Black Propaganda and the JFK Assassination

 Black Propaganda & the JFK Assassination

Real Disinformation at Dealey Plaza 

[BK Notes: this  article was written in 2010 when I had a wordpress blog, so I thought I would transfer it over here since I am answering Tim Weiner's Rolling Stone hack job on Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited - Through the Looking Glass. Weiner falsely claims that all conspiracy theories, especially Jim Garrison's and Oliver Stone's are a result of Russian disinformation. Well there certainly is a lot of disinformation being thrown about Dealey Plaza, but most of it doesn't stem from Russia, but the CIA - the false attempt to blame the Dealey Plaza Operation on Castro and Cuba.]

 https://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/black-propaganda-the-jfk-assassination/

THE PROOF IN THE PROPAGANDA – Black Prop Ops and the Assassination of JFK

            Actually there were two conspiracies associated with the assassination of President Kennedy – the first was the arrangement of his murder, the second concerns the cover-up and thwarting of justice. The second conspiracy continues today.

            The evidence in both cases is in the form of fingerprints – what Senator Richard Schweiker called the fingerprints of distinct intelligence techniques at work. Evidence of the first conspiracy comes in the form of foreknowledge, individuals who had knowledge of the assassination before it occurred and expressed this knowledge to others.

            Fifth century Chinese philosopher and author of the classic manual “The Art of War” said that foreknowledge cannot be elicited by spirits or obtained by magic but rather can only be acquired from an operational network of spies. “Foreknowledge,” he said, “is the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move.”

            Proof of the second conspiracy stems from the fact that black propaganda operations were utilized before the assassination, and continue to operate today to maintain security and protect those responsible for the first conspiracy.

            That people had foreknowledge of the assassination before it occurred and black propaganda operations were conducted in concert with the murder indicates that the assassination was carried out by trained covert intelligence operatives and not by a lone, deranged nut case or the Mafia. This does not preclude however, members of organized crime or crazy people from being involved in the operation.

            That Fidel Castro and Cuba were behind the assassination is disinformation and the deception plan behind the black propaganda operation conducted in concert with the President’s murder. Over a dozen incidents, most if not all of which can be traced back to the same source, attempt to portray the assassination as the work of Castro or his G2.

            Tracing the deceptive disinformation back to its source should also give us the source of the operation that resulted in what happened at Dealey Plaza.

            Since disinformation, propaganda and psychological warfare operations utilize explicit techniques, they can be identified, isolated and studied as to their content, intention and source, and thus provide a window into the nest of the responsible party.

            According to Ladislas Farago such, “Black Propaganda is a fundamental intelligence operation,…because it never identifies its real source and pretends to originate within or close to the enemy.”

            Paul Linebarger, a professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, also taught the black arts of propaganda and psychological warfare operations at his Washington D.C. home. Every Friday evening student spies would take round-a-bout means to unobtrusively get to his house where they learned the secret techniques of propaganda and deception.

            One of his students, Joseph Burkholder Smith (“Portrait of a Cold Warrior” G. Putnam/s Sons, N.Y., 1976), relates how Linebarger explained that Black Propaganda is “carefully labeled to be acts of the enemy.” 

            Not a subject found in the curriculum of most colleges, the textbook is rare, Linebarger’s “Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications” (Arno Press, 1948, 1952, 1972, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y.) is a still used by today’s psychological warriors.

            According to Linebarger, “Psychological warfare, in the broad sense, consists of the application of parts of the science called psychology to the conduct of war; psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda against the enemy, together with such military operational measures as may supplement the propaganda. Propaganda may be described in turn, as organized persuasion by non-violent means. War itself may be considered to be, among other things, a violent form of persuasion. War is waged against the minds, not the bodies of the enemy.”

            The term propaganda stems from the name of the department of the Vatican which had the duty of propagating the faith.

            Specifically defined, propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific public purpose, whether military, economic or political. Military propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of communications designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given enemy, neutral or friendly foreign group for a specific strategic or tactical purpose.

            Note that if the communication is not planned, it cannot be called propaganda, and that if does not originate from an intelligence agency or service, it is not disinformation.

            Linebarger developed the STASM formula for spot analysis, in which propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements – 1) Source, 2) Time, 3) Audience, 4) Subject, 5) Mission. According to Linebarger, this formula works best in the treatment of monitored materials of which the source is known. First point to note is the character of the source – the true source (who really got it out?), the ostensible source (whose name is signed to it?); also the first use source (who used it the first time?) and the second source (who claims merely to be using it as a quotation?).

            It is soon evident that the mere attribution of source is a job of high magnitude. A systematic breakdown of the STASM formula produces the following analysis outline: applicable to any single propaganda item, civil or military, in war or peace, spoken, visual or printed. There are five kinds of propaganda: Defense – maintains an accepted form of social action; Offensive – interrupts social action not desired; Conversionary – change allegiance; Divisive – split apart enemy components; Consolidation – insure compliance of occupied civilians; Counterpropaganda – refutes.

            Security is designed to keep useful information from reaching the enemy, while propaganda operations are designed to get information to him.

            According to Smith, “Linebarger’s two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wished us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow were Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale and E. Howard Hunt,” who had what Linebarger called “black minds.”

