Skorzeny

Otto Skorzeny 

With all this talk about Nazis and German military officers, Mae mentions Otto Skorzeny, a key player in the JFK assassination drama, though he came late to the party, and few recognize him as a participant. 

Nazi commando extraordinaire Otto Skorzeny is credited with developing the military special forces units into the pivotal point they are today. 

During World War II, when Ian Fleming was the Assistant to the chief of British Naval Intelligence, he considered himself the opposite number of Skorzeny in the German army. Using Skorzeny's commando units as an example, Fleming convinced his boss, Admiral Godfrey, to allow him to assemble a special British Navy commando assault unit that was sent in to recently captured German headquarters to retrieve documents, maps and important records that were sent back to UK for analysis. 

In July 1944, as the German military high command was preparing its attempt to kill Hitler to keep him from destroying Germany, Skorzeny was leading a daring raid on an Italian mountain castle where deposed Italian fascist dictator Mussolini was being held prisoner. Using gliders to land atop the mountain, Skorzeny and his commandos quickly took control, freed Mussolini and flew him to a scheduled meeting with Hitler on the day after the failed bomb attack on his life. 

Skorzeny then led key aspects of the investigation into the bombing, identifying, arresting and executing the known participants - thousands of them. Some conspiracy. 

At the Battle of the Bulge, Skorzeny famously led his English speaking commandos, dressed in US Army uniforms, into the fray at Bastogne, causing much confusion. 

Now there are two relatively new books that bring Skorzeny into Dealey Plaza and the JFK assassination story. The first is The Skorzeny Papers - Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK by US AF (Ret.) Major Ralph P. Ganis. 

The Skorzeny Papers

As the publisher explains, "In The Skorzeny Papers, the author reveals the details of the post-World War II activities of former SS Commando Otto Skorzeny. Considered by British and American Allied forces as “the most dangerous man in Europe,” Skorzeny planned and led numerous daring missions throughout the war. The story in this book was extracted by Major Ganis from Skorzeny’s personal papers. The evidence reveals that Skorzeny gradually and methodically became involved in US intelligence and covert operations during the Cold War. But Skorzeny’s network had a greater point of destiny in November 1963, when it was utilized to carry out the most tragic mission in history." 

"This story would have been lost had Skorzeny not kept meticulous records of his businesses and contacts, which were fronts for US covert activity. In the end, The Skorzeny Papers reveal the intriguing web of secret organizations and people linked to the events culminating in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." 

I met Maj. Ganis at a JFK Conference in Dallas where we both spoke a few years ago, and read and wrote about his book here: 

JFKcountercoup: The Skorzeny Papers - Evidence For the Plot to Kill JFK

As I note, I didn't think Skorzeny was connected with the Dealey Plaza operation until I read a redacted document released under the JFK Act of 1992 that had one redaction bleed through so I could make it out. It was a name - Arnold Silver, who I had never heard of but looked up and found that he was one of the US military officers who debriefed and interrogated Skorzeny after the war. 

My interest in Skorzeny increased even more when I read one of the newly released records that one of the JMWAVE anti-Castro Cuban commandos we have been tracing from the Wheaton names, - one of my chief suspects in the assassination, had contacted Skorzeny in Spain.  These commandos had raided Cuban industrial targets from Florida, and were paid and trained by the CIA to kill Castro. Now I learned that one of them was sent to Europe shortly after the assassination to meet in Spain with Ottor Skorzeny.

So now my interest in Skorzeny peaked, and I was quite surprised to learn that Major Ralph Ganis purchased Skorzeny’s private papers at auction and Ganis says that they implicate Skorzeny in the assassination of President Kennedy.

One of my research associates, the late Hank Albarelli, Jr., once contacted my and told me that he suspected Skorzeny was the mysterious QJWIN, that I doubted, but Albarelli was working with Ganis in reviewing Skorzeny's papers with Ganis. 

Eventually Ganis came out with his book and Hank passed away before finishing his book, that his associates Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent saw to print, with the help of Dick Russell, who added his weight behind the book - "Coup In Dallas - The Decisive Investigation into Who Killed JFK."  

While not actually decisive, I got a lot of new information from the book and wrote my initial response in a sort of preview: 

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

Skorzeny's network of business interests and intelligence associates in Texas, especially the Dallas area, includes oil man Jack Crichton, who also organized his own US Army Reserve 488th Intelligence unit that reported to the Joint Chief of Staff's intelligence agency - Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI). 

Skorzeny's ties to Crichton are detailed in Coup In Dallas, as well as Ganis' Skorzeny Papers he bought on line from the Skorzeny family. 

As Professor Peter Dale Scott has previously mentioned, in July 1963 Crichton was named director of the newly formed H.L. Hunt Foundation. 

As David Wise and Thomas Ross have detailed in their book "The Invisible Government," and Kim Philby exposed in "My Silent War," the CIA utilized such so-called philanthropic foundations to fund their covert intelligence operations, and this was the case here. 

The Hunt Foundation was formally established on July 22, the day after Crichton's 488th Intelligence Reserve unit returned from their annual training, which for some reason, was held in Washington D.C. at the Pentagon. What the unit could learn there has yet to be determined, but the Pentagon is not where Army Reserve units usually take their training. 

It should also be noted here that if the German military's Valkyrie plan to kill Hitler, that was being adapted for use against Castro, was redirected to JFK in Dallas, then the Army Reserve units would be used to carry out the necessary boots on the ground actions. 

Crichton estimated that half of his 488th Army Reserve Intelligence unit were also members of the Dallas Police Department, some of which served in the elite Special Services branch, that included DPD asst. Chief Lumkin, the driver of the Pilot Car a mile before the motorcade. He stopped at the corner of Houston and Elm, just outside the Texas School Book Depository, to inform the traffic cop there, and the assassin above, that the motorcade was a few minutes behind them. 

After the shooting, returning to the scene, Lumkin obtained the name and Irving address of Lee Harvey Oswald from Roy Truly, who said he now suspected Oswald because he was not at a roll call, even though he had seen Oswald in the second floor lunchroom ninety seconds after the shooting and gave him a pass. Lumkin handed Homicide Capt. Fritz Oswald's name and address on the Sixth Floor as Fritz just as Fritz was examining the rifle found there, shortly after the shooting. 

Crichton then arranged for a Russian language translator of the police to question Marina. 

So the 488th were quite busy in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, and Crichton was in the thick of it. Crichton was also the director of the Dallas Emergency Communications Center, a bomb proof underground bunker below the Dallas State Fairgrounds, that monitored - and probably tape recorded emergency radio channel communications, including the Secret Service motorcade "Charlie" Channel, a tape that has never surfaced publicly. 

It is clear to me that Skorzeny was a major player in the development of the type of commandos the CIA trained at JMWAVE, and from the Ganis Skorzeny Papers it is clear he had business interests and intelligence associates in the Dallas area, but he just doesn't come up to par as far as a "Mastermind" of the Dealey Plaza operation goes, though I am open to persuasion. 

Billkelly3@gmaiil.com