Hugh Aynesworth - 1931 - 2023

HUGH AYNESWORTH – August 2, 1931 – December 23, 2023 

 As Hugh Aynesworth just passed away earlier this week, I thought I would revive one of the articles I did on him as part of the Real Disinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza. While Aynesworth, like myself, also wrote about psycho serial killer Ted Bundy, he tried to portray Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused killer of President Kennedy, in the same light, refusing to acknowledge Oswald’s many intelligence connections, as he himself had..

Aynesworth reported to the CIA’s Domestic Contact Agent in Dallas J. Walton Moore, who was the CIS controller for George deMohrenschildt and Col. Lawrence Orlov. Orlov accompanied deMohrenschildt to visit Oswald for the first time, after getting the go-ahead from Moore. While deMohrenschildt often had dinner with Moore, Orlov played racket ball with him every day, so they had a personal as well as professional relationship. And Moore and the CIA were closely monitoring events. 

HUGH AYNESWORTH

As a local reporter for George Bannerman Dealey’s Dallas Morning News, Hugh Aynesworth was all over the place during the assassination weekend. He was at Dealey Plaza, the Tippit murder scene, the Texas Theater where the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, the house in Irving where Oswald’s wife lived, the rooming house where Oswald lived and the Dallas Police Department where he was killed.[1]

It’s important to mention Aynesworth’s background and his presence at so many crime scenes because while it always seemed suspicious, and his CIA ties were confirmed with the release of CIA records by the JFK Act.

As Jim DiEugenio notes, “many more pages of documents have been released showing how tightly bound Aynesworth was with the intelligence community. It has been demonstrated that Aynesworth was – at the minimum – working with the Dallas Police, Shaw's defense team, and the FBI. He was also an informant to the White House, and had once applied for work with the CIA. As I have noted elsewhere, in the annals of this case, I can think of no reporter who had such extensive contacts with those trying to cover up the facts in the JFK case...”[2]

Rex Bradford, the web master of Mary Ferrell’s extensive files on the case wrote, “Declassified documents show that Dallas reporter Hugh Aynesworth was in contact with the Dallas CIA office and had on at least one occasion ‘ offered his services to us.’ The files are chock full of Aynesworth informing to the FBI, particularly in regard to the Garrison investigation….Also of note is a message Aynesworth sent to…LBJ's White House, in which Aynesworth wrote that ‘My interest in informing government officials of each step along the way is because of my intimate knowledge of what Jim Garrison is planning.’” [3]

Most incredible however, is the CIA report written on October 10, 1963 when J. Walton Moore, the head of the Dallas CIA Domestic Contacts Division reported to the Chief of the Contact Division on “the possibility of Hugh Grant Aynesworth making a trip to Cuba.”[4]

One month before the assassination J. Walton Moore - the same CIA agent who has been meeting regularly with the accused assassin’s best friend George DeMohrenschildt, is also meeting with Hugh Aynesworth about going to Cuba.

Moore’s first mission with the OSS during Word War II was to China with Charles Ford, who later became the CIA agent assigned to work with RFK at JMWAVE. Using an Italian alias, Ford worked with John Rosselli, the mafia boss the CIA previously recruited to kill Castro. In his interview with the Church Committee, Ford said they were trying to overthrow, not kill Castro, but those who have it in for RFK use Ford as a lynchpin to crucify Bobby, as we have seen with Sy Hersh in the Dark Side of Camelot, Evan Thomas in Robert Kennedy – His Life , and David Kaiser in The Road to Dallas , and Max Holland. But with the release of Ford’s records by the JFK Act, they have all gone silent. [5]

However there could be an association between Hugh Aynesworth, J. Walton Moore, Charles Ford and David Atlee Phillips, especially in regards to the timing of Moore’s memo and Phllips’ travels, not just as it relates to Cuba, but to what happened at Dealey Plaza. This is especially so since J. Walton Moore – the CIA contact agent to the accused assassin’s best friend, served in the same capacity with Hugh Aynesworth about a trip to Cuba a month before the assassination. And the day before Aynesworth met with Moore, David Phillips was at JMWAVE, the CIA’s Miami, Florida base, where anti-Castro operations were planned and carried out.[6]

How did these damning records get released? And if this was released, what’s in the thousands of documents that are totally redacted or are still partially withheld for reasons of national security? Many of these withheld records include many pages of the files of Hugh Aynesworth, Priscilla Johnson and Gordon McLendon.