            Besides his own textbook, Linebarger used another book in his classes, “The Big Con” by David W. Maurer (Pocket Books, N.Y., 1949), which is the story used as the basis for the screenplay of the movie “The Sting.” Maurer, a Kentucky linguistics professor, began to study the unique slang of confidence men, but developed that interest into a unique analysis of the Big Con confidence games that proliferated during the early part of the last century. 

            That book, “gives ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they’re no use to you any longer.” As Linebarger concluded, “Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all,” as David A. Phillips learned with Antonio Vechina.

            “The big time confidence games are in reality, only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast EXCEPT THE MARK knows his part perfectly,” wrote Maurer.

            “Propaganda is directed to the subtle niceties of thought by which people maintain their personal orientation in an unstable interpersonal world,” wrote Linebarger. “Propaganda must use the language of the mother, the schoolteacher, the lover, the bully, the policeman, the actor, the ecclesiastic, the buddy, the newspaperman, all of them in turn. And propaganda analysis, in weighing and evaluating propaganda, must be even more discriminating whether the propaganda is apt to hit its mark or not.”

Black Propaganda Operations affiliated with the Assassination of JFK:

1)      A leaflet was distributed to the Florida Cuban community in November, 1963 that warned of an “Act of God” that would put a “Texan in the White House.”

2)      Lee Harvey Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

3)      Oswald’s visit to the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City in Sept., 1963.

4)      The photographs of Oswald brandishing a rifle and pistol and copies of two leftest but contradictory magazines in his back yard.

5)      The last two issues President Kennedy dealt with before leaving the White House for Texas concerned his backchannel negotiations with Fidel Castro at the UN and the discovery of a cache of weapons in Venezuela that appeared to have come from Cuba. The weapons story was later discovered to be over a year old and planted by the CIA to falsely implicate Cuba.

6)      Julio Fernandez, one of three anti-Castro Cubans whose boat was financially supported by Clair Booth Luce, called Luce, wife of the publisher of Time-Life on the evening of the assassination to report information on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans.  Fernandez, a former Cuban publisher, was married to an attorney who worked for Catholic Welfare Services in Miami.

7)      In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico. 

8)      In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named “D,” who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy.

9)       In New Zealand, U.S.A.F. Col. Fletcher Prouty read complete biographies of Oswald in the local papers hours after the assassination, indicating to him that a bio of Oswald was pre-prepared.

10)  Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (See: “Castro on the Grassy Knoll” in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan’s tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). “Back in Miami,” they wrote, “a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…” Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962

11)  Jack Anderson used Sturgis and mobster John Rosselli to keep the Castro plot propaganda story going well into the 1970s.

12)   The same “propaganda machine” was still pumping out the same lines in 1976 when Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Sturgis, who said that he had recently ran into a friend who worked for the “company” who reminded him of an incident he had completely forgotten about. Sturgis suddenly recalled, “that he had heard about a meeting in Havana about two months before the Kennedy assassination. At the meeting there were a number of high-ranking men, including Castro, hs brother Raul, Ramiro Valdez, the chief of Cuban intelligence, Che Guevara and his secretary Tanya, another Cuban officer, an American known as ‘El Mexicano,’ and,…oh, yea; Jack Ruby. And the meeting dealt with plotting the assassination of President Kennedy.”

13)   Seith Kantor, a Scripps-Howard News Service Reporter in Dallas during the assassination, couldn’t understand why his telephone call records from Parkland Hospital were being withheld because “disclosure would reveal confidential source of information.” When Kantor checked his own records he discovered his editor had told him to call another reporter in Florida or some deep background on Oswald. The reporter in Florida had everything on Oswald, FPFCC, Russian defection, New Orleans radio debate, etc., but instead of using it himself, fed it to Kantor. The reporter was Hal “the Spook” Hendrix, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis and earned his nickname when he “reported” on the Dominican Republic Coup on September 24, 1963, the day before it happened. His CIA affiliations became better known when he went to work for ITT in Chile and was found guilty of withholding information from a Congressional committee concerning his role in the Chilean coup. 

14)   While other major news organizations have been exposed as CIA media assets, such as CBS News, Life Magazine, the North American Newspaper Alliance and the Copley Newspaper chain, the Scripps-Howard News Service (SHNS) stands out not only because of the Kantor-Hendrix connection, but because of the March 12 news report out of Washington. An obvious black propaganda operation that stems from NSA intercepts (note that the NSA does not issue press releases), and continues to implicate Castro in not only the assassination of President Kennedy, but in the planning of an assassination on President Reagan. 

This story is remarkably similar to the one that Sturgis tells [in #12] and includes many of the same conspirators. [See: SHNS Story below]. Also please note that two weeks after this obvious piece of black propaganda disinformation was published, President Reagan was shot in front of the Washington Hilton by John Hinkley.

Example of Black Prop Op and JFK Assassination.

Why weren’t the records of this incident released by the NSA under the JFK Act?

Scripps-Howard News Service – By R. H. Boyce. Thursday, March 12, 1981

Washington – The National Security Agency has alerted the CIA, the White House and State Department to a Latin American newspaper report saying Cuban President Fidel Castro is plotting the assassination of President Reagan, Scripps-Howard News Service has learned.

