation included elements that tried to blame the murder on Cuban Communists in an attempt to stimulate an invasion of Cuba. Dallas authorities and the local Army Reserve intelligence unit, in concert with Reserve officers on the Dallas Police, fed information to the media and other military units indicating Cuban Communists were behind the assassination.

Dallas Assistant DA Alexander told CIA media asset Joe Goulden that he was going to charge Oswald with “furthering a communist conspiracy” and Dallas PD officer Stringfellow, a member of the local US Army Reserve unit, informed a Florida military base that Cuban communists were behind the assassination. 24.

Of the ten Cuban officers mentioned by FitzGerald in the Higgins memo, a few have been identified, including Juan Almedia, the primary suspect in “Ultimate Sacrifice,” as well as the well documented case of Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) and Raymon Guin Diaz (AMTRUNK), who the Cubans identified. 

In his book, “Executive Action – 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro,” Cuban G2 counter-intelligence officer Fabian Escalante wrote, “While Cubela was in Brazil in September 1963, JM/WAVE was executing an important operation in Cuba under the codename AM/TRUNK. It consisted of recruiting various officers from the Rebel Army that the CIA believed it could hook. Among them was ex-commander Ramon Guin Diaz, one of Cubela’s closest friends, who would subsequently be an active participant in the CIA plans to assassinate the Cuban prime minister…The plan had two parts: the first, the assassination of Fidel, and the second, a coup d’etat instigated by Cubela’s collaborators, backed by a US mini-invasion conducted with a brigade of Cuban mercenaries who were training in Nicaragua under the command of Manuel Artime…” 25.

Just as Nazi Gen. Fromm, commander of the Home Army sat on the fence during the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt, then came down on the conspirators once it was determined that Hitler was still alive, LBJ took the oath of office immediately in order to circumvent the attempt to pass on the National Command Authority to the Secretary of Defense. And as soon as LBJ was informed of the intention of the Dallas authorities to charge Oswald with “furthering a communist conspiracy,” he had his close aide Cliff Carter call Dallas and put an end the talk of conspiracy “because it could lead to World War III.” This was the “Tipping Point,” when the “Phase One” Castro Commie cover story was replaced with the equally implausible “Phase Two” deranged lone nut scenario.

                                      THE HOMME REPORT

At the time of the Garrison investigation of the assassination inNew Orleans, a U.S. government document reported that Jack Martin, who first called attention to the association between Oswald and David Ferrie, had also attempted to implicate Robert F. Kennedy in the plots to kill Castro.

The report reads in part: "According to Edward SUGGS, aka Jack MARTIN (not a reliable source) [Guy] JOHNSON claimed to have a secret US Senate document called the ‘Homme Report.’ This report allegedly proves that Robert KENNEDY ‘had a contract out’ on Fidel CASTRO at the time President Kennedy was assassinated...." 26.

Guy P. Johnson has been identified as a former assistant district attorney in New Orleans and Office of Naval Intelligence agent who had a secret Senate report written by H.G. Homme, a legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which allegedly implicated RFK in the attempted assassination of Castro and the assassination of President Kennedy.

In an article in the Houstonian and in an affidavit, Jack Martin and David Lewis, another New Orleans associate of Oswald, Ferrie and Guy Bannister, asserted that RFK approved the plots to kill Castro. They wrote “…proof of this lies in a document shown us by none other than Guy P. Johnson, Bannister’s old liaison officer and legal advisor. We call it the ‘Homme Report,’ inasmuch as it involves one H.G. Homme, assistant legal counsel of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary,…exposes the fact that the ‘genius’ RFK put out his own personal ‘contract’ (order to murder) on Cuba’s Fidel Castro Luz, in good old Gestapo-Nazi fashion….Wheels silently moved, and the trap had sprung!” 27.

In Counter-Intelligence Aspects of the JFK Assassination, Mike Sylwester wrote:

“Another explanation was proposed by two of Banister’s long-time employees, Jack Martin and David Lewis, in an affidavit they wrote for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, dated 20 February 1968. Martin and Lewis said they believed Banister was …had conspired with other high ranking traitors to alter the index so that in case of crisis, the wrong people would be arrested….They also implied that Banister was collaborating with Robert Kennedy, but would double-cross him to bring the fateful crisis about. Specifically, Banister was collaborating with Robert Kennedy to assassinate Fidel Castro, which would boomerang into an assassination of President Kennedy….” 28.