As David Talbot points out, “…some of these journalists did the CIA’s bidding: see, for instance, a January 25, 1968 CIA memo on Hugh Aynesworth, who covered the JFK assassination, first for the Dallas Morning News and then Newsweek . Aynesworth – who at one time, according to the memo, ‘expressed some interest…in possible employment with the Agency’ – was considered by the CIA to be a solid ‘Warren Commission man on the assassination.’”[7]

And indeed he was. He eagerly did the agencies bidding to squash the Garrison investigation, and he doesn’t consider the Kennedy assassination among the unsolved homicides in his 1994 book Murders Among Us: Unsolved Homicides, Mysterious Deaths and Killers at Large .[8] But his article, “The Strangest Story I Ever Covered,” details how he came to expose the head of the local crime commission was himself a criminal who had crafted a new identity to hide his past. So Aynesworth is capable of uncovering conspiracies when he wants to. If he applied the same investigative skills to the homicide at Dealey Plaza, perhaps he would have helped uncover the truth instead of promoting the cover story and blaming the murder on the patsy.[9]

Joseph Goulden was one of Hugh Aynesworth’s colleagues who also covered the events in Dallas and also pushed the lone-nut myth. When rumors began to circulate that Oswald was an FBI informant, and was even assigned an informant number, Aynesworth, along with Houston reporter Lonnie Hudkins and Goulden, floated the story that they had made up an informant number to make it seem real. The Warren Commission held a closed door executive session to discuss it, and former CIA director Allen Dulles explained that even if Oswald was an informant, there would be no record of it, though there was a record of Jack Ruby being such an FBI informant.[10]

Just as there was a lot of friction between the FBI and the Dallas Police, there was also friction between the FBI and the Secret Service and the FBI and the CIA. So Goulden’s story actually took some of the heat off the CIA, especially in regards to Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union and his trip to Mexico City, both of which called unwanted attention to CIA operations they wanted to keep secret.

It was also a diversion that appeared to dissipate when Aynesworth and Goulden acknowledged the story was bogus. So the idea of Oswald as intelligence operative went south and the public image now became one of the deranged loser, and lone nut assassin.

Today, both Aynesworth and Goulden write for the Washington Times newspaper, founded by Sun Myung Moon and owned by the Unification Church, who some suspect acts as a front for the CIA.[11]

When Priscilla Johnson McMillan testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), she said that in the course of researching Marina’s story, she discovered who actually obtained and leaked Oswald’s “Historic Diary” to the Dallas Morning News and Life magazine.[12]

Who was it? Hugh Aynesworth.

 

NOTES

HUGH AYNESWORTH

[1] Anyesworth on the weekend of the assassination.
http://www.mywesttexas.com/top_stories/article_38b31e0a-eb9b-5a22-9dc6-21674b814a2e.html

[2] DiEugenio, James. “Hugh Aynesworth Never Quits”. Also See: James DiEugenio "These are Your Witnesses?"

[3] Bradford, Rex. On Aynesworth. Bradford, Rex. Kennedy’s Ghost. http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Kennedys_Ghost - fn_2

[4] Moore, J. Walton. Aynesworth to Cuba. Offers Services to CIA: On October 10, 1963 J. Walton Moore wrote to the Chief, (Domestic) Contact Division on the possibility of Hugh Grant Aynesworth Making Trip To Cuba. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=594957

[5] 5) Moore, J. Walton and Charles Ford, Ford Report Sept. 28, 1962 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=55224&relPageId=43; Ford & Bobby, - Sy Hersch in the Darkside of Camelot, Evan Thomas Robert Kennedy – His Life (p. 178), and David Kaiser in The Road to Dallas notes (47-48 p.446). Max Holland writes about “The Paper Trail” in his Washington Decoded blog: http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/files/conspiracy_theories_keep_coming_but_under_scrutiny_the_plot_gets_thinner.pdf