            The NSA, which monitors published and broadcast information around the globe, does not makes such “alert” messages available to the press. But SHNS obtained a copy, which was marked “for official use only.” It included the text of the newspaper report as well as a garbled message about the news story directed to the head of Castro’s controlled news agency, Presna Latina.

            Without revealing its sources, the news report, published yesterday in the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Mundo, asserted the assassination plot called for the slaying to be carried out by Illich Ramirez Sancho, an international terrorists known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos is said to have organized the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, and has been involved in dozens of terrorists acts.

            U.S. officials said the NSA’s action in alerting the U.S. intelligence community “suggests that while they are not necessarily ready to believe the report of an assassination plot, nevertheless they (NSA) find it at least worthy of looking into.”

            The Caracas newspaper story said the assassination plan, “was discussed in a meeting of the International Trust of Crime in Cojimar, an exclusive beach club east of Havana, with the participants of Montonero and Tupamaro thugs, Illich Ramirez, Ramiro Valdez, Cuban Police Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Fidel Castro.” 

            No identification was found of Ramiro Valdez. Montonero “thugs” are terrorists operating primarily in Argentina while Tupumaros thugs operate in Uruguay. The article said Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat also participated in the plan.

            Presna Latina (Latin Press) often has been used by Castro for political ends. The Pressa Latina correspondent in Caracas, at 9:47 a.m. EST yesterday, began transmitting the El Mundo article by cable to Prensa Latina headquarters in Havana. NSA monitored it. At the close of the text, Prensa Latina Caracas began adding what appears to be commentary on the El Mundo report. It reads:

 

            “Everything seems to indicate that Fidel Castro is planning the assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the same way that he previously ordered the assassination of John F. Kennedy and whose participation the high-ranking U.S. government circles hid…”

            There the Prensa Latina cable transmission stopped. Had it been ordered broken off by the Venezuela government, say U.S. officials, NSA would have added the words: “transmission interrupted,” to show Venezuela’s action. There was no such NSA notation. Officials provided no explanation of why the transmission ended in mid-sentence.

END of STORY 

Hank Albarelli, Jr.'s Coup In Dallas - A Preview

 Coup in Dallas – A Preview

Coup In Dallas – The Decisive Investigation into Who Killed JFK – by H. P. Albarelli, Jr. with a forward by Dick Russell (Skyhorse Press 2021)

We know Hank Albarelli from his fine book “A Terrible Mistake,” about the CIA- LSD laced death of US Army biochemist Dr. Frank Rudolph Olson, and his “A Secret Order – Investigating the High Strangeness and Syncroncity in the Kennedy Assassinaton,” so we can trust him to delve further into the JFK assassination matrix with a background that gives him some insight into the covert world of intelligence.

This book is not an easy read, as Hank Albarelli passed away before it could be finished, and it was to his good forture to have a good team behind him that saw it though to press, including Dick Russell, co-authors Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent, along with graphic artist Pete Sattler and Charles R. Drago, and cheered on by attorney Steve Rosen, document expert Malcolm Blunt, Stuart Wexler and with the finishing touches made by publisher Tony Lyons.

Without buying everything the book says, I do agree on a number of key elements – the assassination of the President in Dallas was not only a conspiracy but a more specific covert intelligence operation, as well as a coup, because those actually responsible were not investigated and the high level cover-up continues today – in the name of national security and the continued withholding of assassination records.

This book does set the “lay of the land,” and gives deep political background and a bit of history to the multiple characters and corporations that are entwined in the assassination story and their inter-relationships.

I will call this a preview of the book, as I will have to wait to review it more thoroughly after I give the book a second read to fully digest it all, but it is chock full of new information, especially concerning the corporate backdrop of the covert operation that occurred at Dealey Plaza and new names – most notably one with the unlikely name shared with a pirate - Jean Pierre Lafitte.

In the course of Albarelli’s research for the Olson book he used the letters and note books of US Federal Bureau of Narcotics and CIA agent George Hunter White. White led Albarelli to one fascinating character – Jean Pierre Lafitte, who Hank says worked with White out of the CIA’s Bedford Street safehouse in New York’s Greenwich Village. Hank says he later worked closely with CIA’s Counter-Intelligenc chief James Jesus Angleton.

 Albarelli learned that Lafitte was living in New England, but when he got there Lafitte had already died. He did obtin much valuable information from his widow Rene, including limited access to Lafitte’s 1963 datebook. He also learned that Lafitte once lived in New Orleans and was briefly employed by the William Riley Coffee company, where he used the alias “Jean Martin.” Lafitte, Albarelli tells us, was associated with the CIA’s James Jesus Angelton.

Jean Lafitte is described by Albarelli as the “project manger” for “Lancelot,” the code name for the assassination used by Lafitte in his datebook.

Now every covert operation has a code name, we know that for a fact. So far the covert op that left the president dead with a bullet to his head has variously been called Operation Zipper, "the Big Event," and now Lancelot, though I prefer just calling it The Dealey Plaza Operation.

Hank Abarelli had access to two key and unique sources – besides  Jean Lafitte and his datebook, he had access to Otto Skorzen’s private papers, that US Air Force officer Major Ralph Ganis allowed him to review after he purchased them at an internet auction.