Martin and Lewis also tie the assassination to the re-organization of the civil defense  response, which, along with the attempt to implicate RFK in the Castro plots, ties it directly to the Valkyrie plan. They refer to the “National Emergency Reoganization Plan,” which they call “a piece of existing standby legislation already written into and passed in Federal Statute, whereby they could invoke an immediate and instantaneous dictatorship over the United States at the stroke of a pen on any given or so-called emergency…” 29.

                               BLACKBALLING ROBERT F. KENNEDY

Another important aspect of the Dealey Plaza operation, also taken from the Valkyrie Plot, was the neutralization of the key elements most likely to oppose the assassination – the SS in the case of the July 20th 1944 Plot and Robert F. Kennedy in regards to Dealey Plaza.

Helmet Streikher, on CIA assignment in Africa, Middle East (1961-1965) acknowledged that, "One of the worst kept secrets in the CIAis the truth about the President's murder. It wasn't Castro or the Russians. The men who killed Mr. Kennedy were CIA contract agents. It had to happen. The man was too independent for his own good. John Kennedy's murder was a two-part conspiracy murder. One was the action end with the killers; the other was the deeper part, the acceptance and protection of that murder by the Intelligence apparatus that controls the way the world operates." 30.

The second part of the assassination was the protection of those actually responsible. The

Official Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines a Covert Operation as “An operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor.” It is also noted that “a covert operation differs from a clandestine operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of identity of sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation.” 31.

In the assassination of President Kennedy we find that covert anti-Castro Cuban operations, approved by JFK, and intentionally exposed to RFK, were utilized in the assassination of President Kennedy, thus blackballing RFK from retaliation after the death of JFK. 

First the President was asked, in the spring of 1963, to authorize certain CIA cover operations against Cuba that originated at the JMWAVE station in Florida, which he did. Among these approved operations were maritime missions that took place over the late summer and fall of 1963 and utilized anti-Castro Commando teams that were sent into Cuba from the CIA mother ship “Rex.”

On April 1, 1963 - April Fools Day, those responsible for covert operations against Cuba, the Cuban Coordinating Committee, suggested a number of specific plans to be directed against Castro. Some of these specific operations that were approved by the President involved maritime attacks against Cuba from Florida, and included agents and operatives who later became entwined in the events of that took place in Dallas. 32.

While the Cubans were being trained in Florida, the President’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was personally introduced to some of the CIA officers and anti-Castro Cuban commandos who were to undertake these missions. It has been documented that RFK visited the JMWAVE Headquarters on a number of occasions, visits that stand out because of his altercations with William Harvey. Harvey was then replaced by Desmond Fitzgerald, who briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the Valkyrie plot and personally met with Rolando Cubela (AMLASH). 33.

David Talbot, in his book Brothers, says that, “The CIA tried to frame Robert Kennedy for the Cubela (AMLASH) plot,” which was tied directly to the Valkyrie plan. Talbot notes that FitzGerald introduced himself to Cubela as a “personal representative of Kennedy’s. But the president’s brother had no idea the CIA was using his name. Helms and Fitzgerald agreed it would be ‘totally unnecessary’ to inform Kennedy of their gambit.” Their gambit was the Valkyrie plot. 34.

US Army Ranger Capt. Bradley Ayers, assigned to the CIA to train the Cubans, recalls two occasions RFK met with the CIA case officers in Florida, once at a station party held at a safe house and another at the Waloos Glades Hunting Camp staging area, where he was personally introduced to some of the commandos who were to execute the covert missions.  35.

According to Ayers, one of the CIA case officers at JMWAVE, a German who went by the name of “Karl,” bore a remarkable resemblance to Oswald, and one of the Cubans, Angelo Murgado, claims to have even mentioned Oswald and his FPCC activities to RFK before the assassination.

Then in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Robert Kennedy suspected the CIA and the Cubans, asking both CIA director John McCone and his Cuban friend Enrique “Harry” Ruiz Williams if their people were responsible for his brother’s murder.

Jack Anderson wrote: “Sources would later tell me that McCone anguished with Bobby over the terrible possibility that the assassination plots sanctioned by the president's own brother may have backfired.” RFK told Walter Sheridan: “I asked McCone if they had killed my brother, and I asked him in a way that he couldn’t lie to me.”