[6] 6) Scott, PD. – Phillips at JMWAVE. Oct. 63. PDS Deep Politics III – http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm - _ftn196 From about October 1 to October 9 Phillips made a quick trip, authorized by the Special Affairs Staff, to Washington and then Miami.[193]  On October 1 the Mexico City CIA station also sent a cable directing that a diplomatic pouch, sent on October 1 to Washington, should be held in the registry until picked up by “Michael C. Choaden” (i.e. Phillips) presently TDY (temporary duty) HQS.”[194][195]  The  date October 1 catches our eye, in as much as it is the date of the alleged Oswald-Kostikov intercept. One is also struck by Phillips’ presence in the Miami JMWAVE station from October 7-9. There are reports that Rosselli, who had good standing in the JMWAVE station, met on two occasions in Miami in early October with Jack Ruby.[196]

[7] Talbot, David. Re; Aynesworth. Talbot, David Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years . (P. 445 Notes: 390) …Talbot Note: NARA record number 104-10170-10230. Offers Services to CIA: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=594957

[8] Aynesworth, Hugh. Murders Among Us: Unsolved Homicides, Mysterious Deaths and Killers at Large (signet & Onyx True Crime, 1994 w/Stephen Michaud) http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Murderers-Among-Us-Stephen-G-Michaud-Hugh-Aynesworth/9780451170576

[9] Aynesworth, Hugh. “Strangest Story I Ever Covered”. http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/1983/08/01/The_Strangest_STORY_1_Ever_Covered.aspx

[10] Meagher, Sylvia.  Accessories After the Fact  (p. 348) Oswald FBI Informant. Also see Spook Journalist Goulden: http://www.dcdave.com/article1/081198.html

[11] Aynesworth and Goulden at Washington Times .

Aynesworth on Pedophile N.O. Priest - http://www.bishopaccountability.org/news3/1991_05_14_Aynesworth_SexTapes_Dino_Cinel_1.htm

Goulden on Espionage for Washington Times : http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/24/espionage-28603365/

[12] Priscilla Johnson and Oswald’s Diary. PJM on Aynesworth got it from John Thorne, Esq. and Martin. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=95330&relPageId=27

 Real Disinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza – Posted by Jimmy DiEugenio in 2011

Part 3 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalists-jfk-part-3-the-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Part 2 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalist-jfk-part-2-the-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Part 1 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalists-and-jfk-part-1-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Leonard Bernstein and JFK

 Leonard Bernstein and JFK

"Two things are necessary to achieve great things - a plan of action, and not enough time." - L. Bernstein

Bradley Cooper,  star of American Sniper, is now portrying Leonard Bernstein in a new major motion picture that requires me to bring up the following -

In 1980, Bernstein was booed and hissed on stage when he said:

"We don't dare confront the implications. I think we've all agreed there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and we just don't want to know the complete truth. It involves such powerful forces in what we call high places that if we do know, everything might fall apart. We don't dare confront the implications."

This is an update on what I wrote a few years ago:

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/03/leonard-bernstein-and-jfk-we-dont-dare.html?m=1

Just as JFK’s 100 birthday was celebrated in 2017, Leonard Bernstein’s 2018 centennial is being recognized and celebrated, and should reflect his feelings on JFK and his assassination.

As one of America’s premier composers and conductors, Bernstein was not only a contemporary of JFK at Harvard, but a New York City neighbor, acquaintance and personal friend who dined often together.

Among other things, Bernstein composed the music for the hit Broadway play and movie West Side Story, that featured Natalie Wood and actor Richard Beymer.

 n  n                                               Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood 

Beymer figures prominently in the recently released records under the JFK Act as someone who associated with Syliva Duran, the Mexican national who worked at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City and dealt with both Beymer and the accused assassin of President Kennedy, both of whom wanted visas to Cuba.

Wood and Beymer played a contemporary Romeo and Julet in the movie, and while Wood’s suspicious death is being reinvestigated today, Beymer was a subject of CIA records recently released under the JFK Act - CIA phone taps of the Cuban embassy, where he called after the assassination seeking information on Syliva Duran.

Beymer was one of the two American Gringos who reportedly attended a Twist Party hosted by Duran where Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of the President, was said to have been encouraged to kill JFK by those from the Cuban embassy.

While Duran knew the name of the American film actor, when she was interviewed by reporters she suspected he was still alive and refused to identify him to protect him.

From the government records recently released under the JFK act, CIA wiretap documents identify Beymer. When contacted recently Beymer acknowledged being in Mexico for a film festival, and visiting the Cuban embassy in an attempt to get a visa to Cuba, but he said he doesn’t recall attending a Twist Party or meeting Oswald, though attending a Twist Party is something they would have done, being two footloose Americans below the border.