After agreeing to assist Ganis in writing a book, and working together for awhile, they decided to each write their own book. I met Ganis in Dallas a few years ago and reviewed his book, The Skorzeny Papers – here:

 [ https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-skorzeny-papers-evidence-for-plot.html ].

It took awhile for the Skorzeny Papers to be exaimined and understood, and Ganis makes a good case for Skorzeny’s post WWII operations being extended from Madrid and Ireland to Dallas, I don’t think Skorzeny was the strategic mastermind of the Dealey Plaza operation, as Hank does, but he makes a strong case for Lafitte being the “Project Manager,” based mainly on his datebook entries.

We know a lot about Skorzeny’s wartime exploits as a commando pioneer – freeing Italian dictator Beneto Musselini from his mountain top prision in a daring glider attack, and leading the English speaking Germans in American uniforms behind the Allied lines during the Battle of the Buldge. But his post war experiences are lesser known and we must depend on Ganis and Albarelli to fill us in, especially how they are connected to Dallas.

Skorzeny’s role in the JFK assassination has escaped the attention of every researcher, except for Ganis and Albarelli, so we must delve into this line of inquiry much futher.

The same goes for Jean P. Lafitte, for as far as I know this is the first time and place he is mentioned in regard to the assassination of the President, and labeling him the “project manager” certainly requires some convincing.

Like Skorzeny and his wife Ilse, Oswald and Marina, Gordon Novel and his wife Miss New Orleans, and Carl Jenkins and his wife, Lafitte’s wife Rene certainly was knowledgeable about his operations, and told Albaelli some of what she knew:

“Rene clearly remembered Otto Skorzeny: ‘He was imposing; his presence dominated a room, any room.’ Ilse Skorzeny: ‘She was all business. Maby the women behind the man, meaning the brains.’ Lee Harvey Oswald: ‘I only saw him a few times. Pierre didn’t care for him. A confused young man. Pierre always said: He’s desequilibre’.’ Marina Oswald: ‘We felt sorry for her. She had no idea what was going on. He seemed to stick to her like glue but shared noting with her.’ Jean Souetre: ‘Oh, he was very handsome, but a modest person, and very serious about his beliefs.’ Thomas Eli Davis, Jr.: ‘You couldn’t help but like him.’ Charles Willoughby: ‘A dedicated soldier. A life too dedicated, with a sky-is-falling mindset.’”

Of his first book, “A Secret Order,” Albarelli says: it was his “first book-length foray into the JFK assassination. I had been fascinated by what I had learned about Thomas Eli Davis, Jr. I instinctively knew there was far more on Davis’ story and that it was closely connected to the events in Dallas, November 22, 1963. I was also fascinated with certain events in Mexico City concerning Lee Harvey Oswald: a well-known poet and author Elena Garro, her daughter; Warren Broglie at the Hotel Luma and its cast of unsvory characters, seemingly right out of a Bogart film; Charles William Thomas, CIA and State Department employee; and, last but far from least CIA Mexico City asset, Viola June Cobb, with whom I became a very good friend. In fact, June is the godmother of my grandson, Dylan Jackson Albarelli Centellas….”

Here Hank mentions the Hotel Luma, that I first heard of in a book about an American bullfighter in Mexico who came to meet Oswald, something we dont read in official records, and the Luma bartender Warren Broglie, undoubtedly a spy for somebody. Albarelli tells us had previously worked at the Havana Hilton with US Army Reserve (ACSI) Col. Frank Brandsetter, who Hank says was in Dallsa on the day of the assassination at the invitation of Col. Jack Crichton. Then he delves into names associated with the infamous “Twist Party” that Oswald didn’t attend but entire books have been written about.

Fortunately there is an opening chapter entitled “A Roadmap,” that breaks down each chapter into a brief synopsis.

I will only quote from one – the last reference to Pierre Lafitte Datebook – Select Entries and Images.

“The terms and conditions of access to the exclusive collection of private papers of Pierre Lafitte, including the 1963 datebook, impacted the determination of which screenshots from the datebook cold be reproduced for this book. We analyzed the entire collection and determined to prioritize certain of those entries that are highlighted in the narrative. The resulting screenshots, found in Exhibits, should give the reader an idea of the challenges in deciphering the handwriting and interpretation of the meaning of the text. The next challenge was to provide readers sufficient images of the surrounding entries – even those that include context, and to reveal to some extent the day-to-day world of the author of the datebook, the project manager of the assassination, Pierre Lafite. We hope we have successfully met the challenge.”

An example of one such entry in Lafitte’s datebook: “On the wings of murder. The pigeon way for unsuspecting Lee. Clip, clip his wings. – November 9, 1963.”

Before I review any more of Lafitte’s datebook entries, I will enter each Lafitte datebook notation into the Wood JFK Master Chronology, to see if they match up with other entries.

[  https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Assassination-Chronology-David-Wood-ebook/dp/B005QOUV36    ]

As for the narrative, the book opens with the 1942 assassination of French Vichy Admiral Francois Jean Darlan.