RFK phoned Enrique Ruiz-Williams, his main contact in the Cuban group involved in the plot to kill Castro. According to Haynes Johnson, an American journalist working closely with the anti-Castro Cubans RFK said: “One of your guys did it.” 36.

                                 SUMAMARY AND CONCLUSION

It is apparent that the assassination of President Kennedy was an offshoot of the CIA plans to kill Fidel Castro, specifically the Valkyrie Plot based on the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.There are key elements of the Valkyrie Plot to kill Hitler that we see used in the Dealey Plaza Operation, including the integration of the national emergency plans, getting the victim to approve certain special operations that would be used against him, the adopting of a false flag-Northwoods style deception to blame the murder on Cuban Communists, and the neutralization of the opposition.

The Valkyrie Plot included the revising of the national emergency response, the president’s approval of the Cuban covert operations that would be used against him, the Northwoods-style false flag deception to blame the murder on Castro and the blackballing of the most serious potential resistance – RFK.  Despite the complexity of the plan, it fits like a glove over what happened at Dealey Plaza, and accounts for most, if not all of the previously unexplained variables.

It is also quite apparent that while the plot remained the same as what was planned for Castro, the switch in targets from Castro to Kennedy did not occur on the street level in Florida or at Dealey Plaza, but at the highest levels of government in Washington, where the specific covert operations and emergency contingency plans were approved months earlier.

That the assassination of the President remains a mysterious enigma fifty years later can be directly attributed to the fact that it was planned that way, a detailed and complex plan based on the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, a plan that was not perfect, or carried out in its entirety, but it was a plan that succeeded in killing Kennedy and protecting those actually responsible for the crime.

FOOTNOTES

Warren Commission didn’t know of Plots to kill Castro. Helms: Warren Commission should have known of anti-Castro plots. AP Sept. 23, 1978.

 http://news.google.com/newspapersnid=1454&dat=19780923&id=YbssAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LRMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7189,4651072 (Other than Alan Dulles, who kept his knowledge of the plots to kill Castro to himself.)

Turner, William. Transcript of presentation made at COPA conference in Dallas (circa Nov. 2003).

David A. Phillips novel, “The AMLASH Legacy”. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12974 While this quote is from an unpublished fictionalized manuscript, Phillips told Kevin Walsh essentially the same story.

CIA-Mafia Plots. Trying to Kill Fidel Castro, Washington Post, We. June 27, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062601467.html

Escalante, Fabian. Executive Action – 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro (Ocean Press, 2006, p. 167-169) Of the documented plots, the ones with direct connections to Dealey Plaza are a) CIA-Mafia plots (pre-62) b) The Hemingway house plot, c) The Amador Odio, d) The Bayo-Pawley Affair, e) The Rex plot (NYT, Nov. 1, 1963) the last of which is not among the 634 Ways but is mentioned by Carlos Bringuier in his book Red Friday. 

Volkmar Schmidt Interview. Kelly, William. Interview with Volkmar Schmidt, January, 1995. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html  Note I asked Schmidt if he felt responsible for Oswald taking a pot shot at Walker and he said he felt most guilty when driving through Dealey Plaza. Also see Epstein, E. J. Legend. The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald. (McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 204).

Kelly article July 20, 1944-Nov. 22, 1963.- Thanks to these two sites for posting them and keeping them on line. http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/1344 /  and  http://www.scam.com/printthread.php?t=115655 also at http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/july-20-1944-november-22-1963.html

Bancroft, Mary. Autobiography of a Spy – Debutante, Writer, Confidante, Secret Agent. The True Story of Her Extraordinary Life. (William Morrow, NY, 1983) For pertinent excerpts see: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/mary-bancroft-autobiography-of-spy.html

Gisevius, Hans Bernd (July 14, 1904 – February 23, 1974) Valkyrie: An Insider's Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, 2009 reprint of one volume abridgement of two volume text, To the Bitter End, 1947. Foreword by Allen Welsh Dulles, introduction by Peter Hoffmann. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston; Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA ISBN 978-0-306-81771-7. Also see: “Bis zum bittern Ende.” (two volumes, Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich, 1946, 1954; To the Bitter End,” Richard and Clara Winston, Jonathan Cape, London, 1948; Rutten & Loening, Hamburg, (1964).