Who was Beymer’s companion? The other Gringo, Beymer said, was Bradley Pierce, then a New York City bar owner who is then a Catholic priest, who has since passed away.

Father Bradley Pierce recalls being in Mexico City on the day of the assassination, exiting the elevator in a hotel lobby to learn that the president had been killed, but he doesn’t recall a Twist Party or meeting the accused assassin. Since they were only in Mexico a few weeks, and were there at the time of the assassination, they weren’t there when Oswald was there in late September and early October.

While Beymer said he didn’t remember Sylvia Duran, a CIA wiretap report indicates he knew her well enough to call the Cuban embassy and ask for her by name, and inquire as to how she was, indicating he knew she had been violently interrogated by Mexican police after the assassination.

There are reports that under interrogation Duran confessed to meeting Oswald outside the Cuban embassy and having an intimate relation with him. A friend of Duran said that she met Oswald at Sanborn’s restaurant, near the American embassy, where others said they saw Oswald leave the restaurant on the back of a motorcycle on the way to the Cuban embassy to try to get a visa to Cuba.

Another unsubstantiated report has Duran taking Oswald to a more fancy restaurant where they met the Cuban ambassador to Mexico, a story repeated by a doctor who treated the CIA backed Cuban refugees in Florida for Catholic Welfare, an organization supported by the CIA’s Catherwood Foundation.

While it is unlikely Duran had a sexual affair with Oswald, she most certainly did have an affair with Carlos Lechuga, the Cuban ambassador at the UN who was the key intermediary in the back channel negotiations between JFK and Castro at the time of the assassination. It is possible she also had an intimate affair with Richard Beymer, the American film actor who she tried to protect, and who may be trying to protect her.

But what are they protecting? Their infidelities? Or something more?

Beymer was the on screen lover of Natalie Wood in the contemporary adaption of Romeo and Juliet, that had a music scored by Leonard Bernstein, a personal friend and associate of President Kennedy.

In 1962 Leonard Bernstein introduced seven year old Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma, in a concert attended by President Kennedy. A year later JFK was dead and Bernstein was greatly affected by his murder.

As explained by the official New York Philharmonic history: the Death of the President The Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein Respond: News of President John F. Kennedy's assassination reached the New York Philharmonic during an afternoon subscription concert led by George Szell. Following Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, the Orchestra's manager Carlos Moseley broke the news to the audience and canceled the rest of the program. The remaining concerts that weekend replaced the overture with the funeral march from Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, Eroica, performed without applause. (Now available on Youtube) 

On November 24, Leonard Bernstein conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, in a televised tribute to President Kennedy. Not only was it the first time the complete symphony was televised, but performing Mahler for an event of this nature was unprecedented.  (Now available on Youtube) 

At the United Jewish Appeal Benefit the next day, Bernstein explained his novel decision to program this work rather than the expected Eroica or a requiem....

Since the tribute to JFK, Mahler symphonies have become part of the standard repertoire for national mourning. 

In explaining why he chose to play that hopeful music rather than a funeral durge, Bernstein quoted Kennedy as saying, “America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason.”

“Learning and reason: precisely the two elements that were necessarily missing from the mind of anyone who could have fire that impossible bullet. Learning and reason: the motto we here tonight must continue to uphold with redoubled tenacity, and must continue, at any price, to make the basis of all our actions.”

As Bernstein said,  - We refuse to confront the truth and its implications “because everything will fall apart.”

Everything fell apart, and now we must confront the implications.

Some Important New Documentary Films on JFK

Since I have been very busy reading Nicholas Shakespeare's new biography of Ian Fleming, and writing a review of it for Robin Ramsey over at Lobster in the UK, - that should be out in the next issue before the end of the year, I was prevented from writing about the new films and books that have come out for the 60th anniversary of JFK's death. 

My T & RC associate Dan Storper did that in a letter to T&RC members and was kind enough to allow me to use it here. When I get a chance I will also list the new books that are out or coming out that I think are important and review them if I can. - All the Best - Bill Kelly - Billkelly3@gmail.com 

Dear Friends,

I’d like to wish you happy holidays and a more peaceful New Year. At the same time, I think it’s crucial to try to understand how we arrived at the divided world we’re living in today.