Now I know a little bit about this from the biographies of Ian Fleming, the author of the 007 James Bond novels, as Fleming, as Assistant to the Director of British Naval Intelligence, was parachuted into France during the Nazi invasion with the mission of convincing Admiral Darlan to turn over his French fleet to the British. Fleming failed in this mission, and many British troops were lost in North Africa when they attacked the French fleet there. But Albarelli places the responsibility for the assassination of Darlan on General Donovan and the OSS, when I believe the British he more to do with it, much like they did in training the commandos who killed Nazi official Hydrich in Prague.

Of course before you can even begin to understand the assassinaton of President Kennedy you must at least be familiar with other similar assassinations, like Darlan, Hydrich, and failed attempts at assassination like that of the German military’s  attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, code named “Valkyrie,” and the failed attempt of the French military to kill Charles deGaul.

As the CIA’s Desmond FitzGerald told the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September 1963, the CIA was engaged in a “detailed study” of the July 20 attempt on Hitler in order to use it against Castro. In my own study of the Valkyrie attempt to kill Hitler, I came up with five different aspects of that plan that were also adapted for use in Dallas that fit like a glove, including the use of the “Home Guard” as they were called in Germany, the National Guard and Army Reseves in the USA. They were the “boots on the ground,” to do the dirty work tasks that had to be done.

Col. Jack Crichton formed the 488^th Army Intelligence unit, which he said was composed of about a hundred men, nearly half of which were also members of the Dallas Police Department, including many of whom were involved in key activities related to the assassination.

Now Albarelli tells us that “The 488^th annual training in ’63 took place at The Pentagon, one of only two attachments from Texas to be in DC that summer.”

I have been engaged in assisting, part time, in the training of US Army Reserve soldiers and National Guards for the past ten years and I have never, ever heard of any detachment being trained or receiving their annual maneuvers at The Pentagon. It’s just unheard of.

We help train the Reserve troops in scenarios they are likely to face if deployed overseas, and any training at The Pentagon would have had to be in prepartion for an operation they would be expecting to encounter in the near future.

In any case, that is the jist of what’s to come, as I re-read the book with a more eye for detail, but I like the assumptions this book begins with – it was a conspiracy, it was a covert intelligence operation, it was a coup d’etat, and we can figure out how they did it by diasecting the backgrounds of the key characters, their corporate ties and how they operated.

Speaking of diasecting, my next review will be that of Dr. Cyril Wecht’s new book “Diasecting the Asssassination of President Kennedy.”  

I will also be posting a trancript of the CAPA Viritual Conference Program on Gene Wheaton and Carl Jenkins Connections to the JFK Assassination I prepard with the assistance of Matt Ehling, William M. Law and Lee Shephard, as soon as possible.

Stay tuned, there’s more to come.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay at the Time of the Assassination

 Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay at the Time of the Assassination 

A presentation prepared for JFK Lancer 2021, but was canceled due to technical problems. 

General LeMay and Arthur Collins 

Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay are two of the most interesting characters in the assassination story, were personal friends and are considered by some to be primary suspects.

When Arthur Collins was a teenager from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he built his own radio receiver in his parent’s garage, the only radio capable of picking up the broadcasts from U.S. Navy Admiral Richard Byrd from his remote artic expeditions. Information he dutifully passed on to the U. S. Navy.

Admiral Byrd’s polar expeditions were financed in part by his cousin, Texas oilman D. H. Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination.

Collins founded his Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids and because of his success with the Navy, was given military contracts that were extended during World War II.

Collins also sold radios to the general public, helping to establish the international network of HAM radio enthusiasts, one of whom was Curtis LeMay.

Curtis LeMay grew up in Ohio, the son of general laborer who moved about frequently , so young Curtis helped put food on the table by hunting and fishing.

Majoring in engineering in college in Columbus, Ohio, LeMay enlisted in the Army ROTC – Reserve Officer Training Corps – so wen he graduated he was a lieutenant in the Army, specializing in the Army Air Corps.

As an 8^th Air Force officer during World War II, LeMay was stationed in England where he developed strategies for the American B-17 precision daylight bombing of targets in Europe, that avoided civilian casualitis, but later advocated complete carpet bombing of entire cities to break the moral of the enemy.

After the surrender of the Nazis in Germany LeMay was transferred to the Pacific Theater where he commanded the new B-29 Superfortress bombing of Japanese cities, including the nuclear bombings. 

When the war was over LeMay was made head of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), whose nuclear jet bombers had the motto “Peace is our Profession.”

Probably because of his personal association with Arthur Collins, LeMay had all of the SAC bombers as well as the Executive Air Fleet – that included Air Force One, equipped with Collins sideband radios.

When it was realized that Soviet nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) had a limited range, and when fired over the north pole could not reach the southern states, the government had the major defense contractors move some of their industrial facilities to Texas – including Bell Helicopter, Collins Radio, General Dynamics, etc.

Just as Bell Aircraft relocated their Bell Helicopter division to Texas, where Michael Paine moved to when his step-father Arthur Young, inventor of the Bell Helicopter, arraned for him to work for them.

While keeping his company headquarters in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Art Collins opened a Collins Radio facility in Richardson, Texas, and maintained a hanger at Redbird Airport, the subject of which is Larry Hancock’s talk.