Epstein, E. J. Legend. The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald. (McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 204

Higgins Memo. Briefing by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerand on CIA Cuban Operations and Planning. 09/25/63 NARA Record Number 202-10001-10028.  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10246&relPageId=5 also at http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/higgins-memo-re-cia-briefing-of-jcs.htm

Waldron, Lamar; Hartman, Thom. Ultimate Sacrifice. http://www.ultimatesacrificebook.com'

Smith, Liz. New York Post. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/liz-smith-column-on-valkyrie-plot.html Also see; http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/liz_smith/item_ymeevc7p3qWQHkltFqRCL

See: Almeida on flight to Africa doc. [Will scan and post soon] It has been pointed out that Dealey Plaza changed everything. 

Russo, Gus. Brothers In Arms (p. 294) Russo, Gus. Brothers In Arms – The Kennedys, The Castros, and the Politics of Murder by Gus Russo and Stephen Molton (Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 294) Russo notes quoted: 52. Califano, p. 124; 53. Califano citing: JCS Memo for the Record, Walter Higgins; “Briefing by Mr. Desmond FitzGerald on CIA Cuban Operations and Planning,” JFK Collection, JCS Papers, J-3 #29, 202-10001-10028; NARA; 54. Higgins Memo (as cited in #53).'

Higgins Memo. Higgins, Walter M. Memo on FitzGerald briefing of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sept. 25, 1963. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/higgins-memo-re-cia-briefing-of-jcs.htm

Villarreal, Phil. Review of the movie Valkyrie. Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS), January 2008. [http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/39380]

Valkyrie the movie description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film

Valkyrie, the word definition. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Valkyrie

Casey, William, The Secret War Against Hitler (1988, Regency Gateway, p. 115)

White, T. H. The Making of the President 1964. http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Making_of_the_President_1964.html?id=RKXSPnb0QiAC

Bishop, Jim. The Day Kennedy Was Shot  http://books.google.com/books/about/The_day_Kennedy_was_shot.html?id=6GEXAQAAIAAJ

Allen, Thomas B. War Games. Regarding the National Command Authority (NCA) chain of command.  http://www.wargaming.co/books/allen/homepage.ht  http://www.wargaming.co/books/allen/samplepages.htm

Kelly, William. The Tipping Point. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/06/tipping-point.html Note: While I give only the two examples of Joe Goulden getting Asst. DA Alexander to indict Oswald “in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy” and Don Stringfellow’s 11/22/63 cable message to MacDill AFB in Florida, there are other examples of the attempt to promote the original Castro Communist cover-story (ie. Another Army Reserve officer Gannaway is quoted in earliest news reports of Oswald’s Cuban Communist background, the DRE release of radio debate, the bogus story that Oswald took money from Cubans in Mexico City, etc.)

Escalante, Fabian. 634 Ways To Kill Castro, (Ocean Press, 2006, p. 167-169)

Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination. Guy Persac Johnson  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=111600&relPageId=3

Martin, Jack; Lewis, David. Houstonian (Feb. 20 1968) Martin, Jack and Lewis, David (Affidavit, 20 Feb., 1968, also article in Houstonian, Feb. 20 1968) They say the National Emergency Reogranization Plan can be found in Volume 27, Number 35, sub-headed Title 3, of 20th February, 1962, which is listed in the Federal Register, National Archives, under Presidential Documents, Executive Order #10995, through #11005 ff, and #11051, and Part One, Section 101-d http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/08/guy-p-johnson.html

Sylwester, Mike. Counter-Intelligence Aspects of the JFK Assassination http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.culture.discuss.cia-drugs/3227 Also see: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/RUBY-COM.TXT

National Emergency Reorganization Plan

Streiker, Helmet. http://www.baylor.edu/lib/poage/jfk/index.php?id=60201

US DOD Official Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/

See: The Administrative Details http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/04/jfk-coup-detat-administrative-details_27.html

RFK at JMWAVE – Stockton, Bayard, Flawed Patriot (Potomac Books, 2006)

Talbot, David. Brothers – The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (Free Press, 2007, p. 229-230)

Ayers, Bradley. Zenith Secret – A CIA Insider Exposes the Secret War Against Cuba and the Plot that Killed the Kennedy Brothers. (Vox Pop, NY, 2006, p.41, 86  http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/09/brad-ayers-us-ranger-trained-cubans-at.html and http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKayers.htm Ayers also points out the Robert Kennedy visited CIA personnel at their base in the Everglades: "I'm confident in my gut, that Bobby Kennedy was aware of what we were doing down there. It wasn't a case of the Agency mounting these assassination operations without the knowledge of the Special Group. RFK had a hands-on kind of control of the operations." 