The first episode of the new film series Four Died Trying (fourdiedtrying.com), now out on Amazon and other outlets, explains why and how the efforts of JFK, MLK, Jr, Malcolm X and RFK to pursue peace and justice were destroyed by forces in the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. The first film introduces the series with new films every couple of months. You’ll hear from more than 100 well-known government figures, activists and family members ranging from Andrew Young and Martin Luther King III to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Adam Walinsky.

Rob Reiner & Soledad O’Brien’s Who Killed JFK? now on its 6th episode, explains some of the forces behind JFK’s assassination and why it still matters today (available wherever you listen to podcasts).

Barbara Shearer & Susan Zirinsky’s JFK: The Parkland Doctors, on Paramount Plus and Amazon, is a film built around seven Parkland doctors in Dallas who first witnessed JFK’s body and were threatened by military and political figures to lie about the clear evidence of multiple shooters. It is well-done, interesting and clearly disproves the official story.

These films and podcast help demonstrate that the progressive ideals of peace and justice pursued by JFK were destroyed by forces opposed to democracy, peace and justice. To understand them, we encourage you to view these films, listen to the podcast and read exceptional books like JFK and the Unspeakable and The Devil’s Chessboard.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee (www.americantruthnow.org) that I co-chair offers a selection of other resources that help explain the journey from the 1960s to today. It was co-founded by truth-seekers including Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Sheen, David Crosby, Kennedy & King family members and others who believe democracy was hijacked in the 1960s and that its time to learn from it and help America and the world move forward in a more positive way.

Sincerely,  Dan Storper

Greetings from JFKCountercoup Readers

 Mr. Kelly,

For many years now I have read your blog, as it has always been an Bookmark for me and a place for 11/22/63.  I just wanted to say "Thank You, very much" for all the great research and effort you have done for the community. I find great comfort in it.

I was 9 years old on 11/22/63. JFK' death has always haunted me and I guess traumatized me in some way. I recall asking my Dad about it at the time, but he was very noncommittal about what was happening and if a true story of what really happened after what transpired that weekend. He also said it would be 50 years before the whole truth comes out and that stuck with me.

Your latest post about your fascinating journey into 11/22/63 and the late John Judge (I met him at American University, remembrance reading of JFK 6/63 Speech) and Biden's final order on JFK records has me feeling saddened that 60 years later, we still don't have the whole truth, although we are a lot closer, thanks to people like you.

Again, Thank you and I look forward to your next post.   -  Larry Bettis

Hey Bill,

Paul Nahra here. Hope you remember me, I was a friend and colleague of John Judge and introduced myself briefly to you at the Duquesne conference previous to this last one. I've been meaning to get in touch with you for awhile now, but am prompted to do so today on this sad anniversary. Thank you for your posts of the last few days on JFK Countercoup, CAPA is Kaput and the tribute to COPA and John. That is some fabulous history. 

     I was sorry to read about the conflicts with and disrespect from CAPA. It reminded me of an interaction I had with Marilyn Tennenoff a few years ago. I was in York PA visiting my cousin and I arranged to meet with her at John's archive, the hidden history center. She has an occasional intern come in, but  I feel like people, including myself, have been cataloguing that collection for twenty years, and each half completed effort would be lost before the next attempt would begin. Anyway, she mentioned to me that you had requested she return a box of yours with material in it that you wanted to revisit, and that she was disinclined to allow it out of the collection. I disagreed strongly with her, first because she could have Xeroxed whatever she wanted before she gave you back the originals. But secondly, and I don't know if you remember but I was at John Judge's when you dropped off a few boxes because you needed a safe place to store them, I forget if it was because you had flooding, or you were moving, that was the first time we met. So John was a temporary custodian of your material, in my view, and you should have every right to have them returned. 

In any event I have suspicions about anyone who is getting in the way of you doing your excellent work. 

Though Marilyn was always very kind to me when I visited John in those last few years.