Collins not only manufactured the radios used by the U.S. Air Force and Executive Fleet, but also maintained and serviced them, using their Cedar Rapids based “Liberty” station to relay messages over long distances. The “Liberty” station can be heard dozens of time on the existing Air Force One radio transmission tapes, but Max Holland doesn’t mention it at all in his book on the subject, “The JFK Assassination Tapes.

In Texas Collins and the other major defense contractors discovered they had a hard time recruiting top notch engineers and scientists, and had to recruit them from out of state, so they banded together and established the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, and Art Collins was named one of the first directors.

When the Dallas university that had invited President Kennedy to give a speech, giving him the excuse to visit Dallas, withdrew their invitation, so a Dallas civic organization that head previously had intended to pay tribute to the Graduate Research Center as part of their annual luncheon at the Trade Mart, decided to invite President Kennedy to address them.

And so, if you read the blood soaked type written undelivered speech JFK kept in his breast pocket, available at the National Archives, you will see that it is addressed to the defense industries and the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest in mentioned in the first paragraph.

Since Arthur Collins was an early director of the Center, he most likely was in the audience at the Trade Mart waiting on the Presient when they got word that he had been shot.

As Edward Lutwack writes in his book – “Coup d'etat – A Practical Handbook,” control of key communications is a key aspect of a coup, and if the assassination or President Kennedy was not just a murder but a coup, then those responsible had to have control of the communications, and Art Collins had that capability.

While Collins as a person does not come across as someone who would support the murder of a President, he did allow his company to be used as a front for CIA cover operations against Cuba, officially leasing the CIA ship the Rex, as the New York Times reported in their November 1, 1963 edition with an article on how the Rex deposited a team of commandos with high powered rifles in Cuba, who were subsequently arrested and paraded before Cuban TV by Fidel Castro.

The New York Times article reported that the Rex was docked in Palm Beach, Florida, not far from the President’s house, was owned by the Somoza Family of Nicaragua, the godfathers of the Bay of Pigs, and was leased to Collins Radio, of Richardson, Texas for electronic research.

There are literally dozens of Collins Radio associations to the asassination that I document in my article The Collins Radio Connections , [  https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-collins-radio-connections-revisited.html  ] that together plant Collins Radio in the heart of the covert intelligence operation that lead to the death of the President at Dealey Plaza.

And we can surmise that Arthur Collins himself was at the Trade Mart waiting for the President to arrive when news of the assassination effectively ended the luncheon.

As for Curtis LeMay, we have a fairly good idea of where he was at the time of the assassination as well – hunting and fishing in Northern Michigan and Canada.

Thanks to Larry Haapanen for providing the newspaper clippings that document the key facts – on the Friday and Saturday before the assassination General LeMay hosted a conference of Air Force Generals at an AFB in Alabama.

From there we know that LeMay hooked up with television entertainer Arthur Godfrey, a pilot and Air Force Reserve officer whose private plane was a gift from Eastern Airline President Eddie Rickenbacker.

According to a Detroit newspaper article, Godfrey and LeMay refueled in Detroit, where Godfrey talked to the reporter, saying that they were on their way to a Michigan hunting and fishing resort famous for hosting celebrities, naming streets after them.

From there the story gets a bit muddled, as Godfrey flew back to New York to do his show, while LeMay went on to northern Michigan, where his wife’s family owned a lake cabin that he often used.

Others however, have suggested LeMay visited other resorts, one where Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa owned a cabin that LeMay was known to have visited. And LeMay is listed among those guests who received Christmas cards from the resort proprietors.

Tom Lipscomb however, has located yet another possible location LeMay have been at the time of the assassination. Tom is a former mainstream book publisher who had a number of important titles under his belt, including Che’s Diaries, and he is writing a book about the assassination that includes a chapter on Generals LeMay and Lansdale.

Since we know for a fact that LeMay flew out of Wiarton, Canada on an Air Force jet he had summoned, Tom has identified a hunting and fishing resort in an island not far from Wiarton, one owned by Detroit automobile manufacturers.

Although this resort did not have telephone service in 1963, it did have radios including a short wave HAM radio that LeMay could have used to communicate with Art Collins and Andrews AFB. At first LeMay requested that he be picked up in Toronto, but after the small, twin engine AF Executive plane was enroute he redirected it to Wiarton, a former Canadian Air Force base that had a runway capable of handling the small jet.

LeMay was so impressed with the small, efficient Executive jet when he retired he formed a company that leased such Executive jets to CEOs of major companies.

The Wiarton base LeMay left from was less than an hour boat or small plane ride from the island resort Tom has identified. 

From General Clifton’s version of the Air Force One tapes we learn that General LeMay’s aide, Colonel Dorman, was trying to get an urgent message to LeMay, but was having trouble getting it through since all the radios were busy and Air Force One radio traffic took priority. Either the message was edited out from the highly edited Air Force One tapes in existence, or it never got through.

When I first heard Colonel Dorman on the Clifton tapes I looked him up and found he had been killed in action as a fighter pilot, shot down in Vietnam, but his widow lived in Trenton, New Jersey, not far from where I lived. I found her phone number in the public directory and called her, and she confirmed that her husband was Colonel Dorman, LeMay’s aide, and said that she was working at the White House on the day of the assassination. She was working on the historic renovations of the building as directed by the First Lady, and received a phone call from her husband who instructed her to leave immediately and go home, as the President had been shot.