RFK & McCone & Enrique Williams.  

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1457 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES

Allen, Thomas B. War Games. Regarding the National Command Authority (NCA) chain of command. 

Ayers, Bradley. The Zenith Secret – A CIA Insider Exposes the Secret War Against Cuba and the Plot that Killed the Kennedy Brothers. (Vox Pop, NY, 2006, p.41, 86).

Bancroft, Mary Autobiography of a Spy – Debutante, Writer, Confidante, Secret Agent. The True Story of Her Extraordinary Life. (William Morrow, NY, 1983)

Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets (Bloomsbury, 2009)

Bishop, Jim. The Day Kennedy Was Shot.

Brandsetter, Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco (Denton, Tx, U.N.Texas Press, 1999)

Bringuier, Carlos. Red Friday (Re: Rex Plotters caught in Cuba.

Casey, William. The Secret War against Hitler (Regency Gateway, 1988, p. 115)

Douglas, James. JFK and the Unspeakable (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008).

Epstein, Edward J. Legend, The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald. (McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 204)

Escalante, Fabian. Executive Action – 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro (Ocean Press, 2006, p. 167-169)

Gisevius, Hans Bernd (July 14, 1904 – February 23, 1974) Valkyrie: An Insider's Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, 2009 reprint of one volume abridgement of two volume text, To the Bitter End, 1947. Foreword by Allen Welsh Dulles, introduction by Peter Hoffmann. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston; Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA ISBN 978-0-306-81771-7. Also see: “Bis zum bittern Ende.” (two volumes, Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich, 1946, 1954; “To the Bitter End,” Richard and Clara Winston, Jonathan Cape, London, 1948; Rutten & Loening, Hamburg, (1964). 

Higgins, Walter M. Memo on FitzGerald briefing of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sept. 25, 1963.[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10246&relPageId=5]

Hoffman, Peter. History of German Resistance, 1933-1944 (MIT Press, 1977)

Kelly, William. Interview with Volkmar Schmidt, January, 1995. 

[http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html]

Kelly, William. July 20, 1944-November 22, 1963 article [http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/1344; also see:  ]

Martin, Jack and Lewis, David (Affidavit, 20 Feb., 1968, also article in Houstonian, 1968) They say the National Emergency Reogranization Plan can be found in Volume 27, Number 35, sub-headed Title 3, of 20th February, 1962, which is listed in the Federal Register, National Archives, under Presidential Documents, Executive Order #10995, through #11005 ff, and #11051, and Part One, Section 101-d.

Russo, Gus. Brothers In Arms – The Kennedys, The Castros, and the Politics of Murder by Gus Russo and Stephen Molton (Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 294)

Russo notes quoted: 52. Califano, p. 124; 53. Califano citing: JCS Memo for the Record, Walter Higgins; “Briefing by Mr. Desmond FitzGerald on CIA Cuban Operations and Planning,” JFK Collection, JCS Papers, J-3 #29, 202-10001-10028; NARA; 54. Higgins Memo (as cited in #53).

Scott, Peter Dale – Deep Politics, (Re: Crichton 268-70, 276). COPA, 2010. Re: Continuity of Governmentin Deep Political Events. Peter Dale Scott's Dallas COPA talk.
[ https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?5045-Pds-copa-2010 ]

Smith, Liz – New York Post, January 6, 2008.

Sylwester, Mike. Counter-Intelligence Aspects of the JFK Assassination (Fredericksburg, Va.)

Talbot, David. Brothers – “The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” (Free Press, 2007, p. 229-230)

Turner, William. Transcript of presentation made at COPA conference in Dallas (circa Nov. 2003).

Villarreal, Phil. Review of the movie Valkyrie. Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS), January 2008. [http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/39380]

Waldron, Lamar and Hartman, Thom. Ultimate Sacrifice – John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK (Carroll & Graf, NY 2005)

White, T. H. The Making of a the President 1964 (Atheneum, 1965)

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