[BK Notes: When I first met Marilyn at a Pittsburgh conference she told me directly that she had no interest in John's political assassination, COPA and Hidden History work. Then when she was made executor of his estate and saw the bank accounts she took them, along with John's five figure life insurance. There is nothing she has that I need or want. The HHM she hijacked will hang like an anvil around her neck until she lets it go. She should donate everything to the Wecht Collection at Duquesne University Library, but won't, as long as she gets donations for the now truly secret Hidden History Museum. And Glenda DeVaney has done to CAPA what Marilyn Teennenoff did to COPA - destroyed it from within. ]

     I was excited to read of your plans to gather your best posts and curate the essential moments from COPA's history and indeed the history of the last 60 years. I am an archivist at heart and have a good collection of COPA conference videos, dvds and abstracts, perhaps I can help you out in some way. I have found that none of the COPA videos come up on a rudimentary you tube search online, and I hope that can be corrected somehow. I am not much of a computer person but I would be happy to go through those conferences and try to isolate the important speeches. Or perhaps I could send you copies if you find things are missing from your own collection. Or help in some other way!

     Hope to hear back from you when you get some time, Bill. Happy Thanksgiving to you, and thanks again for all your good and important work.  - Paul Nahra

Kudos, Bill for this vigilance and dedication which seems especially pertinent to the issues of disclosure and destruction of vital records in the JFK case. More now in this 60th anniversary year. I am grateful for the opportunity to gain valuable insight from your frequent postings, so thanks again and help us keep the kettle on the boil!  -  Greg Giorgio

Great Work, as always. Much appreciated. - Brandon 

Stauffenberg and Doolittle

Stauffenberg and Doolittle 

I'm back to JFK after spending time reading Nicholas Shakespeare's 800 page biography of Ian Fleming, and will be posting more frequently now. I will post a link to my review as soon as it is available. 

For starters, I recently picked up two other biographies at a used book store - Stauffenberg - The Architect of the Famous July 20 Conspiracy to Assassinate Hitler, by Joachim Kramarz and an introduction by H.R. Trevor-Roper (Macmillan, NY, 1967) and Gen. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle's autobiography "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again." (Bantam, 1991).

Kramarz's Stauffenberg is a very objective study of the plot, that was also, according to Desmond FitzGerald,  "studied in detail" by the CIA to be used against Fidel Castro, a study that despite being lost by the CIA, can be seen to have developed into the AMLASH plot involving Dr. Rolando Cubela. 

Kramarz does mention Hans B. Gisivious, the Nazi officer who was befriended by Allen Dulles and kept Dulles informed of the development and ultimate failure of the plot, but Kramarz does not have much confidence in Gisiviou's perspective of things. Items that I will quote at length ASAP. 

As for Doolittle, I was less interested in his planning and leadership of the bombing raid over Tokyo than I was of his appointment by President Eisenhower as head of the Doolittle Commission, the three man overview of CIA covert intelligence operations. 

Doolittle says that only one copy of the report was made and he handed it directly to President Eisenhower, and only devotes a few paragraphs of the book to this important aspect of his career. 

Doolittle writes: "In November 1952, General Eisenhower was elected to the presidency. Despite the controversy I seemed to raise whenever I was party to a government stud and its resultant report, someone was pushing my name with the planners of the incoming administration to become the next Secretary of the Air Force. I was not and am not a politician. My identity has always been with aviation technological progress, and I do not like partisan politics to enter into the equation when it comes to issues affecting aeronautical developments. Being active in the Air Force Association at that time, I realized that politics entered into many basic technological decisions affecting the future of our defense establishment , but I was never comfortable when I felt the nation's survival depended on technical decisions made solely to satisfy biased political ends. 

I did not feel that accepting a political appointment as the civilian head of the Air Force fitted my nature or my desire to serve in a nonpartisan capacity.....

....In 1954, President Eisenhower asked me to chair a committee to study the Central Intelligence Agency. Sen. Joseph McCarthy had loudly claimed that communists had infiltrated the agency, and he had raised such a fuss that the President had no choice but to have a committee appointed to look into his accusations. Concurrently, he appointed General Mark Clark to head another committee to study the possible reorganization of the agency.....

We could not reveal the details of our CIA investigation, but our committee found the agency was doing a creditable job and was "exercising care to insure the loyalty of its personnel." 

I so reported to the President. In my cover letter I noted that there were important areas in which the CIA's organization, administration, and operations could and should be improved. The agency was aware of those problems, and steps were being taken toward their solution. Only one copy of that report was made and I handed it personally to the President.

He wrote me a thank-you letter saying, "Both the report itself and the discussion I was privileged to have with the group when the report was presented here were of unusual value in providing an appraisal and stocktaking of those operations." 