She didn’t go directly home however, but stopped at a churchl to pray. She also introduced me to her son, who did not know what the urgent message was because his father didn’t talk about his work at home. As they lived on General’s Row, Arlington Cemetery was their backyard, and the son said he watched the funeral procession and burial from a unique vantage point – in a tree.

While we still don’t know what the urgent message Dorman tried to convey to LeMay, we do know that LeMay was ordered by Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert to land at Andrews AFB, but LeMay disobeyed that order and landed at the National Airport, which placed him in a position to attend the President’s autopsy in Bethesda.

On a final note, possibly of importance, I think that General LeMay’s association with Chicago mobster and Havana and Las Vegas casino boss Charles “Babe” Barron comes into play in regards to the assassination, as Barron was also a General in the U.S. Army Reserves. LeMay’s daughter, in an oral history, noted that Barron was the godfather of her son, and General LeMay always personally picked up Barron at the airport when he visited them, carrying his luggage.

When Jack Ruby’s pal, entertainment reporter Tony Zoppi told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Barron was a close, personal friend of LeMay, they went looking for Barron and found him visiting LeMay in California.

The close association between Arthur Collins and LeMay is significant in regards to the radio communications, while LeMay’s friendship with Barron may be important as the US Army Reserves were the “boots on the ground” in Dallas, much like the Valkyrie plan to kill Hitler had the Home Army mobilized to do the dirty work.

In closing, I just want to say that I believe that it will not be a mystery forever, but we will eventually learn the details of exactly how President Kennedy was killed, who was responsible and why it happened, as we are very close to the total truth.

Bill Kelly  - billkelly3@gmail.com

Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited - Through the Looking Glass Previewed

 Oliver Stone’s “JFK Revisited – Through the Looking ” is a two hour long non-fictional documentary that details much, but not all, of the evidence and witness testimony that supports the idea of a conspiracy behind the murder of the President.

It will premier domestically tomorrow – Friday, on Showtime and is being packaged as a DVD that will be available sometime early next year.

While Jim diEugenio is given credit as the writer, the original title “Destiny Betrayed” has been removed and relegated to the four hour version of this film that is slated to be released in February.  Jim’s book is based mainly on the New Orleans angles to the assassination, and this program only touches on that aspect, focusing mainly on why most people believe Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin.

And unlike diEugenio’s usual verbose writing style, this show is a tightly packed, finely edited piece of work that Warren Commission defenders will have a hard time finding something to refute.

Nararated by Donald Sutherland and Whoopie Goldberg, neither of whom make a physical presence in the film but rather provide voice over commentary. Goldberg played the wife of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers  in Rob Reiner’s movie “Ghosts of Mississippi” while Sutherland portrayed “Mr. X,” the mysterious character in “JFK” who advises Jim Garrison on the deep state responsible for the murder, said to be based on Air Force Colonel Fletecher Prouty.

The first fifteen minutes of this film is primarily original news reports that Lone Nutters will have a hard time arguing with, and in fact, they will have a hard time finding fault with any particular item other than the entire conspiracy oriented premesis of the program. Some will say that it is not objective and doesn’t present both sides of the story, but there aren’t two sides to the story when it comes to basic facts of the case.

There is no debate, just as the Warren Report didn’t include evidence and witness testimony that contradicted its findings. Nor does it include any silly conspiracy theories that lone nut defenders can poke holes in.

As the first news reports clearly indicated, the Dallas Police came out and said, “This is the man who killed the President,” and we are supposed to take their word for it?

Walter Cronkite said it best when he asked the questions, “Who actually fired the shots that killed the President, and was there a conspiracy?”

They are the questions this program tries to answer.

Those who do have talking head time are impressive – Brian Edwards keeping track of the trail of evidence and the chain of custody, Dr. David Mantik on how many shots were fired, Dr. Cyril Wecht on the Single Bullet Theory – “Whatever you want, whatever you need, this bullet (#399) will oblige you.”

DPD motorcycle patrolman Marion Baker seeing Oswald in the second floor lunchroom 90 seconds after the last shot, and Barry Ernest on his book “The Girl on the Steps” – Vickie Adams, whose statement that she left the fourth floor within a minute of the last shot and came down the steps not seeing anyone, corroborated by Sandra Styles, who accompanied her and was not called to testify, as well as their supervisor Dorothy Garner, who followed them to the fourth floor landing and stayed there until she saw or heard Baker and Truly come up from the first floor – three witnesses who didn’t see anyone on the stairs. And they don’t bother to mention Dougherty, the TSBD worker who was on the fifth floor landing and didn’t see anyone come down the stairs.

While Warren Commission apologists say it was a matter of moments when these things happened, and it was a Keystone Cops type of situation where they just missed each other, they even timed how long it would take to go from the sixth floor to the second and it could be done in less than 90 seconds. But not mentioned is the fact that patrolman Baker saw Oswald through the window of the closed second floor door that Oswald would have had to go through if he was the sixth floor sniper, but Truly, seconds and a few steps ahead of Baker didn’t see Oswald go through the door as he would have if he did. Oswald entered the lunchroom through the same door he left by, with a coke.

And the only conclusion is the one expressed in this film – Oswald was not even on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, and was not the man with a rifle in his hand, with a white shirt (Oswald wore brown) and bald spot on the top of his head, an attribute not shared with Oswald.