My appointment had its detractors. Westbrook Pegler, a nationally syndicated columnist, called our study a "whitewash" and wrote: 

"I see no reason to place any value on the report which James H. Doolittle has made for President Eisenhower, on the mysterious, secretive, and sinister agency of our government called the Central Intelligence Agency. To begin with, I know a little about Doolittle's career but absolutely nothing which seems to qualify him as a competent man in this field.....He was a friend of Ike and a protege of Roosevelt and he was favored by an overload of rank which presents him to history as a Lieutenant General. Although, this inflation, or dilution, of rank has worked to the popular discredit of the titles of Admiral and General in their several degrees..." 

Naturally, this column made me furious but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. It was his opinion and he was privileged to render it in print, but I have often wondered what the basis was for it......

It is very interesting that our old friend William Pawley was also a member of this committee. 

The Doolittle Report - From the CIA site: 
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5.pdf

More on Gisivious and Stauffenberg coming as well. 

"Conspiracy" - the New "N" Word

 “Conspiracy” – the New “N” Word

In the course of my interaction with multiple, dedicated lone nutters who continue to promote the idea that one man alone was responsible for the murder of the president, one thing became quite clear – they are not so much interested in learning the full truth about the death of the president, but rather are concerned, focused and committed to debunking the many silly conspiracy theories that have been devised since the failure of government investigations to resolve the matter.

I have debunked more conspiracy theories than they can imagine, but since the official story is also proven wrong, one of the conspiracy theories must be correct.

Since most  “conspiracy theorists” (aka CTs) and all Lone Nutters (LNers)  believe they are crack sure as to who killed JFK, and promote their suspect, and I, after over fifty years studying this case, still do not know who killed JFK, I put them in the same sinking, stinking boat.

Even the term Conspiracy Theorist, was not popularly used until after JFK was killed, and was devised by the CIA psychological warfare department to describe those who were critical of the Warren Commission and its conclusions, it has become something of misnomer – and improperly used to describe crazy people who believe in all kinds of crazy things.

There is even a new line of books by prominent academics who, rather than investigate the truth, write about the silly conspiracy theories and study those who believe and promote them. 

I thought we were investigating an unresolved homicide.

LNers want to talk about the evidence, but can't write a paragraph or post without referring to conspiracy theorists. 

The Lners however, are strictly focused on the conspiracy theories, and debunking them, one and all, but put all CTs in the same pot, just as I put them all in the same boat. As John Judge said, “All conspiracy theories are not created equal,” and “you can call me a conspiracy theorists if I can call you a coincidence theorist,” because that’s what they would have you believe. All  of the things that came together to result in the assassination of the president were simply coincidences. But as David Atlee Phillips said, “The intelligence profession does not encourage one to believe coincidence as an explanation for events.”

So in order to disparage my own thinking about the assassination, I too have been branded a conspiracy theorist, but take exception to it, as does Jefferson Morley, since I don’t know who killed the president, do not point a finger at any particular suspect, and don’t have a theory to promote, other than what occurred at Dealey Plaza was a very well planned out and executed covert intelligence operation.

Most dedicated Lners are proud of the fact that they once held an open, inquiring mind and considered themselves conspiracy theorists, but then woke up and now see the light. One such LNer, Todd Vaughan, who knows that I detest the idea of conspiracy theorist – called me in a post “CT, CT, CT, CT,” as if repeating it over and over it would hurt my feelings.

It just got me to understand that “Conspiracy” is the new “N” word – and used in the same disparaging way that the “N” word was.

My late, great friend and associate comedian Dick Gregory, who helped get the Zapruder film on national TV, wrote a book he titled “Nigger,” and dedicated to his mother, because he could say the word and write about it openly.  Now, only other black people can call other black people “nigger” as it has risen to the level of a word censored by the mainstream media.

Gregory described a “nigger” as an unruly black man who didn’t hold a job, sold drugs, fathered children with different women, a deadbeat dad who didn’t care for his kids, lived with a single mom in a Section 8 welfare apartment and was what the word described them as. 

It is, in the same vein, as what Martin Luther King was saying when he wanted black men to be known for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, 

Now the word “conspiracy” has rose to the same level, and as Todd Vaughan has used it to try to discredit me, it is used in the same derogatory way. 

Today, the “C” word is the new “N” word, no longer used to describe a crime committed by more than one person, but used in a disparaging way to cast a negative light on anyone who is critical of the official version of events – especially in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Billkelly3@gmail.com