The parafin test that proves Oswald did not fire a rifle that day is mentioned, and former New York City prosecutor and HSCA attorney Bob Tannenbaum says, “Oswald would not have been convicted on the evidence provided by the Warren Commission.”

There is a short, too short profile of the basic background of Oswald that jumps quickly to his enlistment in the Marines, Atsugi, U2 base etc., defection, and return home, without a proper debriefing, that former Republican Senator Richard Schweiker says, “Smacks of an intelligence relationship,” and a short note on State Department official Otto Otepka, who kept a list of American defectors, noted the large number of former military personal and asked the CIA which ones were real defectors and which ones fake, including Oswald on his list, before the assassination. He was, as Lisa Pease notes, dismissed November 5, 1963, a few weeks before the assassination.

As Jefferson Morley mentions, “Oswald was of intense interest to high level CIA officers for years before the assassination, even reading his mother’s mail.” And the man who kept track of Oswald’s file, James Jesus Angleton, was assigned to be liaison between the CIA and the Warren Commission.

There’s very little in regards to Oswald’s 1963 summer in New Orleans other than the fact that he tried to infiltrate the DRE – and then got into a fight with them passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets – sparking Sen. Schweiker to say that he was working as a “double-agent, playing both sides of the fence.”

There’s a short interview with CIA agent William Gaudet, who said he saw Oswald and former FBI agent Guy Bannister together, but doesn’t bother to fill in the details – Gaudet was editor of the CIA financed Latin America Report publication that was financed by the CIA and was next to Oswald in line getting a visa to Mexico at the same time.

Gaudet’s office was in the Clay Shaw’s World Trade Center, where Oswald handed out leaflets, and Dean Andrews is mentioned as having received a phone call from Clay Bertrand to represent Oswald after his arrest, and the fact that over a dozen witnesses are mentioned in government records as having confirmed that Shaw used the alias Bertand. Then there are the CIA’s reports that indicate Shaw was involed in their QKenchant program, whatever that was.

Jeff Morley describes how the DRE Cubans, who immediately tried to blame Castro for the assassination, were run by CIA official George Joannides, who was later brought out of retirement to serve as CIA liaison to the HSCA. When Morley told this to the second counsel to the HSCA G. Robert Blakey he was astonished, and said, “I’ll never believe the CIA again.”

Federal Judge and former Chairman of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) John Tunheim is seen saying that he showed one document to a CIA official and asked why it should still be withheld, and he responded, “I know there’s reason but I just don’t remember what it is.”

The Secret Service destroyed advance records of the Presidents intended visits to Chicago and Tampa, Florida, and both cases are reviewed and it is discovered an FBI informant named “Lee” correctly said that four Cubans would be in Chicago, and their landlady dropped a dime on them saying they had high powered rifles and map of the parade route. Two were arrested. And another suspect Thomas A. Valle is mentioned, as well as his background that is very similar to Oswald’s that makes one observer conclude “There’s too many they cannot be considered coincidences.”

Former Secret Service Agent Abe Bolden, who was involved in the Chicago investigation, was “railroaded” for trying to blow the whistle on what was going on. And the Tampa plot is also laid out detailing the proposed fall guy who would have been framed as the patsy if the assassination took place there. I arranged for the NARA to obtain the Tampa advance reports from the agent who wrote them. 

The Parkland doctors are mentioned in detail, with Dr. Gary Aguilar discussing what doctors Kenp Clark and Malcolm Perry had to say, and nurse Audrey Bell on how Dr. Perry told her he was being pressured by SS agent Elmer Moore into saying the throat wound could have been an exit wound. Moore later admitted he regretted pressuring Perry and said he was ordered to do so by SS Inspector Kelly.  And Perry later told a fellow doctor that he regretted changing his testimony.

ARRB investigator Doug Horne mentions his interviews with Autopsy photographers, how the photos that exist today are not recognized by the Parkland doctors or the photographer who allegedly took them, and how photos of the brain show by its color that it had been in formaldehyde jar for weeks before the assassination and could not be JFK’s brain. Dr. Mantik shows a document that says that JFK’s brain weighted in at what a normal brain would be, when in fact much of it was shattered by a bullet.

Former Warren Commissioner and later President Gerald Ford, who moved the back wound to the throat to fit the Single Bullet Theory, is quoted as telling a French president that “There was a conspiracy but we were never able to determine by who.”

David Talbot is given some time and uses it to say how Allen Dulles was a fraud, and that everyone, then and now knows, “that powerful forces did it.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expresses his father’s first impulses were to blame the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans, and how much JFK is loved around the world.

As Oliver Stone concludes, it is “no longer a conspiracy theory, but conspiracy fact.”

And while the film actually tries to convey those facts, my biggest complaint with it is the failure to emphasize the fact that the JFK Act, which owes so much to Oliver Stone and “JFK,” is not being enforced today.

Just as Stone mentioned that the assassination records were still being withheld at the end of his 1992 movie, that stirred up so much public support for the release of the records, he could have done the same thing here, but doesn’t.

Maybe the four hour long version will touch on this but I’m not counting on it.

BillKelly3@gmail.com